The Hunted

I know there are a lot of deer hunters in the house. How many deer hunters are with us today? Any of you boys hunt deer? I see you back there. Any deer hunters on this side of the room? Now, some of y'all have been waiting on this for a long time. As soon as those mornings get crisp and you can see your breath a little bit, your heart starts racing, because you know it is time. Maybe you've been messing with your deer stand throughout the summer and clipping back branches, and doing all that stuff in the heat, and the ticks, and all the chiggers, because your favorite time of year is right around the corner. Some of y'all have been watching a little app on your phone that shows you a deer popping out here or there. They come out at this time. This is their pattern. This is the way that they travel. Some of y'all are doing that right now in church, while I'm talking, always watching, always waiting. Now all that's left for you to do is just to lure them in with the right lie.

It takes the right lie. You gotta get that deer to believe a story. You gotta get that deer to believe that when he hears your little antlers clacking together that it's not you with a bunch of cheap Gander Mountain antlers up in the stand. No, that's another buck fighting for supremacy on his territory. You gotta pick a fight with that guy. You gotta get him to come out and show that he's the man. You gotta get that deer to believe that that little food plot is safe and secure. He's gonna be able to get his belly full and he's gonna take a nice nap for the rest of the day. You gotta get that deer to believe that there's a mate waiting on him with eyes only for him. Am I right? But it's gonna take a lure. It's gonna take a story. It's gonna take a lie to get that deer to come out into the open. And then bang! And that's what deer season is all about. Can I get an amen some of you?

Well, that's the way that hunting works. It requires a lure. It requires a lie. We all understand that. And that's exactly why old dad in Proverbs is circling back to this topic of sexual sin. I know some of y'all are thinking, did we not just have a sermon on this two weeks ago? That was in Proverbs 5 and it was very similar. There are some overlapping topics in these two chapters, but it's not that this father in Proverbs is morbidly obsessed with sex and sexual immorality. No, instead he is looking into the face of his 16-year-old son whose life is just so bright with promise and he wants so many things for this young man. One of the things that he wants for him is that joyful God-honoring sexual fulfillment in a marriage covenant that he talked to him about back in Proverbs 5.

But he knows that he's about to send this boy out into a world of sexual lies and sexual lures and sexual brokenness. He knows that he's sending this young man out, unformed by life experience, into a world where sexual temptation is pervasive and accessible and alluring. If it wasn't an allure, the Lord would not warn us about it. He knows he's sending him out into a world where he will be hunted. And he will be hunted in such a way that it is so easy for even a well meaning believer to be seduced. And that's really what this passage is about. And that's who this passage is for.

If you're someone who does not recognize the lordship of Jesus Christ, if you're not interested in honoring God at all with your life, if you think that his word is a joke, then this passage is not for you. You've already walked away from the wisdom of God. No, this is talking to people who in general want to walk in wisdom and want to walk with God. This is talking to people who don't know when they're being hunted and they don't know how easily they can be seduced. And this dad loves his son too much not to prepare him and not to talk straight to him. We've got to do that with our kids too.

I want to be clear as we get into this. It really is directed at a younger person at the beginning of their journey in life when they're first starting to make these independent decisions about all kinds of things in life, including how they use their bodies, how they navigate relationships, and how they think about their sexuality. It's for someone who's not made these choices yet.

For some of us who've already begun to make some of those choices, this is a really painful passage to hear because we have scars. We already know that we've done some things wrong. Maybe we've done a lot of things wrong. Maybe because we didn't know better, or maybe because we did know better. It could be really difficult and it can feel like condemnation smothering us as we even begin to hear this kind of very straightforward teaching from the word of God. Even if we know that it's true, that's part of what makes it hurt so bad.

What I want you to understand is when we talk like this from the word of God, we're coming from a position of sinners in need of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not one person in here who has gone unscathed through this world of sexual brokenness. There's not one of us in here who does not need the righteousness and the purity of Jesus to replace our filthy garments before him. On our very best day, there's not one of us who doesn't need to sing as our choir just sang, "There is nothing broken that you cannot repair." Jesus speaks to sexual sinners in 1 Corinthians 6. And he lists a whole string of bad choices that we can make with our bodies and with our relationships. Then he says, "such were some of you, but now you have been washed, you've been sanctified, you've been justified through the Lord Jesus Christ."

We come to this word from a position of needing the grace of God, knowing that we do, knowing that there's plenty of it for us, but also knowing that if we can avoid picking up any more scars on the rest of the road that remains for us, we want to avoid those scars, amen? Whatever stretch of road we have left, whatever stage of life we may be in, our position is we want to honor God with every part of our lives with the time that we've got left. And if we're gonna do that, there are three things that we need to see from this word.

Notice what verse 20 says, "my son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching, bind them on your heart, always tie them around your neck." Y'all, making it through a sexually dangerous world safe and happy starts right here in Proverbs 6:20. It starts with a deep, personal commitment to the Lord and to his word. Notice the way that the dad is talking, "Hey, mom can't make this commitment for you. Dad can't make this commitment for you. Your pastor can't make this commitment for you. You've got to decide at some point in your life. You have got to decide that God is good, that God is wise, that God tells you the truth, that God loves you and wants an abundant life for you, that his word is true, and relevant, and life giving, and not constricting, and that the way of joy is the way of faith and obedience to him. You've got to decide that you desperately need to hear from God in every season of your life, not just when you're a little kid and not just when you're old and used up, but in every season of your life. You desperately need to remain committed and connected to the Lord because you are prone to wander. If you want to make it home safe and happy through a world of sexual brokenness, then it starts here. 

Make it your ambition to know God, to trust Him, to love him, to stay close to him, to obey him, even when you don't understand it and don't like it. Trust him. Stay close to the Lord, bind his word on your heart. That's where it starts. Christians who are busily binding the truth of God's word on their hearts don't usually blow up their lives with sexual sin. Instead they wander off into explosive stupidity that they would have sworn they would have never gotten into after a season of devaluing the word of God in their lives, after a season of drifting from him.

I'm a pastor. I make a living watching this happen helplessly, week after week, season after season. It's just like some of y'all who live on a river bank or on a creek bank. You know with that flowing water every single year, you're losing a little bit of real estate, right? The erosion is happening. That water is constant. It's wearing away that bank. It's not happening in a day's time. It's not happening in a year's time. But if you come back in two years, you have less bank than what you started with. That's exactly the way that this works in our lives as believers.

We don't fall away from the Lord all at once. No, it starts by just getting too busy and distracted with worldly things to take time to be holy, to come before the Lord, to make him the center of our lives. We stop pursuing God's wisdom with the kind of intensity that Proverbs has been pressing on us, the kind of intensity that we all know is right and good when we're hearing it in a sermon on a Sunday morning. We start thinking that we don't need weekly worship attendance even when God has commanded it. We start thinking that we don't need the weekly encouragement of the saints even when God has commanded it. We start thinking that we don't need constant bible intake, replacing the lies of Satan and our own sin with his truth. We start getting sloppy in our personal holiness and in other areas that we don't think are gonna make any difference.

Meanwhile, while we're drawing away, the world is drawing close. And that is constantly, silently wearing away a commitment to the Lord. It's silently shaping the way that we think, shaping what we love, shaping our mind, shaping our hearts like that river, just nibbling away at that bank little by little. Then when it comes time for you to make a decision, you're not thinking like a Christian, you're not thinking like somebody who's living under the authority of God's word. You're thinking is just like the world because that's what is shaping you day in and day out, week in and week out. It's no shock when you choose sin. What did we think was gonna happen if we didn't keep this priority that the father has been begging us to keep throughout Proverbs? Bind this on your heart, man, write it on the tablet of your heart.

The first word in sexual purity then is not to make some kind of vow that you're never gonna have sex outside of marriage. The first priority is just to love God and stay close to him. Keep God's wisdom as the burning priority of your life. Proverbs 7:1, "Treasure up my commandments." 7:2, "Keep it like the apple of your eye." This means you protect it like the most sensitive part of your eye. This is like when you put on safety glasses before you weed eat around gravel. That's how you need to protect God's truth in your life. 7:3, "Bind it on your fingers," so it's always there. "Write it on the tablet of your heart." 7:4, "Make it your intimate friend." That should be your relationship with your Bible, with the word of God. It's your intimate friend. It always has something to say in every situation because you're so close, you keep it near.

Why do we do that? Just because we're stuffy, goody, goody Christians? No, because we care about saving our lives. Proverbs 6:22, "When you walk, they will lead you." If you've developed that kind of intimate relationship with God's word, God's commands, then as you're walking around through life, God's word is going to lead you. It's gonna keep you out of those pitfalls, and out of those snares, and out of those bear traps. When you lie down, they'll watch over you. God's commands will keep you safe. When you wake up, they'll talk to you. You'll be in this constant conversation with the truth of God as you live your life. Proverbs 6:23, "For the commandment is a lamp." It's a light. This is the priority that we've got to keep. There is no sense in us blustering about how bad the world is and all the sexual immorality that's out there when we don't want to talk about just committing to the Lord and to his word. If you don't do that, of course you're gonna get eaten alive with sexual immorality and everything else.

It starts here with what are you building your life on. What is the priority of your life? We have all got a priority. Is it the wisdom of Jesus Christ? Is it living under the kingship of Jesus? Does it show in how you spend your time? It's like that hymn that Dr. Van Neste quoted a couple of weeks ago. It really does take time to be holy. While the world rushes on, we've got to be the people who lock it down and say, "I'm about to just sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his word because I gotta have it." There's a priority that we've got to keep if we don't want to be hunted.

When I was growing up, we had a lot of school assemblies. Do y'all remember when you got called in for a school assembly? It was kind of exciting because you would get out of class. That's always a good thing. But then when you would get there, and it would be a downer because it was almost always like a really stern warning. There would be that guy who had chewed tobacco and so he lost his jawbone. There would be someone who is a mother of someone who had lost their life to a drunk driver. There would be someone who played with matches and they burned down a whole town. The assembly would always be this incredibly dramatic, grim thing that was warning us against doing the stupid stuff that we all wanted to do.

As I was thinking back on that this week, there was never a school assembly on sexual immorality, not a one. I had to learn those kinds of warnings by listening to George Jones music. And the saddest George Jones song about sexual immorality is, "Still Doing Time." You know what I'm talking about? "Still doing time in a Honky Tonk prison / Still doing time where a man ain't forgiven / My poor heart is breaking, oh, there's no escaping / Each morning I wake up and I find, I'm still doing time." Shad, get back up here on that guitar man, let's knock this thing out. The worst part of the song is when he says, "I've been living in hell with a bar for a cell." That's his life, his chosen life. This dude is like 55 years old and that's his life.

Now, that's the real clear, ugly picture of where sexual immorality is gonna take you. But it doesn't seem like that on the front end. And that's why this father in Proverbs in verses 25-35 gives us this very practical section where he breaks down George Jones and the real life consequences of sexual sin, especially adultery. It appears glamorous. It appears exciting. It appears satisfying. That's how it's always presented in TV shows and in music. That's less honest than 'The Possum' is, but he wants to tell us the truth about where sexual immorality will take us.

In verse 25 he says, "do not desire her beauty in your heart, do not let her capture you with her eyelashes." He focuses on this issue of desire. Whenever you read about some tragic sexual decision that someone has made, here's something that you can know, long before there was an illicit action, there was an illicit desire that was not attended to. Instead, this desire was tolerated, it was coddled, it was nurtured, and that's why we've got to deal with sexual immorality at the desire level. We are way too passive with sinful desires. We just kind of let it lead us around wherever it goes. That's how we go through life. We have got to get active and decisive.

James 1:14-15 talks about the biology of sin. Each person is tempted when he's his own lord and enticed by his own desire. We've all got desires coming after our hearts and our minds every single day. If you're passive in the face of that, you're gonna get led right to the slaughterhouse like chapter 7 talks about. We've got to get active and deal with it at the desire level. When you notice that off-limits person, that person who God has said, "not for you because you're already married to someone else, or they're married to someone else," when you notice that off limits person, you feel that little interest and you perk up and you start getting ideas, you kill it. You don't give it oxygen.

Romans 13:14 says, "Make no provision for the flesh." Don't feed that stuff. "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ." No lingering gazes, no fantasies forming in your mind. Don't spend extended time with that person who you're kind of oddly attracted to, don't be pouring out your heart to someone who's not your spouse. When this heart connection is forming, there's no place for that. We are way, way too passive in dealing with things at the desire level. And if all that sounds too intense for you, if that seems like it's a little bit over the top, it's not when you understand the price.

In verse 26, the father explains, sexual sin always costs you something. Any sex outside the marriage covenant will hurt you in some way. It's gonna hollow you out. Pornography will enslave you, visiting a prostitute, as he mentions, will cost you something. Paul talks about that more in 1 Corinthians 6. But then he goes on to say in verse 26 that involvement with a married woman will cost you even more. That's gonna hunt down your life. In other words, there's always going to be this serious cost that we're not seeing on the front end. That's why in verses 27-29, he tells him, "do not play around with it."

We grilled out last night on our deck. I've got this charcoal chimney thing. You know what I'm talking about? It's this metal tube, and you pour the charcoal in there, and then you light the fire under it. I want you to picture that, get that in your mind. You've got that charcoal chimney. It's loaded up. It's lit and it is blazing. The metal is glowing red. It's so hot. It's smoking like a freight train. You have that in your mind really, really clear? That is some hot stuff. Now, I want you to imagine dumping that down the front of your pants. You would never do that, would you? But that is no stupider than playing around with sexual immorality according to this father.

He tells his son, "Of course you would never do that! You would never open up your waistband and dump in a bunch of flaming charcoal! But you're doing exactly the same thing when you play around with these illicit desires that God has told you are off limits, when you're flirting with that person who's not your wife and you're married, when you send suggestive remarks and text messages, when you're just seeing how close you can get to this flame, you are lighting a fire that you can't put out. I mean, just pull up those Hanes, big boy. Drop that coal in there, because you're about to burn yourself up. That's exactly what's happening! I don't understand why we are so careful about so many things in our lives. We're careful with our money, careful with our time, care with our business. Yet, we can be so reckless, foolishly reckless, with how we relate to people of the opposite sex. I do not understand that as believers.

We are warned against that in versus 30-35. He says, "Look, if you play with this, you could burn up your reputation." He gives the example, if I were to go out and steal food because I was starving, or because my family was starving, and I got caught, I would still have to pay for it, right? I'd have to do time, but people would kind of get it. "Well, I mean, bless Eric's heart. He shouldn't have stole anything, but I mean he's starving, and look at him." They would kind of get it. But what the father says is, if you step into someone else's marriage covenant, if you get between a husband and a wife, if you step out on your own spouse, you're gonna pay for that too. But you shouldn't expect that same kind of sympathy. You should expect instead to get some wounds and some dishonor, some disgrace that you're not gonna be able to just wipe away in a short amount of time.

I feel this particularly as a pastor. God forbid if you're a plumber and you commit adultery. But you can go back to work the next day as a plumber. I'm a pastor. If I mess up here, God help me, it's over. Dove Press is done. No more devotional books from pastor. No more sermons. I mean, what else can I do with my life? I don't know how to do anything but talk about the Bible. I'll be living with my mom and dad in Dyersburg hoping some fast food restaurant picks me up. That's what's happening with me. No joke. There's a lot riding on this. I got a wife and three kids. I've got to cling to the Lord in this area, and I have to recognize how susceptible I am, and how vulnerable I am. There's nothing that's strong or holy about me. I need the Lord to keep me close to him and keep me from my own foolish heart. But the same is true for all of us, isn't it? We could burn up our reputation.

Verses 34-35 warn about the wrath and the jealousy that you can unleash when you invade a marriage covenant. There's the other spouse who you've wronged. There's the person that you got involved with that you're now trying to break it off with. There's your own spouse. If you're married, there are kids who are involved. There's just this whole web of relationships that you're now in the middle of and verse 35 says you're not gonna be able to just talk your way out of it, or buy your way out of it, because nothing satisfies that kind of hurt and jealousy and wounds. It could cost you your life!

Do y'all remember when Steve McNair was the quarterback for the Tennessee Titans? Do you remember getting that news report that Steve McNair had been shot and killed by that lover he had met at Dave and Buster's? He had just been out with his family getting something to eat and playing arcade games. All of a sudden, they connect up, he gets this little apartment deal for her, and that becomes their little spot. He keeps her up for a while, but then decides, "I'm gonna walk away from this." And she says, "Oh, no, you ain't walking away from it. And she kills him and kills herself! Do y'all remember that story? That was crazy. He was like 37 years old. I'm older than that now. I remember where I was when I heard that. And it's just a reminder that once you start this thing, when you step out of God's design for the way these intimate relationships are supposed to work, you don't know where it's gonna lead. You're losing control. And it could happen to any of us.

Now, can God graciously restore relationships in these situations? Amen. Absolutely. He can. Jesus is amazing. But even when he does repair those relationships, and we could even have testimonies this morning, that's a long road to walk. It's a long road, and we need the grace of God for every step. If we can avoid that, man, we want to avoid it! We want to seek the Lord's grace to keep us from paying that cost and paying that price. There's a price that we need to understand. We'll close with this.

The dad decides to seal off this little talk with his son by telling a story. And it's a story drawn straight from the life of a guy that they both know right there in their own town. He describes him as a 'simple young man.' That doesn't mean that he's stupid. It just means that he's uninformed, he's inexperienced in life. He's not formed by the wisdom of God's word like that first point was talking about. He's not made it the priority of his life to listen to God's word and obey it. That means this guy is just wandering around through life, following the crowd, doing what feels good at the moment, not thinking about the future, never recognizing danger. And that's how you get verse 8 of chapter 7, "he passes along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness." What's he doing there? What's he doing in that place at that time? Doesn't he know that's not going to lead to anything good? He's now vulnerable, in danger, just asking for trouble.

I've looked up so much stuff about national parks through the years that now Google curates what it shows me. One of the things that it shows me a lot are videos of foolish people at Yellowstone who wander off the boardwalk to go looking for these geothermal things. There are signs that say, "Do not do this." And yet, so many people have died. Despite the posted warnings, they do it anyway. They're caught on camera stumbling into these mud pits. They, take an acid bath right there in Yellowstone. It's crazy. There's some places they don't need to be. Nothing good is gonna come of it. That's what's happening with this guy.

I don't know what his motive is. It doesn't say. Is he trying to live on the edge? Is he trying to be reckless? Is he curious? Is he looking for trouble? Or is he just naive? We don't know really. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, because either way he is now in danger. And so folks, we have to get some discretion. That's a really good Proverbs word: discretion. It's this ability to discern not just between good and evil, but between good, better, and best. What's gonna keep me out of trouble? What's gonna keep me alive? We need some discretion about the situations we put ourselves in, the people we spend alone time with, when we get on the internet, when we have access to our phone.

For instance, if you're 12 years old, you probably don't have a lot of great moral discernment about this kind of thing. That's why God gives 12-year-olds parents. We don't need to have just this unleashed, unhindered, untethered access to any image and to every piece of information in the world at all times. That's not wise. There's nothing discreet about that. We have to think about where we're putting ourselves and what that opens us up to.

This man does not do that. He is walking right into this ambush that begins in verse 10. Now, this story is really specific. There's some details that are kind of unique to it. It involves this predatory married woman. That is a real thing. But the principles apply to really any sexual temptation. It applies to predatory men prowling on girls. it applies to unmarried people who are getting involved in things they shouldn't get involved with. It applies to pornography. It applies to situations that develop more gradually than this 'all of a sudden' kind of ambush situation.

Here's the big point, sexual temptation is on the prowl for all of us. We're all being hunted. Sexuality is such a precious gift that God has given to us. Intimacy with your spouse, the marriage covenant, is such a special gift from the Lord. And so of course, the devil is out to ruin it like he's out to ruin everything else. We're all being hunted. We're all being watched in that way. And we need to be aware that sexual temptation is attractive. It is aggressive. And it is aimed specifically at you just like Google curates the advertisements that it shows me. Satan curates the temptations that he sends to you and to me. So if you read this story and you think, "Man, this is crazy, this would never happen to me." Well, then you're already halfway there to it happening to you. That's the point.

And so the father tells the story of desire meeting opportunity. That's what the Bible calls the 'hour of temptation,' It's when desire meets opportunity. Sometimes you have the opportunity, but you don't have the desire. Sometimes you have the desire for sin, but you don't have the opportunity. The hour of temptation happens when desire and opportunity meet together. And that's what happens here. And if you aren't guarding yourself with God's wisdom, you'll be overwhelmed in the hour of temptation just like this young man.

What happens? We can be quick with this part. This lady is married. Already, this is a big flashing "off limits" sign for him, and her behavior throws every red flag that you can possibly throw in Proverbs. She's loud. She's wayward. She's never at home. She neglects her family. She's a religious hypocrite. This is the kind of person that you avoid like the plague. Nothing good is gonna come out of being involved with this lady. But this guy quit thinking about character when he got a look at what she was wearing, because she's dressed to get his attention. She's dressed to allure him. And I think the point of the story is that this guy doesn't have time to think when he's in the situation. He doesn't have time to think because the moment that she steps out of the shadows, this seduction just falls on him like a tidal wave. She seizes him. She kisses him. She unleashes a flood of words. This guy never says a word. She's doing all the talking, and it's her smooth words that are reeling him in.

She promises this guy the thrill of his life. Verse 14, "There's a feast waiting because she's made her offerings that day." This is like a church lady! But what the father is saying is that when you make a fellowship offering in the Old Testament, you get to bring some of the meat home with you and you get to eat it yourself. And so she basically says, "I'm having prime rib tonight and I've prepared that for you." There's this meal that goes along with it.

Verse 15, there's flattery. She says, "Oh, I want you. I've eagerly awaited you. I've been searching for you. There's no one else for me but you. And that appeals to this guy's vanity. Verses 16-18 picture this exotic experience of a richly furnished home and exotic linens and perfumed beds. This guy has never even dreamed of anything like this. "They can take their fill of love till morning." She says in verses 19-20, there's secrecy. She promises her husband just left on a long business trip. She assures him they won't get caught. And that secrecy increases excitement.

At the end of this, this simple guy thinks he's won the lottery. He thinks, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. But what's he been doing? Step by step? He's been swallowing one lie after another. He will have fun that night, I'm sure. But there is no love involved. They won't be taking their fill of love. Love is sacrificially laying down your life so that the other person can live. There's no love here. She doesn't care about him. She's not loyal to her own husband. What makes him think she's gonna be loyal to him? And it certainly won't stay secret, even if it's hidden from other people, because the Lord knows. Proverbs has already said much about that. But this guy is not thinking about any of that. He's got linen and cinnamon on his mind.

And so, like an ox stepping on the conveyor belt to the slaughterhouse, he follows her into the night. I think that we're supposed to picture this guy as someone who has been raised in the faith of Israel. He's one of God's people, but he wasn't formed by God's wisdom. And when that hour of temptation comes, it just absolutely sweeps him away. And so he's gonna go down to the grave, where there's a whole army of people just like him, who believed exactly those same lies.

That's why the father returns in verse 25 to the heart, "Let not your heart turn aside to her ways." It really does all start with our hearts. If we want to make it through a sexually dangerous and sexually broken world into the abundant life that God has designed us for, we gotta keep our hearts. We gotta watch what our hearts are loving and where they're drifting. Where are we spending our time? Where are our feet taking us? What is it that we're allowing our hearts to attach themselves to? We need to make sure that our hearts are staying attached to Jesus and his truth.

Jesus won't lie to you and make empty promises like this lady and sexual sin. That's what's so sad about it. On the other side you realize, "Man, I thought I was getting one thing and I got another." Sexual sin makes empty promises, y'all. Jesus Christ makes you promises that he keeps. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will wash you white as snow even today. If you've played out the Proverbs 7 drama 5,000 times in your life, if you've been that simple person who should have listened, and didn't, and wound up hurting yourself and hurting other people, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all your sin, if you've been the Proverbs 7 woman or man lurking in the shadows, preying on people for your own gratification and your own appetite, the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse you of all your sin, too. He'll make you white as snow, and he'll teach you a new way, a way of purity, and a way of peace, and he'll lead you safely home the rest of your days.

Whoever we are, the answer and the response of Proverbs 6 and 7 is to run to Jesus. Don't run into your heart and condemn yourself for things gone by that you've already confessed and repented of and been forgiven of. That's not what Jesus wants for you. No, you run back to Jesus and say, "Lord, I believe your promise that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ." And if you're here today and you've not started down this road, the answer for you is not to run into your heart and just frantically fearfully say, "Lord, I'll never be able to make it through this life." No, run to Jesus. Hold on to him. Believe he can keep you all the way to the end. Jesus is the one we need to look to as we come to a close. And so he's the one we need to talk to now. Let's pray.

Sermon by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church