Tonight, the title of the message is Call
a Sacred Assembly.
And most of you who are familiar with
the Old Testament know that this is something
that the people of God did often.
They would call a sacred assembly.
They would call the people together.
And they would not only pray, they would
weep, they would fast, they would mourn for
the direction of the church, the direction of
their nation.
And sometimes we need to do that.
We need to just stop and call a
sacred assembly.
And you'll notice also that the notes are
blank.
The notes are blank.
And there's a reason there.
I want you to just focus on the
message and maybe jot down any thoughts you
might have.
But also you can get the complete sermon
notes online later this week.
It'll be underneath our video.
Everything that I'm talking about is in the
sermon notes.
So that'll be there.
Also just look at your phones if you
have a chance.
Just make sure your phones don't vibrate.
I just ask that we just be quiet
as much as we can today.
Check your phones.
Check your email if you want.
Everybody has a fake Bible.
They try to do your email and texting
as well.
But just turn that off.
Shut it down if you can.
Because what I'm going to do, I'm going
to kind of tie this in, not to
Mother's Day of course, but in honor of
my mom who prayed and fasted for the
types of messages that I give here and
the type of message that I'm going to
give tonight.
See a lot of these messages were prayed
for and fasted over 20 years ago from
my mom praying that God would take this
party boy and draw him back to Him.
And I want to thank her for that
obviously tonight.
But I also want to do it in
honor of my wife who encourages these types
of messages.
And as you probably haven't guessed, it's not
easy to be married to somebody like me.
You know, with the criticism and the constant
turmoil of the church life and ups and
downs and having that type of messages that
I give.
In case you're not aware, this is not
a popular message in our culture today.
The church doesn't want to hear it.
And a lot of people don't want to
hear it.
And the number one...
I hear this so often now.
Me and Randy were joking about it recently.
Many people come and they go, I thought
this church would be thousands of people even
though we only planted it three years ago.
The problem is a lot of people don't
like to hear this message.
So it's not a shocker.
You guys ever heard of A.W. Tozer?
You ever read his writings?
You want to take a guess at how
many people attended his church at the maximum?
400.
So these types of messages, people, they don't
want to hear too often.
If I'm not living right, I don't want
to hear it.
If I don't want to go and be
convicted, I want to go and be built
up.
Well, that's what TBN's for.
We need a balance.
I'm going to get in trouble.
I'll just leave it there.
I'm not endorsing it.
But also, this message is in honor of
all the moms who are tired of carrying
the burden.
Did you catch that?
The moms that are tired of carrying the
burden, and I hear that a lot from
women, that they're the prayer warriors in their
homes.
They're the ones praying and contending and fasting.
They're the ones encouraging reading the Word of
God.
They're the ones encouraging the devotionals, and they
desperately want the voice crying in the wilderness
to awaken the sleeping church, to awaken the
sleeping family, to awaken the sleeping men.
Would you wake up?
So that's what really this message is in
honor of, those types of things.
And I actually have a confession tonight.
Don't worry, it's not the type of confession
that will get me fired.
But it's a type of confession that I
want to let you know.
There's something about this.
I'm going to confess tonight.
It's a secret to some people.
It's not a secret to those closest to
me.
But that confession is, I'm not primarily a
pastor.
It's on the business card.
It's on our website.
It's on the bulletin.
But I'm not primarily a pastor.
I'm primarily a preacher.
And there's a big difference there.
And I want to give you a few
of those distinctions.
Although these roles overlap, of course, but there's
primary giftings and primary callings.
The pastor builds.
The preacher tears.
The pastor counsels.
The preacher convicts.
The pastor rejoices.
The preacher weeps.
The tears even shed over this message.
It just reminds me of that.
The pastor plants.
The preacher uproots.
The pastor teaches.
The preacher preaches.
The pastor mends.
The preacher breaks.
The pastor is full of hope.
The preacher is full of fire.
The pastor loves to listen, but the preacher
needs to speak.
The pastor sees the good in others, but
the preacher sees the depravity in man.
The pastor desires to be among the people,
but the preacher desires to be alone with
God.
And I've never quite figured that out, and
I'm tired of trying to excuse why I
just want to go walk for hours in
the morning and be alone with God and
avoid social gatherings.
I'm done apologizing for it, because that's how
God has created me.
And a lot of times when I used
to travel and I would preach and the
power of God would be moving mightily, I
would see people weeping, men on the seat
in front of them crying, and then they
played worship, and then the place would just
be thick with God's presence, and then after
the song, they'd turn on the lights and
the pastor would go, come on, let's go
get lunch.
Pastor, I'm like, no.
I just want to stay here and be
in the presence of God.
We can eat later.
So there's a different mold there, so I'm
not primarily a pastor.
Although that's what I do, and I accept
the Lord's calling, and I love it.
But the primary calling of what God has
called me to do is not to pastor,
it's to preach.
And there is a different role there.
And there's a different distinction.
There's a different makeup.
That's what you'll see at the church.
It's just prayer, the Word of God, and
worship.
Not a lot of announcements.
Not a lot of videos.
I can't get my sermons down to 30
minutes.
It's a different calling.
And I used to be hard on other
pastors when I first started, to be honest
with you, in 2003, 2004, 2005.
I'd go, what's wrong with you guys?
You speak about the fire of the Holy
Spirit as if you're sitting on an iceberg.
Where's the conviction?
Where's the passion?
It's okay to get a little excited.
The nation is going to hell in a
handbasket.
We've got to have one eye on eternity
and one eye on the present.
And I begin to realize that it's more
of just a calling.
It's a gifting that God has called me
to do.
So to not be judgmental, but to be
complimentary, and we compliment each other.
Pastors, teachers, different churches, we should compliment each
other instead of compete.
So that's really where this message comes from.
These types of messages, they are birthed in
the prayer closet like the famous Puritan Richard
Baxter says, that I've quoted often.
He says, I preach as a dying man
to dying men.
And I feel that.
I preach as a dying man to dying
men.
I preach as a dying man to a
dying nation.
I preach as a dying man to a
dying church.
And I'm often asked about the state of
our nation when I do interviews and different
things.
And I want to remind people that America
cannot fall.
Uh oh.
Not too many amens on that one.
America cannot fall.
You want to know why?
She's already fallen.
You know where this is going?
If you want to just excuse yourself and
use the restroom and not come back in,
I understand.
Just put up that finger and say, we'll
see you later.
But America cannot fall because America has fallen.
How do you know that the nation has
fallen?
You look at the moral decay and the
moral depravity that has taken over.
And sometimes we need to wake up.
God's Word says, wake up.
Wake them up.
As a matter of fact, the preacher in
the Old Testament, he said, I sent my
messengers to warn my people to wake them
up because I had compassion on them.
But they mocked my messengers, they despised my
word, and they scoffed at my prophets until
the anger of the Lord arose against His
own people.
How can we just ignore those things?
I can't.
The burden of the Lord is heavy.
It's heavy upon me.
America, her moral heartbeat has stopped.
She needs resuscitation.
She needs renewal.
She needs revival.
And as I often say, the Titanic has
been struck.
What's inside is spilling out.
What our goal is, is get as many
people on that lifeboat as we can.
Now, please don't misunderstand.
I don't like doom and gloom and this.
But there comes a time when you've got
to sound the alarm.
You've got to call a sacred assembly.
Sound the alarm.
Joel says, sound the alarm.
Blow the trumpet in Zion.
Awaken your people.
God, bring them back to you.
And you can't wake in the church with
bedtime stories.
Oh, I lay you down to sleep.
That's what I do to my little daughter.
Not the church.
Because what happens?
We stay asleep.
And I like what Leonard Ravenhill said.
If you've never heard of him, you should
order some of his books.
One great work that he's done is called
Why Revival Terry's.
And it's not going to be for the
weak at heart, I'll tell you that right
now.
Why Revival Terry's.
He wrote, God has always had His specialist
whose chief concern has been the moral breakdown
of the nation and the church.
Such men were Elisha, Jeremiah, Malachi, and others
of their kind who appeared at critical moments
in history to reprove, to rebuke, and to
exhort in the name of God and righteousness.
Such a man is likely to be drastic
and radical.
The curious crowd that gathers to watch him
will soon brand him an extreme, a fanatical,
and negative.
And in a sense, they are right.
For he cannot turn off the burden of
the Holy Ghost.
And that's true.
I looked up this word burden.
Masah.
M-A-S-A And I looked through
it, and it's God giving a burden to
His preachers.
It's a burden on the heart that you
have to speak.
It's like spiritual pregnancy.
If I can use that term to kind
of bring you into this.
It's a burden.
And this type of message is the burden
of my soul to call a sacred assembly.
And with that said, we left off in
Matthew.
And I thought it was interesting, this ties
right into where I want to go.
Matthew 9.14 We left off at 9
.13. Let me look at 9.14 real
quick.
Then the disciples of John came to Him.
John the Baptist.
His disciples came to Jesus saying, why do
we and the Pharisees fast?
Often, but your disciples do not fast.
And Jesus said to them, can the friends
of the bridegroom mourn as long as the
bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come when the bridegroom
will be taken away from them, and they
will fast.
And this is interesting because as we know,
praying, what we do after our service, praying
opens the hand of God, right?
Preaching the Word secures the truth in our
hearts.
Worship brings down heaven.
Obedience opens the door to God's blessing.
But fasting, but fasting is the hardest spiritual
discipline that you will ever encounter.
That's why most people don't do it, right?
Let's be honest.
How many people have fasted this month?
Or this week?
A couple hands.
Okay, good.
Fasting is the hardest spiritual discipline.
It stars the flesh and it fills us
with the Spirit.
The focus is on denial.
That's why it's so hard.
Anytime we have to deny the flesh to
be filled with the Spirit of God, the
flesh doesn't want anything to do with it.
All the excuses in the world come up.
So that's why this is so important.
The last time we saw fasting, it was
tied to temptation and spiritual disciplines.
Think about that.
The last time we saw fasting was tied
to temptation.
Jesus in the wilderness.
He fasted 40 days, went into the wilderness.
The enemy tried to tempt Him.
And then Jesus talks about, a few chapters
later, He says, when you give, when you
pray, and when you fast.
Nobody wants to do that today.
But this case, He's talking about mourning.
In essence, Jesus is saying, we're not fasting
because we're celebrating.
The bridegroom is here.
I'm here.
But when I leave, when I go, there
will be a time of mourning, a time
of weeping, and then you will fast.
So this whole context of mourning and fasting
and weeping, is not a bad thing.
It's often tied with and into affliction of
the soul.
Have you heard that word before?
As you're studying the Bible, to afflict the
soul.
These things we don't like to hear, but
we need to hear.
It's often those things.
Everything we don't like to hear is what
we need to hear.
And when the Bible would talk about humility,
throughout the Scripture, humility, a lot of times
it was talking about afflicting the soul.
To afflict the soul.
Afflict why, Shane?
Well, here's why.
For the purpose of humbling.
See, when you afflict the soul, when you
afflict the flesh, when you fight the flesh,
that's humbling.
That hurts.
It's for the purpose of humbling.
And here's why.
Our sorrow must match the situation.
Can you picture me at home, on the
couch, with my feet propped up, with a
Big Mac and a Dr. Pepper and French
fries, and saying, Oh Lord, forgive us for
aborting those 50 million babies.
Oh, now it gets silent.
Why?
Why wouldn't that, I mean, of course you
could do that, but why wouldn't that doesn't
fit, does it?
Because the sorrow must match the situation.
So when God would call His people to
repentance, He didn't call them to big parties
and big feasts and tons of wine flowing.
He called them to affliction of the soul.
He wanted them to get down on their
knees and wear the sackcloth that rubbed against
their skin and the ashes.
Why?
To feel the pain that they've caused.
That's what's afflicting the soul.
That's humbling.
That's humiliating.
And that's a good thing, because it's a
God thing.
So always remember that sorrow must match the
situation.
Feel the pain.
We must feel the pain that God feels.
It's very healthy to mourn over sin.
Very healthy to mourn over sin.
Do you realize that?
Let me just tell you right now, it's
very, very, very, very healthy to mourn over
sin.
Why?
Because joy returns.
Joy comes.
And it's through this mourning.
We must feel the pain that we caused.
Why?
Because genuine repentance produces genuine remorse.
When somebody is genuinely repenting, they are genuinely
remorseful.
Right?
And then from that remorse, they want to
fix the wrongs that they've created.
That's where this whole idea of afflicting the
soul and mourning and looking and humbling ourselves.
Hence the need for these types of sermons.
This is the whole point, right?
God would tell the prophets in the Old
Testament, your words will be like fire and
the people will be like stubble.
Out of the mouth.
Why?
To convict the people, to have that fire
go out and that stubble and consume them.
This is God's labor and delivery room.
Women know what that means, right?
Travail.
Why?
Why does it hurt?
Why are they screaming?
It sounds like a whorehouse.
Every time my wife has a baby, I
leave there just walking like this.
Like unbelievable.
Not only what she goes through, but trying
to hear that and hear the women.
Why?
Because when Zion travails, sons and daughters are
born.
When travail comes, that's when the pregnancy, it
hurts, but then that's when that blessing of
life comes.
If you want to experience the power of
God in your life, you better travail.
You better start weeping.
You better start repenting.
You better start breaking.
You better start fasting.
Spiritual discipline is designed to birth forth the
promise of God in our lives.
That's what this whole point is.
In Leonard Ravenhill, I'm quoting him a few
times in this sermon, he said, if the
church today had as many agonizers as she
has advisors, we would experience revival within a
year.
That's enough right there.
I don't need to continue.
If the church had as many agonizers as
she has advisors, we would experience revival within
a year.
And I have to agree.
Because I know a lot of advisors.
You need to do this.
You should be doing this.
We should be doing this.
You've got to be doing this.
Very few agonizers.
How do you know?
Because the agonizers are silent.
They're not advising.
They're praying.
They're not advising.
Their humility is all about them.
They are people of humility.
And he goes on to say, we need
to close every church in the land for
one Sunday and cease listening to man so
we can hear the groan of the Spirit
which we in our lush pews have forgotten.
Wow.
Bring out the spiritual sledgehammer today.
That's great advice.
Close every church in the land for one
Sunday and cease listening to man so we
can hear the groans of the Spirit which
we in our lush pews have forgotten.
Now this doesn't mean go out and watch
the football game on Sunday.
That means get on your face before Almighty
God and cry out for revival and renewal.
That's what this means.
That's where that power comes from.
So you might say, well, Shane, why a
topic like this, a sacred assembly, this solemn,
this wake-up call, why?
Well, I'm glad you asked because 2 Timothy
3.1 says, but mark this, there will
be terrible times in the last days.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of
money, boastful, proud, and abusive.
Doesn't resemble today, does it?
Paul must have been talking way back when
he was in the Philippi and Ephesus and
all these places.
Not now, Paul.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of
money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents.
This caught me.
This week, I'm walking down the street, Vines,
and there's three, four, you know, 14-year
-old kids.
I've got to walk out of their way.
And I'm worried.
Back when I was 14, I'd move out
of the way.
Yes, sir.
Now, these kids with their pants down to
here and their ball caps and they're chewing
gum and looking at me like they're gonna,
14 years old.
There's no respect.
You teach kids in school they're animals, guess
what they're gonna act like?
That's exactly right.
Disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers
of good.
They're lovers of pleasure.
They're treacherous.
They're conceited.
They have a form of godliness, but they
deny the power thereof.
They just nailed the United States of America
right there.
Right there.
And I'm sure you want a few examples,
right?
Because I have to bring this home.
A form of godliness.
Do you know what that means?
They have a form of godliness.
They go to church, or they'll talk about
God or their own Bible, but they don't
know the power of God in their lives
because they're following sometimes the wrong god, or
they have religion and no relationship.
I got steamrolled this week when the Christian
Post picked up an article I wrote, California
pastor offers five biblical reasons why gay marriage
is wrong.
You would have thought I shot the president.
Seriously.
I'm glad you guys can laugh, because I
sure can't.
All the comments, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of comments, I didn't want to read much
of them, but one of them said, those
of us who don't go to his church
or believe in his God aren't troubled by
his opinions, and we certainly will not be
governed by his bigotry.
Well said.
Let me remind you, these people are Christians.
That's what they say.
Brutal.
Mark this, there will be terrible times in
the last day.
People will be brutal.
Just pulled up the news.
Police find seven dead babies in Utah, county
home.
Woman, 39, allegedly gave birth and killed the
infants and put their bodies in the garage.
Lovers of self, lovers of perversion.
Our sex-saturated culture will continue to pervert
with the ultimate goal of destroying.
You remember I mentioned this guy a while
back, Ariel Castro, who was exposed in 2013
for kidnapping three women and holding them for
ten years, admitted that his deep addiction to
pornography fed his perversion.
He eventually committed suicide in prison.
And everybody's got their porn star bumper stickers
on their car.
Now it's cool for young adults.
That's cool for young adults.
You realize that?
And there's this new rage within.
I can't even talk about it because kids
are in here.
It has to do with incest and different
things.
Our culture is becoming so perverted, I just
want to throw up.
Call the sacred assembly.
That's our hope.
Listen, the hope isn't leaving here and going
by In-N-Out Burger.
That's not going to cut it.
Leaving here and nothing changes isn't going to
cut it because that's what got us in
this problem in the first place.
Disobedient and abusive and treacherous.
These kids disobedient to their parents, abusive and
treacherous.
Just in the news, Florida, a 13-year
-old girl and her 15-year-old boyfriend
were charged with attempted murder.
After they, and I can't say what they
did because kids are in here, the teenagers
admitted to the investigators that they planned to
kill both the girl's mother and father so
they could continue dating.
What about Minnesota?
Just got, last week I believe it was,
he was charged Thursday, a few weeks ago,
with 10 attempted murder and explosive counts and
a plot to shoot his family to death
and then kill himself and take out as
many students as he could at his school.
This isn't Afghanistan.
This is the United States of America, folks.
And I'm not going through trying to find
these things.
These things are finding me.
What is the perversion we don't even hear
about?
Unbelievable.
Disobedient, abusive, treacherous.
I remember Chuck Swindoll.
You guys know who Chuck Swindoll is, I
hope.
If not, try to listen to him.
He gave a story about this lady who
was in the public school systems, I think
in the 1970s, and she would leave for
25 years and raise her whole family and
then came back into the school system and
was shocked.
25, 30 years ago, she used to hear,
hello, Mrs. Jones.
How are you today?
Now she hears, shut up, B-I-T
-C-H.
Chuck Swindoll said the actual word.
I was going back and forth all week.
It's not a good idea.
Elders will chew me out after the service.
But you get the idea, right?
Hello, Mrs. Jones.
Just shut up.
If this doesn't raise some concerns in your
hearts, I don't know what else to do.
Of course, I saved the best for last,
right?
Blasphemers.
They will blasphemy God.
This happened in January, and they're still working
on it.
The satanic temple, the satanic temple recently submitted
plans for a monument they want to place
at the Oklahoma capitol next to the Ten
Commandments.
The sculpture will feature a seven-foot tall
goat-headed creature, Satan.
There you go.
They're submitting that to be placed next to
the Ten Commandments at the capitol in Oklahoma
City.
Take a good look.
Well, Shane, how can you show that in
church?
Well, how can you not?
That's what they want.
You can take it down.
That's what they're trying to get next to
the Ten Commandments.
And the wonderful thing is, tourists can go
sit in his lap and take a picture.
Wow.
Folks, this is the direction of a nation
out of control.
This is the direction of a church who's
silent.
Fasting.
I'm not going to fast.
You better fast.
You better pray.
You better repent.
You better plead to God because we're confusing
His patience with His approval.
Judgment starts in the house of God.
Remember that.
God's house must break.
God's house must repent.
He revives us to revive others.
The church must first repent.
Then the world will break.
The church must first weep.
Then our altars will be filled with weeping
sinners.
See, we're the conduit.
We're the conduit.
We're held responsible for these things.
But what happens a lot of times is
the excused church prevents revival.
You know what the excused church is?
Probably not, so I brought some examples.
Here's what the excused church says.
He has a problem with his bad temper,
but mine is just righteous indignation.
He is proud, but I'm just confident.
She is moody.
I just have a lot going on.
They are contentious.
I'm just passionate.
They like to argue.
I just have convictions.
They are greedy.
I'm just trying to save my money.
He has a problem with porn, but I
just struggle now and then.
The excused church.
That's all we hear is excuses.
Excuses.
But, but, but, but.
There cannot be no buts when repentance is
genuine.
These kind of things do not warrant any
buts or excuses.
If the sin occurred corporately, repentance needs to
occur corporately.
If my people who are called by my
name, not Hollywood, not the media, not Fox,
not CNN, not the President, not the Senate.
If my people who are called by my
name will afflict themselves and humble themselves, then
I will hear from heaven and forgive their
sins and heal their land.
If my people, but if my people is
smallly dwindling down to the frozen chosen, because
the church needs to be awakened.
So what's the answer?
The answer is called a sacred assembly.
The answer is called what I've been speaking
about.
Anytime you get a person or a place
or a church to turn back to God,
I'm not concerned with as much the whole
nation or the whole church.
I'm talking about us collectively.
And the people who hear this message on
Vimeo and YouTube and the Sermon on the
Index and all these different places.
That's who I'm talking to.
All of us.
Now this is interesting.
You'll see up there Joel.
Joel chapter 1 and chapter 2.
I spent some time in this week.
It's interesting.
Joel was a preacher, basically.
He was called by God to go and
wake up the people.
And it's interesting.
I found a lot of parallels.
Joel was ministering in a time where God's
people were prosperous, but they were apathetic.
Does that look like us today?
Prosperous, but apathetic.
They had a religion, but not a relationship.
They had a form of godliness.
They did the sacrifice.
They did all these things.
But God says, listen, judgment is coming upon
you because you have a form of godliness.
You've rejected me in your heart, even though
your outward actions are revealing that you have
a form of godliness.
Your heart is distant from me.
Now here's the only difference.
The only difference is that prosperity has not
been taken from us.
When I read Joel, the only difference is
prosperity has not been taken from us yet.
Right?
By the grace of God, we're so blessed
and we should thank Him for that.
But that's the only difference.
That's why people sometimes wake up is when
all hell breaks loose and everything's falling apart.
Oh, now I'll come back to you, God.
But a lot of times, He sends the
messengers first.
He warns them first.
First, wake up, church.
Wake up, church.
Here's what happens when you're disobedient.
Wake up, church.
And He calls us.
That's a loving Father.
But even though we haven't been hurt financially
the whole nation yet, many individuals have, peace
has been consumed from our land.
How many people are living in peace now?
Fear is gripping the hearts and minds of
many.
Morality has been ripped from our hands.
Truth has been raped and taken advantage of.
And God has been blasphemed.
Everywhere.
So let's look at Joel 1.
You don't need your Bibles.
You don't need to look up there.
Just listen.
I wrote it down.
And here's the great deception, I believe, that
we should avoid the Old Testament.
I hear that sometimes.
Oh Shane, you're always in the Old Testament.
Well, Jesus was.
Eighty-four times.
Depending on who you read, or who you
look at, or what strong concordance you use.
And guess what?
It was not always go, go, go, cheerleading.
It was, have you not read?
It is written.
You draw nigh unto God with your lips,
but your hearts are far from Him.
It is written, you will not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God.
Paul actually said that the Old Testament was
written so that we might not lust after
evil things as they lusted.
It's very good.
The Old Testament and the New Testament are
married.
The Old Testament, the old covenant under God,
how he ruled his people through the Levitical
priesthood and the sacrificial system.
Jesus comes as a fulfillment of all that,
but you don't throw the baby out with
the bathwater.
They go together.
Actually, the whole Bible makes a lot more
sense when you read them together.
I'm always in the Old Testament.
I'm always in the New Testament.
I'm amazed at how many times.
Oh, parallels all the time.
Read Hebrews.
Just read Hebrews and look how much times
they go back to Melchizedek, back to our
high priest, back to the sacrificial system to
show the fulfillment in Christ.
Then the Old Testament, it is written, the
Old Testament fulfills of Christ, and Christ came
to fulfill, not even a jot or a
tittle, the smallest little Hebrew, little tiny marks
that change the nuance of a word.
Not even that will change.
I've come to fulfill all of that in
Christ.
It goes together.
The reason they don't like Old Testament preaching
is because they don't like this kind of
preaching.
Remove the Old Testament.
Let me just hear about love and grace
and forgiveness and longsuffering and gentleness and kindness.
That's all I want to hear.
And to be honest with you, that would
be a lot easier for me to preach.
I wouldn't carry around a burden all week.
If I could just go, guys, I know
it's been a hard week.
God loves you.
You're more than conquerors.
Just leave here knowing that he's got you,
and he's got you in the palm of
his hand.
Your whole week's gonna go great.
He loves you.
It's a loving father.
He wants to bestow blessings upon his children.
Go get him, guys.
I'll see you next week.
Everybody leaves.
Oh, that guy, he's so upbeat.
He's so cheerful.
Golly.
He smiles all the time.
Well, what do you do with all the
burdens of the Lord?
The burden of the Lord.
See, there's a time to rejoice, but there's
a time to weep.
There's a time for harvest.
There's a time to plant seed.
There's a time.
And this time, God's been waking up.
Hey, listen.
If you just look at what's happened over
the past 50 years, the moral decay, the
depravity, from when I was little to where
we are now.
Imagine you go back another generation, leave it
to Beaver and I Love Lucy and all
that to now where we're at.
It's amazing how far we've drifted off course.
And when we sound the alarm, we're political.
Oh, another way to silence the messenger.
You can't talk about that.
No.
God loves his people.
Absolutely.
He sent his messengers, rising them up early
and sending them because he loved his people.
He had compassion on his people.
But what did they do?
They mocked his messengers.
They despised his word.
And they scoffed at his prophets until the
anger of the Lord arose against his own
people until there was no remedy.
That's the part of the verse we don't
like to quote.
See, I believe there becomes a time when
the judgment hand of God must fall.
You can cry.
You can weep.
We can fill up this altar.
We can fill this church every night this
week.
Let's have a revival service.
But the judgment hand of God, there are
times when that may fall.
Many of the kings, you look back in
the Old Testament, they prayed, they fasted, and
still judgment had to come.
David sinned.
God didn't say, don't worry about it.
What did he say?
These three things will come upon you.
For you want to number my people, choose
which one of these is going to be
your judgment.
And our judgment now is what's happening.
Trust me.
I've got little kids.
I don't like this.
But I love it if it gets God's
people back into a place of where God
wants them.
Because then that's where that revival comes from.
I haven't even started on Joel yet.
Joel 1.
It's the word of the Lord that came
to Joel.
Hear this, you elders, and give ear all
you inhabitants of the land.
Has anything like this happened in your days?
Or even in the days of your father?
Tell your children about it.
Tell my children about it?
That's a little negative.
Right.
God wants us to warn people.
Listen, tell your kids, here's what happens when
you reject God.
He's not just a ball of love.
He's not just a doting grandfather.
Kids, this is what happens when you reject
God.
He says, tell your kids what happened.
Let your children tell their children and their
children and another generation what the chewing locust
has left, the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust
has eaten.
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming
locust has eaten.
Unbelievable.
God sends millions or billions, who knows, locusts
across the land and destroys everything.
He says, okay, now you'll listen.
Now you'll listen, right?
And I just pray he doesn't have to
do that to wake us up and bring
revival.
I can't imagine.
Can you imagine millions of grasshoppers?
I told the first service this week on
the aqueduct, one hit me right here in
the face as I was jogging.
Bam.
And it went down my shirt jacket.
I'm doing the Indian rain dance.
One, one grasshopper.
One grasshopper.
God can use whatever he wants.
I remember the couple days before that up
there, and I look and it's just like
a cloud of bees.
And they're, I mean, they're, I'm like, oh
my, am I going to jump in this
aqueduct?
What's going on here?
So they fly by me, they hit my
face.
And it's like, they just go just a
swarm the size of a semi truck.
Where did that come from?
I'm just up there amazed.
God's using illustration.
Look, look at what I, he can just,
he can just command these things.
It's amazing.
So locusts had destroyed all of their crops,
all of their grain, all of their grass.
And then it says, verse 6, For a
nation has come up against my land, strong
and without number.
His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and he has fangs of a fierce lion.
He has laid waste my vine and ruined
my fig tree.
He has stripped it bare and thrown it
away.
And in our setting as well, our land
has been consumed.
Satanic influences, strong and without number, have laid
waste to our hearts and minds.
Families are being devoured.
Lives are being destroyed.
And truth has fallen in the street.
Same parallel.
But then he goes on to say, here's
the solution.
Verse 13, Gird yourselves and lament, weep, you
leaders.
Wail, you ministers before the altar.
Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who
minister and call upon God.
Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly.
Gather the people and the inhabitants into the
place of the Lord.
Bring the people, call a sacred assembly.
Call a fast.
This is where God's people are going to
come together and pray and fast and contend
for these things.
That's the only hope.
Listen, that's the only hope.
It's not reading the next book that's out
there five steps to do this, seven steps
to do this.
It's not going and stopping at Cinemark and
trying this.
It's not trying to be a better person.
It's not coming to church.
It's a very simple solution.
Come to the house of God and pray
and fast and cry out to God.
And then he repeats it now.
Therefore says the Lord, turn to me with
all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and
with mourning, so rent your hearts and not
your garments.
What does that mean?
Well, in the Old Testament, they would rip
their shirts off.
No, I can't believe this.
God, oh Lord, how terrible it is.
God would say, stop it.
Rip your heart.
Not your shirt, you arrogant Pharisee.
Don't do outward displays.
Everybody gets so outward, spiritual outward.
God says, listen, I see your heart.
Stop trying to play Christian.
Stop trying to play church.
I know the depravity of your heart.
Break your heart.
Rent your heart.
Not outward, superficial things.
And sometimes I think we do.
We come to church, right?
Hey, brother, so and so, I'm doing great.
Hey, how's it going?
Smiley face, and we're just so great.
Everything's so great.
If you could see our heart, the bitterness,
the jealousy, the envy, the gossip, the backbiting,
the pride, the lust.
You want me to keep going?
God says, listen, rent your hearts.
Don't come to church as if you're doing
me a favor, because you're not.
We're only fooling ourselves.
So God says, break your heart.
And then I love this part.
Return to the Lord.
That's all you have to do.
Return to the Lord.
Shane, we don't have to give money to
your church?
No, please don't.
Return to the Lord.
We don't need to read our Bible every
day and do this and not go to
the movies and do this and not drink
alcohol and not do this.
Just return.
Return to the Lord.
See, religion is man's attempt to find God.
I've got to do all these things.
Relationship through Christianity is God reaching down to
man and saving man.
Saying, listen, just return to me.
It's always an issue of the heart.
Christ Jesus shed his blood on the cross,
and once our heart breaks and repents, we
receive that.
That's all.
The heart has to break and receive it
and repent.
Return to me, and I will return to
you.
I think some of you need to hear
that, because this is a heavy message, but
you also need to hear the other part.
God says, return to me.
If you've been raised before, you've heard church
before, you don't know.
God says, just return to me.
Just return to me.
I'll return to you.
I'll rebuild you.
I'll restore you.
That's a loving father.
That's a loving father warning his kids, saying,
listen, return to me, for I'm gracious and
merciful, slow to anger, and great in kindness,
and he relents from doing harm.
You might say, Shane, that's contradictory to everything
you just said.
No, it's not.
God is gracious.
God is loving.
He wants to relent from doing harm, but
we cannot continue to confuse his patience with
his approval.
How long does the clock of God just
keep ticking?
Oh, no big deal.
I'm just gonna look the other way.
Just look the other way.
Guys, just continue doing what you're doing.
Year after year after year.
He says, I'm patient.
I'm relenting, but when I turn around, the
judgment's gotta come.
Remember what Billy Graham said.
If God doesn't judge America, he's gonna have
to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, and that's
true.
The state of our nation, the state of
our families should wake us up to the
fact we just need to cry out to
God.
We need to be in worship and prayer.
Not weird, and not some monk up in
a castle somewhere, but just men and women
fill with the spirit of God for the
love of God.
How can you live in this sex-saturated,
perverted, filthy culture and not be drawing closer
to God?
I don't know how people do it.
Do you know that there's Christians more concerned
about the party atmosphere than the holy atmosphere
of prayer and worship and fasting?
If that hurts, it's supposed to.
It's supposed to.
Because God says, listen, I love you so
much, I'm calling you back.
And then it says, who knows if he
will turn and relent and leave a blessing
behind him.
Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast,
call a sacred assembly and gather the people.
Return to God and I will return to
you.
And then many of you are famous where
this continues.
This is Joel 1.
We're going into Joel 2.
What happened else in Joel 2?
And it shall come to pass in that
day that I will pour out My Spirit
on all flesh.
And it shall come to pass in that
day I will pour out My Spirit on
all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
Your old men dream dreams.
Your young men see visions.
And on My men servants and on My
maidservants I will pour out My Spirit on
all flesh in that day.
That's the end result of this.
Now contextually, the theologians in the room will
know that this is applying to Peter and
Acts.
Probably, I'd better not say exactly.
I'm not sure.
600 years ahead when Peter says, listen, we're
not drunk.
We're filled with the Spirit of God.
This is that that the prophet Joel spoke
of.
In those days I will pour out My
Spirit on all flesh.
However, the overlapping principle still applies.
When God's people call out to God and
cry out to Him, He pours out His
Spirit on them.
He doesn't beat them up.
He doesn't condemn them.
He doesn't continue to spank them.
He doesn't harass them.
It's a loving Father filling them with the
Spirit of God because through genuine repentance comes
genuine joy.
Through genuine rebuke comes genuine sorrow.
And from that genuine sorrow, our hearts begin
to break and cry out for God.
That's a very healthy thing.
And I just want to encourage you to
do that tonight.