It's Not over until God Says it's over | Robby Gallaty | Deuteronomy 3

I wanna welcome you to Long Hollow. If you're joining us in person, if you're our guest, there are a lot of options we know to choose to worship and you're here and we're grateful for that if you're at Gallatin or in one of our seven prisons around the country or on the Pando app, we welcome you to Long Hollow. Today, I wanna talk about a message I think will apply, should apply to everybody in here and the message is this, it ain't over till God says it's over. Can anybody amen to that? It ain't over till God says it's over, why? Because God has the last word. If you have a Bible, turn with me to Deuteronomy 3 and as you're turning there, we know because we're reading through the Bible together, the F260 plan, we have walked through the Torah up to this point and we have seen Moses. Moses is a man who's gonna win the award for Patience of the Year. I mean, this guy has put up with a lot, right? He has left Egypt in the bondage and he has one piece of real estate on his mind from the beginning for 40 years, the promised what? Land and he's led 2 million people roughly out of bondage. They have walked through water, they have endured plagues, they have seen manna come from heaven and Moses is on the precipice of the promised land. He could see it, he can taste it and right when he's about to go in, God said,

whoa, whoa, what are you doing? I'm just going in the land you promised. God's like, no, no, no, not you. Moses, why, why not me? God says, because you did something wrong. The door is now shut. I don't know about you, but I read that this week. That bothered me the last few weeks. Moses did everything seemingly right and up to this point, God's like, no, you're not going in because you messed up. Have you ever been there before? Like you're about to taste, you see something, you've longed for it, you're about to taste it only to watch it slip right away. Or maybe some of you in here are saying, man, I feel like maybe my time has passed. God has forgotten about me. Or maybe you're wondered, is God finished with me? Could God do anything with me? You're behind a prison cell and you're thinking that's you. Today, we're gonna learn something all of us need to hear and that's this, it ain't over until God says it's over. Amen, Deuteronomy chapter three. If you're there, we like to say word. We're gonna start verse 23. Say it like you mean it. We wanna get in the word until the word gets into us. So the word of the Lord. At this time or that time, Moses begged the Lord. Now this is not a one time asking,

this is a repeated beseeching and pursuing God. Lord God, you have begun to show your greatness in your strong hand to your servant. For what God is there in heaven or on earth who can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours. You better butter him up, he's on a roll, Moses. I mean, he is buttering the Lord up. By the way, please Lord, would you let me cross over and see the beautiful land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon. But the Lord was angry with me because of you. Now who is you? The people. God's not just angry because of his sin, God's angry at Moses as the leader of the people and would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me, that's it, quiet. Do not speak to me again about this matter. What we're gonna see are three progressions in the life of Moses. And we're gonna go to the New Testament to finish. But I wanna show you how God says he has the last word. Now the first thing right out the gate we notice is that Moses' sin disqualified him from entering the promised land. Moses' sin is what disqualified him from entering the promised land. But he still begs. He's like, God, is there any way? Now the reason he's prevented

from going into the promised land is because he did something in Numbers 20, we'll revisit in a moment. In Numbers 20, God said to Moses, I have allowed you to strike the rock repeatedly in the past but right now, listen, Mo, listen, I need you to speak to the rock and I'm gonna produce water. Well, we know what happens. Moses strikes the rock, God still produces water and that is why he's disqualified. Now, what's interesting about Moses and the nation is this. The nation of Israel, their journey through the wilderness, I don't know if you've ever seen this, is bookended by water, their whole journey. They enter the desert through the Red Sea, they exit through the Jordan. But within the water bookend are two other, so there's water within water, it's like a chiasm within a chiasm of two other water accounts that are in the life of Moses. The first one's Exodus 17, we won't revisit it, you can look it up. When Moses goes, he takes. His staff, you remember this, their newsflash, they're complaining already. They're gonna complain for 40 years, right? They're complaining, we don't have any water. Why'd you bring us out here?

We're gonna die. I wanna go back to Egypt. So Moses says, God, what do I do? God says, take that staff, and I want you to do what? You remember? Not everybody at once. Strike the rock, and I'll produce water. Now, I don't wanna downplay the miracle or the man Moses, but you have to understand, that was not miraculous. Moses producing water from a rock is not miraculous, why? Because Moses is what is called a Bedouin, B-E-D-O-U-I-N, a Bedouin. A Bedouin is a nomadic wanderer in the desert who is able to live in humid, hot, arid conditions. When we go to Israel, which we probably won't go anytime soon, but when we went with our trips, we would regularly see settlements in 120 degree sweltering desert, and they could live, how? What would happen is Moses is a Bedouin, knew that in the rainy season, the water would pool in the crevices of the rock. And they understood plants and vegetation so well that they could take their rock and notice, okay, a plant's growing there. If I strike the rock here, it produces water. So come in close. The miracle of water, or the producing of the water is not the miracle.

The miracle is that God would put a water spigot on the side of a rock to give water for two million people. That's the miracle. And up to this point, God's like, all right, Mo, you've had your day. Now it's my turn. I'm gonna tell you, there's new rules to this deal. You're gonna go, you're not gonna take that staff, put the staff down. Take your voice, and what? Speak to the rock, and I'm gonna produce water. Let's go back to Numbers 20. I wanna show you this account, verse seven. If you're there, you can say a word. Same scenario, different parameters, okay? The Lord spoke to Moses, verse seven, take your staff and assemble the community. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while the people watch, and it yields water. You will bring out water for them from the rock and provide drink for the community and their livestock. So Moses took the staff, Mo, we're already starting off on the wrong foot. He took the staff from the Lord's presence just as he commanded him. Moses and Aaron summoned the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, listen, you rebels. Mo, what are you doing? This is not gonna go good, you know? You degenerate, I mean, he's starting off bad.

Listen, you rebels. Must we bring water out of the rock or this rock for you? Then Moses raised his hand and he struck the rock, how many times? Notice that, twice, with his staff so that abundant water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not trust me, here's the key, to demonstrate my holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land I have given to them. Now, I just wanna tell you, this is a hard pill to swallow. This one event disqualified Moses after 40 years of walking to enter the land that was promised to him. I don't know about you, I had a hard time with that. Anybody else have a hard time with that? Like, how many times did God say, hey, you wanna decimate the nation and start over, just you and me? How many times did Moses say, no, no, no, no, no, just you and me? I wonder at that point if he thought, man, I probably should've taken, got up on that offer, right? But no, here he is again. You get to the end, and Moses, you're not gonna go in. And the reason that's hard for us, I think, is because how many times have we messed up?

How many times have we disobeyed? How many times have we strunk back? And God still is merciful. He still graces to us in our life. I think the problem, and again, we don't know for sure, but I'll give you my perspective. I think Moses' problem is that he struggled with anger. Okay? Why is that? How could you say that? Well, if you remember, at the beginning of the account of Moses' life, Exodus 2, you can turn there, Moses is going to strike something else early on. Moses has a history of striking things. Exodus chapter two, when he's living in Pharaoh's palace, it says, verse 11, years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people, the Jewish people, and observed their forced labor, their bricklayers. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people, looking around and seeing no one. He, what? He struck the Egyptian dead and then hid him in the what? In the sand. Here's my perspective. I think Moses, at the end of his life, is still struggling with an anger problem he never matured from. And the higher you're used from the Lord, the more responsibility you have, the more is expected of you.

And here's the sobering truth about Moses, and it's hard to even hear me say this to you, but this is the reality. Look at me. God owes no one in here, including me, anything. Nothing. Because that's what bothered. God, look at all he did. When your time is up, you're done. And God doesn't owe you an answer. He doesn't have to give you a reason. When God's done, it doesn't matter what you've done or where you've been. Here's the point. God can replace you and your business and me in the pulpit tomorrow. I believe that. But God, I'm the only righteous guy in town. Elijah, be quiet. I've got 7,000 dudes on tap right now. I can call any one of them. I've chosen to use you. It's grace. See, the issue was that God was trying to teach Moses, I don't want you to lead by force with a stick. I want you to lead by example with your voice. See the difference here? I need you to use your words, not anger. I don't want you to strike. Satan strikes people.

Pharaoh strikes people. The world strikes people. People in the kingdom, they lead by humility, by example. And Moses, I need you to use your voice. Don't lead with force. Don't lead with animosity. Don't be domineering. Don't be overbearing. Don't threaten people for their life. Don't flaunt your title. Nobody cares about that. Lead with dependence and humility on me. I think Moses was prevented, this is my suspicion, from going to the promised land because he had a front row seat to the glory of God. I mean, think about it. He was front and center for all the plagues. He saw them all. He actually was used by God to bring them all. Moses watched the waters part firsthand. He's the first guy in. Moses saw the manna from heaven. He saw the water from the rock. He saw the enemies decimated before his eyes and he witnessed everything with great authority. Don't miss this, comes great responsibility. We all wanna be used by God. That's why you're here. But you have to understand, Jesus said, to whom has been given much, much has been what?

Expected. Now I don't know for sure, but this is a suspicion I have, but God goes to Moses and says, hey, I don't want you, put the stick down, put the stick down. I just want you to use your voice and I'll bring water. So that when Moses strikes and not speaks, on the back end, when he says, God, would you listen to me? It's almost like God's saying, listen, you didn't listen to me, so I ain't listening to you. I don't know for sure, but that's interesting to think about. The day after the revival started, December 20th, 2020, I'd gone back to my house. I was excited to get back to the porch that night. I'd spent the previous 10 months, every night, hour and a half, two hours, just in the presence of the Lord, spending time with God. If you remember that season. And I wanted to thank the Lord for what we just witnessed here on that morning, where we saw 99 people come forward at baptism. And to look back at the revival, I've had the privilege of looking back and thinking about it for years now. It's mind-blowing to think and miraculous to see 1,600 people baptized in eight months. But the miracle is, we couldn't get face-to-face in walking distance of a person with a mask on, much less get into a bacterial-filled tank of COVID. That's the miracle of me. People were flying in, oh, I'll get in a tank.

I don't care if 98 people came before, put me in. That's how you know it's a miracle. I've thought about that a lot. But I remember going home that night, the first night, I had no idea what was coming. And I was just weeping before the Lord. And I was like, God, what just happened? I mean, I'll tell my grandkids. I mean, this is mind, 99 people baptized, one day, spontaneously. And after I'd spoken to the Lord and just spent time with the Lord, I decided to do what I'd done in the past. That was to pull out my phone and post it on Instagram because people need to know, right? Of course, we wanna share it. I mean, I thought I had good intentions. Let me share it with the church and let me share it with pastor friends. And so I typed this response out. I took some pictures I'd gotten from the morning and I had this little post. And right when I was about to send it, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and asked me a question. And the question was, Robbie, why are you posting this to glorify you or to glorify me? What kind of question is that? Talking about, yeah, I'm glorifying you. Of course I'm glorifying you. Did you read the text?

God, did you see the message? And then I read, I went back over again. Here's what the message said, quote, something like this. "'I'm praising the Lord today "'for what we just witnessed at Long Hollow. "'99 people came forward in obedience for baptism, "'and of course at the end I put only God!'' God, look, see, it's all for you. Of course it's for you, right? And the Lord followed up with this question which changed everything. He said, Robbie, I'm not asking what you wrote. I'm asking you why you wrote it. Why do you wanna write this? Why do you wanna post this? And that's when I realized that the line between praising Christ and promoting Robbie was blurry. I couldn't tell, like, am I doing this for God? I'm doing this for me. And so I erased the post begrudgingly, I'll be honest. I erased the post. I was like, okay, I won't post it. But I spent the next part of the night just like, should I post? I mean, really, it's not about, you know, back and forth. And then finally, in the time I was sitting there, I decided to pull up Instagram, and I saw that I had a message, a DM, private message from a friend of mine. And I'm not making this, this is not a preacher story.

This is a true story. It's crazy to think about this. That night, sitting with the Lord, first night of the revival, I clicked on this direct message from a friend, and the text said, top, "'Open immediately, you won't believe this.'" So what did I do? I clicked on the message. And at that moment, boom, my whole Instagram account shut down, the whole app shut down, and I tried to start it back and log in again. And it said, sorry, wrong password. I just logged in, what are you talking about? I hit reset password, and it said, sorry, the recovery email has been changed. I'm not making this up. That night, my account was hacked, that was a virus, and they stole my account. I was not able to get that account back for over one year. And let me tell you something, we tried everything. I had a friend who worked in IT world. We tried to contract him. He couldn't get it. We called another friend who was with social media department. I even had a close friend who did the chapel services for Metta.

Facebook, he knew people on the inside. They couldn't figure it out. It was bonkers to me. So I was sitting a couple weeks later. I was like, Lord, why does this happen? And the Lord spoke this to me again, not audibly, but in my heart. Robbie, the reason I took it away is because I can't trust you not to boast about what I'm doing and take credit for it. So I'm gonna take away the temptation completely. Friends, here's what I want you to hear. You may be going through a tough time. You may not even understand what God's doing, but here's what I know about God. God does what's best in the moment, even when it doesn't look the best. Because that's what he does. And in the time, Moses is like, how could disqualification from going into the promised land be good for anything? God's like, ho, ho, ho, hold on, Mo. It ain't over till I say it's over. Number two, Moses's disqualification set up for Jesus's death, which delivered us not into a promised land, but delivered us into his kingdom. I'm gonna connect Moses to Jesus now, which is pretty crazy when you see about it. So Moses is pleading, right?

Lord, is there any other way? Can you let me in? I know you said this, but can I go here? So he's pleading repeatedly. He's asking the Lord. And God says, no, we're not gonna do that. Pop quiz. Do we know any place in Jesus's life where he pleads with the, the father, and God says, I love you, son. It's gonna be a no. Remember in the garden, Jesus is on his face right before the cross, the sovereign son praying to his one and only father. Daddy, if there's any other way for this cup to pass through me. Three times, repeatedly, just like Moses. And God says at the end, it's not gonna happen. So that's the first connection. By the way, there are literally dozens and dozens of connections between Moses and Jesus. But the rabbis say something interesting. The rabbis say, now, they don't know Jesus. They don't know the Messiah of the New Testament, Jesus. They just know Moses. They say that the reason Moses dies in the wilderness, you're gonna love this, is because not only Moses, not only do the people have to die for their sin, but Moses, as the leader, has to die in the wilderness so that the next generation can live in the promised land.

Let me say that again. That's what the rabbis believe. That Moses, because God says, not just your sin, their sin, you have to die for them. Moses is, in a sense, a mediator between God and man. Not only are they gonna die, you're gonna die in the wilderness, but through your death, they will live. The parallels are staggering. Who else had to die so that we could live? Jesus is very different, though. like Moses is pleading, God says no. Jesus, like Moses, is not dying to set us free from slavery and bondage to go to a land. Jesus is dying on a cross to set us free from the sin that separates us from entering the kingdom today and eternity tomorrow. You see the connection? What a Savior. Jesus pays the price in the Old Testament so that we can live in the kingdom today. Here's the principle, it's hard to swallow, but here's the principle. Write this down. Sometimes God prevents in order to protect. I don't understand it, but that's how he works sometimes. And you can't see it normally. God's preventing something now to protect you from something harmful later. Moses, we read the life of Moses

like we read all these lives, and we read them from a 30,000-foot bird's-eye view. But you have to understand, Moses is not reading his life, he's living it. He's living it in real time. So he doesn't know how the story ends. God, we'd love to read the book of our own life, then we'd understand, but we can't. Just like Moses, he's living in real time. Moses dies with this question on his mind. Why would you give me a land of promise and then prevent me from entering into the land? Well, Moses doesn't know. God is using him in a storyline that he's constructing in the Old Testament. Now, if you don't like spoilers, then hold your ears, because I'm gonna give you the spoiler of the Old Testament. Okay, not to ruin it, just one of the spoilers. The entire Old Testament is a cliffhanger, okay? After we read this this year, we're gonna be left with a cliffhanger going into the new. Why? Because we're gonna see the handiwork of God to weave together lives of men who were used mightily by God, who failed to do what God called them to do. Think about this. The Old Testament is filled with every major leader who was tested and failed. Adam, perfect scenario, no sin,

nothing else but a serpent that's roaming around. But Adam lives in perfect harmony, perfect communion with God. And what does he do? He fails the test. Then we get to Abraham. Abraham's starting good. Let's pack it up, babe. We're going, where are we going? I don't know. God will tell us when we get there. And they just roll. And then he lies right away. No, this is not my wife, this is my sister, right? My younger sister, right? He lied. So what happens? He fails, passes, fails, fails. So again, he fails. Then we get to Moses. Moses is doing everything right. He gets to the end, strikes the rock, he fails. Oh, we're not done. David, a man after God's own heart. Man, this is our guy. He's gonna make it. He fails. Then we go to Solomon. Maybe his son saw the dad's sin and didn't wanna do it. What does Solomon do?

Takes too many wives, lets idols in. Over and over and over. Here's what God does in the Old Testament. He's developing a reflex for you to ask this question. Can anybody pass the test? Is anybody good enough? Is anybody worthy? And then God steps in and says, hey, by the world's standards, no. But it ain't over till I say it's over. Number three, it tees up God's plan, which is a demonstration of his grace toward us. That's what the Old Testament does. It's leaving us wondering, can anybody do it? And then we get to the life of Jesus. We get to Jesus. Moses doesn't know. God ain't finished with him yet. Go to Luke chapter nine. Luke chapter nine, Jesus is just coming back from the first short-term mission trip. He takes the disciples up to Caesarea Philippi. He asked them basically, it's the midterm exams, if you will. He's gonna ask them two questions on the midterm. You remember the questions? Who do people say that I am? Better yet, who do you say that I am? They're back from the midterm exam. Jesus leaves the nine guys down.

He says, three are gonna come with me. He goes to the mountain, verse 28. After eight days, after the conversation in Caesarea Philippi, he took along Peter, John, and James and went up to the mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly, two men were talking to him immediately, Moses and Elijah. Who knew? Who knew? Where is Jesus at now? The promised land. He's in Israel. What are they talking about? They appeared in glory and were speaking of, circle this word, this is the key word. They were speaking of his departure, which Jesus was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Now, we don't know what that conversation was like, but we can assume from the word departure, it's an interesting word. Guess what that word departure is in Greek? Exodus, that's what the word is, Exodus. Now, who knows about the Exodus? Big Mo, he knows all about it. But the only difference is Moses brought people out of bondage, Jesus is gonna bring people out of sin, not slavery, but sin. And Moses is standing, you have to believe,

here he is back on a mountain, just like he left, not just talking to people, he's gonna handhold the Messiah, the one he's longed for, not to bring the people into a land, but to help Jesus or talk with Jesus about bringing people into eternity. Friends, here's what God shows us. He ain't done until he says it's done. God was not finished with Moses' story. You know, I wonder if that's what heaven's gonna be like. Think about heaven, heaven may be, this is why it's for eternity, heaven may be us seeing all of the things God did in our life, the puzzle pieces, the strings he wove together to get us to here. You mean you took that boyfriend away? Oh, wow, I didn't know that was gonna happen, right? Or I married this guy here, wow, golly, look what could have happened. I went to school here, I never understood, I lost that job here, no, I got cut from the team here, wow, that's what eternity could be. When you and I get to heaven, everything we question on earth will make sense. And somebody needs to hear this, a no today could be a yes in the new creation tomorrow. Because God's writing this story in our life, and here's what he does. If you think, man, my life's finished, you don't know me, I've sinned too much.

God specializes in turning bad situations into something good, can I get an amen? You may see, it may seem to you it's bad. For example, do you know the life of the apostle Paul? You ever studied Paul? For me, Paul, you got Jesus numero uno, and where's Paul? Probably number two, right? We got Jesus, Paul. Have you ever studied the life of Paul? Paul spent on the low end, write this down, 25% of his ministry in jail, on the high end, over 30%. Almost one third of Paul's life was locked up. Now you may look at that from the world and say, what a tragedy. The greatest apostle of all time behind bar, what good could that bring? Paul, you can't even preach anymore, you can't teach anymore, you can't make disciples locked up, you can't evangelize the lost locked up, what a waste. Well, not exactly. If Paul doesn't go to prison, don't miss this, we are missing seven books from the New Testament. Did you know this? If Paul doesn't go to prison, we don't have seven books in the New Testament. Because he had idle time, he wrote books of, you're gonna love these books,

Philippians from jail, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, first Timothy, Titus, second Timothy, all locked up behind bars. Somebody incarcerated needs to hear this because this is gonna speak to you. Not to mention, he was able to witness to kings, Roman emperors, queens, and the whole imperial guard and to the rest knows, Philippians one, that I am in prison and my chains are for Jesus Christ. Feel the weight of this. You and I need to stop measuring the value of our life by the length of it and start measuring it by the depth of it in Christ. See the difference? Not just a long life, but a full life. Not just by the amount of people you lead in an organization or a ministry, but how you treat those people you lead. You know how you treat people matters? Did you know that? Not just by the money you've amassed in your bank account, but by how generous you are with the gifts you're stewarding for God. Not just how much you get, a lot of people get a lot of things, but how much you give away. It's not just the length of your life that counts, it's the depth of you as a Christian believer. The person who knew that well

was a man who gave it all to the Lord. His name was Jim Elliott. I've mentioned Jim Elliott, the missionary before. He moved with his wife, Elizabeth, and their daughter, Valerie. She was a little girl at the time, along with four other families to Ecuador to reach the Waiadani tribe with the gospel. Now, this was a savage tribe that was very hostile to anybody outside the tribe. In fact, they didn't ask questions, they killed first and then sought answers after. They knew this going in, the five families, and so Steve Saint was a pilot, and so he would fly around. with his small PA, I think it was a small Piper PA-14 plane. He would fly around in the air and he would drop a bucket for the tribe below and they would give them gifts like machetes, kind of like a peace offering. They would give them cooking equipment. They would give them ribbons and gifts to try to make an offering. Like, hey, we're peaceful, we come in peace. They decided on January the 8th, 1956, that it was time to make contact with the tribe. And so that morning, those five men kissed their families and kids, wives by, boarded that Piper PA-14 and flew into the jungles. When they landed, the men were waiting for them

and before they could literally speak any words, they were all speared to death on the sandbar. That day, Pete Fleming, Ed McCulley, Jim Elliott, Steve Saint and Peter Weierdun died on the sandbar. They found out afterward, historians, biographers said that in the plane, they actually brought guns and weapons to protect themselves. But before they exited the aircraft, they said one to another, we're not going to use that. They made a pact, we're gonna leave them in a plane and we're gonna trust God. In a sense, these men offered their lives as a sacrifice and they all died in their late 20s, early 30s. You look at that at the world, late 20s, early 30s, what a waste, what a waste. What could you have done with that long life that you threw away as a missionary for a bunch of people, didn't want you anyway? Who cares about those people? Well, that's not how the story ends. Remember, God ain't done until God says he's done, amen? A few years later, Jim Elliott's wife, Elizabeth and Steve Saint's wife, Rachel Saint decided to go back, risking their lives to reach the tribe again as God had sent them there for a purpose. They share Christ with the leader of the tribe. His name was Menchia. Got to meet this man years ago. Menchia came to faith in Jesus Christ

as his Lord and Savior, as crazy as it was. First time I'd ever heard the gospel, he surrendered his life. And subsequently after that, most if not all of the Waiadani tribe today are followers in Jesus Christ. I got to meet Menchia with Steve Saint's son, Nate, at a church years ago. And Nate gets up and says, this is the man who ordered the death of my dad and our four other families. And he is now like a grandpa to me and the Lord. Friends, here's what I want you to leave with today. Your story ain't over till God says it's over, amen? Jim Elliott knew that. He writes this in his journal before he died. Shortly before his death, he wrote these words in his journal. He says, I quote, father, take my life, even my own blood, if you want, and consume it with your enveloping fire. I will not save it for it is not mine to save. Have it Lord, have it all. God, I pray that you light these idle sticks of my life that I may burn for you. Consume my life, my God, for it is yours. This is the line, lock in. I seek not a long life, but a full one like you, Lord Jesus. By the world's standards, it was a wasted life. He died at 28 years old.

He left behind a wife and a young daughter. It was a waste of life. But remember, I told you earlier, God doesn't measure a man by the years he has on earth. God measures a man or a woman by how they use those years for him. And some of you in the audience, I know you're gonna say, well, I don't know about you, but I don't know about you. I don't know about you, but I don't know about you. And some of you in here are like, man, but you don't know my life. My life is too far gone. You don't know, Pastor Robbie, what I've done. You don't know the sins I've committed. I've committed a sin that is not forgivable. My marriage ended in divorce, you're saying. I got fired from my dream job. I made a decision that led me to prison. I'm incarcerated now. My children maybe disowned you. You may be saying, but my children don't even talk. My parents have cut me off. I have caused irreparable damage to someone that I cannot undo. I get that, but I need you to hear this. I need you to hear this. God's goal for humanity was never a promised land. God's goal for humanity was a promised land. Man, and his name was what?

Jesus, and Jesus said, anybody, anywhere, anytime who comes to me, I will make them a new, so the Bible says, I'll make them a new creation in Christ. The old things have what? Passed away, for I make all things new today. Moses thought when he died that the story ended in the wilderness. God said, buckle, Mo, put your spiritual seatbelt on because I'm bringing you back on a mountain and I'm gonna show you face to face the promise you were going for. His name is Jesus. So here's the ending. For someone in here who thinks that your story has ended, let me remind you, it hasn't. Because it ain't over till God says it's over and we serve a God that's still speaking today and God has the last word in your life. So here's what I wanna do. I'm gonna pray over you and I wanna pray for you right now because I know in a room this size, you're in a gallatin, you're in a prison cell, you're like, man, I need prayer because I feel like it's over. I feel like there's no direction. I feel like the cancer treatment is terminal. I feel like the medical issue is final. I feel like I've never talked to my kid.

I just need God to work in my life and I don't know what to ask and I don't know where to go. If any or all of those apply to you, I wanna pray over you. I'm gonna ask our church to pray over you. There's something powerful when the people of God pray for people of God. So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. I wanna pray over you now, bow your head for a moment and I'm gonna pray over you specifically and our people will as well, but here's what I want you to do. With every head bowed, if that is you, just so I know who you are, just stand right now and we're gonna get up in a moment and pray over you. Lay hands and we're gonna ask the Lord to change your life. Whatever situation you're in, I believe God can do more in this moment than anybody can manufacture in a lifetime. So I'm gonna ask you right now, if you need prayer, if you need somebody to pray over you, thank you. So people are standing, so you won't be the only one. Just stand right now. I need direction, I'm overwhelmed, I need prayer for my daughter, my son, my marriage, my relationship, my summer direction, whatever. People are all standing, so you're not gonna be the only one. Remember, we always say at Long Hollow, asking for prayer is not weak, it's wise.

Probably the smartest thing, most spiritual thing you can do is to say, hey God, because to sit in your seat and say, no, I got this, I don't want people, God's like, okay, you handle it. Look how good you've done. When you need me, I'll be over here. Thank you, brother. Anyone else, just a moment longer. We're gonna get around you and pray, and we're gonna ask the Lord to change your life in a moment, that you're gonna leave this place different than the way you came in. Thank you, people are all standing up now. Just stand up real quick, right where you are. Pastor, I need prayer, I need wisdom, I need direction. I need a break financially. I need a break spiritually, emotionally, physically, right now. I need a breakthrough, I need a breakthrough. If you're in here today, you say, I need a breakthrough. I don't see any hope for tomorrow. Maybe you're at Gallatin, you're in a cell, just stand up right where you are. Tell your cell, hey, would you pray for me, bro? Sister, would you pray for me? All right, here's what I want you to do. We're gonna pray over these individuals who are standing. If you're standing, just look at me. I'm gonna ask our people, there's something powerful when the people of God lay hands on other believers.

So I want you to take notes, just look around for a moment. Those who are standing, I want everybody having two or three people around them, and you don't have to tell the person what you need prayer for, but if you want to, you can say generally or specifically, I need prayer for this or this, my family, my job, whatever, and then we're gonna pray. You got it, so everybody's gonna get up, we're gonna pray, let's stand up now. Gather around these men and women. We're gonna pray at Gallatin. We can do this as well at home. We're gonna pray, I'm gonna pray just a quick prayer, and then when I finish, our worship team's gonna come. Make sure everybody gets prayed for. So if you stood, raise your hand. If nobody's got a hand on you, just raise it high. We want every person, balcony. Pastor Robbie, I don't pray for people. I know this is your time. You get to do it first for everything. Today's the day. I'm gonna pray. Everybody prayed for. Lord, I pray right now that you break every bondage in this room, every chain, break everything that would disconnect us from having a personal relationship with you. God, give us wisdom beyond our years.

God, help us to see that our life is not over. If there's breath, there's life, and if there's life, there's hope for the future. And God, we really believe the best days are not only ahead, but here in Jesus Christ, we pray in your name. Hear our prayer. Amen.