If you're there in 2 Kings chapter number six, if you're there in 2 Kings chapter six, we're gonna read just one verse this morning and then we'll get started. 2 Kings chapter six, verse number one. 2 Kings chapter six, verse number one. And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too straight for us. Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too straight for us. And this morning for a little bit, I wanna talk to you about this, I'll preach about this thought. Is it really too straight for us? Is it really too straight for us? Let's pray. Father, I do pray that you bless. Lord, I do pray that you'd be with Mrs. Hinks this morning. I pray, Father, that you'd bless her, give the doctors wisdom. I pray, Father, that the medication, the treatments that they're doing, I pray, Father, that you'd help them to help her. Lord, I pray that you'd be with our Vacation Bible School next week. I pray, Father, that you'd bless that. I pray, Father, that you'd be with those that are in here today. Some of us weren't intending to be in the morning service. I pray, Father, that you'd bless. Give us what you'd have for us. I pray that you'd help us to be able to focus on you and on your word. Father, I pray that you be with our pastor today. I pray, Father, that you give him peace and comfort and strength. I pray, Father, that you bless there. And now, Lord, I pray that you give us each what we need from you. And I pray for this in Jesus' name. Amen. Elisha asked this question, he says, or the people came to Elisha and they said, the place where we dwell with thee It's too straight for us. Now, in context here, what they mean is there's just not enough space. And if you've ever been in a situation where there's just not enough space, sometimes it's a little bit uncomfortable. One of the days this week, we were trying to travel, and so we've got our church vans that we're using, and I think we had 16 guys. Somebody remind me, were there 16 of us? So we had 16 people crammed in our 15 passenger van, which is one more than should be. And some of our guys were a little bit, they count for two, let's just put it that way. So when you get 16 in there and a couple of them count for two, it gets a little bit tight inside the van. Now, I'm driving, so I'm great. It doesn't really bother me. But whenever we would stop and they would get out and it's time to get back in, there's like a line of guys waiting to be like the last couple in. They really don't want to get in there and have to cram. It's like, come on, guys, we've got to go. All right, get in, get in, get in. We gotta go, we gotta go. And if you ever try to follow a pastor while he's driving through Chicago, he's zipping this way, he's zipping that way, he'll pull up, and oh, the light's yellow. So he speeds up right through it, and then it's like, oh boy. So we're trying to keep up, trying to catch up, and trying to watch about what's going on there. So the guys in the back are also getting jostled around a little bit. It's nice when you're packed in really tight. You don't move around too much. But it's not very comfortable when it's too tight. But today though I don't want to talk about the fact that it's too tight. That is the actual definition of what this passage is talking about. The area, there just wasn't enough space for these guys. They needed to expand, they needed to move, they needed to build something bigger. But I want to look at it more of a figurative The place they were in, it was too straight. They say, what you're doing, Elisha, the way we are with you, it's just too straight for us. It's just too straight. We want to have something a little bit different. We want to kind of move some things. Is it too straight for you? Now, sometimes I find myself thinking the same thing. That's just a little bit too straight for me. That's just a little bit too much. Like, oh, that's a little bit too straight. Again, dealing with kids all this week, I'm sure it's going to come out a lot. But whenever we go with the young people, we always have dress codes for everything. And so I'm like, can we wear this t-shirt? Yeah, you can wear that t-shirt. Can I wear this? Well, you can wear that, but you have to do this. And can I wear these shoes? And constantly, I mean, every service, every day, we're going over what's allowed and what's not allowed, what's OK and what's not OK. And some of the young people, they've never been there. They don't know what's going on. They don't know what today's service is going to hold. Well, today after the service, they've got these activities going on. So this is how we're going to dress today. Or on this day, we're going to wear this and this. And sometimes they don't understand everything that's going to happen. Now, we've been there several times. And we understand what's happening. And we also are looking at it maybe from people looking in at the group. We want to see an entire group. We want them to look presentable as we're traveling together. So, you know, we've got some different rules. They have to wear collared shirts and, you know, no tennis shoes in church and different things like that. You know, we've got some different rules. We want them to adhere to just so the group looks nice and so we can find them when we're looking for them. All right, everybody are going to wear this. And so I'm going to go through our team this week was the purple team. And if you were here a couple weeks ago, Pastor, I guess, preached, I was in teen church, but I guess he preached about guys in pink. And so our whole team was purple. So we all had purple shirts on and purple bracelets on all week. And so that was, that was, that was fun. At least it wasn't pink, but, so we were the, We're the purple team. And for me, it's not just the purple team. It's also really close to K-State purple, which was really hard. I almost had like a, there's gotta be a verse in the Bible that talks about that K-State purple is not good to wear, but couldn't find it. So we are that purple team out there in our K-State colors all week long, the purple team. And so the kids have some questions. And sometimes, some of them, it's a legitimate question. Well, what's the big deal with not wearing this? Or why do I have to do that? Or why do we have to sit like this? Or we always keep our group all in one group, again, so we can find each other when we get out. There's 4,000 teenagers, and trying to find your one sometimes is hard. So we all sit in a group. And as soon as the service is over, we go to the next rendezvous. We'll go out to the vans. We'll rendezvous there. And then we'll go to this spot. We're going to meet there. And reasons behind that. Because in the past, we have, you know, went out with 17 and then you're waiting on, you know, you got 15, you're waiting on two kids to show up and it's, you know, it takes a while and then you have to go and find them and you start sending kids in to find them and then those two come back and you lost the three you sent and it's just a mess. So we've streamlined things. We've got some rules and some of those rules, sometimes young people say, well, why do we have to have these rules? Why can't I go sit with my friends? Why can't I go over here? Why can't, but from our point, yeah, these are pretty straight rules. That's pretty straight. but it's for your benefit and it's for my benefit, okay? If we're going to travel 10 hours from home and your parents are trusting you to me, I'm going to make sure we get you home and make sure we get you home safe. And also, you're not the only one on this trip. You know, I've got 28 people on this trip and you might want to go over there, but I've got 27 other people who really don't want to, so they're not going to go there. Many of you have been to White Castle, you know White Castle? We started in Wichita, but they're not around here and there's a reason for that. We stopped and we went to a white castle. And some of these guys, it's our, every year it's our... It's kind of like an initiation. You have to eat some white. You can't eat them until it's about 11.30 at night. Then you eat some White Castle with those little grilled onions. And then you put them to bed on their air mattresses. And then about 1 o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning, they're all kind of rolling around and getting up. And the heart burden sets in. And it's part of the initiation of youth conference trips. And so there's some rules. So everybody's got to try a White Castle. Everybody's got to try one. It's like our Lord's Supper, but with white Castleburgers, you know. It's due in remembrance of... So we do these different things. Well, part of those things we do, you know, it's for fun, but is it too straight? Is it too straight for you? So I want to look at this passage here. We're going to just walk through this passage now and step through it. And as we go through it, we're going to kind of look at what they said and what they did. So understand what they said. They said, this place was too straight for us. The place was too straight for us. Let me grab my axe here. that chopped down a tree. He said the place was too straight. Now, if you've ever been in a place that's too tight, If you've ever been in a place that's too tight, too small, too small of a car, too small of a house, too small of a place, you're all crammed in together. Again, I've got nine brothers and sisters. There were a lot of times we were crammed in vehicles that were too small. In fact, I was thinking the other day, I don't know if, Brother Smith, if you remember, years ago you guys broke down. We were on our way home and we had our little station wagon. And so the Daniels family, and at that time there was probably like 10 of us, not kids, but like probably eight kids, and the Smith family, and I don't know how many of you there were then, at least six or seven, probably eight kids. we dad pulled over and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with the van or whatever so we crammed brother and mrs. Smith brother and mrs. Daniels and then like 16 kids and this Ford station wagon and we put the back seats down and the boys were in the back and so like we're all crammed in the back and people sitting on people and then the girls were in the other seat and like it's just you know one thing and so there's one two three four five six six girls or something crammed in there so you know close one door push them in push them in push them in then close the other door then the guys go around back and we all keep climbing and climbing in like guys are on top of each other and we drove from I don't it was somewhere before I don't know Baldwin area or something somewhere on 59 highway going down to Ottawa and drove all the way back down to Ottawa that was tight That was a little too straight for me. That was a little too straight. That was a little too tight. A little too tight there. That's what's the problem with these people. They say, hey, we're a little tight here. We're all crammed together. We need some breathing room. We need some space. Come on, give us some space, Elisha. What we're doing with you is good, but it's just too tight for us. So, look what they say, verse number two. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take every fence, every man a beam, and let us make us a place where we may dwell. And he answered, go ye. First thing they said, they said, hey, it's too tight. This is too tight. This is too much for me. Let us go. Let's go. Let us go. Let us go. And a lot of times, that's hard. That's hard, what we say, too. God, I want to do what's right, but this is just a little too straight for me. Let me go, God. Let me go. Let me go do what I want to do. Look at all these times I've talked about us and me and we. Let us go, that we can go and every man can do this and each of us will find us a place. There's another time in the Bible we see very similar wording. They said, hey, let us go and build us a tower that can reach us to the heavens so we can be like God. And that Tower of Babel, God wasn't that happy with, was he? Very similar to what these people are saying. These are not, these aren't bad people. Understand, these are the sons of the prophets. These are the good guys. These aren't the evil Baal worshipers of the day. These are the good guys. And they said, Elisha, this is just too straight for us. Can't we be like everybody else and have us some space? Can't we do, let us go. Can't we just go? Can we just go get some space? And really what they were saying is, can't we just do it our way? Can't I just do it my way? Does it have to be God's way? Elisha, do we have to be where God told you to be? Can't we go and do our own thing? Can't we go and do it our way? I mean, we'll do a good thing, we're just gonna do it our own way. Can't we just go our own way? And sometimes church family, that's what we do too, I do it too. Say, yeah, God, I know this is what's right and I know this is what's wrong, but can't I just do it my way? Can't I just maybe tweak on the rules just a little bit? Can't I just go, I mean, we do it with different things. A lot of times it's with our standards. And let me just have my own standards. And the truth is, everybody has standards. We all do. Every place has standards. I live outside of Perry. If I go into Perry, the gas station there in Perry, if I walk into the gas station in Perry without shoes on, there's a big sign on the door, because it's close to the lake. They will not serve me. No shirt, no shoes, no service. And I've been in there before with people. And guys jump out of their boat, and they run in there. And they are hard-nosed about it. I mean, hard-nosed. Guy will be running in there like, I'm just grabbing a bag of ice. No, gotta go put some shoes on man." He's like, well, can't I just get the ice? Like, no shoes, no shoes. Guy will jump off and he'll come running in there without his shirt on and they'll be, hey sir, hey look, we want to give you something but we got a policy, no shirt, no service. And they are there, they're sticklers for that. And that's their standard, that's their rule. Well God has some standards and some rules too in the Bible. And everybody's got standards. It's just some people's standards are different than ours. I mean, there's standards. There's some things that are allowed, some things that aren't allowed. Just if they're different than ours, anybody who has more standards than us is a fanatic. Anybody who has less standards than me, well, they're liberal. Like, that's a liberal guy. I mean, look at all those things he's doing, because I do better than that. Anybody who does more than me, oh, man, he's a fanatic. He's crazy. I mean, I would never do that. We've all got standards, right? But what our basis for our standards should be is this book right here. So if I base my standards on this book, then my standards don't change. But see, these guys are trying to change the standard. They said, Elisha, let us go. What are they wanting to do? They're wanting to move. They wanted to move the standards. Let us go and let us build ourselves our own things. Let us go and do this. And they want to change the standards. First thing I see, the place is too straight, so what we want to do, hey, let's change some standards. Let's just change, let's change some standards. I don't know if you keep up with like NFL, I'm a huge football guy, every year they keep changing these football rules. So this year I heard, I heard the other day they're changing a couple more football rules. A couple of them maybe for the better, a couple of them maybe for the worse. But every year, they change the football rules. But the announcers, when they were talking about it, they said, listen, it's going to be bad for preseason. But once the regular season gets there, things kind of even out. And the referees kind of go back to how they've always called the game. Like, this is going to be a point of emphasis. And maybe the first couple of games of the season, last season, it was the helmet to helmet hits and the targeting and some of that stuff. And it was really tight for the first couple of games. They say the players figure out how to hit differently, but they really don't. The referees just quit calling it because they go back to what the rules were. We can try to move the standard, but eventually it comes back. And that's what Elisha said. He said, look, we're fine here. And they said, no, no, no, it's too tight for us. Let us go and make our own standards. Let's move our standards. And they did. Second thing he said, look down at verse number three. He says, and one said, be content, I pray thee, go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. Say, well, what's the big deal about moving the standard? What's the big deal about the way being too straight? Well, here's the problem. One of the problems is that we take others with us. And that's what happened here. They came to Elisha. Elisha, come with us. Come with us. Anytime I start feeling like a place is too straight. I also start pulling people with me. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause, let us swallow them up alive as the grave and whole as those that go down into the pit. What did Solomon say? My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. No. No. No. I see it all the time. Again, dealing with the teenagers, we see it all the time. You get a couple of kids that are kind of like wanting to do their own thing, but they don't want to go off and do their own thing by themselves because they know, like, I'm not going to go there and get in trouble. So what do they do? They start talking to their friends. Hey, I'm going to go in here. And sometimes it's not bad. Sometimes it's good. I want to go get a drink in this gas station. Do you want one? Not really. Come on, will you go with me in there? And it used to be like a girl thing, like girls can't go to the bathroom by themselves. They're always like six of them. But now it's like even the guys are like, hey, I'm going to go get a candy bar. Can you come with me? Let's go get a candy bar. They're like, right there. No, come on, let's go together. And then, like, if one person gets one thing, then somebody else has to get that same thing that they got. So for us, monster energy drinks are, I guess, were they monster? I don't know. They're energy drinks of some sort. These energy drinks are, like, the big thing. So one guy's like, hey, I'm going to get an energy drink. Well, you get an energy drink, too, and be like me. And, you know, let's drink these together and be up all night. It's like, guys, you know, your funeral. We want to be like everybody else. We just want to be like everybody else. Ironically, we say we want to stand out, but we want to stand out and be like everybody else. And sometimes when we try to be like everybody else, Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth. He said, you're the light of the world. Sometimes it's hard for Christians just to be like everybody else. We're going to stand out a little bit. We're supposed to stand out a little bit. We're not supposed to be the salt hath lost its savor or the candle that's been hidden under the bushel. We're supposed to stand out a little bit. So if I'm going to stand out a little bit, I can't be like everybody else. And that's what the sons of the prophets wanted. Hey, let us have some space. This place is too straight for us. Let's just be like everybody else. Let's just be like everybody else. And they said, hey, Elisha, why don't you come with us? Remember when the children of Israel wanted a king? Let us be like all the other countries and give us a king. Samuel said, God, I don't know what to do. Hey, they've not rejected you, Samuel. They've rejected me. They rejected me. They wanted to be like everybody else. We see this, want to be like everybody else, want to be like everybody else. Remember when Jeroboam set up the golden calf in Dan and the other one in Bethel, so they could be like everybody else. Hey, you don't have to go up to Jerusalem to worship. Just come right down here. You can worship here. And in this, he made Israel to sin. And how many times do we see that little phrase? And they went to the sin of Jeroboam. And they went after those calves of Jeroboam. And he did good, except in the area of the calves of Jeroboam. Those calves were a problem. consistently, because he was going to be like everybody else. Hey, we just want to be like everybody else. First thing I see is, whenever the way is too straight for me, I want to go ahead and break off and do my own thing. Whenever the way is too straight for me, I want to do my own thing, but I want to take somebody with me, too. You know, I don't want to go down alone, I want to take somebody with me. And that's what he did. And then the third thing it says, down in verse number four, it says, so he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, They cut down wood. But as one was felling a beam, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried and said, Alas, Master, for it was borrowed." Notice the third thing that happened is when they got, as we're doing this thing, I want to go and do my own thing. But I want to do my own thing and I want to take some people with me. And then in doing my own thing and taking some people with me, I begin to fell down some wood. I begin to knock down some things. In order for this to work, I've got to knock down some things. And that's what we end up doing. We start knocking down some different things. And so, like, OK, well, this is what I was taught, but I'm going to change. I want to do some things this way. This is what my parents always taught, but I want to change some things. I want to do it a different way. What we do is we take an axe, and we start chopping down some different things. And that's what these guys started to do. They started chopping down things. Now, I know an axe looks like a fun way to cut down a tree. And, you know, you see it in the movies and stuff. They go and chop down trees with axes. Like, wow, that's cool. But it's a lot harder than it looks. It's a lot harder than it looks. This summer at camp, one of the guys, Connor, had a hatchet. So he had his killer hatchet out there. And so we're always looking for something to hatch it. So like, oh, we're going to cut down that tree. It's like, yeah, go get a chainsaw. Brother Daniels, I've got my hatchet. It's like, all right, we're going to use a chainsaw on this one, buddy. But a couple of times we did use the hatchet. The hatchet came in handy. And we were out there, and one day we hit these 2 by 12s or 2 by 10s, I don't know, about yay tall, these boards. And we got Connor's hatchet. And we took that hatchet, kind of hold the board and do some karate stuff, and swing that hatchet, hit that board. And if you hit it just right, just right, one hit, you could bust that board all the way down and split it into two pieces and go flying across the room. And I don't know. I thought it looked pretty cool. I don't know. The guys were in there. It was fun. It was fun. We destroyed, like, a lot of boards. Eventually, we're running out of boards. Had to find new boards so we could destroy more because it was fun. And then guys wanted to try it. So they would get up there, and they would get the hatchet, and they would come to swing. And they'd swing, and thud. Or the worst ones, when they miss the board entirely, like, whoa. You guys, you're going to hit yourself in the calf. We're probably not going to play this anymore. You're done. Nope, nope. Or it slips out of their hand and goes across the room. It's like, nope, you're done. No more hatchet for you. As we're playing with the hatchet, we find out, you know, it's a lot harder, it's a lot easier said than done to cut something down with an axe. It's a lot easier said than done sometimes to knock some things down with a hatchet. These guys came through and they said, hey, we're going to go fell us some trees. We're going to go knock us down some things. We've got to knock down some of these rules. We want to knock down some of this stuff. These things, these trees, it takes years for trees to grow. It really does. I'm not good with an axe. I'm decent with a chainsaw. With a chainsaw, I can take down a tree pretty quick. But an axe, you know, it's possible. It doesn't take years to take it down with an axe. You know, maybe a half hour or so if it's a big tree. You can fell through a tree pretty easy. Took years for that tree to grow. I knocked it down in a matter of minutes. And the funny thing about trees is once you cut them down, it's really hard to put them back up again. Like, oops, wrong tree. My bad. When we were growing up, My aunt had a property. We'd go out there and cut firewood. I remember one time we went out there to cut down some firewood. Dad said, all right, we're going to take down this tree, and this tree, and this tree. We went back in there, and we forgot which trees we were supposed to. We just started chopping down trees. And he came out there, and we'd like, oh, that was the apple tree, guys. Oops. Like, well. You know, we cut it down, let's just stand it back up. I'm sure it'll be fine, right? No, it doesn't work that way. Once you cut down an apple tree, you know, George Washington, right? You find out they don't grow back very easy. They don't, you can't just stick it back in there and like, oh, my bad. It's gone. It's years to regrow it. It takes a long time to get them. And that's kind of the same thing with some of these standards, some of these different things. It's too straight for me. And so we go through and we start knocking them down. And it's not easy, but they do come down fairly quickly compared to how long it took to get them up there. Kind of like a reputation takes years to build and minutes to destroy. Sometimes some of those things we go and attack. Maybe it's too straight for me, the language. When we were growing up, my parents were really, really strict about what we could say and what we couldn't say. So some people think, oh, that's not that bad of a thing to say. For us, it was like, ooh, you don't say that. That's bad. So they were really like death on certain terms. I'm not allowed to say those words, I'm not allowed to say those slang words or those words." Like, nope, nope. I mean, that was bad. Like, soap in the mouth bad. Like, looking back, it's like, man, that's not even that bad of a word. I mean, wildcat. That's bad. No. So, certain words we just did not say around the house, you know. You didn't talk about certain things. Cowboys. There's certain terms that we just didn't use, you know. But in all seriousness, sometimes we go and we start chopping down some of those things, start chopping down the things that we say. Sometimes we start chopping down, maybe it's, you know, well, what's the big deal with this entertainment? You know, whatever it is, whether it's a movie or whether it's music, whatever. For us, we seem to really get hung up on this thing about entertainment. Like, oh, I don't see what's so wrong with this. What's so bad about this? And we find ourselves allowing that straight way to maybe start to slip. And we start chopping. And the cool thing about trees, or the unique thing about chopping down trees, if you ever go out and start chopping a tree, whether you use a chainsaw, whether you use an axe, the tree doesn't just lay down on the ground. It kind of starts to fall, starts to fall, and then it goes down. And that's how it is a lot of times with standards, too. A lot of times, this way is too straight for me! And it starts to lean. And it starts to lean. And it starts to lean. And eventually, that center of gravity is too much for the strength that's left in the tree, and the whole thing falls over. But again, once it's down, it doesn't go back up. We go out sometimes and we take those standards and we start chopping on those standards. We say, this is too straight for me. Maybe it's church attendance. Oh, why do I have to go to church all the time? Wouldn't just once a month on Sunday be okay? We start chopping on these things. Start chopping on the standards. Oh, what's the big deal about giving? You know, I'll give what I can. You start chopping on these, we start chopping on these, some of these different rules. This way is too straight for me. It's too straight for me. But then the tree falls. Now this guy, who's out there in the story, if you remember the story, we haven't read through it yet. As he's chopping down one of the trees, the axe head flies off his axe. And it goes down in the water and he can't find it. He says, oh no, Master, Elisha, I borrowed that axe. I need your help. Oh no, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? If you remember, Elisha goes and gets a twig and throws it in the water and the axe head swims up so they can get it back out of there. But that's what we do all the time. See, we go out and we start chopping on those different things, those trees that are our Christian life. We start chopping on those trees and then when those trees fall down, we find out that this is kind of trouble. This is kind of trouble. And then we come running back to God, in this case the man of God, we come running back and says, Alas, Master, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And God in his mercy says, hey, I'll help you. I'll help you. If I'm Elisha, I say, buddy, You wanted to come down here. I didn't tell you to. You're the one that was chopping on the tree. I didn't tell you to do it. And you're the dummy who dropped the axe in the thing. If you want it, swim. You know, good luck. Not my fault. That's not what he says. That's me. That's Josh Daniels justice. You dug your major bed, you lie in it. You dug the hole, you fell in it. That's your problem, not mine. Elisha says, hey, I'll help you. He throws the stone in there and helps it come back up. But isn't that so often what we do? We cut back on standards. We cut back on the different things. We allow our trees to lean. And then when they do fall over, no one can run back. God, God, now what? God, I'm in this predicament. I'm in this situation. God, I don't want to be here. God, help me. God says, now wait a second. You knew what you should have done. You did the opposite of what you should have done. And Now you find yourself in this situation. It's okay, I'll help you. And that's the graciousness of our God, the mercy of our God. His mercies are new every morning. That blows my mind, because that's not what I am. I have a hard time comprehending that. But that's what God does for us. So we go and we cut back on sins, we cut back on these things, and then we find ourselves in trouble. We find ourselves, you know, It's happened to me before financially where I'll go and I'll know what I'm supposed to do, but I'll spend my money on things I want to do, not on things I need to do. And then when the needs come up, I don't have the money to cover the needs, and I think, God, God, I need your help. You said if I gave and if I did this stuff you would help me out. And God says, yeah, but I didn't say if you, you know, went to Pizza Hut five times in a week that I was going to pay your electric bill too. You know, you chose to do that, not me. And yet God in his mercy says, but, but. I'll throw a twig in the water. I'll help, I'll do a miracle here and help this axe head to float. I'll do something great. I know you got yourself in this situation, but I'll help you get out of it." That's the mercy of our God. All too often we go and we cut down standards and we say, hey, what's the big deal? I mean, hey, they're just kids. Let them, let them, let them go off alone. I mean, yeah, they're not going to get in that much trouble. And then they do. And then we're worried and we don't know what to do. Alas, God, now what? God says, hey, I can take this situation. I can still help. I can still do something great here. I can still do something incredible. I can do something miraculous. And I can save that. I can make the axe head to float. But Elisha would never have had to throw a stick in a river and make an axe head to float. The miracle would never have needed to happen had the people just been where they should have been in the first place. They said, no, this place is too straight. We're going to go off and do our own thing. Got themselves into a situation, got themselves into trouble. Man of God came through and saved him. But they were somewhere they shouldn't have been in the first place. And throughout the scripture, we see that over and over and over again. Abraham deciding to go down to Gerar because of the famine. Isaac deciding to go into Egypt because of a famine. Like, what are you doing there, guys? God, we need your help. Yeah, you need his help, but you shouldn't have been there in the first place. And God comes through and helps them, but they shouldn't have been there in the first place. The reason they got there is because the place was too straight. And oftentimes, that's what happens to us. It happens to me. Oh, this is too straight. These rules are too tight. Let's just loosen up a little bit. God's book, ah, it's not relevant today. Come on, it's 2019. This book is thousands of years old. It's not relevant today. And I try to loosen things up a little bit. And I find myself in trouble. And I find out that the God who wrote this book, wrote this book not just for year one and 100 AD, but also for year 2020 AD too. And it's just as applicable today as it was then. And the rules he put in here for us to live by, those trees that are in this book that protect us, those trees that are in there that we like to hack down, those trees are there for my benefit and for yours too. So the next time before we go and start hacking down trees, before we start getting a little bit discontent with how straight the place is, remember why it's so straight. Remember the protection that's in there. This week, yesterday, yeah, yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. We were in Chicago, and in Chicago they have a, I don't remember which one it was, it was from Apollo 8. They have the Apollo 8 capsule that actually, Apollo 8 went around the moon and came back, it's the first one that went around, around the moon and came back to earth. It didn't, they didn't land on the moon in 8, that was 11, so this was 1967, they sent this one around the moon. So 1967, they actually have the, they actually have the little capsule from 1967. It's sitting in there. And so I was walking by and I looked inside and they were going to send, we're going to send three humans, we're going to send them hundreds of thousands of miles from our planet, incredibly fast speeds. We're talking like, you know, Mach 10, Mach 20, they're really booking when they get out there, get outside the Earth's atmosphere, you're flying. And then they wanted to bring them back and their successful mission, their mission statement is to send them around the moon and bring them back successfully. and then C successfully is alive. They wanted to bring them back alive. As long as they could get them back to earth alive, they were good. Now they could be maimed and they could be hurt, but as long as they were alive, that's success. We're gonna count that. So we looked inside this little capsule. And this thing's got, I mean, they had some cutaways on it so you could see, and they've got all this protection all the way around there, all this protection around there. But those little capsules, those capsules, I mean, those rockets are huge. We're talking like, you know, the Saturn V was like 300 feet tall or something crazy. I mean, we're talking huge. It's like we're talking like the Statue of Liberty blasting up into space. I got the Statue of Liberty going up into space with three people on it. Those three people that are on the Statue of Liberty, the room that they're in, it's like, Two of these pulpits put together. I mean, that's their space. That's what they've got to come back in. It is tiny. I mean, tiny, tiny. And they're on this itty bitty cot. I looked inside there. I'm not a small boy. I don't know that I could fit inside. I definitely couldn't fit in one of the seats. And maybe on two. But then my legs would be all, I mean, there's not a lot of leg room either. I mean, you're all crammed. You've got to be a small guy. They had like height restrictions for these astronauts and stuff. Talk about a tight place. Talk about a tight place to get inside. But those guys knew, hey, if we're going to successfully make it out there, if we're going to get back and not be dead, we're going to cram inside this really small capsule. We're going to travel hundreds of thousands of miles out around the moon. We're going to travel all these hundreds of thousands of miles back. And then, of course, when it comes back into the atmosphere, the whole thing gets really hot. And they said if you touch the side of it, it would burn through your flesh like super fast. So like you can look, there's scorch marks all on the inside, on the inside. The outside's scorched too, but the inside's still scorched. And that's 52 years afterward. It's still scorched on the inside. I said, don't touch that. And there's these little protective things so they can kind of sit in the middle and things to strap their arms in. And you have to wear their suits and strap in and put all these straps on and hold on tight. And that brings you back down. And then they're going to drop the parachutes and they're going to crash in the ocean in this itty bitty tight space. What would it have been if one of those astronauts was like, this is a little tight for me. You know what? I think I want some space. I'm just going to ride outside this little capsule for a little bit. I mean, seriously, that's not going to work. What if, hey, this is a little tight for me, I think I'm just going to unbuckle and stretch out a little bit. I mean, we like to, you know, drive around and unbuckle. I'm just going to unbuckle these straps a little bit, give myself a little bit of space and, you know, you come dropping in at like whatever the, you know, incredible speeds and the G-force on your body, you're dropping through the atmosphere. He'd be plastered on the ceiling of the spaceship, you know, he'd be, you know, he'd be, he obviously wouldn't have survived. No, they knew enough to say, you know what? These seatbelts are designed for our protection. This itty-bitty little capsule inside this 300-foot-tall rocket, it's designed for our protection. This whole thing is put in here, and they crawled down, they got inside, and I'm sure it wasn't comfortable. It took them almost two and a half days to get to the moon, and two and a half days to get back, crammed in that little bitty seat. I have a hard enough time driving 15 minutes to my house. 10 hours to Chicago with, you know, when we space out and we're traveling those far, that's, you know, if it's a 15 passenger van, we travel with 13 and a 15 and 10 and a 12. So you've got some space, you know, some leg room. So we take extra vehicles so we can spread out a little bit. These guys are crammed in there for days. It's not like you can look out the window and see anything interesting. It's just black. You're like, oh, that's nice. For days, crammed in that little bitty space. You see, they got back safely. And they lived to tell about it. In fact, one of the guys from that Apollo 8 mission was Jim Lovell. He went on Apollo 13. And that's the one that had all the problems. And they came back, and they got back safe, too. And I was just laughing. He's like, hey, you know what? This is getting a little crazy. Eventually, eventually, he finally gets to the moon. But they got back safe because they were willing to cram into that thing. We said, boy, that's kind of uncomfortable, isn't it? but it's protected. Sometimes I look at my Christian life and say, that's a little straight. That's a little tight. Eh, that's sitting a little close to home. I don't really like that rule. I don't really understand this. I don't know why. And I'm sure that those astronauts inside there didn't understand why the different levers were where they were and why the different straps were where they were and why the seat had to have like the little piece of rope running through it that it did and why you could only be 5 foot 2 and why your weight had to be between 128 and 138 pounds or whatever it was. I mean, like, why do I have to be this much? Why can't I only be this tall? You cram inside there. It's for your protection. Because we want to get you home alive. And God looks down from heaven and he says, listen, I've got some rules. I've got some protections here. And I want to get you through life alive spiritually. I want to make sure that everything works out like it's supposed to. And sometimes all we do is say, God, this is so straight. God, why do I have to have this? God, why does this have to be here? This was my teen church message for this morning. Really, it's more about following rules that mom and dad give us. But it's applicable for following rules that our Heavenly Dad gives us too. Our Heavenly Father says, hey, I've got some rules for you. But why do I have to follow these rules? Why do I have to do all these things? You want to get through life safe? You want to come back alive? Just follow the rules. And fortunately, let us go. Come with us. And hey, let's knock down some trees. Don't work out so good for them. Let's pray.