Once said, he says, I never preached a sermon yet that I could not pick to pieces. And I find fault with them. I feel that Jesus Christ ought to have a far better representative than I am. I've felt that way many a time. But the fact is. He wants me. I don't have to understand it. Just have to realize it. I have to accept it. I have to rejoice in it. I have to revel in the thought that a thrice holy God would desire me. Oh, mercy. We're going to be in the book of John again, John chapter number 9. I find it interesting that the children's and bus workers' and youth workers' banquet is coming up. That lets me know it's coming up on a year since I first came here. The first time I came to Liberty Bible Church was as the speaker for your bus children's and youth banquet, and it was exciting to me to be able to come up and to be part of that, to be encouraged, so encouraged by the work of the Lord that's going on here. One thing led to another, and I guess I fooled many of you pretty well. You invited me up to be your pastor, and I'm so thankful for that day. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be here with you. So what I find even more interesting, though, is many of you have never heard me preach from anything other than the book of John, because I've been making my way through the gospel of John, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. who we know is Jesus Christ and being able to be introduced. We've gone through this many times, gone over this many times, but John lets us know that the whole purpose, he shows to us all these miracles that take place. He said Jesus did many, many more miracles. He said we wouldn't have enough time to write them all down, but these are here so that you can know who Jesus is, so that you can believe on Jesus Christ, and that by believing in him, you can have life. So as we get into the book of John, I want you to keep that in the back of our mind. Many times we look at some of these things and we say, why in the world is this here? Why is that here? Well, John let us know very plainly, I put all of this here so that you could know Christ. We're in John chapter number 9, and last week we got started with John 9. We looked at the man who was blind, and he was blind from his birth, and we talked about as Jesus passed by and his disciples asked, who did sin, this man or his parents? We got into that and the very notion that, excuse me, that in the Jewish culture they believed, they honestly believed, that a person could sin within the womb. And so based on the sin that was taking place in the womb, that a person could be born blind and that was God's punishment for their sinning. before they were even born. Of course, there was another Greek teaching of that day that a soul existed prior to being attached to the body, and this Greek belief had crept its way into Judaism, and the Jews had kind of started to espouse a little bit of it, and they taught and believed that a person's soul could have sinned prior to finding a body, and that false teaching had infected its way in to the Jewish culture, to the Jewish teaching. And so this big theological discussion that these men were looking for, Jesus kind of just threw it off to the side. And he said, I don't have time for that. I've got work to do, is basically what he said. That's the Indy Lake paraphrased edition. But we got into this where Jesus spits on the ground. He makes clay on the Sabbath. And the fact that Jesus just simply spit on the ground, it was actually against the Jewish law. You could not spit on the ground. on the Sabbath day, because if you spit on the ground on the Sabbath day, and it mixed with the dirt, you have made mud. It takes clay, it takes mud, it takes clay in order to make bricks, so you have just worked by spitting in the mud. I wish I could add that to my timesheet every time I spit on the ground, but they honestly believed this. And so here's Jesus. He wasn't oblivious to any of this. He didn't simply forget. But I love how Jesus comes in and it just kinda oversteps and says, you know, that's man's law, that's man's piety, and we're gonna get into that a little bit more in a moment. And he's got something at hand to do. I've got something to take care of. They had made so much of the Sabbath day that they had completely ignored the God of the Sabbath day. You know, I find in this story, we're going to take a look here and see three different characters that are responding to Jesus. The first set of characters that we find are the Pharisees and how they respond to Jesus. The second group are the parents of this man and how they respond. And then the third is the man himself and how he responds to Jesus. We're going to look at these. But I was looking for just an example of someone that might have been oblivious, and I came across a story of the Wright brothers when they were going over attempt after attempt at flight, and they finally were able to get their flying machine to fly. They sent a telegram to their sister, Catherine. And the telegram, of course, back then, they wanted to keep it short. You paid for every letter, every word, or what have you. And so they sent this, as we have flown 120 feet. We'll be home for Christmas. And so she was excited about the news. She knew what was going on, and she hurried, and she ran to the guy at the newspaper, and she showed him the message, and he looked at the message. He says, oh, that's great. Your brothers are coming home for Christmas. Completely oblivious. to the fact that they had just flown, completely oblivious. Well, let's read. We're going to read a rather lengthy portion of Scripture this morning, and I make no apologies for giving you God's Word more than me. We're going to read verses 13 through 38, and then we'll make our prayer. This is after the blind man was healed. The Bible says, they brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind, and it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? How then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But by what means he now seeth, we knoweth not. Or who hath opened his eyes, we know not. He is of age, ask him. He shall speak for himself. These words spake his parents because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, he is of age, ask him. Then again called they the man that was blind and said unto him, Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see. Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes? He answered them, I've told you already, and ye did not hear, wherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be his disciples?' Then they reviled him and said, Thou art his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses. As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners. But if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind? If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. I want you to go back to verse number 35. In this entire passage, this is one of my most favorite verses out of this chapter. Verse number 35 says, Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Let's pause for a moment to ask for God's wisdom as we get into this message. Father, we are grateful beyond words, Lord. Father in heaven, when you knew our situation in the state that we were in, God, you found us. Father, I thank you for that, Lord. I never would have found you on my own, but because of your compelling spirit, Father, you called to me, and I thank you for that, Lord. God, I pray that you would bless us this morning, Father, that you would hide me, Father, behind your words, behind your cross, Lord, that you would speak to me, Father, and speak through me, Father, that I may speak as of the oracles of God, Father, that I would be one, Lord, that is used, and Father, there'd be nothing left. Lord, we pray that you would bless this time, Father, touch our ears, touch our hearts, Father, remove any distractions that would take our minds away from you. Father, that we would leave from this place changed. We would be determined now, Father, to apply to our lives what it is that you will reveal to us about ourselves. Father, we love you. It's in your Son's name we pray these things. Amen. The first group that I find again are the Pharisees. Let's call them the critics. Let's call them the critics. We have discussed at length the way in which the Pharisees honored the Sabbath. Now, there's nothing wrong with esteeming a certain day. Don't get me wrong. I look forward to Sundays. I can't wait for Sunday to come along. And when it's that middle of the week, you know, Monday's gone, it's like the kid, he gets up in the morning, it's Christmas morning, can't wait to go downstairs, open up a bunch of gifts, and then the day after Christmas, it's like, man, I wish Christmas was here again. That's the way I feel every Monday. I've heard some pastors say, oh, I've wanted to quit every Monday. Not me. I want to rewind every Monday. I want to go back. I so love Sunday. But you know what's awesome? When it comes Monday and I start to go through my mind, oh, man, I wanna go back to Sunday again. Then I'm reminded, Wednesday's coming, and we've got midweek service, and we're gonna have fun that evening, and then it'll just be a few more days, and Sunday's coming again. But you see, we've talked about how the Pharisees, they took that day, that Sunday, the thing that's so wonderful about the Sabbath day, the thing that was supposed to be so hallowed about the Sabbath day was it was a day where we stopped doing what we were doing and we put our eyes on God. We stopped worrying about our jobs. We stopped worrying about our responsibilities. We stopped worrying about all these things that were going on in life. That was the whole purpose. And we are able to put our focus and our gaze back on the one who gave us the day. Gave us the week. And says, hey, hey, I brought you here, you've got six days to do whatever you want, and I'm gonna give you the Sabbath day. But here's what they did, was they started making more rules to protect themselves from violating the Sabbath. And instead of focusing on the Sabbath, they started to focus on those rules. And we do the same thing, we do the same thing. Think about it for a moment. We have what we call preferential piety, preferential piety. Think of it this way, and I'm not, don't get me wrong, don't misunderstand, don't try to read between the lines. I think this is what he's saying. The more you get to know me, the more you know I say what I think and I think what I say. And I do the best that I can To put it in a palatable, I add a little bit of sugar, but I don't remove any of the truth and then put sugar in, okay? If it's got nuts and berries, guess what? The nuts and berries are coming. If it's got salt and vinegar, that may be coming too. I'll do the best that I can to make it palatable. Have you ever eaten cumin? Just take a spoonful of cumin and eaten cumin. No. But it's pretty good when you put it in things, right? That's all I'm trying to do here. So let me help explain some things here. We do the same thing the Pharisees did with the Sabbath day with other things. I can take you to some people who maybe they struggle with certain types of entertainment, certain media. And as a result, they have chosen not to, maybe not to go to movies, not to go to, don't rent a movie. Some of them maybe don't even want to have a television in their home. You know what, that's fine. If that's the direction that they choose to go because they want to guard themselves and they want to put up a block, and you know, I'm not going to have internet in the home because of this, you know, that's fine. If someone wants to espouse that conviction, that's fine. And this is what the Pharisees started to do. They started to put the, you know, I don't want to violate the Sabbath day, so I'm going to start to do certain. You know, I know people who will not frequent a restaurant that serves alcohol because they struggled with alcohol. And so they've decided, it's not that I don't want to just drink it, I don't want to be anywhere near it. So they put up a big block. And that's, praise the Lord, for people who have a desire to put certain lines in the sand. It's drawing a line. I was talking to a young man just this week. You've got to learn to draw some lines in the sand. And it's not drawing a line in the sand for other people, it's drawing a line in the sand for yourself. I'm not going past this line. And that's what a lot of people do. We start out with these great things. There are certain things that my wife and I have chosen to espouse. And because we have chosen to play certain rules, certain regulations, we do this with our media. We do this with, if we're gonna watch a movie, we get on, we've got a couple apps that we'll look at. If it's not on one of those apps, then we'll get online and we'll look and we'll check why is this movie rated the way it's rated. And there's some movies out there that pretty good movies that we won't watch because we have already decided if there are certain things, we're not going to watch it. No matter how good of a movie it may have been. And people may, well, you know, it's really not that bad. Well, that's fine. I'm not worried. I'm not going to judge you if you watch it. That's your choice. Us, we have decided we're going to put certain blocks in place And one of the things that we have been very careful with, and so parents, you know, understand something. If you all invite my children for a sleepover, thank you, but no. We talked at length one time, very long time, and there's a lot of issues that happen at sleepovers, and we've talked about some of the things that have taken place in our lives at sleepovers, and so we've decided rather than say no to some and yes to some, we're saying no to all. That's a decision that we made. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by saying, well, I'm going to say yes to this person over here, but I ain't letting them sleep over at your house. I'm not going to do that. And I'll be honest with you, that's been a struggle sometimes, especially now that our kids are getting older and they're wanting to have sleepovers with their friends, their cousins. Now, y'all can think what you want of me. But this is a direction. This is an area that we chose. Now, here's where the Pharisees started to mess up, was they started to say, since we espouse this, we're better than, and we are more religious than you. I don't care who you're all's kids sleepin'. That's y'all's, you know, God gave you kids, God gave us kids, you do what you want with your kids, and we're gonna do what we feel is right with our kids. But what happens is, if we're not careful, we attach piety to that. And we attach a sort of a holier-than-thou attitude about the whole thing. Well, you know, we don't...there's things that we allow in our home that I know of people that don't allow in their home. But that's not an area that we have decided needs to be a wall up. You see, here's what happens. If you're not careful, when you espouse certain convictions, when you come into a certain understanding of the kind of things that you choose to abstain from because you're afraid it's going to pull you further away from God, or you choose to take part in because you know it's going to bring you closer to God, you cannot attach that. Unless God's Word says, you need to do this so that you can be closer to me, we cannot attach that to spirituality. The moment that I start to say, unless you all start to take the convictions that my wife and I have set, you're not truly saved. Oh, I just crossed the line there. And this is what the Pharisees had done. This is what's called legalism. Now, I wanted to bring that word up because if we're not careful in today's day and time, oh, you carry a King James Bible, you must be legalistic. No. I'm smarter. But anyway, I'm kidding. Those of you who don't like it, you can file it with Ms. Dawn. Dawn will take your complaint report. Anyway, now here's the thing. Just because I have a certain stance on a certain thing doesn't make me legalistic. When I start to say you're not saved unless you have it too, or you can't be a child of God unless you are, That's legalism. So before we go labeling somebody as legalistic, we need to understand what it truly means. Legalism is attaching works to grace. You see, God's grace is sufficient to save me. God's grace is sufficient to keep me. God's grace is all that I need. The extras, the other things, that has nothing to do with my salvation. The moment I start to attach these things to my salvation, the moment I start to attach these things to my relationship with God, that's legalism. And this is what the Pharisees had started to do. They started to say, there's no way he's from God He spit on the Sabbath day and healed a man. What? Now that's legalism. That's legalism at its finest. You gotta understand the humor in this. The humor in this situation. They're saying that God is not of God because he spit on God's day and healed one of God's creatures. Not too smart, guys. Not too smart. But if we're not careful, we take our preferences, we take our stances, we take our certain things in life, and we do what I like to call provisional power. We say that here's my bubble. God can't use someone who doesn't use the same Bible I use. God can't use someone who doesn't sing the same kind of songs I sing. God can't use someone... Oh, the phone! Are we putting God in a box now? Okay, these are my rules, and God, you can't operate outside of my rules. That's not the way it works, folks. Guess what? He's God. We ain't. Let God be God. But what happens is, if we're not careful, we start to attach, we start to take all these these rules and these stances or these convictions that maybe we choose to espouse, and we say that God can't work outside of those restrictions. No. God can work wherever and whenever He chooses, however He chooses. The only thing that restricts God is God. So when God says, thou shalt not, guess what? He shalt not too. he's the only one that can put a restriction on himself. This is why I always go back, you know, people say things like, and I understand what is meant by it, I understand, you know, he could have, he could have just completely wiped out the world and just done away with us, he didn't have to die on the cross. Well, God is love, he cannot violate his own nature. So God, that's a restriction that God has on himself. Could he have? I don't think so. I don't think so. Because God knew based on his foreknowledge what the ultimate plan was. God knew, based on his foreknowledge, what the ultimate desire, what the ultimate outcome was. And for him to completely step outside of being God, taking the justness away from God, taking the righteousness away from God, taking the love away from God, taking all that away, he would have had to violate himself in order to do so. So we've got to be careful about placing our man-made restrictions on God. and letting him have provisional power. The second group of people that I look at are the parents. And we see the parents here, and we're going to call them the censored. Look at this man's parents for a moment, verse 18. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called his parents of him. that had received his sights, and they asked him, saying, Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind, but by what means he now seeth we know not, or who hath opened his eyes we know not. He is of age, ask him, he shall speak for himself, Look at the response that the parents give. They are scared into silence. Completely scared into silence. This is kind of like today, I see people saying, I plead the fifth. They don't wanna come out, they don't wanna testify or nothing, I plead the fifth. This is something that is completely amazing to me. At first glance, looks like the parents might be saying, well, I just don't know what happened. Maybe at second glance we would say something like, well, maybe they're just saying, well, he's an adult, listen to what he says. You don't have to challenge him. Maybe they're defending his son. I don't buy it because the very next verse, look at what it says here. Verse 22 says, these words spake his parents because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Holy cow. Think about it for a moment. They're scared of the Jews and their son, who was born blind, is now seeing. Do you see the incredible foolishness in this? Let's not be scared into silence. This is the mark of legalism at its finest. This is what happens in true legalism. They make you scared to do anything else. They make you scared that you're gonna, oh, if I do this, maybe I'm not, ooh, maybe they're not gonna like, oh, what if they church me? What if they kick me out of church? I'm gonna tell you right now, I'd rather be kicked out of church than to deny God in a heartbeat. I'd rather be... let God be true and every man a liar. If I know beyond the shadow of a doubt the truth of what God is doing, I don't care what legalistic, pious gas bag wants to say or do to me. I'm going to stand for God. This is amazing to me what's going on. Let us not be scared into silence. When God blesses our heart, let's get a voice about it. We go to football games, we sit down, we can watch a football game in our living room, and we can be so loud, so vocal about it, that the people three doors down are going, wow, they must be a fan, and we get into church. Fast forward over to another football game, the very next football game, and oh, they made a touchdown! Yeah, that's my team! They get in here, we talk about God, God saves, God's got grace! And they're like, mm-hmm. We get scared, well, what if somebody looks at me funny? If I say amen, somebody might think I'm weird. I think you're weird, you're not saying it! We're talking about God. We're talking about the one who sent his son to earth. We're talking about the man who lived on earth amongst sinners. He can't stand to look at sin, and yet he dwelt amongst sin. He became sin for us. Put his arms outstretched. He said, I love you this much. I'm willing to die for you. And we sit in silence. We're scared into silence. God said, I love you. We get so excited over somebody making the game-winning basket. We get so excited over our favorite athlete crossing the finish line. We get so excited over a hat trick. We get so excited over the next touchdown. But when somebody says, God loves you, we go, well, isn't that nice? Think about it. There's times where I get into this. and I'm focused in on what God has to say. And if I wasn't the one up here preaching, I'd be waving, I'd run out the door, run a couple laps around the building, come back in and say, praise God. Turn a little back to Kostal. Somebody oughta wave a hanky every once in a while. Thank you, Brother Dale. Let's get into this thing called praise. God does a wonderful work. God does a marvelous thing. Let's praise him for it. But because of these Pharisees, because these pious gasbags are standing there looking over the shoulders of the parents, they can't so much as say, yeah, our son was blind, but he sees. I don't care what you say. He's from God. Ain't nobody doing that. because they have this implausible indifference about themselves. I guarantee you something. My wife's a quiet person by nature. She kind of keeps her mouth closed to everybody but me. But here's the thing. I guarantee you something. One of our children was born blind and something happened where they could now see. And the only thing that could be explained was it's a miracle. All the doctors are saying, what? This doesn't make sense. Everybody that knew our family knew this child had been born this way. Everybody was looking, and then somewhere along the line, somebody put mud in my child's eye, and then we washed the child's eyes, and the child could now see. I guarantee you, ain't no silence gonna come from that woman. She gonna be excited, and you gonna hear about it. How in the world have we become indifferent to the things of God? How in the world have we become so indifferent? We read a missionary's excerpt, we talk about somebody coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and we sit there in silence and we don't care. We're like, really, that happened? Hmm. Now I know that may sound a little harsh. I remember the day both my oldest kids got saved. You couldn't keep me quiet. In both of those events, I beg God, don't ever let me lose the excitement of just one. Just one. I've heard mission excerpts read, I've heard missionaries talking about, you know, they had a person come to know the Lord, they had this happen over here, they had that happen, and then you read, you'd read an excerpt of somebody that had 50 come to know the Lord, now people are wanting to jump up and shout. I mean, that one, Got the same grace that those 50 got. Let's get excited about the things of the Lord. The implausible indifference that I find here. They allow, these parents allowed their joy to be stifled. Think of it for just a moment. Think of it. You wanna know what's exciting to me? Is that Jesus provided a way to be free from the bondage of sin. That's exciting to me. Jesus provided a way for us to have a relationship with God. That's exciting to me. Anybody can get excited about heaven. We talk about you wanna go to heaven, you wanna go to hell, anybody can get excited about heaven. Let's get excited about the relationship with God. the creator of the universe. You know, have you ever, when you're a parent and you have your baby, and you can't wait to show that baby off, and you're, this is my baby, this is my first born, isn't she beautiful? The second child comes along, it's like, yeah, this is my new baby. Third one, it's like, where'd it go? You know, God love them. But then here's what happens is, you know, you got people that everybody wants to come by, see the new baby, everybody wants to touch it. Don't touch the baby, okay? But anyway, you get everybody come by, and then you bring all these outfits, you know, and oh, look at the little, and the next thing you know, that baby's sitting off to the side, screaming its head off, needing change, needing a bottle, and everybody's cooing over the, Oh, look how cute this is. Bring me the baby in the outfit and I'll tell you how cute the outfit is. Look at this dress. Put it on. I'll tell you if it looks good. I don't care what it looks like on a hanger. This is what happens to us many times. Many times. This man was born blind. Now he can see. That's the baby. Why aren't the parents more excited? And why are the Pharisees focusing on the mud? Why are the Pharisees focusing on the day? God can heal who He wants to heal, when He wants to heal them. And here's a man that was born blind. He encountered God. And all the Pharisees can think about is Jesus going, Really? Quit looking at the outfits. Focus on the baby. Unless it's a really cool bib. We got our daughter a really cool bib. Itty bitty Baptist. It was awesome. Anyway, that's another subject for another day. I know, not everybody's a Baptist, and that's all right. Here's the third person that I see, and we're going to finish this up. It's the courageous. The courageous, this is the blind man, he had unwavering belief, unwavering belief. Look at verse number 25, they are asking him again, and he answered and said, whether he is a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see. You see, this man, he knew something. He knew he had this unwavering belief of what took place in his life. He says, I know what happened to me. I know what took place. He said that no other person could do this. This must be from God. This man must be from God. No one can do it. He said no one has ever received their sight. It was born blind. I know what happened to me. I know what happened. We've got to quit giving people more rules and regulations. We've got to start coming to them and giving them Christ. It's not about the rules and the regulations. It's all about the Savior. We have to quit telling people to simply quit sinning. We've got to tell them about Jesus. And this is what the Pharisees were so messed up on. Well, quit sinning. I want you to notice something. Jesus met the people first. Anytime he ever said go and sin no more, it was post-salvation. Post. None of this quit sinning, get everything right, get your life straightened out, and then come to Christ. None of that garbage. None of that garbage. So if anybody ever tells you you gotta get all this out of your life first, no. Come to Christ. You can't do it on your own. Get God in your life, He'll help you do it. He'll help you. Don't try to do this on your own. We have untainted sight for this blind man. Jesus provided sight to the blind man, but not only physical sight. He introduces him to himself and we find ourself, look here in verse number 35, Jesus heard that they had cast him out and when he had found him." You know what's missing between those two parts of the sentences? The assumption that he went looking for him. Jesus heard that he had been cast out. Let me insert my own thought here because it's an assumed he went looking for him and when he found him. I'm not trying to add words to the gospel. I'm not trying to add words to God's Word. I'm just saying, hey, he had to go looking for him to find him. I don't know about you. That's one of the most beautiful truths that I find right here. Jesus could have come along, could have healed his eyes, and then sent him on his way. But no. I find Jesus in my hyperactive mind saying, hey, whatever happened to that blind man? And one of his, oh, you didn't hear? Man, they kicked him out of the synagogue. Let's go find him. That's my boy. I'm going to go find him. Jesus comes to us. He comes looking for us. And when he finds us, he says, do you believe in me? Do you believe? Jesus introduced himself to this blind man. I am the Christ. This boy falls down and worships Jesus. And look what he does. Nothing. He accepts that worship. Only God accepts worship. Which takes us back to John 8. I am. This man encountered God. He met God. So how do we apply this? Let's look at some points of application here. Ask yourself, are you being critical? Ask yourself, are you being critical? Are you judging others based on your own set of rules? Based on your own specific piety that perhaps you've established? Surely God could not use someone like that. Surely God would not bless someone like that. Are you indifferent toward the exciting things of God? Are you indifferent toward the things, the exciting things that he has done? Do you still get excited about someone coming to know Christ? Do you still get excited about someone coming back from a rebellious life? Do you still get excited about those things? Or are we cold, uncaring, indifferent toward them? When's the last time you've got excited about God? to where your hands were shaking. You couldn't wait to talk to somebody. You couldn't wait to throw up a hand and say, praise the Lord. You couldn't wait to say, thank you, Jesus. When's the last time you got excited about something? Or have you turned cold and silent? Will you stand? Will you stand, and when everyone else is running away, will you stand? Will you, when everyone else is remaining silent, will you stand? Will you stand when everyone else is criticizing, when everyone else thinks it's unpopular? Will you stand and say, I know what I saw. I know what happened to me. Father, we are grateful, Lord, that You