Asa Departs from the LORD

[00:00:00] All right, let's get our Bible turned back to second chronicles. But this time we'll go to chapter 16. [00:00:08] Two chronicles, chapter 16. [00:00:21] Let's pray. [00:00:23] And then we'll begin reading in verse number one 1. Second chronicles, chapter 16. And verse number one. [00:00:32] Our father, thank you for the chance to meet together as your people. And, Lord, as we look at your word once again, we renew our desire and our prayer to you that you would speak to our hearts just like it's the first time we've heard these things. And that, Lord, our hearts would be tender to receive the word of God. We would, as the scripture says, receive with meekness the engrafted word. Please help your people, Lord, through your word. And, Lord, would you please help me to say the things that I should say and refrain from that which I should not say, that your people might be helped and strengthened and edified through the truths. Lord, I pray that the truths in the scripture here tonight would just be laid open, bare. Laid open for everyone to see plainly. So, Lord, we commit this time to you. We ask for your blessing and help in Jesus name. Amen. [00:01:26] Now, I ask you to keep in mind the things we looked at this morning in chapters 14 and 15 about the life of Asa, because that is significant to what we're going to see tonight. [00:01:40] So all of those, all of his seeking the Lord, and all of his relying upon the Lord, as the Bible said, resting upon the Lord and his trial, all of those things are interrelated. [00:01:54] And that all, you know, a life and a reign started. Well, in other words, God worked in his heart. Asa was a faithful man, and he was a man. There are just a handful of kings. In chapter 14, it says that Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord. And there are some kings that did that to some degree or another. And Asa was up there among the top. And so keep all that in mind, because sadly, in chapter 16, we see that the way Asa began is not the way he finished his course. [00:02:37] And we have to have the beginning in order to understand the second part in chapter 16, the Bible says in the 6th and 30th year of the reign of Asa. Now, pause there just a second and go back to chapter number 15 and look at verse number ten. [00:02:57] So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the 15th year of the reign of Asa. You see that? [00:03:06] So approximately 20 years has elapsed between aces grand, seeking the Lord and leading the people of Judah to follow God. About 20 years has elapsed, and something happened to Asa in those 20 years. [00:03:30] So now it's the 36th year of his reign, and it says, in the reign of the 36th year of the reign of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah and built Ramah to the intent that he might not let. Not let none go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah. [00:03:53] So what you will not read in this chapter, though, this is a. It's a page turner. Not only literally, pardon the dad joke, but it's a page turner in Asa's life, because it's not like it was before. But you will not find in chapter 16 that Asa goes after idols or is involved in some flagrant, immoral, sacrilegious act like you do find, like in Solomon's life or other of the kings. You will not find that at all. But he did depart from God. [00:04:27] He did depart from God, and he departed from God in the manner in which you remember. We read the prophet's message to Asa was, if you seek me, you'll find me. If you forsake me, I will forsake you. Which puts those two kind of on polar opposite ends. So he sought the Lord in chapter 14 and 15. In chapter 16, he forsakes the Lord. Now, that doesn't mean that he stops being a believer in Jehovah. No, that's not it. But nevertheless, he still forsook the Lord. Look at verse number. Look at verse number two. Before we get there, let me remind you of something. So 20 years has elapsed since the period of victory. And in those 20 years, aces pattern of seeking God has declined. [00:05:18] There has been a degrading of his spiritual life. [00:05:24] By the time we read verse one, he's in his 36th year of his reign. We do not know. The Bible does not say how old Asa was when he began to reign. But if we assume that he was 20 years old when he began to reign, that means he would be 56 years old at the beginning of chapter 16. If we assume, and it's perfectly, just as likely that he was 30 years old, then that would make him 66 years old. [00:05:52] So that means as he approaches the end of his life, he departs from God. Think about that. Think about that now as he nears the end is when the failure begins. [00:06:08] And it should be a word of warning to us that just because we have served God and live for God so many years is no guarantee that we will finish our course. [00:06:21] Serving God and living for God and seeking God, that is no guarantee. [00:06:27] It is a life. The christian life is a life of constant maintenance. And here's the thing, and we all must keep this in mind. The minute we shift the thing into neutral and we start to think that it's no longer necessary for us to do the things that we used to do to seek the Lord. Like we read in 14 and 15, the minute we think that's not really necessary, because we have been doing those things for so long, is the minute our faith has begun to falter. [00:06:57] Because it doesn't matter. Listen, it doesn't matter if we're a, if we're a 20 year old sinner or an 80 year old sinner. [00:07:05] We're still a sinner. That wicked nature is in us. Until the day that we breathe our last breath, we go to be with Jesus. [00:07:12] And keeping that in mind, we have, listen, we must always be careful that our seeking of the Lord now is no guarantee that it will continue. [00:07:25] And it did not. This is an example in which it did not. What happened in those 20 years, just like many of us, what happened is there was a very slow, almost imperceptible degrade of aces spiritual life. [00:07:44] How many of you have ever been through a period in your life where there was a degrade? Like, you can look through a span of your life and, like, that was not a good time and it was going down. [00:07:53] That's exactly what happened here. The bad thing is. Well, the good thing is, is that God intervened to correct Asa, just like he does with us now. Asa did not respond well to that correction, but God did do it, and the Lord does that. I don't think this is, this is me reading between the lines, but I don't think this is the only time in chapter 16 that God stood in Asa's way and is like, hey, Asa. Hello. Remember where you were? You're not there anymore. In other words, let me be specific. Remember we read in chapter 14 and 15 how Asa sought the Lord. What was he doing? He was seeking God's word. He was in God's word. He was in prayer. He was among God's people. And look, in practical matters, this is like staying in the Bible. You're reading your Bible, you're being faithful. You have a prayer life, you're walking with God, and you're faithful to come to be with God's people at church faithfully. But you know what happens? That starts to drop off one by one, and it's an indicator of a spiritual problem. It's an outward indicator of something that has already started inwardly, it just. It takes a little more time for that. To be manifest outwardly. But by this time, there's a lot of water under the bridge. 20 years later, verse two. Look at what it says. Then. Asaph brought this brought out. Remember, now he's being attacked. So this is a second round of trials. Now, we read trials in chapter 14, rather, when the Ethiopians came against Asa. And. And now there's another trial. There's another battle. Someone's picking a fight. [00:09:27] It's Baasha, the king of Israel, and he's coming to fight against Asa. So you can't blame him for that. But again, listen. Just as his seeking of the lord originally was, tried to see what manner it was, what quality it was, so it's being tried now. Now the outcome's gonna be totally different. But he's being tried again. Now in verse number two, notice how he responds. Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the lord and of the king's house. And sent to Benhadad, the king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, there is a league between me and thee, as there was a league between my father and thy father. Behold, I have sent thee silver and gold. Go break thy league with Baasha, king of Israel, that he may depart from me. And ben Hadad hearkened unto king Asa and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel. And they smote Ijon and Dan and Abel, Mayim and all the store cities of Naphtali. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard it, that he left off building of Ramah and let his work cease. And then Asa, the king, took all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha was building. And he built therewith Geba and Mizpah. [00:10:48] Now, so, in verse number two, do you read the same kind of thing as you read in chapter 14? When the Ethiopians came, and Asa cried unto the Lord, he was out number two to one. And he cried unto the Lord, and he sought God in that trial, in that trouble. Do you see that? No. What you see is a man who responds to a difficulty with no regard for God at all. [00:11:18] He doesn't talk to God about it at all. He doesn't seek God about it. He doesn't even bother to ask God for help. And here's what I want you to see about this. [00:11:31] Asa's scheme. He took the money out of the house of God to pay off Ben Hadad, the king of Syria, to come and create trouble for. For the king of Israel. So king of Israel would leave. It worked. [00:11:45] It worked. His scheme was successful to accomplish his goal. [00:11:51] But let me ask you a question. [00:11:54] What would trusting God in this matter have looked like if Asa had trusted God, what would he have done? If he had been seeking God as before, what would he have done? Somebody give me an answer. I mean, first thing, what would he have done? [00:12:10] Talk to God about it, right? That would have been the first thing. Now, just because you're seeking the Lord and you come up with a, you're faced with a problem or a difficulty or a trouble in your life, it might be a bad diagnosis. It might be a family problem, it might be you losing your job. It might be a financial problem. It might be an interpersonal problem. [00:12:31] It might be a spiritual problem. [00:12:33] But just because you're seeking the Lord doesn't mean those things aren't gonna happen. They are going to happen. And you know what? You're seeking God. But you know, we face problems all the time. We don't have the answers to. You don't have to have the answers to it. [00:12:45] But when you are, when you are seek, you're in a pattern of life whereby you're seeking the Lord like Asa was. You're in his word, you're in prayer, you're with his people. That means you're coming to church, you're faithful, you're loyal, you're being diligent in your walk with God and your service to God, the instinctive reaction is to call out to God, take it to God immediately. [00:13:08] But Asa didn't do that. [00:13:10] He did not do that. [00:13:12] If he had sought the Lord, he would have taken it to God, and then there would have been a process where he would have waited on the Lord for deliverance. The Lord would have told him to do some things, and if God chose, he would have used some method or some means to actually have the same outcome as this. In other words, he would have been protected from the king of Israel and everything would have been fine. [00:13:37] But he didn't. [00:13:40] He didn't. [00:13:42] He responded to this, to this trial, to this test and trouble without regard to the Lord and in and without reliance upon God. [00:13:54] He did not seek God's counsel. [00:13:57] Instead, he stole what did not belong to him because he can. He's the king. Who's going to stop him? [00:14:06] He stole the things that he himself had dedicated to God, took them away from the, that's what it says in verse two, the treasures of the house of the Lord. Those don't belong to him. They're dedicated to God. They're gods. [00:14:19] He stole them. [00:14:22] He invented a scheme and he thought to himself, all right, well, okay, I got a problem now I got to fix this. All right, what do I do? Okay, where can I get money? I can get money regardless of the fact that it's unethical, immoral for him to take that which would belong to God, that should have been off limits. Right? But what he did in his scheming, because he's no longer trusting in the Lord, no longer relying upon the Lord and resting upon the Lord like he was in chapter 14, he is willing. He is willing to bend the rules and he's willing to scheme and he's willing to be unethical in order to accomplish his goal. And it worked. God did not step in. [00:14:58] God did not stop him. You know, a lot of times we think that if God doesn't, like. [00:15:04] You actually hear people say this, well, if God doesn't want me to do it, then he'll stop me. That's stupid. [00:15:10] He very well might not. [00:15:14] And you know what? He often does. Oh, actually, I would say, and I think you would all would agree, that it is rare that God stops people from sinning. [00:15:25] Would you agree? [00:15:27] He's just not in that business. Generally, his method, generally speaking, is to let us do what we set our heart to do and then require that we reap the harvest. That's generally how it works. [00:15:40] That's generally how it works. [00:15:47] He concocted a scheme without God's help, without acknowledging the Lord, and certainly without trusting in the Lord. [00:15:56] And we should not assume that because God did not step in and ruin the scheme, that somehow God approved. He did not. He did not. What was so wrong, though? Okay, let me just. Let me just. All right, so say he had not taken the. We might look at this and say, well, he took the gold out, the gold and silver out of the treasures of the house of the Lord. And that was wrong. So that was what made it wrong. That was not the most grievous part of this, and I can prove it to you. [00:16:24] Would it have been. Would it have been wrong if he had, say he had had a bunch of money that he had saved up and he had enough to pay off the king of Assyria, king of Syria, to help him? Would that have been okay? No. No, it wouldn't have been. Let's keep reading. [00:16:40] The thing I want you to take away from verses four through six is this. His scheme was successful, but what was the cost? [00:16:49] What was the cost? [00:16:52] Verse seven, and at that time, Hanani, the seer, that's a prophet, came to Asa, king of Judah, and said unto him, because here's what I want you. This is God's beef with Asa right? Now. [00:17:09] Because thou has relied on the king of Syria and not relied on the Lord thy God. Therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. [00:17:23] Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand. [00:17:38] Now, what is. Just pause for a second before you keep reading. What is the difference between what Asa is doing now and what he did before? [00:17:45] What is the difference between what he's doing now and relying on the Lord? The difference is going to God about the problem where his heart's trust is resting. Remember, he said in chapter 14, he rested on the Lord. [00:18:02] Now he's not resting on the Lord. He's resting on the hand of man. [00:18:14] Keep reading. Verse number nine. Well, verse number. Well, let's review verse seven and eight before we go on to verse nine. [00:18:24] You see, Asa's greatest fault in sin in this matter was the reversal of his reliance upon God and relying upon the king of Assyria. Here's what I want you to understand. [00:18:43] God looked upon that. See, we would look at that as Asa. Well, look. I mean, after all, Asa had a big problem. He had a huge army coming after him. You know, he's just trying to. He's just trying to live, poor guy. [00:18:56] You know, I mean. I mean, whether it's this way or that way, six, one, half dozen, another. I mean, he's just trying to live. God did not look at that on that. [00:19:05] Did not look at aces situation in the same way as we might. [00:19:11] God looked at aces reliance upon man as a grievous sin and as an indication that he had already departed from God. [00:19:24] Look at verse number nine. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Notice what God says herein thou has done. Foolishly so, the prophet. God, through the prophet, rebukes Asa for something that, to us, might seem like a minor difference. After all, he accomplished the mission, right? It's the same thing. I mean, whether he asked God or whether he did. I mean. I mean, after all. I mean, yeah, maybe he didn't ask God about it, but, I mean, obviously, God delivered him. [00:20:01] This is the way we reason things. [00:20:05] It is, Mister worldly wise. John Bunyan's mister worldly wise. It is. But look, the Lord is not just concerned that we get to the end by whatever means necessary. He wants us to get to the end in the right way with our faith intact. Having grown, having sought the Lord, it is not. Okay, so let me give you an example. Say you have a huge bill that comes up. Maybe your, maybe your, your hot water heater explodes and damages the inside of your, you know, the inside of your house, and you got to tear out walls and floors and all that stuff, right? [00:20:48] Miss Doris is smiling. So that must have happened in their house. [00:20:55] So you could look at that and you could, you could think, all right, that's going to cost, you know, $20,000.30, 40, I have no idea. But, but it costs a lot of money to fix. That's a legitimate problem you have anything to do with. You're just mind your own business and your hot water heater explodes. Okay, what is the response? [00:21:13] The response of a person who's seeking God is, Lord, please help me. I don't know what to do, and I don't have money. [00:21:25] I'm taking this to you. Please tell me what to do. Please provide. [00:21:29] You know what God will do? He'll work behind the scenes, and he has a million ways he can provide, right? He can do whatever, he can do all kinds of things. He can give you more money at your job. He can. Somebody can drop 20 grand in your bank account. I mean, there's a million different ways God can provide. And, you know, those of you that have trusted God have seen he'll use he. But his rule is always, he provides in a way that you weren't paying attention to. Always, inevitably, every single time you're looking down this road, and it's going to come from this direction ten out of ten times. [00:22:01] Just so, just to remind us hard headed people that he's providing and not according to our wisdom, so that's the way he does things. That's in my experience, at least. All right, so we get the problem fixed. Hot water heater is repaired, all the damage is repaired. [00:22:21] That's where we're at. Now. Take that same scenario, and instead of taking it to God, you decide to go into debt with risky debt. [00:22:34] That is dangerous, borderline unethical, that puts you in a bad position, and you didn't talk to God about it at all. [00:22:46] Now you got it paid and you scrimped and scraped till you could pay off that loan. That's fine. You get to the end you say, well, I mean, I accomplished the goal, but it is not okay to solve the problem without seeking the Lord. [00:23:06] That's the takeaway. [00:23:09] To solve the problem without seeking the Lord about it, which is relying upon him, is sinful. [00:23:21] This is exactly what Asa was reproved for doing. [00:23:27] You see what I'm saying? [00:23:29] He did not seek the Lord because his heart had departed from God. [00:23:36] Now, I just want to remind you that seeking the Lord, when there's trouble like that, again, we might be talking about health problems or relationship problems or whatever. You know, it might be a problem with a husband or a wife or a child or, you know, it might be that you have, like, little children and you're having a discipline problem. That happens, right? It might be an issue with an older child and you're having issues dealing with that, and that happens. It might be a husband and wife problem. It might. I mean, there's so many different things it could be. [00:24:08] But to rely and rest upon the Lord does not mean you do nothing to the contrary. To rest upon the Lord means. You say, lord, here is my problem. I am putting it before you, and I am waiting on you to give me some direction or provide or do whatever you're going to do. And you know what God often does is he solves the problem using natural means. [00:24:34] The Lord does that all the time. When you have a need and your boss gives you extra, extra time overtime to supply that need, that's using natural means. And God does that all the time. And we don't look at that and say, well, because it came from my job, it wasn't from God. No, no, no. We look at that and we say, no, God, I brought it to you. [00:24:51] And because I brought it to you, you know what that does? However the Lord chooses to solve that problem, because we brought it to him, it sanctifies whatever means he uses to solve the problem. [00:25:05] It makes it holy because we took it to him to begin with. It sanctifies that process. [00:25:11] But here's the problem. When we do not take it to him, we are therefore not relying upon him. And when we're not relying upon him, whatever means or schemes we use to get to that solution is unholy. [00:25:27] Is unholy. [00:25:30] Mankind scheming like Asa is a normal response to a difficult situation. Like brother Joseph was saying, worldly wisdom. That's what we would call normal, right? That's what we would call natural. [00:25:48] But God, listen. Now, God expected Asa to rely upon him. Now, think about our Lord. [00:25:57] God expected. How do we know God expected Asa because he rebuked Asa for not. That means God was really expecting Asa to rely upon him. What does that mean? That means that God was, in a way, obligating himself by that laying that expectation upon himself, God is saying, all right, all you gotta do is come to me. I got it solved. [00:26:20] I'm waiting on you to bring it to me because I want to help you. [00:26:25] That expectation tells us that and not to rely on some man invented scheme. Now, on that subject, think about salvation. [00:26:38] Think about salvation. [00:26:40] What do people do? [00:26:43] They choose to rely on a man invented scheme to get righteousness or to get forgiveness or to be made right with God. They go into a little booth because a bunch of men in a religion have told them that if they confess their sins to a man, that that man has power to forgive sins because he is a representative of Christ on earth. [00:27:13] That is a man's scheme. And when a person goes in there and they presume that they have been forgiven of their sin by that man and his pronouncements, they are relying upon man, not the Lord. [00:27:33] Now, they don't say that, of course. [00:27:38] Anytime someone is relying upon some system of works to save their soul, to forgive their sin, to give them eternal life, be it water in the baptistery, or good works of any kind, or pilgrimages, or penance, or any kind of man, all of those are manmade schemes. Do you know what God's scheme was? God's scheme was a savior came from heaven and died for sinners and rose again to provide us with eternal life. That was God's scheme. And God's answer to that is what rest on what I have done. You see? Come to me. [00:28:18] Don't try to scheme. [00:28:20] Don't try to scheme. [00:28:22] Look at a couple of verses. Look at Isaiah 31. [00:28:27] Isaiah, chapter 31, and verse one. [00:28:44] It says this, woe to them. What does the word woe mean? That's a curse. [00:28:50] That is not a light word. We don't ever use it in our common language, but this is a very strong word. [00:28:58] Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help and stay. Or that means rely upon horses and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong. But they look not unto the holy one of Israel, neither seek the lord. You see that? See the word seek. Is that not what we talked about all throughout chapter 14 and 15 of two chronicles? Seek the Lord. You know, when there's an army coming at you from Aces perspective, you got to go fight. [00:29:29] But that doesn't mean you don't take time beforehand to talk to God about it. [00:29:37] And even though you're going to fight with your 580,000 man strong. Did I do that right? 580,000 man strong army. I think that's right. Just because you have an army of 580,000 and so just because you have an army doesn't mean that you trust in that army. That's foolish. [00:30:01] You know someone, you know, you might. You might be a person that has hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account. [00:30:07] That don't mean you got to trust it. [00:30:10] It's not a sin for you to have $500,000 in your bank account, but you better not trust in uncertain riches. [00:30:18] There's a problem, you better take it to God first. [00:30:20] Immediately. Seek him. Immediately, reflexively. Intuitively. [00:30:28] But see, those that have the great armies, like we read here, they say, well, I got an army. What do I need God for? I ain't talking to him about it. [00:30:35] That is a grave sin. [00:30:37] Look at Jeremiah 17, verse number five. [00:30:45] This is a powerful verse. [00:30:50] It says this, jeremiah 17, five. Thus saith the Lord. Cursed. There's that same. It's the same as, whoa. Cursed be the man. [00:30:59] Now, you gotta understand, when you say cursed be the man, this is the same pronouncement God makes upon someone who sins and is thereby condemned to hell. All right, this is a very strong. This is saying. This is saying. Nothing short of this is a grave sin in God's sight. All right. Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart, notice, departeth from the Lord. You see that forsaketh. That's what we read about this morning. Departeth from God. So the man who schemes and doesn't seek the Lord in a problem, in an issue, in trouble, the man who schemes and trusts in man, and some guy to deliver him, and some method, some tool, some whatever to rely upon in place of relying upon the Lord. That person has departed from God already. [00:32:04] I don't know about you, but we think that's just a little quibble, because, after all, we accomplish the goal at the end. [00:32:10] But God does not look at it like that. Let's go back to our text here in chapter 16, verse number eight. [00:32:31] Let's go ahead and go on to verse number nine. [00:32:35] The Lord really used this verse when I was in Cambodia as a missionary. Just worked me over with it. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. Listen, the Lord is looking. [00:32:50] He's looking for people to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. He's looking for people whose heart is perfect. [00:33:05] He wants to show his strength. In your life, let me ask you a question. When the Lord looks over your area of the earth for a heart that's perfect toward him, does he see you? [00:33:19] Does he see me? [00:33:22] Does his gaze pause at us as he scans humanity, looking for someone whose heart is right toward him, whose heart is perfect, who is waiting to rely upon him for little and big things? [00:33:39] Are you on his radar? [00:33:43] I want to be on God's radar to do great things that can only be done in reliance upon him. [00:33:53] I'll be honest with you. I want to see the Lord do great things in this church, things that cannot be manufactured or accomplished by the power or the arm of flesh. Flesh. That's what I want to see here. [00:34:06] That's actually what I'm asking the Lord to do. [00:34:10] Would you join me and ask the Lord to do that among us? [00:34:15] That it wouldn't just be humdrum, same old church we've had, but that the Lord would. We would truly rely upon him and expect things from him and see him work among us, not just in our church and in a revival and an awakening among us, but in the individual families in our church, too. [00:34:41] Verse ten. [00:34:47] Then Asa was wroth with the seer and put him in a prison house. [00:34:51] He's mad at God, so he takes it out on the messenger, for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time. [00:35:04] See, Asa's response to God's reproof reveals where he's at spiritually at this point. [00:35:12] If there's any question remaining, we see this clearly, right? Asa has departed from God. [00:35:19] Asa is angry at God's reproof. [00:35:23] And you know what? [00:35:26] Now he's out of totally out of fellowship with God. He is not seeking God. He's scheming, he's unethical, he's immoral. [00:35:36] And now that sin is trickling down to those in his kingdom, those around him. Not only is he putting a man of God who's telling the message of God in prison, but he's also oppressing the people that God has appointed him over in order to take care of them. He's oppressing them. Why? One. Cause he is departed from God. See, all of those things go back to his relationship with the Lord being out of being dysfunctional. That's not all. [00:36:11] Verse eleven says, and behold the acts of Asa, first and last. Lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. And Asa, in the 30th, 39th year of his reign, was diseased in his feet until his disease was exceeding great. Here's another difficulty and trouble that's come into his life. How does he respond? It's inevitable now, is he going to seek to God or to the arm of flesh? [00:36:39] The pattern has been established. He is going to the arm of flesh. [00:36:45] Yet in his disease, he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. [00:36:51] You know, even when you're sick, man's wisdom says, go to the doctor. I say, go to the doctor, but not before you go to God. [00:37:03] You got trouble. You got right? You got tests, scans. You don't know how it's gonna turn out. Go to the doctor, get seen, but not before you talk to God about it. [00:37:15] That little difference is what the Lord is paying attention to. [00:37:21] Are you relying on the doctor or relying on the Lord? You see what I'm saying? Are you relying on man? Are you relying and flesh or relying on God's power? [00:37:34] That little difference, that's the difference between a heart that is seeking the Lord and a heart that has departed from the Lord. [00:37:44] Let's pray.