Well the first thing I want to say today is thanks to the Lord Jesus for His faithfulness to us, for keeping us through the medical thing. When I get in a medical thing I'm reminded of the days when I first started and you couldn't take an aspirin if you were a Pentecostal. You had to trust God for the healing. It's how you developed your faith and it's how we did it. And I still in all those years since then have been different, of course. Medical things have really changed. The beauty of what God has allowed man to do is evident every day, evident all this week for us. And so I'm thankful to his presence. He was present with us the whole time. I'm thankful that he's there, he's still here, and he's at work in us in such a way that he's building his church. And I think when we pray, Healing, I know I do this when I pray personally I pray for the whole body that's sick and every once in a while I think we ought to and probably will since it's now in my heart and on my mind We'll stop and say everybody grab the hand of the person next door if you're well if you're well You pray for them, and if you're sick you ask them to pray for you And we're gonna pray that way and we can continue to believe God to bring healing to people who need it and life to them. So I'm just thankful to the Lord for his faithfulness to us. Grace had to put up with a lot. Here's a man trying to do his work and talk to people and stagger around all the time. I thought probably when I was in Midland that when I got out of the RV to walk around and do some things that I would probably be called a drunk because I staggered into that thing several times. And the Lord just kept his hand there. Thankful to be back at home and back among you. And the second thing I want to say besides thanks to the Lord is thanks to you as a church, as a people. I heard from so many of you asking God to do his work in me and probably asking God to change my hard-headedness and do what needed to be done. But I'm thankful. My wife is giving the thumbs up on the hard-headedness. I know what she's doing. But thank you. very much for loving us, praying for us. And I know that had the church not been praying, we would not be here yet today. So I'm very thankful. And may the Lord bless you, each one of you, as you walk on together with us. Looking forward to what God does. I woke up a few times in the last couple of weeks thinking about what was going on in these United States. I know you do, and we all do. We have things to measure by, things we knew existed that were real, things that are being changed by attitude sometimes and by other things. And I grabbed this little introduction to an article in the newspaper, actually, about the admissions scandal. Anybody know about the admissions scandal? It's interesting. But this writer said, in some ways, the college admissions bribery scheme newly revealed by federal prosecutors seemed almost inevitable. Ethics experts say Americans these days are barraged with accounts of corruption, greed, amoral behavior to the point that many likely wonder, why should I play by the rules if nobody else does? Here is a word from John Henry Jowett, a 19th century preacher here in America. He said, we leave our places of worship and no deep and inexpressible wonder sets upon our faces. We can sing these lilting melodies and when we go out into the street, our faces are similar to the faces of those who've left the theater and the music halls. There is nothing about us to suggest that we've been looking at anything stupendous or overwhelming. He said, far back in my boyhood, I remember an old saint telling me that after some services, he liked to make his way home alone, walking. Quiet byways so that the hush of the Almighty might remain on his awed and prostrate soul. That is the element we're losing. he said. And its loss is one of the measures of our poverty and the primary secret of inefficient life and service. Anybody here ever read the Christian Century magazine? It says Christian in the middle. I've been reading it off and on for 20 plus years. Here is from the publisher's letter in the Christian century, which I just got. Our aim continues to be what it has always been, helping readers live the Christian life. Now the quotation. And other forms of religious life. Helping readers live the Christian life and other forms of religious life. Excuse me? You mean it's not Jesus-only type salvation? It's other things, other religions, all the mixture? Well, when you read the Christian century, you'll know it is that, all the mixture. And why this particular pastor spends his personal devotions dealing with Buddhist stuff in order to be calm, ready for the day. How many of you recognize there's lots of mixture in the spiritual realm in the United States of America. Huge, huge mixtures all over the place there. Some of those things just kind of peaked my attention. I preached one time recently, what, three weeks ago, maybe now, because I had two weeks in between. We were in West Texas and then we were here, but I was here in worship last Sunday, but I wasn't doing anything in it. being a part, yes, but not working. And as I looked at what I saw, and I kept reading, of course, things along with Scripture and everything else, I recognized there has to be some way that the church is going to get awakened to what it's missing. And I guess I have to just lay it out here for us since I'm not preaching anywhere else right here today, right? So just do it for us and you know where you are, you know how you handle things that come as truth or not truth. And I think we just need to begin to look at it pretty clearly so we can all get in the conversation. How about you? Some of you are able to converse, you are able to debate, you have some great abilities to do that. I never have liked that, but I love the declaration of the word and the response and study to it, where we're able to talk without getting angry, we're able to grow in the process, move along. And so I thought I'd at least spend one more Sunday in this dealing with Jeremiah. Jeremiah is the prophet that God called, trained, and provided for. in dealing with Judea, in dealing with that southern kingdom that was still existing. Now the nation of Israel, Israel itself had been taken away into captivity 100 years ago at this time, carried off into exile. And these people were doing just the very same thing. Judah, the nation is going right down the same path that Israel the nation went. Being led to the point of judgment, warned of it, taught of it, facing it. And the first message of Jeremiah to the nation of Judah covers the first 5 or 6 chapters. It's a form of numbers that we can go through and look at a little bit. We'll pick out a few passages, ones that highlight for us what God has to say to someone who is, who is kind of drifting or starting to drift away. What would God say through His prophet? It's a good question. We'll see that. Have you ever begun to slip away from God? Now don't I mean, we can talk to each other and say, can't be done. God's watching us all the time. I'm just gonna talk to you about how you deal with it on your life. Have you ever drifted? Have you ever found yourself drifting? It's easy for us if we're not careful to kind of start to slip out of the place where the boat has landed without even recognizing we're slipping out of it. Without even knowing that we're backing away from him. When I grew up in church, I heard all kinds of preaching about backsliders. I mean, we preached about backsliders and had plenty of room to go around. And all of us, if we're not careful, we're backsliders, you know? Can you play baseball at this church? That's kind of what I wanted to ask, you know, when I first started, little kid. Can you play baseball on Sunday? Well, we played baseball on Sunday. In fact, we could get a game going and play almost the whole game in an hour and a half and get back to youth meeting. Boy, the time was longer, it seemed then, didn't it? You could get out of church, fellowship over a meal, go play some baseball, come back, get ready to go, get a snack, of course, and then head for that little meeting where everybody, I'm sure, just loved it, that meeting for the youth, and keep that going for a long time. Even without noticing, though, without realizing it, we can begin to lose some of the fervent joy and peace which mark the presence of God flowing through our lives. We can lose it. So we have to be reminded every now and then, awakened, that our relationship to Jesus is the most relationship, the greatest relationship we've got. There is not another relationship more significant than to belong to God through Jesus Christ. To be born again and belong to Him and live for Him. That's what He wants from us. And He gives us the power to do it. Gives us the ability to do it. Now it's sometimes slow getting there, and that's okay. The tragic thing about the condition as exemplified in the nation of Judah is that when it happened, nobody knows what the problem is. So they don't think they have one until it's gotten pretty late in the game. It's true. Judah blamed God for their problems. God, the one who's speaking to them and offering them yet an opportunity to turn back toward him. He's not done with them yet. He tries to get that across to them. They're not hearing him. They didn't hear Jeremiah early on. They didn't hear him as he deepened things. Judah blamed God for all the problems they were having just as most of us do if we're not careful. Why? Why not? God will be with us not only in the good, when everything is perfectly rolling along, he will be with us when we're acting hard-headed and staggering around trying to hook and unhook an RV so he can get home. But he's there, watching, guiding, calling. So God has something to say to this nation of Judah, which he calls in the New Testament a holy Nation, people of God. A holy nation of people. And what he says, that is what Jeremiah says, is gathered around four words. As they're spread out across the first five chapters, actually two to five. I'm gonna give you those words and I'm gonna read the text in this message that goes with them. And it's a short run through this, so just if you want to follow with your Bible, do that. We're going to be right in this first several chapters of Jeremiah. And we're going to start at Jeremiah chapter 2. And I'm going to give you the first word that shows up in this communication from God through Jeremiah to the people of Judah. And the first word is, remember. It's a good place to start. God is brilliant at communicating His heart and His message to us. Remember, let me show you where that comes from. Chapter 2, verse 1, the word of the Lord came to me, that's Jeremiah, saying, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord. Now notice, I remember. Who does? I remember the devotion of your youth. Remember the devotion of your youth? Yeah, me too. I don't know how many times I've thought back to those times when I was full speed ahead for Jesus and didn't have any other desire for any kind of recognition. I just wanted to love him better. I sang and I just had a great time. And when it's stolen away or when you slip away and you got all these little hooks in the road that keep tracking you down and holding you back, you really need to remember so you can get unhooked and go on again with God's leadership, God's provision along the way. Let me read it all. I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. It's us, church. How you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. It's not a planted field, this is a wilderness land. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. And everybody who messed with that harvest and that first fruit people were gonna have trouble, which is what the last part of the verse here says. In the ESV, it's all who ate of it incurred guilt. Disaster came upon them, declares the Lord. God's people, bright, devoted, traveling with the Lord, day by day, blessed. Don't touch them. Just remember, just remember. That's in chapter two, verses one, two, and three. Now the second one, is in the second chapter as well, and verse 19. There are many other verses I probably need to read in order for you to get a grip on all this. But here's the 19th verse. Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. This is what's going to happen to Judah because they're rejecting the message God has given. Continue to do it. So your evil will chastise you. Your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see. That's the words I want you to get. Know and see. And what we can call that word is realize. Realize. A present tense word. It's a present tense word. Know now. See now. Hear where we are. Know and see, or realize. Finishing it, know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God. The fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts. Wow. Clear word from the prophet to the people that he will spend his life speaking to for God. all the way through. Is it possible that when we open the Bible and begin to read it or receive it or listen to it or have someone preach it that there is that prophetic unction or anointing that is possibly going to land in your heart and make a big difference? I mean is it possible that that kind of anointing can make a difference in your heart? That the hearing of the Word that is enlivened by God's Holy Spirit just comes in and breaks the rocks and makes possible the flow of reality, life, beauty, flavor, the aroma. Bob got us looking at that beautiful, marvelous picture of Christ and that wonderful, wonderful aroma that is associated with him. So you have to care for some words that are very poetic because the only way to fathom this relationship with God is to be able to use words that take you a little deeper and a little farther. Without you stopping every time to try to make sure you understand every dot and tittle of what is said, just let it wash over you. Read it out loud and receive it in. Realize, know, and see. Verse number 19. We'll come back to that. Chapter 3, verses 11 and 12, at the next place, that's the third word, going with remember and realize, and now we have return. 11 and 12, chapter 3. And the Lord said to me, faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Oh, really? You mean the one that's already gone into exile? Israel? That they have been more righteous than Judah, who still holds together with a prophet assigned to them now to deliver the words to them? That's what it says here. More righteous than treacherous Judah? It says, then go and proclaim these words toward the north. toward the north. Who's he going to talk to in the north? He's going to talk to at least the memory of Israel. The people from the north who were carried away, there might be a few scattered here and there, got a lot of other people moved into the place. But there are still people who need to hear this message. Jeremiah is the guy to preach it. And this is what it says, return faithless Israel. return. That's a good, that's a good word for the North. That's a good word for the North because those people now are aware if they're listening, if they would listen at all, that God is coming to call them back, that he hasn't written them totally off yet, that he'll always have a remnant somewhere it seems to get his people ready. And Joe was talking about people being made ready for this great salvation or brought into this great salvation. It's a lot bigger group. When I got through listening to Joe, I thought, this is good. That means I'm in on this because of Jesus, because he died for me and he was raised for me and he lives for me and you. I thought I would be quieter today. I won't apologize for it at all though. Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the Lord. I will not be angry forever. Is he angry now? Still angry. Still out in exile. But he's not gonna be angry forever. And with this, this crazy deal going on with Judah, they're still not listening. Not hearing at all. 11 and 12, I gotta read a little further, don't I? All right, here it is. Only acknowledge your guilt. Now we're gonna come back to that. See what he says? He gets all this said, I'll not be angry forever. Only, here's what you gotta do. Acknowledge that you're guilty. Acknowledge that you're a sinner. Acknowledge that you have blown it. That's where it has to start. You're not gonna receive anything. I'm not gonna receive anything. I hope you'll take these four words and think with me a little bit this morning about them and about what's written here. Remember, realize, know, and see. Return, and one more, and it's a warning. Make sense in how God does things. does is putting the warning out there along the way. In chapter 5, same set of scriptures, beginning at verse number 29. Shall I not punish them for these things? And he's looking back at a people who are stubborn and rebellious in heart. They've turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts, let us fear the Lord our God who gives the rain in its season. Haven't noticed that to give him thanks for that. Your iniquities have turned these away and your sins have kept good from you. The wicked men are found among my people. They lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap. They catch men like a cage full of birds. Their houses are full of deceit. Therefore, they have become great and rich. They have grown far and sleek, fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of evil. They judge not with justice. The cause of the fatherless is made to make it prosper, and they do not defend the right of the needy Shall I not punish them for these things? Wouldn't it make sense that there might be some judgment there? You bet. Shall I not punish them for these things, declares the Lord, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? He says, an appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule at their direction. My people love to have it so. They like it like this. But what will you do when the end comes? What will you do when the end comes? What's going to be on the end of this kind of life? What's going to be the result of this kind of hard-headedness? I hope you'll take these four words and just hang on to them with us a little bit. You can use some of these words when you feel you're drifting. Go back and read just the opening verses, a couple of verses here and there, where we're being called. We've lost some of the fragrance Bob talked about last week, the fragrance of Christ, and the joy of our Christian experience follows pretty close behind. when all the fragrance is gone. A look back, that's the first word, remember. Let's quickly look at a couple of things in each of these. This is a look back, a call to remember. Take a look at what you were when you first came into this covenant, that you belonged to a covenant God, and you had a heart to serve him and walk with him, Worship Him. And we're looking back right now on this particular thing, very thing that's going on. These Judah folk who were just needing to look back, needed a warning. Remember what your life was like when you first began in covenant relationship to this God. I about decided that when you have opportunity for marriage counseling, I never call what I do marriage counseling. I call it just pastoral work. So whatever the subject, we get to deal with it from scripture when we sit down like that. But I many times have seen men and women who've been married a long time who were so angry with each other. They couldn't talk to each other and they couldn't talk to you once they both got in the room. They could scream, they could yell, they could shout all kinds of words, but they couldn't start anywhere most of the time. And so a better thing to say to most of them when you see that cloud settling over them is to get to the point to where you say, where did you two meet? Where did you first see each other? Oh, I just, she was so beautiful. I fell in love with her by sight and just, wow. He was just a hunk, man. I knew this was going to be perfect for me and all of a sudden, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's the way you saw her then. That's the way she was then. This is the way you were then. See the road ahead? If you'll stay with me close here, we'll work that road. Because if we can get you on this road and work it there and leave it there, you're going to bring with you some of the stuff you threw away. That's stuff you wouldn't even remember today if I hadn't helped you remember it. That's the way it is. Somebody has to bring it out. Marriages are trouble, even marriages that have been long-time marriages. So with the Lord, we hear Him say, Speaking to us here at the beginning, remember, remember that it was like what it was like when you were secure and my affection was exclusively yours. I made you mine. Wow. The joy of it, found in the love of it, the wonder of it, preeminent in your affection for the Lord from Him. A young man was riding with his pastor on a trip. I don't know exactly when this occurred. I know when it took place, but it's been a long time ago, quite a ways ago. And when he got back driving along with his pastor, he told him he had listened to someone speak on the letters to the seven churches while he was away. Letters to the seven churches in Revelation. And when the speaker got to what the Lord Jesus said to the angel of the church in Ephesus, I have this against you that you have left your first love, this young man said something gripped his heart. It was as though scales dropped from his eyes. And he suddenly realized that he'd come to love Bible study about Jesus more than he loved Jesus himself. He saw that he had to return to his first love. He was ready to do it. And the Bible study, engaging and exciting as it is, is not what holds the heart, it is Jesus himself that holds the heart. And that is what God says. When he says, remember, Judah, those days in the wilderness when you walked as a bride with her husband, how you were safe and satisfied and exclusively mine. Yeah. That was for the word remember. We're instructed to remember in this text. Judah was. Any one of us in Christ Jesus, when we begin to drift, can respond to the calling voice of our God. He will not easily let us go. He will not throw us away. He will bring us to Himself in a cleansing way, a wonderful way. The second word is realize. It's know and see from the text itself, the 19th verse of chapter 2. Know and see. That's a present word, as I said a while ago. It's a word for the present. Look around, God says. Realize where you are. What has happened to you in your life? This is God's way of arresting Judah and their attention, arresting their attention, helping them to see how needy they were, how needy they are. Maybe we need that glimpse every now and then. I got a good dose of training on it this week, that we need him. Need him. So, We read verse 19 again here in chapter 2. Here's what it says. Your eyes will chastise you, your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see, that's the word, know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God. The fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hostess. You probably had discussions about that word, fear of the Lord. There's a little syntagm, S-Y-N-T-G-M form that I found in the Old Testament. Fear of the Lord is written in four words, little dashes in between. Fear of the Lord, syntagm. Is that the right pronunciation? I go after my man back there with the studies, but yeah. You mean we still want to be, we still want to fear him? Certainly. What kind of fear is it? It's a fear that absolutely makes you aware of how much he loves you and cares for you and will receive you and hold you and keep you and you will let go of a lot of stuff in order to walk with him. Because you know, there are times when we don't talk when we're in his presence. Usually what my reference people were happy when the pastor wasn't talking and maybe they could talk or somebody else could talk It didn't matter about all that. What matters is that? The fear of the Lord is a legitimate reality response When you read about the Spirit in the New Testament, particularly it usually is a reference to God God the Holy Spirit When you read about soul in the New Testament, and soul, nephesh, is always there. That beautiful Hebrew word, nephesh. That soul, that open-throated entry into the presence of God. That wonderful reality of having this response from Him as well. Now, know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God. So this pulls us close. There is awe and there is this wonderful joy. Awe kind of puts a sign up and says, stay right there. Joy says, let's leap in. So we're always dealing with this sense of responding to him in ways that are new, real. Let me just show you a couple more things in this setting. Chapter 2, verse 13. Same chapter here. Backing up to 2, 13. For my people, here's verse 12. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord. Why? For my people have committed two evils. They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, And they've hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. They chose their own creations over God's created provision, and the cisterns didn't hold anything. There was no flowing satisfaction of life in the water that flowed from the throne at This wasn't. I want to read from chapter two another couple of verses here. Verses four and five. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob. All the clans of the house of Israel, thus says the Lord. What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went in from me and went after worthlessness? and became worthless. Went after worthlessness. When you come to know Jesus, again, let me just make it a church thing, okay? We want to know him better. We want to please him in our living. We want what will not just satisfy our flesh, but we want him to be glorified in living his life through his church, us, where we are, living, truly alive. It's important that we see this. There is the foolishness of somebody who forsakes the Lord to get stuff. But it's what we do. And we get overwhelmed by it sometimes. There's just so much advertised. What can you say? And with us, you know, you have to either get technology or something to hang in there. Another new phone or another new this or that, something else. And pretty soon we don't need God very much because I think I found him on Facebook. No, he's not. He might be there, but he's working through some people and he's not there possessing the land. Verses four and five. I guess I got those read enough, huh? Foolishness of somebody who forsakes the Lord. How many times do the scriptures connect believers to the river of living water that's provided by God through His Spirit? Many times. Jesus spoke of the rivers of living water that flow from our life when the Spirit of God is ruling in us, when He is Lord of us. You've already experienced that inner sense of gladness and joy and that God is a powerfully present God. Go looking there. Seek there the gifts that will benefit the ministry of Jesus in our place. So the picture is of them denying the cistern God provided and making their own broken cisterns, trying to collect water and collect none. And the second picture in this is more graphic. It has to do with animals in heat chasing each other across the field. And God was saying in context with this particular thing, the drives and the forces that are at work in human beings when God is not acknowledged or trusted in. are enormous. Lusts for so many things. That's not just a sexual word. Lust is something that can cover almost everything and anything that goes on in our lives. We have to guard that always. God calls this thing of becoming available to whatever pulling desire there is once we step aside a little bit. God calls this kind of action harlotry or whoredom and makes pretty strong point about it in this part of the book. And he asked a very searching question, verses 23 and 24, here in chapter two, still here. 23 and 24. How can you say I'm not unclean? I'm not gone after the bales, the gods out there. Look at your way in the valley. Know what you have done. A restless young camel running here and there. A wild donkey used to the wilderness. In her heat, sniffing the wind. Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves. In her month, they'll find her. In the natural realm, all these things just happen like that. We learn to walk with Him. to take that position would grow nearer to him in the process. And the first step back, and I'm going to close with this because time's up in just a few minutes. The first step back in chapter 3, verses 11 and 12 is right here. Let me read it to you. And the Lord said to me, faithless Israel, that's the northern group, has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, return faithful Israel, declares the Lord. I will look on you, will not look on you in anger for I am merciful, declares the Lord. It will not be angry, I will not be angry forever, only acknowledge your guilt. that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the Lord. Prophet speaking. Verse 22, in this same return, O faithless sons, here's the call to return again. I will heal your faithlessness. Behold, we come to you for you are the Lord our God. Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord your God is the salvation of Israel. Salvation of Israel. Turn around and go back when you figure out you're going the wrong way, don't you? When you figure out this is not the road I'm supposed to be on. Before a holy God, you turn around and go back. That's how you begin to find that first step back away. It's a turnaround step. First step. Acknowledging your guilt. And God seeing the heart can't be fooled. And if you're His, already He knows you better than you know you. And we think that we know ourselves real well. You know, we keep everything from God. We can, but we don't keep anything from God. Because we can't do that. This is the tough part, I think, that acknowledging your guilt, God sees the heart and so he knows what's happening with us all the time. Let me give you one other story and we'll be done. Stuart Briscoe came from England to pastor a church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, spent his whole life, adult life and ministry life doing that. He had no theological degree or pastoral degree. He really was a man brilliant in scripture. and he wrote even some commentaries for use in this country. Stuart Briscoe, his wife also was in various ministries and they had a full life all together. Stuart Briscoe told this of an incident in his church. A young boy had come to Christ through some of the people in the church who had reached out to him while he was on drugs. They were so loving and gracious to him as they led him to Christ that he was eager to come to church. He did come, later asked to be a member of the church. On the morning he was to be accepted into membership, he asked if he could say a few words to the congregation. Stuart Briscoe agreed, so the young man stood up and said, I just want to tell you something about myself. I was on drugs, I was all fouled up, I was a mess, I hated myself. Then some people from this church met me and they loved me as I've never been loved before. They told me about Jesus and I found Jesus real. I was so eager to come to the church because these people were from here. I came here because I wanted to see a church that could put out people like that. But I was so disappointed. You didn't like my long hair. and I could feel it in your glances. I could sense your hostility when you pointedly ignored me. I could see that some of you were downright angry because I was present among you. It made me very resentful. I got bitter, anger, angry at you because you were like that. I just wanted to tell you that God has dealt with my heart. I just wanted to tell you that God has dealt with my heart. And I realized that it's wrong for me to be bitter and angry at you. Now, your hostility toward me, that is your own problem before God. You'll have to settle that. But I just want to say that I was wrong in being angry with you. God has forgiven me. I ask you to forgive me and to receive me into membership here. And there, brothers and sisters, is a good example of what God is after when he says, acknowledge your guilt. Don't worry about the other guy's guilt. Don't worry about your guilt and that relationship with God that's so important. And then God goes on to say in Jeremiah 315, I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Do you see how he's reaching after these people? Judah, return, return. He said, come back, not too late. I will restore you and I'll feed you. I'll open your eyes. You'll not have to walk in ignorance and darkness again. I will heal your faithlessness. Beware now. Jesus told his disciples about a house being built. Any identical houses is kind of how I see it. As you read the text in the New Testament. One is built on a solid rock and the other is built on sand. You know what happens sooner or later, right? You have to face the music on the house, the judgment. And when the one on the rock is blown by the wind and dashed by the water, it just sits there, holds on, stays put. When the one on the sand gets the same treatment, blows it to pieces and off the sandbar. You can build life in two ways and more, but when you boil it all down, there are two ways. You can follow Jesus or you can do what you want to do. You can call on him to be your savior and your Lord, or you can just say, just let him come on to church and we'll just, we'll try to get acquainted with him later and all that. There's a lot of people building on that saying. And they think they're okay. They got the house built and all of that's wonderful. Yeah, but this question, what are you going to do when the end comes? Because when the end comes in Matthew's account of the two houses, one on sand, one on rock, the only one left is the one on the rock. And so the judgment separated the builders and the houses. May the Lord stir us to the point where we want to draw near to Him. Where we have a desire when we come on Sundays just to draw near to Jesus, not worry too much about all the other stuff that we have to put together. That takes care of itself if we're focused on worship, if we're focused on the Word of God, if we're focused on the living Redeemer, we can do it, get it done. I do not know what the end will be for people individually. I don't know where you are, I know most of you, but I don't know everybody that comes to here preaching here. So I have to understand that there's a need at times for people to be waked up so they can see the King, trust the Savior, find the life that makes everything else worth living. I do know this, for me, I want to come back into a place with God where I'm drawing nearer than I've ever been. God who loves me, God who can heal me, the God who opens the fountain of living water, refresh my heart and spring spirit, and I want to walk with Him. I want to walk with Him. Anybody want to walk with Him? Yes. It doesn't matter what your age is. We don't have to say that anymore. That's a done deal. It's you folk that are up there, really up there, that God's gonna use if you'll lean into his arms and say, Lord, use me the way you want to, because you're here for a shorter time than some, but you're gonna be here to do what God has for you to do until you leave. Draw me nearer, Lord, nearer. Precious Lord. Amen. Father, I wanna thank you for your word for your dealings with the people, including your church, including us. May you continue what you have started in some of us. May we be broken before you in such a way that our hearts are fully and completely established in Christ Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for your faithful love, your amazing and powerful grace. You're working in us. Lord, I ask you to touch our people today. These are our brothers and sisters. Build it together as a part of the kingdom of God. In Jesus' name. Amen. We're ready to do this last music. Now I'm going to ask you, while this is playing, if you want to just come and kneel before the Lord, you who know Him first, Just come and say, Lord, I heard that. I opened my heart to you, now leave it there. And I want you to do it up front, because you don't have to, if you can't kneel, just stand here. And we'll trust God to just bless each one of us, all right? Let's sing, stand with me.