Forgetful Fathers

I want to talk to you something about something called forgetful

fathers in Acts. I'm sorry.

In first Kings chapter 18 is when Elijah calls down fire, he

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

confronts the most wicked king in Israel, King Ahab and his

wicked wife Jezebel and the prophets of Baal, which was an

idol that was worshipped. And God raised up Elijah to be a

prophetic voice, a voice that would speak truth, that would

speak against the idolatry in Israel and hopefully turn the

hearts of that nation back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and

Jacob. When Elijah did that, there was

fire that literally came from heaven and destroyed the

idolatry in the works of darkness.

It was an it was an incredible victory.

And with that victory, how many of you know when you experience

great victory? Often times that's when the

enemy tries to attack you. You experience this great high,

and then from that great high, you experience a great low.

And while Elijah had left that area and where the move of God

took place, he ends up running in First Kings 19 because

Jezebel and King Ahab had said, we're going to destroy Elijah.

They, they hated him because he was a voice of truth.

Let me tell you, if you're going to preach the gospel, don't

think you're going to be accepted everywhere.

And then when you start speaking truth, oftentimes people buck up

against it because they don't want you to convict them of sin.

They don't want the responsibility to get right with

God. They want to live their way and

do their thing. But how many of you know that

there's a God who says that we should do live differently?

And so Elijah is his prophetic voice.

And as he's running away after experiencing a great victory, he

comes to a cave where he becomes alone with God.

How many of you know, there's a lot of scriptures that talk

about the dangers of looking back?

You know, when Israel left for the wilderness, left Egypt to go

into the wilderness, they began to complain because they needed

food, They needed water. You know, it was supposed to

take maybe two weeks for them to go from Egypt to the promised

land, but it ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.

That's a long time. And as they're wandering and

it's in a desert, it's hot, they're carrying their children,

whatever stuff that they could bring with them.

They're sleeping in tents. They're constantly moving.

They say that we want to go back to Egypt, and Egypt represents

the old life, right? You come out of sin.

And how many of you understand that when you came out of sin

and you're not able to go join the parties or drink the alcohol

or or sleep around and do all the things that your friends or

that your friends who don't know the Lord are doing right?

And you feel kind of isolated. You feel like you're overlooked

and nobody cares about that. You want to live righteously

well, in Numbers 14 verses 2 through 3, it says and all the

Numbers 14:2–3

children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron and the

whole congregation said to them, if only we had died in the land

of this is after they just saw the Red Sea open up, right.

You ever hear people say if I saw a miracle I would believe?

Yeah, maybe you would believe for about 10 seconds, because

you know what's going to happen. You're going to be confronted

again by your flesh and by the world.

If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died

in the wilderness, why has the Lord brought us to this land to

fall by the sword that our wives and children should become

victims? Would it not be better to return

to Egypt? Can I tell you it is never

better to go back to Egypt? Never.

Here's another one. When Lot and his family ran from

Sodom and Gomorrah's judgment and they were told not to look

back. Genesis 1926 but his wife, Lot's

wife look back behind them and she became a pillar of salt.

God warned Lot through angels. He said you need to leave and

you need to run for your life. You need to run for those hills

over there and you'll be safe. But Lot, his wife and their

children, their daughters, I believe it is as they're

running, Lot's wife was probably thinking about, oh, I'm I'm

going to miss my bed. I'm going to miss my kitchen.

I'm going to I'm going to miss what is so familiar to me.

I don't want to start all over. We worked so hard to get that

house and yet instead of keeping her focus in the direction where

God was telling them to go, she looked back and she gave a

pillar of salt. How about Naomi and Ruth when

she told Ruth to go back to her old way of living and try to

start all over again since they both lost their husbands.

Actually 3 husbands were lost. Naomi, who was the

mother-in-law, lost her husband and then Naomi, her two boys got

married and one of the women that they married was called

Ruth and their husbands died. And now the three of these women

are together. They're all widows.

And in Ruth 115, Naomi says, Ruth, look, your other

sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her Gods

return after your sister-in-law. In other words, look, I'm

depressed, you're depressed, she's depressed.

You know what happens when you get around people who are

depressed? You get depressed.

Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to comfort one

another, but friend, be careful who you spend your time with.

How many love to go to funerals? Nobody does.

If you do, you're weird. Thank you, brother.

You're weird. Or you're the funeral operator

and owner of that business. OK, That's the only ones who

want to be there. No, but if you go to funerals

all the time, it it gets really depressing and they're all in a

state of what it feels like to be in a funeral right now all

the time. And so out of her hurt.

Can I, can I encourage you with this?

Never make decisions when you're not in a place to make good

decisions. Pray.

Hello, get around people who will encourage you.

Seek the Lord first, she says go back.

And Ruth is so adamant that she's not going to leave her

mother-in-law. She says the famous words where

you go, I go where you stay, I say, your people will be my

people, my right and, and, and then they end up going back to

be with God's chosen people, the Jews couple more.

When Jesus exhorted his disciples not to backslide, but

to live with Kingdom purpose. Luke 962 But Jesus said to him,

no one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is

fit for the Kingdom of heaven. What does that mean?

That means when you get born again, you realize that Jesus

changed your life. You have a responsibility to

spread the gospel. I don't care what you do.

I don't care how you do it. You don't have to be an

evangelist. You don't have to be a pastor.

You don't have to be a worship leader.

You don't have to work in the children's ministry.

But whatever you do, you need to preach the gospel.

Paul, encourage A Philippian church to leave its past in the

past and the press on to move forward.

Philippians 313. Brethren, I do not count myself

to have apprehended but one thing I do, forgetting those

things which are behind and reaching forward to those things

which are ahead. Friend, we can't live in the

past, but some of the reasons why people get stuck in the past

is because they don't have confidence of where they're

going in their future. They're not confident that they

can hear God's voice. You may be in a place in your

life right now where you don't know what's next.

And and you know, Nathan and Kathy just found out they're

having another baby. Wow, awesome, happy grandmas.

And, you know, because they have a right attitude towards the

scripture about having children. I'm sure they're concerned about

the cost, about raising another child and all of that stuff.

But can I encourage you, when you get married, have babies?

Why? Because the Muslims are doing

it. You think I'm you think I'm not

serious right now? OK, go to Europe right now and

ask England what they think. They have mayors with the name

Muhammad right now. England is losing the baby

bearing battle because Muslims are not just thinking about

today. Their religion is guiding every

decision that they are making for the rest of their life and

they're not even following the right God.

Whereas Christians, our God says be fruitful and multiply and we

say, no, I want to live my life friend.

If you can live single, Paul says, man, that's awesome.

But if you don't want to live single and you want to get

married, guess what you do when you get married?

You have children. Now, I'm not advocating that you

just need to have 20 children, OK?

We have five of our own. I think we've done a part.

You. You.

Yeah. Hey, you know what?

I find that the greatest leaders that I've ever met often have

many children, and those children fear the Lord and enjoy

the love of the Father. Why?

Because Paul says if you want to be qualified to lead in the

church, your school and ministry is going to be your marriage and

your family. And if it's not, you're going to

present a form of Christianity that's going to lack purpose

that comes from the Scripture. I won't take too much more time

on that and all these passages. Listen.

God exhorted different people to stop looking back at sin.

In all these scriptures, God was teaching us how to live free

from our old lives and embrace the new life that we have in

Christ. As newborn babes in Christ, we

should learn how to run away from sin and abide in the heart

of the Heavenly Father. We should learn how to flee

youthful lusts. Listen, the better we learn how

to live victorious is when God will use us to make disciples.

When you're born again, you are qualified to preach the gospel

immediately. However, it's going to be hard

for you to make disciples if you don't know how to be a disciple

yourself. And the more that you overcome

sin and become a man or a woman after God's heart and remain

faithful, God will give you levels of responsibility to pour

into others so that the gospel spreads and disciples are made.

Many Christians are so preoccupied with running away

from sin, God often waits on our maturity before he develops

leaders around us. You are a missionary.

As soon as you got born again, you were given a job.

Missionary. How that looks you like, how you

will do that, it'll be different for all of us.

But the fact of the matter is, if I am so preoccupied with

fighting sin and I'm not being victorious, I am not going to be

concerned about winning and spreading the gospel and

advancing the Kingdom of heaven on earth.

I'm not going to be. I am going to be focused on

myself and what I could do to make Eric's life better.

Can I encourage you? Jesus gave up his life

willingly. He's the master and He's the one

we're called the follow. Victorious Living establishes

leadership skills to make disciples who make disciples.

After I arrived in the US on October 14th, I was staying

remember Pastor Joey Ellers who was here with us IGF.

So I went to His church first for about 5-6 days and as I was

there today, I had a place I was staying.

I was by myself and I woke up really early in the morning

because I was on Philippines schedule.

And as I woke up, I began to worship.

I began to pray in the Spirit and read the scripture.

Out of nowhere I heard the Lord shout in my being.

It wasn't an audible voice. And he said these words to my

spirit. Fathers, do not give up.

Elisha is behind you. Listen to me.

This is not just for men, and this is not just a message about

fathers. This is about men and women.

And I want you to understand that when God is speaking to us,

we need to pay attention. I believe with all the shaking

that's happening around the world that God is positioning

his church to prophetically inherit the promises of prayers

that people have cried out for revival and awakening around the

world for centuries. And we are in a place of

culmination where those prayers are being answered more and more

and more, and the return of Jesus is closer and closer and

closer. And if we're not paying

attention, friend, I don't want to just kind of slide into

heaven, friend, I want to run into heaven pulling all kinds of

people with me. And I don't want to just pull in

anybody. I want to pull in disciples who

are making disciples. Let's read First Kings chapter

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

19 and hang with me a little bit.

This is just after Mount Carmel. Elijah is running for Elijah is

running for his life. Verse 1 and Ahab told Jezebel

all that Elijah had done right on Mount Carmel also how he had

executed the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so let the gods

do to me, and more also if I do not make your life as the life

of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

In other words, she's threatening to destroy Elijah.

And when Elijah saw that, he rose and ran for his life, and

he went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judea, and left his

servant there. Look, he left his servant.

He said, I am out of here. And you know, sometimes when you

get in this place of fear, you forget your responsibilities.

See, this servant wasn't just to do everything that Elijah needed

him to do. This servant was supposed to be

learning from Elijah, but he himself went a day's journey

into the wilderness and came and sat under a broom tree.

And he prayed that he might die. Wow, this is depression.

And he said it is enough now, Lord, take my life, for I am no

better than my father's. He's comparing his fathering

experience to the father that he had and to those who were

failures in Israel who were fathers.

Then as he lay under the broom tree, suddenly everybody say

suddenly. An Angel touched him and said to

him, arise and eat. Then he looked and there by his

head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water.

See friend, God always knows how to provide for you, no matter

how hard things are. So he ate and drank and lay down

again, and the Angel of the Lord came back a second time.

I'd like to just have one Angel visit a second time.

Touched him and said arise and eat because the journey is too

great for you. In other words, you're not done.

You might think you're done because you're afraid of the

pressure and the hardship that you're experiencing right now,

but I want you to know you're not done.

Get up and eat. So he arose and ate and drank,

and he went in the strength of the food, 40 days, 40 nights, as

far as Horeb, the mountain of God.

And there he went in a cave, and he spent the night in that

place. And behold, the word of the Lord

came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?

It's always good to go find a place and be alone with God.

So he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of

hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your

covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with

the sword. Now look at this.

I alone am left, and they seek to take my life.

So there's a measure of pride that Elijah is struggling with

here because he seems to think that God can't get along without

him. If I'm dead, this powerful

prophet, what's going to happen to everybody else?

Because in his mind he's so depressed, he can't even see

what God sees and he thinks there's no more prophets around.

Verse 11 Then he said, go out and stand on the mountain before

the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by

in a great and strong wind, torn to the mountains, broke the rock

to pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the

wind. And after the wind an

earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the

fire. And after a fire still small

voice. See, there's a lot of things you

might do sometimes to try and go hear God.

You might go to church and look for an earthquake.

He might go to some big conference and and hope that the

wind would would break the rock to pieces and suddenly something

like an answer or some prophet would point you out and say

stand up. Thus says the Lord.

You know what, that rarely happens.

He was looking for the fire. Maybe you come to the fire

school ministry thinking you're going to find this.

Can I tell you, you can travel the entire world looking for a

word of God, but unless you go find a cave and get with God

alone, it's going to be hard for you to hear from God.

Verse 13 So it was when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in

his what? His mantle.

That's very important because eventually there's a young man

coming after him named Elijah, and Elijah gets taken up in a

whirlwind. And what does that mantle

represent? It represents Elijah's intimacy

with God. It's not just an anointing, It's

not just this prophetic power that comes from God.

It to me it was a symbol of the secret place that Elijah had

with God that one day would drop on Elijah when he would be

mature enough to handle it. I've been very zealous for the

Lord of hosts. Verse 14 because the children of

Israel forget forsaken your covenant, He's still working

through his struggles here. Forsaken your covenant, torn

down your altars, killed your prophets with the sword, I alone

am left, and they seek to take my life.

Then the Lord said to him, I love how the Lord doesn't put up

with our foolishness. Go return your way to the

wilderness of Damascus. In other words, go back where

you came from, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king

over Syria. Also, you shall anoint Jehu, the

son of Nimshi as king over Israel.

Wait a minute, he's running from the king of Israel right now.

And Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel Mehola, you shall anoint

as prophet in your place. You see, when you ran away, you

left the servant behind. And that mindset is keeping you

from recognizing that I have an anointing to release from your

life to another young man. But if you're running for your

life to save your life, then this young man will never have

the mantle that he needs to learn from Indiana you one day.

It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will

kill, and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill.

Yet I have reserved. Look at this, this is so

powerful. Elijah doesn't know this, or

maybe he knew it and he's forgotten.

Yet I have reserved 7000 in Israel whose knees have not

bowed to bow all and every mouth that has not kissed him.

In other words, there's some Holy Ghost people that you don't

know of, and they didn't run away to a cave, but they made a

cave where they live. And in that place I have

instilled confidence in them that they can hear my voice.

Verse 19, We're almost done. So he departed from there and

found Elijah, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12

yoke of oxen before him. Look at this.

And he was with the 12th. Then Elijah passed him by, threw

his mantle on him. Now, this is not the same time

as when he'll receive the mantle when Elijah's taken up later,

but this is a prophetic picture. And he left the oxen and ran

after Elijah and said, please let me kiss my father and

mother, and then I'll follow you.

And he said to him, go back for what I've what have I done to

you? In other words, you know what

Elijah is seeing and Elijah, the same thing that he just did.

Instead of facing the reality of justice, going after God and

fulfilling the call of God upon his life.

You know what he's doing. He's caught up.

I'm going to miss Mommy and daddy.

So Elijah turned back to him and took a yoke of oxen and

slaughtered them and boiled their flesh using the oxen's

equipment. You know what he's doing?

He's giving up everything that he's trusted in his livelihood,

his his family. Jesus said if you try to go

after these things, you can't follow me.

You're not going to be worthy of me.

And gave it to the people in a. Then he arose and followed

Elijah and became a servant. I got a few points and we'll be

done. First of all, some of you are

running in fear, leaving behind those who need you.

Look up here. Some of you have experienced

some shaking, pain, financial hardship, sickness, relational

tensions. There's all kinds of things.

I see all kinds of people, you know, caught up in political

stuff here in America, here in the Philippines.

And you know what it's, it's making people worried, stressed

out, anxious. But here's the reality.

You got to look deeper in this situation because what the enemy

wants you to do is to keep running in fear and the leave

behind the responsibility of those whose gods called you to

pour into. Because if He could keep you

preoccupied with your own problems, you're never going to

be effective in the Kingdom of God.

Do you hear me? Are you with me next?

Some have allowed condemnation, shame, and guilt to compare

yourself to others. As you're running, you're

starting to feel like you'll never measure up to somebody

else. And a lot of times we look at

what somebody else has and they and we say, oh, they do it so

much better. I'm not that good.

And because we don't have any confidence, we don't even try.

And then we end up getting jealous of coveting what the

other person has because we're unwilling to humble ourselves

and allow God to change us. Friend, I am saying these things

to you because Eric has dealt with these things.

I've compared myself to people. I've tried to.

I've been. I've allowed guilt,

condemnation, and shame to keep me from moving forward in my

life. I'm telling you that if you will

stop and be still and know that He is God, then the voices of

all that shame and pain and guilt and condemnation, it won't

plague your mind anymore and you will be victorious.

I'm telling you, you can win. Hello.

You can win. You don't have to live a

defeated life. Why?

Because greater is He who's in you than he that's in the world.

You are an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and the word

of your testimony. You've got to live by faith.

There's no shortcuts to this. If you feel pressure, if you

feel hardship, it's only because God is trying to produce a

testimony to your life that is unique to you.

I used to tell everybody else's testimonies until I got addicted

to telling my own testimonies. Look, that's OK when you don't

got no testimonies. You tell somebody else's and

then after a while you tell them so much you think I want my own.

Who wants their own testimony here today?

I'm not just talking about salvation.

I'm talking about testimonies of faith, testimony that mark your

life and you remember how God brought you out of something and

he did a miracle in your life. Let me tell you something of why

I feel like we're supposed to go to Israel.

Back in September, we had the God Bless Israel at Pastor AL's

church, right? And it was powerful.

And the Lord was speaking to Casey and I about going to

Israel. And I'm thinking I'm already

going for four weeks in the States to raise funds for other

things. I don't want to raise money for

anything else. And I felt like it was a Lord.

And so I, I hear from a couple churches in the states, two

churches paid for mine and Casey's plane tickets.

And I'm like, wow, OK, I don't have to raise money for this.

God's doing it. And then I go to the States and

we still need about $4000 because Israel is very expensive

for ground expenses. And one guy walks up to me in a

church 3 weeks ago in upstate New York where I'm from, and he

says, brother, you're going to Israel, right?

And I go, yeah, he says, I'm going to write a check and pay

for your entire ground cost. I'm like, look, we've been

raising funds. I've got so many stories of how

God provides. It's incredible.

And every time when I think, oh, it's too much, we need to stop

doing this, God challenges me with something else and says,

Nope, you need to do this right here.

It's amazing. We we weren't going to bring

Jonathan here for Christmas because we can't afford it.

It's about $2700. It's over 100,000 to just point

we didn't have the money and I believe the Lord heard the cry

of a mama's heart and Jonathan's going to be here for three weeks

and I promise you he'll be the tallest person in this room.

You know, I, I was done like we're coming to the end of the

year. Lord, I'd like to stop like

having to believe for money. No, that's exactly it.

I I want to go and run away and say, oh, we got this great

testimony back here, let's go on, right?

And then something big comes up again and says, ah, you can't do

this. Hey, can I tell you something in

the midst of this all, we got 100 kids who are sponsored again

for the next year for the feeding program.

We got over 20 kids sponsored for Aces.

How does this stuff happen? I don't know.

All I know is testimonies. I'm addicted, addicted to them

now. It's not because of us, it's by

the grace of God. All we do is show up where God

says go here and say this and do that and then it's over with.

He does the rest. I had three kids left on the

table in the last church I was at this past Sunday in the state

of Delaware. It's the church where I was a

youth pastor. 3 kids left and I'm thinking, oh Lord, I didn't

come all this way to have three kids left.

So a young man who's not so young anymore, he's in his 40s

now, who used to be in my youth group when I was a youth pastor.

He's an elder in that church now and you know what he said?

Oh, you got 3 kids, that's all you got left.

He says give them to me. He sponsors them all.

Friend, this is what I'm talking about.

You can never outgive God. You can never outgrow what God

is able to do because he's so much bigger than you and I.

This whole thing is huge. We might as well believe for the

impossible. Amen.

Let me finish up. The Lord desires to meet our

needs from the secret place. Can I encourage you to get alone

with God and pour out your heart like water to Him?

Do it. That's what God's waiting on.

Sometimes before He'll bring a breakthrough is for us to put

Him first. The Lord wants you to face your

fears with his strength and power.

So you go situate yourself before the Lord and say and be

honest and you say, God, I'm afraid right now.

God, I don't feel like really reading my Bible today.

God, I don't feel like being disciplined right now.

I feel like being late. You know, when you're honest

with God like that, I think He uses that to inject himself in

our life because he already knows you're struggling and

because He loves you so much and He doesn't want to just do

everything for you without a partnership with you, That when

you see that your faith in agreement with God's promises

works miracles, guess what? Yes, God gets all the glory, but

you're a part of this. You're a part of his story.

You get to talk about what God's done for you.

That's the strength of the Lord. Look, I, I see guys building up

their muscles all the time, right?

Physically and I and I think you should take care of yourself.

I think you should do great. I think my Olympic days are

over, but I still try to play basketball.

I played yesterday. We won.

But but you know what? I really, I just go for exercise

and fellowship and share the gospel with people now, unless

we're playing against Josh. But listen, it is as your

strength. Listen to me as your strength

returns, just like it returned to Elijah.

You will find a son and a daughter who is looking for a

father. Let's look lastly at the end,

verse 19 again. So he departed from there and

found Elijah. He departed from where?

The secret place, the place where he received strength and

now God puts him back on track. Some of you are thinking, I've

gone so far and I don't think God can put me on back, back on

track. No, that's what repentance is.

It's a lifestyle. It's not a one time event.

And when you choose to repent, you produce fruit.

And God says, yes, I have a perfect will.

But here's here, can I tell you a fact?

Nobody in this room is going to be able to fulfill the perfect

will of God. Nobody.

But in the wisdom and the ability and the grace of God,

you can fulfill the will of God for your life, even though you

don't follow it perfectly. Why?

Because greater is he who's in you, his strength.

His ability to escalate, to move you forward, to cause favor, to

come into your lap, to cause people to want to get behind you

and hold up your arms. Open doors, closed doors.

Look, this is what God can do, Elijah.

Elijah was running. He forgot his responsibility as

a father. And now verse 19, he departed

from The Cave. He's strengthened.

He knows that there's new vision and direction from the Holy

Ghost and he finds Elijah and Elijah was just living his life

as a working with the yoke of oxen.

And Elijah just comes by and he knows he can't run from his

responsibility to pour in this young man.

And he throws his mantle on him. And Elijah knows exactly what it

means and he gives up everything to follow Elijah.

In Job 23 verses 8 through 10, Job says, Look, I go forward,

Job 23:8–10

but he God is not there and backward, but I cannot perceive

him. When he works on the left hand I

cannot behold Him, but when he turns to the right hand I cannot

see him, but He knows the way that I take.

When He has tested me, I shall come forth like gold.

Friend, you don't know which direction to go sometimes, and

neither do I. I'm we're going to Israel

December 7th, right When we leave to go there, I have no

idea how to get there. I put my trust in the pilot.

The pilot says we're going to Dubai 1st and after we get off

the plane and get some coffee in Dubai, we get back on the plane

and the pilot knows where to get us to Israel.

Honestly, we still don't even know all of our plans for the 10

days we're going to be in Israel.

I don't even know where we're going to stay right now.

Normally we pay people to do all this.

Now I'm the tour guide and we actually, we have Annalita and

her niece Sam, who were supposed to go on the original tour, but

they can't change their tickets or something like that, and

they're supposed to come with us.

So now we're tour guides, four of us.

So if anybody else wants to come, we'll lead you where we

don't know we're going. OK, you tell me because I need

direction right now. Listen to this Who knows who

Winston Churchill is. Anybody.

Winston Churchill, one of the great leaders during World War

Two of the United Kingdom in Great Britain.

Their back was up against the wall.

Germany was about to cross the water from the mainland of

Europe and there was 2 cities left, I think it was Dunkirk and

another one I can't remember the name.

Had they given up they would be speaking German right now in

England. He had no reason to think that

they could win. They didn't have the military

might. He called America for some

ships, naval ships to come and help and it wasn't going to get

there. So you know what he did?

He called on all kinds of people who have boats in England and he

says, I want you to go towards Dunkirk and make it look like we

have all these ships in the sea. There weren't drones at that

time, so from a distance you couldn't tell how big a ship

was. There was probably some guy with

his rowboat. I'm ready with his bunker,

right? Or maybe there must have been

one Filipino guy over there, right?

There's always a Filipino somewhere.

So you know what Winston Churchill does?

He gets on the radio that night, and this is a quote of one of

the things that he says. Listen, everybody, listen to

this. Never give in.

Never give in. Never, never, never, Never in

nothing, great or small, large or petty.

Never give in except to convictions of honor and good

sense. Never yield to force.

Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

I'm going to tell you something. I want to be like a Winston

Churchill. I want you to be like a Winston

Churchill. I believe guys like Elijah, even

though Elijah had a moment of weakness, God still got him back

on track and he began to reproduce disciples who made

disciples. Friend, you are never going to

be perfect enough to obey God. You might as well just obey God

where you're at and with all your struggles and weaknesses

and failures, come to the Lord and say I will never give up.