Stemming the Tide

SERMON: 2015-07-12--dn0915--stemming-the-tide-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:46:05.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording starts with the editor reviewing last week's topic and continues through the end of the sermon's main exposition and application. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, we were looking last week at the question, "What can we as Christian believers do to stem the tide of social changes in the areas of gender identity, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage that is sweeping the land?" And we saw that rather than just wringing our hands, shaking our heads, or singing songs of lament, one of the things that we can and must do is engage in prayer, particularly prayers of intercession. Paul, writing to Timothy, puts it this way in 1 Timothy 2 verse 1. He says, "I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone." And intercession, as we saw last week, is a very particular form of prayer where we position ourselves between a holy God and a sinful people, and we plead with God to extend to mercy and to demonstrate grace. And if mercy means don't judge us according to what we deserve, then grace means give us your favor when we don't deserve it. And throughout scripture, prayers of intercession are said to be one of the most powerful tools the Lord gives to the church to govern the affairs of the world. Mostly you and I, we feel pretty powerless when we're at the mercy of economic and political and social forces over which we have very little, if any, control. And that's true individually, that's true corporately, that's true on even national levels. But the humblest saint on his or her knees has access to God's throne of mercy and grace. God rules the universe, and the humblest saint can make a huge difference in the ministry of prayer. Listen to how James puts it, familiar words from James chapter 5. He says, "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." And so what I want us to do this morning in the time that we have available is look a little bit more closely at prayers of intercession. And I want to do that this morning on the basis of this prayer of intercession in Daniel chapter 9, where Daniel intercedes with God for God to forgive the sins of Israel and to restore them to the land. I don't know about you, but I love the prayers of intercession in scripture, and I'll tell you why. When you study the prayers of intercession in scripture, you learn how to pray in a way that moves God to act. We sometimes forget that one of the primary purposes of prayer, it's not the only one, but one of the primary purposes of prayer is to get God to do something, if not in your own life, then in the lives of other people. And the prayers of intercession in scripture teach us how to lay hold of God in a way that makes God move. I often think prayers of intercession are like a lawyer pleading a case before the judge. The lawyer needs to know what the facts are, he needs to know his legal position, he needs to know how to appeal to the sense of justice and mercy on the part of the judge. And you and I, in prayers of intercession, we need to know who God is, and we need to know what it is that moves his heart, so that God actually steps into history and he makes things happen. And so this morning as we look at Daniel's prayer of intercession, let's see how far we get, a number of lessons that we can learn that are very relevant, I think, to the situation that we find ourselves in in the world. First thing that we should notice then is that intercessory prayer must be rooted, it must be rooted in the will of God. Notice as we look now at Daniel chapter 9 what it is that motivates Daniel to start praying. We'll read together the first couple of verses here. In the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, a mead by descent, who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes. So what is it that starts Daniel praying? Well he's reading the scriptures, specifically he is reading the book of Jeremiah. And what does he discover in the book of Jeremiah? He discovers that God has promised the exile would only last a total of seventy years. Here's a good Bible trivia question for you this morning. Who remembers why the exile was limited to seventy years? Anybody remember? It had to do with keeping the Sabbath year. Every seven years Israel was supposed to let the land lie fallow in a statement of faith that God would provide for them, and every fiftieth year Israel was supposed to observe the year of Jubilee. In that year you had to do without crops two years in a row. So you can imagine that stretched their faith a little bit, and because it stretched their faith a little bit, they never ever kept the Jubilee. So for four hundred and thirty years they ignored the Jubilee. And now God says you're going into exile, the land is going to rest seventy years to make up for the years you didn't observe. And if you do the math, you will discover that if you add the seven years of Jubilee, or the seven years of Sabbath rest, and the fiftieth year of Jubilee for four hundred and thirty years, you come out exactly to seventy years. That's why Israel went into captivity. So Daniel is reading the book of Jeremiah, he discovers now that God has said the exile is going to stop after seventy years, I'm going to return you to your land, and it drives him to his knees in petition and intercession and in sackcloth and in ashes. And I think there are two very important lessons for us to learn in that. And the first is this, that to pray effectively we must know the heart of God. That is to say we must know what it is that God is after. You know just as well as I do, you don't just come running up to God with your own wish list of building your own little kingdom and expect God to act. In fact one of the reasons so many prayers don't get answered is because they are not prayed according to the will of God. Jesus said if you pray, what do you say? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so one of the keys to intercession is to know what the will of God is, what it is that God is after, and then remind God of what it is that he is after and what it is that he has committed himself to. See that's why knowing scripture is so incredibly important. Because in scripture God reveals his plan and purpose for redemption. And unless you can take scripture in light of the interpretation of the Holy Spirit, you will not have a clue as to where God is going in the history of the world. We have to know the heart of God and one of the ways in which we know that is by our knowledge of scripture. And that's why it's so important I believe in this day and age for Christians to know the scriptures in these areas of social change that we have been talking about. I don't know about you, but I am appalled personally. Not by the fact that the world is going down that direction, you know, in a train that can't seem to be stopped. What disturbs me far more is the number of people who profess to be Christians who go along with all of those issues as being perfectly normal and perfectly proper. They would never do that if they knew that scripture says don't let anybody deceive you. And you and I, we have a responsibility to know what scripture says on every one of those issues so that at least we can hold our own ground and not be bowled over by the intensity of the emotion and the feelings. This past week Jimmy Carter, former president of the US, goes on record as saying that he thinks it's all okay because, well, Jesus must like everybody loving each other. Come on. There's a lot more at stake than whether two people love each other or not. And yet that is the persistent agenda as you hear it being pushed. So one lesson is we really need to know the will of God, which means we better know scripture more now than ever before. And the second lesson that we learn here is that the revealed will of God should drive us to action. That's what fascinates me about Daniel. He knows that God has said, "I'm going to bring you back to the promised land." He doesn't just sit back like we might be inclined to do and say, "Well, you know, okay, sirrah, sirrah, whatever it will be, will be, if God wants to do that, who am I to stop it or argue it or ..." No, it drives him to prayer. Why? Because he knows that when God reveals something to you, it's never just to satisfy your curiosity. It's to help you be part of the solution because throughout the history of redemption, God chooses to work with his people to produce the results that he's looking for. And I've often thought if the answer to prayer is the locomotive of God's power and energy barreling into the world, then it's the prayers of God's people, it's the prayers of God's people that lay down the track so that God's locomotive can proceed. That's why in this chapter and throughout the course of history, whenever God wants to do something in the world, guess where he begins? He begins by revealing his will to his people, often only a select few, and he drives them to their knees to participate with him in the project of his reclamation of creation. And so throughout the course of history, whenever there has been a revival and there have been many that have just swept over nations and that have just reversed the social tide that has been unleashed by sin, it almost always begins in somebody's prayer closet where somebody calls on the name of the Lord and intercedes with God for the church and for the nations. We have a privilege of doing that ourselves, we have organizations like Bellhop and others that are committed to the prayer of intercession to see God's kingdom come. What do we do in view of the social tide that is enveloping us? We begin by praying according to the will of God. That's one lesson that we learn here. The second lesson that we learn from Daniel's prayer is that intercessory prayer must be rooted in the covenant that God has made. It must be rooted in the covenant that God has made. These words won't be on the screen, but they're in your insert. Follow along with me as we read just a number of verses of how he prays. Look at verse four. "I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed. Lord the great and awesome God," and notice this, "who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled. We have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name, to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land. Lord you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame. The people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. We and our kings, our princes, and our ancestors are covered with shame, Lord, because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him." And he goes on and on in that vein. And what he is doing there, he is pleading with God on the basis of the covenant that God made with Israel at Mount Sinai. And under the terms of that covenant that God made with Israel at Mount Sinai, he said, "I will be your God and you will be my people." And he said, "My job in the covenant is to guide you and to lead you, to love you and to provide for you and to protect you and to bless you." And he says, "Your part of the covenant is to be faithful to me, to obey me, and to love me." And he says, "If you will obey me and love me, then I will bless you beyond anything that you can imagine in the promised land." But he says, "If you're unfaithful to me, then instead of blessing, you're going to experience the curse." And that of course is precisely what happened in the exile because Israel was unfaithful. They continually turned away to other gods instead of the true god of Israel. God's patience ran out. And because they participated in the sins of the nations which had been so sexualized in the worship of Baal that the land spit them out, the land also ended up spitting out the children of Israel. And in praying the covenant, there are two things that Daniel does then that is very clear as you read his prayer. And the first of that is this, he declares that God is righteous in his judgments. Verse 7, "Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame." What has happened to us, the judgments that we have experienced, we have deserved them because we have been unfaithful to you. You owe us nothing. We acknowledge your righteousness. But he doesn't stop there. Then he appeals to God's mercy. Verse 9, "The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving." Even though we have rebelled against him. He reminds God of the covenant promises that he has made and the fact that God is merciful. And then ultimately he ends up appealing to the fact that God's own reputation is at stake in whether or not the children of Israel get returned to the promised land and Jerusalem gets rebuilt. You'll find these verses on the other side at the end, verse 18 and 19, I'll put them up on the screen. This is how he ends his prayer. And you just have to get into his heart here how passionate he is about this. Give ear, oh God, and hear. Open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your name. We do not make requests of you because we're righteous. That is to say, because we have deserved this because we've been so good, no, but because of your great mercy. Oh, Lord, listen, oh, Lord, forgive, oh, Lord, hear and act for your sake, oh, my God, do not delay because your city and your people bear your name. He pleads on the basis of covenant and there's a powerful lesson there because one of the keys to intercession, if you want God to move in your life or you want him to move in the lives of your children or you want him to move in the life of your community or in the life of the nation, one place to start is by pleading covenant, God's agreement. Covenant not the old covenant as Daniel had to do, but covenant as the new covenant in Christ Jesus because the Bible says there came a time when God says I'm going to make a new covenant with the people of Israel, not like the old one because the old one couldn't save them. I'm going to make a new covenant and I'm going to write their law upon their heart and I will forgive all of their iniquity and I will declare them righteous before my face. How did he do that? Well, he did that by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He did that by raising Jesus from the dead, presenting Jesus without wrinkle, blemish or spot before the presence of his glory with rejoicing by promising you and me that anybody who embraces Jesus in repentance and faith shares in the righteousness of Christ and therefore is heir of the kingdom of God. So why should God save your child? It's a very important question to think about. Why should God interfere in nations who are deliberately heading towards destruction? Why should God not just wipe it all out like he did Sodom and Gomorrah many years ago? Well, we appeal to him on the basis of covenant. We say to him, "Lord, you send Jesus to die for these sins. You send Jesus so that that person's heart could be renewed. You send Jesus so that lives could be transformed and so I'm pleading with you, Lord. Hold off judgment. Don't let it roll despite the fact that we have deserved it. Give enough time for this tree to be dug around." We looked at that last Sunday night with Henry Cloud's talk about the tree that wasn't bearing any fruit. "Let the tree be dug around. Let it be fertilized. Let it be treated. Let us see if this thing can come to life and bear fruit." See, that's appealing to the covenant. God is wrestling with God and saying, "God, I give you my son. I give you my daughter. I give you my spouse. I give you my situation and all I can do is plead with you for your mercy and your power to break off all the darkness and bring that person to life and to salvation." That's the kind of engaging that we need to do with God because that is what Daniel does. Now, the important thing to remember in all of that is when God is trying to burn something down, as Stephen Twist talks about this, when God is trying to burn it down, don't keep putting out the fire. Let God do what needs to be done to bring that person to his knees or to her knees or that nation or that country. And notice how the key to all of this, in Daniel's prayer, is not just the confession of the nation's sins, but also a confession of his own sins. You will not see that in your insert because it's the next verse in Daniel chapter 9. But verse 20 reads like this, "While I was speaking and praying, confessing," notice, "my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and making my requests to the Lord my God for his holy heal," and then he goes on to describe what God's response is. But notice the key is, "I am confessing not only the sins of my nation, but I'm also confessing my own sin." And that's very pertinent to this whole situation that we live in today because it's very easy for us to point fingers, very easy for us to point fingers to those who struggle with same-sex attraction or to those who have transgender issues or to those who are avid supporters of same-sex. And it's very easy for the church to sit back and judge mentalism and say, "Well, oh, you're really bad." But remember, when you point a finger at somebody else, how many fingers are pointed at you? You have three fingers that are pointed at you. And for us to have integrity in our prophetic message to the world, it has to start with us. Because we may not be so obviously guilty of all of the same sins, but the flesh is alive and well in your heart and in my heart, and if we don't embrace the cross every moment of every day, our self-centeredness, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life very easily comes sneaking up. And before you know it, we're condemning in the world what we refuse to condemn in our own lives. So let's get our own house in order. Doesn't mean we have to be perfect, but it does mean that we need to walk in repentance. It does mean that we receive correction from one another. It does mean that we are willing to humble ourselves before God, look at our own garbage, and know that we live and walk only because of Jesus' grace and righteousness before the throne of God. Isn't that true? It begins by knowing what the will of God is and praying accordingly, and then we need to pray covenant, we need to constantly pray, we need to bleed the blood of the Lord Jesus that he will not judge us, our children, or our nation because of the mercies of God. Now eventually, you know, if people continue to choose sin, even that prayer isn't going to stop. There's a verse in the Old Testament prophets that says even if Daniel and Moses and other great intercessors in the Old Testament stood before me pleading for the people of Israel, God says, "I will no longer hear you because the measure of sin was full." But until God tells you to stop praying, you pray because as long as there's life, there's hope. That's fair? This is work, but folks, we're called to work because we are a royal priesthood, a holy religion, God's own people, and we have a mission to accomplish because the wellbeing of the world, to a very large degree, God has chosen to share with you and with me. Third lesson that we learn, because we're not done yet. Third lesson that we learn is that we must recognize or take into account a thing that we can call spiritual warfare. Now this is not so clear in Daniel chapter 9, although the angel Gabriel, if you read on in the chapter, plays a very dominant role. He is the messenger of God who comes to bring the good news about the purposes of God. You'll recognize him from the Nativity story where he's the one who comes to Mary to say that she's with child. He already shows up here in Daniel, but it really becomes clear in the next chapter because in the next chapter, chapter 10, Daniel continues to search the heart of God because God is giving him all these very scary visions. The book of Daniel is known as apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature is literature that talks about the end of times. Apocalyptic literature is always filled with imagery and stories that are hard to understand and hard to interpret. In fact, if you want to understand the book of Daniel, lay it side by side of the book of Revelation, you see a lot of the same imagery that is appearing. So Daniel is just totally overwhelmed by the revelation that he receives about what is coming upon the world. And in chapter 10, he's been praying and interceding for three solid weeks, and he's not getting an answer. And then along comes this being that he sees in Daniel chapter 10, and here's the answer that he is given in Daniel chapter 10, the verses 12 through 14. This being says to him, "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future for the vision concerns a time yet to come." What's going on here? Well, he's talking about spiritual warfare. He says that behind the worldly powers that control and run the universe, there are spiritual powers that empower the empires of the world. He calls it here the Prince of Persia. These are powerful principalities that are part of Satan's kingdom by which Satan rules the world. You and I aren't accustomed to thinking in those terms. Diagrammatically, I think we can put it this way. Here is the kingdom of the world. God, as you know, is not acknowledged. Satan is said to be the ruler of this world. Here is the kingdom of God. This plays out on a human level in the battle of the ages that we've talked about many times before, but here behind the world rulers you have spiritual powers just like in the kingdom of God. Behind the children of God are spiritual powers. If you're a child of God, God has assigned, I believe, biblically an angel to you. That angel keeps his eye on you unless you speed too fast and you lose him and you can get yourself into trouble. Do you understand what I'm saying? Where many times you and I can get into all kinds of trouble and miraculously we are preserved from trouble. Well, that's because there is spiritual power and authority that God assigns to his people. In the Old Testament, the archangel Michael was assigned to the people of Israel. But the same thing is true on a secular level. So the nations of the world also have spiritual powers that are behind the throne that inspire, encourage, and empower the world rulers. Now all of these are under God's sovereignty, but it's how Satan rules his kingdom. Satan operates like a military chief. Satan cannot be present everywhere at the same time, unlike God. And so he divvies up the kingdoms of the world by assigning generals and captains and lieutenants. Every organization under the sun where he tries to exercise power, he has spiritual power behind the throne who empower the physical beings. Take for example Hitler. A lot of people don't know this, but Hitler was very heavily into the occult. And many of the fits that Hitler is said to have had were, if you know spiritual warfare, sound like a very close parallel to demonization. Satan's power working through an individual, and of course one day the Bible says this is all going to come to a head when the Antichrist appears. Because the Antichrist will be the very embodiment of Satan, and he will try to take on Jesus and the church. And he will appear to succeed until Jesus comes from heaven with his mighty angels, and you're going to have the biggest bonfire the world has ever seen. So Daniel starts to pray, and he is interceding with God, and God is trying to show him what's going to happen in the future in terms of God's people eventually inheriting the kingdom. And guess what he runs into? He runs into the spiritual powers behind the thrones of the physical powers who are trying to oppose the coming of God's kingdom. If you know your New Testament, you will immediately recognize in that the words of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 when he says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Now why do I make a point of that? Hasn't it occurred to you that the speed with which our society is changing is in my estimation unprecedented? It's like it's everywhere. You know, I'll show you a picture. Here's the White House on the day of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same sex marriage constitutionally across the United States. Take a look at this picture. They say pretty lights, but you know what that is, don't you? Those are the colors of the rainbow. And they are the government's way of saying we are rejoicing with this decision. As a matter of fact, the White House spokesman said this in response to the lit up White House and a lot of other federal buildings across the United States. Keep that slide up for a moment. Tonight the White House was lit to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to progress and equality here in America and around the world. And so this is a public demonstration that as the government of the United States, we are rejoicing in the decision that has been made by the Supreme Court relative to this whole case. Now interestingly enough, this caused Franklin Graham, who has been one of the very few outspoken opponents of this whole thing in the United States of America to quip that Obama better get some extra lightning rods installed on the White House lest God strike it with lightning. Because of course the rainbow has been appropriated by the gay movement from the Noah story where God has judged the world because of its sin and now promises to never do that again. I thought that was fairly humorous, but you get the point of what it is that I'm trying to say. Behind the movement stand spiritual powers. And these spiritual powers know how to play on people's weaknesses. They know how to play on people's sins. They know how to play on people's longings and desires. And they arrange people like chess pieces on a board in order to try to accomplish the purposes. And when Paul says we're not fighting against flesh and blood, what he is saying is that because you're not simply dealing with people even though people are the ones who are pushing this forward, what he is saying is we need to fight things on a spiritual level because only in the Lord's strength can we even begin to stand against the spirit of the age. And that's why he says another two verses you know so well, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the devil's scheme. Satan has strategies. And the only way that you can stand against Satan's strategies is not to try to think you can out think him, not to think you can out campaign him, not to think that you can out maneuver him, no, you put on the armor of God. And Ephesians 6 of course talks about that in much more detail, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. And what the armor of God on the Christian does is two things. Number one, it enables us to stand having done all to stand. Only by being clothed in the armor of God, having each piece put on with prayer, as one of our hymns says, can we hope to stand the onslaught of all the power that is behind this whole movement. As I said earlier, Christian after Christian that I know is being wiped out by the arguments because they don't have on them the armor of God. Your flesh will fail either. But in Christ, God has provided us with the provision. But the second thing the armor of God does is it enables us to punch through the arguments. It enables us to deflate the rationale that is constantly being put forward. And it enables us to stand for truth and to present truth when all around us, people are being bowled over. I love the way the apostle Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5. He says the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. Now listen to this. It's very important. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Jesus. You know what God's people need to learn to do? God's people need to learn to understand what the arguments that are being presented constantly to justify what the Bible calls a course that will lead us to destruction. And with the weapons of righteousness in our right hand and our left hand, we don't want to get ugly, we don't want to engage the world in ungodly ways, but we need to know what the truth is and led by the Spirit of God, we need to know what to say to whom so that if nothing else at least, we remain standing and by the grace of God, maybe in some small way, we can stem the tide. Because one thing's for sure, if we keep going in the direction that we are going, as I've quoted earlier, as Ruth Graham, you know, Billy's late wife used to say, if God does not judge North America for its sin, he's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't know what your part or my part in this can be. All I know is that as the Holy Spirit works in our lives individually and collectively, he's going to be stirring someplace. And for some of us, that'll be prayer. And for some of us, that will be writing letters to the editor wisely and prudently. For some of us, that will engage in dialogue on blogs and in comments, but not throwing a pearl before swine and not just stirring up trouble, but to give an answer to the arguments that are being presented. You know, I have read so many blogs and so many comments, and most arguments are simply based on finger pointing and generalizations, often from both sides. There are answers to the arguments that are being presented. You and I can find them. We can learn them. And in a democratic culture, you and I have the right to participate in the democratic process of letting our voices be heard. I don't know what that looks like. And I'm not a social activist, and it's not my job to stir you up other than to remind you, listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying and get the training that you need to recognize the spirit of the age, because the train is moving fast. And it's no longer just you need to worry about your children. You need to worry about you. Because the freedom that is being taken away is coming upon us at an incredible speed. You know, we talked last week about Erin and Melissa Klein and their cakes and how they have been fined $135,000, remember that? Well, I downloaded a copy of part of the submission of the two people who are complaining about this issue that led to this fine. First of all, the person who gave them this fine is himself an active practicing homosexual, so you know, but they filed a list of 178 emotionally damaging reasons why they were wounded by this couple's refusal to bake their cake. It is a fascinating study, because on the one hand, they're so upset they can't eat. On the other hand, they're so upset that they're gaining weight. You try to figure that one out. But it all plays out in society. And nobody's immune. Now I'm happy to report that they have already raised $210,000 through the public for their defense. And that is a tremendously good sign. But the writing is on the wall. And all I want to leave you with today is that question. In response to this kind of prayer, who is God raising up? And where is God inviting my participation? What can I contribute so that I can let my light shine? So when I stand before God and give account of myself, I won't have to hang my head in shame and say, well, I was too cowardly, I was too afraid, I was too interested in my [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:46:00.640; remove through 00:46:05.000] self-preservation. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:46:05.000; resume after this marked segment]