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Man, Exodus chapter 34, the Bible reads in verse number 1, And the Lord said unto Moses, Hue thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest, and be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. So remember, Moses had gone up into the mount and received the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments. He was up there for forty days and forty nights, and when he came down and he found them worshipping the golden calf, he ended up in anger, basically throwing down the stone tablets and breaking them. So God had written with his own finger the Ten Commandments on these tablets, and Moses just shattered them. Okay, so God tells him, Hue out two more tables and then we'll make another one. And one of the things I want to point out here is that a lot of people make a big deal about the fact that we don't have the originals of the scripture. You know, they'll say, we don't have the autographs. That's the term that they use to refer to basically, like, exactly what the biblical authors pinned down, like, the physical paper and pen that John used to write, say, the epistle of 1 John or 2 John. But that's not important because God has promised to preserve his word, okay? The Bible says, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. And the Bible over and over again teaches that God's word will be preserved in all generations and that the words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. And so we see here that if the original gets lost, that's no problem for God because God is able to preserve his word and make sure that his word stays around by just writing another copy. And throughout history, the Bible has been copied over and over again. And what we have is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, but we take it on faith that God has preserved it down to us today. The God who is able to inspire his word is able to preserve his word. And anybody who actually believes in the inspiration of scripture, but then they don't believe in the preservation of scripture, that makes absolutely no sense. What would be the point of God going through all the trouble to give us his word just so that it could disappear? Or, well, we kind of have a rough copy of it or we have the gist of it. Look, if what we have isn't preserved, then why would God even bother to inspire it in the first place and go through all the trouble of having all these authors write the word of God just for it to disappear or be gone for centuries? No, God has promised to preserve his word. And believing in inspiration without preservation is worthless. And there are people literally today that will, this is their statement of faith literally today. We believe that the Bible is perfect. It has no error when it was originally written. But then whenever you point out something to them today, they'll say, well, that's an error that we have now. Or if someone tries to point out a supposed contradiction, they'll say, well, that's an error. Well, I thought you said the Bible's inerrant. Well, in its original autograph. What good is it if there's some imaginary document or some hypothetical document thousands of years ago had the perfect word of God? That doesn't do us any good in 2020, does it? What does us good today is that heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. It's easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one jot or one tittle to pass from the law till all be fulfilled. That's how we know that the book of Exodus that we have today is exactly what God gave. And what God said to Moses is faithfully recorded here because not one jot or one tittle has passed from the law. That's what Christ promised. And if you believe in Christ, then you have to believe his promise there. So it says in verse number two, be ready in the morning, come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai and present thyself to me in the top of the Mount. And no man should come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the Mount, neither let the flocks nor herds feed before the Mount. And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning and went up into Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him. Now remember, this is what God said he would do at the end of chapter 33. At the end of chapter 33, Moses wanted to see God's glory. And he said, you can't see my face because if you see my face, you'll die. No man shall see my face and live. But I'm gonna put you in the cleft of a rock. I'm gonna cover you with my hand and I'm gonna pass by you. And then I'm gonna remove my hand and then you will see my back parts, but my face should not be seen. So this is where that's actually going to happen now. He's actually going to pass by him and do that. So it says that verse six, the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed. And so he's gonna proclaim his name. Said he proclaimed the name of the Lord. So this is him showing his glory to Moses. He passes by, he removes his hand, he proclaims his name. And he gives this as his name. He says, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children under the third and the fourth generation. So it's interesting that God tags on the sentences to his name. And this is him showing Moses his glory. So what we can learn from this is that God is glorified on the one hand by his mercy, by his compassion and by his forgiveness. And on the other hand, God is glorified by his inflexibility. The fact that he will by no means clear the guilty. So his justice on one side, his judgment, his punishments, those are his glory on one side. And then on the other side, his glory is his mercy, his compassion and his forgiveness. So we don't wanna rob God of part of his glory by teaching about a positive only God and giving this wrong view of God, just only the compassionate side. What about the side that will by no means clear the guilty? What about the side that will visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children under the third and fourth generation? So we need to understand both sides of God. If we wanna glorify God, we need to glorify him for both reasons, both for his goodness and his compassion, which there's no question about how merciful and long suffering is. But we also know that if you push God too far, or if you get on the wrong side of God, then you're gonna be on the receiving end of his wrath. And that's something that we don't wanna downplay or forget about. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped in verse eight. Verse nine, and he said, if now I have found grace in thy sight, oh Lord, let my Lord I pray thee go among us, for it is a stiff necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for thine inheritance. God answers him in verse 10 and he said, behold, I make a covenant before all thy people, I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord. For it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee. And of course the word terrible here means terrifying. It's a fearful thing. It's an awe inspiring thing. It's a dreadful thing that I'm going to do. When he says it's a terrible thing, he's not saying it's something, I'm going to do something bad. He's basically just saying, I'm going to do something terrific. He's going to do something that everyone agrees it's going to be terrific. But anyway, in the words of Donald Trump, but anyway, he's going to do something terrible, meaning it invokes terror. When people hear about it, they're going to be blown away by it and it's going to make them fear God. Observe thou that which I command thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, whether thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee. So what I want you to see here is that God is reiterating or bringing up again his covenant that he's making with them. And this covenant is a two-sided deal. God's saying, look, this is my part. This is what I'm going to do. And then you have a part that you're going to do. So the part that he's going to do is he's going to do these marvels that have never been seen since the world began. He's going to do these amazing miracles and he's going to drive out the Canaanites before them so that they can inherit the promised land. But their job is to observe what I command you this day. Right, in verse 11. Observe thou that which I command thee this day. And also in verse 12, don't make any covenant with the people in the land. Right, so he doesn't want them to sort of have a dual citizenship. He doesn't want them to make a covenant with Jehovah God and then also make a covenant with these other. He's saying, no, no, no. If you're going to serve me, you have to serve me alone. I am a jealous God. And he said, my name is jealous. So you cannot play both sides here and worship other gods and me. That's the first commandment in the 10 commandments. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. There's only one God that you're going to worship and that's me and don't worship any of these other false gods of the land. And so this covenant is not a one-sided deal of just, man, I just love you guys so much. I'm just going to give you everything. No, it's a deal that's a two-way street here. You have to obey the commandments and then you'll see the miracles and then I'll bring you into the promised land. And you know, if we look at this spiritually in our lives, how are we going to enter the promised land spiritually in our lives? If you want to think about this as symbolic, the promised land represents the victorious Christian life. You know, we all want to live in the promised land. We don't want to be disobedient Christians that are sort of wandering in the wilderness spiritually, right? There are a lot of people that are saved, but they don't have the blessings of God in their life and they're kind of wandering in the wilderness, okay? And then there are people who are serving God, they love God and they're being blessed by God and they're living the victorious Christian life. That's where we want to be. We want to be in the promised land, okay? We want to see the miracles in our life, right? We want God to do great things and you know, we want to see powerful works be done. We want to see miracles happen in our lives. Well, if we're going to do that, then we have to obey God. You can't live a life that's just disobedient to God's word, disobeying His commandments and then be surprised when you're not in the promised land in your life and then be surprised when you're not seeing anything great happen. You know, a lot of churches are totally dead today. They're not seeing great works being done. They're not seeing the excitement of people being saved, people being baptized, lives being changed. They don't have a great missions program or a great soul winning program and it's because they're in disobedience to God. You know, if you have a church that's just dead and nothing's happened and no one's being saved, it's because the church is in disobedience to God. If we obey the Lord, He'll show us the miracles. You know, if we obey the Lord, we're going to see great things happen. And so, you know, it's not a questionable thing of, well, you know, we're going to go out soul winning and we're going to have church and just hope that God does something. Maybe God will send revival. Let's all pray and maybe it'll happen and maybe it won't. Folks, it's a guarantee because the Bible says, he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. So there's no such thing as going out and doing a bunch of soul winning and having no results. That doesn't exist because he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. I've heard a preacher say that if people aren't being saved, then either one of two things is happening. Either the gospel is not being preached or the gospel has lost its power and the gospel will never lose its power. And so if people aren't being saved, the gospel is not being preached. If a church is dead and nothing's happening and it's a total failure, then there's some kind of disobedience to God that's happening, okay? Either the church members are disobedient to God or the leadership's disobedient to God. If we obey God, God's going to bless. The path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience. And in our personal lives, if we want to have victory in our lives, if we want to see great things happen in our lives, we need to obey the Bible. We need to obey God. This is a two-way street with God, okay? Now, when it comes to salvation, it's a one-way street. It's just Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. It's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and I shall be saved. That's why it's called a free gift in Romans 5, okay? The free gift of justification and delight through believing on Christ, that's a free gift. But when it comes to the blessings and the miracles and defeating our enemies and going into the promised land, that's a two-way street. That requires obedience. That requires keeping God's commandments. He says, don't make a covenant with the inhabitants, verse 12, of the land whither thou goest, lest it be a snare in the midst of thee. What's a snare? A snare is a trap, okay? A snare is a trap like you would use to catch an animal. You'd set a trap and then you catch that animal. That's what a snare is, okay? And he's saying, if you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, it's a trap. Don't try to make an agreement with the devil or the devil's crowd because it's going to ensnare you. On the other hand, verse 13, you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. For thou shalt worship no other God for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. He's saying, I'm so jealous, my name is jealous, okay? Now, a lot of people think that jealousy is a wrong emotion or a wrong feeling to have. But actually, we have two different words in English to help differentiate these two different meanings where we can differentiate between jealousy and envy. So according to their biblical usages, envy is when you look at something that someone else has or someone else is achieving or blessings of that, and you wish that that was you instead or you begrudge them for that. And I, in fact, just did a whole sermon on envy. Jealousy, on the other hand, is when you are possessive of that which is rightfully yours, okay? A lot of people will use these interchangeably and our modern vernacular will say, oh, you're just jealous. What we really mean, though, is you're envious, you know? Oh, you're just jealous. That's a different thing. So when we talk about a jealous husband, what does it mean to be a jealous husband? A jealous husband is one who doesn't want to share his wife with other men. A jealous wife is one who doesn't want to share her husband with other women. And this is actually a right feeling to have. This is actually, now, can it go overboard? Of course. Any good thing can typically be taken overboard and you'll have these sort of psycho jealous wives that basically just, you know, their husband can't even leave the house without them just panicking and worried. He's looking at other women, you know, and just going overboard, being paranoid, being overly jealous, or vice versa, men who are just overly jealous about their wife. So this can be taken overboard, but in general, this is a healthy, normal part of being married. There should be some jealousy in our relationship because if you're a husband who says, well, I'm not jealous at all of my wife. I don't care who she hangs around. I don't care what she does. She can go out to lunch with other men and she can hang on the phone with other men and take trips with other men. And I'm just really open minded about, I would just look at that and say, you don't love your wife. Because you don't even care. You probably just don't even love your wife or you're probably off doing whatever. And so in your heart, you're saying, well, I better give her the leeway because I know I'm going to be out doing these things with other women. That's a bad sign, that's not normal. It's normal for a husband to have boundaries for his wife and say, hey, no, you're not going out to lunch with that old friend because you guys can really just talk or whatever. Okay, now look, I think before you get married, it's good to have a lot of friends of both genders. I think it's good before you're married to interact with a lot of people of the opposite gender and not to just necessarily marry the first girl who comes along. It's good to have friends and church is a good place where you can get together with other young people to say you're a teenager, you're a young adult and spend time fellowshipping with young men and women and you've got friends and you've got both. But here's the thing about that, when you get married though, it's time to start distancing yourself from those female friends that you had when you were single, okay? Or if you're a woman, it's time to start distancing yourself from those male friends that you had when you were single because you're not looking anymore, right? You're not shopping anymore. You've already decided who you're gonna marry and so there's really no need for you to have female friends as a man. Guess what, you have a female friend, your wife. That's your female friend. Your other friends should be men. Now it doesn't mean that you can't be polite or spend time chit-chatting with other women. Obviously as a married man, you can chit-chat with other women, you can talk and fellowship, whatever. But you don't wanna be having these deep friendships and you definitely don't wanna be alone together. You don't wanna be traveling together. You don't wanna be just making lunch dates together and hanging on the phone together. That's inappropriate. And if your husband doesn't like you hanging on the phone with other, he's right, listen to him and do what he says. And here's the thing, vice versa, as a man, it's normal for your wife to raise an eyebrow if you're getting buddy-buddy with some other woman. It's normal for her to feel threatened by that and she's not the one that's in the wrong you are because jealousy is an attribute of God. And so as creatures in God's image, we are wired to be somewhat jealous ourselves and jealousy is appropriate in marriage because the Bible says that we belong to each other. So that's totally normal for me to say, hey, you're my wife and so I want your attention pointed this way and not you giving attention to a bunch of other men and vice versa. She doesn't want me giving attention to a bunch of other women. She wants me, she wants to be the woman in my life that provides companionship, okay? So you need to be careful not to buy into the world's philosophies on this. Because I remember I was at the hospital for some reason. They have all these pamphlets and you're waiting for hours so you pretty much read every possible pamphlet. So you're sitting there and you're reading these pamphlets and they're like, you're in an abusive relationship if your husband tells you that you can't have certain friends or if it, it's listing all these. And some of the things that they were listing were obviously bad things. He's actually doing wrong unto you. But, and some of them were extreme. But then it was listing a lot of just normal things. Like, you know, he doesn't want you to have male friends or he doesn't want you to be, it's like what? That's marriage, that's normal. You know, I told my wife, I'm like, well, you're in an abusive relationship, I guess, you know? Turns out we've been abusing each other for years, you know? Who knew? Here we were just happily married. And it turns out, you know, we're both victims. But, you know, so don't buy into the world's philosophy. You know, we need to get our philosophy from the Bible. Okay? And so don't just demonize jealousy. Like, oh, you're jealous. Oh no, not me, I'm not a jealous husband. It's like, well, yeah, you better know I'm a jealous husband because I actually love and care about my wife and I'm faithful to her, so I expect her to be faithful to me and when there's no expectation of faithfulness, it's probably from an unfaithful person themselves. So they're like, well, I'm not gonna expect her to be faithful because, you know. That's a bad sign. So we need to have a healthy level of jealousy in our lives. Verse 15, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they go whoring after their gods and do sacrifice unto their gods and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice. So he's saying, look, they're gonna go whoring after these false gods because that's what he didn't do. But the problem is then they're gonna invite you. They're gonna call you to go with them or he says, or and he says, thou take of their daughters unto thy sons and their daughters go a whoring after their gods and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. Thou shalt not make thee or thou shalt make thee no molten gods. So the Bible is saying here, you know, we should not intermarry with the heathen. Now, a lot of people will try to use this to teach like a white supremacism or some kind of a doctrine against interracial marriage by saying, you know, God said that they can't marry of the nations around them but that's not what the Bible is teaching. Clearly the Bible is teaching them not to marry outside the religion. He's saying, don't marry these heathen because you're gonna go whoring after their gods. Now here's the thing, being a member of the nation of Israel was not necessarily ethnic anyway because of the fact that anyone who wanted to could join the nation of Israel throughout history. All they have to do is be circumcised and keep the Passover and they join the nation. And we see even famous Israelites doing that throughout history, like Caleb, for example, was one that his family had done that, they had joined. And then we see in the book of Esther that many people became Jews, the Bible says. So this has nothing to do with race here. And a lot of people will try to teach this but even just look at the family tree of Israel, how impure the family tree is. I mean, right away in the very beginning, you know, with the 12 tribes of Israel, you got Judah marrying a Canaanite woman and then you've got Joseph marrying an Egyptian woman, right? So all those tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh and Judah, they're half Israelite, they're half Egyptian, half Canaanite, there's all kinds of mingling that went on. What had to do with is the religion. What we should take from this is what the Bible says in the New Testament, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Okay, we need to be married and equally yoked with someone who is saved. And look, if someone is not saved, you should not even date them. Don't even start getting attached to them and developing a relationship with them. And if you think, oh, well, I'm gonna get him saved after we're married, dream on. If you're not gonna get him saved before you're married, you're very unlikely to get him saved after you're married. You better get that person saved before you're married, get them saved before you even start dating and getting serious with somebody, you better make sure that that person's saved. This is the number one most important attribute in who you marry is that they're saved. I mean, if they're not saved, you're making a big mistake. You say, well, I think it could work. I mean, I'm saved, but they're not, but they respect my religion and I'm kinda doing my own thing. You know what, that tells me that your religion's a really small part of your life. If you're like, well, I don't have to share that with my spouse, that just tells me you don't care much about your Christianity. What a shame, because it should be like, well, what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? It should be like, well, how much am I gonna have in common with an unsaved person? Because I'm different than this world. If you can just click that well with unsaved people, what does that say about your Christianity? Now, look, if you're already in that situation, obviously, yeah, you gotta make the best of that, and if you're married to an unbeliever, then make the best of it and try the best you can to click with that person and pray for them and do good unto them and be the best spouse you can, and maybe they'll never get saved, but you're married to that person, so it's till death do us part. But if you haven't made that mistake, don't make that mistake. Some people are living with that, but you don't wanna go there. Think about all the things that young people don't consider when they marry an unbeliever. Like the fact that when you raise your kids, that Catholic that you're marrying is gonna wanna sprinkle your baby and take it to the voodoo hocus pocus Catholic church to do a bunch of rituals on it, okay? Or what about the fact that maybe your nice unsaved spouse could someday down the road become a reprobate? Because guess what? Unsaved people have the potential to become a reprobate. They have the potential to go down a dark path and hate God. Here's the great thing about saved people. Saved people will never be a reprobate. Saved people are never fatally flawed or doomed. With saved people, there's always hope that they could get right with God. Even the most backslidden Christian, if they're still breathing air, there's hope that they could come back to the fold and get right with God and turn their life around. But the unsaved person, yeah, maybe they'll get saved down the road. Maybe they'll just stay an average unsaved person. Or what if 20 years from now, they become a reprobate? I've known people where they were married to somebody for 20 years, 30 years, and that person was totally normal. And then that person got to be 50, 60 years old. And then all of a sudden, just went down a God-hating reprobate path. And then they came out as a sodomite. They're like, I'm a sodomite now at age 55 or 60 years. It's like, whoa, how do you know that's not gonna happen? You know, time, a lot of things can happen over the course of 10 years, 20 years. You better make sure that the person that you're married to at least has the Holy Spirit inside them. So at least that way you know that you've always got that common bond right there, that common ground. And you know they're never gonna go too far down a dark path because God's gonna be chastening them and God's gonna be working in their heart. And he that has begun a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So God's gonna continue to be working on them. And they're always gonna be saved. We know that you can never lose your salvation. So this is the number one thing. And you are a fool if you just knowingly, as a saved person, marry an unsaved person, you're a fool. I mean, it's nonsense. It's one of the worst mistakes that you could make in your life. And you, yeah, you say, well, I know somebody and it worked out for them. Well, you know what? I wouldn't wanna roll the dice on that. Yeah, every once in a while it works out. Well, a lot of times it doesn't work out and it's not worth gambling with that. So make sure that you marry someone who is saved, okay? And don't make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to go whoring after their gods. You know, we wanna try to get along in this world, don't we? And you know, the Bible teaches that we should get along. The Bible tells us to obey every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. The Bible says, as much as dwelleth in you, seek to live peaceably with all men, doesn't it? He tells us, try to get along. You know, unto the barbarians I became as barbarian, unto the Greeks I became as Greek. You know, I've become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. So we should try to fit in in America and fit in, follow the customs, follow the culture, and when in Rome, do as the Romans do. The Bible does teach us to be in this world, not of the world, but to be in this world and to get along and try to get along and be peaceful. But you know what? There are certain lines that we should not cross. So when it comes to fitting in, becoming all things to all men, living peaceably with all men, that does not mean paying homage to their false gods. That does not mean crossing the line of disobeying the Bible. You know, Paul said, you know, unto those that were without law, I became as one without law. But then in parentheses it says, but not without law before Christ. So he always kept the commandments of Christ as paramount. Okay, so here's the thing. Look, I wanna get along with unsaved people. I wanna get along with unbelievers at my job or in my neighborhood or just wherever I go through life and deal with people. But you know what? When they invite me to some false god or some false religion, I'm not gonna go. You know, if it's something, and I'm not saying, you know, if it's just a church that's a little liberal or something. You know, I can see going to something like that if it's not something blasphemous. But I'm saying, you know, I'm not gonna sit there and go to some Buddhist thing. I'm not gonna go to some Hindu ritual. If we're gonna be worshiping false gods, count me out. If we're gonna be bowing down to idols or something, count me out. You know, I'm not gonna attend Catholic mass for any reason. I'm not gonna attend Catholic mass for any reason. It's too pagan. It's idolatrous. I don't want anything to do with it. And so we need to draw the line and say, okay, yeah, we wanna get along, wanna make people happy, but there are certain lines that we shouldn't cross and we should stay away from. And you know, look, going out and, hey, I'm gonna go out and drink with these people because, you know, that way I can reach them. You know, no. You say, well, I'm gonna go to the bar and I'm just gonna drink a soda and be a designated driver. You shouldn't even be in that bar, okay? The Bible says be not among wine bibbers. That's what the Bible actually says. It says be not among wine bibbers. Is that in the Bible? Yeah, that's in the book of Proverbs. That's what he tells us not to do. People will take these verses about Jesus being around publicans and sinners and they'll try to twist these to make it out that Jesus was going to bars and doing all this stuff. Folks, that is blasphemous. I mean, I remember when the Orlando shooting happened and, you know, me and my friends were preaching hard against that queer bar establishment and we weren't sitting there and having pity for these wicked people, these horrible, God-hating sodomites. And I remember Infowars had a guy on there. It wasn't Alex Jones, but it was one of the workers there. He had a program where he was just roasting me for my statements and the things that I said. And this guy's claiming to be a Christian. And here's what he said. He said, Jesus would have been at that gay bar. I kid you not, that's verbatim what he said. Jesus would have been at that gay bar. And I've heard people say, hey, Jesus hung around with the drunks and everything. Really? Can you show me chapter and verse on that? You know, you hear these statements over and over again, but actually have fun looking that up in the Bible and actually finding that. Have fun trying to find the verse where Jesus was hanging around with drunks and all that. No, that is not what the Bible, that's a myth. And you hear certain things over and over again. You just, well, yeah, I mean, Jesus. No, no. The Bible says be not among winebibbers, okay? Jesus Christ, you know what the Bible says about Jesus Christ? It says that this man receiveth sinners. He receiveth sinners. He ate with the publicans and the harlots, okay? So here's what he's doing. He's sitting down and eating with them and preaching to them and witnessing to them and giving them the gospel. He's not going to their drunken party. That's just foolish and it's not in scripture. You can't even find anything close to that. There's no mention of him being around drunk people. It does not exist in scripture, okay? You want that wedding, wrong. That wedding was not a drunken party or Jesus wouldn't have been there. That's why if you actually have a King James Bible, the right Bible, it says that they had well drunk. It doesn't say they were drunk. See, that's a different thing. Drink, drank, drunk, okay? This is the past participle of drink. This is not saying they were drunken because if they were drunken, then why would Jesus make more booze to give to them? Even the stewardess on the airplane knows to cut somebody off after a while. So you're telling me Jesus is basically like a delinquent flight attendant who just keeps giving booze to somebody who's already drunk? Folks, that's a dumb doctrine. It's crazy, but you know what? The things that people go through to justify their sin, you know, they'll jump through all these mental hoops to try to justify their sin. Like as if Jesus and his mom, you know, Jesus and his mom are just at some drunk party. Hey, somebody needs to make a booze run, man. Oh, Jesus, and he's like, woman, my hour has not yet come. You know, well, whatever he says unto you, do it. All right, let's make booze. Folks, that's blasphemous and stupid, okay? They're drinking fruit juice, okay? They're drinking soft drinks, okay? You say, whoa, they drink soft drinks. Well, you know what? I've been to about, let's see, I've performed 40 weddings, approximately. I've probably attended about 70 weddings in my life and asked me how many of them serve booze. Probably I could count on one hand the weddings that I've attended where any booze was even served. So I've been to like about 65 weddings that had no alcohol whatsoever. And you're not gonna believe this, but everybody was happy and had a good time. And when the punch ran out, you wanted more. And you had to run to the store and get more sometimes. And I've been at weddings where we had to run to the store and get some more. It wasn't like just for sure a booze run, folks. That's ridiculous. And you're not, why would the Bible tell us don't be around wine bibbers? And then Jesus is just hitting the bar scene. He's just doing a pub crawl for the gospel. That never happened, okay? And so be careful. Here's the lesson. Be careful not to just, when you hear people say things, just assume that it's actually biblical. Prove all things. You gotta check everything in the Bible. Because a lot of times, well, what's the G? I mean, Jesus did this, that. It's like, you gotta always ask for chapter and verse. Because when you look it up, it ain't there, okay? So be careful with just people telling you things about the Bible that you haven't actually verified in the Bible with your own eyes. So you don't wanna go to their sacrifices unto false gods. One of them might call you and invite you to that sacrifice. You know what you say? No thanks, I'm not going, right? We should not attend these things. We should not eat meat sacrificed unto idols. And this is not a big thing in the United States of America. But of course, in other countries like, say, India, this could be an issue where there's meats that are offered and sacrificed unto idols. We should not partake of that. The Bible's clear on that subject. That's another sermon. But verse 18, the feast of unleavened bread, shalt thou keep, of course, also known as the Passover. Seven days, shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee in the month, in the time of the month Abib, which is the first month. For in the month Abib, they came, thou camest out from Egypt. All that openeth the matrix is mine. The matrix is another word for the womb. The Spanish word matrice is basically the same word here, if you speak Spanish. It's mine whether it's cattle, ox, or sheep that is male. Verse 20, but the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy son shalt thou redeem and none shall appear before me empty. So even in these kind of passages that are going through these ceremonial laws, talking about sacrifices and things that have to do with the Old Testament that we don't observe in the New Testament, there are still pictures of Jesus Christ. Because when the Bible says the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb, you're the ass, OK? And Jesus is the lamb. And so you've got to be redeemed. And if you're not redeemed, then you get your neck broke. That's a picture of you die and go to hell, OK? So the ass represents man. He gets redeemed by the lamb, or he gets his neck broke, meaning he dies and goes to hell. So even just in something so menial, there's a little picture of the gospel there. And every page of the Bible is pointing us to Jesus, right? Verse 21, six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest. In erring time and in harvest thou shalt rest. What he's talking about there with the erring time and harvest, boy, this is a time when you really got to work hard. I mean, these are times when the clock is ticking and the storms are coming or the weather is changing. We've got to bring in this harvest. It's all hands on deck. We've got to work double shifts. But you know what? You've still got to rest on the Sabbath, is what he's saying here. So it doesn't matter whether it's erring time or harvest, busy, you rest. Of course, that's Old Testament. Verse 22, thou shalt observe the feast of weeks of the firstfruits of wheat harvest and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee and enlarge thy borders. So here's what he's saying. Right now, you're all concentrated together, because they're in the wilderness. They're all camped together. But he's saying, when you get into the promised land, I'm going to drive out these nations, and I'm going to enlarge your borders, so you're going to get all spread out. So basically, three times a year, you're all going to come together. Three times a year, all the males have to be at this thing. You've got to come for these three holidays, even if you're in the outskirts of Israel. You've got to be there, three times a year. And he said, don't appear empty. Don't show up without bringing an offering. That's when you bring your offerings unto the Lord. You show up three times a year. So the New Testament, we're a little more strict. We do three times a week, amen? But you don't have to go as far, because it's your local church. But anyway, I'm kidding. But the Bible does not command us to go to church three times a week. The Bible does command us to go to church. The Bible does command us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. We see the apostles meeting on the first day of the week, as is their custom. They're breaking bread. They're meeting on the first day of the week, and so forth. So we follow that example, and so much the more as we see the day approaching. So having church three times a week is not commanded in scripture. It is our tradition to have church three times a week. So a lot of people say, well, I'm just going to go to church once a week. And you know what? They're not forsaking the assembly if they do that. But I don't know about you. I want to go to church more, not less. And the Bible says that we should not forsake the assembly so much the more as we see the day approaching. And so the Sunday night service and the Wednesday night service, yeah, you could say, well, it's not commanded by God. But I will say this. I want my family to be under three times as much preaching. I want to be under three times as much preaching. I want to come to church three times a week. And so churches that only have church once a week, I don't think it's enough. We live in a sinful world. There are all kinds of bad influences coming at us constantly. And the midweek service is a reboot that we need in the middle of the week to get us back worshipping God, thinking about the things of God, and keeping us on track because sometimes a week can feel like a pretty long time. And especially for our children, they need the teaching. Three hours of teaching a week, three hours of preaching is better than one hour of preaching a week. So that's why we go to church three times a week. So he says here in verse 25, thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left in the morning. The first of the first fruits of thy land shalt thou bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk. So the Bible, a lot of times, especially in the book of Exodus, sometimes he'll just start just kind of hitting him with a bunch of commandments. They almost seem unrelated, right? It's just like he gives him a command about the Sabbath, he's talking about the feast days, he talks about the Passover, and he hits these different things. So here we have the three feasts laid out, and we're going to get more detail on that in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But then he gives kind of just these three seemingly random commandments. He starts out with a commandment about the Passover. Don't do it with leaven, and don't leave it till the morning. And then the second one is, the first of the first fruits of thy land, thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God. And then this last one tagged on is, thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk. Now this commandment, thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk, is repeated three times. We already saw it earlier in Exodus. I believe it's chapter 23, but it's somewhere in Exodus. And then it's going to come up again in Deuteronomy, maybe chapter 14, I believe, with the dietary stuff. And it's just in a different context in Deuteronomy. He's just listing a bunch of dietary things. And then he says, don't see the kid in his mother's milk. Now what does this mean, don't see the kid in his mother's milk? To seethe is to boil. If we just literally read what this is saying, and just take the literal meaning, he's saying, don't, if you're going to eat a kid, kid is a goat. We're not talking about children, OK? A kid is a baby goat. So he's saying, you don't boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. Now you say, why do we need a commandment like this? What does this mean? Well, let me explain something to you. If there's a commandment against something in the Bible, it means that someone's doing it. God's not commanding things that aren't happening. You know, you'll read all those wild commandments in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, but then at the end of the chapter, he said, the inhabitants of the land have done all these things. So any time God gives a commandment, it's because somebody is doing it. So to us, you know, this might seem like an unnecessary commandment, because we weren't going to see the kid in his mother's milk anyway, were we? We weren't going to be boiling goat flesh in goat's milk. We would never dream of such a thing. But obviously, this was something that was going on at the time. For whatever reason, this is obviously something that people did back then, or it wouldn't be commanded against. And you say, well, why doesn't God want them to do that? Obviously, a lot of people could have different opinions about this, because this is not something that's super clear. But in my opinion, this would be put in the category with other commandments that God gives, where he's sort of prohibiting different types of cruelty to animals, OK? Don't muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn. Or, you know, when you come upon the robin's eggs in the nest, and you take the eggs, but you leave the nest alone. So there are these different commandments that talk about how to treat animals or how to deal with them. So in my opinion, it probably has something to do with just the cruelty of seething a kid in his own mother's milk. I mean, that's my opinion. But the bottom line is, what's being said here is not hard to understand. So sometimes when we're reading the Bible, we may not understand all the whys and wherefores and where these things are coming from. But usually, it's pretty clear to just not do what he said not to do, right? So hey, if God says, don't see the kid in his mother's milk, then just don't do it. And this is a really easy one to obey. Now, here's the thing about that, though. The Jews have taken God's commandments, and they've taken them to ridiculous extremes, OK? And they were already doing this a little bit in Jesus' day. And Jesus rebukes them. He's like, you know, you have all this washing of pots and cups and stuff that's not even commanded in scripture, and this hand washing that's not prescribed in scripture. So he lists different things that the Pharisees have added to scripture. And they're teaching for commandments the doctrines of men. So instead of just teaching what the Bible says, they add other commandments that are not in the Bible. Now, let me explain to you what the Jews do with this commandment, because it's pretty wild what they do with it, OK? The Jews take this commandment, thou shalt not see a kid in his mother's milk. Pretty easy to understand. And they say, well, it's not just a kid. It's any animal. And so you're like, OK, you know, don't see the baby cow or a baby sheep or a baby rat. You're kind of like, OK, yeah, because that makes sense, because it's like the principle's there. If you're not going to see the kid in his mother's milk, don't see the other animals in their mother's milk, either is a pretty natural, logical. Obviously, when we read the Bible, we take the letter of the law, and we also take the spirit of the law, right? So the spirit of the law would be not to see the other animals in their mother's milk either, right? I mean, isn't that pretty easy to make that jump? Then they make another jump. And they say, well, we shouldn't even eat any kind of meat and cheese together ever at any time. No meat and dairy shall ever be mixed. So no lasagna, no cheeseburger, none of this is kosher. So a lot of people, they think that kosher means, a lot of people think kosher just means like, oh, you don't eat pork. Like we think, oh, we can just go Chipotle. And just as long as we're doing barbacoa and whatever, we're in compliance. Oh, think again. These people that eat kosher, the rules are ridiculous. So let me just read for you from a Jew website about this commandment about not seeding a kid in his mother's milk. OK, listen to this. Milk and meat, this is from some Jewish community center. Why do we not mix milk and meat? Well, one of the most important aspects of observing kosher is keeping milk and meat properly separated. So this is one of the most important things to being kosher. And remember, what is the Bible, does the Bible say anything like that? Does it say, hey, you can't have any dairy with your meat? And in fact, I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier when I was preparing the sermon, but can't we point to actual examples? I was just thinking about this. I hate doing this being unprepared, but this just popped into my mind. Somebody fact checked me on this. What about when Jesus rolls up to Abraham? Isn't there a little mixing of meat and dairy going on in that story, if I recall correctly? All right, well, good, I'm glad, because I kind of just did that off the cuff. But it's like, you know, Jesus Christ had no, and you say, well, that's before. OK, but the point is, why would that all of a sudden be prohibited? There's no mention prohibiting it. And then we see examples of Jesus doing it or the Lord doing it. So what's the big deal? But anyway, I digress, sorry. I'm making too much sense. I need to actually read what the Jews are saying. So this prohibition, because, I mean, the Jews, you know, they know. This prohibition is derived from the verse, do not cook a kid and its mother's milk. Buttermilk and calf, yeah. OK, so this verse appears in the Torah three times. According to Jewish tradition, the word kid goat is understood to meet any young domestic animal, not only a kid goat. OK, the repetition of the verse teaches us that it's not only forbidden to cook meat and milk together, but it's also forbidden to then eat or derive benefit from the mixture. In fact, the Torah forbids the cooking, eating, and benefit of the meat of any kosher domesticated animal in any kosher milk. The Torah simply gives an example of a kid and his mother's milk, because that was an ancient common practice. Some Jewish authorities give the reason for this prohibition. One reason is that it's cruel to cook a baby in the very milk that was intended to nourish it. None of these reasons are fully satisfactory, and it is clear that this mitzvah falls into the category of mitzvahs that have no satisfactory reason. Chukim. OK, but listen to this. Because it goes way further than that. You say, OK, so they don't mix meat and dairy. No, not only that, they have to have totally separate spoons, pots, and plates, because they're afraid that residue from the meat or the dairy could get into the pores of the plate, even after it comes out of the dishwasher. So listen to this. Rashi stated that meat leaves a fatty residue in the throat and on the palate. So there's the problem of sequential foods. So many rabbis will tell you, if you eat meat, you've got to wait 24 hours before doing any dairy. Because what if you have a little bit of meat in your teeth, and what happens if the dairy touches the meat? Or some of them say six hours. Six hours between meat and dairy, because it's just, you know, I mean, just floss and you're good to go, right? No, because it could be a little microscopic. Folks, how stupid is this? You might have a microscopic piece of meat in your mouth, touch a microscopic piece of dairy, and you've just violated God's law. God's mad at you now. Is this stupid or what? Why, because the Bible said not to seed a kid in his mother's milk. OK, so there's the problem of sequential foods. Now, eating dairy after meat, you know, yeah, different rabbis will tell you to wait a different amount of time and so forth. But it says, although after 24 hours, some residual flavor may still reside in porous cooking vessels and utensils. And so therefore, many times, kosher kitchens will have to have a separate pan that they just only ever use for dairy. If I make a cheese omelet in this pan, like, no meat, I've got to make the meat over here, and it's got to be totally separate. I've got to eat it 24 hours apart. This is just one example of the stupidity to which the Jews take these laws. I mean, you should see their laws on the Sabbath. So the Bible says not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath. So for them, that's flipping on a light switch, because there's a little fire that's kindled there, a little spark. The whole point is that you're supposed to rest. The whole point of the Sabbath is to rest, not just, like, be just, like, not moving or something. I mean, you're allowed to walk around and do some stuff. But they can't even flip a switch, because that's kindling a fire. He doesn't want them doing the work of gathering the sticks and going like this and flinting steel. He's not telling them, you can't flip on a light switch. But not only that, they can't turn it off either. Because you even think to yourself, like, OK, they're kindling a little fire. You can't turn things off on the Sabbath. Not only can you not turn them on, you can't turn them off. So they have to unscrew the light bulb out of their refrigerator, because if they open their fridge on the Sabbath, a little fire gets kindled there in that light bulb. I'm not kidding. So they literally, they unscrew the fridge light bulb, and then they have elevators that have a Sabbath mode. And what happens is the elevator just goes up and down all day, opening on every floor on Sabbath mode, so that you can just get in the elevator. Because if you push a button, you candle the light there. But even if there's a light that's left on, you can't turn it off. Because turning it off is violating the Sabbath. Oh, and by the way, toilet paper? You can't tear the toilet paper, because that violates the Talmud's law on cutting on the Sabbath day. You know the little pre-perforated toilet paper? So here's what they do. They have to, they tear off a bunch of toilet paper in advance. I do that too. You do that? You Judaizer! No, no, but they take, like, they'll basically just, they'll spool off, like, however many squares, you know, seven, eight squares, and have all these piles of it, because they can't, if they tear it on the Sabbath day, oh, you just desecrated the Sabbath. Folks, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. They have a whole encyclopedia of laws like this. And so, folks, these people, they have no walk with God, no relationship with God, because if you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father. They don't have the Holy Ghost. They don't have Jesus. They don't have God the Father. They just have some rabbi telling them how to use toilet paper, and that they can't have a cheeseburger, because you might think, like, oh, these kosher laws aren't a big deal. Folks, they can't eat any normal food. It's like trying to go out to eat with a vegan or something. You know, it's like, nothing's vegan, because you try to take a vegan, and you're like, oh, here, I'll help you order. They're like, no, none of this is vegan. I got to go to special, you know, because there's some microscopic animal product in everything, or whatever, you know, there's a little bit of butter or something. So it's not kosher enough for them. So anyway, the point is, they can't see the forest for the trees, can they? And the last thing I want to touch on, because I'm out of time, but I've preached on this story so many times, but where Moses, he comes down from the mountain, his face shone, right? And I've done whole sermons on this, because it's one of my favorite stories. But it talks about how when he came down from the mount, it says in verse 30, or at the end of verse 29, it says, Moses whisked not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel, verse 30, saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called unto them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him, and Moses talked with him. So let's close in 2 Corinthians 3. Flip over to 2 Corinthians 3, and the New Testament will close there. So basically, they see Moses coming down from the mount, and his face is just glowing like the sun, where they can't even look at him. And they're scared. They flee from before him. They don't even want to get near him. But then he calls out to them, like, hey, guys, it's me. It's OK. Come here. And then when he calls out to them, they come to him, but they can't be around him, because his face is so bright. So they have to put a veil over his face while they talk to him. And then when he goes to be with the Lord and get more commandments, he takes off the veil. But then when he goes back to the children of Israel, he has to put the veil back over his face. Because of that encounter where God passed by him, and he just saw the rear parts of God, this made his face shine to where no one could look at him. So look what the Bible says in, because this is obviously symbolic as well. And when I say things are symbolic, of course, they actually literally happened. But what I mean is that they're also symbolic. Look at 2 Corinthians 3, verse 12. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face. So when we see here the veil over Moses' face, this is not something for us to emulate. We're supposed to let it shine. We are supposed to not put it under a bushel, not put a veil over our face, but we are to plainly speak God's word. So he says, not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds were blinded. For until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. So Moses represents the word of God, right? Because Moses represents the books of Moses. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And so just as Moses had a veil over his face and the children of Israel couldn't look him in the face, what the Bible is showing us here is that without Jesus Christ, the Jews can't look at the law of Moses and understand it, because the veil is there. So just as the children of Israel were blinded from seeing the glory of God, because what was the shine on Moses? It was God's glory. He's just reflecting God's glory. It was just a residual afterglow from being in the presence of God. So what God's showing us here is that the Jews could not see the glory of God. They couldn't see it, because there was a veil in the way, keeping them from seeing God's glory, right? And the Bible is saying it's the same today. To this day, it's the same way. The Jews, when they read Genesis, they can't see the glory of God. When they read Exodus, they can't see the glory of God, because the veil is there. But when they turn to Christ, the veil is taken away. And all of a sudden, now, they can look right in the face of Moses and see and comprehend and get... So this is why they come up with this stupid prohibition on cheeseburgers, okay? And this crazy stuff about, oh, yeah, I have two separate sets of utensils in the kitchen. There's nothing like that in the Bible. Two spoons, two forks, two knives, two plates, you know? One's for dairy, one's for meat. Don't flip a light switch on the Sabbath day. This kind of nonsense is because of the fact that you have a blind person interpreting the Old Testament. So that's why... But yet, to this day, fundamental Baptists will often say, you know, if you talk to the rabbis, here's what they say about the wedding ceremony. Here's what they say about the Passover. Here's what they say about the Feast of Tabernacles. Here's what they say. Or I've heard people who want to justify drinking alcohol. Well, here's the Jews' view on alcohol, because they really understand the Old Testament, because they speak Hebrew. Well, guess what? I speak English, and I have the King James Bible, which is a perfect translation of the original Hebrew. And guess what? If you look up, thou shalt not see the kid and his mother's milk in the Hebrew, guess what's going to say the same thing? Which is why virtually every English translation of that verse all says the same thing. They might say, thou shalt not boil, or seethe, or cook, or whatever, but they're all going to say something along the lines of, don't boil the goat, or the baby goat, or the kid and his mother's milk, okay? You don't need to read it in Hebrew, okay, to understand God's Word can be translated in any language. So reading it in English. So why would we go to the Jews? Well, but they're Jews, though. They're wrong, though, about everything, about literally everything. Why? Because they're blind. And what happens when the blind lead the blind? So if we go to the rabbi and say, explain to us the Old Testament teaching on alcohol, explain to us the Old Testament teaching on marriage, explain to us the Old Testament teaching on the Passover, you know what? You're saying, blind man, lead me into the ditch. That's what you're saying. Please, blind man, will you lead me into a ditch? No, he speaks Hebrew. Folks, you don't have to speak Hebrew to understand the Word of God. You don't have to speak Greek to understand the New Testament, okay? God's Word can be translated into any language, and it has been. And by the way, let me just mention to you how lucky you are that you speak English, because this is the greatest translation of the Bible on this planet. And I'm not shy to say that. There's no other translation as great as the King James Bible on this whole planet. So, oh, where do you get that crazy belief? Well, let's see, because show me another translation that had 54 scholars of the caliber of the guys that worked on this, okay, that spent six years on this, and they were already working from an excellent translation, the Bishop's Bible. And then you have these 54 top scholars spending six years. You know, a lot of the translations in other languages were only made by a couple of people, and the translations that are being made now, some of the people that are making these translations and working on these committees literally can't even read the Bible in its original Hebrew and Greek without tools and training wheels to help them. Like, they have to have lexicons and tools helping them. They're not even fluent in the language, okay. So, yeah, God knew that English was going to be the main language of the world, and so we have this most excellent translation in English. And so, you know what, you, with the Holy Spirit living inside of you and a King James, you're going to be able to understand the Word of God. Just you and a King James and the Holy Spirit, you'll get it. The Jews, no Holy Spirit, and blindfolded, okay, and rocking back and forth while they're reading it, and trying to sing it at the same time while they read it, have nothing to teach me, nothing to teach you, nothing to teach anyone. And if the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall in the ditch. We need to stay away from Jewish teaching of God's Word. And by the way, in the universities today, the professors and everything, they, when they teach the Old Testament at Harvard and Yale and Princeton, they always teach it from a Jewish standpoint, always. Everything is Jewish to them, because they're, and they don't even call it, the first, lesson one in these college courses in academia is like, well, first of all, we need to understand, you know, it's not called the Old Testament. It's called the Hebrew Bible, you know, because if you say Old Testament, you're implying that there's a New Testament. And by the way, in this course, we're not going to be using BC, because that's culturally insensitive to people who don't believe in Christ. So we're going to use BCE, you know, it's like, the first thing they do is just de-Christianize the Old Testament, okay. Folks, it's a Christian book, okay, it's Christ on every page. Don't listen to what the Jews have to say about it, they're blind, they can't help you. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for your word, Lord, and thank you that we have the Holy Spirit as our teacher. Thank you that the moment that we turn in our heart unto Jesus Christ, you remove the veil from our heart. And thank you that we can just pop open the Bible and see the glory, and see your glory on every page and understand and comprehend these things, Lord. And Lord, I pray that the Jews, Lord, would be saved. I pray that as many of them as possible would turn unto Christ, so that the veil could be removed from their hearts, Lord, but until they do, Lord, help us never to get false teachings from the Jews, because that's the only kind of teachings that they dish out. And Lord, we thank you for our church, and for everyone who comes out on Wednesday night, Lord, to be in your house, even in the midst of the week, and we pray that you'd bless everyone who's here with a special blessing this week, give them a safe return home, and bless them at their job this week, or whatever they endeavor to do, Lord, please just be with all of us as we go, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.