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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Alright, 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've got our service times. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. This week will be in Judges Chapter 12. We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms. Next Sunday at 10 a.m. will be the coffee and donuts before the service in honor of all those celebrating birthdays in the month of March. And then thank you to everybody who participated in the small town soul winning trip yesterday to Globe. We had 11 soul winners show up for that with 5 saved. And then there's a trip coming up to Safford this coming weekend. It says this Saturday. Isn't that going to be a two day deal though? Yeah, so it actually is going to leave on Friday morning and come back on Saturday evening. The details for that and the sign up sheet for that are over here by the kitchen if you'd like to go along for that. Again, transportation is provided, food is provided, lodging is provided. And so that is available if you have the availability this Friday and Saturday. And we have more of these type of trips coming up all the time. And then the deadline to recite the Bible memory passage is next Sunday, March 7th. Be sure you read the guidelines there. And then the weekly singing class on the back has resumed. And Brother Daniel Hernandez is doing this right at 5 o'clock. And so it's every Sunday at 5 o'clock. If you want to improve your singing practice, learn a little bit more about music, that's going to be every Sunday at 5 p.m. And then keep praying for our ladies that are expecting that they would have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. And that is about it for announcements. Come lead us in our next song. Alright, in the front of your hymnals, you should find this sheet with Psalm 150. If you don't have one, please raise your hand and we'll get to you with one. And we'll sing it out, Psalm 150. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him with a firm moment of his power. Praise him with a mighty axe. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the salty ad-hoc. Praise him with a tempo and dance. Praise him with street instruments and organ. Praise him upon the loud cymbals. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that happened praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. In the name of your hymnals, please turn to hymn number 472. This is my Father's world, number 472. Number 472, let's sing it out on that first verse. This is my Father's world and to my listening ears all of nature sings. And round the rings, number 472. This is my Father's world and to my listening ears all of nature sings. And round the rings, the music of the seers. This is my Father's world, I'm resting in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas and the wonders wrought. This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise. The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker's praise. This is my Father's world, He shines with all that's fair. In the sweet grass I hear, as He speaks to me everywhere. This is my Father's world, oh let me ne'er forget. Let the wrong seeds talk so strong, God is my ruler yet. This is my Father's world, the battle is undone. Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one. And I can sing it this morning. Alright, this time we'll pass our offering plate. As the plate goes around, let's turn in our Bibles to Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1 in our Bibles, as we always do. We'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Raymond as he reads. Proverbs chapter 1, starting in verse number 1. Proverbs chapter 1 verse 1, the Bible reads, The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment and equity, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels, to understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother, for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head and chains about thy neck. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay weight for blood, let us look privily for the innocent without cause, let us swallow them up alive as the grave, and whole as those that go down into the pit. We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil. Cast in thy lot among us, let us all have one purse. My son, walk not thou in the way with them, refrain thy foot from their path, for their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird, and they lay weight for their own blood, they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain, which taketh away the life of the owners thereof. Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, she crieth in the chief place of concourse, and the openings of the gates, and the city, she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded. But ye have said it not, all my counsel, and with none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh, when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Brother Charlie, will you pray for us? Lord, thank you for today. Lord, I ask that you would be with us, and be with Pastor as he preaches your word, and Lord soften our hearts, and open our ears to hear your word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen, the title of my sermon this morning is Simplicity. Simplicity, and I'm going to be talking about the good kind of simplicity, and the bad kind of simplicity. Now all throughout the Bible, this term simplicity, or simple, or the simple one is used, and many times it's being used in a good way, and then a lot of other times it's being used in a bad way. And there are so many good mentions, and so many bad mentions, and so I want to explain both sides of this important concept. Now first of all, if you would, keep your finger there in Proverbs 1, but let's go over to 2 Corinthians chapter number 11. 2 Corinthians chapter number 11. And in 2 Corinthians chapter number 11, the apostle Paul is warning the Corinthians about false prophets, and fake apostles, and false doctrine, and another gospel that would come in and corrupt them. And in verse number 3 it says, But I fear, lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit which you've not received, or another gospel which you've not accepted, you might well bear with him. He's saying, I'm afraid that you'd go along with it. And so we need to be aware of these things, and not be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Now this is clearly a good simplicity, and this kind of simplicity is that, hey, the gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. That's why even a little child can be saved. And in fact, for anyone to be saved, they have to be converted and become as little children, the Bible says, and accept that simplicity of the gospel. It's very simple to realize that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he was buried, he rose again, and that salvation is just by putting our faith and trust in what he already did on the cross. His finished work is what saves us. We're trusting in him for salvation, we're not trusting in our own works or our own deeds, but it is 100% what Jesus did. That's simple. That's easy to understand. People try to complicate it when they say, well, you've got to repent of your sins. It's like, okay, well what does that mean? And now all of a sudden, you've got to be willing to change, and you've got to turn from your evil way, and you've got to start keeping the commandments. Now it becomes a works-based salvation, and here's the thing about works-based salvation, there's nothing simple about it, because it's impossible to know how many works are enough, what's good enough, because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one. There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. So the reality is that we're all sinners, we all deserve hell, but that if we believe on Jesus Christ, we receive that free gift of salvation. If we just totally rely on him with that childlike faith, we'll be saved. But then people will try to bring in another gospel, which is not another, but there'd be some that would pervert the gospel of Christ, where it's like, well, you've got to keep the commandments, or you've at least got to be willing to keep the commandments. You've got to clean up your life a little. You can't live however you want. And then all of a sudden, you start wondering, well, what's good enough, because I thought we've all come short. I thought nothing's good enough. I thought there's nothing to do with good, no, not one. Now all of a sudden, I have to live up to some standard. What's the standard? And then it's like, well, I hope I'm going to heaven. I mean, I hope my good outweighs my bad. But the Bible says, These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And so the Bible tells us we can know for sure if we believe on the name of the Son, that we're saved. And so the gospel is simple. And when people are giving you a really complicated recipe for salvation, seven steps to salvation, and they don't even know if they're saved, and, you know, I mean, folks, the Catholic Church today and many Protestants will teach that it's presumptuous to say you know you're going to heaven, whereas the Bible says, These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. So when it comes to the gospel, simplicity is good. Don't let anybody beguile you or deceive you away from the simplicity that's in Christ. But here's a bad kind of simplicity, thinking that everything in the Bible is simple. See, a lot of people, because the gospel is simple, because salvation is simple, they think everything in the Bible is simple. Everything in the Bible is going to be a piece of cake. And anything that's not simple, they won't believe it, or they don't want to hear about it, or they don't understand it. So then they walk away saying, Oh, well, the Bible is contradicting itself, because the Bible is complex, and they're simple. That's the problem. Okay. So the bottom line is, yes, the gospel is simple, salvation is simple, but many things in the Bible are difficult and complicated. Why is that? Because God wants everyone to be saved. And so he doesn't want you to have to be intelligent or smart or educated to get saved, and then all the dumb people are just on a bobsled to hell. No, he wants even the most ignorant or uneducated, illiterate person to still be able to get saved, just by believing in Jesus, just by hearing the word of God and believing on Christ. And so the gospel is simple. But here's the thing. The Bible is a big, long, complicated book. So don't just sit there and say, Oh, yeah, it's all simple. It's all real simple. That's not what the Bible says. Because in 2 Peter, in fact, flip over to 2 Peter 3, if you would. We're going to go back to Proverbs in a moment. But go back, if you would, to 2 Peter 3, verse 16. This is the apostle Peter. This is a really cool verse, because it's Peter talking about the epistles of Paul. You know, it's kind of interesting to get that kind of back and forth there. So 2 Peter 3, 16 says, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, talking about the apostle Paul, in which are some things hard to be understood. So is everything in the Bible easy? Is it all simple, it's easy to understand, it's all right there on the surface? No, the Bible says, look, there are some things in Paul's epistles that are hard to be understood. And look, Peter's no dummy. I mean, Peter walked and talked with Jesus Christ for three and a half years. Peter has been a Christian for many, many decades when he's writing this epistle. Okay, he's extremely knowledgeable. He's extremely spiritual. He's mightily used by God. And he says, man, some of these epistles are pretty hard. Then, you know, don't feel bad if they're hard for you. If it's hard for Peter, it might be hard for you, it might be hard for me. There are going to be some things that are hard. So don't get this strange view that says everything's got to be simple. And then as we continue on, it says, there are some things that are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, rest. So they twist them, okay? Now, a scripture that's hard to be understood is easier to twist. Because since people don't understand it, you can twist it and make it say something false, as opposed to clear, simple scriptures. That's why I love the fact that the clearest, simplest book in the Bible, the Gospel of John, is the one that says it's written so that you might be saved, so that you might have eternal life. And it really keeps things simple. So, because the Gospel is simple. But people love to twist things that are hard to understand. And then it says, you know, those that are unlearned and unstable, they rest them. Resting means twisting. As they do also the other scriptures under their own destruction. He's saying, you know, really they'll try to twist everything. But ye therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace and in the what? Grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Because as you grow in knowledge, some of the things that used to be really hard for you to understand, you start understanding more and more. You're never going to understand everything, but you grow in knowledge, you grow in understanding. That's God's will for your life. So the good thing is the simplicity of the Gospel, but the bad thing is thinking everything in the Bible is simple. Now finally, let's go back to Proverbs 1. I want to show you what the Bible says in Proverbs 1 verse 22. How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? So it's not necessarily a virtue to just want everything to be simple all the time. He says, how long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and here's the key, and fools hate knowledge. You know, they don't want to learn, they don't want to go further, they don't want to go deeper. They want everything to be simple, everything on the surface. Fools hate knowledge. Turn ye on my reproof, behold I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. The Bible says in Proverbs 14, 18, you don't need to turn there, but it says the simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. So we notice that in Proverbs, sometimes the word simple is not a compliment. The simple inherit folly, the prudent are crowned with knowledge. You know, how long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. You know, a perfect example of this is recently, you know, I've been making some videos rebuking this Islamic fake scholar, Sheikh Uthman, okay. So this guy, he sets up a little booth at the fair and he preaches Islam and basically what he does is he just makes videos to upload to YouTube where he just kind of just argues or engages with just whatever bozo happens to be walking by his little booth. Now think about this, we go out soul-winding all the time and knocking doors. How many people do we run into out knocking doors that don't know the Bible very well? That they would claim to be a Christian, but they're totally confused about doctrine. They know almost nothing. So basically he makes, he puffs himself up by just finding these random bozos who don't know anything about the Bible and arguing with them publicly. And the guy's a complete fraud. He pretends to know about things that he doesn't know. But this guy is a scorner. He scoffs at and mocks the word of God. He laughs at it, makes fun of it, acts like it's stupid, when in reality the Quran is a piece of junk, okay. But he, you know, he's scoffing at the Bible, scoffing at the word of God. And to me, this guy's problem is that he's extremely simple. He's not smart and he expects everything in the Bible to be super simple. And if anything's complicated, he can't, it just goes right over his head. He's just way too simple, okay. So let me give an example of this and if you want, you can turn to these passages. I'm going to turn to 2 Samuel 24, 9 and 1 Chronicles 21, 5. So we're going to go to 2 Samuel 24, 9 and 1 Chronicles 21, 5 are the two places we're going to go. And so in this, this was one of the examples that he brought up as a supposed contradiction in the Bible. And he brings this up where Joab is sent out to count the number of soldiers. He's sent out to count the number of troops that Israel and Judah have. And this is something that he was not supposed to do. He wasn't supposed to do this as far as God was concerned, but he went out and did it. And the story's recorded in these two different books that were written centuries apart, okay. Because the book of the Chronicles is written much later than 2 Samuel. And so these books are written by different authors at totally different times. And when they record the number of troops, they give different numbers. And he's saying, well this proves that the Bible's corrupt or whatever. Look what the Bible says in 2 Samuel 24, 9. And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people under the king and there were in Israel 800,000 valiant men that drew the sword and the men of Judah were 500,000 men. So you got 800,000, 500,000. And you go to 1 Chronicles 21, 5 and Joab gave the sum of the number of the people under David and all they of Israel were 1000,000, that's called a million, and 100,000 men, so it's 1.1 million, that drew sword and Judah was 400, three score and 10,000 men that drew sword. So instead of 800,000 and 500,000, we have 1.1 million and 470,000. So there's a little bit of a difference here between these numbers. They're similar numbers, you know, 500,000, 470,000, 800,000, 1.1 million. And my response to this was to say, well obviously it's just two different ways of counting. It's just who's being counted. Because if I were to just ask you how many troops are in the US military, you'd have to go, well wait a minute, what do you mean by that? Are we talking active duty? Are we talking actual combat troops? Or are we talking about support crews? Which branches, I mean are you going to include the National Guard in that? Are you going to include the Army Reserve? Are you going to include, you know, retired? I mean they're all different ways of counting. You know, which branches are we counting? Which personnel are we counting? Do you really think that a man like Joab is sent out by King David to go count the people and he just comes back with like a three by five card with like two numbers on it? It's like, here you go. Any kind of a census always is more complicated than that. Think about censuses that we take in the United States where it's like, this is how many in this county, this is how many in this township, in this city. Here are the males, here are the females, here are the ages, here's this demographic, that demographic. That's how you do a census, that's how everyone does a census. We know for a fact that when Joab did this, if you'd actually study the story, you know he's counting by tribe and also these two verses are worded a little bit differently about who's being included. And so it's very easy to understand how you could have a whole bunch of raw data, you know, a list of, okay, this many from this tribe, you got the guys in the chariots, you got the guys on horseback, you got the foot soldiers, you got the officers, you got the reserves. Now I guarantee you that Joab brought back a more complicated list of numbers and basically the author of 2 Samuel is choosing to include a certain group there in his scripture and in 1 Chronicles he's including a little bit different of a number but the both numbers are right, it's just two different ways of looking at it. Now this guy, this just blew his mind. Even though you could Google any kind of a troop count and you're gonna see it's a complicated number, there are lots of different factors and different parameters that would go into counting something like that, but this is blue as mud. How can there be more than one way to count? Yeah, yeah, there's more than one way to count. Yeah. And you know, these people, they claim to have invented algebra even though it was invented by the ancient Greeks, but hey, you know, it was invented by the ancient Greeks, but anyway, you know, they claim to have invented algebra, but now all of a sudden it's like 2 plus 2 is 4, over, that's it, that's the only way to count. No, there are actually a lot of ways to count. You know, it'd be like if we talked about, what if I asked you this question, what's the average church size in America? What's the average size of a church in America? You know, there are a bunch of different ways to answer that question that are all correct because I could say 175 or I could say 85. How can there be more? How can there be two averages? It's called the mean, the median, and the mode. Who knows what I'm talking about? Yeah, so the mean church size, the mean average is 175 because it includes these radical outliers like where you have Joel Osteen filling an entire stadium or something. That kind of skews the number. Whereas, the median church size, see how do you take the mean? I'm going to give you a little math lesson. How do you take the mean average? You take the number of churches, you take the number of all the people in those churches and you divide, right? That's it. It's real simple. You just add up all the people, divide by the number of churches, that's your average, right? But some people, they think that's the only kind of average, but there's another average called median and here's what median means. Median means there are just as many churches bigger than you as smaller than you. Isn't that mean, your average? There are just as many, so the median church size is 85, the mean average is 175, but how can there be more than one way of counting? There can be lots of different ways of counting, okay? Because who are we counting? What ages, what branches, are we counting only active duty, only combat troops, what's the standard for the counting and this just went completely over this guy's head because everything's got to be super simple for him. That's why he loves Islam because he doesn't have to think at all, okay? So you can just have it just super simple. Now, let me give you an example of why he doesn't have to think as a Muslim as opposed to us Christians have to think a little bit. Go if you would to 2 Timothy chapter 3 and this goes to the issue of the inspiration of the Bible. The inspiration of scripture. Some people just want to have this super simple view of the inspiration of the Bible that God mechanically dictated the entire Bible to man. Now, there are parts of the Bible that are certainly mechanically dictated but not all of it, okay? And to the Muslim though, this is why the Quran is superior because this is what they say, your Bible has 40 different authors whereas the Quran only has one author, God, and it's just dictated by God to Mohammed. It was just dictated verbatim by God to Mohammed. It's kind of interesting when God showed up to Mohammed and gave him that chapter about how he was supposed to marry his son-in-law's ex-wife. That was kind of an interesting revelation so that everybody from there on out could know that it's okay to marry your son-in-law's ex-wife or whatever. It's like, what? But supposedly it's all dictated by God to Mohammed. But let me explain something to you. The Bible was not dictated by God to the biblical authors. The Apostle Paul when he's sitting down and writing the epistle to the Corinthians, God's not telling, okay, now write this, now write this, now write, oh, you missed a spot, you know, go back. He was actually writing what's on his mind but he's being moved by the Holy Ghost, okay? God breathed. So the Bible says, where are we? 2 Timothy 3.15 says, and that from a child, thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and that word inspiration is from the same root as like respiration which is breathing, okay? Inspiration of God is the breath of God. It's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Now flip over to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. So we do believe that the Bible is breathed by God. It's God-breathed. It's inspired by God. It's the word of God. It's without error. It's perfect, okay, but it was written down by human beings. God used men to write the Bible. That's why the Bible says in 2 Peter 1.20, knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So the holy men of God, they spoke and they're moved by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is leading them and moving them to say what he wants them to say, okay? But here's the thing. You cannot ignore the fact that when you read scripture, the different authors have different styles. I mean, when you read the books that John wrote, they have a certain style. Peter's epistles, totally different style. Apostle Paul, totally different style. You read the four gospels. It's four different perspectives written by four different human authors. But here's the thing about it though. It's all perfect. It's all the word of God. It's all absolute truth. But here's the wonderful thing about scripture is that it's not only divine, it's also human. Just like Jesus is divine and human. The Bible is divine and human. See that is actually a more amazing miracle than just God grabbing Mohammed by the throat in a cave and saying recite and mechanically dictating the word to him. But here's the proof that the Quran's not inspired. It's not even a good book. Okay, here's the thing. If the creator of the universe writes a book, it better be awesome. Why is it that there's awesomeness on every page of the Bible? But I have not found one quote that I like in the Quran. I've written the Quran for hours and hours and hours. I can't even find a quote that I like. I mean I find quotes that I like in tons of other books. There are even a couple of Gandhi quotes that I like. You know what I mean? I'm not a fan of Gandhi, but he's got some good quotes. The Quran's got nothing. Seriously. Show me an inspirational quotable quote from the Quran. But the Bible is just like, you're just like under, have you ever seen people's Bibles where they underline like 50% of the text? You know what I mean? They're underlining like almost as much as they're not underlining. And that's how you feel sometimes when you're reading the Bible. Like somebody posted a picture to Facebook one time. It was like, you know, when you're reading Romans with a highlighter, it was just like the whole page is highlighted. Because you're just like, yes, yes, so good. And I mean, let's just take one book of the Bible, Proverbs. It's like you quote it every day. Every single day there are just so many opportunities to quote Proverbs and it's just so quotable and it's just so powerful and so meaningful. It's just so right. Okay. Look, if God writes a book, it better be awesome because you know, I'm looking at God's creation. It's pretty awesome. You know, I'm looking at the trees and the rivers and the plants and the animals. I look up at the starry sky. It's beautiful. It's amazing. And in Arizona, every single evening, sunset, every evening, beautiful, breathtaking views all the time. And we're just in one little corner of the world. Just in Arizona alone, you could just spend your entire life admiring the scenery. But I'm supposed to believe that God sits down to write a book and it's not even good literature, it's not even logical, it doesn't even make sense, it's boring, it's poorly written and I'm supposed to believe that that's the word of God? I will never believe that. I will never accept that because I believe the Bible, you say, well what's your evidence? He keeps asking for evidence. Faith is the evidence. You want to know the evidence for the Bible? It's the most amazing book of all time. The Bible is the evidence for the Bible. The Bible is amazing. The Bible is powerful. The Bible is God's word and when God writes, he can write. Now look, you say, well I don't know, you know, some of these authors are anonymous. I need to know who that was. I don't care who the anonymous authors are because some of the books are anonymous. Like, you know, who wrote the book of Job? You know, we don't know who wrote the book of Job, right? It wasn't Job because it talks about how he lived really long and he had his great-great grandchildren and he died and everything else, okay? You know, who wrote the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings? We don't know, right? I mean there are lots of books you could point to. Who wrote the book of Joshua? Who wrote the book of Judges? Who wrote the book of Ruth? You know, we don't know. Who wrote the book of Esther? We don't know. People could guess and theorize. I don't know. But you know what? It doesn't matter to me. Early men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That's it. It's just God used a man to deliver his word and he actually used that man, even his personality and his mentality, but it wasn't that guy's private interpretation. No, he spake as he's moved by the Holy Ghost. So we doubt nothing in the Bible because some people will go too far the other way and this old man wrote the Bible. That's just Paul's opinion or that's just Peter. That's just a reflection of his culture. Folks, if you have to choose between it being human or divine, grab onto divine first. You better believe it's the word of God. But you know what? If you want to get a little less simple, you could actually get the true story which is that it's divine and human and that's a miracle. That's amazing. This guy's bragging about the fact that the Quran has no contradiction in it. So what? So a book that's written by one guy, because it wasn't written by God, is either written by a demon or Mohammed. You pick. It was either the angel Moroni, the demon, or else it was Mohammed. But either way, a book that's authored by one person at one time in one language having no contradictions isn't really a big deal. I don't think Dr. Seuss's book Hop on Pop has any contradictions in it either. And you know what? It's way more quotable than the Quran. No, Pat, no. Don't sit on that. I mean, look. All ball fall wall. We all play ball on the wall. Don't fall off the wall when you play ball. I know I butchered that quote. I need to brush up. But look, folks, here's the thing. A book that's written in one time period by one dude in one language, so what if it has no contradictions? The point about the Bible is that it's written over the course of 1600 years by approximately 40 authors. We don't even know the exact number of authors because so many books are anonymous. So three languages, 1600 years, 40 authors, and yet it all goes together. It all flows together. It all gives one powerful story from Genesis to Revelation. It's one cohesive whole. That's amazing. That's a miracle. That's impressive. OK, that the Bible could bring together so many different things and yet be one book that has one feel to it. It's amazing. But you know, I'm not impressed by the simplicity of the Koran. It was mechanically dictated. That's better. Sorry, I like the way the Bible is actually delivered. It's not as simple. It's a little harder to understand, to think about the human authorship and the divine inspiration and to hold those two ideas and reconcile them. But I'd hate for you to have to think a little bit or accept something a little more complex than mechanical dictation, but it's the truth. You know, let me hurry up for sake of time, but flip over to Romans chapter 16. So so far, just a quick review because I've got some other points I want to make in the sermon. We're talking about being simple, simplicity. So we said, hey, the simplicity of the Gospel is good. Believing the Gospel is simple, that's good, OK? But thinking that everything in the Bible is simple, that's bad because he flat out said, hey, some of it's hard, some of it's complicated, and so forth. And we don't want to be like that Muslim guy where it's just, oh, there's only one way to count. No, actually, they're, you know, if you study the Bible, you'll find lots of different counting and they count different ways at different times. You know, we could go through all the count. There's a whole book called Numbers in the Bible, Book of Numbers, and you could go through and see. Sometimes they count the men and the women. Sometimes they just count the men. Sometimes they count from ages 20 to 50. Sometimes they count from 30 to 50. Sometimes, I mean, they're all different ways to count. OK, so, you know, sorry to burst your bubble there. Some people just hate math so much that it affects their doctrine. Hey, if you don't like math, that's fine, but don't start messing with the doctrine to accommodate your lack of math understanding. OK, so we said that's a bad simplicity. OK, well, here's another good simplicity. It's good to be simple concerning evil things, the Bible says. Look at Romans chapter 16 verse 18. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Now, that doesn't sound like it's good to be simple there because I don't want my heart to get deceived. So here, he's saying, hey, if you're simple, you're susceptible to being deceived. And so watch out for that, OK? But then he turns around and says in the next verse, for your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad, therefore, on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. Now, people who want to make the Bible too, well, which one is it, God? You want me to be simple or not? Keep it simple. Here's the irony. The subject of simplicity isn't a simple one because in one verse, he's telling us don't be simple and the next verse, he's telling us to be simple. Why? Because it's a little more complicated than that because there's an aspect where we should be simple and an aspect where we should not be simple. Now, let me give you an illustration to help you understand this, OK? Because, you know, God's telling us people who are simple get deceived and there are a lot of verses like that in Proverbs too. People who are simple get deceived. But then he says, I want you to be simple concerning evil, but I would have you wise unto that which is good. So let me give you an illustration. Think about someone who's accepting money at the bank. They don't want to accept a counterfeit. They want to be able to spot a counterfeit. They rub a little marker on it. They hold it up to the light and they go through a process to make sure that money isn't counterfeit. Now, here's the thing. When they're teaching people to spot counterfeit money, they don't just spend hours and hours and hours showing them every type of counterfeit that's ever been invented. Look at this counterfeit. Look at that counterfeit. Here's what they actually do. They get them to study the real thing. You know, and if they study the real thing and master that of just being able to spot all the little idiosyncrasies and every little watermark and every detail of the real thing, then when they see the wrong ones, be like, whoa, that doesn't look right. That's kind of bluish. Who's ever seen counterfeit money before? You know, sometimes like the color is a little off or the size is a little, there's something weird about it, you know, that kind of just jumps out at you if you've been used to handling money a lot. Like for example, when they changed the money about 25 years ago, I remember the new money looked fake to me because you're so used to the old one. But now every once in a while you get an old bill, it looks fake to you. You're like, whoa, is this real? In fact, I was just talking to somebody. They were trying to spend an old bill. I think it was my dad was trying to spend an old bill and the worker was telling him it's counterfeit. And he's like, no, it's just the old style, but it wasn't counterfeit. And then they're like, I got to keep this or he's like, no, you're not going to keep that. That's my money. They wouldn't accept it. And so here's what we need to do. If we, if we study the word of God and if we study to do the right things and we don't need to know every sinful, dark thing that's going on in this world, okay, and this is important to realize because young people especially get curious. They're very curious, you know, and, and, and the problem with that is they could be curious like Eve in the Garden of Eden, curious, you know, Hey, I wonder what's going on with that tree of knowledge of good and evil. Okay. So people could be curious to where they, they say, well, I got to read every filthy magazine and watch every filthy movie and go to the casino and go to the, I'm just trying to see what it's like. And I see how bad it is. You know, I just want to see what's out there, see what's wrong with it, you know, but here's the thing about that. It's better that we just don't know certain things. You know, there are a lot of things, a lot of perversions and things out there where I'm just like, I don't even want to know. I don't even want to know what, you know, I don't understand what that means and I don't want to know. Right. I don't want to know the details of sin like, and you know what I, if they add more letters to that LGBTQ plus AP, you know what, it's like, I don't even want to know. There's like 60 some genders now. I don't even want to know what they are. Like I'm not even going to look these things up because it's just like, I just, to me, there's just male, female and pervert. Those are, you know what I mean? I, you know, I've been preaching that there's only two genders, but I'm starting to believe in a third gender called pervert because, because here's the thing. You know, you look at this transvestite that, that, that, that's being appointed to the health secretary. Does anybody know if he got confirmed or not or is it still up in the air, it's still up in the air? Well, here's the thing about that tranny, you know, everybody's calling him he and him and I'm certainly not going to call it she, but I'm thinking to myself, I don't even know if I'm going to call it he, I'm just going to go with it. And you know, I don't do this they thing. They is plural. They is plural. If you're looking for a neuter pronoun, it already exists in the English language. It's called it. Okay, so I'm going to give that guy neuter. I mean, is that appropriate or what? What could be more appropriate? You know, you got, cause, cause in, in pronouns in English, you've got male, masculine, feminine and neuter. You know, he, she, it. So put a neuter pronoun on the guy. But you know what? It doesn't matter what, how that guy mutilates himself. He is still a dude because genetically and biologically cause he's got a Y chromosome in every cell of his body. He's a dude, but I don't want to call him a man. You know, I just call him a thing, an it. He's an organism. Yeah, he's, he, he's really a homo sapiens if there ever was one. But, but the, you know, the, the point is, what is the point? What? Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing. I don't want to know about that. I don't even want to know about everything to do with these transvestites because I'd rather be simple concerning something that's so evil because what does the Bible say? It's a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. It's a shame even to speak. That's why I don't want you posting pictures on, on my Facebook wall of some transvestite or homo. I didn't want to look at it. I was talking to brother Corbin, he's like, yeah, I haven't even seen a picture of that thing. And I'm like, great, you're lucky because I had to, I had to use one of those eye wash stations that are found in chemistry lab, you know, after I saw the picture I had to wash, you know, I'm like, I'm like, has this, has 10 minutes gone by yet? Cause I'm supposed to flood this thing for 10 minutes. That's what the chemistry manual said. So drink a glass of un-sea juice. But the thing is, you know, we don't need to know about all the wickedness and sin and filth out there. I don't need to go into a bar to figure out what's going on in there. I don't need to go into a casino and try to figure out what's going on. I just want to see what it's like in the gentleman's club. You don't need to know, just be simple concerning those evil, wicked things. You know, be wise concerning that which is good. You know, understand the family, understand marriage according to the Bible, you know, and you don't need to be an expert on all the sins and evil things that are going on in this world. So that's a good simple. So so far we've got a few things in the good column, couple things in the bad column. In the good column, simple gospel, good. Being simple concerning evil, good. Making everything in the Bible simple and just trying to just make everything ultra simple, bad, because some things in the Bible are complicated and difficult to understand. Here's another bad thing, being gullible, right? Because fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. We saw it right there at the end of verse 18. But back in Proverbs, and if you would go to 2 Samuel 15, you could turn to 2 Samuel 15. Here's what the Bible says in Proverbs 14, 15, the simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going. The simple man believes everything, he's gullible. Proverbs 14, 18, the simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. Proverbs 22, 3, a prudent man foreseeeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. Proverbs 132, for the turning away of the simple shall slay them, right, so simpleness can kill you. And the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. Look at 2 Samuel 15, 11, the Bible says, and with Absalom went 200 men out of Jerusalem that were called and they went in their simplicity and they knew not anything. That doesn't sound good. Absalom's a bad guy, he's being followed by people who don't know anything. They're simple, this is not a compliment. So don't stay simple, become wise. The Bible says the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. So the Bible makes simple people wise. The entrance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding unto the simple. Proverbs 8, 5, O ye simple, understand wisdom and ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart, saying get some smarts. Proverbs 9, 13, a foolish woman is clamorous, she's simple and knoweth nothing. That's not good, fix that, learn something. So it's not good to be gullible and ignorant, okay. It's good to be simple concerning the Gospel, it's good to be simple concerning evil things, but it's bad to think everything in the Bible is simple, and it's bad to be gullible and to just believe everything you hear because you're just not getting any learning. You know, you're just staying ignorant. Now let me say this, and if you would flip over to, let's do 2 Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Here's the thing, different people in this world start out with a different level of intelligence that's just based on just physical genetics or the brain or whatever. You know what I mean? It's just like everybody's not going to be born with the same abilities. But that doesn't just go for your brains, it could go with your brawn. I mean some people are born to be in the Olympics or whatever, other people, they could train as much as they want, they just don't have the hardware, okay. It's just not going to happen for them. You know, every time I try to become good at like, you know, endurance sports or, you know, it just seems like I always get sick and I just, my hardware fails, okay. So it's not the software, okay, it's the hardware. But the point is, you know, and we've all heard the word talent. You know, the word talent's a really interesting word because what it originally meant is a piece of money. A talent is like a measure of weight, like a pound or an ounce. That's how it started, okay. But when we say someone has talent, we're talking about that they're gifted. Now here's why we use it that way, that comes from the Bible. Because in the Bible, Jesus tells a story where people are being handed talents. And those talents are actual pieces of money, like they're handed a piece of money and what do they do with it, okay. Now everybody's handed different amounts, you know, one guy's handed five, one guy's handed two, one guy's handed one, one guy's handed ten, whatever. They're given different things. So here's the thing, that has become a metaphor for other abilities and things that God gives us. What do we do with what God gives us? So if you have a God-given talent for music, you know, God gave you something, what are you going to do with it, okay. So here's what's going on with this. You have a certain physical ability that's different than mine. You might be more prone to being a good athlete than I am, or you might be born with a greater intelligence than someone else. You might be able to run faster than someone else, you know, even if you both trained the same. Even if you both studied the same, one's going to be smarter, you know, or even if you, everybody's not just born, like, you know, I know this is a really stupid kernel illustration, but it's like, it's like these role-playing video games from the 80s. I don't know about the new ones, they're probably weird, but you know, you know, whoever played these old games like Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Ultima, who knows what I'm talking about, the whole auditorium. We were all addicted. So here's the thing, you know, it's like you, you choose these different characters and like one guy's got a higher intelligence, but he's got lower speed, or you know what I mean? And another guy's got like higher spirit or whatever, and then another guy's got like lower strength. Does everybody know what I'm talking about? It's like, it's like you got to choose, there's not one character that just has maxed out on everything, and another guy who's just lame at everything. I think even Mario Kart is like this. You can choose vehicles, this one's got more speed, this one's got more handling capability, whatever. So I know that's a carnal illustration, but hey, more than half of you are going to connect with it, so that's great. So the point is, we're all kind of like that, where we're born with certain talents. One person's born with a great singing voice. Someone else, you know, they could learn how to sing pretty well, but it's never going to be world class. Okay, so here's the point. When it comes to knowledge, when it comes to intellect, when it comes to brains, we all start at a different point, okay? So look, I'm not down on you if you're not that intellectual, and we should never be down on someone for just not being that smart or not being that intellectual or just gravitate to only the people that are just uber smart and just savants and prodigies and they're just a genius. Because there's some people out there that are geniuses. Now look, when it comes to myself, you know, I consider myself to have been dealt by the hand of the Lord a medium intellect, an average intellect. I don't think that I'm super smart. I don't think I'm super dumb. You know, I believe that God has given me, you know, just pretty much average intellect. But here's the thing. It's not what intellect you start with. It's what you do with it, you know, and do you learn more, do you study, do you cultivate that, okay? It's not about comparing yourself to someone else or competing with someone else. It's really just about whatever level of brains you're at today, are you going to get a little smarter this week? You're going to read a little more Bible, study a little more, learn a little more as opposed to just saying, well, I'm just a simple country boy and, you know. It's like, well, hold up, you know, learn. Learn something. So, here's the thing. I think if you start with low intellect but you're learning, if you start with medium intellect and you're learning, you're a genius and you're learning, hey, I think God accepts all that and God looks at all that and says, hey, good job. See, if you have been given one talent and you come back with two, he says, well done. If you're given five and you come back with five more, he says, well, he doesn't look at the guy that was given two and said, why didn't you produce five? The guy who's given two produces two. That's great. So, here's the thing. You might be given a level one intellect, level two, level five, level ten. That's not the point. You can't change that. You can't, by taking thought, add one cubit to your stature. You know, maybe, you know, maybe you're of short stature. You can't change that. All you can do is do with what you got. You can do with what you got. And that's all God expects us to do. And so, we need to make sure that we don't praise simplicity and praise ignorance and allow people to stay that way. Now, let me bring up to you a guy who is a bad example of this and it's Mohammed. Might as well just be on Mohammed this morning. Hey, Mohammed was illiterate. He could not read or write. Now I'm thinking about the Christ of Christianity in the temple at age 12 talking to the doctors and lawyers and they're astonished at the questions that he asked. They said, this kid is asking the right questions. This kid is learning. He's smart. He's receiving instruction and he knows what questions to ask. This kid gets it. He's smart. He's learning. Jesus, when he first starts his ministry, he goes into the synagogue to read and it said, well, he's always been doing that. That's his custom. It was his custom to go into the Sabbath and to read out loud. He read the scripture out loud every week. Then you've got Mohammed who's 40, 50 years old, can't read and write. And let me explain to you why. Because he's lazy and stupid. And then they say, well, you know, a lot of people back then were illiterate. Okay, but can you explain to me when Christianity has ever put illiterate people behind the pulpit? Can you explain that? Well, people were illiterate back then. So what? When has a pastor of a Baptist church ever been illiterate? When has any Baptist church, when has any Christian church of any denomination ordained a pastor and said, let's make our religious leader a guy who can't read? That never happened. That never would happen. That's bizarre. That's crazy. So here's the thing. Look, if Mohammed were just dumb and lazy, then let him be dumb and lazy. God bless him. The problem is when a dumb, lazy person decides to found a religion. That's what I have an issue with. And look, I understand people are mentally disabled and I'm not, I'm not talking to you. If you're mentally disabled, if you have Down syndrome or something, God bless you. And I, you know, I've known Down syndrome people that have learned how to read. We had a young lady in our church for many years that had Down syndrome. She could read and write. She could drive a car. She could go soul winning and she was fully Down syndrome. But that's because she had a lot of special training and special help and that's great. You know, I think it's fantastic. You know, the, the, the people with Down syndrome can actually learn a lot nowadays because there are good, you know, pedagogy methods for those kind of people. But, but here's the thing. If you're of, of a sound mind, if you don't have that genetic defect or other, you know, actual impairments and you just don't learn how to read, it's cause you, it's cause we learn how to read is work. Okay. But, you know, and, and let me tell you something, reading's not optional in the Bible. The Bible commands us, seek ye out in the book of the Lord and read. The Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God. Jesus is constantly saying, have you not read the scripture? Have you not read? Have you not read how readest thou? So you can't just sit there. Well, you know, where's the, you know, you're preaching your opinion. Preach the Bible. Hey, the Bible commands you to read. If you're not, if it's humanly possible for you to read and you're not doing it, you're in disobedience because you got to read the Bible every day. And in order to read the Bible, you got to know how to read. I know it's complicated. Sorry. That's not simple enough, but come on, 40, 50 years old and you can't read and, and you're founding a religion. That's not cool. And that's why he gets everything wrong in the Quran because he's ignorant because readers are leaders. You learn through reading. Reading is the best way to learn. That's why God gave us a book to read. Okay. So, uh, that's a bad kind of simple. Oh, we love the simplicity of Quran, you know, and by the way, don't call me racist for doing that voice. Did you hear my hillbilly voice a little earlier? Am I racist against white people too? It's funny. I've done, I do British voices, hillbilly voices. I do, ask my wife, I do East European voices, you know, uh, you know, so I do nerd voice. Yeah, this is amazing. You know, that's super white. That's it. That's like pale white when I do the Dr. Spergel stuff, you know, you know, am I racist against white people? You know, so it's, it's got nothing to do with race. Okay. It's just how they talk is it's just, I, I'm just, I'm just trying to make the sermon entertaining so that people will get these truths because these biblical truths are important. Excuse me for having a little fun in life. So the last point I want to make and, and, and these, these points are kind of the flip side of one another, right? You know, we want, we want to believe the Gospel is simple, but don't think everything in the Bible is simple. That's kind of a flip side, right? And then it's like, hey, we, we don't want to be gullible, but at the same time, we don't want to be ignorant and gullible and foolish, but you know, we also don't need to know everything about all the sin in this world. Let's be simple concerning evil. Well, here's another kind of flip side. The Bible commands us to learn and study and read and whatever intellectual talent we've been given to build on that, but on the other side of that coin, we don't want to become pretentious or pompous or full of ourselves. So in that sense, we want to be simple in that sense. Okay. Let me show you what I mean. Let's look at your Bible in Second Corinthians chapter one, verse 12. Second Corinthians chapter one, verse 12 says, for our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you were. So Paul's saying, look, when we're out in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, we lived our lives in this world and he said, not with fleshly wisdom. You know, we're not going around showing how smart we are and showing off with a bunch of fleshly wisdom and using a bunch of big words that nobody understands and just being full of ourselves. He said, no, we did it in simplicity. So that's what simplicity means in that verse. Let me prove it to you further. Go to Romans 12, eight, couple pages back to the left in your Bible. Go to Romans chapter 12, verse eight. He's talking about spiritual gifts and he talks about him that exhorteth, right? On exhortation. He that giveth, and here's what I want to focus on just partway through verse eight there in chapter 12. He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. So what does it mean to give with simplicity? I think it's the same thing we saw over in Second Corinthians 1, 12 when he says, hey, I've lived my life with simplicity and sincerity, not fleshly wisdom is, you know, when we give, we don't want to be all puffed up and full of ourselves and pompous about it. We want to just give simply, you know, just give simply. You just give and you don't make a big deal out of it and you don't be full of yourself. So that's a good simplicity. So you notice how this word simplicity sometimes is good, sometimes bad. You know, you're simple, you're being deceived, bad. Hey, be simple concerning that which is evil, good. Simplicity which is in Christ, good. How long will you fools love simplicity and hate learning? Bad, right? And then here when he says, you know, hey, we've lived our lives in simplicity. When we give, we give with simplicity. Our knowledge is tempered by simplicity. You see, here's the thing. You can get so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. You can get so smart that you can't even communicate with normal people. Have you ever seen people that are just super-duper smart but you're like, what did you just say? I don't even know what you said. Well, here's the thing. There are all kinds of people that are super good in their subject, really knowledgeable, but they can't communicate that. They don't know how to make it simple. And therefore, they can't be a teacher. That's why the Bible says the man of God has to be apt to teach. Does God want us to be knowledgeable? Yeah. But if I have a bunch of knowledge but I can't simplify that and impart it unto you, well, good am I. You know what I mean? If I just, if you're just like, hey, Pastor Anderson knows a lot of stuff. But if I get up on Sunday morning and just start talking about all this really, and you're just like, ah. And you just walk out saying, so what'd you take home from the sermon? Well, I took home that he knows stuff. That's not edifying. That's not edifying you. That's not building you up in the faith, right? So here's the thing. It's good, but see, here's where people get this mixed up, is that they think, well, therefore, pastors need to be dumb. You know, cuz they gotta be simple so they can connect with the simple man. No, wrong. Here's what we need. We need smart pastors who can make things simple. To me, if I could define teaching in one sentence, what is the definition of teaching or what is the definition of being apt to teach? Here's how I personally would define it. It's taking something complicated and making it easy to understand. Taking something complicated, making it easy to understand. It's not like, well, I don't know anything complicated, so all my sermons are super easy to understand, cuz I only know simple stuff. And let me tell you something, I hate to say this, but it's true. There's been a culture amongst independent Baptists for decades now of glorifying lack of learning. And getting up and just saying, I'm just a simple man and I don't know much, but you know, you know, and, and, and the problem with that is that you have a generation of preachers, many of whom don't know the Bible very well. They're not that educated. And I'm not saying that you have to go to some institution of higher learning. Or I'm not saying you have to get some degree or something. Because look, my friend, I would, in fact, when I see that a pastor doesn't have a Bible college degree, I'm usually like, oh, cool, you know, like, you know, I kinda like the fact that a guy's just trained out of the local church, but you know what I don't like, is people who don't know the Bible, and they're behind the pulpit. It's like, come on, you've gotta know the stuff. It's the job to know the material. It's the job, if you don't love studying the word of God for many, many hours, and hours upon hours, then you're not cut out to be a pastor. Like, you know, it's okay, live your Christian life, that's great, read the Bible for 15 minutes a day, and live a godly Christian life, earn boku rewards in heaven, win souls, be a great Christian. But if you're gonna be a pastor, it's a little different standard, isn't it? It's like, hey, you better know the material, and you better be able to communicate it. But unfortunately, amongst independent Baptists, there's been a culture that, that has glorified dumbing things down. It's glorified that. And you, well, maybe dumb, but, it's like, well, stop right there. If you're dumb, we have a problem. I don't want a dumb pastor. I don't. Not interested. Now, I don't mind having dumb church members, because you know what? Because here's the thing about that. Hey, I wanna have a church, and listen to me, I mean that, and let me explain why. Because I believe that a healthy church has people that are smart, and people that are dumb, and everything in between. I think that's a healthy church. I think a healthy church has all ages. I think a healthy church contains elderly, and babies, and everything in between. Amen? You know, I want a church where a person who is of meager intellect, a person who is not that smart, could walk into this church, enjoy the church, learn the Bible, and be used of God in this church without being intellectual. Amen? Amen. Now, the Calvinist church down the street, they get up and preach these homilies, they don't do sermons, they do homilies. They get up and preach a homily that only a very small percentage of the population could even understand. Because they're using all these really difficult theological terms and concepts. And, and so, they're only ministering to people of very high intellect. Okay, and people who are too lazy to go soul winning, but anyway. So, you know, you know, who knows what I'm talking about? Who's ever heard these Calvinist guys? And, and I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, I understand this because I've been saved for 30 some years, and studied the Bible, and studied theology, and, you know. But I'm thinking to myself, like, I don't, like one guy, you know, he made this video about the King James issue, and it was a good video. And he's like, here, can you share this with your people? And I looked at the video and I said, you know, I can share this with my people, but I don't think anybody's gonna like it because it's so high level. I don't think most people are even gonna understand it, cuz I can barely understand it. And I'm, it's just like, and I've been studying this as my full time job. And it's, you know what I mean? It's just like, dude, you've got to be able to, to bring that down a notch. So look, I don't want a church only filled with, with intellectuals. I don't want that. I want there to be people that are the average Joe. I want Joe Plummer and Joe Six Pack and Joe, I want them to be able to understand everything that I'm saying. And walk away knowing what the sermon's about. Nothing against plumbers, my sons are plumbers, all right? I'm not, I'm not saying. Hey, hey, plumber kids are just as smart as, no, just kidding, just kidding. I, I had a, I had a Biden moment there for a second, so. I'm just saying, look, hey, I want, I want for all kinds of people to be able to come together in the house of God, house of prayer for all nations, different demographics, different levels of intellect, different levels of spiritual growth. Hey, again, what, what's a healthy church? I think a healthy church has mature, seasoned saints. And it's also got some brand new babes in Christ. And it should have physical babies and physical seniors. And spiritual babies and spiritual seniors. And you know what? Hey, if someone here is of modest intellect, I'm glad they're here. And I guarantee you that they'll walk out of the sermon with, with something. Amen. Every time. All three services. Some things might go over their head, but I think they're going to walk away with a lot. And that's the goal. That's the idea. So when it comes to simplicity, there's a good simplicity and a bad simplicity. We want to make sure we get this right. We want to make sure that we are simple, unassuming. We're not all pompous and pretentious. We want to make sure that we understand the gospel is simple. We want to communicate simply, but we also want to be knowledgeable. We want to study. We want to learn. We want to not be gullible and ignorant of these things. And so I hope this term, this sermon has helped you to distinguish when you're reading the Bible between a good simplicity and a bad simplicity and understand. Do we want to be simple? Yes and no. Ha ha ha, how can you say yes and no? And let me tell you something, 99% of so-called contradictions in the Bible are because people just want the Bible to be way too simple. So they're like, oh, look at all these contradictions. Over here it says, answer the fool according to his folly. Here it says, answer not the fool according to his folly, which I'm done with the Bible. Because there are situations where you should answer the fool according to his folly and situations where you don't. You know, and then it's just like, well, over here it says love, love, love. Then over here it talks about hating people. Well, what does Ecclesiastes say? Time to love and time to hate. So, you know, but what do people want today? Overly simple. Only love, love, love. Don't show me that Psalm 139 because I don't want to see it. Get that Psalm 58 away from me. I know Psalm 109. Nope, not in Psalms. What? You know, no, I want all of it. Might take a little study to understand. But you know what? We got the whole rest of our lives to study the Bible. And we got our work cut out for us because it's not Dr. Seuss. It's not the Quran. It's the Bible. And so let's keep learning. Let's keep growing. Let's be simple concerning evil. Simple on the Gospel. Let's be simple in the sense we're down to earth. But let's be wise when it comes to our understanding of Scripture. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. And Lord God, I thank you so much that the Bible is not all simple or all easy because it would be boring to us, Lord. Thank you for giving us a book that could keep us busy for the rest of our lives where we're searching and plumbing the depths of your word for our entire lives, Lord. Help us to study, to show ourselves approved, to love the complexity of your word and not to just only love simplicity. But Lord, help us to be down to earth and simple people when it comes to our dealings with others. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Men, take your hymnals, please. Let's be dismissed as singing number 308. 308, I surrender all. Number 308. All to Jesus, I surrender. All to Him, I freely give. Number 308, let's sing it out on this first verse together. All to Jesus, I surrender. All to Him, I freely give. I will never love and trust Him. In His presence, daily live. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Him, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender. Humbly at His feet I bow. Worldly pleasures all forsaken. Take me, Jesus, take me now. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Him, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender. May we save Your holy life. Let me feel the Holy Spirit. Truly know that Thou art mine. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Him, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender. Lord, I give myself to Thee. Fill me with Thy love and power. Let Thy blessing fall on me. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Jesus, I surrender all.