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While I sit and learn at Jesus' feet, I am free, yes, free indeed. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, full of glory, full of glory. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, all that has never yet been told. I have found the pleasure I once craved, it is joy and peace with them. What a wondrous blessing I am to from Thee a whole book of sin. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, full of glory, full of glory. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, all that has never yet been told. I have found my hope so bright and clear living in the realm of grace. All my Savior's presence is so new, I can see His smiling face. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, full of glory, full of glory. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, all that has never yet been told. I have found the joy of time and time, how it strains of glory and gold. It is my God, great or full, He comes, bring out breath in my soul. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, full of glory, full of glory, full of glory. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, all that has never yet been told. Thank you for the church and thank you for the Bible. I pray that you please bless all aspects of the service in Pastor Anderson's preaching. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Back to hymn number 31. Number 31, He lives, He lives. Number 31, it begins, I serve a risen Savior and He's in the world today. Number 31, really watch me when we get to that chorus. Let's hear that chorus, hymn number 31 on this verse together. He lives, Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and He talks with me along a stairway. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You've asked me how I know He lives. He lives within my heart. In all the world around me I see His lovely care. And though my heart grows weary I never will despair. I know that He is leading through all the stormy glass. A day of His appearing for love at last. He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me along a stairway. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You've asked me how I know He lives. He lives within my heart. Rejoice, rejoice O Christian, lift up your voice and sing eternal hallelujah to Jesus Christ the King. The hope of all is seen in the help of all who find. None other is so loving, so good and kind. He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and He talks with me along a stairway. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You've asked me how I know He lives. He lives within my heart. Amen. Good singing. Alright, this time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin, put your hand up. 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 six. Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study. This week will be in Ezekiel nine. We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms. The coffee and doughnuts are available before the service next Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to celebrate all of the birthdays in the month of October. The annual portraits have started. Please sign up at the rear of the auditorium for a time that's good for you to get a portrait taken. If you're a single, you just get your picture taken by yourself. You can obviously, if you've got your family, you can get a family picture and eventually it'll all go in a yearbook. Everybody gets a yearbook at the end and you also just get a portrait taken for free. Really high quality portrait. You get the digital images to do whatever you want with them. This is something that we do every single year. It's nice to get that yearbook at the end of the year and it helps you identify people and figure out who they are too because, you know, sometimes it's hard to keep track of everybody and you can pray for people, you can learn their names and you can reference it like, who is this person? And then you go, oh, there we go. So anyway, it's a fun thing that we do every year and it's already started so please sign up at the back of the auditorium for a time and the best time slots go fast so the sooner you sign up, the better the time slot you're going to get. And then the backdrop color is pure brown muslin so plan your ensemble. And then below that, the Sierra Leone mission strip is coming up October 6th through 12th and so be praying for them. Friendly reminder, don't let your children run around and roughhouse after the service or during the service for that matter so keep them under control and we should know how to behave ourselves in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth and so we don't want to treat this like some kind of a roughhousing playground or something like that. And then on the back, also there's a continuing, by the way, on the same note, the mother baby rooms are off limits to any kids that are too old to need them during the services so it's not a hangout for teenagers and other children. It's for the babies and toddlers who do it during the service. And then all ladies are invited to a bridal shower in honor of Chandler Young on Saturday, October 23rd from 2 to 4.30. This is being organized by Mrs. Grace Young. And then below that, keep praying for all of our ladies that are expecting that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. And then below that, a couple of other upcoming events. For October, we got first Monday of every month is the Mexico Monday. Brother Segura takes a crew of people down to Mexico just for a day trip to go soul winning. It's like, you know, two and a half hours there, two and a half hours back, and then something like that or is it a little further than that? About two and a half hours. Yeah, it's about two and a half hours to get there, two and a half hours back, do some soul winning, eat some tacos. It's kind of just a long day on a Monday. So if you're interested in that, see Brother Segura for the details. We got the music emphasis night on that Thursday, October 7th. And then we've got on October 31st, we've got a chili potluck that we're doing at 5 o'clock. And that day only, the evening service is getting pushed back to 7. So if anybody shows up at the normal time at 6, it's not really going to be a disaster because we'll just kind of put some chili and cornbread in their hand and they'll just kind of cool their heels until 7 o'clock. And so it's not a big deal. All right, that's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days. So going back to Thursday, anything from Thursday? Okay. Any soul winning from Thursday? How about Friday? Anything from Friday? I'm sorry, what was that? Can I get that again? Okay. Gotcha. Okay, got it. Anything else from Friday? One for Thursday. One for Thursday? All right, pay attention when I'm on Thursday. No, I'm just kidding. All right, so that's one for Thursday. Anything else from Friday? How about Saturday? Anything from Saturday? Okay. Anything else from Saturday? And then what about today, Sunday? Anything from today? Let's go through our main groups. Brother Scott? Six for the main team with Brother Scott. Four for Brother Tilson's team. Any other teams from today? All right, gotcha. Gotcha. Anything else from today? All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And with that, let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us. All right, you should find Where the Soul Never Dies in the insert in your hymnals. See extra sheet there. If you don't have one, please raise your hand and we'll sing it on that verse. To Canaan's land, I'm on my way. Sing the parts if you know them. Doesn't matter. To Canaan's land, I'm on my way Where the soul never dies My darkest night will turn to day Where the soul never dies No sad farewell No tear dimmed eyes Where all is love And the soul never dies A rose is blooming there for me Where the soul never dies And I will spend the eternity Where the soul never dies No sad farewell No tear dimmed eyes Where all is love And the soul never dies A love light beams across the floor Where the soul never dies It shines through like the shores of home Where the soul never dies No sad farewell No tear dimmed eyes Where all is love And the soul never dies My life will end in endless sleep Where the soul never dies And everlasting joys not weep Where the soul never dies No sad farewell No tear dimmed eyes Where all is love And the soul never dies I'm on my way to that fair land Where the soul never dies Where there will be no mourning And the soul never dies No tear dimmed eyes Where all is love And the soul never dies No tear dimmed eyes Where all is love And the soul never dies How can I meet him without my loved ones? How can I meet him without my loved ones? How can I meet him without my loved ones? How can I meet him without my loved ones? How can I smile at the way I look When I see Jesus I'll feel the glory Without the souls he bought At such cost Oh bring your loved ones Bring them to Jesus Bring every brother And sister to him Wake up the reapers of the harvest They all appear Won't be sick ever again Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for cleaning Time out to lean to Cling to the cross To wait in heaven To win our loved ones Oh bring your sweet one In for the lost Oh bring your loved ones Bring that Jesus Bring every brother And sister to him Wake up the reapers of the harvest They all appear Won't be sick ever again Solid life counting Gracing our Savior Rewards receiving Suffering loss Judgments he facing Jesus in heaven Oh bring your soul Oh bring your trust Oh bring your loved ones Bring them to Jesus Bring every brother And sister to him Wake up the reapers of the harvest They all appear Won't be sick ever again Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Time out for morning Bring every brother And sister to him Wake up the reapers of the harvest They all appear Won't be sick ever again How glad the Greeks be Praise the singing When we meet Jesus With all our wrongs And will our labor Be done Oh bring your loved ones Bring them to Jesus Bring every brother And sister to him Wake up the reapers Of the harvest They all appear Won't be sick ever again They all appear Won't be sick ever again This time we'll quickly pass the offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19, third book in the Bible. Leviticus 19 as we always do. We'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19 the Bible reads And if thought remain until the third day it shall be burnt with fire. And if it be eaten at all on the third day it is abominable. It shall not be accepted. Therefore everyone that eateth it shall bear his iniquity. Because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the Lord. And that soul shall be cut off from among his people. And when ye reap the harvest of your land thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field. Neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard. Neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger. I am the Lord your God. Ye shall not steal. Neither deal falsely. Neither lie one to another. Ye shall not swear by my name falsely. Neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God. I am the Lord. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor. Neither rob him. The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Thou shalt not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind. But shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord. He shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor nor honor the person of the mighty. But in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shalt not go up and down as a tail bearer among thy people. Neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor. I am the Lord. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people. But thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. He shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind. Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed. Neither shalt a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid, betroth to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her, she shall be scourged. They shall not be put to death because she was not free. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done. And the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him. When ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised. Three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you. It shall not be eaten of. But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the Lord withal. And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof. I am the Lord your God. Ye shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord. Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall into whoredom and the land become full of wickedness. Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God. I am the Lord. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you. And thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meat-yard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hen shall ye have. I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them. I am the Lord. Father Daniel. Dear Father in Heaven, please fill the passage with your spirit, and please give us all ears to hear to receive wisdom from this sermon. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Man, tonight I'm going to be continuing my sermon from last Sunday night that was called Ye Shall Be Holy, taken from the beginning of this passage in Leviticus 19, where the Bible reads in verse number 2, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. And last week I showed you in the New Testament where that exact quote is given in Peter's epistle, where he says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And also we have scriptures like 2 Corinthians chapter 7, where the Apostle Paul says that we should be perfecting holiness in the fear of God. So holiness is something that we should be striving for in the New Testament. And the idea of perfecting holiness has to do with making our holiness complete, or finding places in our life that are unholy and making them holy, fixing problems, and striving for a closer walk with God and greater holiness. Now what does holiness mean? It's not really a word that would be in people's vernacular unless they're in a church setting, or talking about the Bible or Christianity or maybe some other false religion. But what is holiness? Well the word holy in its most basic definition means to be set apart. And specifically in the Bible we're talking about being holy unto the Lord, or set apart for the Lord. The opposite of holy is being profane, common, everyday just normal things. And then there are holy things, things that are set apart, they're on another level, they are reserved if you will, and they're different, they're peculiar. You know you can think of all these different synonyms to sort of understand this idea of holiness. So when the Bible says that we should be holy, for God is holy, what the Bible is saying is that we should be different than the heathen that are not following the word of God, people that are non-Christian just living out there in this world. We shouldn't be living identical to them, we should actually be different. There are things that they do that God prohibits, and by following God's rules and God's laws we end up being different than the people around us. Now in the Old Testament they were under the law as the nation of Israel, and so a lot of their holiness involved things that are not applicable in the New Testament, they're under the Old Covenant, we're under the New Covenant, but we don't want to throw out the idea of holiness, we just need to understand that there are some differences between the Old and the New Testaments. But in the New Testament we still need to be holy, God still wants us to be different, and he still wants us to follow his laws. Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments. He didn't say if you love me keep my suggestions, he said if you love me keep my commandments. And the Bible says you know what then shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? God forbid. So yes we're under grace, yes we're not under the law, yes we're not following the meats and drinks and carnal ordinances and divers washings of the Old Covenant, but yet we can learn a lot about New Testament holiness from reading the Old Testament as well. You know we don't want to throw out the Old Testament. The Bible says think not that I'm come to destroy the law or the prophets, I came not to destroy but to fulfill. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men, so the same shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. That's from Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus is preaching. And then the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 3, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea we establish the law. Now the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law, but there are still rules in Christianity. There's a Christianity out there that teaches there's no rules, no such thing as sin anymore. You just do whatever you're led to do, but that is a lie. In the New Testament there are lots of commandments and rules and statutes and judgments, and then there are a lot of things that are in the Old Testament that haven't changed in the New Testament. You know, they were wrong then, they're wrong now because they're just wrong. And so Leviticus chapter 19 is a great chapter to get an idea of what God has in mind when he's talking about holiness. So a lot of what I just said is a review of last week. So let's get into the new material here. We left off as we were studying Leviticus chapter 19 in verse 16. The last thing that we talked about was how you should not go up and down as a tail bearer among the people. Neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor, I am the Lord. And obviously it would be ridiculous to throw that out and say, well that's Leviticus, you know, that's not relevant. Hey, God doesn't want you to be a tail bearer now just as much as he didn't want you to be a tail bearer back then. That's a universal principle that applies in all eras, okay. So let's keep going here to the new material. It says in verse 17, thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Don't hate your brother in your heart and he says, rebuke your brother. And you see, a lot of times people have a problem with someone and I'm talking about something serious and instead of actually talking to that person and just kind of getting it out there and clearing the air, instead they just hate that person in their heart and they become bitter and hold a grudge against that person. You know, it's always better to just deal with it than to just let it kind of fester inside of you. Now, as Christians we are often called to just let things go, you know, to overlook a transgression. Love covers a multitude of sins and so we don't always have to deal with every offense because sometimes when people do something to offend us or to harm us, we can just let it go and just forgive them and not make a big deal out of it and just move on and not be petty about small things. So obviously the best way to react many times is just to forgive, let things go, move on. You don't want to make a big deal about every little thing and there are people who do, don't they? You know, every little thing, somebody says a crossword to them, they make a big deal out of it, blow it up out of proportion. But there are going to be times when somebody does something to you or says something to you that really bothers you. And you don't want to just drop it or let it go because it's kind of a big deal and it really bothers you. And in this case, if the choice is between getting bitter and hateful and holding a grudge for that person and just rebuking that person, well you know what? You should just rebuke that person. And we live in a society today where people don't like being rebuked at all. They can't handle being rebuked. I mean sometimes their boss at work can't even rebuke them without them just melting down or even quitting their job because the boss had the audacity to tell them that they did something wrong. You know, so many people today are so coddled but let me tell you something, the Bible does not tell us never rebuke people. You know, the Bible says right here, rebuke your neighbor, rebuke your brother. I mean what does it say? Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Okay, sometimes the most loving thing that you could do to someone is to rebuke them. I mean the Bible says open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And so rebuking someone is often appropriate. Now if someone wrongs me and I'm offended and hurt by what they've done, instead of just internalizing that and getting all bitter and holding a grudge, I might just say to that person, you know what? You've made me mad. You know, what you've done is wrong. You've harmed me. How dare you do that? You know, and just confront that person and rebuke them. There's nothing wrong with doing that. Not only that, but if I see someone that starts going down a dark path in their life and getting involved in serious sin, there's nothing in the world wrong with me going to that person and saying, hey, you need to stop doing what you're doing. You need to stop drinking. You need to stop fornicating. You need to quit hanging around these wicked friends. You need to stop taking drugs. You need to stop doing whatever. I mean, is that wrong for me to rebuke them and say, you are going down a dark path and you need to get right with God and you need to fix these things. So we live in a day where maybe that would be considered your judgmental or you're being mean, but there is a time and a place for rebuking people. Now it's not necessarily always appropriate. You got to use discretion and be wise about who and when and why and where you rebuke people, but there's a time to rebuke people. And by the way, as a preacher, I'm supposed to be rebuking constantly. Not necessarily one on one with people, but from the pulpit when I preach the word, I'm supposed to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. It's rare that I rebuke people one on one. You know, I'd rather avoid that. I don't want to just be constantly coming up to people and getting in their face and telling them what to do. But you know, I do it three times a week from the pulpit. I get up Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and I'm rebuking in general. And see, if you're smart, you'll respond to the general rebuke before someone has to come to you and actually tell you to your face that you need to get the sin out of your life, right? And I'm obviously talking about serious sins. I'm not talking about little petty things because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. None of us is perfect. But I'm saying, you know, when somebody's in serious sin, rebuking them is often appropriate. And if people are smart, they'll get the rebukes from the pulpit so that someone doesn't have to confront them and maybe embarrass them or whatever by, you know, confronting them about their drinking or drugs or fornication or gambling addiction or stealing or whatever it is that they're doing. And so rebukes can be appropriate. Now the next thing it says is this in verse 18. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, I am the Lord. And of course, this is the famous quote that the Lord Jesus Christ pointed to as the second greatest commandment in the entire law. And here we are, Leviticus 19. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But notice the first thing he says. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people. Pay attention to that word avenge. That word avenge applies that someone has done wrong to you. The Bible's telling you don't avenge. It means someone's done wrong against you and you're thinking about getting back at them. And God's saying don't do it. Don't avenge. And not only don't avenge, but don't bear a grudge against any of God's people. So don't hold a grudge either. Now, we just talked about the idea of if your brother trespasses against you, don't hate him in your heart, but rebuke him. But here's the thing about that. Sometimes when you rebuke your brother, you're not going to get the satisfaction that you're looking for. You know, ideally when someone does you wrong and you rebuke that person, hopefully they're going to say, man, I'm so sorry. Will you please forgive me? And you know, I'm going to fix this. I mean, that's the reaction you're looking for when you confront somebody who's wronged you. You're hoping that they're going to apologize and make things right. But is that always the reaction that you're realistically going to get? No, sometimes somebody might wrong you and you rebuke them. And again, the Bible's telling you, hey, it's better to get it off your chest than to hate them in your heart. It's better just to open your mouth and just say it and just rebuke them. But sometimes when you rebuke them, you're not going to get satisfaction. They're not necessarily going to apologize. They're not necessarily going to repent. They might just have a bad attitude and just give you guff. And at that point, what do you do? Well, you know, you still don't avenge yourself and you still don't hold a grudge. Sometimes you have to rebuke people and still just let things go. You know, and I'm telling you, a lot of people's personality is just they want to right every wrong in the world. And they're like OCD about justice. So if anybody does them wrong, like, it's got to be fixed. If anybody does anybody wrong, well, you got to fix it. Folks, you're going to have a really painful, miserable life if that's the way you feel. Because this world is filled with injustice. And people are constantly going to do you wrong and hurt your feelings and treat you unjustly. And you've got to learn to just let it go. And just let it go. And just, you know, and sometimes it's appropriate to rebuke people. But sometimes you rebuke people and it doesn't work. And then you just say, hey, whatever. You know what I mean? I rebuked them. I got that off my chest. I said my peace. And now it's time to leave it in the Lord's hands. And just say, you know what, God? It is what it is. Either, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Or, Lord, avenge me of my adversary. But, you know, whatever you pray, maybe, you know, if it's something really serious and wicked, it could be an imprecatory prayer. Or maybe it's just praying that God would bless that person. You know, praying for those that despitefully use you and persecute you in a good way. You know, blessing those who curse you. But, you know what, I'd rather see somebody praying an imprecatory prayer than actually taking things into their own hands and getting violent. You know, I mean, obviously, yeah, in a perfect world, the best response is usually going to be praying for blessings for that person and trying to forgive and move on. But, you know, I'd rather see somebody get on their knees and just have like an imprecatory prayer fest for 30 minutes with the Lord than to actually do something. Or to actually just have a grudge and hateful, you know, maybe if they get that off their chest, then they could just go on and live their life and forget about it. You've got to learn to drop things, to let them go, and just think about the times that you've wronged people. Think about the sins that you've committed and then just say, you know what, let's forgive others as Christ has forgiven us. We're going to forgive them. But the one thing we don't want to do is we don't want to avenge ourselves. We don't want to seek vengeance. And we don't want to hold a grudge and be bitter and let the sun go down on our wrath. You know, we don't want to be still angry on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, because of what happened on Saturday or Sunday. You know, we want to wake up every day with a clean slate, feeling love toward the brethren and love toward Christ and just ready to live our lives and not just bitter about, oh man, I can't believe what she said or I can't believe that he did that. You know, just don't just dwell on those things. You don't have to right every wrong. People are going to do wrong things and get away with it all the time. But you just have to trust that God's looking out for you and God's going to take care of you. He's going to give them what they deserve. He's going to give you what you deserve. And so just let it go. Move on. Love thy neighbor as thyself. You know, not only should we not avenge or bear any grudge against the children of other people, but he said, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. You know, the most important commandment in the law is love. The number one most important commandment is to love God. That's number one. What's the second most important commandment? Loving your neighbor. And you know, if you're not a loving person, you're not going to succeed in the Christian life because love is the key to success. You know, love is the key to success in any area of life because even if we were to just look at a really carnal example or something, you know, like if we were to just take like athletics or something, nobody's going to succeed at being great in sports. If they don't love that sport, they'd have to love the game or love whatever the competition is, you know, and in order to succeed at being a Christian, you have to love God. You have to love the Bible and in order to be a good Christian to your fellow man and in order to be a blessing to other people, you've got to love people. You know, Jesus Christ, he met people and, and he even met people that had some goofed up ideas about the world and they were full of themselves and arrogant. Like, you know, the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and you know, good master, what good things shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And you know, Jesus tells him right away, there's none good but one and that's God. And then he reminds him of the commandments and the guy's like, oh, I've kept all that from my youth up. So were you not listening when Jesus just told you there's only one good and that's God, but then you're claiming that you've kept all these commandments from your youth up? I mean, I don't believe that that guy kept all the commandments from his youth up. I guarantee you that guy sinned hundreds of times, probably thousands of times, just like every single one of us because we're all, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But you know what? This guy's a bozo. He's arrogant. He's mixed up. He's confused. But Jesus, beholding him, loved him. Right? I mean, this guy's not saved. He's got a dumb idea about the way the world is and the way the Lord is and yet Jesus beheld him and loved him. You know, we should love people. We should love the unsaved. We should love those who are foolish, who are backslidden. We should love those who are different than us. The Bible says we should love our neighbor as ourself, not be bitter and hold a grudge against people, but love people. Loving God and loving your neighbor is the key to being a good Christian. If you're just writing on the back of a postage stamp, that's what you'd write about how to live the Christian life. Love God, love your neighbor. That's the most basic teaching. And so that's the important verse in this chapter. I mean, verse 18 is the big one. So let's move forward here as we talk about holiness. In verse 19, it says, you shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind. Thus shall not sow thy field with mingled seed. Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. Now, this is one of those commandments that the atheists of this world would love to mock the Word of God and say, oh, the Bible's got all these stupid commandments. You know, and whenever you try to bring up what the Word of God says about marriage or what the Word of God says about child rearing or what the Word of God says about, you know, feminism or whatever, you know, and you try to show them a verse like, say, Leviticus 2013, which, you know, conveniently is just right one page away. It's real tempting to hit on that. But, you know, you try to bring that up and then they go, how's that shirt that you're wearing of mixed fabrics? And it's like this trump card, like, oh, they're so clever. They busted me with a cotton poly blend, you know. You know, the first thing I say is, you know, I'm 100 percent cotton right here, you know, with my garment, number one. But see, here's the thing, what they don't understand is that these commandments have significance even today in 2021. Now, obviously, again, we don't follow the carnal ordinances of the law or the fleshly ordinances of clean and unclean and, you know, this is the tabernacle and the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices and these, we don't follow these things in that way because we're under the new covenant, but we still follow the principles that are taught under the old covenant as we're understanding what God's will for our life is and holiness and the commandments of the New Testament and the things that God points us to in the Old Testament. You know, we would look at this and still find significance here because, first of all, you know, God specifically says here that a garment mingled of linen and woolen shall not come upon thee. Now, a lot of people will just misquote this as just don't wear any mixed fabric, but in reality, he's saying you do not wear a mixture of linen and woolen. Now, what this is is that linen is a plant-based fabric. So it is a fabric made from plants, whereas woolen is obviously an animal-based product, okay? And so, you know, today we have the same thing. We're going to have some textiles that come from plants and we're going to have textiles that come from animals. And God is saying do not mix the plant-based textiles with the animal-based textiles. That's what he's saying in this passage. Now, you know, help me out. Polyester, what is it? You know, my wife says it's plastic. And that's why we do a lot of cotton because she hates the polyester stuff. It's like plastic, it's plastic-y. She wants real fabrics, you know. So what's plastic made out of, you know? I mean, you know, plastic isn't really coming from an animal. Wouldn't you say that plastic is more plant-based, if anything? I mean, it's certainly not, there's not some animal that you hunt for plastic or something, you know, like getting plastic out of the animal, you know. So, you know, I would look at, yes? I think it's petroleum-based. Okay, petroleum-based. So is that a plant or an animal? Hmm, you know, the dinosaurs became oil or something, you know. But the point is, either way, you know, it's not wool. It's not from an animal in the sense, and yeah, it could be from some fossilized, you know, dead animal or whatever. But that's not the point. The idea of wool is that like you're shearing sheep and you're doing it from the animals. You know, I would say that a cotton-poly blend is probably not even violating this because of the fact that you're not mixing linen and wool together. You're not mixing an animal product. You've got a plant-based product, which is cotton, and then you've got this kind of petroleum-based plastic that's just kind of like, I would just put it as like a null value on either plant or animal. Does everybody agree? All in favor say aye. All right. So, you know, I'm okay with polyester cotton blends in theory, but we're doing 100% cotton, right, baby? All right. So anyway, the point is though, the reason why God put this prohibition on the animal-based textile and the plant-based textile is because of the fact that this is symbolic. Because all the way back in Genesis with Cain and Abel, you've got Abel's sacrifice of the firstlings of the flock. You've got Abel sacrificing the lamb. Jesus Christ is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, right? And so the Abel sacrifice of the lamb is a picture of Jesus. You know, that's the blood upon the altar making an atonement for the soul, picturing the blood of Jesus that washes away our sins. Okay. Whereas Cain's offering of the fruits and vegetables, the produce of the earth, the plant-based offering was a picture of works-based salvation. You know, he works and brings forth these crops from the ground and he offers his works unto God as a way to make an offering or an atonement for his sin. One offers the blood of the lamb, the other offers fruits and vegetables, his own produce. Okay. And God rejected Cain's offering and accepted Abel's offering. So if you think about this, the linen and the woolen together garment, you know what it pictures? It pictures a faith-based salvation, faith in the blood of the lamb, and a works-based salvation and mixing the two so that it's faith and works. Because if you think about the garment represents salvation. Because when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, what did they try to cover their sin with? They tried to cover up with a plant-based fabric. They made an apron of fig leaves. That represents works. They tried to cover their own nakedness with their own works. That's what the plant represents. And of course it's a joke because, you know, an apron doesn't exactly cover your nakedness. An apron made out of fig leaves sounds pretty sketchy as an outfit. Okay. God creates them coats of skins. So God puts an animal-based clothing upon them. So what do the plants represent? Our works. What do the animals represent? It represents the Lamb of God, the sacrifice, you know, trusting in Jesus as our Savior. So you don't want to have a faith mixed with works. You don't want to mix these two. These things are two separate things. Now, is it okay to wear a plant-based fabric? Yes, because we should do works. As Christians, God wants us to do works. But not for our salvation. When it comes to our salvation, we're trusting in the sacrifice of the animal, which is picturing what? It's actually Jesus, the Lamb of God, not an animal because an animal can't take away our sins, can it? But the sacrifice of the animal, I kind of said that in a wrong way, but, you know, the sacrifice of the animal pictures Jesus, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world, that's salvation and then works is something separate that we'll do after we're saved. We should constantly be doing good works and things. So wearing a linen garment, great. You know, that pictures the good works that we do. Putting on the animal-based garment, great. That's a picture of salvation, you know. We're clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Not having our own righteousness, but we put on that robe of righteousness of Jesus. So those are great pictures. But you know what's a terrible picture is mixing the wool and the linen together because then it's like a salvation that's based on what Jesus did and our works and they're both working together to cover our sin. That's wrong. The Bible says, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness. You know what? This doesn't seem like a stupid law to me at all. In fact, I like it because I love what it stands for. I love what it means. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. And so if we were to give this explanation that I just gave unto an atheist, you know, his reaction would probably be to scoff at the explanation that I've just given. And it would be foolishness unto him. Oh yeah, you made that up. But to you that are saved, you're hearing me explain this and you know what? You're probably thinking like, yeah. Yeah, that is how the Bible treats these things. You know, yeah. The Bible does often use plants as a picture of our works. And the fig leaf apron and Cain's offering and these. Yeah, you know. Yeah, the robe of righteousness, the lamb of God, the animal sacrifices. Yeah, it all makes sense, right? Why? Because we're saved. We get it. So we understand what God's doing here. It's not really just about God's fashion preference here. It's really about the symbolism of the woolen and the linen being kept separate. Okay. And you could say the same thing about, you know, letting that cattle gender with a diverse kind. You know, don't, you don't plow the field with an ox and an ass together. You know, what does that represent? The ox represents the actual preacher who's preaching the word of God and the ass represents the false prophet down the street. And so therefore he's saying, you know, don't team up with false prophets. You don't want to go out into the field of God's, of God's harvest. And working with people that are false prophets that aren't saved. We're to be separate. So we don't want the ox and the ass to plow together. Or, you know, thou shalt not sow thy seed with mingled seed. You know, he doesn't want you using, you know, the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Or, you know, well, we got the King James Bible, but let's use the living Bible. You know, let's use the ESV and the NIV and using all these diverse seeds. No, you know, when we go soul winning, we don't, at our church, at Faithful Word Baptist Church, we don't have a soul winning program of diverse seeds. It's not like, okay, you know, hey, you want to go soul winning at Faithful Word? You can use the NIV, you can use the ESV, you can use the living Bible. No, we would say that if you're going to go soul winning at Faithful Word Baptist Church, you must use the King James Version out there, soul winning, representing our church. You think we want people going from our church to our church to our church to our church and soul winning with an ESV? I mean, if someone came to me and said, hey, brother so-and-so is out soul winning with Faithful Word, he's using an ESV to go soul winning. You think we would just be like, that's okay. We'd be like, dude, no, it's King James. Otherwise, you know, the, the, the liberal church is down the street. This is a King James Bible Church. And so we, we're not going to have a mixed seed. So these things, again, shouldn't be discarded or thrown out. We should seek for the symbolism. So there are moral laws that still stand. There are civil laws that if our government were smart, they would still stand. And then there are like ceremonial laws or carnal ordinances. And those things we can still learn from because we can still look at the symbolism. You know, we're not going to go offer an animal sacrifice, are we? Could we still learn from the animal sacrifices about the symbolism? And tie it in with Jesus and his sacrifice. So he says in verse 20, let's keep moving here. We're just kind of hitting these different commandments as we go through this great chapter. And this is a verse that would be kind of tough for some people, these next few verses. So I want to spend a little time explaining this section. Beginning in verse 20, whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid. Now what does that mean she's a bondmaid? She's basically either like an indentured servant or a slave is what this is referring to, right? She's in bondage, indentured, servitude, slavery, whatever you want to call it. Whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid betrothed to a husband and not at all redeemed nor freedom given her, she shall be scourged. We just read. She shall be scourged. They shall not be put to death because she was not free. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he had done and the sin which he had done shall not be put to death. The sin which he had done shall be forgiven. Now people might just, they might read this casually and not actually think about what they're reading or process this or think about it in the context of the rest of the Bible and they might take this and say God's being mean to slaves here. You know, God wants this woman to get flogged. How could God prescribe a flogging for this woman? Look at that. Be offended by that. But I'm here to tell you that the law of the Lord is perfect. The law of the Lord is perfect. Converting the soul. So I'm not going to shy away from this. I'm not trying to hide this. In fact, here I am choosing to draw attention to it. On a Sunday night in a Baptist church in 2021 America. Why? Because all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. This is the word of God. And you know, somebody gets offended and thinks that there's something wrong with this statute? I would say you're wrong. I'm with God on this. In fact, this is the exact opposite of God being mean to slaves. This verse is actually showing God being benevolent to a slave. And let me tell you why. Because what this is referring to is a woman who is betrothed to a husband If she's engaged to be married would be the way that we would say it today. She is supposed to get married. She's engaged to be married. Normally, in God's law, if a woman is engaged to be married. If her and another man have intercourse. This is considered tantamount to adultery. Okay, so here's the thing. How does the Bible define adultery? Well, you know, we just flipped one page in our Bible. It's right there in chapter 20. Chapter 20 verse 10 says this. And the man that committed adultery with another man's wife. And then he repeats it. Even he that committed adultery with his neighbor's wife. The adulterer and the adulterer shall surely be put to death. So if a man lies with his neighbor's wife. What happens to the man? He dies. What happens to the woman? She dies. Does everybody understand this? So, you know, married woman and a dude that's not her husband. They go to bed together. They die. Okay, that's the law. Well, here's the thing. Again, I'm not going to take the time to do the cross reference with you. But you could study Deuteronomy 22, Deuteronomy 24. Look at all the scriptures and cross reference. And here's what you'll find out. Is that if a woman is betrothed to a husband. And she sleeps with someone who's not her husband. Guess what? They both die. Same punishment because it's tantamount to adultery. Even though they're not married yet. Because they're engaged, God still treats that as sleeping with a married woman. Because she's engaged to be married. And you're defiling her and so forth. And so both her and him are put to death. Now, if it is not consensual. If a man forces a woman, then the Bible says that she's considered a victim. And that she's not punished at all. Because she's a victim. I mean, she can't control some dude raping her. And so there's no punishment for her. And then the rapist is put to death. Now, there are idiots out there, atheists. The Bible says you have to marry your rapist. Well, you're going to marry his dead body? Because the Bible says a rapist should be put to death. So you're reading the wrong Bible. You're reading the NIV is what you're reading. Because there is a verse in the NIV that makes it sound like you marry your rapist. That's why we don't read the stupid, worthless NIV. We read the actual traditional text of scripture, the King James Bible. Okay, in the traditional text that we've had here for 400 plus years in the modern English language, you know, there's no such verse. And it's absurd because the Bible teaches that the rapist shall be put to death. Okay, that's what it teaches. The verse about marrying is that if a guy has consensual intercourse with a virgin, he's obligated to marry her. But if she rejects him or if her family rejects him, she doesn't have to marry him. But he has to at least be willing to marry her because he has taken her virginity. So people are twisting scripture and everything. If we actually study the Bible, it makes sense. And you can get that context right here in this chapter because what does it say at the end of verse 20? They shall not be put to death because she was not free. The implication there is that normally they would be put to death, right? When you're lying with a betrothed woman, how does God view that? He views it as adultery and so both the adulterer and the adulterous shall surely be put to death. Now in this situation, this is a woman who does not have freedom. She is a bondmaid and so therefore because she does not have freedom, you know, presumably she's not even choosing this union that she's been betrothed into. She's getting married to somebody, you know, probably not of her own volition because she's a bondmaid. So she probably has to go with the flow of whatever is going on. And so the Bible has a more lenient punishment for her because it might seem like a big punishment to get flogged. But guess what's a bigger punishment? You die. So what's worse, dying or getting flogged? So if she's not a slave, what's the punishment? Death because this is talking about a consensual act. It's talking about a woman who is out sleeping around when she's betrothed to this other dude and she goes out and sleeps with some other dude. So she's guilty of the sin of fornication, right? It's a wicked sin. And, you know, and it's almost tantamount adultery because of the fact that she's betrothed to another man. But because she is not free, God is lenient with her and says instead of being killed, she just gets flogged, okay? And then God's a little more lenient with the guy who did it because he doesn't get killed either. Neither of them get killed. Instead, he has to go make a sacrifice under the Lord. He has to bring a trespass offering and he has to basically, you know, confess this and bring an animal. And so it's like, it's almost like he's paying a fine in a sense that he committed this crime. And again, this is not God downplaying sin or making light of sin or, oh, it's not fair, you know. He's treating men differently from women. The reason why, you know why the woman can't bring a trespass offering down to the temple and do it that way? It's because she's a bondmaid. She doesn't own anything. So she's probably not going to have the resources. She's not going to have the flock, you know, to, okay, let me bring a ram of the flock and go, you know, seek forgiveness from the Lord here and offer this animal sacrifice. So she just gets flogged. Whereas the dude has to do the animal sacrifice and then they put it behind them. Now this could make people uncomfortable, you know, that this woman would be scourged, that a bondservant would be scourged. But here's the thing. You know, people being scourged is a legitimate form of punishment for both men and women in the Bible. Sorry, but it is. And, you know, you think, oh, we're so much more civilized. We've gotten so much past that. But you know what? I would much rather be scourged than put in prison. Who would rather be scourged than go to prison? Those are the choices. Virtually everyone. And if we went down to the men's prison and said, who wants to get scourged or who wants to finish your term, virtually everybody would be like, let's do it. Let's get it over with. Scourge me. Beat me with a cane. Make me bleed. But get me out of here. And you know what? I guarantee if we went down to the women's facility, we're probably going to get the same answer from a lot of people. They'd say, get me out of this hellhole. Get me out of this cage. I mean, man wants to be free. We're human beings. We want freedom. We don't want to be locked in a cage. And so we would much rather be flogged than locked in a cage. So who's inhumane? I say that the people who lock you in a cage are inhumane and that scourging is merciful in comparison. And so, again, I'm going to side with God's word. I like it. I like Leviticus chapter 19. I even like verse 20. I even like verse 21. I even like verse 22. I just like it. You know why? Because it's right. I like things that are right. I love righteousness and hate iniquity. And so, of course, God's right. You're not going to cower before some atheist like, well, yeah, you know, the Bible does say that. You know, I mean, I guess, I don't know if maybe it was just like a different time back then or something. You know, I don't know, I mean, I don't know, maybe it was the culture. I don't know. Yeah, this makes sense. This makes sense. Now, some people would just say like, well, you know, why is God condoning slavery? But here's the thing. God's laws are not condoning all these things that are going on. He's just telling you how to deal with them. You know, the Bible has laws about polygamy. The Bible says, you know, if a man takes a second wife, he's not allowed to, you know, diminish the first wife's food or clothing or duty of marriage, meaning physical relationship. You know, and the Bible says, you know, if the first wife has a son and then he marries a second wife, he likes a second wife better. He can't make the second wife son the heir. You know, the firstborn needs to remain the heir even if it's from his less favorite wife. But hold on a second. The Bible condemns morally polygamy and teaches that it's one man, one woman. All the way back to the beginning, all the way in the Garden of Eden, God instituted marriage. And he says in Genesis 2, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. The Bible specifically says that the kings of Israel shall not multiply wives. But what did all the kings of Israel do? They all multiplied wives. So here's the thing. Polygamy is a reality of the world that they were living in. Slavery is a reality of the world that they're living in. So God is basically having laws to protect slaves. Saying, hey, if you knock your slave's tooth out, you have to let them go free. You know, and you know, for the tooth's sake. You know, basically putting limitations on how people could treat their slaves. They wouldn't go overboard in punishing a slave. And you can say, oh, it's just barbaric. That's horrible. God's not saying, hey, go ahead and beat slaves within an inch of their life. Just don't kill them and don't knock their teeth out, but just beat them within an inch of their life. That's not what he's saying. He's just putting criminal punishments on people who would do these extreme punishments of slaves. So he's protecting slaves. He's just basically dealing with the reality of the world at that time that polygamy abounded and slavery abounded. And you know, you think that we've gotten so much past that and we're just so much better and we're past polygamy and slavery. But are we really though? Are we really past that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't have polygamy. We just have guys, you know, going to college and sleeping with 10, 20, 30 women, right? But we don't have polygamy though. We just have guys that are married and they have some other chick on the side. But it's not polygamy though. You know, I mean, yeah. And then Utah, it's still going on in Utah, the polygamy. The radical fundamental LDS, basically the real LDS, you know, because that whole religion was built on polygamy and started by a bunch of pedophiles. But anyway, literally, I mean, it's, you know, and think about the Islamic world. You know, the Islamic world is filled with polygamy and it's also filled with slavery. And you know, yeah, we don't have slavery in the United States. We're past that, right? Yeah, but what we do have though is we have illegal aliens that are put to work in a meat packing plant where they're constantly getting injured and working in horrible conditions and they have no recourse legally because they're here illegally. And so we have busloads, literal busloads of people being brought up from Mexico and brought up to places like, you know, Colorado, northern Colorado where there are these meat packing plants where they're just working these dangerous jobs so that some greedy company can make more money by abusing their workers. So are there workers today getting abused? Yeah, we could point to companies abusing workers or bringing in illegal aliens purposely so that they can abuse them and treat them poorly. You know, it's not slavery, but it's still bad, isn't it? So, you know, it was a sinful world back then, it's a sinful world now. People got hurt back then, they're getting hurt now. People mistreated people back then, they're mistreating people now. We might have just polished the apple a little bit, but guess what? Human nature is still the same and they're, you know, we don't have slavery, but, you know, we're just operating some sweatshop in Cambodia or China or what, you know what I mean? But it's not slavery though, but they just work 12 hours a day and get paid 50 cents and whatever and they're exposed to all kinds of harmful, dangerous practices on the job. So, folks, if you think that the world has just become this much more godly place since this was written, you're wrong. It's just, it's changed. The sins have changed, but the sins are still there. You know, you're still going to have sometimes an abused underclass of workers that don't have any rights. You know, it's going to be different, but the same. There's no new thing under the sun, truly. And, you know, the same thing with, oh, these cruel punishments, but we have cruel punishments too. They just take a different form. And so we don't want to get all high and mighty as Americans thinking that, you know, oh man, we're so much better than the people in the Bible and we're so much more civilized and they're such, you know, barbarous people. It really isn't true, my friend. And by the way, slavery as an institution, you know, runs a whole gamut of how that works. Some people that were slaves, quote unquote, you know, were only slaves for three years or six years, okay? And by the way, if you actually study ancient history, even outside the Bible, if you study ancient Greek history, there are many ancient Greek authors who wrote and said that if you were living in Athens during the classical period, you can't even tell the difference between who is a slave and who is free because the slaves are living such good lives and they basically have all kinds of respect and they have food and clothes. They kind of just do whatever they want and you couldn't even tell in some case. But then there are other cultures that have been very mean to slaves and mistreated slaves and abused slaves and other. And again, obviously, I don't believe that any human being should be permanently enslaved. But even people who were permanently enslaved often could have been treated well and then in other situations, they were treated horribly. You know, I mean, people talk about how like, you know, oh, George Washington had slaves and Thomas Jefferson had slaves and all that stuff. If you actually look at these men's lives, they treated them really well and, you know, George Washington put in his will that they're all to be freed or whatever and, you know, they basically were benevolent. And I'm not condoning it or saying that it was right. I'm just saying it's a complicated subject and so you can't just take your view of 19th century slavery in America and then just like plug it into the Bible and be like, well, I don't think God knows what he's talking about. No, you better just shut up and let God tell you what's right. And I do think it is appropriate for people to be indentured as slaves temporarily because if people don't pay, if they rack up some debt that they can't pay, they should have to work it off. You know, you go to the restaurant and you don't pay the bill that you got to wash dishes in the back. Who's ever had to do that in your entire life? Who's ever known anyone who had to do that in their entire life? Who thinks that anyone has ever actually done that in their entire life? But it's on TV a lot, okay? You know, it's always like the thing of they don't have the money to pay and then they have to do dishes for a few hours but I don't know if that has ever happened in the history of this planet. But let's go with it. Let's pretend that it did happen. That's basically a concept of slavery. Like you can't pay so you have to work it off, okay? Now what do people do now? You know, now they just rack up their credit cards and just bankrupt it and whatever. Or in history, you know, they've had like a debtor's prison where they put people in prison. That's, again, cruel and inhumane. An alternative to a debtor's prison or people just racking up debts and bankrupting them is that they would do an indentured servitude where they would have to work it off. And what if they are indentured to you and then they just refuse to work? Well then they might need to get a whipping, alright? So you see how this thing develops, alright? But I digress. And by the way, who is it? Is it Jeff Bezos or is it Elon Musk who wants to set up a colony on Mars of indentured servants? Because it's like, if I'm going to pay your way, you've got to work for me. You know, so that's a form. And a lot of people were criticizing it saying that it was like indentured servitude if you sign up for this, you know. But, you know, whatever. The people who sign up for it are probably so geeked out, they're just glad to be on Mars and they don't even care what happens once they get there. What's that? Yeah, they'll probably be dead after a few months anyway because of some unforeseen, you know, hiccup in the mission. But hey, whatever. I wish them all the best. So anyway, let's move on. I feel like we've done this, we've dealt with it. Amen? We like it. It's good. Let's move on. I've got to hurry up. I'm almost out of time here. So, or am I? Is this a good place to land the plane? You know, the Bible says in verse 23, when ye shall come into the land and shall have planted all manners of tree for food. And that's where we'll pick up next time. All right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and help us never to be so prideful or arrogant that we actually think that we're smarter than you or that we know better than your word, Lord. Help us to be humble as we read the Bible and help us to humbly realize that your way is perfect, your laws are perfect, and that our understanding is often what needs to be adjusted and that we should get on board with your way of thinking. And not expect you to conform to our mentality. Lord, thank you so much for your word that teaches us how to be holy. And Lord, help us to love our neighbor and help us not to hold grudges or be bitter against people, Lord. Help us to abstain from fornication and adultery and these horrible sins, Lord. Help us to be holy as you're holy. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's turn our song books to 169. Hymn number 169, Come thou fount of every blessing, and tune my heart to sing thy praise. Number 169, on this first verse together. Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy praise. Sing the mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Dish me some heaven and sun, and some bright flaming tongues are gone. Praise the clouds thy face upon it, count on thy waiting in love. Here I praise thy heavy serve, favored by thy help I come. And I don't lie, thy good pleasure, safely I'll love thy my own. Jesus, God, we pledge a stranger, not made from the fold of God, but to bless you in my danger, interpose this precious blood. O to praise thou great a debtor, lately I'm but straight to thee. Let thy goodness, like a feather, climb my one great heart to thee. O to ponder, Lord, I feel it, prone to need the God I love. Here's my mark, O take it, seal it, o'er thy ports alone. Jesus, God, we pledge a stranger, not made from the fold of God, but to bless you in my danger, not made from the fold of God.