A hundred years from now, if the Lord has not returned, when history books are written about our time and our generation,

I think they're going to say that our generation perfected the art of excuse-making. We really have.

Now, to be sure, making excuses rather than taking responsibility is as old as the Garden of Eden.

Placing the blame on someone else and avoiding taking responsibility is not new.

But our generation has perfected this into an art form.

Since Eve said the devil made me do it, and Adam says Eve made me do it,

humanity has been repeating this refrain to a point, as I said now, has become acceptable.

Many years ago, a friend of mine said, you know, every man needs a wife, because there are too many things that go wrong and he can't blame them all on the government.

In fact, I like this father of a college student who was so irate. I mean, he was so bummed at the fact that his son failed college again,

and he was really going at it and he's talking to him,

and finally the boy said, he said,

Dad, I thought that if I took a basket weaving courses,

I am assured of an A.

But then two Indians enrolled in my same class, and they raised the bar,

and I flunked. When God appeared to Moses for the first time ever in the desert, Moses had at least four excuses as to why he could not go back

and rescue the people of God from the slavery of Egypt. Four. Why he couldn't do what God is asking

him to do. I don't want you to miss the irony here, okay? I don't want you to miss the irony.

Forty years earlier, Moses thought that he is the guy who was going to deliver them from the

slavery of Egypt, remember? But during those 40 years with the Midianites, with all these

bedouins in the desert,

Moses lost his self-confidence.

Now 40 years later, his self-confidence hit rock bottom.

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