¡Ayuda! Me estoy alejando del camino

Welcome, Church. This Sunday is a little different, a little cold, but we continue to serve the same God. Amen. Let's pray together. I will be a soul that will silence all the enemy and all anxiety. I will adore, I will adore. In your name I sing and you illuminate all darkness. I will proclaim with all your victory. I will adore, I will adore you. I know that the walls will fall and you will overcome before. The fear will flee when I adore you. I know that God is with me. He will reign forever with the creation of one when I adore you. I will adore, I will adore you. In faith I sing and you overcome all storm. And the storm inside me you will calm. I will trust in you, I will trust in you. I know that the walls will fall and you will overcome before. The fear will flee when I adore you. I know that God is with me. He will reign forever with the creation of one when I adore you. I know that the walls will fall and you will overcome before. The fear will flee when I adore you. Solo en ti soy libre. Solo en ti hay vida. Con los cielos en armonía. A ti adoramos. Solo en ti soy libre. Solo en ti hay vida. Con los cielos en armonía. A ti adoramos. Solo en ti soy libre. Solo en ti hay vida. Con los cielos en armonía. A ti adoramos. Solo en ti soy libre. Solo en ti hay vida. Con los cielos en armonía. A ti adoramos. I know that the walls will fall and you will overcome before. The fear will flee when I adore you. I know that God is with me. He will reign forever with the creation of one when I adore you. I know that the walls will fall and you will overcome before. The fear will flee when I adore you. I know that God is with me. He will reign forever with the creation of one when I adore you. With the creation of one when I adore you. With the creation of one when I adore you. The difficult thing about preaching to a camera is that I don't know if you're sleeping, I don't know if you're laughing, I don't know if you got up to make yourself a coffee, but I'm going to trust that if you're watching this service right now, it's because you have the Bible open and you want God to speak to you. This week I remembered, to start writing the Word of God today, I remembered that about 20 years ago, in my little town there in Argentina, we had a competition, you see, a sports competition. We gathered a lot of churches, a lot of Christian churches, to play everything. We had football, we had volleyball, we had basketball, everything. Nothing nice, nothing as nice as seeing Christians lose their Christianity on the football field.

The thing is that one of those competitions, I insist, was a marathon, which was about 10 miles, about 10 kilometers, about 6 miles, more or less. And I remember, you see, there were about 300, 400 men, the majority, I think we were all men there, ready to run, ready to win. Obviously, there was a great motivation to win, because, well, you earned points for your church, and also, as a kid, I don't know, 15, 16 years old I was, my motivation was that there were a lot of girls from my church and girls from the other churches to be able to impact. So I remember, 3, 2, 1, boom, and we left. And look, I don't remember who won, definitely I didn't win, but what impacted me the most, and I know that if I talked to the guys who ran that race, it impacted them, it wasn't so much the one who won, the one who won that day, but the apocalyptic image that was around while you were running. I'll explain. When we started running, we all started with a desire, we started fast, we started running, we started wanting to win. I don't know, if you did an interview to all of us who were starting in the starting line, and you had asked us, are you going to win? We all would have said yes, I would have said yes. However, after 10, 15, 20 minutes of running, you looked to your right, you looked to your left, and I tell you, it was a war scene, a battle scene. You saw men who were grabbing the trees, lying on the grass, and they were grabbed with that pain we call horse pain, that you get when you run a lot and you run out of breath. And I even saw people coming with their hands up, saying, this race is useless. And I remember that while I was running, I looked to the sides and said, how crazy, there are a lot of us who started this race.

But as we were running, there weren't that many of us who reached the end. Look, Jesus called me 20, 22 years ago. He revealed Himself to me as my personal Savior. I received Him as my Savior, my Lord. He changed my life. And I think I've seen a lot of people start the race. I've seen a lot of people who, on a Sunday service, in a retreat, in a camp, in a group, in a biblical study, said, I receive Christ, I want to follow the Lord, the Lord spoke to me, I want to be cleansed, I was baptized. However, it doesn't take that many years to see that on the sides, on the left and on the right, not all those who started are those who finish this race. And it made me think a lot about the words of the Apostle Paul. He, in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 27, he says, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself will be disqualified. There are so many of us who put so much effort at the beginning of our life with Christ, and yet it only takes a few weeks, months, years, and you see people who had started with so much desire thrown to one side, and even worse, you see others who deny everything, throwing their hand up, saying, this race doesn't make sense or worth it. One of the most memorable characters of the Old Testament, in which we can see literally that, that he started well and ended badly, is one of my favorites, the first king of Israel, called Saul. King Saul in the Old Testament, whose story is told in the first book of Samuel,

is the perfect story that tells us how someone can start with a call from God. Someone can start with so much desire, with so many batteries, you see, God called me, God spoke to me, and yet I ended up so badly, or I didn't finish the race. I just want to show you a little bit, we don't have time this morning to go through his whole life, but just so you have a taste, look at how the story or the call of Saul began. I'm reading from the first book of Samuel, chapter 10, verses 1 and then I read verses 6 and 7. Look at how it began. The Lord has appointed you to govern Israel. his most precious possession. The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully over you and you will prophesy. You will be transformed into a different person. And after these signs happen, do what must be done, because God is with you." Beautiful. Tremendous word that I think we would all like, and those of us who started in this career, in one sense or another, we feel that God has told us that. When you receive Christ, when you recognize that you are a sinner, you give him your life, you recognize that he died for you on the cross, that he resurrected. You also hear that voice from the Holy Spirit. The Lord chose you, the Lord has designated you, the Lord is with you.

However, look at the contrast with how Saul ended his life. Look how he ended his life, I'm reading from the first book of Chronicles, in the Old Testament, chapter 10, verses 9 and also 13 and 14, that read like this. Then they took off Saul's armor, and cut off his head. Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He did not obey the commandment of the Lord, and even consulted a medium instead of seeking the Lord's direction. And it ends with this note, the last brushstroke, the sad brushstroke of Saul's life. So the Lord took away his life. Wait a minute. Or as we say in Argentina, wait a minute, man. How can you explain this to me? How the first thing you read to me is that the Lord has designated you to govern. The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you. You will be transformed into a different person. That even sounds to us like the promise of good news. The Holy Spirit comes when you receive Christ, and you experience the different life of the Spirit. God is with you. And then the last thing that is written in your life is that they cut off your head because you were unfaithful to the Lord.

And it literally ends by saying that God did that because he went to consult a medium, a woman, a witch who practiced black magic, necromancy, that is, those who consult spirits of the dead to predict the future. How can someone who knew God, how can someone who started the career with such desire end up with these words? How did I get to this? How did I get to this? And maybe, you know, this is a question that you are asking yourself this morning. How did I get to this? How did I get to this point? How did I get to allow myself this? How did I get to allow my family to end up in this place? How did my relationship with my wife, with my son, how did it end up like this? How did I end up, Pablo, Pastor Pablo, I don't understand how I ended up accessing this. How did I become someone so resentful? How did I get to this point? Maybe right now you are seeing this. And you say, how can it be that I ended up without feeling anything when the word of God is spoken? What happened to me? And I'm going to give you the answer in a somewhat abrupt way, but my experience tells me that when we tell the truth as it is, in general, for better or for worse, we remember it.

And I'm going to tell it to you like this. Do you know how you got where you got? A stupid decision at the same time. Many, many stupid decisions for a long period of time. You see, we think that one reaches a certain point of coldness in one's spiritual life, of being far from the Lord, from one day to the next, you see. One says, I don't know why, you see, I've talked to people, I don't understand why I suddenly got up on Sunday at noon and I'm out of breath. I don't understand why. How did I get to this? A stupid decision at the same time. How did I end up in the arms of a woman who wasn't mine? And many want to tell you, or maybe you're convinced that you don't know, Pastor, I was fine with God, but there was a day when I felt weak and I fell. No, that's not how the human heart works. A stupid decision at the same time led you to where you are. How did you end up in debt? It wasn't because of a bad decision. It was a stupid decision, little by little, more and more, it spread over time and you ended up where you are. How did I get to this? and how the caries became a caries.

I'm going to explain it to you with an example. We, in general, go to the dentist in the worst of our moments, when it already hurts. What happens is that when it hurts, well, you know, it's too late. If it hurts you, it's because the caries has already invaded the nerve and that's why you feel the pain, and there's really not much to do. I remember once, in 2010, I was in the United States, I started to feel pain in one of my teeth, back here, in one of the molars. I went to the dentist, and, as you know, in the United States, there's a fantastic attention in every sense. They told me, well, you have a caries that has invaded a nerve, but come back in two weeks because we don't have time now. In two weeks, we'll treat you. No, I got home, I bought a new toothbrush, I started using dental floss that I hadn't used in weeks or months, and you don't know how I started brushing my teeth, as if there was no tomorrow. I say, no, I brush my teeth here, you'll see how I cure it. Two weeks passed, and, indeed, like any conscious adult who is watching this video through social media, you'll see, my situation didn't change at all,

because the caries was already too deep, and it wasn't a question of, oh, maybe, maybe it hurts because I did something wrong this last week, let me fix it. What do we do? We get to a certain point in our spiritual life, of coldness, which shows that we betray a lack of communion with God, maybe, for months, for years, or a lack of truth in our life with God, and with people, and we isolate the last fault we committed, trying to fix it. So, we go and brush our teeth quickly. Well, no, I know I did this wrong, I know this is wrong in my life, but let me read twice as much Bible today. Let me listen to three sermons today. Let me listen to worship music all day, so I can leave. However, the caries is still there. And, you know, in Saul's life, something similar happened. Saul didn't get where he got,

he didn't end up badly, he didn't end up out of the race because of one bad decision. You, when you investigate his life, and I encourage you to do so, this cold Sunday afternoon, or during this week, and you investigate, in the first book of Samuel, Saul's story, and you yourself, you will be able to see how, little by little, that caries was gaining depth. Those bad decisions were repeated, and that's why, finally, you end up seeing him isolated, alone, far from God, and far from God's promises. I'll tell you a little bit. In chapter 13 of Samuel, 1 Samuel, a war happened. The first war. It's not the one I'm going to tell you about today, but just so you know the context. One of the wars, in which, obviously, Saul, as king, had to assist.

And Samuel, the prophet, had told him, look, there will come a time in which we have to offer a sacrifice to God. However, when you read the Old Testament, you know that the responsibility of offering a sacrifice does not fall on a king, but on the priest. And you, as king, even if you had a lot of authority and a lot of blessing from the Lord, you could not cross that line. Offering sacrifices was a matter of a priest, which was Samuel, and not Saul. The thing is that Samuel had told Saul, wait for me, wait for me, don't do it, don't offer sacrifices, wait for me, I'm going to go and we're going to consult the Lord. Saul disobeyed. Saul himself crossed that line,

offered a sacrifice when it was not in his place. And then Samuel came and confronted him, saying, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing with your hands there? That's not yours. You should never have done that. And when you see Saul's response to the prophet's confrontation, you already begin to intuit and deduce that there is something that is sick in Saul's heart. When they confront him, when Samuel is confronted, all Saul does is defend himself and blame someone else. He says, well, the thing is that the enemy was pressuring me. He says, it's just that the men who are with me,

the soldiers, are looking for an answer and I didn't know what to do. And he even tells Samuel, well, you took too long. He even blames Samuel for his own sin. And that scene ends with a kind of weird taste in the mouth. You know, like when you confront someone with the truth, saying, hey, This is not right. There is a sign, there is a yellow flag here that tells me that you are not following Christ, no matter how much you are reading the Bible, you are coming to church, however it looks like the Holy Spirit is not giving its fruit in your life. And there are times when you confront those people and you leave that conversation with a strange feeling, because you say, I know that I told him, I know that I told him the truth, but I don't know if the other person received it at all. It's like he receives it, but then he gives it back to you, or he found a way to change the conversation, and those are already signs that there is something deep that is happening, that has been dripping in his faith for a long time. They are making small and silly decisions for a long time. Alarm. This brings us to Samuel chapter 15, where there is another war. In this war, God orders Saul to annihilate the Amalekites. This is a long story in the Old Testament.

The Amalekites are arch enemies of God. There is a very dark spiritual factor in the people of the Amalekites. And the point is that God tells Saul something very clear. He says, I want you to go, and I want you to destroy everything. You can't keep anything, Saul. You can't keep anything, because I myself am bringing my judgment to this people. And Saul goes, and this is what happens. I'm reading to you from 1 Samuel chapter 15, verses 7 to 9. Read the scripture like this. Then Saul killed the Amalekites from Avila until he reached Shur, in the east of Egypt. He captured Agag, the king of the Amalekites, but he completely destroyed all the others. That is, he himself decided not to destroy the king. Disobedience. And Saul and his men forgave Agag his life. There he explains it to you. And they kept the best of sheep and goats. Of the cattle, of the fat calves, and of the lambs. In fact, they kept everything that attracted them. They only destroyed what had no value or was of poor quality. There you see Saul being Saul. Partly obeying, but deep down he always ends up taking spiritual shortcuts. He never accepts confrontation. When he is told the truth, he always looks for someone else to blame for his own actions. And also, when God gives him a clear order, he always ends up doing it half-way. To close, and as a golden brush, look at what he ends up doing. 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 12. Early the next morning, Samuel went to look for Saul. And someone said to him, Saul went to the city of Carmel to raise a monument in his own honor, and then he went on to kill Agag.

In short, this is what happened. First, he disobeyed. He did not kill King Agag. Second, he disobeyed. He kept the best of the cattle. Third, he disobeyed. He kept all the things of value. And in the final act, he asks to be applauded, because he himself is raising a monument, so that people may remember him. Saul. You are slipping, Saul. Saul. You have been making shortcuts for years. Saul. It may be that you have not yet abandoned the race, but you have been making bad decisions for a long time. Saul. If you continue on that path, you will end up badly. Obviously, Samuel, as he always appears in this story, is going to confront Saul again. And look, I am reading it to you, and we are already closing with this last idea. It says, chapter 15, verses 12 to 15, and also verse 20. I am reading the first book of Samuel. It says, when finally Samuel found him, Saul greeted him with joy. May the Lord bless you! Saul said to him.

I carried out the commandment of the Lord. Very defensive, nobody asked you. Then Samuel asked him, What is all that noise of sheep and goats and that mooing of cattle that I hear? Samuel asked him. Because, remember, there should not have been any noise, because all that should have been given to the Lord. He could not have kept anything. It is true, says Saul, that the soldiers left alive the best of the sheep, the goats and the cattle, admitted Saul. But they are going to sacrifice it. The Lord your God. We have destroyed everything else. And he ends up saying, look at that, tough face. He ends up saying, I did obey the Lord. I told you a moment ago, what do you see here? You see that there was throughout life, he is not dead yet, as I read to you at the beginning, how Saul's life ended with the Lord taking his life. He ended up with a consultation with a woman who practiced witchcraft. The Lord himself ended up saying, you were unfaithful. However, throughout the journey there were small signs. You can't show him the truth, you can't tell him, this decision you are making, these attitudes that you are choosing to take, are not the right ones, without Saul saying, but I did, I did obey the Lord. Don't judge me, you are judging me because that's the new one, right? You can't tell me that I didn't obey, because the soldiers, you see, that's what Saul always does, the soldiers, it was them. I did, and besides, disobedience actually makes me be better than you, because you had told me that the Lord said that he would kill everyone, but the truth is that I have a better plan than yours, you see, because my plan, let me tell you my plan, you say, Saul, my plan was to disobey a little, but then, with what I disobeyed, I will sacrifice it to the Lord, your God. Signs. Signs on the way. And I want to ask you,

maybe this morning you are saying, I don't know how I got to this, I don't know how I got to this. Look, maybe I don't know your heart, maybe I don't know your background story, only the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus knows your story. But even so, I can give you an answer. Do you know how you got to where you got? Little by little. Little by little. You didn't see the signs, you didn't see the signs of disobedience, you didn't want to listen, maybe, or it was too hard for you, you decided to take a defensive position, when someone who loved the Lord, or when the Lord Himself, through His Word, wanted to show you something in your heart. And yet, you only said, well, no, it's that they are judging me, it's that they are not like that, it's that no one knows my whole story, it's that if you really knew, and that's true, no one can empathize to the level that you would like, or that I would like them to empathize with me. However, all these are ways through which we end up, finally, abandoning the race. Sometimes, repentance ends up being a way to brush yourself off quickly, because you don't want people to judge you, you don't want to feel guilt in your conscience, you see, you don't want to feel guilt. And yet, you don't ask yourself the most important questions. How long have I been moving away from you, Lord? How long have I started to take this attitude? How long have I, knowing that I had to ask for help, not asked for it from someone more mature in the faith? How long have I been disobeying your Word? How long have I been obeying your voice? How long? Don't ask yourself, how did I end up so badly out of the race? Ask yourself, how long have you been moving away? That's the question that you have to know how to answer, and that I have to know how to answer. How long have I been allowing myself what led me to this? And if you are, this morning, and you are receiving this Word, saying, Pastor, I am that man. I have heard of Jesus, I, at one point, was moved, I received Christ, I received everything, you see, I tasted this, I tasted this. And yet, now, you know, I'm like this, I'm disconnected, I'm on the sidelines, I'm barely walking. I want to give you some good news. It's not too late. Jesus of Nazareth came into the world to die for the sinners, of whom I am the first, and He rose again. And because Jesus died and rose again, He bought for you the ability to repent, and He bought for you the ability to look and observe and think, how am I walking? How did I allow this? And Jesus, if He has died for you, if He rose again, if He gave you the ability

of his spirit, you have the promise that he is going to lift you up. You don't have to prove it to him, and as I always try to share with you, dear church, you don't have to promise him anything. Just get up right now, and if you have to repent in the name of Jesus, not only to feel bad about something that happened, but about the poison that you let spread in your heart, then get up, assume your responsibility, and believe that Jesus is good, that God is good, that the Holy Spirit is good, and that the blood of Jesus continues to cleanse you of all sin. But get up. Get up. Do you know why? Because you have to finish this race. We are not the ones who go back to perdition, but we are the ones who advance to the end. The Holy Spirit, if you have received Christ in your life, gives you the power to advance to the end. But get up in the name of Jesus, and instead of just brushing your teeth a little, confessing your sins to simply appease your conscience and continue living your life as you have lived it, tell the Lord, give me the eyes to see. Give me the eyes to see where I fell. Jesus said, remember where you fell and repent, and come to me. Come to me. It is not a message of condemnation. It is a message of salvation and it is a message of restoration. But to be restored, you have to know where you fell, where you fell. And once you are able to recognize that by the Holy Spirit, you can get up and Jesus says to you, very well, very well, we have finally finished living this superficial life, you and I. You have finally chosen to get up from there. It is not enough to cry, and neither does Jesus earn much by you crying, you know? Because there are people who maybe receive this message and say, well, that's me, Pablo. That's me, bro. What do I do now? Obviously, if God is already convincing you, if God is already showing you, ok, this is it. I have been disobeying God in this area of my life, I already knew, and I took the shortcuts, I knew it, I am not a fool. Fools have been my decisions that I have allowed. Well, I think that if God is already convincing you and the Holy Spirit is doing its job, it seems to me that it is time for you to get up and continue. Don't think that you earn points by crying over the bad things you did. It is time for you to see that the marks on the hands and feet of your Savior were for you, and He loves you, and He loves you, and the blood of Jesus Christ has the power, has the power through the Holy Spirit that He gave you to get up. But this race, to finish it, you have to get up from there. Get up.

Get up in the name of Jesus. Get up in the name of Jesus and tell the Lord, I don't want to be one of those who started the race and ended up on one side. I don't want to be one of those who started with a great call of yours and ended up on the side of the road because they didn't want to receive a hard word. I don't want to be one of those. I am not one of those who go back to perdition. I am one of those who get up in the name of Jesus, accept their own responsibility and advance to the end of this race. That is you, my friend. That is why you stayed watching this video. That is why you are part of this service. Because I believe with my heart that the Holy Spirit is calling you. Respond to Him. Respond to Him. And I encourage you now, where you are there, that you put your hands, open your hands as I have them. I always ask the Church to put their hands like this because it is a position of receiving, of humility. And that you say to the Lord, Lord, how did I get to this? I know, little by little, like the caries. Tell Him, these are the shortcuts that I have been taking. I knew, I had heard your voice, but still I decided to go with my own ideas, with my own life. But I know that Christ died for me. I know that He gave His life, I know that He is alive, and I know that His blood continues to cleanse me until the day of my sin. I get up. I get up in the name of Jesus. I remember where I left this and I return to the race in which the Holy Spirit began me. I do it again. And if you are the one who is receiving that word, I encourage you, my friend. Don't wait. Don't stay crying on the side of the road. That's it. If the Lord convinced you, get up and walk. Because you still have a long way to go. And the Lord still has a lot to show you. The Lord has not finished with you. I'm going to end up praying for your life, if you'll allow me, and we insist, as Pastor Morca had said, if you think that this message has been a blessing for you, and it comes

from Scripture, it comes from the Word of God, I encourage you to take the time to share it, because there is someone else who has to hear it. Let's pray. Lord, in the name of Jesus, I want to thank you because the kind of life which you have called me to, and has called those of us who are disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, is not the kind of life in which we quickly brush ourselves from our sins, as if confessing them, I calm my own conscience. That is not the kind of life that I want to live, nor the kind of life that the Holy Spirit has called us to. We have been called to live a real, transparent and profound life. We have been called to run this race with patience until the end, and I believe in the Holy Spirit that all those who have been called by God, all those who have Christ in their lives, will rise at this moment, and they will not end up thrown to the side. I want to ask you that your Word of the fruit by which it was sent, I love you, Father, I love you because your Word has that power, and I ask you for all the people who are going to hear this Word, that Christ himself calls them with his own voice. We rise, and we continue running the race until the end. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Amen.