Matthew 14 (Part 1) :1-13a

We're going to read the first 13 verses and we'll see what the Lord has for us today. At that time, Herod the Tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus and he said to his attendants, this is John the Baptist, he has risen from the dead. That is why miraculous powers are at work in him. Now Herod had arrested John earlier, obviously, and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for John had been saying to him, it's not lawful for you to have her. Stop there, let me just explain what's going on. Herod had taken his brother's wife after his brother had obviously been married to him, but rather than, I mean there was no divorce, there was no break in the marriage, Herodias, Herod's brother's wife simply came to live with Herod. And John the Baptist, who was out preaching in the wilderness and baptizing people, as you know, telling them that the kingdom of God was upon them and so forth, was speaking out and saying about Herod, that's wrong, he shouldn't be doing that, and he was upholding the sanctity of marriage and it was a very good thing that he was doing, but obviously it's a very risky thing that he was doing because it landed him in prison. And we'll see here how that all kind of played out. It says in verse 5 that Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people because they, the people, considered him a prophet. On Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist. The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl who carried it to her mother. John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Let's stop there. Yes, I do know we're stopping in the middle of a verse. That's okay. We'll come back and catch the rest of it. But I want to tell you that, before we just pray here for a moment, that we've got four things we're going to be looking at. For those of you taking notes, and it's a good thing, by the way, for those of you that take notes. I encourage taking notes. Here are the four things that you're going to be looking at. We'll be putting them up on at least the one screen that we have here working today. First thing is, put down in your notes, speculations and opinions unending. That's the first thing we're going to be looking at from this passage. The second thing on your notes will be a case of duplicity. Thirdly, you can write down when fear calls the shots. And then fourthly, we're going to be looking at silencing the noise. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we look to you, we worship you, we open our hearts to you for the ministry of your Holy Spirit to bring wisdom, insight, and understanding to our hearts from this word. Lord, the application of this is something that we want you to be talking to us about. We want you to make us able to receive from this word. And then we want you, Father God, we're asking you to enable us to bring application to this word as well, that we can go from this place today and walk it out day by day. And we ask that you would do these things for your glory and for our strengthening. In the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen. All right, point number one on your notes. You should have written down speculations and opinions unending. This chapter you'll see begins by saying that there were reports of the activity of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, which of course included miracles and so forth, that it made its way all the way to King Herod. And Herod, who had murdered John or ordered that he be killed in his prison, and probably because of regret and the things that go along with it, he was telling people, yeah, this is John the Baptist come back from the dead when he heard about Jesus. This is obviously John the Baptist. He's come back from the dead and so forth. Now Mark retells this same story in his gospel account, and he gives us even a little further information. Here's what he says. I'll put it on the screen. It says, King Herod heard about this, for Jesus' name had become well known. Some were saying John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why miraculous powers are at work in him. Others said, no, no, no, no, this is Elijah. And still others claimed he is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago. But when Herod heard this, he said, no, no, it's John, John the man I beheaded. He was raised from the dead. Now, of course, you and I know that's ridiculous because Jesus and John the Baptist had actually been seen publicly on several occasions, you know, at the same time. But Herod is running wild with speculation here. No doubt, some people probably believed him. You know, this is what Herod thinks, yeah, I think this probably could be John the Baptist raised from the dead, who knows, you know. But it says here in this passage that we looked at in Mark that people believed other things too. And so there were all kinds of speculation going around. There were all kinds of opinions. And I find this kind of interesting because speculation and opinion is something that is still very much alive in our country as well, here in the United States of America. In fact, we've come to the place where we almost have exalted opinion to the point of truth. We look for opinions and we long for people's opinions. And that's one of the reasons why talk shows have become so popular over the years, you know. Everybody gives their opinion, you know. And I hate it, I really do. You know, personal opinion, you've heard me say several times from this pulpit, at least I try to say it. Every time I'm giving you what I believe is an opinion, I try to tell you that. I say, well, that's just my opinion. But I always try to tell you that my opinion isn't worth anything unless it is connected to the truth. And then it's not an opinion, really. It's just the truth. And, you know, as a teacher, I love the truth and I long for the truth. And that's why opinions, you know, kind of rattle me. They kind of bother me, you know, because everybody's got a different opinion. You know, Jesus is doing his thing, and people are going, yeah, this is Elijah, you know. And somebody's like, no, John, he was beheaded, now he's come back to life, you know. And somebody else has another opinion, then somebody else has another opinion. And it's like, where's the truth? Where do you find the truth in the midst of this sea of opinions? You know, I had somebody pull me aside several weeks ago right here at Calvary Chapel after one of our services and said, you know, Pastor Paul, sit down, I want to get your opinion on some things. And I said, no, you don't, because my opinion doesn't mean anything. I'll sit down with you and I'll talk to you about what the Bible says about stuff, but who cares what my opinion is, you know? Oh, I remember. Some of you guys who are like me, getting gray, might remember a television show that I think started back in the 70s. I think it was a talk show called Phil Donahue. Who remembers Phil Donahue? Yeah. Really? Some of you guys that even aren't gray, or maybe you've just covered your gray, I don't know, but we won't go there, just leave it alone. But Phil Donahue was one of the original multiple opinion talk shows, and it just caught like wildfire in this country. And he carried a microphone just like this, you know, and he walked around and he was always running around, you remember, with the audience. And it kind of gave rise to these other more seedy kind of talk shows that became awful. I mean, like, you can't even watch them, yeah, without making yourself sick. But Phil Donahue, at least he was clean, but he was constantly asking everybody, you know, what's your opinion and what's your opinion? And people say, well, my opinion is, I think that, you know, and then they go on to tell what they thought. And then somebody else, over here, over here, people raise their hand, he goes over, what are you thinking? Well, I disagree with that person, I think, you know, and therein lies the issue related to opinion. It, you know, you got people coming from polar opposites, what are you going to believe? You know, what are you going to believe? And if you base your life on what other people think, then you're just going to be totally confused all the time because you got one person over here on this side says, you know, well, I believe that, you know, God is a God of love and he would never judge this particular thing. And then there's other people over here, well, but, you know, everybody's got their opinion. It's just a sea of opinions and you can drown in them, you know, if you're not careful. We've elevated it in our country in a very... very unhealthy way. But we are not the first culture by any stretch to have done that. Remember when Paul went to Greece, he found himself in the city of Athens, and he found that they were doing that exact thing. Everybody loved to get together and talk about things, and nobody ever came to any conclusions. It talks about it in Acts 17, I'll put it on the screen here for you. It says, all the Athenians, and in fact, the foreigners who lived there in Athens, spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. It sounds like fun, huh? They just kind of sit, they get together every day and just say, well, here's the latest idea, let's just kind of talk it out. Nobody would ever come to any kind of conclusion. That's the thing that used to bother me about the Phil Donahue show. You'd get done watching Phil Donahue and you'd go, I'm no closer to knowing what the answer is than before this stupid show started. In fact, I'm more confused because all I've heard for the whole time is nothing but everybody's opinions, you know? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, sort of a thing. Where is the truth? Well, one of the reasons that opinions and speculation are so dangerous is because of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3 when he said, for the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight. And if you're going to listen to wild speculation and opinion, which is, by the way, the wisdom of the world, then you are going to be literally buying in to foolishness in terms of how God sees wisdom. The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. So rather than spending all of our time talking about popular thought, which, by the way, popular thought is always going to be popular with people. And that's why talk shows will never die out because it's popular to talk and to give your opinion. But you know what? It's almost always going to be wrong. Jesus told us one very important thing. He said, where the masses go, I mean, where the vast majority of people go, there you find error. There you find destruction. And it's an easy thing to go with the flow. You know that, don't you? It's an easy thing to go with the masses. It's an easy thing to have popular thought on various issues that are maybe hot-button issues or whatever in the world. It's very easy just to kind of believe what you believe. You know, sometimes we challenge people. We say, you know, why do you believe what you believe about this or marriage or homosexuality or parenting or politics or, you know, whatever? Why do you believe what you believe? Why? Well, you know, I've never really been asked that before. And you scratch below the surface and you find that they're just echoing, they're parenting what they've heard. And they really haven't thought it through, you know? There's just a sort of a thing and it's just personal opinion that's just gotten in there and gotten entrenched in their lives. But the attitudes and the thoughts of the masses are always wrong. Here's what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7. Maybe you'll remember this. It wasn't that terribly long. We were there. He said, enter through the narrow gate. Go through the narrow gate, he said, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads where? To destruction, right? And he says, and many enter through it because it's easy to get there. It's easy to get through that door. It's a big, fat, wide door, and easy to get through there. It's easy. All you got to do is just think like the world and just kind of parent the things in the world, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the way it is. But he went on to say, that's right, that one doesn't work. I forgot about that. He went on to say that small is the gate and narrow is the road, right, that leads to life, and only a few, only a few find it. It's narrow. It's a narrow path to the truth. It's a broad path to everybody's opinion, all right? So, where do we start when it comes to truth? Proverbs 9, verse 10, love this verse. It says,

You want to start on the path of wisdom? Start with the fear of the Lord. God, you are there. You are there, and you are the God of truth. Jesus came along and said, I am the truth. I am the truth. So, I'm going to fear God. I'm going to believe God. I'm going to follow after him. That's the beginning of wisdom. And then to move on from there, how do I grow in truth? Knowledge of the Holy One, it says here, is increased understanding. The more I know God, the more I know his word, the more I know his ways, I increase in true knowledge that is based in fact and truth and so forth, and not error. That's our first point from this passage. Point number two on your notes that you jotted down, a case of duplicity. You remember that Herod had some pretty strange thoughts here. Look in verse three of Matthew chapter 14 in your Bible. It says, now, Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for John had been saying to him, it's not lawful for you to have her. And Herod then says here in verse five, very clearly, Herod wanted to kill him. But why didn't he do it? Well, it tells us here, he was afraid. He was afraid of the people because the people thought that John the Baptist was a prophet. They saw him in a prophetic light, and Herod knew that. And so he was afraid to kill him. Well, that's interesting. Mark's gospel gives us another interesting side of understanding Herod's duplicitous thought. I'll put this on the screen from Mark chapter six. Look what it says here. It says, Herod actually also feared John. And in a way, he protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. So when Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, yet he kind of liked to listen to him. John would speak about the kingdom of heaven and stuff like that, and Herod was intrigued. And he actually kind of liked to listen to him, although he was puzzled. He didn't understand what he was hearing because he was such a hard-hearted, sin-soaked individual. The point is, it says here in Mark's version that while he hated what John was saying about his relationship with Herodias, and that he really wanted to kill him, he also, at the same time, protected him. And he was intrigued by him. What does that sound like to you? Sounds like a classic case of double-mindedness, doesn't it? Some of you might struggle with understanding what double-mindedness is, but double-mindedness is just that. It's like having a double mind. It's not like you're twice as smart. In fact, it's more like twice as dumb. But essentially, it's this. It's thinking about something and wanting something, but wanting the exact opposite at the same time. And again, some of you in this room are going to have a hard time wrapping your head around that reality, but believe me, it's a reality. Double-mindedness is a true condition of the heart where I want something, but I don't want something. I hate you, but I like you. In fact, I hate you, but I love you. I want that. I don't want that. I want to say this. I don't want to say this. Double-minded. And double-mindedness can come into the whole realm of knowing God, loving God, serving God. In fact, Paul talked about it when he wrote to Timothy, and he made an interesting statement. I'm jumping ahead here, Jane, a little bit to 2 Timothy chapter 2, and here's what he said to Timothy when he wrote to him. He said, no one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. Why? Because he wants to please his commanding officer. Essentially, what he's saying here is, if you're in the military, I mean, that's what he's likening it to, then when you're in the military, you want to be in the military. And do the things of the military, be serving out your responsibilities to the military, and not getting all kind of distracted and caught up in all these other things that don't have anything to do with the military, because, you know, your commanding officer isn't going to be very happy with you. The connecting point here is that God is our commanding officer, and you and I have been called into his service, but when we get all distracted and caught up with the things of the world, right, which is that picture of getting involved in civilian affairs, we're not going to be able to functionally do what we've been called to do, because we're divided in our thought, in our mind, we're being duplicitous, we're being double-minded. I want to serve God, but I don't want to serve God, you know? I want to go tell that person about Jesus, but I don't want to go tell that person about Jesus. I want to go do that, I want to play that, I want to do that game, I want to make money, I want to have relationships, I want to enjoy the things of the world, but I mean, I want to serve God, I want to live here, I mean, I come to church and I'm like, God, I want to love you, I want to live for you, and then we leave here and we walk away from this place and we just, we just, we're totally just engrossed in the world. Double-mindedness. Do you remember? What James said about the double-minded man, you guys recall? We'll put it up on the screen just in case you forgot. It says, as far as a double-minded man goes, he's unstable in all he does. James was making that statement in the context of prayer. A man who prays and doesn't even believe he's gonna get what he prays for, he calls that double-mindedness. That's just one example of double-mindedness. Like I said, it can express itself in many, many different ways. What was going on with Herod? Well, do you remember in verse five? Look in verse five once again. Because basically it says, Herod wanted to kill John. Isn't that what it says in verse five? But he didn't do it, right? And it kind of reminds me, remember the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz? And Dorothy meets the scarecrow and she's asking for directions and he's pointing this way. And then the next minute he points the other way. And then pretty soon he's pointing both ways. Kind of reminds me of that classic, that's what I think of when I think the double-minded man. It's the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, you know? But anyway, he wanted to kill John. But then, you know, later on he didn't wanna kill John. It's just crazy, just crazy. So anyway, what are you gonna do about this issue of double-mindedness? You know what, it's been a problem with God's people for a long time. And God's word consistently calls us out of that place of duplicity. It says, you know, knock it off. It's like, live for God or don't. If you don't wanna live for God, then stop playing games. But stop doing things for show, you know? Either live for God or don't. Do you remember when Elijah was confronting the people of Israel about this very thing? Because they were mixing the worship of Yahweh with Baal worship, which they had learned from the king's wife, Jezebel. She was a piece of work, let me tell you. But she brought Baal worship, because she wasn't a Jew, she was a Phoenician. And the king had married her and brought her into his home, and she brought the worship of the Phoenicians, which was Baal worship, to Israel. And Elijah was sick of it, just sick of it. And he had been in hiding for a long time, but he finally kind of came out into the public, you know, and he called the people to make a decision. He basically said, stop it. Let me put what he said on the screen here for you. This is really cool. It says, Elijah went before the people and he said, how long will you waver between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, if the Lord is God, then follow him. But if Baal is God, then follow him. But why both? Why are we kind of living for Christ, but living for ourselves? Why are we running after the world and running after God at the same time? That doesn't work, you know? It's this double-minded sort of a lifestyle that we're living, and what does it do? Remember what we saw that James said? It produces instability. Why is my family a mess? Why is my life a mess? Why are my thoughts a mess? Why is this a mess? Do you know that almost every kind of disorder in our lives can be traced back to some kind of duplicitous thought, or duplicitous condition, double-minded condition in our lives, where I'm just, you know, boy, we sang a couple of lovely songs this morning about just surrendering to the Lord, you know? I love, don't you love the song we did during communion, you know, As the Dear? But, you know, you alone are my strength and shield. To you alone may my spirit yield. To you alone may my spirit yield. That's our prayer, that's our goal, right? That's our desire. But you know what, if we're honest with ourselves, we're gonna say, you know what? My spirit doesn't always yield just to the Lord. Sometimes my spirit yields to other things, and other people, and other circumstances, and frankly, the world in general. It does. You know, you run after money, and you run after success, and you run after pleasure, and these other things, instead of just really seeking God. It's double-mindedness, you know? Point number three. This is on your notes as when fear calls the shots. All right, now we're gonna look at, really kind of the same thing we were looking at, but why Herod was doing what he was doing. Notice in verse five again, Herod wanted to kill John because he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet. Then skip down to verse nine. The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted. All right, here's what's going on. He's having a party, Herod's having a party. We know he wants to kill John because it said he wanted to kill John, but we also know that he was duplicitous in his thought, and he actually protected John because he kind of knew there was something special there. So he's having a party. He has all these guests over, and he's trying to look like a big shot around him, and Herodias' daughter gets up and dances in front of everybody, and it says, she pleases everyone there, including the king. I'm sure it was very sexually suggestive, I dare say, that he was probably aroused, and he makes her this offer with an oath that he'll do anything she wants him to do, all she has to do, just ask. Well, yeah, it's a pretty big deal when the king says, I'll give you anything you want, and he says it with an oath. So she goes to talk to her mom, who obviously, as we said before, too, is also a piece of work, and her mom says, ah, we just got a, this is kind of like a pass, go, collect $200 sort of free card, you know? So it's like, yeah, great. Go ahead and go up and ask him in front of all of his guests for the head of John the Baptist, ha, ha, ha. So she dances on back into the king, and she says, I know what I want. Sure, no problem, sweetie. Ask anything you want. You've pleased me so much. I want the head of John the Baptist right here, right now on a platter. It says he was distressed. He was distressed. But, it says, because of his oaths and because of his dinner guests, which is basically a consideration of the people, right? He ordered that John be beheaded, and they brought up his head on a platter. Glad we don't have pictures in the Bible. Here's the point. Herod didn't kill John because he was afraid of the people. Herod did kill John because he was afraid of the people. You get it? Herod was a man wracked by fear. Herod was a man dictated in his life by fear. And it's called specifically, not just fear in general, it is called the fear of man. And the Bible actually talks about it in the Proverbs. Proverbs 29, 25 says that the fear of man will ultimately in your life prove to be a snare. But whoever trusts in the Lord will be kept safe, right? Hey, I'm the first one to tell you, people can be scary sometimes. And they can be very imposing and very intimidating. And there can be a great temptation to do what they're telling us to do or whatever. But you know, when we do, when we do what other people demand, even when we know we shouldn't, even when we know it's wrong, we are in essence exalting those people above God himself. We are putting our obedience to those people first rather than obedience to God first, right? And that's a pretty serious issue when you stop and think about it. What we need to be like is we need to be like Peter and John who, you know, got hauled in before the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin, the very same group of men, the Jewish religious ruling council that had condemned Jesus, handed him over to Pilate and had him crucified. These are the very same guys, scary guys, who proved they could do what they set out to do. And they come to Peter and John after Jesus has been crucified and buried and risen again. And they say to him, listen, we command you no longer to speak in the name of this Jesus character whom you claim is alive. You may not. And if you do, we will kill you. We will do to you what we did to him. And you know, frankly, the disciples had every reason to believe that that was no idle threat. You know? But I loved, I still love what they said. Up on the screen here, they basically responded to the Sanhedrin. Hedren and just said, listen, just for yourselves, whether it's right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. Listen, that's the proper perspective on this whole issue of the fear of man. You get over the fear of man when you get on top of obedience to God. That's how to get over that intimidation factor of people telling you to do things that you know you shouldn't be doing, but you're doing them anyway out of fear. You come to the place of saying, you know what? I'm going to fear God and God alone, and I'm going to obey God and God alone. And if somebody asked me to do something that I know is wrong, I'm going to look him right in the eye. I'm going to say, listen, judge for yourself whether you believe it's right to obey you rather than God. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's an easy decision. I'm going with God. You know, I'm going with God. I'm going to obey him all the way. And if that kind of messes with you, and if you're going to kind of get all red in the face and blow steam and yell and scream, well, why don't you just go do it somewhere else? Because even after you do, I'm still going to just obey God. Because what you're asking me to do is not right. It's called the fear of man, and I'm going to fear God instead. Last point on your notes, silencing the noise. Remember the very last verse we read, we cut it right in the middle. But in verse 13, here in your Bible of Matthew chapter 14, it says that when Jesus heard what had happened, and it's talking about he heard what happened to John the Baptist and so forth, it says he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. In other words, he got in a boat and just went somewhere where he could be alone. And that was a hard thing for Jesus to do. But we also know that this idea of just getting away from the crowds was something he did on a regular basis. Luke tells us this in Luke chapter 5 verse 16. It says, but Jesus often, notice I highlighted that, often withdrew to lonely places and prayed and so forth. You might remember that back in the sixth chapter of Matthew, when we were going through that chapter, remember Jesus was talking to us about prayer and how we should pray. Do you remember what he said about prayer? Here's what he said, just to refresh you, Matthew 6, 6. When you pray, what does he say? He says, go into your room. And that's not a legalistic sort of a thing. It's like, get away from people is the whole idea behind it. Get away, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen. And then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. This is one of the little principles of the kingdom about prayer that we often ignore. Not only do we not pray, but we don't get away to pray. We don't get away from the crowd. And you know, we live in a world of noise today. There's just this din of noise that just follows us. Seems like wherever we go, and I don't know about you, but I got to get quiet to hear from God. I mean, I'm one of those people that is very people-oriented from the standpoint that I'm a people watcher, which is a good and a bad thing. It's good when we go shopping, I've told you guys before, because Sue can just find me a chair at the mall and she can go shop all day long and I'm just happy just watching people. I just like watching people. They're just fun to watch and I try to figure them out, but I'm very distracted by people too. Do you know I find worship in a room like this to be hard to do? Just confessing, I do. I could never sit in the back row of church. Too many people moving around, too many people, you know, picking their nose and swatting their kids and, you know, going through their purse and, you know, playing around and stuff like that. You know, I'd have to sit right up in the front row and I'm sure that's why some of you guys do, but I'm very distractible, you know, that sort of thing. When we're in worship, and you know, you've heard me say this before, the reason we turn down the lights in the room is to minimize distractions. But even with that, I've got to close my eyes during worship. I have to close my eyes because if I see you, I'm no longer worshiping God. And I find it very difficult to hear God with the noise of the world going on. And we get so accustomed to noise. Have you ever gone over to someone's house to talk with them? And you sit down to talk in their living room and the TV is on, but no one's watching it. It's like, turn the box off so we can talk. But they don't even hear it. I'm convinced they don't even hear it. It's just in the background going, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. And they're just sitting there having a conversation, so how are you doing there, talking away, just doing the things. And I'm distracted. I'm kind of looking at the commercials and stuff like this, like, turn it off. Do you get that way sometimes where you've got to just turn it off and hear from God? I can't. I'll tell you something right now, and maybe it's a confession of weakness, but I cannot hear God's voice in the noise. I can't. I don't know if you've ever noticed that between services, I slip away from here. Maybe you've seen me do that. Maybe you in second service have seen me come back and walk through the door the same time you get here. It's like, wait a minute. What's he doing here? Do you know that I actually slip away between services to go get quiet? Because inevitably somebody wants to talk to me about their dog. Which is fine, although I honestly don't care, but I mean, I love you, not your dog. I'm sure I just offended someone. My email address is paul at ccontario.com. Bring it on. No, but you know, I mean, usually the conversation between services is just kind of like, you know, it's not what I need to be listening to. And so I slip away, so I actually go home because there's nobody there. We just live five minutes away. And I sit down in a chair, and I put my head in my hands, and I just go, Jesus, speak to my heart because I've got to get quiet. I have to. Or I can't come back with any kind of a clarity of thought to do second service. You know? I'm sorry. It's just the way I am. It's just, but I need to just kind of clear the noise. And I think, I don't think I'm completely alone in this. I think that, I think there's a great need, in fact, for us as a people to just get quiet. One of the things, I know the women come back after a women's retreat, and they just, they love the serenity of the campground that they use up there near McCall, because there's the beauty of the lake. I mean, this campground that the women go to in the fall, it's right on the lake, right on Payette Lake, and they see the beauty of nature and the lake, and Sue encourages the women to go out and just have alone time, sitting out by the lake and just being quiet and just being around nature, just meditating on the word. These women, they come back jazzed, every one of them, every year. I mean, they're absolutely just built up, and it's just one of the coolest things in the world. It just really gives credence to that idea where Jesus said, just go into your room and shut the door and turn off the TV. We've been getting together on Thursday mornings, my staff and I, for prayer, and it's been delightful. We try to meet and start praying, it's close to nine o'clock in the morning, and we try to pray all the way till noon. It's been a challenge, it has, but I'll tell you something, the biggest challenge isn't praying for three hours. The biggest challenge is not looking at my phone, my tablet, or my laptop. That's the challenge. I have to turn this stupid thing off and leave it outside the room, like leave it in my car. I will admit, one time, I brought it in with me, and it was contraband, I know, but I felt horrible about it the whole time, because I was so tempted to turn it on and look, and go, look at the latest notes, and oh, look at the weather, and let me check Facebook quick. Just got to get quiet, just got to get quiet. Do you remember what David said about getting quiet? In Psalm chapter 23, I put this on, it says, God makes me lie down in green pastures and he leads me beside quiet waters. And as Ian reminded me after first service, the result of that is, he restores my soul. Does your soul need to be restored? Well, maybe you need to be led beside quiet waters. But you know what? That isn't going to happen with the TV blaring in one ear, the radio in the other, your computer, your phone, your tablet, whatever else might be squawking at you, just going on around us. Sometimes it can't even happen when there's just other people around. We need to learn to get alone with God. We need to practice getting alone. With God, here's the crazy thing. We don't do it. Even though Jesus modeled it. Here's here's Jesus the Son of God Who felt it necessary? right To get alone with his father. Hello a long time and just quiet his soul Hear from God hear from the Father God. I need to hear from you today Jesus felt it necessary and somehow strangely we don't We're just kind of cruising along with life with all the noise in our ears and the busyness of life all around us And we don't take that time to just shut it off and get away and just be quiet You know, maybe We would find out if we did God's still speaking In fact, maybe we'll find out he's got a lot to say Wow God's talking he's telling me things I Hesitate sometimes to give people advice when they come up and ask for it because I Know that nine times out of ten if not more they're asking me before they've sat and just listened to God and And they're putting me in the place of God pastor Paul, what do you think I should do in this situation? I Don't know if you got in quiet and just listen to God Have you gotten away? Have you gone into your room and shut the door? Have you just gone out for a drive? Have you gone out to the country? have you just gone for a walk in some part of the quiet of the city and and just waited on God and and asked him Because there's a really good chance I'll give you some bad advice But you know what he'll never lead you astray He'll never tell you anything that's wrong. He loves you so much. He'll always tell you exactly What you need to hear if you and I will just wait long enough to listen It's a word for the America, isn't it 2013 busyness of life one of our biggest Issues with really walking with God and hearing his voice You