Now, chapter number two, verse number one, then we turned and took our journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. As the Lord spake unto me, we compassed Mount Seir many days. And the Lord spake unto me, saying, You have compassed this mountain, underline it if you're taking notes, long enough, turn you northward. You've compassed this mountain long enough This title would probably go with the message I preached a long time ago about turning things loose, but just keep circling the same mountain on a regular basin. Before long, you know what happens? That rut you begin to dig in there, and then the next thing you know, you get rotten because you just can't turn loose of certain things. Sometimes it's the way that we think, and we just keep going around it, and going around it, and going around it. You know what the Lord said? You've circled it long enough. It's time for you to move northward. That means toward the Lord. The Lord lives in the north. Brother TK, you pray and ask the Lord to help us if you would please this morning. You young guys are looking for some men to be like. I could have dozens of men stand up around here. They may not be great athletes and they may not even be great in business, but they're great men. because they're not ashamed of Jesus Christ. No matter what their career is, no matter what they're doing in their own personal or their secular lives, there's some great men that are in this congregation that you could model yourself after, and it would do you good to watch those men. Ladies, I could say the same thing for the women here. There's some good women here that are worth watching and saying, you know what? I'd like to be more like that lady right there. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that we got some good what I would call role models. Nowadays you get a lot of accolades when you come to people they want you to follow after basketball, baseball star, some kind of sports figures or a model or some movie star or whatever it might be. There's not enough in the sense of Christians for you to make your life or model your life after. Just good clean living people that have some moral turpitude and moral standards in their life and have got just a little bit of character. where they're not involved in all the other things in the world. And that's good to point your kids to. I mean, it's good they're looking at mom and dad. I mean, that's good you got good moms and dads or you wouldn't be here in church. But it's also good to have them looking at other people in other secular or other positions to have them model their lives. 2 Corinthians chapter number one, please. You can let Deuteronomy go. I only wanted to use that passage there to say sometimes we have a tendency to get hung up in the wrong things. Sometimes we keep repeating even what the Lord says in Hebrews, besetting sins. Sometimes it's just a thought process. If you go contrary to the way the Lord has already painted the picture, you're going to wind up disillusioned. Too often our thought process is not addressed. How you think things are or how you think they're going to turn out can sometimes lead to great disappointment. Expectations lead to disappointments. In other words, well, if I get this job, then I'm going to get promoted, and then right after I get promoted, my business is going to take off, and I'm going to buy this new car I've always wanted, and we're going to move up and get a new house, and then after we get the new house, then we're going to be able to buy this and purchase that and go on the vacation we always wanted, and then you lose the job, and then you can't find a job. Everything changes. Oh boy, if I could just meet and marry that girl, my life will be over and everything's going to be wonderful. But sometimes, not just as far as trouble or trials come along the way as far as divorce is concerned, but sometimes physical impairments and things come along that you didn't expect. God's already drawn up a picture, and you're trying to paint it in a different way. And if you're not careful, you can get real depressed, you can get real disillusioned, because, hey, you know what? It didn't turn out like I thought it was going to turn out. You prepare a sermon, and in your mind, you see yourself as a Charles Spurgeon or a Billy Graham or a DeWitt Talmadge, and you stand in the pulpit, and you get ready to preach, and everybody kind of looks at you like a blinking frog in a snowstorm or a hailstorm, and you're thinking, man, this was really going good in my mind. You get up and all of a sudden you realize you're disillusioned. You think, boy, this dress is really going to look good until you look in the mirror and you realize that the Coke bottle looks more like a mayonnaise jar and you're thinking, wow, what happened to me? Well, in my mind, I know for a fact there's got to be some women that either don't have a mirror or friends or both. because some of the things you see them wear and it's kinda like, you gotta be kidding me. You don't have a friend. They would not let you go out of the house like that. Come on, it's funny. You can laugh a little bit. Don't get too personal. Or if you don't have a mirror, it's like, did you walk by the mirror before you walked out of the house? I mean, like even the rear view mirror and the side view mirror in your car might be a good, at least, take a look. I'm just saying. Sometimes we get disillusioned. We think to ourselves, you know what, I'm going to go on this diet, I'm going to lose, you know, five pounds a day. Not unless you got a scalpel and some tweezers and you start slicing it away. You ain't gonna lose no five pounds a day. But you're thinking, if I can lose five, and then you go through a week and you've lost two pounds at the end of the week, and then here's what you start doing. Okay, two pounds a week, that's eight pounds in a month. That means in three months I will have lost 24 pounds. I've met my goal, so I only have to starve for three months and I'm gonna be good. Six months later, you're up 10 pounds. And you're like, what is the deal? Because you didn't figure in the stresses and strains in life, the difficulties, the problems, the not being able to plan for every kind of thing that happens. In Wally world, everything works great. In the perfect scenario, everything always comes out the way you plan it. It's like having that bad dream and the bad guy gets you and then you go back in the dream and you're hiding around the corner and when he comes around, you grab him by the hair and you cut his throat and you win the battle and it comes out alright. In Wally world, that's how it is. Sometimes in our minds that's how it is. Sometimes in our minds what we do is, is we've already decided how it's going to turn out. And when it doesn't turn out that way, you know what happens? We get disillusioned. And sometimes it can even happen in church. I dare to say this, and oftentimes what happens is, is we think people at church are going to be different than they are everywhere else in life. And we have an expectation maybe of the preacher, the pastor. We might have an expectation of other people, the preacher's wife or maybe the deacon or the deacon's wife. And, well, I just think a deacon's wife should do so and so. I think a deacon's wife should be here. I think a deacon's wife should be there. I think my Sunday school teachers could do that. And you begin to build this big sort of, in a sense, this idea of how you think things ought to be. And then when they don't measure up to that, You're disillusioned and the next thing you know, before long, there's a departure that always follows the disillusionment. But oftentimes it's not even a doctrinal departure. Oftentimes it comes just because we had the wrong perception of people. We had the wrong perception of what we thought should be. We don't even stop to think a minute, maybe I'm the one that is thinking wrongly. Look in 2 Corinthians chapter number 1. I do want to try to help you today. Kids can be a real disillusionment for you sometimes. I mean, you know what? It's kind of like you want the baby, but you don't want the diapers that go with it. Amen. Or we want the job, but we don't want to get up early. We want one of them jobs kind of like, you know, I want a job, but I want to clock in when I want to and clock out when I want to. But I still want you to give me the CEO's pay, but don't expect me to do or have that much of a commitment, right? But oftentimes, you know what can happen, you think your kids are going to grow up and then they're going to go to school and maybe they're going to get a scholarship. Some of you guys that are all into sports, you think your guy's going to be the next Michael Jordan or whatever the big football player is or whatever. You don't have the reality check to realize if they even wind up playing college ball, they've done something. But you kind of push them and you put all the eggs in the basket of sports and then you find out they're like, dad, I really don't like sports, I like music. Just because they like music don't mean they're queer. It means that, hey, guess what? They'll have something where they won't have aches and pains that me and you have because we played ball. And now what are you doing with it? Nothing but having been gay and ibuprofen all the time. You know, did you play ball? Yeah, can you tell? I'm hurting, man. My knees hurt, my shoulders hurt, my elbows hurting. I wasn't even one of the main players. Still got splinters in my backside. Riding that bench can be hard on you sometimes. But when you start, you think, man, this kid's going to grow up, and then they're going to go to college, and then they're going to get this great job, and they're going to meet the right girl, they're going to meet the right God, they're going to have a family and have everything that we didn't have, and everything's going to be wonderful, and then a curveball comes. And the kid winds up sitting under an oak tree at Wilson High School, and because of a girl that has upset him and jilted him, goes out there and takes a magnum, puts it in his mouth, blows the top of his head off. And there goes your dreams. Because you had all your dreams been up in that individual. It's like, I just know everything's going to work out. Now, I'm going to show you something to show you. All things do work together for good and God's got a purpose in it. But you can't help the disillusionment in other people, but you can help the disillusionment in yourself. Where you get to thinking, well, I thought he was my friend and he shouldn't do this. And then he does what you didn't think a friend should do. and then you get disillusioned. The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians chapter number 1, look if you will please in verse number 4, "...who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted." Can I say that God allows trouble for our benefit but also that we can be a benefit to other people. In other words, your life becomes something of great value. The more problems you've been through, the more trouble that you've had, you've become something of great price because now you can minister to people that you could not minister to before. So it's not just about you. Verse 5, The sufferings of Christ abound in us, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us. So our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. Could you come a little further? Come to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, just probably back a page. So many things come in our life and we sit down under the juniper tree and say, why God? Instead of saying, okay, now what's God doing? Power always comes from suffering. Ministry is made of misery. Ministry is made of misery. There was a guy out in the forest one time, and they were hunting rabbits. They used to hunt rabbits with beagles, and the beagles would come around there and run the rabbit out of the briar patch and all that. And he ran across the snow there, and the guy took aim and shot, and he kind of missed him, and he hit him back in the back foot, and the rabbit hobbled off that way and went all the way down the place there, and they began to trail the rabbit. And it happened to be two preachers that were hunting. You'd know that because they weren't very good shots. They come around the corner like that and one guy said, well, look at that, that rabbit's been wounded. And the other preacher said, the older preacher said, yeah, he said, that reminds me of the ministry. It's just a trail of blood along the way and doing the best you can to keep on running from your enemies. That's profound. You say, what is that? That's the ministry. In order for you to help other people, I'll guarantee you that hobblefoot rabbit, if he was a human being, would be able to help other rabbits that have been shot at or that have been wounded before because he had already been wounded. So what I'm trying to get you to understand is, is that instead of us sitting down and questioning why is God doing this to us, if we could ever learn, and I'm not saying I've graduated here, but if we could ever learn to say, listen, as Paul did, listen, we're glorying in tribulation. Why? Because when I'm weak, he's strong. There's something He's getting out of me that is to His benefit. The life is not all about me. If our church could understand that life is not all about us. It is about Jesus Christ first and foremost. If we could just get that down, we would worry about the other part of everything. But if we could just learn, look, it's not about us. View Christianity that it's for Him. It's not for us. We got the benefit of salvation, but now we need to be a benefit to Him. Be a blessing to Him. Be pleasing to Him. What's God doing with me? And God seems to say throughout the Bible that if you want to be a blessing to me, I have to put you through some things that you will not put yourself through, and you have to learn to walk by faith and not by sight. That's a hard thing to do. We always want to know how's it going to turn out. How's it going to turn out? But the Lord said if you want to please Him, you have to trust Him. and say 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 58, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know your labor is not in vain, qualification in the Lord. Can I give you one more 2 Thessalonians? We're going to settle down in just a second. 2 Thessalonians chapter number 3. So you paint a picture of how you think it's going to be and then it doesn't turn out the way you thought it was going to turn out. Now what do we do? Well, if God's in what you're doing, then He knows what He's doing. Our job is to not be distracted by whatever it is that comes our way. If it wasn't personal, it wouldn't hurt. He can't teach you lessons that don't have deep roots. You won't learn a lesson flopping around on the edge of a tree hanging out there like a leaf. The lessons you have to teach have to be rooted down deep in those things that are closest and dearest to us. Those things that mean the most to us. The things that we hide in our heart that we would say that we love or that we care about. And this is so much deeper than most people want to go because, hey, it hurts because you care but because it means something to you. And as a result, that's the things that the Lord is going to use to show you about where your affections are. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, look if you will please and notice verse number 13, you know the passage. He says, Beloved, but be ye brethren, be not weary in well-doing. Come if you will please to Acts chapter number 13, you can camp out there for just a minute and I'll give you an illustration. Expectations lead to disappointments. Preacher, can you give us an illustration of that? I can give you an illustration of that. Probably, if not the greatest preacher in the Old Testament, one of the greatest preachers in the Old Testament is a man by the name of Elijah. Elijah went out and stayed three and a half years by the brook Kidron and had the Lord, or Cherith I mean, the dry place there. He stayed there by the brook Cherith and had water come up out of the brook every day and had ravens come by and feed him with, I don't know, whatever they had back then, Hardee's or McDonald's or something. But they dropped him off food every day. Three and a half years, no human contact that we know of. There's no mention of him having any contact, no mention of him doing anything. And so then the Lord finally says, Okay, Elijah, it's time for you to go back in and tell them it's fixing to rain. He prayed that it wouldn't rain, and it quit. Then he's gone. Then he comes back, goes up on the mountaintop, has the power of God come down, I think you would agree with me, puts out the twelve barrels of water, you've got to hurry, I'll give you the story here, and then the fire comes down from heaven, laps up the water, destroys the whole thing. He goes up on the mountaintop, begins to pray, goes down, kills the 450 prophets of Baal, and then he runs into that city, And one of the things that you notice in 1 Kings chapter number 19 is, is you see Elijah is disappointed and disillusioned because he expected the people to do what they said they were going to do. We got no God but our God and we're going to serve whoever wins the battle. Oh well, God won so we're going to have a great revival. What oftentimes is missed in the passage is not Elijah running just from Jezebel because he fears for his life, but even more so, now Jezebel chasing after him feeds the already being disillusioned, being discontented, being in a position where he's saying, you know something? I thought we were fixing to have a great revival. I thought we were going to tear down the high places. I thought we were going to go back to worshiping Jehovah God. I thought we were fixing to have the real deal. Israel was going to turn back to God, and the temple would be restored, and man, they're going to have a worship service like it used to be, and preaching is going to return, and singing is going to return, and sacrifice is going to return. And guess what happened? They came back off the mountain, and in less than a month, there had been no change. Isn't that how it is sometimes? I mean, people make you all kinds of promises. They tell you, this is what we're going to do. We promise we're going to change. We're going to, quote, turn over a new leaf. Everything's going to be wonderful. Everything's going to be great. And you keep letting them circle that mountain and circle that mountain and circle that mountain. And you keep saying, you know what you're saying? Well, they said they're going to. Well, they said they're going to. Well, they said they're going to. Well, they said they're going to. Well, they said the Lord's like, hey! You circled the mountain long enough. You're caught up in the disillusionment of what you think is going to be an outcome. You continue to repeat the same behavior, which is the definition of insanity. You're doing the same thing while you're walking around the mountain thinking it's going to change what's gone on before, expecting a different result. What are you doing? I'm going around the mountain. I'm going around the mountain. I'm going around the mountain. It's going to change. It's going to change. The Lord says, Hey! Stop! You've circled it long enough. Elijah looks around and he says, well, ain't gonna be no revival. Goes down to Juniper Junction. Sits down under the juniper tree. You know what he says? It's enough. Let me die. Why? I'm no better than my fathers. My fathers, my grandfathers, the people before me, they couldn't turn the nation of Israel. They couldn't have revival. I've seen you do miraculous things in my life. I expected the nation of Israel to do what they promised to do. And they didn't. So kill me! And the Lord doesn't come down and rebuke him. The Lord comes down and then tells him, get up and get moving. You know what happens? He doesn't let him sit there and have that pity party and just keep circling and circling and circling. He gives him some food, he gives him some water, he gives him some time to rest and all that. And then he says, now get up and go on. He goes up from there and he goes to the cave and he gets stuck again. You know why? Because he's still thinking about what happened on the mountaintop and the fact that Israel hadn't changed. The Lord's like, you don't come back into the trench again. You ever been on the side of a muddy highway where a car slid off the highway or something and you get ready, you say, okay, now I'm going to push you, so give it some gas until you get up on the pavement? And then you start pushing and right when they break up out of that thing, they let off the gas and then they slide back down in the hole. You ever done that before? That's frustrating. You're covered in mud and all that other kind of stuff. You finally got them up. And right when they're about to break onto the hard surface, all of a sudden they let off and then they slide back down. And then you're thinking, are you an idiot or what? But isn't that how we are sometimes? We think, alright, I got the victory. I'm getting up. I got me some food. I got me some water. I got me a little bit of rest. I'm moving on. The next thing you know, we find ourselves back in the dark recesses of the cave. And you know what we're doing? We're brooding over what we should have left a long time ago. Our disillusionment, our disappointment has now distracted us to the point because somebody did not do what we thought that they should have done. We expected a different outcome than the outcome we got. And we're ready to quit. No illicit sin, no wrongdoing, just people not doing what we thought they should do. And here's a real good one for you. Of all things, God not doing what I thought He should do. I prayed He didn't heal me. I still believe God heals. Don't panic. Have a cow. I don't believe you've got to sling 40 weight on somebody to get that done. I believe God uses pills and physician, but He also uses prayers. I mean, I pray and I go with y'all to the hospital and stuff. I pray for the doctor. I'm hoping like that doctor gets possessed by the great physician. I pray it literally. I'm like, Lord, You take over his hands. You take them nurses. You take the anesthesiologist. You have them give just the right amount, the right amount of mixture and all that other kind of stuff. I mean, I want God in that room with me, but I realize He uses human instruments. Listen, I don't need somebody praying something over me and then trusting that my cancer's been healed if I got an oncologist who'll tell me I got something that I can cut it out with called a scalpel. You go ahead and pray for yourself when you get cancer, but when I got it and I got a lump on me called melanoma of stage 4, cut it out. I don't want it. Amen, Brother Brad? You could at least amen that a little bit. Amen? That's why you got them knots on your pumpkin head right there. Brother Brad said, Preacher, I got cancer. I said, tell them to get the knife. I'll pray for them that they don't take your head off. I mean, I don't want them to do that, but we don't want that stuff around. You understand what I'm trying to say to you? I'm trying to say sometimes people are stupid the way they try to handle the Bible. I'll pray for you. Well, you ain't the one got cancer. Amen. Well, I'm going to be praying for you. You just trust God. Okay, I'm going to trust God. I'm going to the doctor. Amen, because I've got something and I don't know what it is. And they can put me and run a scan over me and find out what's really going on. So Elijah becomes a great picture of us because we are trying to do what God wants us to do. We've seen God work miraculously in our life. We sit down under the juniper tree. God straightens us out and gets us back. And instead of keeping on going the first dark hole we can run into, we run in that dark hole. And then we're in there going, well, you know something, Lord, I'm the only one that ain't give up on you. I'm the only one that ain't bow the knee to you. And the Lord said, no, there's 7,000 other ones. But you're so busy in your own little microcosm of your world and you think everything rises and sets around you, you have failed to see there are 7,000 other ones out there that are doing what you're doing. But from your perspective, you can't see them. You are disillusioned with everybody. Everybody has let you down. You are the only one that's got it right. Boy, that's a dangerous position to be in. Are you listening to me? Elijah got disappointed. He got disillusioned. He got discouraged. Can I say this? He got distracted. God had to show him how He works in him, and then after that, he never got distracted again. God continued to use him. Let me say, if you will, in Acts chapter number 13, Sometimes people don't respond even to the right kind of leadership the way they ought to. Acts chapter number 13. Look, if you will, down at verse number 08. Eliam as a sorcerer, for his name by interpretation, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul, who was called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him. and said, O fool of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Now, would you say that that's a chance for him to get right? I mean, it wasn't the most, we would have to grade him down in his interpersonal skills. We used to have a bracket that you had to have and they graded you across the board when you're going through the assessment process. And one of the things on there was called interpersonal skills. So it's how you're dealing with people. But Paul is dealing with somebody that is interrupting spiritual things and he doesn't take time to be politically correct. Paul is saying, listen, what you're doing is dangerous. He goes as far as to call the guy a child of the devil on a seaport when they've just landed. I mean, that's a pretty major deal right there. And then the Bible says in verse 11, Now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee. Thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him the midst of darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. The story is not about Elymas. The story is not about Paul. The story is found in the next two verses. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished, the doctrine of the Lord. So somebody got saved while somebody got rebuked. Somebody got in while somebody was getting out. Somebody left mad, but ten came glad. Are you hearing what I'm saying? That's happened. Now watch, verse 13. When Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Pergia, Pamphylia. John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. There's the story. Why did John depart from the greatest apostle that has ever walked the face of this earth? Because John had in his mind how he thought Paul should have handled the situation, and when Paul didn't do what he thought should be done, John said, I can't have no part of that. It took him nine years to recover. Nine years he missed out on being with the apostle Paul. Nine years of walking with a man that penned thirteen epistles. Nine years, the apostle to the Gentile. He was in the catbird seat. He was going to be the Elisha. I mean, Elijah was Elisha was to Elijah. That's what he was going to be to the apostle Paul. But because he said, you know something? If I had been Paul, I would have handled that differently. If I was the pastor, This is how I would handle that. Usually you'll find somewhere in there, circle the word I, there's something you've been... Well, if I was the Sunday school teacher, I would have been doing so and so forth. Usually it will revolve around what you think of how things should have been because of you and it didn't turn out right for you. John's going, hey, I don't know who Paul thinks he is. But he'd unstruck a guy blind. I thought we're out here to help people. By helping, he had to rebuke a child of the devil. But John got disillusioned and said, you know what, so now we've lost two. The child of the devil went out, and now one of the apostles that could have been. And later on, when Paul's getting ready to kick off, Paul said, go ahead and bring John Mark with you, for he is now profitable for the ministry. I'll give it to you that he didn't get out, but he wasn't where God wanted him to be because he got disillusioned. Is that a fair statement to make? Look, if you will, please, in Proverbs chapter number 3. Sometimes we paint the picture, as I said earlier, different than God draws it up. I'm not going to have any relationship with anybody in the church called somebody done so and so to me. I know how my kids are going to turn out. How's that working out for you? If yours turned out good, you know what you realize? But by the grace of God, they turned out good. I mean, if your kids turned out good, you should thank God every second of every day that somewhere along the line they didn't get taken off the track by something else. Trust me, the older you get, the more you realize the less you had in raising that kid. Some point they came to have a meeting with God and they chose to either get in or get out. Well, I know how my job is going to work out. I know how my business is going to work out. I know how my marriage is going to work out. You've seen enough illustrations. It don't always work out the way. You know what you've got to learn to do? Say, Lord willing, I'll be there tomorrow. Lord willing. Say why? Because I might go back down there and guess what? It may not be the Lord's will. I might be in the hospital tomorrow. Preacher, you come into Atlanta tomorrow, we'll pick you up, take you up here to Tennessee, you're going to be preaching all the distance and so on and so forth. Lord willing. Oh yeah, Lord willing. Yeah, no, yeah, Lord willing. I mean, what if I get the flu tonight? I ain't going. What if I have a heart attack? Let me ask you a question now. Let me ask you a question. You go to the doctor, your cholesterol is good. You go to the doctor and all your arteries and veins are pumped out clear and so on and so forth. And the best he can determine, you're in the best of all positions to not have a heart attack. But how much pressure does stress put on you? Oh, you're healthy as a horse. Well, how'd you have a heart attack? Something broke me. Something happened in my life that made my heart rate go through the roof and it revealed a weak spot they couldn't see. I was within the normal limits, but man, when that thing shot up over 200, she shut down, man. Life changed. I gotta make an adjustment now for the rest of my life because I gotta make sure that it doesn't get to me. Are you hearing me? Stress is real. A lot of people think, you know, sometimes they think preachers are this way or they think policemen are this way. I just happen to know a little bit about those two things. But they think people, they think because they handle stress well, they think everybody handles stress well. It just depends on what stress that is. Sometimes when people come in, they add more stress to your life and it's actually good that they're not around because it's like, man, you came in to do nothing but bring trouble, bring stress, bring pressure, like we don't already have enough trouble, stress, and pressure. Dealing with whatever you're dealing with on everyday life. The Christian life is not stress-free. Do you not agree with that? How many of you here are saved this morning? Alright. How many of you have had a stress-free Christian life? See? I've just told you the truth. The Christian life is struggle, is trials, is tribulation, it's compression, it's pressed down on every side, it's pushed, it's held up, it's being constantly tried and troubled. There's a constraining that is going on. There's a straining that takes place. Look, if you will, please, in Proverbs chapter number 3. Let me try to hurry. Preacher, what do I have to do? I have to learn to try to rest in the Lord. Yes. Easier said than done. Proverbs chapter number 3, you'll know these verses very well as soon as I read them to you. Verse number 5, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord, and depart from evil. Now there's a lot in those passages right there, you say, why? Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. So now watch, in all thy ways acknowledge Him, now comes the problem, then He'll direct your paths. That means I have to trust Him, I have to believe, I have to acknowledge Him in all my ways. In order to activate that promise in my life for Him to direct my paths, I have to trust Him that the path He puts me on is the right path for me even if my GPS don't tell me how to get there. That's tough. You mean the Lord said, yeah, you trust Me, don't you? Yeah, you walk by faith, right? Yeah, but could you tell me where we're going, what's around the next corner? That's not trust. If you trust Me, that means whatever situation you're in right now, God's got you there for a reason. He's trying to extract something out of you that you don't know exists, that you need to have pulled up to the front for you either to deal with or to make you better as far as He's concerned. But He has to put you through that. You have to trust. Listen, whatever you're in right now, including conflicts with other people, God's saying to you right now, you need this. You do trust Me, don't you? He knew it was there. He could have stopped it. But he didn't stop it. Why? Because he said, I want to see if you trust me. Just trusting me because of making a step, one foot in front of the other, that's not trust. I can see where I'm going. You trust me? Sure, Lord. Sure, I trust you. Yeah, no problem. And the Lord says, you trust me to walk through there? Lord, I just heard a lion roar in there. You trust me, don't you? Oh, Lord, I think there's tigers back there. You trust me, don't you? Well, can you open the door and let me see if they're in a cage? No, I thought you said you trusted me. I'm a little bit wore out nowadays. People say, well, you know, preacher, you can get a little carried away with that stuff. Yeah, you're right, you can. I know there's a fine line between faith and stupidity, but let me just say this to you, ladies and gentlemen, I've never seen people exercise too much faith. I have seen them exercise too much stupidity. I have seen them go down and buy stuff that they know they can't pay for and call it faith. That's not faith, that's stupidity. But when God says to you, hey, there's something going on in your life right now and you're going to have to trust me, you need this. Boy, that's where the water hits the wheel. That's where the rubber meets the road. That's where you all of a sudden realize, do I really trust the Lord? Not name it and claim it foolishness, but trust in the Lord in all our ways, acknowledging Him in everything I do, no matter when I get up in the morning, when I go to bed at night, whether I'm at work, whether I'm at play, no matter what I'm doing, Lord, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? What do you think about this? Oh man, Lord, what about this? The Lord said, Trust and obey with all thy heart, not that I know understanding. Don't go by what you think you understand. You're disillusioned. Your understanding is in the carnal realm. Your understanding is in what you can see. You don't have all of the facts. Lord, they're ignoring me. Lord, they don't appreciate me. Lord, they didn't call me. And the Lord said, yeah, you know what? I kind of wanted to see if you trusted me, to see if you would stay even if you didn't get all the attention, to find out what your motive for coming was in the first place, to see whether or not you wanted everybody to turn their attention to you, or if you were there to please me. Lord, does it please you? Yeah. Oh, how often we say we don't want to be recognized, we don't want to be anything, but let some tragedy happen. We want everybody coming, everybody running. And we use those things in life to draw attention to our self. There's an appropriate amount of those things. Leave your finger here in Proverbs for just a second, if you will, please, and come over, if you will, to Matthew chapter number 9. I'm hoping this is helping you. If I don't get past this point, it's already 12 o'clock. But see, folks, in the Christian life, it's so easy to be disillusioned. We've had numerous people come here. And guess what? Even before we had a paved parking lot. And before we had stripes on it except for special meetings. We had people come in and go, well, them people are Christians. They pulled in front of me in the parking lot. You fix the parking in their parking place, I guess. You can see their name on it or whatever it might be. Well, that's just where I always park. Independent Baptists are really nice people unless you sit in their seat. Then it's like, oh, you're the devil. Because why? Because my name is tagged on that seat. I always sit there. But the visitors don't know who you are. You're just a person to them. You're a people. They don't know your status in the church. I mean, they came in here one time and they're like, well, who's the preacher? And they said, well, he's over there somewhere. And they're like, well, what's he doing? And I don't know. He's walking around. Well, how come he ain't sitting up there? Because they think, in their mind, that's where he is. And I don't care if they sit up there. It don't make no difference. But we ain't got room for all that stuff. What am I going to do? Sit up there and look? I'm looking at you enough now. I mean, I don't want to get up there and say, I've got a target-rich environment. Oh boy, I see one back there named Bullseye. I just get a chance to sit with my wife on occasion and things like that. I like to be able to do that in church. I come around and shake hands because y'all get out of here like rats turning on, the roaches turn on the light in the night time and the roaches go running out after just like, okay, see you later, gotta go eat. I can't get to the back door because if I'm at the back door, y'all go out the side door. Now you got all four exits to go out. And that's okay, but I'm going to get you one way or the other. But we don't expect the pastor to do that. Well, it don't matter. That's just how we do it. And then there's other times I'm sitting in a cubbyhole. Sometimes there's a change-up coming. But oftentimes in churches, we get so disillusioned because we fail to realize churches are made up of people. And people can be the most delusioning thing in the world. And if you get your eyes on people, including the pastor, the Lord will remind you how quickly flesh is frail and can let you down. So it's not that you're not kind, but it's that you're kind without an expectation. Well, I went to church, the lady said, and some of your people didn't speak to me. But she came in with a preconceived notion that because she had been to other churches and they're falling all over her, and if you're visiting, we're glad you're here. Honest to God, I promise you, we are really glad you're here. We don't like empty church houses, but it's not all about the visitors and having them stand in recognition and coffee mugs and bread and pies and cakes and that kind of thing. We realize the majority of our visitors come, they're like, I ain't coming back there. And so they're like when you're in Vietnam. My friend, Brother Jim, used to tell me, he said, you don't talk to people in country the first three months because that's when they're usually going to get killed. That's what he said. You don't get close to them. They're a number to you. Because generally, the first three months in country, they get killed. After that, you start developing a relationship. So what they figure is when you're here, they're like, yeah, you're going to be in a body bag. Preacher will probably shoot you before this is all over with, so I'm not going to get to know you. That was supposed to be funny. It didn't come out right. What I'm trying to say to you is it's not that you're not important to us, it's just that you're not the most important to us. And so please don't misunderstand that. But here's the other thing. Then I get on the other side, letters, phone calls, emails, little text things, I get all the time, man, that church is the kindest, the warmest, the sweetest, those women are so nice. It's all in the perception of the receiver. Them women, they're just the meanest in the world. Then I can go to ten others and go, man, some of the women in here are the sweetest women ever. It's the perception. It's the disillusionment. It's the mindset that the devil can always pick at you and let you down because you know what? People didn't act how you thought they should act. Y'all remember me using the illustration of the lady one time? She got very mad at me because she went to the hospital. Nobody knew she was in the hospital, and the next thing you know, I got a call two weeks later, and Ms. So-and-so was at the hospital, had been to the hospital, and she was mad. Well, I called her up, I said, Sis, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were at the hospital. It's your job to know, she said. I'm like, well, maybe you should at least tell me you're going. I didn't know. Well, how come nobody knew? I don't know. We don't share calendars. You were looking bad. We thought you're going to go to the hospital. Are you feeling okay? Are you going to have surgery anytime soon? I mean, I'm not sure, but she had the expectation that everybody in her life knew. Oh, hey, she's not here. Oh my God, she must be in the hospital. Now, you can't really say that about anybody but maybe Miss Pat. If she's not here, something ain't right. Amen. The rest of us, it's kinda like, they're not here? Yeah, well, you don't know where they might be. But Miss Pat, if she ain't here, something done gone wrong. Somebody better be checking between here and her house to make sure she ain't in a ditch or something, somebody knocked her in the head, or she's in the hospital. But the point I'm making to you is, is this dear lady, and she meant well, but where she came from, it was all about the people all the time. And so she thought, well, I'm gonna come here, and as soon as I'm missing, Somebody's sending me a card. Somebody's sending me a letter. Somebody... I mean, she came from a church that had four associate pastors all given to the ministry of visitation. That's all they did. All they did every Sunday, every Monday. Got all their lists together on Sunday. Monday through Friday, all they did was hospitals and homes, hospitals and homes, hospitals and homes, hospitals and homes. So she came from that environment. She thought, well, all churches work that way. And then she came here and it's like, picture her name come see me when I was at the hospital. I said, Sis, I would have been there if I had known, but I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not trying to get on to you, but I'm trying to use some realistic illustrations that sometimes the truth of the matter is people are not mean to you, people are not ignoring you, people are not rude to you. You're whacked out in how you're thinking. You're disillusioned because you're expecting, Brother Jimmy didn't even speak to me. Brother Jimmy's got a headache. He didn't talk to nobody. Amen. Brother Jimmy don't like you. I mean, who knows? He has a right not to like who he don't want to like. But man, how quick we can run off in a ditch and then what it does, it disturbs our peace. It disturbs our ability to rest in the Lord. It means that we come to church and we're just grinding, we're just walking around that. Oh, nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Then somebody's going to park and you're parking space. Somebody's going to sit in your pew. Somebody's going to eat all the chocolate off your peanuts. There's going to be one chocolate donut left. They are going to eat that donut and they're going to look at you and go, oh, there's Brother Mitch. I'm going to eat that. I know you wanted it. Or pick it up and go, did you all have? In the name of Jesus. Right? And if Mitch is disillusioned, you know what he's going to say? He did that intentionally to hurt me. No, he's just a jerk. He would have done it to anybody. You just happen to be at the right time and it's like, oh, you are like the perfect one. I just, I don't like you, so you got a little purple shirt, so I'm just going to do it. People that are haters, they don't have to have a reason. That's just how they are. But the devil knows how to put those other of you that are always disillusioned by people in the path of haters. They know how to always get you because it's so easy to knock you out of the bottle. I know I'm pressed for time. I feel like an Egyptian mummy this morning, but can you just give me a couple of minutes? You got that right? Egyptian mummy, pressed for time. If you laugh, it goes quicker. Here's what's coming in the car, honey. Whenever you have to repeat a joke, if it wasn't funny the first time, it's really not funny the second time. And then she'll say, I'm just trying to help you. She goes, if you have to explain it, just realize it just didn't go. I know we got a mission spare. I want to break this thing off, but can I give you just a couple of things real quick and then we'll go to our mission spare. If I can get you to understand this principle, it will help you so much. You'll come in here looking for Jesus. He doesn't ever disappoint you. But if you come to Jesus expecting something other than what He's painted for your life, you will always be disillusioned by Him. The rest comes in the fact that, hey, God knows what He's doing in my life. Not my co-pilot. He's the pilot. I'm in the trunk. He's got the whole thing. Uh-uh. He's running the show. And if He thinks this is what I need, man, what a blessing that He's taken time to pull me out and tinker around with me. Think about that for a minute. He cares enough about you to say, you need to be on the grinder. You need some sandpaper. You need a blowtorch. You need a scalpel. Or maybe you need a little oil. Maybe you need a little comfort, a little bit of care. But what a blessing to know that the Master of all things has got His hand on you saying, Mitch, I've got something just for you, tailor made to make you what will be pleasing to me. There's nothing better than that. But I will tell you, it don't hurt. Man, when you get squeezed and squeezed and pushed and shoved and pressed, it's hard. The Apostle Paul says, hey, when it comes to trust, he said, hey, we're troubled on every side. I mean, Micaiah said, man, it's easy to trust the Lord until they slap the tie out of you and throw you in jail. Jeremiah says, hey, it's easy to trust the Lord until they throw you down in the pit where the dung and all that waste is. Paul says, hey, it's easy to trust You, Lord, until we wind up shipwrecked and we're out here floating around in little pieces and I go up there and a snake bites me. Easy to trust You, Lord, until some tragedy happens in life. Then we lose that inner peace. I'll give you this real quickly, Matthew chapter 9, if you're there, look in verse number 36. Verse 35, Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep, having no shepherd. Can I say this to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the Lord wants to know, let me give you this passage in Corinthians and then we're going to be done. I'll cut it off, maybe we'll finish it tonight. Come to Corinthians, let's see, 1 Corinthians 12. The Lord's saying, I'm not expecting you to be, make it 2 Corinthians 12. Make it 2 Corinthians 12. The Lord is not saying that He's always an ogre pushing you beyond your ability, where you're just wore out all the time, but He also realizes life can wear you out. I mean, just living and breathing and making a living and trying to get your bills paid and keep the roof fixed and all the things that take up a lot of our life. Not wicked things, not evil things, but things that take up time in our lives. Is that a fair statement? I mean, stuff that cumbers us and it burdens us and it bothers us. You guys say what you want to say, but a leaking roof bothers a woman more than it bothers you. In her mind, that roof leaking is an indicator the whole house is about to come down. It's the size of... Bro, Donnie, why are you laughing so hard? It's the size of a pen, but to her it's a big deal. And she loses her peace because she is losing her security. She's thinking, what else is broken down in here? And what might come in? And those kind of things. It's easier just to fix it than to try to convince her it ain't no big deal. But our risk gets disturbed, doesn't it? Our peace gets disturbed, doesn't it? All of a sudden, you get a thing. I got a thing the other day that said that they hadn't credited my account for something I had paid three months ago, January, however long that was, three months ago. So, I'm picking up the phone and I'm like, I can't believe they're doing it. I pick up the phone and I call them up and I said, hey, this is David Peacock, my account number, so on and so forth. The last guy goes, yes, Mr. Peacock, what can I do to help you? I said, well, I've got this thing here that says this hasn't been paid. She says, oh no sir, we've sent the other thing. We had a problem in our mail room and the mail got messed up and we didn't get certain things out. But no sir, we show in the computer you paid this way back in January and it's all been taken care of, but it disturbed my day. And now I've peeled off and gotten all upset. Before I even made a call, I had jumped to the conclusions that they were doing something wrong. I mean, I was ready, like, you know. I mean, I'm getting the Tommy Hawk ready. I mean, I ain't got much, but what little I got. Don't tell me I don't pay my bills. I pay my bills. I ain't like a lot of independent Baptists. I pay my bills. Amen. I'm thinking, uh-uh, we ain't doing this. And she's like, sir, we apologize so much. As a matter of fact, we'll give you a credit for so and so. And I'm like, well, no ma'am, I didn't. Now I'm backpedaling. I'm like, whoa. But disillusioned before I even had the facts. You ever been there? Watch the apostle Paul. Paul gets smacked probably in the head when he falls off his horse there and he most likely loses his eyesight. Let me give you this right quick. He gets revelations beyond anything anybody can imagine. And then he says this in verse number 6, he said, For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool. For I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth me to be. Disillusioned, Paul said, don't be thinking of me something, don't be fooled, don't be thinking that I'm something I'm not. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of revelation, there's given to me, uh-oh, a thorn in the flesh. Messenger of Satan, to buffet me, the Lord let the devil give that to him, just like he let the devil mess with Job. To buffet me. Why? Paul said, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I have assaulted the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee. I got a whole sermon, that's just the introduction, but I got a whole sermon on this. We don't need anybody to help us when God says yes. Nobody has to tell you when God answers the prayer the way you pray it and God answers it, man, we're the first one to stand up and, I just want to praise the Lord, so and so happened, I want to praise the Lord, God did this for me, I want to praise the Lord. What about when God says, no, you're going to keep that thorn? What about when God says the baby's not going to get well? What about when the Lord says, that prayer that you prayed, I'm going to tell you, not maybe, not wait, I'm telling you no. Where's the preaching on how to handle the no, not just the yes? How do I handle the no's in my life? Hey, they that trust, that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their wing. They'll mount up with wings like he'll run and not be weary and walk and not be faint. Why? Because you have to learn to trust the Lord and not lean on your own understanding. God, why did you do this? And why did you let that happen? That's your own understanding talking. You're thinking in your mind, it should be different. It should have turned out different. It shouldn't have happened this way. Why'd God let that happen? And the Lord said, no, you're leaning on your own understanding. Trust me. But Lord, I'm sick. It's good for you. You need to be sick. I'm trying to show you something. You need to be sick. You don't need to be healed. You don't need some miraculous healing. You need to be sick for a while. Paul said, hey, I asked him three times. He said no. But then in the passage, you know what I learned? I learned that when I am weak, he is strong, I will therefore glory in tribulation. My own understanding says no! But He says, yes, this is good for you. Everybody not talking to you. Everybody not accepting you. Everybody putting pressure on you. I'm trying to show you in a way that only I can make it out to you. But you're making this too much about you. It's not as much about me as you've made it out to be. You need this pressure. Well, I don't understand it. Good, you're not supposed to. Or you'll lean. on your understanding. Makes sense. I'm leaning on it. I'm leaning on it. I don't get it. I don't understand it. I'm just trusting Him to get me through it. And if He don't get me through it, to accept it. Ooh, got quiet there. Every trial is not one that you go through the storm and come out and the sun comes out the next day. Some you live with the rest of your life. Some are deep scars that scar you the rest of your life. God put that there and He knows that it's there, but He's never going to get you through that. You're going to live with that. You say, why? Understanding would say, well, that just doesn't make sense to me. I just don't understand that. What's worse is, is well, I can mathematically figure that thing out. And the Lord said, boy, you're in trouble now. Because now that you've understood it, you know what you're going to do? You're not going to see me in any of it. You're headed for another classroom. You're trying to make sense out of things that don't make sense. Listen to me kids, I'm almost done. I know I've said that a dozen times, but I really am. I'm wound tight. I'm so glad to be preaching. You're trying to make sense in a human realm about things and over things that don't make sense. When they don't make sense, Lord, I don't get it. Good. And? I'm going to trust you. You are? You're going to acknowledge me? Yeah? Okay, good. I'll give you some direction. Lord, too big for me. Don't get it. Hurt, pain, agony. How come you're blessing them and hurting me? Job even said that. Tabernacle of robbers prospers, the wicked prosper more. I mean, it doesn't make sense, Lord. If I was wicked and you hammered me, what I can't make sense of is I do good and I don't really see a benefit, and I do bad and you don't get on to me, so I'm kind of confused. And the Lord's like, yeah, the reason is, is not because I'm here to punish you every time you do bad to give you the direction of right doing, right living. I'm trying to help you to see I'm going to do right whether I get recognized for it or not. God doesn't always get on to you, or it would be easy, wouldn't it? If every time you sidestepped, POW, He popped you, you'd be walking more like man. But you know why you'd be doing it? You'd be doing it to try to avoid a whipping. You wouldn't be doing it because you loved Him. Why you come to church? Because you love Him. Really, what gets you off your blessed assurance to read your Bible and to pray? I hope it's not just trouble. Hey, I love the Lord. I'm glad He hears my cry and He inclines His ear to me. I'm glad He picks me up and helps me and holds me. I like the things about... I love the Lord, but when He puts me through that thing, there's the real test of my love. Do I trust Him? Boy, I want to get there. As they used to say, that's pretty high cotton. That's way up there. But I'm grabbing just a taste, I'm beginning to see clearly. Man, if he as a church could grab a hold of that and learn to trust that no matter what happens, God's got it. God's got it.