I want you to imagine with me a baseball team that has found themselves a super duper pitcher.

I mean, he's a wonder boy. He can throw at 120 miles.

He can throw every kind of conceivable ball, fastball, knuckleball, spinning ball.

I mean, he can do it all.

He has only one problem.

He refuses to watch the catcher signals.

And so when the catcher would signal him for a low fastball, he sends an inside curveball,

and it goes on and on and on.

You have to agree with me that is not a pretty picture.

Please listen carefully, because I'm going to submit to you this morning that this is a picture of an average Christian today.

They are busy doing things. They are busy going through the motions. They are busy being Christians and being church people.

And yet they refuse to get their cues from the catcher. That is the Word of God. They will get their

advice from everyone else. They will get the signal from everyone else except where they should be getting

it, and that is the Word of God. And that is why you see so many of them, when hit the wall, they fold, they collapse.

They become easily discouraged. They become easily frustrated. They become easily disappointed.

They begin to play the blame game. Well, if he didn't do this or if she didn't do this,

or if he didn't say that, and if he didn't the other thing, this would not have happened, but that's always a blame game.

Instead of regrouping, instead of retracing our steps and figuring out what got us here,

instead of facing the reality of our ignoring of the signals from the Word of God, they become

disappointed, they become discouraged, and they become complacent. We are in the middle of a series

on the life of Abraham. we're calling it counting stars when

you can't see none.

...