All right, so thank you again for having me back.
It's good to be here.
I can't believe they let me through the airport with this thing, but we'll get to that in
a minute.
I'm praying for Pastor Anderson, of course.
That was a surprise this morning, so hopefully he's doing better.
I know I've never had that kind of pain, but my dad's gone through something like
that.
It's some of the worst pain you can have, that back pain.
So I'm praying for him.
Tonight I'm really excited for the sermon tonight.
Not that I'm not excited for sermons all the time, but this is a topic that I really
enjoy and I really have a lot of really strong opinions on this, strong biblical opinions
on this topic.
I don't know if you can have a favorite chapter in the Bible, but Job chapter 28
is up there.
The reason for the sermon tonight is at the Red Hot Preaching Conference I got asked
a question from a young man, and I got asked this question, and it was like four minutes
before church, and I couldn't answer the question that I was asked of this young man,
and that's kind of where this sermon was born out of, was this question that I was
asked.
And this question was basically, how can I get better at things?
How can I get better at things in my life?
So the title of the sermon, the title of the sermon is Searching Out Perfections,
and then I'm going to give you four steps to understanding and increasing knowledge
in your life.
The first thing that we're going to do, and this is one of those sermons where I was
really excited about it, and I'm like telling my wife about this idea, and she's
just kind of glazing over, you know, but like this is for the ladies too, okay?
All right, so this just isn't a guy's sermon, this is for the ladies, it's just
maybe I wasn't presenting it properly to my wife at the time, okay?
But anyway, so what we're going to do first is we're going to go through Job chapter
28, and I need to kind of set the stage and explain to you the theme of Job 28.
So Job 28 is kind of a monologue by Job, it's in between him arguing with his friends and
Job is just kind of going off on his own in Job chapter 28, but I need to kind of
go verse by verse through this and I want you to catch the theme in Job chapter 28,
and then we're going to look at these four steps that we can apply on how you
can gain knowledge and understanding in your life.
You say knowledge of what?
Knowledge of everything, okay?
Knowledge of the Bible and everything that you are dealing with in your life, all right?
And it works, I can tell you that this works for a fact, so write down some notes
if you have a pen with you, but let's go ahead and get started and let's just
start going through Job chapter 28.
Let's look at this idea of searching out perfection, all right?
Job chapter 28 starts out, it's talking, it starts out talking about things that
men look for, things that men are trying to figure out, things that men are doing.
In verse number one, the Bible says,
Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for a gold where they find it.
Iron is taken out of the earth and brass is molten out of the stone.
So there's a lot right there in those two verses right there.
It's talking about not only mining, but actually refining and making alloys here,
is what the Bible was talking, tell me there's not science in the Bible, okay?
It's talking about mining for silver out of the vein and then they're refining the gold,
that's what that means.
And it's interesting in verse number two, it says,
Iron is taken out of the earth, yet iron ore is right in the earth.
That's just a mining operation to pull out iron ore.
And brass is molten out of the stone.
What's interesting about that is that brass, you don't mine for brass.
Brass is not in the earth.
Brass is made by molting or putting an alloy of two things together.
You mine copper, you mine zinc, and you create brass.
So the Bible is like defining these massive things that men have figured out to do already.
Now Job, the Bible doesn't say exactly when Job is, but most people agree that
Job is post-flood, pre-Abraham, somewhere in there.
So Job is not like, you know, 1982, okay?
This is an old book in the Bible.
This is ancient times here we're talking about, all right?
It's talking about how men are, they're making brass, they're making alloys at this point.
They're talking about mining, they're talking about the things that men do.
We still do this stuff today.
We still are digging in the earth trying to find all these things that we need today.
What do we dig for today?
We dig for resources, we drill for natural gas, we drill for oil.
You know, fossil fuels.
I don't think that oil comes from dinosaurs.
This is my personal opinion, okay?
And I believe that this is actually biblical, and I won't spend a lot of time on my opinions,
but there's really three reasons why I don't think that oil comes from dinosaurs.
The first one is just like mass balance.
I mean, how many dinosaurs were there?
We burn a hundred million barrels of oil a day in this world.
A hundred million barrels.
How much is a barrel?
Forty-two gallons per barrel.
That's like half a billion gallons of oil per day.
How many dinosaurs were there?
That's the first thing.
It just doesn't make sense from that perspective.
And I'm going to kind of show you from the Bible where oil actually came from.
I think it's actually in Job chapter 28 again.
But here's another reason.
The earth is 6,200 years old.
How did dinosaurs get five miles below the ground?
I mean, some places they're drilling past five miles.
In North Dakota where I grew up, they drill two miles down.
And it's in a rock.
The oil's in a rock that they have to break apart to get the oil out.
How did those dinosaurs get down there in just a couple thousand years?
You know, the Bible actually tells us in Genesis chapter 3 that when we die, our bodies
will actually...
Look, I grew up on a farm.
I grew up in a country.
I've seen animals die.
I've never seen a dead body of an animal turn into oil, ever.
You know what it does?
It dries up.
And actually the Bible tells us what happens.
It literally turns to dust.
We had an animal die.
We had a sheep die or a cow die.
We would throw it up on this rock pile.
And pretty soon it was just dust.
It was just gone.
In just a couple of years.
I've never saw oil running down the rock pile, anything like that, all right?
I think it's fake news that they came from fossils, okay?
All right.
Verse number 3.
The Bible says,
That's what man is doing.
Man is trying to hunt out perfection.
Perfection is what God put.
Perfection is the creation.
It's talking about how man is just looking for answers in this perfect creation that
God made.
So the stones of darkness, and I love this one, the shadow of death.
We're still trying to do this one.
Still trying to figure out how to not die.
That's man just searching out trying to defeat death.
We're not going to defeat death.
The only way to defeat death is to get saved and get eternal life through Jesus
Christ.
That's it.
But verse number 3 is just showing that man is searching for all the answers, okay?
Man is looking for the answers, and it continues.
Look at verse number 4.
The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant, even the waters forgotten of the foot.
They're dried up.
They're gone away from men.
This could be talking about aquifers underneath our feet.
What do we do?
We drill for water, too.
We drill for water underneath our feet.
Look at verse number 5.
As for the earth, I love this one.
Out of it cometh bread, and under it is turned up as it were fire.
Look, Luke chapter 10, Ephesians chapter 4, talking about how hell is in the lower
parts of the earth.
We know from the Bible that hell, from the King James Bible, that hell is in the
center of the earth.
The lower parts of the earth, the lower parts of a sphere, is the center of the sphere.
So we know that hell is in the center of the earth, but look at what the Bible
is saying here in verse number 5.
It's saying, under it was turned up as a fire.
The Bible here is telling us that there's heat in the earth.
Isn't that interesting?
You know what we've figured out just not that many decades ago?
That you can heat your home with the earth.
I come from an area where I grew up.
It was regularly below zero.
Here's an interesting thing.
With verse number 5, you go anywhere in the world and you dig down about 12, 15 feet
and the earth's temperature is the same.
The dirt is about 50 to 60 degrees.
That sounds cool because you live in Phoenix.
But if you live in an area where it's 20 below zero, that's a lot of heat.
What people actually do today is they install ground source heat pumps.
They install coils at 10 feet underneath their house and they have a heat pump that
runs and it brings that 60 degree temperature so it raises the temperature of their house
from negative 20 degrees to 60 degrees and then you just supplement on top of that
60 degrees.
It's brilliant.
Literally, you're heating your home from hell.
I've always thought about this.
I'm like, we're heating our house with hell here.
I'm glad I'm saved.
The Bible is telling us about all of this science here.
People say that we just discovered these things just a couple of decades ago and the Bible
is telling us where it is right here.
Look at verse number 6.
The stones of it are in all the place of the sapphires and it hath dust of gold.
It's interesting because where do they mine sapphires?
They find them in rock quarries is where they find sapphires.
There's a path.
Now we have a little bit of a shift in verse number 7 and verse number 8 where the Bible
says there's a path which no fowl knoweth, which the vulture's eye hath not seen.
The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passeth by.
What it's saying in verse number 7 and verse number 8 is that man hasn't figured everything
out.
There's a lot of things that are undiscovered.
There's a lot of things that people haven't gone.
Even the birds haven't flown everywhere.
It's kind of talking about how these things that man has figured out from the perfection
and then again it goes back into things that man has figured out in verse number 9.
It says he put forth his hand upon the rock.
He overturneth the mountains by the roots.
Man literally cuts through mountains is what the Bible is saying here.
And look, we do that.
Look at verse number 10.
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks.
His eye seeth every precious thing.
He bindeth the floods from overflowing.
I find it amazing that it's talking about these things at the time of Job because
these are things that we do today.
He's talking about building dams.
He's talking about damming reservoirs.
He's talking about building canals.
He's talking about cutteth out the rocks.
We have in California, we have a hydro plant that is cut into the mountain like 500 feet
below the mountain.
You drive up to a parking lot and you're like, where's the station at?
It's 500 feet down inside the plant.
They've carved.
It sits below the lake.
They've carved the penstocks up through the granite in the mountain up to the lake.
There's 2,000 feet ahead on this plant.
There's 1,000 PSI at the turbine blades.
The guys told me if we crack a leak in anything, this place will flood in six seconds
so we don't have to worry about the exit signs.
But this is what man does.
We can literally cut things out of the mountains in Job's time.
And I find it fascinating that engineers did this.
They built this place in the 20s.
Donkeys and dynamite, they said.
That's how they did it.
Look at the last part of verse number 11.
And the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.
This is the theme of Job chapter 28 here, is man looking for the hidden things of perfection.
And look, he's having some success in Job chapter 28.
You say, what is hid?
The gold is hid.
The silver is hid.
The knowledge to refine gold is hid.
Man is figuring these things.
The knowledge to make alloys, the knowledge to make canals, the knowledge to build dams.
Man is discovering.
But it's the first mention of the theme emerging.
Look at verse number 12.
It's the first mention right here where it says, but where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
God knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of the living.
This is the key right here.
Because man, they're figuring some things out of the perfection.
They're figuring out what to do.
But God is saying, wisdom is not found in these things.
God's trying to tell you, you know, you don't know where actual wisdom and actual
understanding is.
Look at verse number 14.
The depths sayeth, looking for wisdom, looking for understanding.
The depths sayeth, it is not in me.
The sea sayeth, it is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
The gold and crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for the
jewels of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of the coral of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above
rubies.
So the Bible is saying that this kind of, the actual wisdom and the actual understanding
can't be purchased.
It can't be purchased with all these things that we can mine and refine and find in the
earth.
Look at verse number 20.
Whence then comest wisdom, and where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all the living.
That's us.
Saying the wisdom and understanding is hid from the eyes, it's not in the seas, it's
not in the earth.
Where is it then?
Destruction and death say, we've heard the fame thereof with our ears.
They don't know where it is either.
Look at verse 23.
God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.
The place of what?
God knows where everything is.
He knows where all of the things that we are searching for is.
For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth unto the whole heaven to make,
turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 1, and I'm going to read verse 25 as you turn to Ecclesiastes
chapter 1.
Verse 25 says, this is what God does, to make a weight for the winds, and he wayeth
the waters by measure.
I love this one too.
Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 1 and look at verse number 7.
The Bible is saying that God understands all these things, and that we're not understanding
where this wisdom and understanding comes from.
God understands all of it.
And then he says he makes the weight for the winds, and he wayeth the waters by measure.
Look at Ecclesiastes 1.7.
The Bible says all the rivers run into the sea, and yet the sea is not full.
Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
Ecclesiastes 1.7 is explaining what people think was invented about 100 years
ago, which is the water cycle.
Someone discovered the water cycle 150 years ago, or whatever it was.
No, the Bible is talking about it right here.
It's saying the rivers, how does the ocean, the rivers run into the sea, but the ocean
doesn't get full.
Why?
Look at verse number 25, because God knows, he weighs the waters by measure, he measures
how hard the wind blows, he controls the weather, he knows when to make it rain.
Look at verse number 26.
He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder.
Then he did see it and declare it, and he prepared it, and yay, he searched it
all out.
God knows when to make it rain, he knows when to blow the clouds over somewhere,
he knows when to make it thunder and lightning, and he knows how to keep the water
cycle balanced.
We evaporate the salt water, the salt water is in the ocean, it evaporates and distills
the salt out of it, it rains or snows in the mountains, and we capture it in these
dams, we think we're so great capturing it in these dams, and then what do the mountains
do?
They filter the water.
They filter the water with UV light and gravel filters that God created, that's why the
mountains are there.
You go and find commercial water filtration plants, they use the exact same technology
that God uses, UV filters and gravel filters.
So God knows everything, he knows how to keep everything balanced, he knows where
it all is, because he put it there.
So where did the oil come from?
God put it there.
I mean, it's not that hard.
He put the gold there, he put the silver there, he put the copper there, he put the
zinc there, he put everything there, he put the oil there.
He knows how it all works because he built it all.
He decides when it rains, he weighs the wind, he knows how hard the storm should go.
Look, this whole thing is his system that he designed and perfected.
This is the perfection.
So the title of the sermon is Searching Out Perfection.
When I was asked by this young man, how do I get better at things?
How do I get better at things that I'm doing in my life?
That's what I'm going to answer for you this evening.
God tells us how to do it.
Searching out perfections, I'm going to give you four steps to gaining understanding.
The first one is in verse number 28 of Job chapter 28, the last verse of the chapter.
Actually, keep your place in Job 28 and go to Daniel chapter 1.
Let's go to Daniel chapter 1.
You say, gaining understanding in what?
We should have understanding of the Bible and we're going to talk a lot about that.
There's an interesting thing that's pointed out about Daniel when Daniel first gets
taken into captivity.
Look at verse number 4.
This is talking about Daniel in Daniel chapter 1 and verse number 4.
You're going to keep your place in Job 28, always we're going to be going back there
again and again.
Daniel chapter 1, look at verse number 4.
The Bible says, children, talking about Daniel and his friends, children in whom was no
blemish but well favored, look at this, skillful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and
what?
Understanding science and such as had ability to stand in the king's palace, they might
teach the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans.
So Daniel had knowledge of the word of God.
He had wisdom, which is the applied knowledge of the word of God, but he also understood
this perfection that we're talking about in Job chapter 28.
He also knew how the world works, I mean like real science, like not science falsely
so called, we'll get there in a second, but real science.
Daniel understood it.
That's one of the only, I think the word science is twice in the Bible.
It's science falsely so called in the New Testament and then right here that Daniel
understood science.
So understanding, look, God wants us to have understanding of his perfection and he tells
us in verse 28 how to do that.
That's step one.
Step one is this, fear God.
He said that sounds simple.
For you it is, but for everybody else, not so much.
Fear God.
Look at verse number 28 of Job chapter 28.
We're looking at four steps to gaining understanding this evening.
Verse number 28 says unto man, he said, behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom
and to depart from evil is understanding.
Look at Proverbs chapter 9, you say, Pastor Pizarnsky, how in the world is that going
to help me create a new alloy?
That verse in verse number 28.
Well, you need to understand this first step and in Proverbs chapter, I mean alloys,
I find it amazing that alloys are in the Bible.
Alloys are a super important part of our life even today.
You have no idea, like the electricity that's created and the machines that we build
are mainly most of the time limited by the types of alloys that we can create today.
We're constantly hunting for new alloys in this perfection.
There's a huge field of engineering and all they're doing is trying to find new alloys
because all the thermal machines that you own, your car, power plants, jet engines,
all these machines, these thermal machines, they're more efficient if you're going to run them
at higher pressures and higher temperatures.
So what's the limiting factor?
We can make high pressure.
We can make high temperature.
We can't contain it with anything on earth.
That's the problem.
So that's why it's so amazing that alloys are mentioned in Job chapter 28.
We need stronger materials.
We need new steels.
We need these things.
It's a big part of science and engineering today.
Look at Proverbs chapter 9 in verse number 10.
Proverbs chapter 9 in verse number 10 gives us a little bit more detail on Job chapter 28 and verse number 28.
The Bible says this.
It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
What I'm trying to get you to understand in step one here is that the fear of the
Lord is the starting point.
The fear of the Lord is the go, no go on whether or not God is going to allow
you to discover or understand in your life.
I mean, it's pretty good news for everybody in this room.
But if you think about this, and look, I have seen a noticeable trend, and for the
next few minutes, I'm going to try to point out a noticeable trend on how people that
don't have the fear of the Lord don't unlock wisdom and understanding, but people
that do have a fear of the Lord do unlock wisdom and understanding.
And look, it's a spectrum.
It's a spectrum.
When I say the fear of the Lord and I talk about the societies that I'm going to
talk about, I'm not saying that everybody in these societies and the doctrines were
all correct.
That's not what I'm saying.
But what I'm saying is this fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom, it's a spectrum.
The more a society has the fear of the Lord, the more of the perfection they
will unlock.
The less a society has the fear of the Lord, the less they will.
And I'll give you some examples.
But I have the same philosophy with religions.
Religions and soul winning.
So most of you are probably soul winners here.
The better a religion feels about Jesus, the easier it is to get them saved.
There's many, many, many Mexican and Latino Catholics in Fresno, and they're generally
very easy to get saved.
Why?
Because they have a false doctrine and they don't believe the Gospel and they believe
in workspace salvation, but they believe that the Bible is true and that they believe
that Jesus is the Son of God.
They believe they're just mixed up on doctrine.
But they believe very good things about Jesus.
So it's a very short bridge for them to cross.
Very easy to get them saved.
Now you look at, let's go down that spectrum on religions.
You look at people like, maybe like Pentecostals are a little further away.
Maybe, I mean, think about Mormons.
Think about Muslims.
You're like, look, I have seen Mormons and Muslims saved.
But it is not a common thing that you'll see every day.
It's much easier to get someone who is Catholic saved than someone who is Mormon
or somebody that is Muslim.
I mean, the Muslims, they don't believe Jesus was God even.
But they believe that he was a nice prophet and good things about him.
Now, this is why, on the far end of this spectrum, this is why I have never in my life
personally even been able to open my Bible to someone who is Jewish.
Why is that?
Because they believe very bad things about Jesus.
So it's a long bridge.
I'm not saying it's not possible.
Someone will send me something saying, I know a Jewish person that God saved.
I'm talking about the religion of Judaism.
But it's harder.
The more falsehood you feel about Jesus, the harder it is going to be to get you
saved.
That is the same philosophy that I apply to this.
The more a society fears the Lord, the more you will see.
Think about the development of the Western world.
Think about the Industrial Revolution.
Kids, when was the Industrial Revolution, the first one?
Most people will say it's between 1750 and 1850, somewhere in those years.
But you think about the advances that were made in the Western world in the first Industrial
Revolution, and it's, quite frankly, amazing.
The advancements, the machines that were built, we're still using those today.
Now you look at some of the less developed or less, you know, I mean, they were Anglican,
they were Protestant, they were all these things, but they believed in the God of the
Bible.
There was that, at least, God of the Bible with them.
Now you think about other societies, like the Mayans and the Aztecs, and the Mexica,
go back to verse number 15 of Job chapter 28.
You think of some of these primitive tribes in the Americas, and they believe that human
sacrifice nourished the gods, and they're literally sacrificing each other.
The further away from the one true god a society is, the more violent it will be, the more
barbaric it will be.
I mean, we're seeing the same thing happen today, but that's another story, as we
turn our backs on God.
But what's interesting is, remember verse 15.
It says, it cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
Those people had a lot of gold.
That's why the Spanish showed up, and they're like, hey, what do you got going on over
here?
But those people had a lot of gold, but it doesn't come from gold.
That's why they were primitive, barbaric, just murderous, murderous people.
And I mean, somehow, for some reason, we glorify all this today, and we're trying
to glorify these pagan, wicked, violent cultures.
I don't really understand that, but we're headed down that road.
Now think of the development of the Western world at that same time period.
Largely made up of a population, we're talking about the fear of the Lord as the beginning
of wisdom.
Largely made up of a population that acknowledged the one true God.
I'm not saying they were saved, I'm not saying they were doctrinally sound,
but what I love, what you'll find about scientists in this era, in the 1700s to maybe
even the late 1800s, is that you will be, I mean, I'm talking about guys like
Mark Carnot, George Ohm, people that, you know, basically Isaac Newton even, came up
with the laws of motion.
It would have been rare to find one of these people that was a God-hating atheist.
There's not a lot written on a lot of their religious views, because they didn't
speak a lot about it, a lot of them.
But they all acknowledge God.
They all acknowledge, I mean, one of my favorites is William Kelvin.
William Kelvin, who is one of the fathers of modern thermodynamics, I'm going to read
you a couple quotes from him.
I think he's the one that invented the second law of thermodynamics, which basically
says that disorder is always increasing, meaning entropy is always increasing.
So it's basically saying that everything is always heading towards room temperature.
Think about it that way.
You say, well, what about my body?
You're heading to room temperature right now, and if you don't eat, you will be
room temperature.
The funny thing about the second law of thermodynamics, it works in everything.
You go out and you park your car in a field.
Eventually that car will just be completely into disorder.
It'll turn to dust with enough time.
Unless you put energy into it, right, unless you eat food, put energy into your body
to keep your body at 98.6 degrees, you're heading to 72 degrees right now.
We're all dying.
I got a haircut a couple weeks ago, and it's depressing, it's all gray.
Let me give you a couple quotes from William Kelvin.
He says, I believe the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us
from anything comparable to atheism.
Another quote, do not be afraid of free thinkers.
If you think strongly enough, you will be forced by science to the belief in God.
Boy, is that different from what we see today.
One of my favorites, Michael Faraday.
I think Michael Faraday was actually saved, and that's not just because I'm an electrical
engineer.
He's the one that discovered, he didn't invent it, he just discovered the secret.
He discovered the perfection of electromagnetic induction.
If it wasn't for Michael Faraday, we'd all be sitting in the dark and no AC, nothing.
We'd probably all be room temperature.
He was asked, he was asked on his death bed or close to it, what do you think you
will be in the next life, Michael?
He said, I shall be with Christ, and that is enough.
Show me that in a scientist today.
Even Nikola Tesla, who is a little batty.
His father was an Orthodox pastor, and he's quoted as saying, my mother always taught
me to seek all truth in the Bible.
This is why we had the Industrial Revolution.
This is why, look, we're still living on it today.
Fear God equals progress.
That's what the Bible is saying.
Fear God equals, I will allow you to unlock secrets.
What do we have today?
Stephen Hawking.
Gone.
I get it.
Gone.
Richard Dawkins, Mickey Okaku, all born out of Einstein.
That's when it all went wrong, in my opinion.
Einstein said this, the word of God is for me nothing more than an expression and
product of human weakness.
He was godless.
So you say, you say, but look at all they have accomplished.
Can someone show me something?
Can someone show me the lawnmower that Stephen Hawking made more efficient?
It doesn't exist.
That's why all these scientists today, as a matter of fact, for the last 80, possibly
even 100 years, they're all theoretical physicists.
They hate the very idea of God.
You say, well, how are we still inventing things?
Well, thank God we still have engineers, technicians, and skilled tradesmen.
That's how we're still inventing things.
I'm serious.
There's been a couple times in my career where I have crossed paths with the scientific
community.
And every single time, most good engineers that I know are terrified of someone with
a PhD.
Because they come in and they start just talking about all kinds of weird stuff, and
we're just like, what in the world?
Can you go sit over there so we can build the bridge?
All this, I mean, it's out there.
Look, what's the most important invention in the last 100 years?
I'll tell you.
Any guesses?
Ooh, close back there.
The silicon transistor.
You win a prize, whoever said that.
The silicon transistor was invented by an engineer in 1954.
In an interview, George Thiel said this.
He was interviewed about, he worked for Texas Instruments, and he invented the first
silicon transistor.
You know how that's changed our lives?
In the 60s, they had computers before they had silicon transistors, and a computer that
was as simple as a child's calculator was as big as this church, with the vacuum
tubes and all the different big electromagnetic relays that they had to put in.
The interviewer says this to George Thiel.
We were religious, and what denomination?
He says, yes, we were Baptist.
This is towards the end of his career, and they asked him, do you have that devout
faith today?
His answer, yes.
Look, God allowed this man to unlock some serious parts of perfection.
There is a definite correlation.
I know I'm just throwing out some examples for you, but there is a definite correlation
between those that fear God and being successful in searching out perfection.
So that's the first one.
The good news, though, is you all have this one in the bag already.
You all fear the Lord.
Not only that, you're saved.
You're saved.
You fear the Lord.
You're like, all right, let's go to step two.
So step two, turn to Proverbs chapter 25.
Step two of searching out perfection is this.
Now, I'm going to put step two and three together, okay?
Step two and three together, turn to Proverbs chapter 25, Proverbs chapter 25, Proverbs
chapter 25, I don't know why I'm having you go to Proverbs chapter 25, just one second.
Just go there.
Look, the first one, the best example of the step two and step three are to search and
to pray, okay?
I put those two together because you're going to do them simultaneously in your life.
The Bible is a perfect example of this, but you can't ask God to unlock understanding
in the Bible, to unlock wisdom in the Bible to you by sleeping on it, by putting
it underneath your pillow when you sleep.
You must, as the Bereans did, you must search the Scriptures daily.
It's interesting, in Acts chapter 17, that it said they searched, so you have to be
searching is step number two, okay?
You have to be searching.
You can't just pray that God will help you understand the Bible and just not read
the Bible and then just not come to church and then just not do what God wants you
to do.
There's different levels of fearing the Lord, and like really fearing the Lord as
a saved person is doing what God wants you to do.
Look at Mark chapter 16.
That's where I meant to have you turn.
I'm sorry.
I got a mistake there.
My notes are not perfection.
Mark chapter 16, look at verse number 20.
See, the Lord works with us, and the Bible is very clear about that.
Look at Mark chapter 16 and verse number 20.
Can I get a cup of coffee, please?
Thank you.
The Lord works with us.
Look at Mark chapter 16 and verse number 20.
Mark chapter 16 and verse number 20.
So step two and step three is you need to search and you need to pray.
Why do I need to search, Pastor?
Look at verse number 20.
It says, and they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them.
Look, the Lord was working with them.
The Lord didn't just work with them while they sat at home.
They had to go and preach, and then the Lord worked for them.
This was Pastor Jimenez's sermon at the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
You have to step out and God meets you.
So look, you have to search.
You have to search.
This Christian life isn't a welfare state.
You have to go out and start searching for those things, and the Lord will work
with us.
This guy asked me a question at the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
He asked me a question about work specifically.
He asked me a question about work.
He said, how can I get better at my job?
Well, you go to your job.
You don't get better at your job by not showing up to your job.
You don't get better at your job by being late to your job without a belt on.
You don't get better at your job by being lazy, by not doing what you're told,
all these things.
So the first thing is you go there and you work hard.
You go there, you work hard, and you pray for creativity.
You pray for ideas.
These are prayers that will be answered.
Try it.
Ask God to allow you to discover some of the perfection.
But more specifically, this guy, and that's why I brought the little object lesson here,
there's no batteries there.
This is like me.
It runs off coffee.
This is literally an engine that runs off coffee.
So this guy, he was an HVAC technician, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
So what I wanted to tell him, what I'm going to tell him now, is in order to understand
more and do better at work, you need to learn.
You need to read.
You need to look at the big picture.
You need to not go and just install the duct work of whatever they tell you to install
every single day of every single week.
You need to go and figure out how the whole machine works.
You need to go and figure out, ask questions about how does the system work.
You need to go, and here's the important point and the reason I brought this little
engine here.
You need to go and you need to figure out what has been discovered before you.
You say, this thing is awesome.
It is awesome.
Sometimes I just watch it run.
It literally runs on hot water or coffee.
It's running on the temperature differential between this cup of coffee and whatever the
room is.
That's how it's running.
If you put it on ice, it will run the opposite way.
The first kid that can come up to me after the sermon and tell me what this engine is
called, you can keep it.
This is what the HVAC technician needs to do.
You say, this is awesome.
This was invented in 1816.
Every single heat engine that we have today uses this principle to run.
Your car, this air conditioning, your heater, your air conditioner in your car, air conditioners,
heat pumps, every single combustion engine uses this principle right here to run.
You need to learn those things.
You know what you're doing?
You're standing on the shoulders of people who have discovered before you.
You're standing on the shoulders of God-fearing people that don't reinvent the wheel.
You go and figure these things out and you look at these things and you're going to look
at the graphs, and you're going to look at the cycles, and you're going to look at
the names, and you're going to start looking at these things and watching videos
on it.
This is hard to understand.
Pray for God to help you understand.
But you need to push yourself to learn these things, HVAC technician.
This is how you advance and how you will get better at all this.
This is how you search out perfection.
There's no use going back and trying to figure out everything all by yourself.
People have figured out many things before us.
Don't just be an installer.
Learn about heat transfer.
Learn about thermodynamics.
Learn about all these things.
You have to be able to learn to read drawings before you can create drawings.
And when you create drawings, you own the company.
But people look at drawings and they're like, those are confusing.
That's hard.
I literally had many people tell me that.
I try to look at drawings.
It's hard.
It's confusing.
You're supposed to be confused.
It's not easy.
If it was easy, everybody would do it.
This is how you unlock things in your life.
But you don't have to start at square one because secrets have already been discovered.
We can stand on the shoulders of people that have already discovered the secrets of
God's perfection.
Learn those first.
This is another opinion, kind of like the dinosaurs.
I think that people before the flood probably weren't idiots.
I mean, they were foolish.
They didn't listen to God, and the society went all bad there.
But I think that they probably had some technology.
Because you think about yourself and your job.
You got, what, a 40-year career, 50 years if you really like to work?
I mean, Adam, Noah, Methuselah, Jared, these guys lived over 900 years.
I'm telling you, you give me 800 years, I'm going to figure some stuff out.
And what am I going to do?
I'm going to be able to teach my kids, kids, kids, kids, kids, kids, kids stuff.
Think about all the shoulder stepping you got.
This is why I'm a pretty big believer.
It makes perfect sense.
And we've definitely found things that show that.
But see that we're a bunch of cavemen, knuckle-dragging cavemen, that's evolution stuff.
That's where all that comes from, right?
Well, you could really perfect some skills with an 800-year career and then pass them
to the next generation, the next generation, the next generation.
So back to the question, don't just be an installer.
And then pray for God to help you understand.
This works in all matters of life.
Moms, moms, I just had a conversation with someone two weeks ago that I was talking to
that wasn't saved and was talking to me about how I found out I was a pastor and how terrible
the school system is and they had to pull their niece out because they're teaching
her that she can be whatever she wants and you know all the garbage that's going
on today.
They pulled her out and they put her in some Christian school but they can't afford
it and all this.
And I just said, why don't you homeschool?
Moms you have to understand and moms in this church, just try to remember back.
It is like they didn't even think about it.
It's just like the most intimidating thing you could possibly even say to somebody like
that.
Like, oh, we could never do that.
But here's the thing, some new first-time visitor could come in here, some new mom that
wants to homeschool could come in here and you know what, she's going to stand
on the shoulders of those that have figured things out before her.
She doesn't have to go and figure it all out herself.
That's the beauty of us.
She can go and she can.
It's so intimidating to people and I think there's a reason that I talk to that guy because
I forget that myself.
It's so intimidating, like I could just never do that, no way.
How does your wife do that?
Because you talk to others, you talk to other ladies, you talk to other moms, they've
discovered before you.
There's curriculums, there's plans, there's schedules, there's a method to the madness.
And moms you may think it is madness at times.
But look, ask moms at church.
There's others that have discovered and figured out many of the secrets before you.
You don't have to start at square one.
You're already here.
You're already here but you're like, you know what, sometimes I just don't think that
I have the patience for it.
Sometimes I don't think that, I think it's too big of a responsibility to be responsible
for the education of all these children, with all that there is to teach.
I don't think that I have the patience for it.
Pray for God to give you patience, and He will.
You think, I'm overwhelmed, look, as you're making these efforts, pray for the things
that you need.
And God will meet you there.
It works, guaranteed, try it.
I mean even for the kids, even for the kids struggling with certain subjects.
I still struggle with spelling.
I mean we play games at our church and we have like a game of the month fad that goes
through and Scrabble went through, and I'm losing to people that English is their
second language.
And I'm like, hey, this game's no good.
Math is hard.
Math is hard for everybody, kids.
It's not like, oh, some people are just really good at math and they just get it all
right away.
No, it's hard.
It's hard.
I mean, math, algebra, calculus, all that stuff is difficult.
It's very difficult.
You say, I just don't get certain subjects, we have to just keep trying and then pray
for understanding.
Kids it will work.
But you can't just stop, you can't just stop because God meets us there.
God meets us there, folks.
We're all working hard and making the effort.
Pray for understanding.
Now go to Proverbs chapter 25.
He goes, look, I got news for you, folks.
Go to Proverbs chapter 25.
Being confused, not understanding, not having the patience, feeling overwhelmed, that means
you're doing it.
It's when you're bored.
That's the problem.
When you're a little bit stressed, it means you're pushing yourself.
It's good.
That's right.
That's the way.
You should always be confused at work to a degree, but you should always be pushing
yourself.
It's when you start getting comfortable that you stop growing.
Always be pushing yourself and then pray for God to be helping you along the way
as you keep pushing yourself.
Look at Proverbs chapter 25.
This is what God wants us to do.
Look at Proverbs 25 verse number 2.
It says, it is the glory of God to conceal a thing.
Things are hidden.
You don't just become 30 and they just know everything.
Things are hidden.
God conceals a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.
You got to search and you got to keep searching.
Even when it's painful, you feel dumb.
I started out in the semiconductor design industry 20 years ago and I felt like an
idiot for at least the first three years.
I told my wife I'd go home from work and I'd say, I don't think I'm smart enough.
I'm not joking.
I can't figure some of this stuff out.
That's the way it's supposed to be.
Keep pushing.
Keep searching.
Ladies, same thing.
Keep driving that home school.
You have the responsibility of teaching the things of the shoulders they're going to stand
on.
Think about that.
But the better you can do at your job at searching out better ways to teach multiple
children the right things, the higher shoulders those kids will stand on and the better prepared
they will be as they go on in their adult lives.
You just need to search it out.
And guess what?
He wants those that fear him to do it.
That's what Proverbs 25 2 is saying.
God conceals things but he wants those that fear him to search it out because he's the
one who he's going to answer their prayers when they ask for understanding and they
ask for wisdom.
Same thing with the Bible.
You don't understand something in the Bible, you and the Holy Spirit sit down, read it,
search out the scriptures, ask your pastor, search out the answers and then pray for
understanding and it will work.
Guaranteed.
Turn to Genesis chapter 41.
Verse number four, or not verse number four, item number four on how to gain understanding
in your life.
So the first one is fear the Lord.
You've already got that.
You got that in your pocket already.
The second one and the third one is to search and to pray.
The fourth one is this, turn to Genesis chapter 41.
The fourth one is this, give all glory to God.
If you don't want to be a one shot wonder, you would already give all glory to God.
There's two men in the Bible that were super awesome at this.
Genesis chapter 41, look at verse number 15.
And I mean right away.
God gives you some successes, God helps you, God answers that prayer.
Don't be one of these people that really prays hard for something and then God grants
it and you're just like, awesome, I'm awesome and you just move on.
You give all glory to God.
Look at Joseph.
Look at Joseph in verse number 15.
Pharaoh, Pharaoh is looking for Joseph, he hears that there's this guy in the prison
that can interpret dreams and Pharaoh had this dream about the coming famine with the
ears of corn and the fat and skinny cows.
Look at verse number 15.
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I've dreamed a dream and there is none that can interpret
it and I have heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it.
Look at verse number 16.
So the king, the king comes to him and says, I heard that you can do this.
Can you do this?
Look at what Joseph answered Pharaoh and says, it's not in me.
God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.
Right away, glory to God, bam, right away, before he even does anything.
Turn to Daniel chapter 2.
Joseph did alright.
He was number 2 in the kingdom.
Daniel chapter 2.
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.
Nebuchadnezzar is either smart or maybe he was, he was kind of tricky about his dream.
He said to the magicians, he brought them in and he said, tell me the interpretation
of my dream but first tell me the dream.
And they're like, ahh, they're like, I thought we had this one.
You know, you're fortune tellers, right?
They're just going to like make something up and whatever and he's like, yeah, tell
me the dream first.
You know, he either forgot it or he was just being smart about it, right?
Look at verse number 16.
So they can't tell him the dream because who could ever do that, except God.
They can't tell him the dream and he says, I'm killing all the magicians, including
Daniel and all his buddies and Daniel's like, what in the world, man?
Look at verse number 16.
So Daniel hears that they're all going to be killed because of these, you know,
wicked magicians and Daniel went in and desired to the king that he would give him time.
Time what?
So he could search and pray.
Daniel does all four of these steps.
He needs time to search and pray.
He already fears the Lord.
We already saw that in Daniel chapter 1 and that he would show the king the interpretation.
Then Daniel went to his house and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah,
his companions that when they would desire, that they would desire the mercies of God
of heaven concerning this what?
This secret that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men
of Babylon.
They went to pray.
They went to pray and search amongst God for the answer here.
Then look at verse number 19.
Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision.
Then Daniel what?
Right away the same verse he blessed the God of heaven.
Daniel was awesome at this.
Daniel was so good at this that he was asked to interpret another dream in Daniel
chapter 5.
Look at verse number 16.
Then Daniel went in and desired the king that he would give him time and that he
would show the king the interpretation.
Let me turn there myself.
You show the king the interpretation and then Daniel went to his house and made the
thing known.
I just read that.
I'm sorry.
Go to verse number 27 and verse number 28.
Verse number 27 and verse number 28 when he goes in front of the king.
Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, the secret which the king had
demanded cannot the wise men and the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show
unto the king.
But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar
what shall be in the latter days.
Thy dream and the visions on thy head upon thy bed are these.
And then he interprets the dream of the statue.
But right away he goes and he searches and he prays and before he does anything he
goes into the king with the answer and he says there's a God in heaven that's
given this to you, not me.
He gives all glory to God.
And look, Daniel did that his whole life and he rose to the top of two kingdoms.
I mean think about this for a second.
They literally come in and destroy Babylon and they just like, they just wipe out
everybody and they're like, but we're going to keep that guy.
And not only are we going to keep that guy, we're going to put him in charge of everything.
I mean this is why Daniel is such a great example of these four steps.
He feared God.
He prayed for answers.
He was searching from God in this case but he gave all glory to God and he continued
to fear and walk with God.
So unless you want this to only work one time in your life, make sure that you're
giving all glory to God.
Don't get all puffed up when you start having some success in your life.
Don't get all puffed up when God actually blesses you by showing you some secrets
and unveiling some things to you and helps you understand the Bible and helps you understand
some things in your life and helps you get some things together.
He grants you understanding or the patience to learn or creativity at work or pulls your
writer's block from you or gives you understanding and patience to teach the kids
another day.
Give all glory to God.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 22.
Proverbs chapter 22, look at verse number 29.
The Bible says, See as thou a man diligent in his business.
He shall stand before kings.
He shall not stand before mean men.
That's what God did with Joseph and Daniel is he literally brought them before kings.
They stood before kings.
They were men of understanding and wisdom because they feared the Lord.
They searched and they prayed and they gave all glory to God.
Even when men praise you and tell you you are great, you give all glory to God.
You stay humble in your life and you know that it was the Lord.
It's the Lord's thing.
It's the Lord's perfection.
Who are we?
What we're trying to do is figure out what stone to turn over here folks and just asking
that God would grant us one or two of those stones to turn over that we're praying
for.
It has nothing to do with us.
We go out and we search and we stand on the right shoulders of other men that searched
that feared the Lord and this biblical direction will help you discover the perfection
of God.
It's his perfection though.
Don't ever forget that when we start figuring a couple things out.
Think of the infinite perfection that is in front of us in this world, not only in
the Bible.
You read the Bible your whole life.
You're never going to know all the depth of the knowledge in the Bible but you keep
searching and keep searching and keep searching and God will show you more and more and
more.
It's the only book you can just read again and again and again and you learn something
new every single time.
How do you know the Bible is true?
Because there's no other book like the Bible.
There's no other book like the Bible.
Here's a good, here's a good, well I have this machine.
I've used this machine to prove that the Bible is true.
The Bible proves that it's, the Bible proves itself true and people say well it's
circular reasoning.
It's not because what if I found a machine, it was out in the middle of the woods and
the machine had no batteries, no wires, it was just a, it was a perpetual motion
machine.
The machine was just a miracle in itself.
The fact that it existed and it worked with no energy input, there is no such machine,
but let's say I found a machine that was like that and then I looked underneath the
machine and it said, oh I just got my Bible wet, and I looked underneath the machine and
it said built by so and so in 1952.
Wouldn't I believe that?
Because the machine itself, the fact that it exists, proves its authenticity.
That's the Bible.
There's never been a book, there's never been a book written that applies to every
person that's ever lived on the planet.
There's never been a book like that.
That's written over periods of thousands of years by dozens of different authors and
there's not, it's perfect.
It couldn't have happened.
It's a miracle in itself.
Turn to Romans chapter 1.
The Bible is perfection.
Our perfection is already here with the Bible.
Look at Romans chapter 1 and look at verse number 20.
This perfection of this world that we're talking about, this scientific perfection
of the creation and this world that we live in as we're trying to discover these different
things in the world.
Everybody can see this.
Did you know that?
The Bible says that this is one of the reasons that nobody has an excuse.
Nobody has an excuse because we all look at the perfection.
So even the godless scientists today that, you know, you look at all these amazing
things that were invented by these God-fearing men 150, 200 years ago and then you got
all the godless, the god haters today looking for aliens, I mean, they see the same perfection
that we all do.
Yeah, what are they doing?
They're looking for aliens.
Why are they looking for aliens, by the way?
They're looking for aliens because if this whole thing exploded and created us, it's
mathematically impossible that we're the only ones.
They're not going to find aliens.
I could save them their whole career right there.
They're not there.
Read the Bible.
Look at Romans chapter 1 and verse number 20.
Romans chapter 1 and verse number 20.
For the invisible things of Him, this is what I'm talking about, the invisible things
of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.
We walk around and we see it every single day, being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.
You don't look up at the stars and be like, man, somebody must have made that.
That's what David said.
He's just like, I'm nothing as he looked up at the heavens.
You look up at the universe, even the creation, the water cycle, the wind, the storms, the
lightning, the thunder, whoever made that, we should probably seek out who they are.
That's what Romans chapter 1 and verse number 20 is saying.
It's working all around us.
Everybody gets rained on.
Everybody sees these wonderful things in nature.
All we are doing, we're just these insignificant specks that are just asking God to allow
us to discover a little bit of it.
That's my answer to this young man.
God and here's the thing, God wants to reveal the secrets to us.
Don't leave this one on the table.
It's totally awesome.
Follow these four steps in your life.
Seek things out in your life.
Study the scriptures.
Seek out things at work.
Try to read up on what these little heat things are and why does this engine work
that way and what is it and what's it called, kids?
What's it called?
But search these things out because that's what God wants us to do because he conceals
things but he wants to reveal them not just to anybody, to us.
It's super good news tonight.
It's a huge blessing that I'm bringing to you tonight.
Put this to use in your life.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for the opportunity to be here.
I thank you for the opportunity to just read and search the Bible, Lord.
I thank you for the infinite wisdom of the Bible.
I pray that you give us all understanding, Lord, of the Bible.
I pray that you just help us to just study your perfect word every single day and just
help us to understand it.
Work with us and the Holy Spirit and just help us to understand your word, Lord.
We love you.
We thank you for the opportunity to be part of a church like this where we can stand
on each other's shoulders.
We can stand on the understanding that dads and moms and pastors have for us here, Lord.
Just help us to use these tools that you've given us.
Lord, we love you and we thank you for all the blessings you've given us.
In Jesus' name, amen.