Why is there a divide?
Many of us in this room are frustrated.
Reminds me of when you send out an
invitation to 1,000 people for a morning
prayer service where we seek the heart of
God and 20 people show up.
And you're like, what's going on?
Why don't they share my passion?
In the first point here, I just wanna
throw out there, I think it's gonna help
some people.
There is a divide because God gives us
different callings.
And he's not called some people to political
things or abortion topics.
And some he's given a passion for the
homeless.
Some he's given the passion for addicts.
Some he's given a passion.
And what happens is we follow that passion
and we say, why isn't everybody else following
my passion?
And then this person's, because in my area,
it's very diverse, but the sex slave trafficking,
for example, is horrific, what's going on in
Los Angeles County.
Actually trafficking, 12, 13, it's unbelievable.
And there's ministries supporting that.
But Shane, why don't you come over and
help us more?
And then abortion, why don't you come over
and help us more?
We've got a homeless community.
Why don't you come over and help us
more?
And you can get frustrated.
And we start to, the enemy will use
that against us because that's where the root
of bitterness takes place.
That's where we start to get disgruntled and
complain.
And that's why, what we referenced earlier in
the prayer this morning, that you plus God
is the majority.
You plus God is the majority.
And the problem, I'm gonna get to in
a minute, I think there is a solution.
But that sets the framework because you're not
gonna have John MacArthur very political, but try
to tell him to tell Tony Perkins, Family
Research Council, or Dobson, not to get involved
politically, or J.
Secular.
You have all, and they're like, and then
this group is upset at this group.
Why aren't you more political?
Now, there's valid points in all of that.
I think our primary goal as pastors is
to preach the gospel.
That's the primary focus.
But if you look at the prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,
Nahum, you know it, you preach from it.
They were statesmen.
They were reformers.
They were authors.
They shook their culture.
And that's the role, I believe, as a
pastor is to be a watchman and to
let the people know what the heart of
God is.
That's why it cracks me up when they
say churches can't talk about, I mean, I
get emails all the time writing for the
Christian Post and different, you can't talk about
religion and politics.
I mean, they're not, you know, separation of
church and state, Shane.
Well, just do a little research, separation of
church and state's not in the Constitution.
Many of you know, for 150 years, our
nation didn't know anything about that.
Spurgeon would preach against slavery.
It was common for the pulpit to be
the voice of the nation.
That's where the nation discerned truth.
The pulpit would be that voice.
The pulpit would not be ashamed.
They would declare what is right and wrong.
Now, we've come to such a point that
we don't want to offend anybody.
And actually, the gospel is offensive.
And I get criticized for this, and I
prayed about saying this or not, but in
these dire times, Joel Osteen's sermons are not
gonna cut it.
This is, it's not gonna cut it.
You're not gonna see a national awakening and
repentance without avoiding anything difficult.
You can't, so a pastor should be able
to lovingly fill with the Spirit of God,
speak boldly to our culture.
That's the role of the pastor.
So they silence it.
You can't talk about those things, really.
Says who?
God's Word is very clear on this.
And it's interesting, the book I wrote there,
D.
James Kennedy endorsed it right before he passed
away, and we had a little bit of
dialogue.
But he exposed me to a lot of
history about our nation and reading about our
nation.
And I love early revivals, Welsh revivals, and
awakenings, and just that passion for that.
But reading some of that material, I came
across, I can't pronounce his name, Alex something,
de Tocqueville, I think it is, who wrote
or authored Democracy in America.
And they can't quite attribute the quote, I
couldn't find the exact reference, but he said
something like this, that he had to study
why America was so great.
So he sought for her greatness in her
fertile fields and in her boundless prairies that
wasn't there, in her vast world commerce, and
in her gold mines that wasn't there.
He sought for it, but he said, it
wasn't until I went to the churches in
America and I heard her pulpits aflame with
righteousness, then I understood the greatness to her
success.
She is great because she is good, and
if she ever ceases to be good, she
will cease to be great.
See, A.W. Tozer said the same word
of God that encourages us must convict us,
it must.
Conviction is biblical preaching, and we've drifted from
that.
I mean, you better, I'm gonna move this
case, it's too loud.
But you might as well get it over
with, you're not gonna be popular.
And I often, when I talk to pastors,
sometimes there's a message I have, the price
of popularity.
And we've, wanting to be popular with people,
you're not gonna be popular with God.
It is absolutely impossible.
So that's the foundation, don't get disgruntled.
I get disgruntled all the time.
Why aren't we seeing revival?
Why aren't we seeing if my people who
are called by my name will simply humble
themselves and seek my face and turn from
their wicked way and pray, there's your answer.
Not Trump, not Clinton, not new legislation.
I'm all for good legislation, godly leaders.
But if my people would just humble themselves,
the same people upset at our candidates are
putting 50 Shades of Grey in the top
10 list of books.
Come on, wake up, church.
No wonder, no wonder.
The call is to us, not Hollywood.
It's to us, not Washington.
If my people.
So back to the video, this topic is
very relevant.
One in three, one in four.
More people will be facing this issue.
And I hear this often, you know, we
don't, we gotta be careful with those who
are in our audience.
And if, absolutely.
I have people struggling with homosexuality, as do
you.
I have people struggling with, caught in adultery,
pornography, transgender, had an abortion, considering.
You know, we have all that, but, not
saying anything so we don't offend is like
not saying anything about sin, so we don't
offend.
See, we never come to the pulpit.
At least, I never come to the pulpit
saying, that prayer, I can't offend.
I come to the pulpit saying, God, I
wanna speak your word through the power of
the Holy Spirit.
And the problem is, many of us, and
I'm including myself in here, pastors, it's time
to get back to the prayer closet.
That's how you're gonna change this nation.
You're gonna be broken before God.
You're gonna come up out of that prayer
closet, broken and humbled, and preach your heart
out because now you have the heart of
God.
That's how you change a nation.
Now we're looking at fads and pop psychology
to prepare our sermons.
A sermon comes from the prayer closet, where
God prepares the messenger before he prepares the
message.
Biblical preaching convicts and it restores.
And what I'm trying to do is give
you practical application because we can all come
here and say, okay, that was wonderful, now
what?
Biblical preaching, we've gotta get back to biblical
preaching, biblical teaching, where God has our heart.
And there are two extremes.
You have this extreme, where they're just gonna
throw scripture on you, and they're gonna pound
abortion, and then hell in a handbasket, America,
America, America.
You know, it's going to hell, and you
gotta repent, and you gotta, and I love
those types of sermons.
But it better be underscored with grace and
love, or it's not, it's gonna fall on
deaf ears.
But then now, which is actually more alarming,
and I've written another book, Answers for a
Confused Church, talking about what was back a
while ago, the emergent church movement, where you
have this whole movement as not to offend.
Replace the pulpit with a couch, replace preaching
with conversation, and let's just dialogue and converse,
and let's just come alongside in love, and
not convict and hurt and all these things,
shame, just love.
Well, the problem with that is nobody changes
when they're not convicted.
See, the heart of God is to bring
conviction and restoration.
Very first, very first sermon ever preached, you
all know it, church was born, Peter comes
out and says, they're not drunk, this is
that, which the prophet Joel spoke of, that
in the last days, and then he goes
on to say, but you stiff-necked people,
you put Christ on the cross.
That's not gonna win him a very, if
you're starting to chart a religion, that's not
a good idea.
And then what happened?
What must we do to be saved?
Brought the comfort.
So if we can, that's my heart, if
we can get pastors back to that broken,
humble state, want to be servants of God,
not popularity contest, and Lord, what do you
wanna see?
You will see a nation change, because the
nation changes from the inside out.
And I run across people, I'm sure to
you, the end is coming, there's not much
we can do.
Well, all I know is I'm supposed to
do business until he returns.
I've got four little kids, all under 11,
I'm leading as a father.
I've got a church I'm leading.
There's a revival type that's taking place in
our nation.
I'm not giving up.
God plus you plus one is a majority.
So now that we've identified, we should be
preaching the totality of God's word.
The totality, what I mean by that is
the full counsel of God.
So here's, when you teach through God's word,
you will hit on abortion.
And you will hit on gay marriage.
And it's not that we don't love, we
love those people.
But God's word is crystal clear on this
issue.
And if we don't believe in the inerrancy
of Scripture, not to offend, but I have
a tendency to do that, you're in the
wrong position.
You cannot lovingly challenge people with God's word
and not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture,
that all truth is given by God, that
these are difficult truths given to save man.
That's preaching the totality of God's word.
God, Jesus was full of grace and truth.
And finding that balance is difficult.
You know, you're either all truth and no
grace, or you can be all grace and
no truth, but you have to find that
middle ground.
That's the totality of Scripture, working through the
word of God, lead of the Spirit, lead
of the Spirit.
When I say that, some people go, oh
no, here he goes.
And other people say, praise God.
Why is that?
Well, we could talk about right charismatics on
one side and conservatives on the other, and
people, where are you at, Shane?
I like to find the middle ground.
I need the power of the Holy Spirit.
I need him daily.
It's the part of the triune nature of
God that works through man.
Even Jesus began his ministry in the power
of the Spirit.
So as we're led of the Spirit, and
I'm preaching this Sunday on not by might
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord.
And that is a tremendous verse, because we
look at God allowing a pagan king, Cyrus,
to let the children of Israel go back
and rebuild the temple under Zerubbabel.
And it's how am I going to do
this?
Not by might nor by power, but by
my Spirit, saith the Lord.
I will move that mountain and make it
a plain.
So when we go through, in God's Spirit,
he moves the mountain, and that requires humility
and brokenness and being led by the Spirit.
And there's a book I wanna recommend.
If you've ever read it, I would pick
it up.
It's called They Found the Secret.
And it's not some weird Hollywood thing about
the secret.
It's short biographies of Oswald Chambers, John Bunyan,
George Whitefield, D.L. Moody.
All of them, most of them, were dying
in their ministry until they were mightily filled
with the Spirit of God.
So my pneumatology on this, which is the
study of the Holy Spirit, is we have
all of the Holy Spirit at conversion, but
does he have all of you?
See, that's the missing link.
Pastors should be the most broken, humble people
before God.
They should be fasting and praying, and then
from that, they are mightily filled with the
Spirit, and they are the voice of truth
redirecting the culture, maybe one person at a
time.
It doesn't matter.
We want these big movements.
We wanna fill these places.
God just says, I just want a few
people submitted to me, and I'll move mountains.
So being led by the Spirit is vitally
important.
Again, most pastors wanna be popular, but we
will never know the heart of God if
we're worried about being popular, and it was
hard because talking to pastors, it used to
be intimidating for me, but it's not too
intimidating, but if we're honest, we're sometimes the
hardest to sit and allow a message to
penetrate our hearts.
It didn't happen here, but most of the
time, where'd you go to school?
Where'd you go to seminary?
You reformed?
You Calvinistic?
You charismatic?
You Pentecostal?
You this, you that, and they wanna size
you up.
They wanna, what's his sermon, homiletically and hermeneutically
correct?
Did he have three points in this?
Did he, and we're come in already judging,
closing a deaf ear to what God wants
to say, and God wants to convict us
just as much as anybody else.
That's why he'll use a country boy from
Lancaster who has no formal education to rattle
some cages because he gets all the glory
and all the credit.
It's him working through us, so the prayer
closet is where we get answers.
The problem is we're not broken before the
Lord.
Now, I just came to shoot you straight
this morning.
This might not apply to everybody in this
room, but overall, pastors are not truly broken
before the Lord.
We are not being humble vessels used by
God, and I remember a story.
I think I told it Sunday, and it's
been a few years about this young preacher,
many of you can relate, who just graduated
seminary.
He's 24 years old.
He had it down.
He had everything was polished.
It was perfect.
The Strong's Concordance reference, the Greek, the Hebrew,
the nuances, the verb tense, he was just
unbelievably impressed with his sermon.
By all measures, I mean, any seminary professor
would have said, this is a good outline,
this is great, but he got up to
the pulpit, and he stuttered, he stammered, he
couldn't quite make it work.
The people weren't receptive, looking at their clocks,
or the watches, and the phones, and just
an utter humility, an utter brokenness.
He just, he walked down and left the
pulpit.
Some tears a little bit were coming out
of the eyes.
Just couldn't believe it, and the old deacon
next to him said, young man, if you
would have ascended to that pulpit the same
way you descended, you would have succeeded.
You'll get that on the drive home.
The point was, if you would have went
up into that pulpit, broken and humble before
the Lord, and this is really my message,
because God has to change the heart, and
you seek the heart of the Father.
And pastors say to me, Shane, God's Word
isn't relevant anymore.
Hogwash, hogwash, that's not true.
It's the same yesterday, today, forevermore.
The problem is, you want to be relevant,
not powerful.
You want to be popular among men, and
not popular among God.
We have to get rid of this popularity,
and I'm dying to sell.
You are going to offend the big tither.
You're going to offend that family.
But for the love of God, let us
not offend God.
When have you ever asked that?
Lord, am I offending you?
Because the flesh in me, once every, oh,
that was wonderful, and I was coming up
here.
You're the head, not the tail, just go
and succeed.
You guys are doing a great job.
We'll do it, team, come on, and just
cheerlead.
But when was the last time you were
a coach?
Coaches aren't necessarily popular.
Vince Lombardi for some of you?
I mean, the best coaches are those who
pull out of you what's already inside of
you.
That's what we're called to do with our
people.
And the power of compassion, here's what's happening.
This is why I talk so much about
being filled with the Spirit.
And I just had a dramatic experience in
my younger years where God completely, He broke
me, and now I'm loving worship music instead
of mocking it.
This filling of the Spirit, but it's ongoing
because as D.L. Moody said, I'm a
leaky vessel.
I'm a leaky vessel, I've gotta sit underneath
the fountain of life every day.
I've gotta come to Lord in brokenness and
humility led by the Spirit.
And here's why.
What happens when we're filled with the Spirit,
not only do our sermons pierce the heart
and change people, it changes me.
And this is a hard topic for me
because I feel, and some of you can
relate, there's tremendous sadness, but there's also anger.
How can we remain silent when silent screams
go unheard?
When you can begin to pull out portions
of a child and throw it in the
trash can, folks, we have a problem.
Our consciences have been seared.
How dare the pulpits say, we cannot talk
about that, then you, sir, are not filled
with the Spirit of God.
You do not have the compassion of God.
The littlest of all people, and I'm not
gonna say a thing, that's called being a
coward, and that's meant to offend.
That is meant to offend.
Hopefully there's none in this room.
But that is what is happening.
You look at saline abortions.
I don't even know if they do them
anymore, but they would shoot saline solution into
the womb and the baby is fighting for
its life, slowly dying, and they tell the
mother it's just contractions.
I have a problem with that.
Why doesn't that bring tears?
Because something is wrong with our heart.
When you seek the Father, how can you
come out of the prayer closet, not be
concerned about abortion, not be concerned about the
direction of our nation?
And people say, America is bad.
No, America is nothing.
It's a resemblance and reflection of her people.
And they say, oh, slavery.
Read the book, I've got four pages of
founding fathers who abhorred the practice of slavery.
Read the Mayflower Compact, the advancement of the
Christian faith.
Read all the legislation.
You couldn't even run for office unless you
profess a faith in God the Father, Son
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Oh, my Lord, how far have we drifted?
The Ten Commandments, or actually, the whole judicial
system was built on Blackstone's commentaries of the
laws of England that reference Bible scriptures.
And with the law, we have drifted so
far from the truth that we're calling good
evil and evil good, and pastors are too
scared to say anything.
That's why I think we might have offended
God at this point.
And what I'm saying, if you don't like
it, here's what I often say, if you
don't like what I'm saying, it's probably because
you need to hear what I'm saying.
Everything that was just said is biblical.
Look at Isaiah, look at Jeremiah, look at
Hosea and Joel and Amos, Obadiah, look at
those people.
Yes, we have tremendous grace, but we have
tremendous passion for what is right, that to
be that voice, that's how you stop this.
It's not a physical battle, it's a spiritual
battle.
We know this, preaching to the choir, but
sometimes the choir needs a little preaching too.
We need to remember that the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through
God for the pulling down of strongholds.
Where is our battleground?
In the prayer closet, through brokenness and humility,
filled, you are a watchman.
And our silence is deafening, our silence is
deafening.
Most pastors, and I'll close with this point,
and what I'm trying to do is hear
my heart.
I didn't come to beat up anybody.
These are hard things to hear.
But I've found that we don't change until
we're confronted.
Until we're lovingly confronted, we don't change.
How many marriage, if you've finally seen the
husband come to your office, okay, I'm ready
to change.
Once she says, here's the divorce papers, I'm
outta here.
When do you, you don't see it until
we are confronted.
And as leaders, we need to be confronted.
Again, tozer, the same word of God that
encourages us, we must allow it to convict
us.
Here is the final thing.
Most pastors are not filled with the fire
of God, with the passion of God, they
don't have the heart of God because they're
not filled with that spirit.
And I know, I've traveled, I've talked to
many of them, and they're so concerned about
having a conversation with their culture instead of
convicting it.
Now, point of clarification, I do not talk
to you the same way I talk to
the single mom in the front row who's
struggling over her abortion and having an abortion.
I offer hope and say, well, you just
heard it, there's hope at the foot of
the cross, there's restoration, there's repentance.
God can renew and restore and you can
have a, and you build up, but you
have to tear down.
Jeremiah, I have called you from the womb
to go, Jeremiah.
Oh, but I am just a youth.
No, you're not a youth.
You say what I put in your mouth.
You will build up and you will tear
down.
You will root out and you will destroy.
Jeremiah, warn my people.
Right before the fall of Jerusalem, God said,
I sent my messengers to warn my people.
But they mocked my messengers, despised my word,
and scoffed at my prophets until the anger
of the Lord arose against his own people.
Not very popular.
You're not gonna hear it on Sunday morning
TV.
But that's the truth.
Because I believe the truth of God's word
is in the application, the powers in the
application.
When you avoid the difficult truth, there's no
power in that.
How can you avoid the cross, repentance, judgment,
and the blood?
And expect to witness effectively.
Those are very offensive truths.
Just took a week, actually three days with
my wife in Palm Springs for our anniversary.
At the pool, I made the mistake of
asking who the person's voting for in Palm
Springs.
But it turned into a discussion about I'm
a good person and being able to present
the gospel.
We're not gonna be able to stand before
God with good works and explain the cross
and explain the blood of Christ.
The gospel, repentance, these things that people don't
wanna hear.
She said, well, I don't have to hear
this anymore.
And she gets up.
What was so offensive?
The truth.
So here's what we do.
Oh, I'm sorry, let me, oops, sorry.
Let me, that was a distraction.
Let me shift gears.
That's what's happening as pastors.
Oh, I'm offending?
Let me shift gears.
The religious right has embarrassed people?
Let me shift gears.
We can't talk about politics?
Let me shift gears.
Fox News, CNN's gonna, we gotta shift gears.
No, what does God say?
What does God say?
Let him be truth and every man a
liar.
It's back to being filled with the fire
of God.
And it's interesting.
I love reading books over 100 years old,
which I'm sure some of you do.
Many of the greats who've came before us.
And that's one benefit of not holding onto
denominational lines is I'm able to read MacArthur
and Hayford.
I have Calvin and Hodge as my systematic
theology, but I also have Wayne Grudem and
Norman Geisler and reading the deep wells of
theological truths that have come before us.
But it's interesting.
I'm reading a lot of these books.
Do you know people fasted?
Wesley fasted, Whitfield fasted, Spurgeon fasted, Welsh revival,
1700s, Hal Griffin, Griffin Jones, Hal Harris, Daniel
Rollins, D.
Martin Lloyd-Jones talks about them often when
he's talking about revival.
They fasted.
You get up to the Methodist circuit writers
coming in and causing revival.
They fasted.
They fasted, they fasted, prayer and fasting.
See, we've lost that element.
What is fasting?
It's starving the flesh so you can be
filled with the Spirit.
That's what fasting does.
And old saints, I'm 100 years ago, when
they would call a pastor, and I crack
up every time I see this.
When they would call a pastor, they would
rarely ask where he went to seminary.
His hermeneutics, his homiletics, is he well-versed
in pneumatology and theatology and eschatology, and what
is his theological persuasion when it comes to
free will and sovereignty and all these different
things?
They would actually ask one question.
Has he received his baptism of fire?
See, that's not a weird thing.
Don't let charismatics or people on TV distract
us.
The very thing we need is the very
thing we are afraid of, being filled with
the fire of God.
The Spirit's power.
As I submit and surrender to the work
of the Spirit, I'm filled with that same
Spirit.
The same Spirit that inspired the Scriptures.
The same Spirit that sent Christ forth.
The same Spirit that works in the world
to convict and to challenge.
The same Spirit that built the church of
Jesus Christ.
That same Spirit, that power, a person, I
have correct theology in the area of Trinity,
it's a person, the person of the Godhead,
the Holy Spirit, to be filled with that
fire.
You see, that's the problem.
If we have pastors on fire for God,
they're praying, they're fasting, they're removing all these
things that are pulling them away.
We've got so much media, so much this,
and we come up to the pulpit and
our people leave starving because we're not sitting
in the prayer closet asking God, what do
you wanna say to your people?
And Tozer would say, who you are a
week is who you when you come up
to this pulpit.
If I've got 50 Shades of Grey and
Desperate Housewives and CNN and this and ISIS
is coming and Facebook and I'm gonna come
up here and I'm gonna expect God to
speak boldly through me after filling my mind
with all this garbage, that's what I mean
by being filled with the fire of God.
And another book I'd recommend, I don't know
the title, I don't remember, but Samuel Chadwick.
He was mightily used of God, but he
threw all of his sermons in the fire
and said, God, I just want your fire,
I want your presence, I want your power.
And don't mistake, I don't know, there's different
theological persuasions in here, but I'm just trying
to get to the heart of God, the
heart of Christianity.
See, I remember when the church prayed.
I remember when the church prayed and fire
fell in the upper room.
I remember when we weren't trying to get
our sermons down to 25 minutes, a quick
worship song so we can get the next
group of people in.
We've got everything, I remember when the church
prayed, I remember when the church waited on
God, I remember when the church was powerful,
that's how you make a difference.
So as much as I'd love to give
you three points in a poem, the key
is within the heart, the heart has to
change.
We have to come broken before, if my
people, we should just call this if my
pastors, if my pastors will humble themselves.
You know what humility is?
Saying, Lord, I'm desperate for more, I need
more of you.
I don't like what this guy's saying, but
I need more of you.
I'm broken before you, if my people humble
myself and pray, when was the last time
you wept over the condition of our nation,
wept over the abortion industry or the sex
trafficking or the heart of compassion, praying and
pulling down heaven?
Another thing about the old books is they
used to say after hours of prayer, God
finally answered, he broke through, what are you
talking about?
Who has two hours for time for prayer?
Well, they used to before the media, before
Facebook, before the phones.
If my people pray, this isn't a quick
minute prayer on your way to work, I
love those.
But in these dire times, you have to
pull out the AR-15, which is prayer,
the little 22 isn't gonna work.
I talked to a group of gun people,
they were upset at me too because I
said your gun safes are full, but your
prayer closets are empty.
Our gun safes are full, but our prayer
closets are empty.
If my pastors humble themselves and pray and
seek my face, God, I could spend an
hour and seek my face.
You know, again, fortunately pastors, hopefully you know
that word seek in the Hebrew, bakash I
think it is, it's seeking something until you
find it.
Imagine losing your grandchild or your child at
Disneyland.
Are you gonna say, well, wait till they
close, we'll look for them then?
Everything in your life would change.
You're not hungry anymore, you don't have to
use a restroom, you don't care about the
rides, you don't care what time you're getting
home.
I have to find that child.
I have to, nothing else matters.
I don't care about you or anybody else.
I've got to find that child.
Now parallel that to what the word seek
means.
If you seek me with all of your
heart, we think we get out of our
five minute devotional, we put on Air One
and we come to church, we're filled.
That's not seeking God.
Seeking God is an all-consuming passion that
drives everything.
Yes, we have to work, yes, we have
to counsel, yes, we have to preach, we
have to prepare.
But the sermon comes from that prepared heart.
If my pastors seek my face.
I mean, think, soul searching, when was the
last time we really sought God's face?
I mean, breakfast is probably not a good
idea to talk about fasting, but we have
to starve our flesh to be filled with
the Spirit of God.
Jesus fasted, Paul fasted, Peter fasted.
It's this starving of the flesh and seeking
God.
And every time I do it, I hate
to fast, but I love when the worship
comes alive.
I love when the word of God comes
alive.
If they humble themselves, pray, seek my face,
and the one we all want to avoid,
they just leave it there, right, on TV.
If my people turn from their wicked ways.
See, there's nothing wrong with preaching repentance from
our pulpits.
Jesus preached repentance.
John the Baptist preached repentance.
So the point I'm getting at as pastors,
I don't know what your influence is, I
don't know where you're at or what you
do, but repentance is the only hope for
our nation.
Repentance is the only hope for the church.
Talk about an abortion, repentance is one of
the answers because we encourage the person who
has the abortion to repent.
That's a good thing.
Repentance means change the way you think, and
then ultimately you're gonna change the way you
act according to God's word.
Repentance brings restoration.
Peter, the second sermon, repent and be converted
so the times of refreshing will come from
the presence of the Lord.
That's revival.
That's how you help the person who has
an abortion.
You encourage and you love and you support
and you meet them where they're at, but
you also preach repentance.
You preach repentance from our pulpits.
It's okay to say the direction of our
nation is not healthy.
Senate, Congress, candidates, current president, repentance needs to
take place.
We are not heading in good direction.
When we call good evil and evil good,
we are not going in a good direction.
If the pulpit isn't the voice of truth,
who is?
That was the whole point.
That's one of the points of the pulpit
is to preach the gospel, to preach the
truth, and to lead people to the heart
of God.
So that's my encouragement to you this morning.
If we wanna make a difference, number one,
don't worry about the majority.
The majority is not coming with you.
But you plus God is the majority.
I mean, God, just see, all these famous
people I just mentioned, Oswald Chambers, D.O.
Moody, they start as one person and God
bless their ministry.
God plus you surrender to Him as a
majority.
Don't let the enemy come in and we
start bickering and complaining, more people aren't helping,
more aren't doing this.
God doesn't care about that.
He cares about where your heart is.
And as pastors, if we really wanna make
a difference, then we have to internalize everything
I just said.