Speak To Us All And We Will Hear And Do It

Alright, so after a long hiatus because of Advent and sickness, we're back to Deuteronomy, where we were at months ago. Okay, we're back in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Before we stepped away, before Advent, I just preached two sermons on the Ten Commandments, one on the first table of law, one on the second table of law. Our text this morning is the interaction between Moses and the Israelites right after he'd given them the Ten Commandments. Now, you remember that Deuteronomy is not the record of the initial giving of the law that happened at Mount Sinai, but it's a retelling of the law. after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, right before the Israelites go into the promised land. So Moses is basically recounting their history. This is what we did. This is what happened. This is what you said. That's what this passage contains. The result of the interaction between Moses and the Israelites was that the Israelites came to him and were terrified. They were terrified of God, and they didn't want him to speak to them anymore, even though they'd lived through it the first time.

They sort of go, we've gotten through this by the skin of our teeth. Like we don't expect to live through these sorts of things. No one does. So would you, Moses, go and speak to God and then come and tell us everything that he has to say and we'll do it. And so my hope this morning as we study this text is that God would help us to trust and to obey those that he speaks through. That God often speaks not directly to us as he did at the mountain, but through those that he raises up like Moses. And my hope is that we'll do what they said they were going to do, which is that they will listen.

and obey. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 5 verses 22 through 27. These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire of the cloud and of the thick gloom with a great voice and he added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me and when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire you came near to me all the heads of your tribes and your elders. You said, behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. Now then, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we hear the voice of the Lord of our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speak from the midst of the fire as we have and lived? Go near.

and hear all that the Lord our God says, and speak to us all that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So we're going to focus on what the Israelites say to Moses and ask him to do. God speaks to them. Thunder, lightning, shaking, quaking, fearful times. They come to Moses and say, look, the Lord has shown us his glory and his greatness. We've heard his voice. We've seen today that he speaks with us. And yet we live. And it's almost, you get the impression that almost it's a surprise to them that they've lived through it. That they aren't like, and yeah, we're alive. And they're like, but man, we made it through. We're alive. And we don't know how much longer we can, are going to stay alive in this context. So God, when he revealed himself in power and in his word, the result of the people.

was that they thought they would die. They heard God speak and they went, this is going to kill us. What did they see? What caused them to fear for their lives? Well, they saw some of God's power and greatness, not all of it, but just some of it. And that was enough to strike fear into their hearts. And so the question before us first is, should Christians fear God the way that the Israelites feared God in this text? Should we tremble when he speaks? I think some of us are like, yep. And some of us are like, no. And the ones who say, yup, are like, why wouldn't we? God's a consuming fire. He's fearful. He's full of wrath and judgment and sending Jesus didn't change that. In fact, we saw the wrath of God poured out on his son for our sins. And he's promised us that when he comes back, he's going to come back and it's going to be worse.

For everyone who has not bowed the knee to Jesus. Yes, he still has wrath. And he's still full of justice. And he's still going to judge every sin that would be appropriate. He's not divested himself of his holiness and his righteousness. So we ought to fear him. But some of us would think, no. We ought not to fear anymore. And we could bring up passages in the New Testament. Maybe the most common one is that perfect love casts out fear. That John said. I think that's one of the most misunderstood or abused passages. In the modern church today. Because what it does is it says, we ought not to have any of the sort of knee-knocking fear that the Israelites had here. They just said, we need him to go. Because if he doesn't go, we're going to die. And it's like we've evolved and come to a place where that sort of fear has no place in the Christian experience or the Christian consciousness.

Many times when we think about entering into God's presence, all of the warnings or the examples we see in Scripture of entering into his presence with fear, with trembling, by the blood of Jesus Christ, all that's been gone. And it's as though we think we walk in and out of God's presence now, just as we are, and that there's no tension, there's no problem, there's no conflict, there's no danger. And I don't think that's right. What we're told in Scripture is that those who don't fear God, don't know God, that they're rebels against God. In Psalm 36, verse 1, it says, transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart. There is no fear before his eyes. And so we might think, okay, well, that's the ungodly. That's those who don't know God. That's those who are in rebellion. They have no fear before God because they're in rebellion. But you do realize that that passage I just quoted from Psalm 36 is the same passage that Paul quotes to us in Romans chapter 3.

And he's not talking about the unbelievers anymore. Now he's talking about the believers. And he says, of us, there's no fear of God before their eyes. And he describes our mouth as being full of lies and full of poison, the poison of asps. There's none who does right. No, not one. It's one of the most scathing chapters of Scripture in its diagnosis and description of the condition of God's people left to themselves, described as they are apart from his work in their life. But I don't think that... we as modern Christians, American evangelicals, have a stomach for that anymore. We just go, well, that's about some other people. But who was Paul writing it to? He was writing it to the Romans. He was writing it to the Christians at Rome. And he was describing them with it. And so I want us to sit in that for a minute and go, oh, the fear of God is something that's appropriate for Christians to exhibit.

We're not so different from those Israelites who stood at that mountain and trembled and quaked. I would submit to you that if you were at that mountain, you would tremble and quake. I would submit to you that if your house got struck by lightning, you would tremble and quake. And that being at this mountain was much more scary. You would tremble in fear at power being demonstrated. We still do. the one who sends the lightning from the lightning itself. But the wind and the rain and the lightning and the quaking go forth out of God's mouth and obey him. So it would be foolish for us to separate the power of God from God himself. In this passage, we see the two of them put together. God is there, present, speaking, and all of these sorts of...

terrifying events are going on. But those sorts of things still go on today. Do we connect those sorts of things, the power and the greatness of God that we see in natural disasters with the hand of God? What do you think about these wildfires in California? And it's like nobody has, you know, silent as a mouse we all are. It's really the liberals, right? It's because they won't cut the fire breaks and clean up the debris and all that type of stuff. That's the problem. Where did the fire come from? Well, it was from the people who went and set them. Okay. Do you believe that God uses means to accomplish his will? Do you think that fire consuming large sections of habited land is a judgment? Or have you been trained not to think that it is a judgment? But you're not supposed to say it. You're not supposed to think it. It's like you get your hand slapped if you think it. And you'll make it more than that slapped if you say it.

But this is how Christians ought to think. Everything that happens, if he knows how many hairs are on our heads, does he not send fire and rain and earthquakes to inspire people to fear? You can read headlines for days about why the fires are coming. The one I saw was like, LA is scheduled to become a smart city in a couple of years. And so it's all part of this master plan. I don't know if it is or if it's not what I do know. is that God made this earth and everything that's in it and that his will is being accomplished. And if there's a large section being burnt up and man doesn't have the strength or the power to stop it, man's not up against mother nature. He's up against father God. What should be the response to that sort of thing? Fear ought to be the response to that sort of thing. It wasn't long ago that there was a hurricane that blew up through the Carolinas and Tennessee and it just ravaged that part of the country, just destroyed it, wiped it out.

Do we take these things to heart? Do we see any warning in them? Is there any fear of God before our eyes when we see his power and his greatness on display? That's what the Israelites thought. That's what they said. The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness. Just some of it, not all of it, just some of it. And they were warned. They knew their lives were in danger. Do we see that? Many times we don't because we simply think that the fear of God is not something that's appropriate or ought to attend Christians anymore. Now, there are fears that are to be put away from us as Christians, but not all fear. Okay? There are different types of fear. The two I would point out to you or want to talk about this morning would be slavish fear or familial fear. Okay? Slavish fear or familial fear. What's true of a slave and his master?

There is a transactional relationship. There is no commitment. There is no love. There is no bond between them beyond their relationship of slave and master. The slave is afraid of being beaten, of being sold, of being killed. This is how slaves are described in Scripture as being afraid. Should children be afraid of their parents or of their fathers? Are your children afraid of you? Do you think it's appropriate that your children are afraid of you? Or are you their friend? When they've got an idea, now maybe a two-year-old idea, or maybe a 20-year-old idea, but they've got an idea. Do they straighten up when they consider their dad in your response to it? Should they? I would submit to you that they should. That your children ought to fear you. That they ought to...

they ought to consider the consequences of their father's response to their behavior, to their actions. But what's different between the son's fear of his father and a slave's fear of his master? The difference is the relationship. The slave has no assurance of love coming to him from his master. But a son ought to have the assurance that his father loves him. I asked you a minute ago, do your sons and daughters fear you fathers? Are they afraid of you? Do they have a good fear of you? And it's like, well, I don't know. But if I ask you, do you love them? You'll be like, yeah, I love them. So why are we sure of our love for them, but unsure of their fear for us? Because we've been taught that that's not appropriate for them to have any fear of us. But here, the Israelites, the sons of God, the children of God, bought and marked through circumcision as his own children are afraid of him.

But fear is not all that's in this passage. It's kind of hard to see the praise and the graciousness and the gladness, but there's a lot of gladness in this passage. What are they glad about? Somebody tell me, what are they glad about? They're alive. They are very happy that they are alive and they don't want to die. And they attach their life to the kindness of God. Now, it doesn't say it explicitly, but they're like, nobody talks to God and lives. But we just did. That's incredible. Now, you'd miss it because it doesn't just say, and they were thankful that God didn't kill them. But if you were reading this passage at home in devotions, that's something you should point out to your kids. Like, you do realize their fear wasn't unwarranted. And God preserved them. And they were wicked people. They were corrupt people.

Not long after this at Mount Sinai, you know, they say all this, Moses goes back up the mountain. What do they do? Right after they say, just come and tell us everything he'll tell us to do. We'll do it. You just go up and talk to him. What do they do as soon as he leaves? Make a golden calf. They immediately, they're like told, don't have any idols before me. Don't make any images of likeness and things in heaven above or in the earth or in the sea below. Don't do any of that. Don't bow down and worship them. Moses, go back up there and talk to him. And they make a golden calf. They were a sinful people.

And God was merciful to them. And so you have to get it out of your mind that God's only merciful to people who aren't sinful. God's only merciful to people who are sinful. The physician only heals the sick. He only gives sight to the blind. He only gives hearing to the deaf. He only gives life to the dead because they're his children. And so their fear of God in this passage was not a slavish fear. but a familial fear. They didn't see God as their taskmaster, but as their patriarch, their father. Their fear was a natural, palpable fear that a child would have on his father as he saw his father's strength on display. When you were a kid, if you ever saw one of your siblings get in trouble, like what was it supposed to produce in you? Like what's the whole point? It's to cause fear.

Now, I'm not saying that they were, they don't even have to be disciplined in front of you. It's just like, if you hear dad say, honey, pick that up. And the kid's like, and dad gets up. It's like, well, all of a sudden, everybody knows there's a problem. The kid who's just like, no, no, no, I'm doing, I'm doing. It's too late. And everyone else is going, oh no, why did you do that? And then the child comes out of the room with their dad afterwards. And if God's been gracious, the kid's at peace. He's content. He's not fearful. He's not sullen and sulking anymore. He may have puffy cheeks from crying, but he comes out on his dad's hip or holding his dad's hand or whatever. You know, he goes back to playing. He's in a good mood. Fear is not opposed to love. We really do have to join the two, marry the two back together in our hearts and minds. God does love his children and inspire fear in them.

It would be unnatural for them not to fear him. Something natural would be broken. When some child squares up to their parents and mouths off to them and starts yelling at them, something unnatural is going on. And why is it that the child will do something like that? It's only because they have no fear of their parents. That's all it is. There's no fear of their mom and dad before their eyes. None. There should be. And so while we weren't there at Mount Sinai, hearing the voice of God directly, In the midst of all of his power and glory and strength being displayed, we should be able to read this account as though we were there and feel the fear that they felt because it's our fear. Being a Christian is not simply a mental exercise where we think and roll things around in our brains. Being a Christian is a felt, lived.

exercise where we live out our love and live out our fear and live out our faith in front of the world and in front of God. And the only way we do that is if we're assured of two things, that he loves us and that he's fearful and holy and righteous and a judge. So the Israelites go on and they say, now then why should we die? If we've lived this long and we don't think we're going to live much longer now, then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die. Their fear convinced them that if God remained close to them, they would die. Why did they conclude that? Because they'd seen the fire and the smoke and the trembling of the mountain. They'd heard the intensity of his voice. They saw and felt in their bones, like when you go to a concert and you can like feel the bass in your bones and in your heart. They felt it inside of them.

This is real. This is powerful. This is moving. And in that moment, they saw we are not like him. And he is bigger and stronger and more powerful than we could ever imagine to be or to resist or to escape. He has to go back to heaven away from us or we are going to be consumed. They felt they're his holiness and they felt. their sinfulness. This is what caused them to ask Moses, to cry out to Moses, you talk to us instead of him. This thing they asked Moses to do is a really good thing. It's really commendable. Not everyone responds the way they did when they're faced with God's holiness and their own sinfulness. Many times when people are faced with God's holiness or their own sinfulness, they don't respond with, we'll stay and listen and obey. What they respond with is running and hiding or anger.

But they respond well. They don't do well afterwards, but they respond well in the things that they say. You remember when Adam and Eve sinned and they were confronted with God as he came back down into the garden? What did they do? They went and hid themselves. Sewed together some fig leaves. Tried to cover up their own nakedness. Maybe he won't notice. They hid themselves. Do you hide yourself? When you fall into sin, do you just kind of wallow in it and feel bad and terrible thinking that that will please God somehow if you skulk and pick on yourself for a while? It's so stupid. It's so stupid. God's holy and you're feeling bad about your sins doesn't abate his holiness. It's still there to be dealt with in its entirety. And it has been dealt with in its entirety through Jesus Christ. But we'd rather hide.

and fall down at the cross and say, I did it again. Fear that leads you to run away from God, it's not godly fear. It's not godly fear. It's not the fear of a son. It's the fear of a slave. We ought to have the fear of a son in our hearts. They carried, they went on and they said, for who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived? One of the things they're acknowledging is that no one, I mentioned it earlier, now again in a little more in depth, No one lives through an encounter with God. No one lives through it. Why did God put Adam and Eve out of the garden? What was the other option? To kill them, as he promised he would do if they ate of the tree. That was the only other option. Ignore it was not an option. Second try, like it didn't happen, was not an option. Death was the option. Death was what he promised would come.

And so God's gracious response to Adam and Eve in the garden was to say, you go out of here and I'm going back to heaven. That way you can live for a time. Otherwise you die. No one's heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fires we haven't lived. True. True. As a result of sin, God does have to withdraw his presence in some way from his people. Or they'll be consumed because of their sinfulness. This is the whole basis. For there being mouthpieces for God that he gives to us. And we're going to come to that as our final point today. This is the whole reason we had, they had prophets and priests in the Old Testament and kings. And it's the whole reason we have pastors and elders and moms and dads now. It's because if God came and told us what to do, like they tell us what to do, it would kill us. The problem is we don't think it would.

We think we're like Job, like we'd have a case that we'd stand there and tell him how we think it should be and how he could have done it a little better. So the Israelites' response here is an appropriate response, a good response, good corrective to us. Their fear was appropriate. They knew God was holy and they knew that he had to withdraw from them or they would die and be consumed. Do you remember the priests in the Old Testament? There was a part of the temple, a part of the tabernacle, they were not allowed to go into except for once a year. The Holy of Holies. Why couldn't they go into the Holy of Holies? Because that's where God was. That's where God's presence was at. Now, if they went in and didn't follow the prescribed ritual as they went in, what happens to them? What happens to the priests? That's it. That's it. It's over. You're done. Dead. Consumed. And they were only allowed to go in once a month, once a year. It was God's concession to his people that one of them could come into his presence.

And not be killed because of his and the people's sinfulness. And he had to offer sacrifices for his sins and for their sins. Otherwise, they had to stay at a distance from God because his holiness would consume them. You may think, yes, but that's all changed now. Because Jesus came, that's all changed now. Our approach to God has changed because of Jesus Christ. But his fearfulness has not changed. We can draw near with confidence as the author of Hebrews tells us now to the throne of grace. Why? Because of Jesus Christ. It's like you have to walk through a minefield and by the grace of God, you've been given every step to take so that you are not destroyed. But it's still a minefield because the holiness of God is still there. And Jesus Christ has made a path to the throne of grace by his blood. But it's still a dangerous place to go.

and a deadly place to go if you don't walk the path that Jesus has laid out for you. So because of their fear, because of the holiness of God, they say, Moses, you go near, and you hear all that the Lord our God says, and then speak to us all that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we'll hear and we'll do it. In effect, they say to Moses, you be our intermediary. You stand between God and us. You talk to him on our behalf, and we will listen to you, everything that he says. This was good. Very good. It sets a pattern for us that we see carried out through the rest of Scripture and through the rest of time. That God now deals with his people through intermediaries, through priests and through prophets, in the Old Testament, fulfilling their different roles. And yet still even in the New Testament, he speaks to us and ministers to us his word through intermediaries. And so in Moses being...

coming, the mouthpiece of God. We see a pattern established that God still uses today. They didn't say, get us out of here. We don't want anything to do with him. They didn't say, we can't believe that he would consume us. Who does he think he is? They said to the one that God had raised up to lead them and to care for them and to guide them out of slavery and into the promised land. Will you lead us? And not only will you lead us, will you speak to us on God's behalf? God raised up someone familiar to them. And they agreed to someone familiar to them being the one who would speak to them on God's behalf. And I would submit to you that's still how God works. He still speaks to us and ministers to us through those that he raises up to care for us. When you're young, when you're a child, that's largely your parents, you kids. If you want to know how to honor God, you have to honor your parents. You can't obey God if you don't obey your parents. It's not possible.

there's no way for you to despise your parents and reject the things they tell you and still honor God. Well, I don't want to do it. It doesn't matter. It's not what we were talking about. If they're telling you to do something sinful, that's another thing. But my guess to you kids is most, if not all the things your parents tell you to do are not sinful. You just don't want to do it. You want to do something else. You can't honor God if you don't honor your parents, if you don't obey them. Well, they don't understand. That's not for you to judge. Parents, are you listening? These are the things you have to say to your kids. As they get older and they find their will and they find their way of trying to get what they want, you're not their peer. You're not their equal. You're not their friend. You're tasked by God with their discipleship. And you're going to give an account for how you did and what you did or didn't do. And they'll give an account for whether they listened or not. And the reason is because God raises up people around us.

to speak on his behalf to us. I think one of the most comforting things that scripture tells us about our parents and their sinfulness is that in Hebrews, it says that our fathers disciplined us. Do you guys know the phrase that comes after that? For a time as they thought best, which is a really gracious way of saying your parents didn't always hit a home run, but you honored them is what it goes on to say. And then he makes the argument, if you'd honor them, how much more so ought you to honor God, who never screws up like your parents do? So Moses is close to the Israelites. Mosul is known by them. Moses is asked by them to speak to them on behalf of God. Their request was good. They didn't want to go to strangers. At least at this point, they weren't saying, let's go back to Egypt. They did say that not too much after this, but they weren't saying that at this point.

They wanted to hear from God and they wanted to hear from God from the mouth of Moses. We ought to want to hear from God from the mouths of the people they bring up close to us. We ought to give priority to the people who know us and who love us. Okay? I've talked about parents. Now I'll talk about pastors. If you want to grow in holiness, listen to the people that God has placed in spiritual authority over your life. Now what's the thought everybody has as soon as I say that? They're sinful. They're corrupt. They're power hungry. If all those things are true, then find someone else. But if you use that as an excuse to not submit to anybody, you're a rebel. Because what you're saying is God doesn't raise up anybody to do that work anymore. It's just me. And that's not true. Those whom God raises up are sinful. As Moses was sinful. Moses wasn't perfect. Was he?

You do remember that Moses, this man of God, this high and lifted up patriarch of the nation, wasn't allowed to go into the promised land because of his sin. He got angry and struck a rock because the people were grumbling and complaining and he'd had enough. Multiple times he goes to God and he's like, hey, can you just kill me? These people are so miserable. They won't listen. They just grumble and complain all the time. Can you just, can you just, just, can we just, can I be done? You ever felt that way? We ought to listen to those that God raises up. Not because they're perfect. They're not. But here's the thing. Neither are you. And if someone were to go over your leadership and your decision making with as fine tooth of a comb as your go over everyone else's, they wouldn't make it very far, would they? Before they were like, what did you do? That was stupid. That was foolish. Didn't you know better? Why'd you do it again? And again, we tend to live.

Not hearing and obeying based on our relationship to the one speaking. What we do is we hear and we evaluate whether we agree. And then if we agree, we obey ourselves and go do it. We insert this thing in the middle, like our agreement is a prerequisite to our obedience. You know, a lot of parenting is aimed at trying to get kids to agree with the good things their parents are trying to get them to do. And it's terribly ineffective. Because kids are foolish. They don't know what's good for them. And it's foolish for their parents to then try to rationalize and reason with the two-year-old or the three-year-old or the seven-year-old why this would be good. But it's all built on this idea that people only do or should only be expected to do what they agree is appropriate for them to do. And that's a foolish way to live your life.

Because there's lots you don't know. And there's lots of good that you do know that you don't do anyway. How many good things do you know you should do that you didn't do last week? I mean, it would take all your fingers and toes to list it off, wouldn't it? It's not like a few things. Instead, what we should do is throw away our questioning of whether or not what we're being told to do is good, except insofar as we say, does this agree with what Scripture says, like the Bereans did? But we should say, if I'm told to do something by those whom God has raised up, those whom he's put into my life, those who love me, I should simply do what they tell me to do. And whether I agree or not isn't a part of the equation. Now, that's crazy. I realize that's crazy. That's not how anybody lives. And I might as well have a third eyeball coming out of my forehead for saying it because none of us think like that or do that. But it is what they said they would do.

Moses, you go talk to him. Come back. Tell us everything he says and we'll do it. Why would they be willing to make such a far-reaching commitment? Because they knew who God was and they knew that he loved them. That's it. That was enough for them to do anything he said. Why did Abraham take Isaac up on the mountain? Because it made rational sense? No. It's because he knew who God was and he believed what God said. And he said, if you say it, then I am going to do it. Instead of questioning whether what we're being told is reasonable or appropriate or popular or easy, we would do much better to question who's telling us to do it. And if they love us, we should listen to them. That's my argument. That's what the fear of God produces. A fear of God produces a humility before God, and the ones he raises up to do what they say. It's an incredible burden if you're one of the people that God's raised up. You parents, you feel it. Some of you are like, no, I'd actually rather have my kids' agreement because then it won't all be on me. Some of you husbands, your first thought when there's a decision to be made is to say, honey, what would you like to do? Why are you asking? Because you don't want to bear all the weight of making the decision, making the wrong decision. We feel it. We buckle under it. We're weak.

We need God's strength. We need to fear him and we need to walk in the path that he's given to us. And if he's given us authority or responsibility and care over people, then we ought not to shirk that responsibility. And if we are the ones that have been placed under that authority, we ought not to throw it off. Nothing good comes out of throwing off godly authority. And when I say godly authority, I don't mean authority that always honors God. I mean authority that's been placed there by God. That's not requiring you to sin. Even if they tell you, even if they sin in their leadership. It's a difficult thing to thread this needle. But we really do need to work at it and learn how to. And so we should expect God to use normal means to speak to us. It seems extraordinary that God would speak to Moses directly and then Moses would speak to them. But to them at that time, that was normal. That was normal. That's how God communicated at that time.

are similar in pattern, but a little different in structure. Our church structure and our familial structure and these sorts of things are well understood. We have a lot more scripture to rely on to direct us than they did at that time. And so we ought to expect God to use the normal means that he's established to speak to us. Our parents, our church officers, the Titus II women, the older women of the church, our governing authorities. We ought to expect God to use them. I asked you about the fires earlier. And I said, who sent the fire? And we're like, well, you can't really say. Who will send the relief? Mexico and Canada with their water helicopters? Maybe that's the means. That's not the agent behind it. We ought to take warning from the fearful thing. And we ought to praise God for the very normal way of putting out a fire.

other than God shifting the wind or sending rain, which it's not that season out there, it's going to be through God raising up what seemed like normal means to deal with this. That's how we expect it to be resolved when it's resolved, don't we? That like the men and the women, the servicemen who've put their lives in danger and worked long hours and been away from and sacrificed and all the story, very normal means to put the fire out. And we'll praise God for it. We'll be glad the fires are contained. If God will use those normal means to put out those fires, we ought to expect and prepare our hearts to receive him using normal means in our lives to direct us, to care for us, to teach us his ways. If we disagree, and it's about impossible to take away the question of whether we agree. It just wells up in us. The assumption you should make if you disagree is that you're the one who's wrong.

At least initially. It's just a good prophylactic when it's happening. You know what? I'm probably the one who's out of line here. Let me just give it a day and think about it. Let me go ask someone else if I'm crazy or if they're crazy. We should discipline our hearts to fear God and to not cast off his rule in our life. Let's pray.