Deliverance from Your Pits

[0:00] I want to kind of do a brief review of last Wednesday night. And Psalm 7 and Psalm 9 were the two verses where we started.

[0:12] And if you were here, I need to probably jog your memory. And if you weren't here, then I'll not say much, but you'll catch on pretty quickly to what we were doing. And it's going to carry over into this week, and then I believe it'll carry over once more into next Wednesday.

[0:27] I never intended for this, but it just feels like that's the way it's coming out. And I trust it'll be a benefit to everybody. Psalm 7, and the verse we read last week was verse 15, where the Bible says, He made a pit and digged it, and has fallen into the ditch which he made.

[0:47] And then Psalm 9 and verse 15, where it says, The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

[0:59] And so, just to rehash on the introduction, the wicked have a habit of digging themselves in the pits that hold them and that keep them, and that control them, and they're not the only ones doing that.

[1:14] And the devil's active in laying snares and using devices to attract and to harm us and destroy us. But I charged you last Wednesday night that there are many traps or many pits that the devil is not digging at all.

[1:30] You are doing the digging. You, the born-again child of God, are busy digging pits that end up capturing you. And chances are, stealing energy and stealing years sometimes of your life away from the Lord Jesus Christ and from serving Him.

[1:50] And Christians are forming habits that hurt them spiritually, that have power over them, that control them, that trap them. They struggle to escape from them. They struggle to get the victory over them.

[2:02] And the result is just a defeated Christian life, a miserable Christian life. You feel like a hypocrite, and it's easy to miss church. It's easy to quit. And it's easy just to walk away from it all.

[2:14] And then you get convicted, and things go wrong, and you need the Lord, and then you come back. And it can become a vicious cycle. And so what we did last Wednesday was identified several pits.

[2:24] And I'm sure there are a lot more, but the ones we identified was the pit of stimulation. And that one predominantly dug with a cell phone or a computer screen. And I said enough about it last week.

[2:36] You get the concept pretty quickly how folks are very, very addicted to their devices, whereas the Apostle Paul said, I will not be brought under the power of any, even if it's lawful for me, even if it's okay and not a gross or an egregious sin.

[2:50] It's not going to control me. And I'm not going to form a habit where I am addicted to something like that. And Christians are, just as well as the lost world is. They're addicted to their phones and other things like that.

[3:01] And then the second pit was the pit of sensation, to where it's not just visual stimulation, but it's something that your flesh is demanding. Whether it's alcohol or pills or drugs or sex or viewing pornography or food even and things of that nature.

[3:18] Just your flesh craves something, and it wants to fulfill its lusts. And every time you fulfill it, every time you give it its way, you're just digging the pit. You're digging yourself into that pit.

[3:29] And it's going to catch you. And then you're going to be controlled by it. Another one was the pit of self, where people are completely self-absorbed and all about promoting themselves, talking about themselves.

[3:41] Everything revolves around them. And the more you do it, the more you don't see yourself as that person, the more everybody else does. But you just dig, dig, dig deeper, where you don't care about anybody.

[3:52] And the term I gave last week was narcissist. You become a narcissist, where you just are immune to other people's needs and emotions. And you're just, all you care about is you.

[4:04] And the world revolves around you. Another pit was the pit of stubbornness. And I showed you from the Bible how that's equated with idolatry on the same level. It's that wicked to God is the stubbornness that's in a man's heart and a woman's heart that they won't bend and bow.

[4:20] And they're stiff-necked, and their heart gets hardened through this stubbornness. And it creates chaos and problems in your life and in your relationships and even in churches, because one person won't get right with another, and somebody holds on to this.

[4:35] And it's just sin, and it's stubbornness. And the more you dig, the harder it is to get out of until it's got you. And moving on, we talked briefly about the pit of spending, where it's another same situation, just going further and further and further.

[4:52] And it's easy to see that one and understand that one with our society and culture, how easy it is to spend and get yourself into debt. And that's a pit. And it's a pit that the devil's not doing the digging.

[5:03] You are. It's a pit of secrecy. And we looked at some secret sins in Psalm 90, and we looked at Ezekiel, I think it was, maybe chapter 8. I forget right now, but I think it was Ezekiel 8, where the men were in secret doing some worshiping, some unclean things.

[5:23] And the Lord showed them they were committing abomination in secret. And then going out before the people in their robes and performing the sacrifices of the Lord and the holy days of the Lord, but then in secret going and committing their abominations.

[5:38] And it's a pit that they were in. All right. Now, surely there are more, but the main idea from last week was that you were the one doing the digging, not the world, not the devil.

[5:49] You are not deceived. You have understanding. You have the word of God. You have the Holy Spirit of God in you. You're not blind to this action. So you're not, you can't just equate yourself with a lost sinner that's just fulfilling it, you know, going on the course of this world and doing those things.

[6:06] That's not you. And the more you participate in a certain behavior, the more you dig yourself into your own pit and get yourself stuck. And as King Solomon said, whoso diggeth the pit shall fall therein.

[6:19] Now, tonight I want to look at what I believe is a biblical remedy for getting out of these pits. And before I say anything about that, I want to make this note and make this plain.

[6:29] I don't pretend to be a psychologist. And I don't pretend that everything that happens in your life, you just need a Bible verse and you're just going to be fine. I understand that not everything that I'm calling a pit, or maybe not every problem in your life really could be classified as a pit that you dug yourself into.

[6:47] And therefore, all you need is a verse of Scripture and you're great. I'm not going to pretend that. But I will say I do believe that obedience to the Word of God can and will resolve most, if not all the issues that you have in your life that you've gotten yourself into or will ever get yourself into.

[7:05] Remember, if you dug yourself into a pit with the Lord Jesus Christ, there's always a way out. And so we want to get into that here tonight. Would you flip over to Psalm 40? And let's spend our time here in Psalm 40 tonight.

[7:20] So the first week was more about the pits that you're digging, digging those pits. Tonight it's going to be about getting deliverance from that pit. And I think there's a pattern here that we can take a look at.

[7:34] Look at Psalm 40. Let's just read together the first three verses. It's a Psalm of David. He said in verse 1, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings.

[7:54] And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. Let's pray and then we'll pick it up right there. Lord, as we come now to your holy words and we seek to understand some things on this topic and of these things that have captivated us and gotten a hold of us and things that we fall ourselves into.

[8:15] And in some cases can't get victory over us or whatever the case is. Please just give us light tonight from your word and bear witness to the words of God and to the truth here before us.

[8:27] And help each one that needs this to understand it clearly and to implement it. And may it be helpful and may Jesus Christ be lifted up and glorified. May we seek to you and not to this world and not to man's devices, but to you alone.

[8:40] And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So you probably recognize these three verses here. And I think many a Christian has adopted these as life verses.

[8:50] I've heard several give their testimonies and quote these verses. People, I think right away of David Spurgeon for one. I've heard him do that on more than one occasion. And there's others much like that, that they think this is the testimony of their own life before Christ and after Christ.

[9:07] They got themselves in a mess, in a bad place that they couldn't get out of. They had no hope. They had no peace. And they called out to the Lord and they couldn't rescue themselves. They couldn't recover themselves from their sin and make their lives better.

[9:20] But the Lord Jesus Christ could. And he did rescue them. And they didn't just need him to rescue them, but they needed him to give them a new life. And he did that very thing.

[9:30] He walked with them and helped them establish a new life as the verse said, established my goings. And some people, they claim, this is my testimony. This is exactly what I feel happened in my life while the Lord delivered me from a pit.

[9:44] And David himself describes that. They're just borrowing David's words. He's the one that's stuck in a pit. And David was in a place where he was helpless to get out of. He was helpless.

[9:55] He needed something. It says in verse 2 that he was in the miry clay. And if you remember reading through Jeremiah, he gets dropped down into a pit. And the Bible says that he sunk into the mire.

[10:07] That means his feet are stuck down in this slop. I don't know if you've ever been in that kind of wet, thick, heavy mud where you could pull your foot right out of your shoe because it just grabs so hard.

[10:20] And that's what I see here when he's down in this pit. It's not filled with water, but there's enough moisture in there to make that clay and mud just thick and heavy. And you sink in it a little bit.

[10:31] And you're stuck. It has you stuck to where you can. The more you move, maybe the more you get stuck. And so David's in such a place and he has no way to get out of it.

[10:41] And he needs the Lord. He needs the Lord to lift him up and to restore him to safety and to restore him to peace and to success and to sanity. And so he cries out to God.

[10:53] And how he feels, he says later on in the passage, look down at verse 11. He says in verse 11, A little bit later on, His heart and desire is to get out and to be free.

[11:31] In verse 17, I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me, thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. So David wants out, but he can't get out.

[11:43] However, God can get him out. And I think there's a pattern here in this text that can help us when we find ourselves stuck in pits that we've dug, of habits maybe that have controlled us and taken over our lives and gotten us away from the Lord.

[11:59] I want to point out some things I think can assist us from freeing us from this pit. And then I think if the Lord allows, if it's right, that the next time we meet, that we'll look at trying to get delivery, not just from the pit, but then delivering from digging these pits again and finding ourselves back in the same place we were.

[12:18] So let's look at this pattern. First of all, notice in verse 1, I believe the first thing that needs to be done is you need to get God's attention. And in verse 1, Now I think the order is a little bit misleading if you read it from start to finish, because I would reckon that David cried out to God and God inclined unto him.

[12:42] David waited for the Lord. But I believe it would start, what happened, David initiated all of this was by crying. David's turning to God for help.

[12:53] He's not turning to man. He's not seeking to do it in his own power. But the delivery that God wrought for David was initiated by David crying out to God, and then God did the work.

[13:07] But not until he was called upon. And so the first step is to get God's attention. Delivery will only start when you get serious enough, and you get, when you're willing to have an open and honest conversation with the Lord about where you are and how you got there.

[13:23] You call unto the Lord for help, and he'll help. And he'll deliver you from the pit that you dug, or from the vice that's gripped on you. But there's no deliverance where there's no desire to be delivered.

[13:37] God just doesn't come by and fix all your problems. He might wait to see a repentant heart. He'll wait to see somebody cry out to him. And then when you get his attention, he'll be willing to work with you.

[13:50] But if there's no desire to be delivered, there won't be any deliverance. And I think a great example of this is, it's happened so many times, where parents sadly watch their kids get themselves into a mess, get themselves into a pit, and the parent prays for that kid.

[14:12] They pray to the Lord for the Lord to get him out and to fix the thing. And whether it's a child or just whoever it is you're praying for, if they're not interested, if they're just enjoying too much the pleasures of sin for its season, they're not looking to get out of the pit, then God's not getting them out of the pit.

[14:32] And there's nothing going to happen there. And the prayer then is, and the prayer that I've prayed and think is the right prayer, is for the Lord to be merciful to them and for the Lord to work on their heart.

[14:44] Instead of just saying, oh God, get them out, fix this problem, fix it, fix it. If there's no repentance, if there's no desire for it, they need to get a hold of God. And when they get God's attention, it reminds me of Manasseh.

[14:55] You could look him up, where he was a filthy, wicked man and got himself into a prison, and then he humbled himself before the Lord. The Lord restored him to his throne. I can recall myself being under conviction for a lifestyle that I was living when I was a young man.

[15:12] And I didn't want to give up my sin. I did not want to give it up. But I felt conviction on the inside. But I wasn't willing to part with my sin. I wasn't willing to fight that fight.

[15:23] And I wasn't willing, I was avoiding going to God and crying out to the Lord and getting things right. Inside, I wanted to. Because I was raised, the truth was in me.

[15:33] Inside, I did not want this to be my lifestyle going on for the rest of my life. I really, truly wanted it to change. But I just didn't want to give up. And I just didn't want to get on my knees.

[15:45] And the pride inside of my heart was keeping me from getting right. But the day finally came where I just couldn't fight the conviction anymore. And where the prayers of, I would say, my parents, I couldn't resist that anymore.

[15:57] And I offered, that they offered on my behalf. The pit was getting deeper and deeper. And I just remember I broke down and got on my knees in a bedroom where nobody else was around and just cried out to God.

[16:12] I remember that day of crying out to God. I can remember the place and where it was where I called on God and I wept. And I just, after, it was probably a good several minutes where I didn't say anything at all.

[16:24] I just, it just was just silent because I didn't know what to say. I was just such a broken punk. I resisted God's hand for so long that I knew I just couldn't be like, okay, Lord, forgive me, and then go on my way.

[16:38] I just laid there on the bed and then opened my heart up and just let the Lord pry it open a little bit and let the repentance come out and just got honest with God and got serious.

[16:53] But what I got was, I believe, I got His attention. And I got open with Him and it wasn't hard to do. It's not hard to get God's attention. But it's only the first step in this pattern.

[17:04] And so getting God's attention is not getting the delivery. Getting on your knees is not getting the delivery. That's just the first step. That's crying out to God. So there's something else.

[17:15] Coming back to Psalm 40 in verse 1, notice now how the verse starts. I waited patiently for the Lord. And He inclined unto me and heard my cry.

[17:27] So as David's crying out to God, he continues crying out to God. He's waiting patiently for the hand of God to deliver him. And so secondly, I want to say that you need to be patient.

[17:40] What I'm not saying is just sit around and wait for God to fix everything that you messed up in your life because that's not going to happen. But instead, approach the situation with the realization that the habits you formed over time are not going to clear up in a day.

[17:57] It just doesn't work. There's no magic wand and God doesn't do that with His people. And you're dealing with the same flesh that you fed and fed and fed and fed.

[18:08] You don't get to get on your knees and then it's all gone. Now the guilt and the burden and the sin can be gone and forgiven. But the habit didn't go anywhere.

[18:18] And the lust didn't go anywhere. It's still in the flesh. And so you didn't get into that pit overnight. You're not going to get out in a day either. Be patient.

[18:29] There's a process awaiting you. It's going to take some time to get out until you get your feet established and your goings established, as he says in verse 2. Remember, well, wait.

[18:42] I think a real big hindrance to getting success in the areas that have held you down or that you've found yourself falling toward, getting victory, a big hindrance is expecting it all to get fixed immediately.

[19:00] You're bound for disappointment if that's in your mindset. If you're thinking, well, I got right with God, so now everything's fine. I mean, your relationship's right with God.

[19:10] Now you have that fellowship restored and you can call on him and have access to him and you can have his strength and power and grace and his mercy. But you're still going to have to fight the battle.

[19:22] You think, I got right with God. Now I'll be better and my problems are fixed. I prayed at the altar. God forgave me. Now I have the power over all my sin. God forgave me. You're going to be in for a rude awakening.

[19:34] You're going to get knocked down in a day or in a week or in a month like the just man that falleth seven times, and so will you. When the Jews were sent into captivity, those that believed the preaching of Jeremiah waited patiently for the deliverance of God, knowing it was going to be 70 years.

[19:51] But the others that followed the wrong message and wanted the quick fix, they wound up in the worst case. So you need to adopt a mindset of patience. If you want to lose weight, do you think you can just snap your fingers or just say the words?

[20:06] I mean, it took you a while to put the weight on, didn't it? That didn't happen overnight, and it's not going to fall off overnight. It's a process, and you need patience. You have to take the big picture in mind and the long look, as they say.

[20:19] It may take months and years even to get victory over some sins or some pit that you're in. But know that the Lord will hear your cry and that the Lord will help.

[20:30] But you should also know that it's not likely that anything's going to happen overnight. Some sins you'll probably struggle with until God delivers you from what Paul calls the body of this death or the body of the sins of the flesh.

[20:43] But in the meantime, do understand you can get victory over a habit of continual digging and being controlled by your lusts and by your habits by getting God's attention and then being patient.

[20:57] And then the third thing, and by far the most important, is by surrender to Christ. And I say it that way because in verse 2, let's look at verse 2 and 3. It says, He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of miry clay.

[21:12] And you can see implied there, He set my feet upon a rock. And it was He, the same God that established my goings. And in verse 3, He put a new song in my mouth.

[21:23] And so the work's being done by God. All the action in the recovery is being done by the Lord in this passage. It's His power, it's His working, but it's your submission.

[21:35] God doesn't need you to help Him. He needs you to surrender to Him. And I think that's probably true in every single area of your Christian life. He doesn't need you to help Him grow you and fix you.

[21:48] He just needs you to surrender to Him. And so I mentioned that there's a big hindrance to success in this area by expecting it to be fixed overnight. There's another common hindrance to this success or victory is thinking that I'm going to be able to do it my way or by my own willpower and that I'm going to figure this out.

[22:06] I'm going to fix it. I got myself into it. I'll get myself out of it. You're not going to get anywhere. Your way got you into the pit. The Bible says there's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

[22:18] You're already there. So stop leaning on your own understanding. Don't think that way. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

[22:29] That's a question. Who can know it? And the applied answer is not you. You don't know your own heart. You can't know your own. You know why?

[22:39] Because it's deceiving you. How so? Your heart will never do what is necessary to fix this the right way. It will never do what it really takes.

[22:53] It'll give a little. It'll make you feel like you did your shot. You did your best. And it'll make you feel better for a day or a week or month. But it'll never fully give over and surrender to Jesus Christ.

[23:07] If you allow your heart to get in between where God's speaking to you and telling you how to do this or the Word of God, and you think, well, no, Lord, I don't have to do all of that. It was really just this.

[23:19] Your heart will just isolate that and say, well, I'm going to work on that. And the Lord's going to say, I want the whole thing. I want your heart. My son, give me thine heart.

[23:30] But your heart won't. And so you can't trust it. So you let God do it. Your hindrance to getting success is thinking that you can figure this out or it's going to be your way. You're going to have to surrender completely to Christ.

[23:43] Surrender the whole thing to Jesus Christ. And He can handle it. It's going to take a lot more than your willpower. And submitting to Christ, we just sang this song. Thou art the potter.

[23:55] I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will while I am waiting. Yielded and still. That's patience.

[24:07] That's surrendering to Christ. And you just sang about it. That's patience and submission. So David cried for the Lord to help him. And he allowed the Lord to do the necessary work to get him out of that pit.

[24:22] He didn't resist the hand of God. He didn't say, hey, God, there's nothing wrong with that. Or I can keep that. Or I can keep doing this. I just need you to fix this little thing over here. No, it's total surrender.

[24:33] It's the Lord doing everything. You remember years earlier in the same man's life? You remember him facing a giant? He was just a youth.

[24:44] And everybody's running from him. Everybody's scared to even step up to this champion of Gath. But this young man, this youth, goes out there with a sling and a stone.

[24:55] But more importantly than what he carried with him, he approached him by saying, I come unto thee in the name of the Lord. And the Lord will deliver you into my hand.

[25:07] He came out there trusting and relying upon the Lord. And the same thing is what's going to take to get your victory is full reliance on God. Now, with that said, David still had to take his sling and his stone, right?

[25:23] He didn't just run out there and say, I'm coming in the name of the Lord and then stood there. He still had a part to do. And so with that said, the surrender to Christ or the thought that God is going to be the one that does the work and he's not looking for your help and he's not looking for your heart to fix it itself, you surrender to God.

[25:42] That's the concept. But the reality within the concept is that you do have to do something. David had to get the stones from the brook. David had to approach and engage the giant.

[25:54] And when Christ delivers you from the pit that you dig, he's not going to just say, hey, just, you know, stay where you are. I'll be a little bit. I'll be a minute. You can keep digging or doing whatever you're doing.

[26:07] I'll be a minute here. Just, you know, I'm going to get you out of here. He doesn't show up like that. He shows up and he says this, follow me. Follow me. Follow me. But Lord, I'm in this pit.

[26:18] Well, just follow me. Put one foot, you know, Peter's in a boat. Come on then. But it's water. I can't stand physically. I can't do it. Just take one step. Christ says, follow me.

[26:29] He won't leave you in that pit. But he won't just show up and poof. Everything's fine either. Father, understand it this way. God, he lives inside of you by his Holy Spirit.

[26:46] Though he lives inside of you, he does not do the mechanical operations that we do in our flesh. He doesn't walk, put your feet in front of your feet.

[26:58] He didn't drive you to church tonight. God didn't do that. You did that. But the Lord put it into your heart to go to church tonight.

[27:09] And you obeyed. And some of you just have it as a, you formed a habit that this is what you do. And the Lord put that in you. You didn't develop, you didn't just say, this is what I'm going to do. But no, the Lord did that work in you.

[27:21] It's an example of God doing the work, but you doing the submitting. But it doesn't mean that he physically overcomes your being. He doesn't force you to sit down and pick up the Bible and read it.

[27:37] But it is a work that he does in your heart to want to do that and to desire that book and to be fed from that book. You do that work as you submit to his will.

[27:48] So briefly, looking back at this here, David had to cry. He had to get God's attention. And in that calling out to God and crying out to God, he's showing us for sake of what we're studying and by way of pits and things that we dig ourselves.

[28:06] That shows repentance, that shows a turning to God, that shows a desire to want to be out of this thing and calling out to the only person that can help. And getting God's attention is the right thing.

[28:17] Maybe it takes place at an altar. Maybe it takes place by your bedside. Maybe it takes place just in prayer in your car or with your spouse or whatever the case. It comes from your heart calling out to him and seeking him to fix this thing, to help you get out of this mess and to get victory over this thing once and for all.

[28:37] But that's not the delivery. That's just the first part, getting him involved. The second part was being patient and realizing this thing's going to take a while. I can get the victory over this sin.

[28:49] God can give me the victory. But I'm going to have to be fully surrendered to him. I'm going to have to follow him. When I get up in the morning, instead of going toward that, I'm going to have to follow him.

[29:01] I'm going to have to listen for his voice. It's going to take communication. It's going to take fellowship. And if that desire is in you to get out of the pit, God will get you out of the pit.

[29:11] You dug it. He can get you out. But he's not going to just snap his fingers and say, well, my will for you is to be out of that pit. It's going to take surrendering to him.

[29:23] It's going to take following him. And so there's more to say on this, but I think it'd be better fitted for next week because there's some other things that's going to come into this. And I'll just give you a glimpse of it.

[29:34] I recently read a book that's called The Power of Habit. And the book had nothing to do with making you feel guilty for having bad habits or being lazy.

[29:44] It wasn't about that. It was saying why. It showed why you do the things you do. Like the why. And it wasn't a biblical emphasis or aim at all. It was all a study and hundreds and hundreds of tests and research things and lots of examples.

[30:01] And it was very fascinating to see the habits that human beings find themselves in. And identifying why. Where did it start?

[30:12] Why do I continue this behavior? And it's a fascinating thing. But I couldn't help but read it through the lens of the Word of God and through the lens of my own walk with Jesus Christ. And start analyzing my own life.

[30:24] And why do I do this? Why do I react that way? And things like that. And what I found, and I wasn't intending to incorporate this into a message at all. I had no interest in that. But there I was right there talking about pits.

[30:36] And it seemed like these things just lock together. We get ourselves into a habit. And then it takes us over. And we can't get out of it. And so I want to bring in some of the material from the book next week.

[30:50] But relate them to this exact thing that we struggle with. We would call it sin. Sometimes it's not a horrible thing. Or maybe it's not even sin in the scriptural sense of a violation against the command of God.

[31:02] But it's something that's not helping us. It's not good for us. Or we want to put the phone down and things like that. Or get better habits. And so I want to help you to next week, Lord willing, to deliver you from digging those pits.

[31:17] So that you don't find yourself right back in that same thing. You surrendered to Christ over it. You got help. You got out. The last thing you want to do is go back to digging.

[31:27] And finding yourself in another one. And so it helped me. What I read. And I want to prayerfully bring it. Because I don't want to just give you a book report. Unless it's the Bible. And you'll see, though, it has a lot of valuable stuff that can be applied to your life.

[31:44] Like you. Because you are a human being. You are subject to habits. And here's one. This is just one dumb thing. But I think you'll understand it.

[31:54] And I noticed this just last week. I drive across this road right down here. One block down and to the left.

[32:05] It takes you all the way over to Hubbard. I forget the name of Gladstone. And it's just a bunch of stop signs. And it's some stop signs. They're all four ways, I guess. And they're at these some small streets.

[32:16] Nothing much. Hardly any traffic. And so I drive that road probably once a week. Sometimes twice a week. And I go to the stop signs. And I stop. And I'm in the habit of look left, look right, go.

[32:28] I do it. I don't just, I don't roll through every time. Maybe a little. But, you know, it's not that bad. I'm not trying to fly across there. But I noticed myself. I'm in that habit. That is my habit.

[32:39] Come to the stop sign on that road. There's hardly ever any traffic. And I just hit the stop sign. Look left, look right. And go. And last week, I came to the stop sign.

[32:50] Look left, look right. Started going. And then, boom, I had to hit the brakes. Because there was a car sitting there at the stop sign before me. And started going. And I almost drilled them. And I felt like, oh my goodness.

[33:03] What an idiot. And I had to be like, I'm sorry. I waved and said I'm sorry. But they're probably thinking, you jerk, you LA driver. You just think you can, you know, go whenever you want. And I was honestly, I didn't see you.

[33:15] But how stupid of me to say I didn't see you. You were sitting right there. And I looked. I'm telling you, I looked. Why didn't I see them? Because my habit has become so ingrained in me to stop, look left, look right, go.

[33:30] And I just followed my habit. And reading that book was just throwing things out at me that these are things not just in driving to where you get so used to it.

[33:40] It just becomes second nature. You don't follow through with a clear, consistent or cognitive thought process. You just, you're in the habit. You're in the cycle.

[33:51] You just do it. And I almost got in an accident the other day because I just, and I looked. So, you know, it can be applied a lot deeper into the Word of God and into your walk with Christ and to sins and to temptations and to things that you've given yourself toward and then allowed and then can't get out of.

[34:10] So we'll cover that next week, Lord willing. I think it'll be helpful and I think it's beneficial because I find it valuable material. So let's be dismissed. Men will practice our song in a minute and then we can head home.

[34:23] Lord, as we close tonight, I pray that these thoughts would be helpful to us to consider calling out to you with an open heart of repentance when we get ourselves into messes and things we can't get out of.

[34:37] The patience that we need that David had, give that to us. Help us to understand the big picture and have the long look and view to desire to get complete deliverance and salvation from our sins and from those things that we've gotten ourselves into.

[34:53] And then finally, that surrender thing, that can be a tough one. And our heart is deceitful still and we don't want to let everything go. We just want to hang on to a few things and imagine that it's okay and justify it.

[35:06] But God, give us a broken heart that will repent and will deliver it all over to you. And God, please give victory to each person here. We all have our things in our heart.

[35:17] They're in us. There's no question. We don't need to speak about it and reveal it to everybody. But you see it and it doesn't belong in there. And your son paid for these sins. And so God, give us victory and give us strength and give us determination and help us to yield ourselves to you.

[35:35] Help us to be obedient to Christ. Thank you for dying for those sins. And thank you for loving us despite how we've treated you, despite how we've chosen to walk at times.

[35:48] I want to thank you for your mercy. I want to look forward to this coming weekend and to our meeting with Brother Gipp. We ask that you'll get him here safely on Friday and that you'll be preparing his heart and his mind and his mouth to preach the word of God to us and help us to be able to make it and just fill this place with folks hungry for the truth.

[36:07] And we pray that you'll bless the meeting and that we'll get something out of it that will help us, that will last and make a memory for us in our walk with you. We pray that you'll give us a good weekend and help us to be faithful serving you.

[36:20] Until then, we ask in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Amen. You are dismissed. Amen.