The following is a presentation of Edgewood Reformed Baptist Church, West Monroe, Louisiana. And we have been looking at the fact that there is great understanding, great insight into our relationship with God through the experiences of Israel. And that we not throw out the Old Testament as being invalid or not a part of our lives, but that we actually embrace the things that we see God doing with His people. and that it is a great pattern, a great picture for us of how we're to relate to God and how God relates to us. As a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul picks up this idea in 1 Corinthians 10 as he talks about that these things in the nation of Israel were written as an example for us upon whom the end of the ages has come. and that there was great understanding of what God is doing in a covenantal relationship framework with those who are called according to God's purposes, those who are called into salvation. And so we are looking at the children of Israel, in the book of Deuteronomy. And we've come to a point in chapter 4 where we're talking about the conviction of God. Now, if you'll remember where we are in verse 29, God has said that I'm going to send you into a foreign land. I'm going to send you as judgment upon your rebellion into this place where you don't know the customs and you don't know the people, and they're going to be worshipping gods that neither you nor your fathers have known. And I'm going to bring this judgment upon you." Well, I would suggest that that is, or would be, a cataclysmic event. That would be something that, for not only them in that day, but for us today, as we deal with the various and sundry things that happen in life, would be something that would not be a very pleasant occurrence. We have those kind of things in our lives today. As a matter of fact, in our local community this week, we know that there was a shooting that seemed to be completely random at Brookshires earlier this week. A gentleman decided he was going to rob a bank, and then in Brookshires, a parking lot shot somebody that, as far as I know, was completely unaware of what was going on. And we would look at that and say, well, is that fate or is that a chance? I so dislike technical difficulties. Just go ahead and kill it and I'll just stay right here. Was that chance? Well, the answer to that question is no, that wasn't chance. That wasn't chance any more than anything else that happens in our world is chance. As a matter of fact, let me just read this passage very quickly out of Luke chapter 13, where Jesus talks about something very similar to that. Turn it down just a little bit. In Luke chapter 13, the Lord Jesus says he was talking to his disciples. Now, this is not on the PowerPoint. It's not in your outline. But he says this. There were some present that were at that very time that told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had been mingling with the sacrifices. And Jesus answered him and said, Do you think that those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans? Because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you that unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Or the eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others that lived in Jerusalem? Jesus said no. But I tell you, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. In that moment, Jesus was highlighting that events in the lives of the people in that day that seemed to be out of place or under great distress were not necessarily things that were outside the control of God, but that God was using those events to bring people into repentance. And so today, as we look at what God says through the prophet Moses, in Deuteronomy is the same idea, that the things that happen in our life, God uses those to draw us into repentance. As a matter of fact, the overarching idea today, and the thing that I want you to walk away with from this message is this, that God's conviction opens our eyes to the reality of our circumstances. Now let me say that again. God's conviction opens our eyes to the reality of our circumstances. That we neither live by fate, nor chance, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. God is orchestrating everything in our life, and He's orchestrating those things to bring us into a right relationship with Him, either as the lost to draw them out of their sin and depravity and bring them into life through repentance, or in the life of the believer, in the life of the child of God, that those things in our life that stand in the way of abundance, Stand in the way of us realizing everything that God has purposed in our life, whether it be good or bad, that we remove those things and allow God to cleanse us through continued repentance. You see, every day we need to be taking an inventory of our life. We need to be turning from our wickedness and turning to the Lord and allowing His Spirit to draw us in such a way that we live a life that is glorifying and pleasing to God. And in every circumstance that we face in life that God has brought into our lives, we can find those true statements that God is somehow working in us to bring us into repentance. Bad things happen. And instead of bemoaning and crying and complaining about all the bad things that happen, Might I suggest to us today that we should look forward to or thank God, first of all, for the opportunity to live through that, that we might be learning something. And then beyond that, use that to glorify God, even in the worst of our circumstances. I would argue that there is not a one of us here today that has ever been taken captive to a foreign land. There's not a one of us that ever has had to live among people who just don't understand our faith and our walk. We have not had to defend our faith with our lives. But I would also argue that if we were called to do that, that we'd be like the early apostles who claimed or thought it a blessing from God to suffer for the name of Christ. All these ideas that we're talking about are the things that God brings to us in conviction, the revelation of His plan in our lives. And so, having said that, let's approach our text today. Now, I'm going to back up a little bit to verse 27 to give us the context, but our focal passage today is verse 30 of Deuteronomy chapter 4. Starting at verse 27, Deuteronomy 4 says this, And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few a number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone and the work of human hands that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. Then verse 30, our focal passage today, when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. In that moment, Moses tells the children of Israel that as they face the tribulation, as they face the difficulty of God's judgment living in a foreign land, when they're not understood and they're being persecuted and all of these things happening, in that tribulation that they will turn to Him, they will turn to the Lord. And so, three things I want us to see today as we consider this idea. And the first one is this, that God's conviction reveals That tribulation has come for God's ordained purpose and not by chance. In the first part of verse 30 it says, when you're in tribulation. It doesn't say if you're in tribulation. Moses says when you're in tribulation. And that just makes sense in that God had sent them to that foreign land. God had sent them in that day when they rebelled for their idolatry, God sent the Assyrians, and then God sent the Babylonians, and God sent the Medes and the Persians, and He sent the Greeks, and ultimately He sent the Romans. Those were all by God's design and His decree, and all of those particular kingdoms at different times had brought tribulation for the children of Israel. They were living in difficult times, and what God wanted them to see, and what God wants us to see, is that that tribulation has been ordained of Him. That tribulation has been brought by God for a specific purpose. Now, in the lives of the children of Israel here, He brought that for judgment. He brought that because they were being idolatrous, that they had sinned against Him, that they had decided that they were going to put their strength in other things. God's a stone and wood and things that can't see. The God of the pot, as we've been talking about for these last several weeks. But also in the midst of that, because they were living in a pagan land that was not God centered, that did not see God as being sovereign ruler, the people who would not follow God, there was much difficulty and tribulation in that. And God had ordained that too. Why? I believe, to purify people for his own possession, to demonstrate his loving kindness, to demonstrate his grace, to demonstrate the truth of who he was. And in that moment, as they turned back to him, that they would understand in fullest form what it was to live in the abundance of God. They lived in tribulation, and in repentance, turning back to him, living in abundance. That clear picture of what it means to trust and follow God. It was God's purposes. It was God's ordination that they go through that. Listen to what Second Chronicles, verse six says on this issue. It says, and if they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy so that they are carried away captive to the land far or near. Yet if they turn their hearts. in that land which they have been carried away captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly. And if they repent from all their mind and with all their heart and in the land which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house of which I have built for your name, then hear from heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their pleas, and maintain their cause, and forgive your people who have sinned against you. If Solomon is preparing to dedicate the temple, and we know that passage in 2 Chronicles 7 14, if those who are called by my name will repent and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then I'll hear from heaven and heal their broken land. It was much more than just seeing they were in a bad spot. It was about wholeheartedly turning to God. And in this point that Solomon, as he is dedicating the temple and as he's talking to the nation of Israel, is giving them a picture yet again of what it means to live under the ordination of God. For he says, if they sin against you, and oh by the way, there's no one who doesn't. Isn't that true in our lives? Haven't we all sinned and fall short of the glory of God? If you think you haven't, let me just warn you that 1 John says that if we say we have not sinned, that we call God a liar and the truth is not in us. The truth of the matter is, is that every one of us have, like a sheep, gone to our own direction. We've done the things that we want to do and not the things that God would have us do. And in that moment, Solomon says, God, and you were angry with them. That word angry in this Chronicles passage is in the perfect tense. And what it means is that it's a holy, righteous anger that God responded to their rebellion, to their sin in a way that we don't hear much about anymore. that God was angry with them. Did you know that God is angry not only with sin, but God is angry with the sinner as well? That He has bent His bow and He has wet or sharpened His sword against those that rebel against the Lord. God is angry with the sinner. And it says that He gave them to their enemy, that word give, is also in the perfect tense. And what it means is God intended to do that. It was no accident. The Assyrians, when they came in to the northern ten tribes of Israel, that was no accident. We've spent about nine or ten months in Hosea looking at that occasion again and again and again. And Hosea and the other prophets kept telling Israel, repent or God is going to judge you. Well, that judgment was something that God had purpose to do. And not only was the judgment purpose, but also the returning and the repenting, because later in this text, it says we have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly. Those three words sinned and perversely and wickedly are also in the perfect tense in the Hebrew. And what it means is a declaration A declaration that we understand that we have gone against the very commandments and the very commands of God. We have rebelled. We have acted in a very perverse and wicked way. The point to repentance is that I've got to know what I'm repenting of, right? Don't I have to know that I have offended a holy God? Don't I have to know that He has commanded me to live in certain ways and I have chosen not to live that way? And when I have not done that, that I have brought this great shame and dishonor on God? Do you know that your rebellion has brought dishonor to God? I'm not talking about just the children of God or believers or what we might call the elect. I'm talking about all people, the lost and their rebellion have brought dishonor to God, for God is righteous and holy and we are not. We have acted wickedly. We have acted perversely. We have gone against the commands of God. And not only that, do we realize that we have done, then the next part of God's conviction is repentance. that we must repent. That word literally means, as you've heard so many times, to make a 180 degree turn. To stop what I'm doing and go in a different direction. But it's more than that. It's not just stopping a bad habit. It's replacing it with something godly. Ephesians chapter 4 says that we no longer lie, but that we only speak those things that are for the giving of grace, for the building up and the giving of grace in the moment of need. That we no longer steal, but that we work with our hands so that we might have something to give to those who are in need. Repentance is not just saying, I'm bad. I've done something bad. Please forgive me. I'll never do it again. Repentance is saying all of that and replacing it with godly attitudes. So we miss that in our world today because we think repentance is just saying, I'm sorry. No guilt brings us saying, I'm sorry, repentance says, I'm sorry, I resolve never to do it again, and I'm going to do my very best to live like Christ. That's true repentance. God is working towards this as he reveals that tribulation and trouble are ordained of him to bring us to that place. I don't know what trouble you're facing today. Every one of us is facing something today. Now granted, the Lord gives us smooth waters at times, calm waters when there aren't many storms and things are going okay. But every one of us, even in those moments, have questions and concerns about what tomorrow holds. Others of us are facing the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, trouble within our family, perhaps a child that has gone wayward. Any number of things are going on in our lives and we are experiencing trouble. The question is not why am I going through this? The question is, Lord, why did you bring this? You see, for God opens our eyes, he reveals that this tribulation is given to draw us into his presence and for the purpose of repentance is not there by chance. First, John 1 says this, he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Have you ever wondered about that when you face a struggle? Have you ever wondered, is there something that I need to repent of? Father, is there something that is not right in my life? And I don't mean just the Big Ten. You see, we seem to think that as long as we keep the Big Ten, we're okay. As long as I don't murder, as long as I don't steal, as long as I don't lie, as long as I don't commit adultery, as long as I honor my father and mother and do the other Big Ten, I'm in good shape. But did you know that there is rebellion in the very corners of our hearts where we say to the Lord, I don't want to do that. Yeah, I know my neighbor next door is lost in his sins. He would rather watch NASCAR than than fellowship with you, Lord. And you put this burden on my heart to go speak to him, but I don't want to. You know, that's rebellion. It's not about that I haven't just I didn't steal his stuff or lust after his wife, I didn't say bad things about him, but I'm certainly not going and sharing the life of Jesus Christ with him, am I? Especially if the Lord has put that on my heart. I'm not saying that every time we're disobedient that the Lord brings bad things, but I am saying this, that the bad things that come into our life, God has purposed, perhaps at times, to bring us into repentance. Moses told the children of Israel, when tribulation comes, when that tribulation hits, understand that God has brought that into your life to draw him back into his presence. Well, not only that, but number two, God's conviction reveals that you are in fact powerless to change anything about your circumstances. We might accept that God brings things into our life to draw us into repentance. We might accept that. But when those bad things come, our first inclination is to try to fix the problem ourselves. Now, isn't it? We were talking this morning in our small group Bible study that in particular, men, dads, don't we try to fix things? Aren't we Mr. Fix-It? The car is broken and what do I do? Do I take it to a mechanic? No, I fix it. If the sink is leaking, do I call a plumber? No, I try to fix it. When my wife has a problem and all she wants to do is just tell me that she's had a really bad day, and in a sense, she's kind of venting and kind of getting it off her chest, all the things that have happened today. And I'm not really listening, but I'm trying to tell her what she needs to do to fix the problem. I'm being Mr. Fix it, right? I didn't hear any amens. We know what that's like. God's conviction brings us to a point where it shows us that in this scheme of salvation and what He's doing in our lives, we cannot fix it. We can't be Mr. Fix-It with God. God brings us to a point where we must depend upon Him. Look at what He says in verse 30. In Deuteronomy 4 again, He says, When you are in tribulation and these things come upon you in latter days, Those things, when they come upon you, that word come upon you in that text is in the perfect. We've been talking about a lot of perfects today. God brought those things on them. He brought the tribulation on them in that moment so that they would realize that they could not fix it. Well, what would be the fixing it in this part? Well, it would be the putting away the idols and setting aside the idolatry, perhaps turning back to the Lord. And we would say those are all good things, but if they're just done out of legalism or done out of giving a remedy to the problem, then that's not real repentance. Real repentance means that I change completely. That God changes me from the inside out. That He takes out the heart of stone and gives me a heart of flesh. But if I'm just trying to mitigate a bad situation, if I'm just trying to fix a problem, I might turn away from those things in the moment. But guess what happens whenever tough times come, or I get pressed, or I'm depressed, or I don't feel good, or the dog chews my shoes, or whatever it is. I turn back to that idolatry. It's not about fixing the problem. And as a matter of fact, the children of Israel, as ourselves, we cannot fix the problem. God shows us that we are in fact powerless to do anything about our circumstances. Look at Deuteronomy 31 verses 17 through 18. Moses in this text speaking to the children of Israel says this, then my anger, God speaking to them, my anger will be kindled against them in that day and I will forsake them and hide my face from them and they will be devoured. Now I want to stop right there. This is Jehovah God, the covenant God. This is Yahweh speaking of His covenant people, telling them that in the moment when they sin, and by the way, Deuteronomy, the message of, if you rebel, I will judge you, if you obey, I will bless you, is again and again and again. We see that over and over and over again. God telling us that we must live in obedience. But He says, look, this rebellion that you will perpetrate against Me, then My anger will burn against you. It will be kindled against you in that day. And I will forsake them. And I will hide My face from them. Most of the folks in our world today that like to see God as being a cosmic grandfather who loves you regardless of what you've done have some real problems with this text. For God says, when you rebel against me, I will hate you. I will hate you for your rebellion. I will turn my back. I will forsake you. You will not have my blessings. You will be on your own. And we've seen that before, haven't we? Don't we see that in a five-year-old child who has learned to walk, and they've learned to get around pretty good, and they know where everything is in the house? They've even learned how to... Now, if you have a five-year-old, you might want to stick your fingers in his ear. They've learned how to get on a chair and climb up on the counter to get to the cookie jar. And they think they've got it all together? And the first time that you go to town and you want to get out of the car and go to the store, your five-year-old wants to walk across the parking lot by themselves because they're a big boy or a big girl now? And as a good parent, what do we do in that moment? Don't we take them by the hand and say, no, you hold my hand as we walk across the parking lot? And typically, what will that five-year-old say? No, I can do it myself. And what do they do? They jerk their hand away. Right? We've experienced that. Now, as a good parent, we will say, no, you're going to hold my hand and I am going to walk you across the parking lot. And God does that from time to time. But God also will let us, like that precocious five-year-old, snatch our hand away and say, I can do it myself. And God says, OK, go ahead. And that's when the trouble begins, because then we're on our devices, following our own direction. And in that way, in this text, God is saying, I'm going to forsake you and hide my face from you. You want to do it yourself, have at it. Now, make no mistake about this, God is never far away. God is there and will protect his children. But there are times that in our rebellion, that God will hide his face. Is the Lord's arm so short that he can't reach or his ear so dull that he can't hear? No, your sins have created a barrier between you and your God so that he will not hear you. Isaiah 59 2. There are times when God hides his face. When God hides His face and we go across life like that proverbial parking lot, and we get into a bind and we're in trouble, then we turn back to Him. And the whole time, God was trying to show us that without Him, we have no power to face the problems that we face. In this Deuteronomy 31 passage, it goes on to say, And many evils and troubles will come upon you. Why will they come upon you? Why will those troubles and evils hit? Why will the water heater go out? Why will the car not work? Why are the neighbors upset with me? Why will the kids not talk to me? Why is my boss a jerk? Why is all this stuff going on? Because we've stepped outside of the protection of God. God's children, under His authority and submission to God, also enjoy His protection. I love the example of the umbrella, and I've used that many times before. When we go from a building to a car in a rainstorm, we usually carry an umbrella with us. Why? Because we don't want to get wet. It doesn't make any sense to open an umbrella, hold it out to the side of you, and walk out in the rainstorm because your hand will stay dry, but the rest of you is going to get soaked. Why? Because we're out from underneath the protection of that umbrella. When we step outside the protection of God's covering, when we are not being submissive and obedient to Him, He hides His face, He will forsake us, and those evils will come. You can bank on it. And in that moment, they said, this was so bad, the troubles had come to such a degree, there were so many evils that they said, In that they have not these things come upon us because our God is not among us. Isn't it interesting that even in that prophecy, there was a moment when the children of Israel were realized that they were facing all the struggles, all the difficulties because God was not among them. I'm not going to argue with how Moses wrote this, but maybe it would be better said there wasn't that God wasn't among them. but that they weren't among God. That somehow they had stepped out from underneath God's protection. But the point is that God's conviction brings us to a point where life caters in on us, craters in on us, and we can't handle the struggles and the strife and the pain and all the evils that we are facing. And God draws us to a point where we realize that we are not in His presence. So what do we do? Beloved, I would suggest to you that that would be a very good place to repent and to turn back to the Lord to realize that if we will seek his face, as we saw last week, with all of our heart, all of our might, all of our strength, give it 100 percent, holding nothing back, that the Lord will be found. Seek the Lord while he is near. Repent from our evilness. Repent from our sin. That we will find him. But you want to know what the reality is in most people's lives? Well, let's continue to read in this Deuteronomy passage. He says, I will surely hide my face in that day because of all of the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods. That word hide in that particular verse, chapter 31, is God saying that I will continually again and again and again hide my face. It's in the imperfect. It's a repetitive action. This idea here is that it's not a one time thing, but that God will continue to hide his face. And when he hides his face, people begin to ask the question, where is God? Is God even alive or is God dead? Is God somewhere on vacation? Is he unconcerned with me? Maybe he's worried about other people. And when we think God is not watching, what do we do? We turn to our own devices. We turn to our own gods. Oh, we may not turn to little stone statues sitting in a shrine in our house, but don't we turn to our own intellect? Don't we turn to our own philosophy? Don't we turn to our own bank accounts? Don't we turn to our own influence? Don't we turn to our own accountability groups to somehow seek confession among mere human men without turning to the Lord and confessing our sins to him? We must not turn to our gods, but turn to the one and true living God, to Jehovah God, to the Father who is drawing us into his presence by revealing that we are powerless to change anything about our circumstance. And then finally this morning, God's conviction reveals that any hope of salvation is only found in complete submission to him. We don't like that word submission, do we? We don't like to submit to someone else. We don't like to, as the Greek term indicates, be an under rower, a hupotasso. It means to order ourself underneath someone else. We don't like that. We like to call the shots. Now, we might call that independence of America or independence of our nation. We might call it women's lib. We might call it children's lib. We might call it anybody else's lib. But I call it sin and depravity. I want to do what I want to do. And I don't want somebody else telling me what I must or can't do. We don't like to submit. But beloved, let me say this, that if there's any hope of salvation whatsoever, it must be found in submission to God. God is the only way. Jesus put it this way. I am the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but, and we might say, under me. Jesus said through me, but in that moment, he's describing a submission to God through the gospel. We must submit to God. Let's look at the very last part of verse 30 in Deuteronomy, chapter four, when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. A couple terms of note here. The term will return and the term obey are both in the perfect tense in the Hebrew. And what it means is that this whole thing that God is doing is designed to bring you back into repentance and back into obedience. I was walking around the house the other day, and Nancy has a book that she uses for some of her classes, and it might not come as a surprise to you, but the title of the book is called Hooray, I Obeyed. Now, I'm not sure what she does with that book when she teaches her classes, but I just thought it was an interesting idea. Hooray, I obeyed. Do we get excited about being obedient to God? Have we, in a moment when we know that we did something that was pleasing to the Lord, that we refrained from something that I wanted to do and did something that God wanted me to do, did we stop and say to ourselves, Hooray, I obeyed. Probably not. But shouldn't that be the heart of every Christian? Shouldn't that be the heart of every believer that we rejoice in obedience before the Lord, that we know what he would have us do and that we actually put it into practice by his power and by his strength? Yes, I say we should. God's conviction shows us that God's conviction shows us that that if there's any hope for us, it is found in that obedience and that repentance towards him. Acts chapter three, verse 19 to 23 says this. This is the Apostle Peter speaking, and he says, repent, therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out, that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time of restoring of all things about which God spoke through the mouth of the holy prophets long ago. Did you notice where Peter starts? In this discourse, he says, first of all, repent. We've been talking a lot about repentance this morning. We've been talking about turning from our old way of life and turning towards the new. Well, that's where Peter starts. He says, look, repent, therefore, and turn. It's turn away from the old self and turn towards God. And what is the outcome of that? That your sins may be blotted out, that the times of refreshing may come. That God's Spirit might indwell us in such a way that that abundance that Jesus talked about would be a reality in our life. Not abundance in terms of bank accounts and cars and homes, but abundance in terms of our relationship with God. That we would live relationally abundant with God. That we would understand His will for us. That we would understand that when the tribulation comes, he is drawing us into his presence by his purposes, that when difficulty and evil comes, that we would understand that we are powerless and we can't change it and that it would draw us into his presence and therefore find salvation either eternally or temporally, depending on where we are with the Lord. We must repent. We must turn that our sins are blotted out, that our transgressions are atoned for, that the blood of Christ that was shed on that cross and applied to our account would be realized, that we would stand before the Lord holy and blameless as He chose us before the foundation of the world. But that only comes through repentance and turning away from ourselves and turning towards the living God. He says that that comes from the presence of the Lord from his very hand. He sends that to us, that he might send the Christ appointed for you, that coming into the presence of God is only through Christ. Coming into the presence of God is not found in what church we're a member of. Coming into the presence of God is not found in all of the good things that I may or may not do. Only coming into the presence of God is found through the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the only way. How do I get there? How do my neighbors, how do my friends who have never heard the message of Christ, how do they get there? By our witness. As we go into the world and by the conviction of the Lord, share the very things that we've experienced here today. That we share the conviction that the Lord has put on our hearts. That we share with them that their eyes can be open to the reality of their circumstances, but only through Christ. Share with them the truth of the atoning work of Christ. Share with them their sinfulness. Share with them their depravity. Share with them the very word of God that brings people out of darkness and into life and doing it all as a 2 C 517 new creation. Not under legalism of, oh, well, I guess I got to do this, but know in life that God has changed me from something old to something new. Behold, if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things are new. The old things have passed away. And Paul says, behold, the new things have come. We need to be excited about what God has done in our lives. God brings the conviction that only through him can we find that kind of joy and that kind of abundance and reveal to us that we are powerless to get there in and of ourselves, but he will bring us if we will but repent. Great joy. Great joy. God's people ought to be the ones that in every moment of every day, regardless of what we face. Shout hallelujah, praise the Lord for what he has done. That's what Peter meant when he said from the presence of the Lord that he may send the Christ appointed for you. Jesus, whom heaven has must receive until the time restoring of all things that that even in that day, even as Christ had ascended into the heavens, that he sits at the right hand of the father, waiting the moment that the father would send him back to judge the living and the dead. You see, we just don't have unlimited time, right? As we go into the world and share the good news of the gospel, as we share with people what God has done in our life, one of the things that they say typically is, well, OK, not right now, maybe tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. Don't put it off, don't wait. Christ sits at the right hand of the Father and he will return to judge the living and the dead. But he goes on to say, receive to the time of restoring of all things. God will bring a consummation of the ages where he will restore all things, a new heaven and a new earth. And oh, by the way, our glorified body. We were talking about that Friday morning in our men's group and trying to decide, are we going to have hair or are we not going to have hair? Are we going to be overweight? We're going to be thin. We're going to be young. We're going to be old. I don't know. I have no idea. I told him I thought we'd probably all have old gray, long gray beards like the elders in Revelation. That didn't go over very well. I don't know what the glorified body is going to look like. Frankly, I don't care what the glorified body is going to look like. Why? Because whatever shape my glorified body is in, it'll be in the presence of God. Amen? And we're there to glorify Him, not to worry about what my body looks like. The times of restoring, God will bring those restoring, that time of restoring. Look also what Peter said in this passage. He says, Moses said, the Lord will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him and whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. It's interesting in the passage I read as we started our time today, Jesus said that if you don't repent, you'll perish. In that Luke passage, that word perish is in the middle voice. And what it means is that you will destroy yourself. And isn't that true about sin? That God at times, as Romans 1 says, turns us over to our wickedness, turns us over to our licentiousness and our sordid game. And everything in the world besides God becomes our idol. is the path to destruction, that we literally destroy ourselves. You see, in and of myself, I'm going to choose me. I was watching a movie, one of my favorite movies, last night. Oddly enough, I know it's weird, but I'm a Pirate of the Caribbean fan. I don't know why, but I am. And in the last of those movies, one of the characters is talking to another character and he's saying, don't come, don't save me. If my son comes and saves me, he loses you and I'd pick you over me. I wouldn't pick me. Well, I think that's a lie. I think given every opportunity, we would pick me. When I was lost in my sin and my depravity, I did pick me. And given every chance, I'll continue to pick me short of the grace of God living in my life. We're on a program to destroy ourselves. How do we avoid this program? Well, in case you just woke up and didn't listen to the rest of the message, through repentance. Why did God send the children of Israel into judgment for the rebellion? As Moses says at the end of verse 30, so that you will return to the Lord and obey his voice. God's revelation comes. He opens our eyes to the truth of our circumstances so that we will repent. My prayer today, as we consider what the Lord has said, is that he will bring a sense of conviction into every heart. No, we may not be axe murderers. We may not have done all the bad things that the world says are bad. But I promise you, somewhere along the line, either in thought or in deed, in the very quiet corners of our heart, we have chosen to do what I want to do and not what God would have me do. Now, for some of us, that might mean because we have never known the Lord God that we're lost in our sins and we're what I would call the natural person. Our understanding has never been open to the reality of Christ. And all I can do is sin against the Lord. I can't do anything else but. But for others of us here today, we're as the children of God, we've been redeemed. We've been changed. We don't have to live in sin, but at times we choose to live in sin. I pray that the Lord would bring conviction of our sins, whatever they may be, and that we on the heels of that would bring a solid need for repentance, that we would understand that we need to turn to the Lord and away from ourselves. And that in that moment, God's spirit would bring such a conviction. That the only option that we would have is not to fight it for ourselves and be Mr. Fix it. But to repent and turn to the Lord. Father, By your grace and by your mercy. By the indwelling of your spirit and by the preaching and the teaching of your word. Father, you have drawn us out of darkness, out of sin. And into conviction and repentance. Lord, I pray that today, as we reflect upon all that you have shown us. Lord, that our ears would not be dull, that our minds would not be closed. That our hearts would not be so hard, Father, that. Your spirit would not break them. And open them. And free them. Father, we pray that by the working of your spirit, that you would bring understanding into our minds and conviction into our hearts. And yes, repentance into the words of our mouth. And Lord, that we would give our hearts to you. Lord, reveal yourself in your fullest form. Show us, Father, our failings. Help us not to live in condemnation, but Father, to live in the glorious abundance that you bring as we submit to you and turn from ourselves. Father, we love you. We praise you. We thank you. And we ask all these things in your name. Amen.