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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please find your seats. We'll begin with our congregational singing this morning. We'll continue with some Christmas music. Number 423 in your song books. You should all find the song book close by once you have one. Please turn to hymn number 423. Joy to the world the Lord is come. Number 423. And we'll start on that first verse together. Number 423. And 23. Joy to the world the Savior reigns. Let men their songs employ. Walk fields and gardens, woods, hills, and plains. Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat, repeat, repeat the sounding joy. Your Lord has hands and sorrows Your Lord has the crown. He comes to reign his blessings for as the curse is found. For as the curse is found. For as, for as the curse is found. He rules the world with truth and grace. And makes nations prove the glory is of his righteousness and wonders of his love and wonders of his love and wonders and wonders of his love. Amen. I'd like to welcome Jason Burman to open this up for a prayer. By the way, thanks for coming here to your precious Holy Word. We ask that you bless the music that is in your ears. In Jesus' name I pray this. Amen. Amen. In Jesus' name I pray this. In Jesus' name I pray this. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. In His temple shall appear. Come in worship! Come in worship! Worship Christ the new-born King! This time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high. We'll get to you with one. On the inside we have our service times. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. study. This week will be in Ezekiel chapter 17. We've got the soul-winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms. Across the page is the list of birthdays and anniversaries for the month of December. Below that we've got the note about Mexico Mondays. Tomorrow is one of the Mexico Mondays. This is where we just take a day trip right across the border to Mexico to do some soul-winning in Spanish. So if you're a Spanish speaker and you want to do some soul-winning down there, you can jump in on one of these. It's pretty much 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. so it's just a long day. The border is just a little under three hours away. So talk to brother Chris Segura if you would like more details about that. On the back there's a ladies wreath decorating activity this Friday, December 10th at 7 p.m. All ladies and teenage girls are invited to attend but for safety reasons strictly no children except for nurselings in arms like a baby that you're nursing is fine but we don't want little kids running around during this. So just ladies and teen girls only. Please RSVP to Mrs. Suzanne Forte no later than tonight. So Mrs. Suzanne Forte would you stand up and show who you are real quick? So that's who you RSVP to for the wreath decorating activity. And then the annual Christmas caroling is going to be on Tuesday, December 21st so we're going door to door Christmas caroling but don't be shy about this because we'll be in groups of like 30. So you know we'll break into say six, seven groups of 30 however many people show up for this and then we'll send you out. If you're not a big singer you can fade to the back and just kind of hum a little or something. But you know we want everybody who wants to come to feel comfortable coming. And then after we do just a little under an hour of Christmas caroling we'll all come back here for cookies and hot cocoa. And then below that the Christmas service this year will be on the December 26th Sunday. And we will have the cookie bake off starting at 4.30 p.m. and we'll have our normal church services as usual 10.30 in the morning 6.00 p.m. that evening for church. Other upcoming events are a bunch of small town soul winning trips. So we're back in full swing with these. Over here you'll find the clipboard to sign up. You'll find information, schedule, all that. And if you need more details you can talk to Brother Raymond up here in the green shirt and he can give you more details on small town soul winning. That is about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us. All right in the front of your hymnal you should find the insert with the two songs. We'll start with God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. If you don't have a sheet please raise your hand. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, let none mean you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day. To save us all from Satan's power when we work on a string. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. From God our heavenly Father a blessed angel came. And unto certain shepherds brought tidings on the same. How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Fear not that sad the angel, let nothing you affright. This day is born a Savior of a pure virgin bride. To free all those who trust in Him from Satan's power and might. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. The shepherds at those tidings rejoiced their lunch in mind. And left their flocks a feeding, tempest stored and with. And went to Bethlehem straightway the Son of God to find. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Amen, if you flip that sheet over we'll sing Angels We Have Heard on High. You know the parts to this, please sing it out. Angels We Have Heard on High. On this first verse all together now. Angels We Have Heard on High. Sweetly singing o'er the plains and the mountains in reply. Echoing their joyous strains. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Shepherds, why didst you believe? Why your joyous strains prolong? What the blest of tidings be? Which is spoken of by the Son of God? What the blessed of tidings be? What the blessed of tidings be? What the blessed of tidings be? Which is by your headless song? Gloria in excelsis Deo. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Come to Feth the Hennessy, in whose birth the angels sing. Come, adored on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Seated within a manger lay, Jesus, Lord of heaven and earth. Where angels self-land array, sing with us our Savior's word. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Gloria in excelsis Deo. We'll pass our offering plates as the plates go around. Let's turn our Bibles this morning to the book of Job, chapter 13. In the very middle of your Bible, if you let it fall open to the middle, you'll be in Psalms. Right before Psalms is Job. Job, chapter number 13, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with Brother Raymond as he reads Job, chapter 13. Job, chapter 13, verse 1, the Bible reads, Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. What ye know, the same do I know also. I am not inferior unto you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. Be ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O, that ye would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your wisdom. Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. Will ye speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for Him? Will ye accept His person? Will ye contend for God? Is it good that He should search you out? Or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock Him? He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. Ye shall not His Excellency make you afraid, and His dread fall upon you? Your remembrances are likened to ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will. Wherefore do I take my flesh and my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him, but I will maintain mine own ways before Him. He also shall be my salvation, for an hypocrite shall not come before Him. Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears. Behold now, I have ordered my cause, I know that I shall be justified. Who is He that will plead with me? For now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost. Only do not two things unto me, then will I not hide myself from thee. Withdraw thine hand far from me, and let not thy dread make me afraid. Then call thou, and I will answer. Or let me speak, and answer thou me. How many are mine iniquities and sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sin. Wherefore hideest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro, and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths. Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet. And He, as a rotten thing, consumeth as a garment that is moth-eaten. Brother Daniel, will you pray for us? Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for this wonderful day, and please fill the path with your spirit, and please give us all wisdom and understanding from this ceremony. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Man, the verse that I want to preach on in this chapter is the most famous verse in the chapter, but I'm going to preach on the part of the verse that's not the famous part. So in verse number 15, it says, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. What a powerful verse. And in fact, I would say in the entire Bible, this is probably one of my top five favorite verses that I'm constantly quoting throughout my life, just something that I live by and think about all the time. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. But I really want to focus on the second half of the verse. But I will maintain mine own ways before Him. I will maintain mine own ways before Him. That's a really interesting thought in light of what he just said. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Let's get a little context, and then we'll dig into this idea this morning. It says in verse 13, Hold your peace, which, you know, means shut up. Hold your peace, let me alone that I may speak, and let come on me what will. Wherefore do I take my flesh and my teeth, and put my life in my hand? Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. But I will maintain mine own ways before Him. He also shall be my salvation, for a hypocrite shall not come before Him. So before I get into this idea of I will maintain my own ways before Him, I want to just explain a little bit of this context. Of course, Job, the Bible tells in chapter 1, was an upright man, he's a righteous man, he fears God, he eschews evil, and in fact, God says that there's none like him in the whole earth. So he's literally the most righteous person living on earth at that time. Okay? And of course, the devil challenges the Lord and says, well, the only reason that Job is serving you is because you've blessed him, and if you cause all these bad things to happen to him, then he'll curse you to your face. And so God allows Satan to harm Job and basically just destroy his life in every way imaginable. And Job loses everything, and when his three friends come to comfort him, they actually end up just accusing him of sin and saying, well, the fact that all this has happened to you is evidence that you must have some sin in your life. You're a wicked person, obviously, or these things wouldn't be happening. So you just need to get right with God and then everything will be fine. And Job continues to, and pay attention to this word, maintain his innocence throughout the book of Job. He maintains that he has not brought this upon himself and that he has served God. Now, not to say that he was sinless, because every single person is a sinner, even Job included, but he didn't do some big sin that brought these calamities upon him. Now, of course, we who are reading the book with hindsight and we've got the whole Bible and we start in chapter one, we know that Job is right. And then at the end of the book of Job, God explicitly says that Job is right. In Job chapter 42, he says that Job spoke of me that which is right. You know, Job was right. And God tells us that in chapter 42, we know from chapter one that he was innocent. And so Job is right and the three friends are wrong and God rebukes the three friends. So that's kind of the book of Job in a nutshell, okay? I'm not going to belabor that. But if we look at the actual context here immediately surrounding this, he says in verse 15, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, but I will maintain mine own ways before him. And what he's saying is, no matter what God does to me, even to the point of killing me, I'm not going to stop trusting in the Lord. I'm not going to stop believing that he's just, that he's good, that he's merciful, that he's fair. I'm not going to change my mind about that and I'm going to trust him. Even if he kills me, I will trust him. But at the same time, I am going to maintain my own ways before him. I'm not going to sit here and say that I've done something wrong when I didn't. And he's basically saying, even to God's face, I would tell God that. And he says that repeatedly throughout the book of Job. Now, of course, when God actually shows up in the whirlwind, Job doesn't really follow through on this because it's a little bit scary when God talks you out of a whirlwind. So he kind of just basically just says, I'm an idiot. I'm horrible. Because, you know, that's kind of what you do when you're confronted with God Almighty. Just, you know, you think about other men who are confronted with God in the Bible, they just kind of fall on their face like they're dead and people have to pick them up off the ground and stuff like that. Angels have to come pick them up off the ground. But look at verse 16 as well. He also shall be my salvation for an hypocrite shall not come before him. So even though Job is the most righteous man on the earth, even though he says, look, I will maintain my own ways before him, he still realizes that he needs salvation because of the fact that even the best person is still a sinner. The Bible says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. As it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. He also shall be my salvation for a hypocrite shall not come before him. What does that mean, a hypocrite shall not come before him? You know, you can't get in front of God and pretend to be something that you're not because God can see right through you. What is a hypocrite? A hypocrite is a person who says one thing and does another, a person who pretends to be something that they're not. So in front of our fellow man, we can pretend to be something that we're not. We can put on a good show for the people around us, but obviously that's not going to work with God. Another thing I want to point out is that in the New Testament, you don't have to turn there, but in Matthew 24, when Jesus is giving a parable, he says in verse 51, and shall cut him asunder and appoint him as portion with the hypocrites, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's obviously talking about going to hell, the place where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. And that's called the portion of the hypocrites or the inheritance of the hypocrites. That's where the hypocrites are going to end up. And then in a parallel passage in Luke chapter 12, he says, and we'll cut him asunder and we'll appoint him as portion with the unbelievers. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. What is the difference? Unbeliever and hypocrite has been swapped out. Why? Because unsaved people are, in essence, hypocrites. You know, it's funny how people say they don't want to go to church because there's too many hypocrites, right? Okay, well, then you're going to have to stop going to the grocery store. You're going to have to stop going to the dentist. You're going to have to stop going to the doctor. You're going to have to stop going to school. You're going to have to stop going to work. Because guess what? It's not just church that's filled with hypocrites. It's the world that's full of hypocrites, okay? That's just life. People are often going to be fake like that. Now, when it comes to salvation, true salvation is achieved by just admitting that you're a sinner, confessing that to God, and just asking him to save you by virtue of what? Just the fact that he died on the cross for you and was buried and rose again. You just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So you get saved by fully trusting in what he did versus the hypocrisy of the unsaved, which says, well, I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person. And when we go out and knock on people's doors and talk to them about the gospel, that's the most frequent answer. Well, yeah, I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person. I think I'd go. I haven't done anything really bad. I'm a pretty good guy. They're a hypocrite. You're a total sinner. Who are you fooling? You might fool us, but you'll never fool God. A hypocrite shall not come before him. So anyway, that's the context here. He's saying, look, I know that I need salvation. I'm not being a hypocrite here. I'm not claiming to be without sin. I'm not claiming that I've never made a mistake, but I'm going to maintain my own ways before God. The way that I have lived my life is right, and I would even say that to God to his face, he's saying, because I know that what I'm doing is right. Now, what I want to preach about this morning is this idea of maintaining my own ways before God. What does that mean? What is he getting at with this? Well, if you would, go over to Acts chapter 17, because often we look at these famous verses and we ignore the part that doesn't really maybe make as much sense to us or doesn't really jump out at us as much, and so it says, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, and then it's like we just kind of forget that other part, okay? But in reality, that other part of the verse provides balance to the verse, okay? And the Bible's constantly doing this. No matter what, I'm going to trust in the Lord. Even if he kills me, I would say he must be right. Whatever he does is right. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him? But at the same time, I will maintain mine own ways before him. I believe what that's saying is that we as Christians, God's not asking us to stop using our brains and just blindly do whatever he tells us, even if it makes no sense, or to just believe something that's not even true just because he says it to us or something like that. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? God does not expect us to be a robot that just blindly, if he tells us up is down, we just say, Yes, sir. If he tells us two plus two is five, Yes, sir. You know, one of the things that made me think about this is I was on Facebook and somebody posted a post and they said, If the Bible said that the moon were made out of cheese, would you believe it? And all of these people were on there saying, Yes, because I'll believe whatever the Bible says and whatever the Bible says, I'll believe. And I went on there and I said, No, I wouldn't. Because I said, if the Bible said stuff like that, then I wouldn't believe in the Bible in the first place. You see, the Bible is truth. Why do we love the Bible? Why do we believe the Bible? Because the Bible is the truth because we love the truth and the Word of God is truth. If the Bible were filled with nonsense, we wouldn't believe in it, would we? And God does not expect us to believe something ridiculous or nonsensical or blatantly false. That's not the kind of faith that God is looking for. You know, he wants us to trust in him, but he also wants us to understand why we trust in him and understand why he says the things that he says and why he does the things that he does and why the Bible is right and not to just blindly just shut up and do it because I said so. You see, God wants us to trust in him no matter what, even to the point of death, but he's okay with us maintaining our own ways before him if we're following the Word of God. If we're following what he said, he doesn't expect us to just deny truth because Jesus is truth and the Word of God is the truth. If you have to deny truth to embrace what the Bible is saying or to embrace what God is telling you to do, you know, you're confused somewhere along the way because the Bible should always match up with truth. The Bible should always match up with reality, and guess what? It does. That's why we love it. God's Word is exceeding pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. If it said something nonsensical, we wouldn't believe it in the first place. You know, when we show false religions the nonsense that's in their holy book, don't we expect them to reject it? So it wouldn't really make any sense if we then turned around and said, well, up is down, white is black, and two plus two is five because God said so. Wrong. The things that God says are actually true and you can actually study them out and see that they're true and not just be expected to blindly believe something that isn't true. Look at Acts chapter 17 verse 11. The Bible reads in verse 11 there, these were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scripture daily whether those things were so. So here we get the balance. They received the Word with readiness of mind. They didn't come to church skeptical, folding their arms like this, trying to pick apart the sermon, trying to find something wrong with what's being preached, but at the same time they didn't just blindly believe what was being preached either, did they? No. They went home and they checked it in their Bible and they searched the Scriptures daily whether these things are so. And again, this is one of those verses where people always only focus on half. They always focus on the search the Scriptures daily part and they totally forget the readiness of mind part and then they just get too skeptical. They're skeptical of everything and they're not ready with a good attitude to receive the Word when it's being preached. You know, when I go visit another church or something, you know, I show up wanting to learn, ready to learn, not trying to find something wrong with the sermon. You know, I want the sermon to be a good sermon. I want to be ministered to. I want to learn something. I'm not going in with a bad attitude. And so we see this beautiful balance in Acts 17 and 11 and I think it's similar to the balance that we see in Job 13 where we're going to trust the Lord no matter what, but we're also going to maintain our own ways before him. We're still going to follow what we know to be true. We're not going to turn off our brains and just have no view, no opinion, and be a robot or an automaton. You know, God says in Isaiah 118, come now and let us reason together, sayeth the Lord. See, God wants to reason with us. God wants us to think. He is ready to be put to the test and he can withstand scrutiny because the truth fears no investigation. Come and let us reason together, sayeth the Lord. Here's one of my favorite verses in Proverbs. It says there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. There's no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord, right? Wisdom and knowledge and understanding and counsel, if they are true wisdom and knowledge, will always be for the Lord or pointing us to the Lord, not pointing us away from the Lord. Now if you would go to Genesis chapter 7. Let me give you another illustration of what I'm talking about. Think about marriage. You know, I just performed a wedding yesterday and when you think about marriage, we as men, we want our wives to be in subjection to us. We want our wives to obey us. You know, the Bible says that wives should obey their husbands and that the husband is the head of the wife. But do we as men want to just have this robotic Stepford wife that just does exactly what we say and never questions anything and never reasons anything but just blindly is just like, yes, master, you know, and whatever we tell her to do, and some of you are thinking like, well, what's the problem? You know, but here's the thing. You know, normal men actually want to have a relationship with someone, right? You know, when God's creating a companion for Adam in the Garden of Eden and he says, I want to make a help meet for him, suitable for him, appropriate for him, okay? You know, God is making someone that can be on his same level, okay? Now that's not to say there's not an authority structure because obviously the husband's the head of the home. But men and women are equal according to scripture. Men are not better than women, men are not smarter than women, men are physically stronger than women, okay? But they're not better, they're not smarter, they're not more valuable. Men and women are equal according to the Word of God. So if men and women are equal according to the Word of God, you know, I wanted to marry someone who I could actually have an intelligent conversation with, someone that we can talk and to be a companion that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with and so I don't want to just marry someone who's really obedient but that isn't really doing a lot of thinking. You know, I'm a thinker. Now maybe you're not much of a thinker. Well, there's a girl out there for you. Let me tell you, they're out there for you. You'll have no issue finding a girl that will match right up with you. But the point is, you know, one who thinks wants to be married to one who thinks, right? Because you want to, you know, look, but do I want my wife to be obedient? Do I want her to be submissive? Yeah, but I want her to choose to do that. I want her to want to do that and I'm okay with her questioning me and for us to talk things through and hash things out because I want her to understand this is why we're living our lives this way. I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, I'm making the rules but I want her to understand why and I want her to feel the same way and have her heart in the things that we do as a family. And God is the same way. You know, God created us in his image and when God created man, he created him with free will and the ability to think and to reason and to create and with that, you know, comes the pitfall that man has the ability to choose to do wrong but God still created man that way because he wants to have a real relationship with a real human being. So God wants to have a relationship with you. God wants to have a relationship with me and he wants it to be real. He doesn't just want a little obedient doggy, okay? He wants to have a relationship with an actual human being. So we don't want to get this idea that we are just God's slave or that we are just somehow his pet or something. You know, Jesus said, no, you're my friends. I'm not even going to call you servants. I'm going to call you my friends. Now obviously we are in another sense servants of God but I don't like how these modern versions will translate that as we're slaves of Jesus. I don't like, you know, let's go with the King James. We're Christ's servants because slave has too much of a negative connotation because there's nothing negative about being Christ's servant but the word slave in our modern vernacular is a very negative connotation. And so let's stick with the King James translation of servants of God. You know, and we're happy as a servant. You know, what, you know, happy are these thy servants the Queen of Sheba said to King Solomon. And so, you know, God, just like we want to be married to a real human, what about our kids? You know, what if my kids just kind of just lined up like soldiers and did whatever I told them? You know, I want to be able to talk to my kids. I want to be able to have a real relationship with them and actually get fresh ideas from them, not to just hear my opinion or my teachings only just coming out of their mouth. You know, now eventually I want them to adopt, obviously, my beliefs and my way of life but I want them to understand why and I'm not asking them to embrace lies or embrace something false. Just shut up and do it because I said so even though it's false. It's garbage. So why would we think that way about God? That's how marriage is. That's how child rearing is. Well, guess what? That's how God is too. You know what? He wants us to trust him even to the point of death but he also is fine with us maintaining our own ways before him, okay, and actually thinking and actually having an opinion. And I preached a similar sermon to this in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, if anybody caught it online, called Having Power with God where I preached about Jacob wrestling with God and how Jacob wrestled with God and this was seen as actually a good thing and Jacob is praised for wrestling with God and actually winning the wrestling match and that's a whole other sermon. But are you in Genesis chapter 7? Is that where I had you turn? So another thing I want to bring up is, you know, the supposed contradictions in the Bible. You know, some people will claim that there are contradictions in the Bible and let me just tell you right now. There is no true contradiction in the Bible. Now there are some things that on the surface appear to be contradictory. There are some things that maybe a human being in their flawed reasoning would decide, well, I think this is a contradiction. But honestly, all of it can be reconciled. All of it. Usually the kind of contradictions that people bring up have to do with what years this king reigned or how many troops were in this army or something like that and it's so foolish because they don't understand that there are just different ways of counting these things. You know, a lot of these things are not cut and dried. You've got a king and his son starts reigning while he's still alive and still reigning. So it's kind of co-reigning, the reigns overlap or, you know, he becomes king under his dad's tutelage for ten years and then ten years later his dad dies and he becomes fully the king and you can even do the math in some of these instances and show what happened at those times and, you know, if you're willing to actually put in the work, you can actually figure out how all this stuff works and how it's all true. But you have to go into it with the faith believing that the Bible's true. You got to trust. But at the same time, God's not expecting you to suspend your disbelief and believe in a bunch of far-fetched things and things that aren't true. But we just have to understand the Bible's not written by one author. The Bible's written by like 40-some different authors over the course of 1,500 years and so sometimes people are using different counting systems, different dating systems. You know, one guy's counting the active duty troops and another guy's counting the reserves and another guy's just counting the actual guys who are fighting, other guys maybe counting the support crew or, you know, there's so many different ways. If I ask the question right now, how many troops are in the U.S. military? I could go to the experts of our nation. I could go to the secretary of defense. I could go to top generals, admirals and if I just said I just want a number, I just want one number, how many troops are in the U.S. military, I guarantee you no two people would give me the same answer. None of them. Because how do you even calculate that? There's so many different ways to count that. So these kind of contradictions are trivial and they don't make any sense. Or like, you know, the book of John when it says the sixth hour means something totally different than what Matthew says when he means the sixth hour because Matthew, Mark and Luke are starting the day at 6 a.m. and John's starting the day at midnight like we do. It's different authors, different times, different audience. Those are very trivial. I just want to point out one example because this is one that I saw this week where people were claiming this week that the flood story, Noah's Ark and the flood, that this story contains contradictions. And they said, oh, you know, Genesis is filled with contradictions and look at the flood story. Let's reason together. Let's use our brains here and see if the Bible is contradicting itself in the flood narrative here. Okay. And first of all, let's start with this. Do we trust in the Lord or what? Who here believes the Bible is the word of God? Yeah, I trust it. I believe it. Okay. So now let's dig into this and let's see if it's actually contradicting. So here is a big contradiction that I've heard brought up a bunch of times. Look at chapter 7 verse 17. And the flood was 40 days upon the earth and the waters increased and bare up the ark and it was lift up above the earth. So the flood was 40 days upon the earth, right? Now jump down to verse 24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days. Oh, look, it's a contradiction. You know, was the flood upon the earth for 40 days or was it 150 days? Now folks, this is so easy to reconcile. It's not even, it's almost like taking candy from a baby. But notice that in verse 17 it says the flood was 40 days upon the earth and the waters increased and bare up the ark and it was lift up above the earth. Look at verse 4. For yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights and every living substance that I have made I will destroy from off the face of the earth. So what do we see here? The Bible says it's going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights and when it says the flood was upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights it also says and increased. So that's the time it's increasing because the rain is still falling. But for 150 days the earth is totally flooded. Now is that really that hard to figure out? I mean a child should be able to figure that out. I mean it says in verse 4 it rains for 40 days and 40 nights. In verse 17 the floods on the earth and the waters increased 40 days and 40 nights and then we get to a part where it says the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days. I mean do you think that after 40 days and 40 nights of raining that floods the whole earth the next day it's just dry? Over. That's silly isn't it? Look at Genesis chapter 8 verse 1. Genesis 8, 1 says, and God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the cattle that was with him in the ark and God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters assuaged. The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained and the waters returned from off the earth continually and after the end of the 150 days the waters were abated. So again it rained and increased for 40 days and 40 nights then as it begins to die down and as it begins to go down slowly then after 150 days the waters were abated. Look at verse 4. And the ark rested in the seventh month on the 17th day of the month upon the mountains of Ararat. Now, at the beginning of the flood story in chapter 7 verse 11 it said in the second month, 17th day of the month is when it starts raining. So second month, 17th day it starts raining. Seventh month, 17th day the ark basically jars and comes to a stop on the mountains of Ararat. That's the 150 days, that's the five months. Everybody see that? So it rains for 40 days but it's still flooded and what happens at that 150 day mark? Basically the ark comes to rest upon mountains. So the earth is still very flooded even after the 150 days but it's just now the mountains of Ararat are close enough to the surface to where the ark can sit and rest upon them. So that's how much drying has taken place. And then it says in verse 5, and the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. This is three months later. In the tenth month on the first day of the month were the tops of the mountains seen. So at first the ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat but they look out the window and it's still just all water. All they see is water because they're just resting on a mountain that's even still slightly under water where they are but they can see nothing. But then in the tenth month, and remember the ark has one window to look out of, one door and one window to look out of. And so therefore they don't see anything until the tenth month and then they see just the tops of the mountains. And then it says in verse 6, and it came to pass at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. Now there's another contradiction they'll bring up. Well you know one verse says that he sent a raven and the other verse says he sent a dove. Which one is it? Well let's look at this. It says in verse 7 he sent forth a raven which went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth. So what does the raven do? The raven never comes back. He lets out a raven, it goes to and fro until the waters are dried up, it just leaves and it's just like, see ya sucka, I'm not coming back. Okay? And then it says also he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot and she returned unto him into the ark for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his hand and took her and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And they say, no this is just a merging of two legends or two stories and one of them had a raven and one of them had a dove and so the Bible's just doing both. But here's what you have to understand. The dove really could have found a place, if the dove really just wanted a place to just rest the sole of its foot, I mean you can see the tops of the mountains, they're right there, the raven figured it out. But what's the colossal difference between a raven and a dove? Doves eat plant-based food and ravens eat dead bodies. Now let me ask you this, when you just flooded the whole earth and killed everything, you think there are any dead bodies laying around? I mean I think it's probably going to be pretty easy for that raven to find a dead body somewhere that it can eat because it'll eat trash and dead bodies and whatever. Whereas the dove eats things like plant-based food, like a vegetarian diet. Doves typically don't even really eat a lot of bugs or anything. Now doves that live in the city will eat whatever weird fast food or whatever because they don't know what it is. But I'm saying typically a dove is an herbivore whereas a raven is eating dead bodies. So it makes sense. He sends out the raven as one test, okay we're good for ravens, but that doesn't mean, you know, what's good for the raven is not necessarily good for the dove, it's not necessarily good for the human. So the dove is a better test to see if, you know, are plants growing, are things viable out there, okay? So he sends the raven, then he sends the dove, and then in verse 10, he stayed yet other seven days, so he waits seven more days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. I mean, Noah's a, he's a scientist. I mean look at him repeating the experiment. He sends it out and the dove came into him in the evening and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. So no one knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. Here's the thing, guess what doesn't grow on the tops of the mountains? Olive trees. You know, if you go on a really high mountain, you come to a thing called the tree line. What does that mean? It's when the trees stop and then you get higher, like for example, right here in Arizona you can climb Mount Humphreys and you get above the tree line and it's like being on the surface of the moon or whatever. You know, it's just completely desolate. And so the olive leaf tells him something about what the earth is like, okay. And then it says in uh, verse 12 he stayed yet seven other days and sent forth the dove which returned not again to him anymore. It's just like, well I'm fine now. I don't, what do I need you for? And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and behold the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month on the seventh and twentieth day of the month was the earth dry. So I mean notice he's removing the covering of the ark because the door is not opening. God shut the door. So he's like opening the covering, like can we get out of this thing or what, you know. And, but God opens the door, you know, finally when the earth is dried. In verse 15 God spake unto Noah and said go forth of the ark, thou and thy wife and thy sons and thy sons wise with thee, bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee. Why? Because in order for you to just release all these animals, it has to be well dried. You have to be, you know, back to somewhat of a normalcy in order to release all the humans and animals out of the ark so that they can exist. And again, people will say, well you know, in one place it says he took the animals two by two, somewhere else it's seven by seven. Again, it's just, did you even read the story? Because he took seven of the clean beasts and two of everything else. And the seven clean beasts is because the first thing he does in Genesis 9 is he takes of the clean beasts. Actually here in Genesis 8 he does it. He, he actually offers a sacrifice unto the Lord from the clean beasts there. What was it, verse 20 or something? He offers the clean beasts in a, in a, in a sacrifice unto the Lord. That's why he needs extras, okay, to do his bird testing and also because of the fact that, um, he's going to do a sacrifice. He's going to kill them. So he has extras. So simple. Um, but again, if somebody approaches this text just going into it, all the Bible's a myth, the Bible's a fable, the Bible's not true, then yeah, they can invent and find all these so-called contradictions. But again, just like I did right there and just showed you how the flood story reconciles, you know, you could do the same thing with all of these other supposed contradictions. We could pick something else and talk about the supposed contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and we can do the same thing between Kings and Chronicles and we can spend our lives doing that. But at the end of the day, the point that I'm trying to make is that God is not expecting you to believe that the apple is an orange. God's not telling you that the square is a circle. God is not expecting you to just blindly believe things without any explanation and without any kind of using of your brain. That is not the kind of faith that God expects. God wants us to think. He wants us to study. He wants us to learn. He wants us to be smart. And let me tell you something. You know, one way to keep people under control is just to keep them stupid. Am I right? You know, if you could just keep the population totally stupid and illiterate, you could control the people. You could just tell them whatever you want. And you know what? You could do the same thing with your kids if you wanted to. You could just keep your kids dumb and then they just blindly do and believe what you say and keep them dumb. But you know what? I'm not interested in that kind of parenting. You know, I want my kids to be smart. I want them to be intelligent. And you know, anybody who's had a precocious child, what does precocious mean? You know, they're really smart for their age and kind of, but here's the thing about these kids that are really smart for their age and really clever, they're a handful to deal with, aren't they? The precocious child, on the one hand, you're like, wow, this is great. What a smart kid. But on the other hand, that kid's going to be more work. You got to really watch them. And you know, they're constantly questioning what you say and just doubting you and contradicting you and all these different things. It's a two-edged sword, isn't it? But at the end of the day, I want to educate my kids as well as I possibly can. I want to send them off into this world to be smart, successful, godly Christians. And here's the thing about that is that you don't have to sacrifice being smart to be a godly Christian. And this is the doctrine that I want to get across because I'm telling you, there are people out there, they're anti-learning, they're anti-knowledge. They almost think it's a virtue to be dumb. And I know it sounds crazy, but it's out there. I'm telling you. You know, they just think, you know, you don't want to get too smart. You know, you got to be careful, you know, and you don't want your kids to get too smart because then they're going to rebel and whatever. No, no, that's not true because being smart is compatible with following the Lord. Let me tell you something. The smartest thing you'll ever do in your life is to follow the Lord, to read the Bible, to live your life the way God tells you to live it, to embrace the truths of the Bible. Hey, that is the pinnacle of wisdom. So don't tell me that I have to choose between my kids being smart and my kids being godly. You know what? God wants us to be smart. Being smart is part of what it means to be godly. That's part of the package. And look, you don't believe me, well then listen to this. I'm just going to give you, you don't have to turn to these because there's going to be so many of them. Let me just give you a little sampling from the book of Proverbs. And tell me if God wants us to suspend our disbelief and to just blindly follow him or if he wants us to think and understand and know why we're doing the things that we do. It says in Proverbs 1.7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. How long, ye simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge. In chapter 2 he says, if thou cryest after knowledge and lifteth up thy voice for understanding, then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom, and these are all individual verses, this is not one passage I'm reading. For the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. Receive my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than choice gold. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Wise men lay up knowledge but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction. A hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbor, but through knowledge shall the just be delivered. Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge. He that hateth reproof is brutish. Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge, but a fool layeth open his folly. A scorner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not, but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth. Go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge. The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright, but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge, but the heart of the foolish doeth not so. The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge, but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. He that hath knowledge spareth his words, and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. Do we want to be a man of understanding or not? Do we want to have knowledge or not? The heart of the prudent geteth knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good. Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge. There is gold and a multitude of rubies, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise, and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge. The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge, and he overthroweth the words of the transgressor. Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsel and knowledge? Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge. For the transgression of the land many are the princes thereof, but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged. Hmm, I wonder if God thinks that we should get knowledge. I wonder if knowledge is even important. I wonder if God's big on learning. I wonder if God's big on having understanding and intelligence and wisdom and knowledge. Hmm, I wonder how God feels about this. I mean, how much do we need to read? That's not all of it. That's just proverbs. That's one book. That is, we go to the New Testament, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Knowledge, learning. Now let me ask you this. If God wants us to get knowledge, isn't it pretty clear that he believes that knowledge is going to bring us closer to him and not drive us further away from him? I mean, is God trying to push us away and drive us away and get us to forsake the Bible? Listen, you say, well, I know so-and-so and, you know, he started doing all this deep study and it destroyed his faith. You know what? His faith had a problem. He was already on the sand in the first place. He was built on the sand. Oh, now he's totally lost his faith. He doesn't even believe in Christ anymore. He didn't believe in Christ in the first place. You know, let me tell you something. If you depart from the faith, you weren't in the faith. It's that simple. That's what the Bible teaches. They went out from us because they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. They were never one of us. We just thought they were, and then when they left, it was manifest. Now it's not talking about leaving a particular church. It's talking about actually leaving the faith, leaving the doctrine of Christ. Okay? When people turn around and say, oh, I'm not even a Christian anymore. I don't even believe in Christ anymore. Guess what? That person was never saved in the first place. You can't lose your salvation. Once you're saved, you're always saved. There's nothing that can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He'll say to those that are unsaved, depart from me. I never knew you. But let me tell you something. There are people who think they're saved, or they're just going through the motions outwardly of being saved, or they're trusting their own works for salvation or whatever. So then, eventually, they end up saying, oh, I don't believe that anymore. They didn't, you know, you haven't even started. You can't quit something that you didn't even start. Okay? Those who are truly saved have the Holy Spirit inside of them, and so the more they learn, the more that they understand things, it's going to bring them closer to God, not further away. Learning is a virtue. Knowledge is a virtue. Instruction is a virtue. Wisdom is a virtue. And you know what the Bible says? If you don't agree with that, you're a fool. If you hate instruction, and you hate learning, and you hate knowledge, it says fools hate knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. God wants us to know. Why? Because God wants us to be like Job. God wants us to have a faith that's unshakable in him, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. But I will maintain my own ways before him. I'm not going to turn off my brain. I'm not going to say that up is down. No, no, no. I know certain things to be true, and I'm not just going to just say, oh, well, never mind. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? That's what the Bible's teaching us here. God wants us to prove him. God wants us to put him to the test. God's okay with us wrestling with him. Because of the fact that if you are sincere, and you really want to know the truth, you can wrestle, and you can examine, and investigate, and study, and learn, and if your heart is right, you will find that God's word is a rock. Anyone who attacks it is crushed. And upon whomsoever it falls, it crushes them. You know, you could take whatever sword, or axe, or spear to this book, and you know what? It's all just going to bounce right off. Because this is unbreakable. This is the rock. This is the word of God. It can withstand any scrutiny, any examination. It's not like, well, don't look too closely, you know, don't investigate, because, go ahead. You know what? You'll find that the word of God is truth. You live your life, you put scripture to the test, you study the Bible for yourself, you see what the Bible says, put it into practice in your life, and you know what you'll see? You'll get the result that the Bible said you'll get, and when you go out into the world, and you observe life happening, you'll find that it happens according to the way it happens in this book. The things that you see happening in people's lives right now, this year, in 2021, will all have parallels in the Bible. You'll find all the characters in the Bible, you'll run into people like all these people in your life. You'll run into all of them. You'll run into the Peters, the Johns, you'll run into the Ahabs and the Jezebels, you'll run into these people, you'll run into Job, you'll run into Job's three friends, you'll run into these types of people all throughout your life, and you will find that the Bible rings true every time. And so, God wants us to look, God wants us to study, God wants us to scrutinize these things. You know, cults will tell you, don't investigate anything, you know, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they're not allowed to take any literature from any other organization or anything like that, they're not supposed to research anything online, you know, their homepage is set to jw.org, and they're not supposed to research anything or listen to other people or take other people's literature. Because they don't want people to see what a bunch of rubbish their religion is, what garbage it is, okay, how it's filled with lies. And you know, the great thing about the internet is it's laying bare the cults for what they are. You know, I mean, how can anyone still be Mormon in 2021 when people have literally gone into the Mormon temple during the ceremonies with hidden cameras, because now cameras can be so tiny, you could hide them, because they have them change their clothes and get rid of everything, so you know, you couldn't have brought in, you know, the camera that my mom filmed us with in the 80s, okay. But I mean, now a camera could literally be like smaller than a button. And so you can literally go on YouTube and watch them literally worshipping Lucifer in the ceremony. And it's just like, hello, is anybody home? But here's the thing, the Mormons will probably watch it, and it'll probably just go right over their head, because they're so brainwashed. But normal people, when they watch this, should be horrified that basically in the ceremony, Lucifer tells them to put on an apron, and he says, this apron is the symbol of my power and priesthood, I'm Lucifer. And then they literally pause the video, and they're like, alright everybody, go ahead and put on your aprons now, and they all put on the aprons, all the Mormons, okay. And they put on the apron, then 20 minutes later, they do, when they're doing the handshakes through the curtain, they are wearing that same apron that they got from Lucifer 20 minutes ago, and then they say, power and the priesthood be upon me and upon my seed forever, and Lucifer just said 20 minutes ago, this apron is the symbol of my power and priesthood. And they wear it for the whole rest of the ceremony. So I mean, you could go on YouTube for yourself, and see what I'm saying, if you want to sit through the hour and 45 minutes of it, I watched it twice. You know, and the good thing about that, you know, and when you're watching a video, you know, you can sit there, you can pause it, and you can be like, whoa, no he didn't. And you can go back, you can literally go back like 20 minutes, and I'm like, I'm like going back and forth, I'm like, yeah, this apron is my power and priesthood. All right, put on your apron. Oh, power and priesthood, and you know what, that's why their kids are so hard to get saved, they're putting them under some satanic curse or something. Not only that, they have all these rules. There are all these rules that they're told that they have to do, this, this, this, this, this, really a bunch of rules. One of them is no loud laughter. Take that Joseph Smith. But the thing is, you know, one of the rules is literally no laughter. No loud laughter. Okay? And then there's this big list of rules they're supposed to follow in the sermon. And then, Lucifer, in the sermon, the guy who's, he's an actor playing Lucifer, he says, if you break these vows, because they're like vowing not to do any of this stuff, if you break these vows, you'll be under my power forever. And literally, every single person is going to go out there and break those vows. I mean, what if I, what if I just said, all right now, we're all going to vow not to sin anymore. Oh, that's real smart. Because every single one of us is going to break that vow, because it's literally impossible to never sin. As a human being, while we're in the flesh, we're going to sin. No one is sinless. Does everybody see what I'm saying? And I, and look, we had a food co-op at our house, and there was this Mormon lady that would come, and she was real friendly. We would talk to her when she'd come over. And one time, we said something, and she burst out laughing real loud, and I said, hey, no loud laughter. Because I knew she was Mormon. I said, whoa, no loud laughter. And she's like, oh yeah, you're right. Not only that, I'm just going to, I'm almost done, okay. All right, I'm almost done. I'm doing good on time. I'm just going to go off a little bit on this Mormonism, okay. Okay, here's another thing about Mormonism that the internet should just, it's just like, it should just be game over, insert coin for the, for the Book of Mormon, okay, and for the Latter-day Saints. Is that the Mormons, they have not only the Book of Mormon, they have this other book of scriptures called the Pearl of Great Price. And one of the books within the Pearl of Great Price called the Book of Abraham. Okay, here's where the Book of Abraham comes from. In the 1800s, this guy came through, because remember, Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1830, and he died in 1844. So that's the time period that he operated, 1830 to 1844. Well, this guy was coming through the East Coast somewhere and he was just selling Egyptian artifacts, because this is kind of back in the wild west of archaeology before it was like really regulated and stuff, where you just got just rich people just kind of digging stuff up and just selling it and just doing whatever they want with it. It was just like a free-for-all at these excavations. And here's the thing, even though the Rosetta Stone was discovered and, you know, people started to understand it in the early 1800s, you know, it took a lot longer for knowledge to spread and the hieroglyphics had not been as fully decoded as they are today, so people couldn't really read the hieroglyphics yet. Now in 2021, you know, you've got people who can read hieroglyphics and it's all been decoded and, you know, or at least the majority of it, it's easy to see what they say now. But back then, not so much in the 1800s. So you've got this guy selling antiquities and he sells some ancient document covered in hieroglyphics to Joseph Smith. Okay? So Joseph Smith buys this, and they'll even tell you this, you know, he buys this ancient Egyptian document from an antiquities dealer in the 1800s. Nobody knows what it says. It's never been decoded. So what does he do? He says, oh, this is a lost book of Abraham. You know, it's all about Abraham going down to Egypt and whatever. And so he transcribed it all. So they have all the symbols and everything written down. He copied them all down and then through the help of some demon, he translated it, translated it into English, and it's in their scripture to this day. It's called the Book of Abraham. It's just some tall tale about Abraham down in Egypt and whatever. Some wild made up story that either Joseph Smith made up or some demon whispered in his ear or whatever. But the point is that now this document that Joseph Smith used to create the Book of Abraham has now been decoded by Egyptologists. Egyptologists can read it no problem now. And it turned out it was just some dead guy's last will and testament. Just some random Egyptian. Some random Egyptian is just like, you know, telling which kid gets what or whatever when he died. It's just a will, a last will and testament of some dude who's just, it was just a random scrap of paper. It'd be like it was like a receipt or something. You know what I mean? It'd be like, like, like some Joseph Smith a thousand years from now digs up a Dollar Tree receipt and he's like, oh man, you know, this is the lost book of Enoch or something, you know. And so that, I mean, this stuff is read, this information is all readily available. But what do the Mormons do? They just kind of go, but they just don't want to hear it. You know what? True biblical Christianity can stand up to scrutiny. The Word of God can stand up to scrutiny. The Bible is true. We believe the Bible. And if you become smarter, you're not going to believe the Bible less, you're going to believe the Bible more. Unless, unless you have wickedness in your heart. And if you have that wickedness in your heart, all learning is going to do is just going to magnify that wickedness that was already there. But if you have purity in your heart, then the learning is just going to magnify that purity. It's not going to change who you are at the end of the day. You see, I could approach, I could approach Genesis 7 and 8, you know, trying to prove that it's false and come up with all these stupid things. Or, how did we approach it this morning? The first thing I said was, hey, we all believe the Bible, right? Okay, now let's read it. Through faith we understand. Say, you're biased. You better know I am. Of course I'm biased. Of course I'm biased because though he slay me, yet will I trust him. But at the end of the day though, I'm going to figure things out for myself. I'm going to think for myself. I want to understand what the Bible says and why. Now obviously a little kid, a three year old, can't demand to understand everything. And I am to God as a three year old is to a parent. So I can't really necessarily demand to understand everything. Job isn't claiming that he understands everything. And he doesn't really have to understand everything. But at the end of the day though, he has something that he knows. He knows how God has told him to live his life and he knows he's been living his life the way God told him to live. That's what he knows. He may not understand everything about the universe. He may not understand everything about the nature of God. He may not understand everything about why God does the thing he does. But he says, look, I know that I have been living my life in a way that God has told me to live my life. And I know I haven't committed some major sin or done this wickedness that you're accusing me of. And so that's what he's maintaining. He's saying, don't we slay me yet while I trust in him, but I will maintain my own ways before him. What does he mean by maintain? He's going to defend his own ways before God. He's going to say, look, what I've done is what you told me to do. Period. Now I don't understand everything about the Bible. That's not what I'm getting at. I'm not saying, hey, you know, we understand everything. And if I don't understand, I won't believe it. No, no. There are many things in the Bible where I believed first and understood later. So I don't want you to misunderstand the sermon. You know, through faith we understand. You know, we start with faith and we understand later. So I don't want you to misunderstand the sermon. But at the same time, there are certain things that we know to be true. Certain things that we know to be true. We know that it's what the Bible says. Or we know that we see them with our real eyes in the actual natural world. The things that we know to be true, the things that are facts, God is not asking us to basically renounce those facts in order to believe the Bible. It's foolish. Because fact is truth and we should love truth and seek truth and always be on the side of truth. You know, some bozo a couple years ago you might remember said, we walk by faith, not by facts. You're insane. Walk by faith, not by facts. No, no. I walk by faith in facts. Because the Bible is facts. We walk by faith, not by facts. Well, you know what? Some of us walk by both. Because I'm not going to sacrifice facts for faith. Now, look, faith is number one. Faith is the number one thing. But guess what? It's not the only thing. We also have a brain. We also know certain things about reality. And the Bible needs to match reality. If we know reality is true and if we know the Bible is true, then you know what? They need a match. Period. They need a match. And if they don't match, there's a problem. I mean, what if the New Testament didn't jive with the Old Testament? What if they were just totally incompatible and just like, they won't fit? You know what we'd have to do? We'd have to reject one or the other, wouldn't we? And isn't that what we would tell the Mormons? Because guess what? The Book of Mormon doesn't fit. It's not compatible. Okay? You know, this is the Lego. The Book of Mormon is mega blocks. It doesn't quite fit. It's a knockoff. It's a cheap imitation. It doesn't fit. It falls out. Lego makes that nice, snug fit. Okay? Old Testament is a Lego. New Testament is a Lego. Pearl of Great Price is mega blocks. Okay? It's that simple. And so the point is that if the Old Testament is absolute truth and the New Testament is absolute truth, they better jive. And guess what? They do. Well, let's add a third leg to that stool. Reality. Guess what? It jives too. That's why we love the Word of God because it's exceeding pure. Because all of his judgments are right about everything. That's why we love it. Well, what if the Bible told you X, Y, Z? But it doesn't though because it's not stupid. If it were stupid, we wouldn't believe in it because we don't believe in stupid books like the Book of Abraham. We believe in the Word of God. So yes, I will trust in the Lord even unto death, but I will maintain my own ways before him. Things that I know to be true. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for the perfection of your word. We thank you that you are the source of knowledge and wisdom and understanding, Lord, and there are many in our day and age who have professed themselves to be wise, but in the process they've become fools. Lord God, help us to seek after the true wisdom that comes from you and help everyone who's here, no matter what their level of intelligence, that they would just continue to read your word and study and grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to increase wisdom and understanding and knowledge. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Let's take our song books, please, and we'll sing number 424. Song number 424, O Come, All Ye Faithful, number 424. Joyful and triumphant, number 424. On this verse, first together. O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, Lord, the King of angels. O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation, O sing, O ye bright hosts of heaven above. Glory to God, O glory in the highest, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, board this happy morning, Jesus, to Thee be all glory given. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.