Revelation 8:1-5

All right, if you have your Bibles with you, go ahead and pull those out and turn with me to the Book of Revelation Chapter eight. We’re going to look at verses one through five today. Revelation Chapter eight verses one through five. We’re in the middle of a series called Omega. It is a study on the Book of Revelation and the End Times, and in Revelation Chapter six, we see The Undoing of the Scroll, which is the title deed to all creation that has inside of it, the instructions for judgment to bring an end to sin and evil, and to redeem the world back to its original paradise condition. In a verse where in Chapter seven, what we see is the angels holding back the winds and Jesus takes time to seal his believers and mark them so that he can keep them during this time. In a verse number eight, we get back to action, so one more time we’re going to do a little work out today if you please rise and stand in honor of God’s word for our initial and primary reading of it today. Revelation Chapter eight, verse one. When the lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden sensor, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all of the Saints on the golden altar before the throne and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the Saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took this sensor and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the Earth. And there were peals of thunder rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. You may be seated. Chapter seven is over the time for the sealing of Saints has concluded, and God has paused long enough to seal all of his people and make sure to take care of his people. Now it’s time to resume action, and it begins in what seems to be an anticlimactic way. But it’s not so anticlimactic as it seems, so let’s go back and look at verse number one. It says when the lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Now this silence is not so insignificant how many of you have maybe some small children in your home and silence is. A blessing of God. OK, so silence is not always insignificant, sometimes it’s very significant, especially when there’s a lot of noise. Well, up into this point, heaven has been very loud. Revelation Chapter four, verse five from the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder. You go down to eight in the four living creatures, belt out their song and worship to the one who is seated on the throne. You go on a verse 11, and the twenty four elders jump in with their own song and revelation five to the John Hurt, a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, you go now to verses five through 10 in the the four living creatures and the twenty four elders, followed by the multitude of angels join in this heavenly choir in response to the Lamb of God. Seizing control of the scroll revelation six one, one of the four living creatures said with a voice of thunder come verse three. A second one would do that verse five, a third, verse seven, a fourth and verse nine. There was the cries of the martyrs from under the altar and verse. 12. A powerful earthquake could be heard in Chapter seven. Verse two, the angel cries out with a loud voice, the instructions for not harming the Earth and versus nine through 13. We heard countless multitudes amen, crying out and singing praises to God. It’s been lord in heaven. Remember, we talked about this. God likes things loud. But all of the sudden, this comes to an abrupt end. Now, to John, it seems like 30 minutes has passed. But if we remember, heaven doesn’t count time like we count time, it isn’t no time like we no time. In fact, it could be argued that they don’t really have time. There’s no measurement of time. But to John, in this vision, it seems like half an hour each minute, that past must have seemed like forever. It’s like watching the microwave whenever you got around to lunch a little late in those seconds could not tick off any. Quicker. The hour of God’s final judgment has arrived, the hour that all the Saints will be vindicated, the hour that sin will be punished, the hour when Satan and all of his followers will be thrown into the pit and destroyed the hour that Christ will be fully exalted in his final state. The greatest event in the history of the world is upon us. Verse two. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. Now the trumpet is one of the most significant instruments used in the Bible. in the Old Testament, the trumpet was using used to summon the Congregation of Israel. It was used to sound an alarm during a time of war was used to call religious feast. It was used to announce news. It was used to announce new kings. They were used in worship ceremonies and in the New Testament, it’s used to announce the Lord’s return. These seven angels who stand before God with the seven trumpets now have the responsibility of announcing the initiation of the seven new judgments as a part of the seventh seal. Now wait a second. Josh new judgments. I thought we were almost done. We covered six. This is the seventh seal. Why are there more? Well, surprise. Held inside the seventh seal judgment is seven more judgments, called the trumpet judgments. It’s going to get worse, every trumpet judgment gets significantly worse. Now, an interesting question as I read this, because sometimes I don’t know if you’re like me, you read the Bible and you’re like, I wonder who those angels are. Just curious. Are they random angels that God just like you, you, you, you and you? I don’t think so. The biblical text does not specify, but the definite article. The indicates that it’s not a random set of angels, these are specific angels. Interestingly enough, there is a historical set of literature literature called the apocrypha that does mention the names of these angels now is a little teaching moment here. Now the apocrypha if you’ve ever heard that term and I think most people have because I get a lot of questions about this from time to time. The apocrypha is not scripture. It’s not accepted in any form and hasn’t been in the church for thousands of years to be inspired. Text from God with the exception of some rogue versions of Roman Catholicism. These books aren’t necessarily wrong. They just aren’t divine. They do have information in them that is helpful for us to understand not non critical issues. And they’re interesting to study, but they’re not something to be considered, something to live by or count as from God. Now, I’ll put this little disclaimer out there, too. If you’re a new believer and you don’t have a firm foundation in the word of God, don’t jump in into the apocrypha. OK? A lot of people have done that, and they’ve started cults doing that. OK. Make sure if you haven’t read the whole Bible through at least three or four times, don’t read the apocrypha. All right. Quite frankly, it’s it’s weird. It’s also interesting at the same time. But but don’t allow it to distort how you interpret the scriptures. OK. But as we look at this, there’s a book called Tobit, so I think it’s a cool name. It’s a second century document. It identifies the name of the angels. Now these are the names we don’t know. We can’t hold to it as the truth because it’s historical documents that could be wrong. But according to their names or Uriel, Rafael, Rafael, Michael, Sarah Quayle, Gabriel and Romeo and Donatello, Lina Nado and Michelangelo Splinter. So. Other than having cool names. I don’t really know that that’s that important, but I was looking through this, and if you’re like me and you’re like, you’re like, I want to know who these angels are. There’s another document called the Jubilee’s that mentions the same names, but we don’t know the. Here’s the key. OK, here’s a little Bible interpretation study hint for you If the Bible doesn’t tell you it’s not important, it’s intentional. Not just the information the Bible includes, but the information it doesn’t include. It’s all intentional. So the names of the angels aren’t really important. Maybe it is done in Telo, Rafael, or I don’t know. But anyway, the angels are there, the angels in the presence of God here. Verse three. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden sensor. This is like a fire pan. And he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the Saints on the golden altar before the throne. So rather than reading this as this translator for the English standard version has put it as incense as being mixed with the prayers, it may be the more common approach that the incense is the prayers, the physical manifestation of the prayers. And we could go back letting the Bible interpret itself, which is a very healthy way to interpret the Bible and understand and study the Bible. Revelation five eight makes this clear, says and when he had taken the scroll before living creatures, the four 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the Saints. So we see this recurring theme in heaven that the prayers of the Saints are manifested physically in this form of incense. Now let’s look a verse four and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the Saints or together rose before God from the hand of the angel. There’s something sacrificial about genuine prayer. Both the the believer and his prayer enter the presence of God by the way of the altar, which has long been held as the place of sacrifice. Verse five, The Silence is broken. Then the angel took the sensor and filled it with fire from the altar. Threw it to Earth. And there were peals of thunder, rumbling flashes of lightning and an earthquake, and that’s not just K-Y three report for Republic’s weather this afternoon. I this is legit. Heaven’s silence is broken. Fire is joined from the altar and combined with the sensor filled with the prayers of the Saints and thrown to Earth, now that angel, they must have picked him out because he had an arm because he threw that all the way to the Earth. The reaction was natural disasters, thunder, rumblings, lightning and an earthquake. The fire of the altar representing God’s holy judgment and wrath is combined like putting gasoline on a fire with the prayers of the Saints. And both are used in conjunction to initiate the next set of judgments, which will usher in the end of evil and the beginning of the restoration of all new things. Now, when I read and study, this text, I can’t help but note that the prayers of the Saints, do you realize that when you become a follower of Jesus, you are now a saint? Not in New Orleans St. But you’re a saint. OK, now that doesn’t mean that we don’t sin, we don’t. The palagean heresy is is terrible, that sinless perfection is something that’s attainable in this life. That’s not true. We still sin, but we lay down the identity of a sinner and we pick up the identity of a saint. Because now when God sees us, he doesn’t see us. As our former sinners state, he sees what Christ work. He sees what his son did. That’s now been credited to our account. So when he sees us, he sees his son. So we are saints. I know that’s hard to believe. You look around the room, some of your friends and people that you know and and how they act, it would be hard to believe that you’re a saint, but you are. That doesn’t mean you don’t sin. It just means that when God looks at you, he’s sees a saint. He sees his son. Our prayers. I can’t help but note the prayers of you and I. Play an instrumental role in God redeeming the world. As one kind of commentator put it, the consummation of history will be owing to the supplication of the Saints, who cry out to God day and night, not one God exalting prayer has ever been in vain. What is our role in the events of the end times, it can seem as we walk through this book that our role is spectators, whether near or far away, we’re spectators. God’s doing his thing. We’re just watching it happen. But really, we have a part to play and we get our answer of our role of the end times events here. And it’s clear. Commentator Leon Morris put it like this, the Saints appear insignificant to men at large, but in the sight of God, they matter. Even great cosmic cataclysms are held back on their account. That’s Revelation seven, and the praises of the angels give way to silence so that the Saints may be heard. Heaven goes silent, so the prayers of the Saints may be heard. The silence after opening of the Seventh SEAL is a picture of the awe of the hosts of heaven. But what we see as a dramatic presentation of the importance of our prayers. You ever wonder where your prayers go, when you say them, do they just vanished into thin air? No one’s really paying attention or listening. I think sometimes we’re discouraged because we feel like God’s not actually listening. They just vanished into thin air. Well, here’s your answer. Here’s where they go on the altar before God. That’s how important they are to God. Now you may think, well, how can God collect all the prayers of all the Saints over time? If we can put one billion bytes of data on a chip this big, what do you think God can do with our prayers? He collects it on the altar. You ever wonder what God does with your prayers? Well, here’s what he does he stops all activity on heaven and Earth, tells Angel, Hold the wind. He takes it up off the altar. The angel does combines it with his fire like gasoline on a fire, hurls it to Earth. To begin the redemption process of all things. Let’s call. This is what God does with your prayers. Do you ever question the effectiveness of your prayers? I know I do. Consider this All the dark powers of the world. Are destroyed when God takes you and I. Prayers. And combines them with his fire, all the dark powers of the world are destroyed. Whoa. None of your prayers are ever lost. Every God fearing God exalting prayer in humility, according to the will of God, according to the Scriptures, is never lost a set before the throne. God is collecting them and at the appropriate time, he’ll put the gasoline on the fire. And here we go. Not a single prayer will be forgotten. Not a single tears shed for the Kingdom of God and for the gospel will be dropped without relevancy. Not a groan to the heavens. We’ll be left unheard. They’re stored up on the altar of God until the proper time arrives. Luke, Chapter 18, verse one, and he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Always pray and never lose heart. What does that mean? You pray. And you pray. And you pray and you pray and you pray some more, and then when you’re done praying, you brush your teeth with prayer. You put your shirt on with prayer. You put your shoes on with prayer. You get in your car with prayer, some of you all need a lot of prayer in your cars. I saw that tapping your wife’s leg, yeah, huh. Yeah, I saw that, Jim. You go to work and you pray. So you’ve met my boss, I pray a lot. You haven’t met my co-worker. Where are you at? There you are. Yeah, I got some work for you this week. That’s good. You pray, you go to work, you pray your lunch, you pray, Lord, please let the calories not be in this anymore. You go home from work. You pray you, you go home to your kids. You pray a lot. You pray, you pray some more. Matthew, Chapter six, verse nine, Jesus tells us how to pray, pray, then like this our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Ha. The whole reason why Jesus has us pray. Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven is for this moment because this moment is the accumulation of all those prayers where God brings his will to Earth. He’s literally going to take those prayers and put them into action. Folks, this has to change the way that we pray. Our prayers are often some sort of To-Do list for God. But we have to realize that there are higher degrees to which our prayers are being used. Prayer has to have an eternal, heavenly mindset. This is why he says this is how you ought to pray. Our father in heaven. I’m praying to a God who is eternal, who owns all things and who is good, and he is in heaven and he’s eternal. We have to realize and we have to pray with the understanding that God is collecting these prayers before his altar, his preserving every single one. Now, this really helps us and how we look at or perceive what we perceive to be unanswered prayer. It’s not unanswered, it’s before God. You prayed for healing and it didn’t happen, so the healing happened in God’s way and in God’s timing and in the greatest way ever in eternity. It wasn’t some Band-Aid for the physical body. It was the eternal healing. A complete and total healing that lasts forever and for for all of you that have suffered disease or illness or walked with someone who has or currently are. This should be the best news short of your own salvation. And that’s where the real healing is, by the way, we’re concerned with our bodies, but really our souls are sick and they need healed. And Jesus promises by faith that he will heal our souls for all eternity. That is the greatest form of healing. You prayed for God’s will, so it happens. God’s will is to redeem all things, to destroy evil, bring about his kingdom on Earth. That’s what he’s doing. That’s God’s will. And not only is he going to redeem the heavens and the Earth, he’s going to redeem you in Christ Jesus. Too often we play a short game, we play the short game with our prayers, and there’s nothing wrong with praying for immediate temporal needs. There ain’t nothing wrong praying your cat gives up the hairball. OK. There ain’t nothing wrong with praying for those sort of things. I’ve heard children pray for things that seem small to us. I have to believe God is just hanging on every word, the purity of the desire of their heart, right? Nothing wrong with praying for immediate, temporary needs, but we can’t escape our responsibility to pray for Christ, to redeem all things and return to Earth and his glorified state. We can’t be so concerned and preconceived with all of these immediate temporal things trying to Band-Aid every little bruise or cut and realize that we’re not praying for the eternal things which matter forever. You see here that God uses those prayers combined with his fire as gasoline on the fire to bring these things about. And even though God is going to do his will with or without your prayers, praying that his will be done in the redemption of all things changes your heart. Because now, if I’m praying that God’s will be done, what am I doing? I’m laying my flesh, my agenda, my desires on the altar and saying I sacrifice my expectations and I sacrifice my desires and I sacrifice what my will is to see your greater will be done. It reminds you that the temporary sufferings of this life will give way in just a matter of time. It aint Long, guys, even if you lived, even if you’re young right now and you live to a ripe old age. We get there fast. Fast. Allowing the Holy Spirit to change your heart regarding these things completely shifts you from being a short sighted prayer to a long game. Prayer I’m looking at long term Lord no problem in the Band-Aid for the immediate temporal need, but I want to pray for big things. I want to pray for the long game. You prayed for daily bread, so God fulfilled it in becoming your provision. You prayed that your debts would be forgiven when you prayed for that, you were thinking about that pesky credit card, you can’t get paid off. But what he had in mind was wiping your sin off of the plate wouldn’t you rather have that than having the pesky credit card. Now he can do both. You can believe for both. That he will help you and he will bring resources and that he will help you be a better steward but at the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather him? Forgive your sin and. Wipe that clean. You prayed that you would be delivered from evil, so he’s going to do it. He sends a fireball, the Earth to destroy and judge evil. He is going to do it. This text shows you the importance of our prayers, God stores them up along with every other person, and when they’ve reached their appointed time, God pours them out and a blessing for all those concerned. No prayer is ever in vain. Ever, ever, ever. So why don’t we pray more? Truth time. We’re selfish with our time. If we don’t see immediate results rendered from something that we do, we give up on it. That’s the way we’re wired. If I don’t see results, I don’t do it. Prayer is not conditioned to offer you immediate results. Sometimes it can happen. Sometimes it doesn’t. The whole key is, are you going to play the long game or are you going to quit and play the short game because prayer is not a short game thing? We’ve lost the art of playing the long game. We’ve lost the art of. Depending upon the Lord to give us faith to sustain us for the long game. We’ve lost faith in our prayers and without faith, it is impossible to please God, so if you come to God and you don’t believe that he is and that he’s capable, then then listen, you’re playing the short game. You have to understand that there’s more at play. God’s will is being accomplished. Is he going to give you the desires of your heart? Yes, after your heart has been transformed to come into alignment with his will? It’s not God, I want all these things, here’s my to do list. And he goes, OK. These are the desires of Joshua’s heart. Let me tell you something. If God answered every prayer that I ever prayed for something, there was a desire of my heart at this time. I dang be in a mess right now because all those things were not good things that God says, you don’t understand it right now. But these things are not good for you. So I’m not going to give them to you. God gives you the desires of your heart after your heart is transformed to come into alignment with his will. It’s not a God. Give me what I want. It’s God, help me change my heart. So why come into alignment with what you want? And then the desires of my heart? Line up with the desires of God’s heart? And that’s when things click. It’s not about us. It’s about the kingdom and it’s about God. Prayer, A call to prayer is a call a war. Romans Chapter 15, verse 20, I appeal to you, brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf. Now this is we’re studying is really important. Let’s look at that word. Strive that word, strive in the original Greek gets to contend along with in the context here and the use of this word in verb form is has a context of battle. So if you contend alongside someone, you’re in battle with them. Churches that pray together, fight together, stay together. Because everybody’s on the line holding the line, contending alongside each other. And even though we can be like, move over, quit touching me. And bicker at each other every now and again. At the end of the day, we have a common goal, a common enemy, a common proclamation of the gospel, a thing that’s been put on us. Go make disciples command and we’re all facing the same direction. We may disagree, but at the end of the day, we have a brotherhood that if we pray together, we are contending alongside each other and we are with each other in battle. Some of the greatest brotherhoods I’ve ever seen come from what military and law enforcement, why they’re literally fighting alongside each other. You have got to know that other guy has your back. You’ve got to know he’s got your back. Because when you’re going up against a suspect and they’re armed, you got to know that guy has your back and he’s going to protect your life because you’ve got kids to go home to. You’re out on the battlefield. You’ve got to know that that guy’s got your back, that that lady’s got your back. You’ve got to know that. And some of the strongest, but that doesn’t mean they don’t fight and they don’t bicker and they don’t get sideways on each other at the end of the day, you die for your brother. Because when you fight along and you contend along with alongside someone else, there’s a brotherhood and a sisterhood that comes with that. And if we would pray alongside each other, we would unite in the common goal that making disciples is our sole purpose. We may not always agree, we may get sideway. These are all of our flesh might get involved. We may have issues here and there, but ultimately all of our arrows pointed the same direction. All heading the same direction, all watching each other’s back. At the end of the day, I may get annoyed with you, but I will die for you. When our eyes are on a common predetermined goal. And we can all agree on these things, God is good. Jesus is king. The gospel alone saves and the devil can kiss my feet because he’s under my feet. OK. We can all agree on those things. So now let’s contend alongside each other. How do you strive? You strive in prayer. Do we all show up with our our Nerf guns and do little chant and no, we pray together, we’re a church. We got to get better at this. That’s my fault. When we all have our arrows, pointing in the same direction. They’re not pointed at each other. I had a cool thing that happened this weekend. I’m a part of an organization here in town called the Republic Community Action Team. And they put on an event called Pretty Strong Run. Some of you know the officer, Priebe, that was injured in the line of duty when he got ran over by a car about a year, year and a half ago. He’s paralyzed from the waist down. They put on this event to last year to raise funds for the family, to get them through the challenges that they were facing. With that and wonderful event, great turnout. I believe God was really glorified through it, so this this weekend was the second annual event and. There was a dinner that the governor went to the night before, so we were all there and I was asked to pray. And I stood up and, you know, a lot of people and with with hope in their hearts, they were like, it’s not going to rain tomorrow. It’s not going to rain, it’s not going to storm because I’ve prayed, because I’ve prayed. And I got up and I said and I prayed and I said, Lord. We ask you tomorrow for a favor concerning the weather. We ask the Lord that you would give us clear weather for the safety of the runners and for the success of the event. And then I said, however. If you don’t. We will glorify you anyway. Even if you don’t. We’ll still lift your name up high. So Saturday morning, there’s so much lightning in the sky like I’m not scared of storms, but just walking from my car to the rec center like I was making sure I didn’t have any unrepentant and confessed sin. you know, as I was walking to the building and I’m like, There’s no way like, there’s no way the rain. We can do lightning. You can’t do this. So we go in there on the phone with the National Weather Service and the National Weather Service is telling them that this is there’s going to be lightning all morning. And it was disappointing because there so much work that went into this event and there were so many people excited to run for this benefit. But then in a moment when the owner, the the organizer of the event asked us board into the room, it’s like she’s like, I can’t talk, I’m upset, I can’t talk and she looks straight at me and she said, You have to. And so I felt in that moment, you know, in that moment hits you and you’re like, Oh, I see what you’re doing here, God, you’re going to make me do the thing I prayed for the night before. So I got up in front of everybody, and with God’s grace, I said, listen, in all obstacles in life, we have an opportunity to still bring glory to God. We still have an opportunity to accomplish what we set forth to do. OK, so no one’s out there running. That’s disappointing. But God still can get the glory out of this. And I watch an amazing opening ceremony. I watched Law Enforcement, which if you read Romans Chapter 13, I have so much respect for law enforcement. It says they’re God’s servants. They’re God’s servants executing justice on Earth. They have a special role, saved or unsaved. They have a special role in God’s purpose on Earth. And I watch law enforcement families. A young man who passed away, got shot by a suspect and Independence gave his kidney to Officer Priebe through the through organ transplant. And I watched these these two families come together and converge and exchange gifts and and then the Priebe family paid it forward to the Westbrook family, who was also injured in the line of duty. I just saw that there was hundreds of people in the room. I’m not sure quite how many, but the room had, a lot of people in it. And I saw there’s just this feeling in the room of people just had each other’s backs and this tight knit community and everyone just loved what was going on. I got to thinking, you know, if we would have had this outside, all the runners would have been warming up. There have been a lot of wind. Hard to hear outside. There may have been 50 people gathered around the stage watching this, but now we’ve probably got three or four hundred people watching this and they’re all seeing every everything that is going on this amazing moment. And now we’re able to say, give God the glory and we’re able to pray and lift Jesus up at the end. Like, Come on! And we don’t know, in fact, listen, I don’t know. But I have a feeling when I get to heaven some day when you get to heaven, some day you’re going to look at some of the events that didn’t go the way they were supposed to and they went the way they were supposed to, because God’s not surprised by anything. And he took that inconvenient bump in the road and he turned it into something that’s that planted seeds that lasted for eternity. And you’re going to look and be like, I was so disappointed when that thing got canceled or I was so disappointed when it rained. Well, I was so disappointed when we had to do this, and God was like, I wasn’t disappointed. That was my plan. Stop putting expectations on how things are supposed to look and go and just follow me and I will lead you step by step by faith into what I’ve asked you to do. Our expectations kill us because we put expectations on everything who is God or we God? Who are we? But man to sit here and say, I want it this way. And I imagine it this way. But God, when he comes along and says, I have a different plan, will we go with his plan? Or will we put our foot down and be a bunch of stubborn fools like I’ve been plenty times in my life? We have an opportunity, we have an opportunity, and it comes by prayer. We ain’t good with God because we don’t pray. We’re not humble, we put expectations on everything. We try to push God around and demand Him. You do this, you do that. And then when we put our expectations on God and what we want him to do and he doesn’t do them. Guess who gets blamed? God does. Then we come back to him and be like, Why didn’t you answer my prayer? And he’s like, That’s not what I wanted to happen. Now, it’s just like our kids. Our kids do the same things to us. Which is the same. But listen, guys, it starts with prayer, what is prayer to prayer changes things? You know what? It changes you. It changes you. I ain’t praying to change God. God knows the end from the beginning. He’s already got it all worked out. He ain’t sitting here. Go Woo. Josh through that prayer and I’m going to have to turn from Page two to three, and I’m going to have to mark that out and highlight that. No, he already knew from the end. From the beginning, he already knew I was going to pray for that. He already knew what he wanted to accomplish, that he’s already got it planned out. He’s already working in everything. He’s already there because he’s in the end and in the beginning, it’s not like he’s falling along the timeline of life with us. He sets over on top of all of it. He’s not constrained by time or space, so he’s looking at it. He’s got this marvelous, amazing plan. And if we would just stop being stubborn and fighting against it and get on our knees and pray and submit to him in faith, we would see him and all this whole new way. And then we won’t be walking around depressed and anxious because all the expectations that we put on God and on ourselves and other people. All those would fade away under the premise that God is in control and we are good with that. I’m good with that life or death, I’m good with God being sovereign control, illness, disease or healthy. I’m good with God being in control broke bank account or full bank account. I’m good with God being in and control. Kids that are behaving or kids are not behaving. I’m good with God being in control. Got a job? That’s good. Got a job. It’s bad. Ain’t got a job. I’m good. God’s in control. We got to get to that point and you get to that point with prayer. Church going to offer you an opportunity to do that today.