We've got too many Christians who bought into the gods of the culture.

The costumes of the nation.

Dr. Tony Evans warns against putting anything else before God.

Your lack of deliverance could be tied to the presence of your idols.

This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans.

Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oaklef Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas

and president of the Urban Alternative.

Crying out to God for revival can seem very spiritual,

but today Dr. Evans reveals something believers should seek even more desperately.

It's the first message in a brand new series designed to help us make our way back to God.

Let's join him as he begins.

In our discussion today, I want to talk about returning the God by leaving your idols.

Because God will not give you and I His presence, His power,

if He has to compete with competing deities in our lives.

The passage I would like to focus on today in returning to God is in 1 Samuel 7.

1 Samuel 7.

Let me read verses 2 to 4 from the day that the ark remained at Karyav Jirum.

The time was long for it was 20 years.

And all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying,

if you return to the Lord with all your heart,

remove the foreign gods and the asheraph from among you

...