- Lord you are a miracle worker.

The God who works wonders.

And we life before you the prayer requests

that have come in and we ask

that you work wonders in their lives,

work wonders in our midst, Lord God.

We declare your greatworks, what you have done.

And Lord allow us to see it.

That we may apprehend and know

the greatness of your powertowards us who believe.

That we would not lookat the wind and the waves

and be discouraged, and bedefeated in our own hearts.

But we would look to you,

the author and the finisher of our faith.

And in looking to you,let all doubt go away.

And let all question go away.

So that your miracle powercan flow on Earth today.

We ask it Lord God, inJesus name, Amen and amen.

You may be seated.

Hallelujah.

Is everybody in zone Asaying hallelujah today?

(laughter)

I don't think we've evercanceled week of prayer before.

Anyway this one we moved, andwe moved from Regent Chapel

over here because Regenthad a bunch of parents

get concerned, can you imagine?

Parents being concernedover their children.

And they were asking can Regents shut down

so their children can leave?

When you get a request like that,

you go yes, we can do that for you.

Today I wanna focus inon praying for America.

I know internally we've beenvery focused on the hurricane.

And I know in my own lifeI've been very focused

on the hurricane,because I live in zone A.

And you start to wonder,why am I so attached

to these things, andthen you start to wonder

why do I have so many thingsthat need to be secured?

And now your out Mondaynight in your backyard,

trying to get porchfurniture and you kinda go,

what am I doing?

But today we're praying for America,

and I think this hurricaneis somewhat of a symbol

for what we've been going through

for a while now in America.

And I really want tofocus in today on let us

avoid looking at thesenatural disasters as judgment.

And let's start lookingon them as an opportunity.

And scripturally I'll take as a basis

for that Luke chapter 9.

Where a man is bornblind and the disciples,

being all righteous and holy, wanna know

these aren't thePharisee's coming to Jesus,

these are the disciples coming to him

wanting to know, they havea theological question.

Who sinned, because in that day,

and you can read it in the Torah,

I will put none of the diseases

that I put on the Egyptians on you.

You can read that.

And so here is a man born blind,

and they're reading the Torahand they have a question.

Who sinned, this man or his parents?

And behind that question,you understand their dilemma.

If you're born blind, what inthe world did you do wrong?

Was it some sin you weregoing to do in the future?

That a curse was put onyou from the beginning?

Or was it some sin thatyour parents had done?

And there you've got plenty of Torah too.

I will visit the sins of the fathers

on the children to the fourth generation.

Today we have medicalscience backing that up.

Epigenetics shows, ifthere's sinful patterns,

sinful behavior, that that sinful behavior

will show up for generations.

The good news for therighteous is it shows

up for a thousandgenerations, not just four.

It goes for a thousand.

So you get into stormsand you start wondering

what did we do to deserve this?

And I remember the aftermath of Katrina,

there was all kinds of speculation.

I love the answer that Jesusgives to his disciples,

cause it cuts through all of that

and he says, neither, this happened

that the glory of theLord would be revealed.

What a great way of looking at the world.

So often we can be reallyold testament minded

when we need to be Jesus minded.

And we need to have the mind of Christ

to say these are opportunities

for the glory of the Lordto be revealed, okay?

So what can we do as Christians

to get alongside of that thought?

And in our own lives, what are we doing

to reveal the glory of the Lord?

I wanna title thisjudgment begins with me.

A lot of this has to do withmy own personal journey.

I was on vacation, went toSicily and then came back.

In the process of boththe end of the vacation

and the coming back intohurricane preparedness,

telethon preparedness, week of prayer,

the busyness of doingthe work of the ministry,

you know, you can reallyget into the Martha mindset,

and, you know, whoa is me,and there's all this stuff

and all these decisions,and everybody's looking

for decision, decision, decision.

You know, in that sort of,the fire of that furnace,

you start to notice that there'ssome things wrong with you.

That there's some slag coming up.

And you're going, I'vebeen walkin with the Lord

a long time and why do I still have this?

Cause this is not justsomething superficial,

this is deep and it's coming up,

and I really don't like it.

And you're hoping for thatslag to be taken away,

but then you start wondering,is this just inherent in me?

What is it about me thatis sort of unredeemed

that I respond this way?

I'm not responding likeJesus would respond.

I'm getting mad, or I'mtrying to look for shortcuts.

You know, this isn't right,and all these other things.

And I'm looking for sources of judgment,

and I'm getting judgmental,I'm getting judgmental at me,

I'm doing all these things and I'm going,

where's my redeemed mind?

What am I doing wrong thatmy very thought process,

the genesis of the thought is wrong?

I need a renewal of theright spirit within me.

So when looking at America,praying for America,

let's keep this in mind,

please let judgment begin with you.

And are you right with God, and are you

thinking the way Jesus thinks?

You can joke about it, count it all joy.

I'm having a joyful day today.

But really inside you've got turmoil.

Anger, bitterness, allof that is coming up.

And that in turn willtrigger bad behavior.

Bad behavior the whole world can see,

you're not hidin it from anybody.

The whole world can see.

And it's one thing tosay well I was angry,

or I was tired, or I was jet lagged.

No, I was me, I needed me to change,

and there's only oneway I'm gonna get there.

Let's look at scripture,this is the very end

of the song of Moses in the Torah.

The book of Deuteronomychapter 32, verses 46-47,

where he's underlyingto the nation of Israel,

this is his final sermon and we're close

to the very end of his final sermon.

He knows that he will notenter the promised land.

He's accepted that judgment from God.

And here he tells the nation of Israel,

take to heart all thewords I have solemnly

declared to you this day, so that you may

command your children to obey carefully

all the words of this law.

They are not just idle wordsfor you, they are your life.

By them, you will live long in the land

you are crossing the Jordan to posses.

Now that's Torah.

Let's look at American culturetoday in light of Torah.

And just, do we obey carefullyall the words of the law.

And let's just, let's notlook at the 613 commandments

of the Torah, let'sjust look at the top 10.

Do we obey them?

And I think it's prettyobvious we don't, we don't.

Joel just muttered the Sabbath,do we keep the Sabbath?

I wish that were the onlyone we were violating.

How about the tenth commandment?

It seems like it's American tocovet what your neighbor has,

that that is just partof our national culture.

It's, we covet everyday.

The whole advertising world is designed

to gear us to get us to covet.

You look at any one of the commandments

and we seem to, on aroutine basis violate it.

And you look at, even theones that are non-religious,

the secular, the atheists saythese are really good rules.

Thou shall not murder, weseem to be doing it regularly.

And we seem to do it inplaces where it's sacred.

I heard Mark Rudlinyesterday mention Columbine,

and I had just moved back fromthe Philippines that month

when Columbine happened, and I was going,

what culture have I come back into?

It's curious to me ashe mentioned Columbine,

I couldn't remember the name of the school

of the last shooting.

And we have gotten numb to it,and we rank school shootings

based on total death, asopposed to how in the world

is this ever happening in our nation.

In a way you can look atwhat is currently happening

in our culture as judgment,and you can look at it

as consequence for sin, you canlook at it as wake up calls.

You can look at it as God is not mocked.

You will reap what you have sown.

You know, let's just listsome of the big ones.

Remember the election of 2000, you know?

Remember the phrase hanging Chad?

At the time, I thought, is God coming at

what we have faith in?

And if you look at someof the big disasters,

you know, do we have faith in democracy

more than we hae faith in God?

Well in 2000, our democracywas challenged to the core.

Where it was up to the Supreme Court

to tell us who won the election.

Do we have faith in our military

more than we have faith in God?

Do we rely on a strong military?

I'm telling you that wasa top sin for Israel.

Top sin for Israel.

Why was it a sin forDavid to count the people?

It was in order to determine the strength

he had to fight an enemy.

So he was relying onthe strength of numbers

and not the strength of God.

In 2001, our faith in our military

was shaken to the core,because the pentagon itself

was attacked, twin towers,pentagon, attacked, destroyed.

We have the almighty dollar.

We put on it we trust in God.

We like to say one nation under God,

and we like to do these things,

but do we trust the dollarmore than we trust God.

And in 2008 how was howthat shaken to the core

where, there was an interview today,

with the head of Berkshire Hathaway

and they're saying back in 2008,

every company was adomino, the ripple effect

was going through every single company.

Every single company wasable to borrow money,

and fuel lines of credit whichin turn fuels the economy.

An entire monetary systemwas at risk of collapse.

And were these judgments, what were these?

And so you can look at all of these things

as wake up calls, you canlook at all of these things,

hey, are you paying attention to me?

Or are you paying attention to the things

that you have faith in?

And I think these days,our faith in free speech

and freedom of the press, is being shaken.

Can you trust what you read?

Is fake news, what's the news source,

and is that news source trustworthy?

Or are they pushing apolitical or social agenda.

And you're reading onlywhat they have crafted

to advance their agenda.

And is that crafting very selective,

not that they're warping facts,

but just by the mere choice of story

that is presented to you,are they carefully omitting

stories that may change your opinion

or influence your opinion.

And are we all part of onebig giant social experiment

designed to shift ouropinions, shift our attitudes,

shift our voting, shiftinghow we raise our children,

shifting all these things,are we being manipulated?

And is, can we trustthe freedom of the press

can we trust the freedom of speech?

And in all of thisnefarious stuff is going on,

are we actually goingto give up our freedom

in order to stop that?

That's a whole nother question

that we're going to face as culture.

So in light of all ofthis, and in light of

that we no longer carefully obey

and we've actually treated

the 10 commandments as idle words.

Well if you wanna obeythem, that's up to you.

What were losing our very life,

and we're losing the life that has been

so carefully preserved for us by framers

of a constitution who acknowledged

that this constitution andthe freedom that is had

was only for a people who were willing

to be self governed by a higher law.

And there are a lot ofdifferent governmental systems,

and I have seen them firsthandliving internationally.

Where they assume the populationis desperately wicked.

And you do not want tolive under that system.

It's not free at all.

And they absolutely control behavior,

speech, assembly, transactions, because

they're trying desperatelyto control the population.

So happy day, isn't it.

It gets worse.

Isaiah chapter three verse four.

This is one of thecurses that God promises

to Israel if they do not follow the Torah.

I will give children to be their princes,

and babes shall rule over them.

The people will be oppressed,every one by another.

And everyone by his neighbor.

The child will beinsolent toward the elder

and the base towards the honorable.

There's an old testament principle

that a people get the rulers they deserve.

(heavy sigh)

(laughter)

Does that put Washingtonin a whole different light?

Are we seeing childish behaviorout of Washington D.C.?

Are we seeing strong statesmen who are

steering the republictoward a glorious future?

In American history, you know,

you can go back to theworst times, you know,

plenty of presidents have messed up,

the teapot dome scandal inthe 1920's, Warren Harding.

It's not like we've had good leadership

all the way through our history,

and certainly we'vesurvived bad leadership.

I came of age during the Nixon years,

and it was a constitutional crisis.

And we survived it.

I grew up in the 1960's when we seemed

to kill our leaders on a regular basis.

And there were riots and burnings.

I remember being in Nanesmond County,

which is now Suffolk, andthe night Martin Luther King

was assassinated, thehorizon towards Portsmouth

was glowing becausePortsmouth was on fire.

So, I remember.

And we've been throughstrife, turmoil before.

You go all the way back to the civil war,

we've had it really bad in America.

And the legacy of slaverystill continues to this day.

We have not solved that.

But here it's one of the curses.

So as Christians, what do we do?

You know, how do we respond to this?

Before I get to that, let metell you, it gets even worse.

Ezekiel 22:30, so I soughtfor a man among them

who would make a wall and stand in the gap

before me on behalf of the land,

that I should not destroyit, but I found no one.

Are we there yet?

I got two no's.

Everybody else is like, Iwish I wasn't in chapel today.

(laughter)

Here's a key to how you can turn a nation.

This is a key, and I wantto go back to the title.

Judgment begins with me.

So can you answer this question,

personally on your own behalf,

that if God were looking forsomeone to stand in the gap,

you could say honestly, I'm the one.

That my conduct of life,my conduct of prayer,

my conduct of belief, iswhat God is looking for.

Or if God were to showup, are you the one,

uh-uh pal, I'm livinthe good life over here.

You want me to stand in thegap for this group, uh-uh.

Not doin it today.

And it gets worse.

Ezekiel 14, son of man, when a land sins

against me by persistent unfaithfulness,

I will stretch out my hand against it.

I will cut off it's supply of bread,

send famine on it and cutoff man and beast from it.

Even if these three men, Noah,Daniel and Job were in it,

they would only deliverthemselves by their righteousness.

Jeremiah 15, then the Lord said to me

even if Moses and Samuel stood before me,

my mind would not befavorable towards this people.

Cast them out of my sightand let them go forth.

When you're being evacuatedfrom zone A and you read this,

(laughter)

you don't feel good.

You're not havin a good day.

You know, you're wonderin.

And we have to keep in mind, when judgment

falls on the land, itfalls on the righteous

and unrighteous, it falls equally.

We have to keep in mindJeremiah was carried away.

Wasn't carried away by the Babylonians.

The Babylonians actually respected him.

He was carried away by the Jews.

Again his protest was, don't do this,

don't carry me, theytook him down to Egypt.

It's, Jeremiah's a sad story.

Okay, so, let's go back to John chapter 9.

That these things happen,not because of sin,

but because the glory of the Lord

is going to be revealed.

Let's get that mind of Christ.

We've gone through the old testament.

We've seen how bad it can get.

God is not mocked.

And what I'm about to sayis certainly no excuse

to sin and say let's keep the party going.

Bon ton roulet.

We've got to turn back to God.

We have to, as a nation, as a people.

And that turning begins with me.

But here's the question I have for you.

What if Jesus stood before him?

We just heard not if it were Moses,

not if it were Samuel, we just heard that.

But ask this question, what if Jesus

stood before God on behalf of the land.

What do you think would happen?

He took it all, didn't he?

All the wrath of Godwas poured out on him,

and because all of it waspoured out, none remains.

There are signs in our landthat we need to wake up.

There are signs in ourland, we need to return.

God is not mocked.

The grace he has given us is not so

he can give us more grace.

The grace he has givenus is that we should live

righteous and holy lives.

That begins with me.

What if Jesus stood before him?

Let me add to that, whenyou stand before God,

who does God see?

Jesus, Jesus, as he wasin the world, so are we.

I have the righteousness of God in Christ.

He has justified me, evenif I got mad, mad, mad

yesterday for a silly reason.

Got mad, I'm gonna reek vengeance.

Today he cleanses mefrom all unrighteousness,

and he sets me free from that.

I don't have any consequenceanymore for that sin,

I turn from it and I turn to him.

And then he freely gives me his presence,

his mind, his thought to say, what if we

were to stand as Jesus before God.

Not as our sinful nature,we take that and say,

I want a trade, you said you'd trade,

I wanna trade that.

And we stand before himand we pray for America.

That America could be restored,

that righteousness would come,

that we would get righteous leadership,

that we would have righteous acts.

When storms threaten, wewould stand up to that storm,

and rebuke it in Jesus name.

When terrorism happens, we would stand up

in righteousness to say not in our land.

Doesn't happen here.

When we see poverty, whenwe see discrimination,

when we see evil, wecall it for what it is.

And we say not in our land,you don't get to do this here.

We are one nation, under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

These aren't aspirational words,

we wanna make these words real.

We wanna live in that country.

We don't want be aliensin our own country.

We want to live in that country.

And that is up to you and me.

All we have to do is believe it,

receive it, pray for it, act for it

and be that one in the gap that says,

I'm going to stand for righteousness.

Isaiah gives us a promise, chapter 55

verses 6-7, seek the Lordwhile he may be found,

call upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way,

and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let him return to the Lordand he will have mercy on him.

And to our God, for hewill abundantly pardon.

Let's pray, Lord we turn to you.

And we ask for your mercy,

and we ask for your abundant pardon.

We have all been like lost sheep.

We have all gone our own way.

So today we turn, we turnto the promise of you.

The promise that youwill take all of our sin.

That you come to us andsay let us reason together,

though your sins be as scarlet,

yet they will be white as snow.

So Lord God, I trade, I trade,

I don't want to hold onto any sin,

any sinful thought, any sinful behavior,

any wrong way within me.

Let everything from theinnermost part of my being,

let the meditation of my heartbe acceptable in your sight.

Cleanse me oh Lord, renewa right spirit in me.

And now we turn to Americaand we ask for mercy.

We ask for righteous leaders.

We ask for liberty andjustice for all in our nation.

Cleanse us Lord God as a people, renew us.

Let us seek your face.

Let your will be done on Earth,

in America as it is in heaven.

We see heaven, we see the whole throne.

We see the crowd fromevery nation, every tribe,

every tongue, all in unison, one voice

praising the living God.

Let that happen here,in our midst Lord God.

Let us stand before you as Jesus,

that you wouldn't see us in our sin,

that you would see Jesus.

And from that place of authority

we stand and we say tothe violence in our land,

no more, to the killings,no more, no more.

We say to the racism, no more.

And we say to this storm thatis threatening our shores,

be still, turn back and goback to where you came from.

Bring no harm here, turn.

And we ask it all in Jesus name.

Amen, Amen, God Bless you.

(applause)