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It's so good. It's real hot, right? And how long will it take? Which one do you struggle with? I know. I know. And then Sean. And the rest of the group? Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Stronghold Baptist Church. If you can grab your hymnals and open up the song number 36. Song number 36, Christ Arose. Hymn number 36. On the first low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior, waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord. Up from the grave he arose, with the mighty triumph o'er his foes. He arose a victor from the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose, he arose, hallelujah, Christ arose. Fainly they washed his bed, Jesus my Savior. Fainly they sealed the dead, Jesus my Lord. Up from the grave he arose, with the mighty triumph o'er his foes. He arose a victor from the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose, he arose, hallelujah, Christ arose. Death cannot keep his prey, Jesus my Savior. He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord. Up from the grave he arose, with the mighty triumph o'er his foes. He arose a victor from the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose, he arose, hallelujah, Christ arose. Every hour. Paul number 97. On the first I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord. No tender voice like thine can peace afford. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, stay thou near while temptations usurp out with power nigh. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, in joy or pain. Come quickly and abide, for life is pain. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, most holy one. Oh, make me like thee, doubtless it's fun. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Amen. Amen. All right, great singing this evening. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. If anyone doesn't have a bulletin, slip up your hand real quick. It looks like everyone was here this morning. But if you need another one, slip up your hand real quick. We'll get one out to you. If you open up to the first page, we've got the service time listed. Sunday morning at 10.30, Sunday afternoon at 4. Wednesday at 7 is our Bible study. We've got the soul wedding opportunities listed there, salvation to baptisms. A short one, we should be at 21 for the month of February, and one more for the year. Let's go ahead and count up any salvations from today. If you want to have a soul wedding today and a salvation, slip up your hand real quick and we'll get a count. The Millers had one. Anybody else? All right. Well, I know the ladies I think had a pretty good time here. I heard some laughing and stuff going on. I don't know what all was going on. I was kind of back off in this area here, but it seemed that everyone had a good time. Yes? Good. I did get a piece of the cake, though. That cake was great. If you're a guy and you're lucky enough to get a piece of cake, then, man, that was some good stuff. But, yeah, everything went well here, I think. We've got the offering tolls just down there at the bottom for the month of February. Prayer requests, as I mentioned this morning, praise the Lord for the answered prayers with Mrs. Logan and Luke being able to be at home and recover the rest of the way at home, continue to pray for everything to continue to go well there. We've got Mrs. Johnson and her pregnancy, be praying for her. And then the Rogers family, I haven't had any more updates yet today. So, as I mentioned this morning, they were involved in a car accident yesterday. So, to the best of my knowledge, they're okay. There's nothing serious that I'm aware of. So, that's good, but I think they may have sustained some small injuries. And I don't know who all was in the accident. I still don't know the details on that yet, but please pray for them. Pray for Mrs. Nancy. And we got the update about Ducheim, that her surgery did go well and that they're still giving her antibiotics. There's a little... I forget exactly what Naheo said now this morning about the flesh. I think there's just a little infection. There's some infection, something going on. Overall, they're very pleased with the surgery. So, pray things continue to go well with her. My wife is still recovering. Thank God she's able to make it to church even for a full day. But I know you may not realize it, but it does take a lot out of her to be here. So, your continued prayers for us is very much appreciated. Yeah, everyone on this list, please continue to pray for everyone here. Brother Peter, for Cassia's father, and for Angelica's brother Travis. And then, of course, for Faith Board Baptist Church. On the next page, I did update the bulletin online. So, it just basically contains what I announced this morning about the Nitrozone activity on March 26th. I've got the date there, the time, 6 p.m. until they close. I put on there, we need RSVPs. I know people who are planning on coming raise their hands this morning. You're gonna need to sign a waiver. We'll have that available to you, or I'll give you the link to be able to do so. We need to have that stuff back to them, submitted, and we're gonna pay for the activity in advance. So, we need to have that put on there by March 17th, which is a Wednesday. We need to know for sure if you're coming and try to get all that information back. So, I will have... I'll deal with that on making sure that was for you. I don't know if we're gonna do a list here, but I'll probably do it with the waivers. But I need to know, we're gonna need to know also just the height, if you have children, whether or not they're over 48 inches. That's kind of the barrier between what package we end up getting you if they're able to do the go-karts or not. So, that's gonna be a lot of fun. I hope you guys can make it out for that. We are providing food, so I want people to be able to make it if you can. I mean, obviously, if you can't show up at six, that's fine. Just show up when you can, because it's gonna be for quite a while, and it should be a lot of fun. I don't want people to have to worry about having to go home, get dinner and everything else, because I know people drive and there's gonna be traffic probably and everything else. So, come when you can come. We'll have food there ready for you. We don't know exactly what yet. I haven't considered that. Probably, we may just do like sandwich, so that way it's still good. It's not gonna get like cold or whatever. You know, if you're not showing up right at six or six-thirty or whatever, that might be the best option. So, we'll do something along those lines, but don't worry. We'll have some food provided for you, and we'll probably order some other finger foods like wings or something like that for a little bit later in the evening as well so you could snack on those things. But I'm looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun. So, you're basically gonna be able to do whatever you want. We're getting you the package that opens up everything as many times as you want. There's no limit to what you're gonna be able to do there. So, it'll be a lot of fun. Hopefully, you can see. I know a lot of people raised their hand this morning. If you didn't raise your hand this morning, try to consider, see if you can make it out here for that. It's gonna be a lot of fun. It's a Friday night, and that's for the January challenge that we completed. Virtually the entire church completed the Bible reading, so that's why we're doing this. This is a big prize for that. Yes? What? Everyone's invited. It's for that challenge, but since virtually the entire church did it anyways, you know, good job. Those who weren't able to complete it, you're gonna ride on the back. Good job. For those who weren't able to complete it, you're gonna ride on the backs of everyone else that was able to do it. But yeah, we wanted to do this for everyone and have a big event for it because I'm really pleased with how many people did that challenge. It's awesome, so good job on that challenge. This month's challenge is Redeeming the Time. This will help you in future challenges to try to figure out where you can use more of your time wisely. I mean, that's ultimately what it is. You know, either getting rid of sin in your life or just being able to figure out, hey, I've got this time, you know, really taking a serious look at your schedule. I can eliminate this time. I could do more praying. I could do more Bible reading. I can do whatever, wherever you might feel like you're lacking in your spiritual life, try to compensate for that by really doing a self-analysis and going, yeah, I really don't need to do this. We all have at least a little bit of that, some maybe more than others. I mean, you know, even if it's 20 minutes, 10 minutes, you know, whatever, like whatever it is, you know, I could probably be doing something better. The Bible memory would be a really good one. That little bit of, you know, those little game time or whatever you do on your phone, don't tell me you don't do that. Everyone's got something that they do. Someone's got some little game or some little thing they're wasting their time with. We bought the, like an upgraded package for the scripture typer is what it's called, a Bible memory app. So we probably still have, I don't think everybody used those things. If you want to get something to replace the time that you're fidgeting and doing stupid little games on your phone, the app is fun. It seriously is. The Bible memory app is fun. Okay. It's not, there's nothing like, you know, it's nothing too crazy, but I think it's fun. I mean, I like being able to just, you just have to press the letter of each word and it puts the word in there for you. And then it starts taking away words and you can, you know, until there's no words there at all and you have to do the whole verse. So I really enjoy it. It may not be as helpful for you. Everyone kind of memorizes a little bit different. You have your own techniques, but what's really great about it is that you can easily replace, you know, just, just like think about this. People who are addicted to smoking, one of the real common things that they do and that little tricks that help people quit smoking is like to have a sucker or something else that they can like put in their mouth because they're so used to having a cigarette and they're used to just having that urge and that sensation of just like putting something to it from their mouth. So they'll do other things. They'll replace it with something else to wean them off the cigarettes. Well, if you always have your phone in your hand and you're going somewhere, well, instead of doing the whatever game it is, just, you know what, I'm going to put the app on, the Bible memory, and then you get some Bible memory and then you're really making good use of that time and you get the little activity of being able to use your phone. So if you want to use that, if you say passive versions, I never got that and you could download it for free. Here's the thing, the app is free, but you're limited to like 50 verses or something like that max if you, you know, it stores your progress and all this other stuff and we basically unlock, we bought a bunch of licenses and unlocked it so that you could just use it unlimited. And if you want, if you want one of those, the rule was you had to participate and complete any amount of like Bible memory. Just to show that you weren't going to waste it. Right. Do even the smallest Bible memory challenge just to get the few verses or something. And then we would give you that that access and give you the code to download that. So if that's something that you want and you say, you know what, I'm going to do this, then I'll give you the code. It's real. It's a real difficult code. I'll put you on the honor system. I'll give you the code right now. It's SHBC. In case you don't know what that means, the stronghold Baptist church. So I say to BC, you put in your code for the, the, the version. I know we're streaming right now on the internet honor system here. All right. They're not that expensive. I'm not worried about it. If there's still any available, they've been available for a while. So I want people to get used out of it anyhow. But that's, that's a good idea to, to redeem your time and make good use of your time and you'll be doing something really good with that. So enough about that. I preached on that last week. Go back and listen to that whole sermon. Baby showers today. I think everything went well. Thank you to everyone who helped out with that. For the ladies that were, you know, went out and picked up the pizza and got the cakes. And not the ladies that got the cake. Brother Peter got the cake for us. Thank you. And the decorations and all the games and everything. Thank you very much. Everything went really well. And that was a lot of fun. So the camping trip is coming up April 26th with May 1st. We've talked about that quite a bit. I'm super excited about that. Spring forward next week. Please don't forget to set your clocks ahead. Make sure that you get here on time. And then the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed down there where we added March 28th for Kevin's daughter. She's got a birthday coming up near the end of the month. And we'll have that on there next week. And then the Bible memory passage. We are on week 7 of 10. And remember the sermon this morning? We're actually memorizing verse number 24. I said therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins. For if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. If you are not memorizing the entire chapter with us. Try memorizing this one verse. It's a good verse. Have this verse memorized. It's a really, really good one. It's important verse. Very good doctrinal verse to remember. And then maybe you'll this will come to your memory if you're ever trying to give the gospel to a Jehovah's Witness. Right. This is a very good one. Keep that keep that in your memory. So that's about it for announcements. Brother Peter, lead us in our next song. Church, our next song is actually Psalm 150. Should have a sheet nearby. If you don't have one, you can stick up your hand. We'll get you one. All right. It's Psalm 150. It looks like everyone has one. Psalm 150. On the first. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent witness. Praise him in the sound of the trumpet. Praise him in the sultry air. Praise him with the temple and dance. Praise him with strength instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud sound. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that hath read praise the Lord. Praise he the Lord. Amen. This time we're going to collect our Sunday afternoon offering. That's Brother Lindsay. If he can do that for us. While the offering is being passed around, if you guys can open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs chapter 30. 31. That's the book of Proverbs chapter 31. And as we do customer here at Stronghold Baptist Church, we'll read the entire chapter. And that's Brother Carter. If he can please read for us. Proverbs chapter 31. The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him. What my son and what the son of my womb and what the son of my vows. Give not thy strength unto women. Know thy ways to that which destroy kings. It is not for kings. It is not for kings to drink wine. Nor for princes strong drink. Let's say drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. Open thy mouth for the dumb and the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth. Judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor in need. Who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. She would do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flats and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant ships. She bringeth her food from afar. She arises also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens. She considerth a field and buyeth it. With the fruit of her hands she planted the vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good. Her camel goeth not out by night. She lateth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff. She stretches out her hand to the poor. Yea, she reaches forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household. For all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry. Her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen and selleth it and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idols. Her children arise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou hast sellest them all. Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates. Let's have a word of prayer. Brother P, would you mind praying for us please? Dear Heavenly Father of the Lord, thank you so much for this church and these people that love you Father. Lord I just pray as Pastor comes up to preach that you fill him with your Spirit and that he can be filled with power and be able to preach with authority and be able to preach clearly Lord and put in his mind to the Scriptures he needs. Heavenly Father Lord I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right. Fair warning, this is going to be one of those sermons that might step on some toes. So, as with all the preaching here, please take this from someone who cares about you, right? And no, this is not a sermon directed at any one particular person, okay? So just, if you feel like this is, oh man, this is like directed at so and so, you know, just apply it to yourself if you need to. This isn't just geared for any one person. So believe me, that's not the case here. And what I'm going to be preaching on this evening is beauty is vain. Beauty is vain. Now, when I say beauty is vain, it comes from the passage here in Proverbs 31. We'll get to that in just a minute. But it's not that beauty in general is like a bad thing. Beauty is a good thing. And there's actually many times in the Bible where God beautifies things. And it's good, right? There's an example, you know, when I was studying for a sermon, there's actually lots more places than I realize that kind of just bring up beauty in general. God made the, you know, everything in the tabernacle particular way. Of course, everything's very specific. And the priest's clothing that they were supposed to wear, God actually said, you know, that they had to make it, and I forget the specific, but it was that they may be beautiful, that they wear beautiful garments. Okay, something that's good. The plants and the engravings and these, you know, there's a lot of plants that are brought into God's house to just beautify. So when I say beauty is vain, it depends on what we're talking about, right? Beauty in general, there's nothing wrong with it. And when your beauty is placed, when we have a proper understanding of what really is beautiful, and especially what's beautiful in God's eyes, no problem at all, it's great. But beauty in general, and beauty being vain, it's talking about just this outward kind of meaningless type of beauty. Now, obviously, beauty, you've heard a phrase maybe before, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? And that means that different people view different things as being beautiful. It's something that could be kind of subjective, right? Like, well, I think this is, I like, have this taste, I have that taste. You're like, you know, different things appear beautiful to different people. People have different favorite colors, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. There's no one that's like better than another. But at the end of the day, you know, these surface level visuals, things like that, it's pretty empty, it's pretty vain, okay? And the Bible teaches us here in Proverbs 31, it says, favor is deceitful. And favor meaning, like, if you're well favored, it means you're attractive. It means that, you know, someone who looks good. But the Bible says, you know, that's deceitful, deceitful. Because at the end of the day, that really doesn't matter. And unfortunately, people get too focused on that outward appearance so much. And ultimately, it could end up just being a front or a facade or just fake. And that's why the Bible says it's deceitful. You know, when we look at a great example of this, you see this all the time, is now the way that social media works, you know, people will share these great pictures and they share, you know, like, when, you know, maybe the one day a week that they clean the whole house and then it's like all of a sudden you get a picture of like this perfectly spotless area and place and it's like as if this is a normal day and oh yeah, it's just a day in the life. I'll tell you, if you ever see that at my house, it's because someone else probably just came and helped us clean the whole house. While we don't live like slobs, right, it's never going to be perfect when you have a lot of people running around like kids and everything else, right. There's always going to be something that's out of place, out of order, whatever. But on social media, people are able to build this front and kind of put up a facade and just, oh man, look at this great meal and it's really a self-centered me, me, me type of an attitude. And beauty is very similar to that. Beauty can, you know, people can really spend a lot of time investing in their looks, just what's on the surface though. There's nothing wrong with wanting to look good, okay, with being attractive or whatever in a sense, okay. There's nothing wrong with just wanting to look clean, wanting to look good, keeping care of yourself so you're not just a total slob and like no hygiene and things like that. There's nothing wrong with that. But the problem goes when you get too wrapped up in those outward appearances because what matters so much more in this life and in the life to come is what's on the inside and not what's on the outside. And unfortunately, too many people are wrapped up in what's on the outside. And the Bible says here, now Proverbs 31, we read the whole chapter. Well, I'm not going to go through that whole chapter. That's why I wanted to start reading that. One, we get the title of my sermon, Beauty is Vain. Proverbs 31 verse 30 says, fever is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Now, a lot of women especially, because women have a tendency to care a lot more about their appearance than men do. It's just the way that they're made, okay. There's nothing, you know, God made men and women different. It just is what it is. And Proverbs 31 has this whole section, the vast majority of the chapter is about the virtuous woman. And it describes all these things that the virtuous woman does. And this is a model woman, someone who's just doing all these great works and keeps herself busy and, you know, takes care of her household and her husband and does all this stuff. But you're never really getting anything about the virtuous woman and how well her hair looks and how, you know, fancy her shoes are and what, you know, that's not what you're reading about. But so many women will strive for that attention and that praise. Why? Because in the world, people exalt and praise the beautiful woman, do they not? I mean, isn't that what the Hollywood scene is all about and the fame and people being lifted up as, oh, wow, look at this actress and look at this actress and this actress and, oh, they're so beautiful and, oh, they're so gorgeous. And, you know, they've got their perfect white teeth and they're shining and they're, you know, they're wearing all these fancy clothes and everything else just to be seen of men, just to be seen as behold the beauty. Just similar to when we're reading the book of Esther, remember in chapter one, when King Ahasuerus brings forth Vashti, just, oh, does everyone just look at how beautiful she is and just kind of putting her on display as some trophy of beauty. Again, there's nothing wrong with being beautiful. If you're a beautiful woman, you're a beautiful woman. Amen. Right? I was lucky enough to marry a beautiful woman and I thank God for that. But here's the thing, is that that's, you know, we don't want to, you don't want to get caught up in the looks because beauty is vain. What really matters and what the Bible's contrasting here is that a woman that feareth the Lord, that shall be, she shall be praised. A woman that fears God, a woman that loves God, a woman that loves the word of God, this is where the true beauty lies. This is what you ought to be focused on. Now, a lot of my sermon is going to be geared more for women, but guys, listen up, okay, because one, if you're single, this is going to help you look for the right type of woman. And ladies, if you're single, this should be, you know, is also going to help you try to find the right kind of guy. And we're going to get that, again, a little bit later. But I want to start off, well here, let's read verse number 31 there too. The Bible says, give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates. Beauty is vain, caring for that external beauty is vain, but your works, what you do, is much more representative of who you are than your appearance. Appearances can be very deceitful. You read those news stories about the perverts, right? On the appearance on the social media, they've got some, you know, you've got guys that are putting up these appearances of women and kids and everything else. That's their appearance. It's fake, right? You've got to go a little bit deeper behind that surface level of what's being put out there. And, you know, this is more just in general, people, if you're interested in someone, look deeper than just their physical attractiveness. If you're looking for a spouse, if you're looking for someone to spend the rest of your time with, you have to look deeper. Because you know what's going to happen? That beauty that you see for that short term, oh wow, this person, they're so beautiful, they're so gorgeous, that's going to fade. It happens with time, okay? And it's going to happen before you know it, and if that's all you've got, it's not going to last long at all. It's going to be superficial and ultimately meaningless. Turn to Isaiah chapter 3. Isaiah chapter 3. One of the problems with focusing too much on your external beauty is it's going to lead you to be more self-centered and lifted up in pride and full of yourself. Because if you're focused so much about how you look, you're focusing too much just on you. Again, don't confuse this with just being well-kept and having good hygiene and, you know, just taking general care of yourself, right? Because you don't want to go out just as a total slob, right? People are going to look at you and judge you and you want people to listen to you and respect you, yes. But I'll tell you what, it doesn't take that much time to make sure that you could be dressed appropriately. You wouldn't believe it, maybe you will, but I think it took me a total of 10 to 15 minutes this morning to be washed and dressed and shoes on and tie and everything ready to go. Now, I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that I just look that bad where people are going to be like, oh, man, I can't believe Pastor Burns came to church looking like that, right? Now, granted, I'm not wearing the fanciest of suits, okay, and my pants may or may not match my jacket. I don't know because I have some jackets that do, some that don't. But you know what, this is what I'm talking about, not having that, like, just too much care on the things that ultimately don't really matter that much. Because here's what I could have done, I could have spent an hour looking at the mirror and going, wait, I think I see, I think I see a blemish there by my cheek. Wait, that hair, that beard is just a little bit, wait, let me get the tweezers out, okay, let me pull that hair, all right, that's perfect. Or for me, it would be the unibrow, right, like, oh, man, hold on a second, I need to make sure every single little hair is plucked. I didn't do that, look, it's right, if you look close enough, it's right there. Those things don't really matter, and at the end of the day, it's gonna be a waste of time, and if I really care that much about my outward appearance, I'm putting the focus in the wrong place. And ultimately, that is a mark of someone that could be a little bit too full of themselves, and we're gonna see this to the extreme. Okay, in Isaiah chapter 3, this is taking things to the extreme, so I'm not saying, again, there's no one person in mind, and I'm not saying that anyone in this church is like this. This is the warning of things going too far. It's going really worldly and going off the deep end with this focus on your appearance, okay, because this is what the world does. This is how the world acts. I think it was Mrs. Freeman was telling me about her brother who had done some work with photography and stuff, and these people who are so into, like, the appearance and these famous people and stuff, and people get so crazy about this, all he was doing was taking pictures, and they didn't like that he took, maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, brother Joseph, that, you know, he was taking pictures of this person and not of someone else, and just because they have these, like, competing popular culture famous people, the people who liked, you know, guy A are mad because he's taking pictures of guy B, right? It's like, what are you doing making that guy look good or whatever? So this is how crazy the world is, and here's her brother just, I mean, he's taking pictures. Like, this is his job. He's taking these photos, and these people are attacking him because he's taking pictures of someone, and they're posted in, like, a positive light, but here's how they attacked him, though. They start attacking him based on his physical appearance, and they do this research on him. They go after him and try saying, oh, you're this, you're that, you're short, you're, you know, whatever it is, whatever, and I don't know what all the details are. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, right? Whatever physical imperfections or however you could pick on someone for their physical appearance, right, this is what they're all about. This is what they're focused on, and it's total vanity. It's all vanity. This is the way of the world, and those people are so wrapped up in, ultimately, it's nonsense because who cares? I mean, they care, but how much do you think God cares? And here's the thing, and, you know, this is great for people of all ages. Human beings, sinful human beings have a tendency to make fun of people based on their appearance. Fact of life. Very common among kids, but even among adults, okay, it happens. Now, if you have a mindset that you really, really care about that outward perception of your appearance, that's going to impact you a lot. Oh, man, I can't believe they said it, and now, you know, it's going to bother you, and it's going to cause you stress and anxiety and all kinds of problems in your life just because someone said something. But if you're the type of person that's just like, well, whatever, I don't care, it really won't have that much effect on you. Now, that's going to help you because people, a lot of people can be mean and do those things and say things they ought not to say, but if you don't have that much invested in some, you know, that physical appearance and you're focused more on the inside and more on being a beautiful person, than you are the outward beautiful appearance, yeah, I'm not saying it won't ever hurt you when people say mean things because it hurts. It hurts when people just try to say things just to be mean, but it won't have the same impact when you know what true beauty is. But let's look at Isaiah chapter 3. This is a people that are just way too wrapped up in themselves, and the Bible says that they're very haughty, they're very proud, they're very full of themselves. Look at verse number 16. The Bible says, Moreover, the Lord said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and again, I said before, I'm going to be focusing a little bit more on the women. Women have more of a tendency to be focused on their appearance than men do in general, and even in the Bible, it's saying here the daughters of Zion. It's not saying all the children of Zion, it's saying the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go and making a tinkling with their feet. Okay, this is the pompous, oh, look at, you know, like this, I'm not going to be able to do a very good impression of these women that are just kind of full of themselves and they're walking like they're full of themselves and they're all that and oh, everybody look at me and I'm so cool and I'm so popular and having this appearance and they're putting forth this appearance. And it's ultimately, it's empty. But let's see what it says in verse number 17. So this is how they're being described. This is how the daughters of Zion are being described. They're haughty, they walk with a stretched forth neck, they got these wanton eyes, they're walking and mincing as they go, making a tinkling with their feet. Therefore, so because they're doing this, the Lord will smite with a scab, the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. You know what I'm saying? God's going to make them ashamed. God's going to bring them low. God's going to bring them down because, oh, they think they're so full of themselves and they're all that and that displeases the Lord. And God says, you know what, I'm going to do something now and I'm going to humble them and I'm going to make them not so lifted up in themselves because I don't like that behavior. Verse number 18. In that day, the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet. And it's going to go on and list a bunch of things, we'll read these, but just notice the bravery. People who are full of themselves and real haughty and full of pride, they get this false bravery. And this is where a lot of the people will get that mean attitude, too, and they start talking down to other people and making fun of other people and ha ha ha. And this is how, you know, the quote unquote cool kids, the ones who all look great, will treat other people. Stereotypical, right? But stereotypical because these things happen a lot in life. And they get this bravery when they're just so full of themselves with their tinkling ornaments about their feet. Now, we can look at it, I can look at this and just kind of laugh. Like, how are you getting bravery from tinkling ornaments about your feet? But whatever, right? For any culture, we can understand the same mindset. You get the bravery of your, well, I don't know what's popular now. In my days it would be the Air Jordans, right? I grew up in Chicago in the 90s, so it was like, you know, that was like, I mean, kids were getting killed for their Jordans. Still are? All right, so I'm not that outdated yet. But it may not be the tinkling ornaments, okay, but it's something else. And then their calls and their round tires like the moon. I don't know exactly what that is, but we're going to see later that the tire, I think, is something around their heads is what it seems like. Number 19, the chains and the bracelets and the mufflers, the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands and the tablets and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel and the mantels and the wimples and the crisping pins, the glasses and the fine linen and the hoods and the veils. That's a lot of accessories. I don't know what all those things are, but it's a lot of stuff to have on your body, right? What are all those things? I don't know. It's all vanity. It doesn't matter. They thought that was all cool and they were all that. And I'm looking at that going, how much time do you have to invest to put out all that stuff? But we have some of this stuff today. I mean, the rings, the nose jewels, there's nothing new under the sun. You know, the earrings, all of that stuff. Now, again, I am not going to say that all of these things are just inherently bad or evil or wicked or wrong, because I don't believe that. When Abraham's servant was seeking a wife for Isaac, and he brought bracelets and he brought some things as gifts, I don't think there was anything wrong with that. I don't think there's anything sinful. I think giving a gift and someone being modest but having some nice thing, you know, whatever, is not that big of a deal. But the key is the modesty. Modesty means you're not drawing all of the attention to yourself. So if you think something's kind of pretty and you want to have this nice little ornament of something, something to put on your ear, something to put on your neck, that is not just inherently wicked or sinful or wrong. But the problem comes in when you start getting flashy and you start just adorning yourself with all of this stuff, because you're wanting people to look at you. And this is the, oh, I'm so flashy, oh, look at all the stuff I have, look at how expensive my necklace is and my grill or whatever it is, these weird things that people do to just get this attention. And if a grill isn't attention-seeking, I don't know what is. Why in the world are we putting some metal in your mouth and you look like, what happened to you? Were you a tweaker? You lost all your teeth and now you've got to get some fakes or what? I never understood that. I think it's super ugly, but whatever. Apparently I don't understand fashion. But this is what happens with the world. But we ought not to be like the world. We don't need to go down that path. And ultimately, honestly, the less you can be concerned with these things, the better off you're going to be. This, like I said, this is an extreme example. These people are just really giving all this stuff. Verse number 24 says, And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink, and instead of a girdle, a rent, and instead of well-set hair, baldness. So God's saying, oh, you know, you're so caught up in all of this stuff and all of your appearance. Well, you know what's going to happen? Instead of you having all that perfect perfume and spending all that time being yourself, you're going to stink. Because he's going to be able to send disease. He's going to be able to send poverty or whatever along the way so that you're so caught up in this, you know what? That's not going to be gone. Now you're going to be left stinking. You know, you wanted that stomacher and everything just to look just perfect and get all your looks just right, you're going to be left with sackcloth. All your changing of apparel and everything, you're going to be left with just sackcloth. And burning instead of beauty, instead of well-set hair, baldness. Right? You care so much about that hair. Well, God can make it so your hair just falls out and show you the hard way that that stuff really doesn't matter. You shouldn't invest so much time into these things. Verse 25 says, thy men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war and her gate shall lament and mourn and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground. A lot more to this passage than just this, but I'm just really kind of focused on the surface level with this type of an attitude and this focus on the appearance and the external. Turn, if you would, to Ezekiel chapter 23. We need to remember, you know, God made you the way that you are, first of all. And I want everyone to understand that God made you. God formed you and fashioned you in the womb. Okay? And everything that God makes is good. When God made the world and He made man and woman, He looked on everything He made and behold, it was very good. And just first and foremost, that should be good for you to know that God made you the way you are. And if you have some imperfections or things like that, you know, I'm not against like fixing maybe some birth defect or something that can help you, you know, your body function a little better or whatever. But, you know, little flaws and Mars or something that make you look a little bit different, so what? Don't worry about that. If it's just superficial, if it's just on the surface, if it's just something that's not a big deal, then hey, praise God for everything that He gave you. And don't get focused on those little things that you want to change about yourself, but that's not how you were born. And now more than ever, I mean, this crazy world has got people trying to change just the sex that they were born with. Male or female. That's insanity. That's just bizarre and twisted. I'm not even going to go down that road, but seriously, like that's just kind of this end result of people who are just so focused on all of this superficial, vain, external appearance. Now, I'm going to bring up a subject here. You're in Ezekiel 23. I'm going to read for a couple places for you first, and this has to do with, you know, with the appearance. We're going to get into some other appearance later. This has to do with painting your face, what the Bible calls it. We would call it putting on makeup, okay? And for clarity, I'm going to say again, I don't believe that a woman that puts on makeup is in sin. I don't take that stance. Some people do. There's some I have, you know, pastors that will say, it is sin, no woman should be putting on makeup. I don't draw that conclusion. I don't get to that point. But again, just like with the, you know, wearing jewelry or things like that, you have to see for yourself what, you know, one, how much you're investing in it, how much you're caring about that appearance. Where is your heart at with this? And what are you doing? And we're going to look at the scripture here, and you can decide for yourself. Maybe you say, Pastor Burns, I think you're wrong. I think it is a sin. Or you could say, Pastor Burns, I think you're just way off based on everything. Well, let's look at the four examples in scripture that even bring up painting of the face. The Bible deals with everything. And we're going to look at what the scripture says about this. Okay? And with an honest heart, why don't you decide for yourself what you think? Now, the first one is not any type of judgment on painting of the face at all. It's just who's doing it. Okay? 2 Kings 9, verse 30, the Bible reads, And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her face and tired her head. So that's right. We were talking about the tires, you know, round as the moon. That's probably what this is when it says she tired her head, put some tire on her head. I think that would look kind of funny, but they apparently thought that it would make her look good or whatever, and looked out at a window. So the Bible is not condemning this here at all. I just want to point that out. This is not some, oh, you've got to look at 2 Kings 9, 30, because that condemns makeup. No, but it is just telling us who's doing it at Jezebel. Jeremiah 4, 30, we're going to get a little bit more insight into this, what the Bible teaches on this. Jeremiah 4, 30 says, And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold. So he's talking about being clothed with, crimson is a fancier color, maybe a little bit more expensive, and deckest, you know, putting on ornaments of gold, right, again. And then it says, though thou rentest thy face with painting. When you rend something, you're marring it, you're destroying it. And I think this is showing God's view, the Bible's view of what you're doing when you're painting your face, you're rending it. More than beautifying it, though thou rendest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair, thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life. This is another concept that's brought up, and I think this can apply to people who get so caught up in this physical appearance and beauty. You're going to attract people, if you want to be attractive, you're going to attract the wrong type of person that's not going to love you. They're going to love the appearance, or lust after the appearance, and not love you. You're in Ezekiel 23, and we're going to get into that a little bit more deeper when we go into Proverbs. Ezekiel 23 is a description of lewd women, and it's the story, and again, this has a much deeper meaning, as did Isaiah 3, okay. And this is the description, if you remember, Ahola and Aholabah, okay. And this is talking about, you know, Israel, it's talking about Judah, it's talking about much deeper things. But we still have to take the surface for what it is, because this is where we're getting our information from. And this is all the Bible has to say about subjects, and we're going to look at it all and just try to get in context. Look at verse number 40 of Ezekiel 23. Verse number 40 says, and furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent, and lo, they came, for whom thou didst wash thyself, paint its thy eyes, and deck its thyself with ornaments, and saddest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set mine incense and mine oil. So, again, this is not a direct condemnation, because, you know, washing yourself isn't, obviously, isn't like a sin to wash yourself. We know that there's nothing wrong with washing yourself. But in the context of what's going on here, it's talking about men that they're washing themselves, they're painting their eyes, and they're putting on all these ornaments and trying to look really attractive for these men, just as we saw in Jeremiah 4.30, okay, it's the same type of a thing, and it says here, let's see what's going to happen, verse 42, and a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her, and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands and beautiful crowns upon their heads. So, the Sabeans from the wilderness, this is talking about these heathen men now that are coming in, these base men that are coming in with these bracelets or whatever, but not the type of man that a proper woman would want to be associated with and get involved with. Verse 43 says, Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her and she with them? Yet they went in unto her as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot. So went they in unto a holah and unto a halabah, the lewd women. So these are the lewd women that were being described in verse 40 of doing all these things to attract these men, and they just end up committing whoredoms with them. This is the end result. What we're seeing a little bit of commonality here, and like I said, I don't believe it's just this direct sin to put on a little makeup or to put on some jewelry, but watch what you're doing and be concerned with the inside, be concerned with the real beauty and not with the outward beauty. Put the priority where it belongs. If you spend an hour a day in front of a mirror and you're not spending an hour a day in the mirror of God's word, that's going to show you more about who you are and where you need to be, then you've got a problem. Let's keep reading here. Verse 45 says, And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses and after the manner of women that shed blood, because they are adulteresses and blood is in their hands. For thus saith the Lord God, I will bring up a company upon them and will give them to be removed and spoiled, and the company shall stone them with stones and dispatch them with their swords. They shall slay their sons and their daughters and burn up their houses with fire. Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness. And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols, and you shall know that I am the Lord God. Now, the real problem here is that lewdness, is that desire to attract these guys to commit whoredoms. It's not specifically the painting of the face. I just want to be clear. I'm not drawing this extra conclusion saying, if you paint your face, then this is going to happen. But what I'm trying to demonstrate with the limited information we have in the scripture about people who paint their face is look who's doing it. Look who's doing it. And look at what's happening, okay? This is what we have to work with. In addition to what you just see in the world today, lewd women of the day, lewd women today, the prostitutes, the hookers, how do they dress? How do they fashion their appearance? One, they're going to wear clothing that's going to draw attention to their bodies. That's what they do, because that's what they're trying to sell. Because they want to entice men with their bodies. That's how hookers dress. That ought not to be how Christians dress. When you dress like that, you're going to attract guys who are attracted to that kind of thing. But that's not the only way that the hookers dress. They're also going to be wearing the jewelry, and they're also going to be caking on the makeup all over their face. Everything they do is trying to entice a man to come and be with them. And even in probably, I didn't have this reference here, but the adulterous woman, she's like, oh, I've got these spices and myrs and all these scents. Everything sensual possible just to try to attract someone. Now, this is what they do. You need to make sure that you're not in appearance like that, because you may inadvertently attract the wrong person. And this is what, man, if people could just learn these things, it saddens me to see the young girls, little girls, walking around dressed like little hookers. And parents think it's cute, because we have such a low standard of morality in this country, and the culture is so horribly wicked. And the role models and the idols are these extremely wicked satanic rock star singers, the pop music and the movies. And you literally have these little kids wearing these outfits that are like provocative outfits, and it's not a six-year-old. And a lot of smacks on the parents that say, what is wrong with you? How can you possibly think that that's okay? And it's become normalized. We ought not to be like the world. Let's see through that. Let's look with the lens of the Bible, and let's see how these things are described and not have the same folly that the world has. Let's protect our children growing up from being looked on as objects, because if you treat them from a young age as just being objects, especially little girls and women just being these objects, then they're going to have a really, really, really bad sense of who they are. You know, it's funny, because the IFB churches, the fundamental Baptists, right, get such a hard time, oh, you're anti-woman. Look, we're not the ones that's trying to raise little girls and parade them abroad as being nothing more than just some object, because we're trying to keep them as scantily clad as possible, because that's the fashion out there today. We're not sending them off in their underwear to go swimming just in public and wearing practically nothing and wearing these little tiny miniskirts that barely cover anything and sending them off to school and sending them off wherever, because that's what's cool and that's what people are wearing on TV. No, we see past that. We actually care about our daughters. We don't want them to become some object for some man's gratification, physical gratification, and that's all they are. We want them to have value. The world thinks that we're crazy. I don't know about you, but I love my daughters more than just about anybody, and I want nothing more than for the old. I want them to be godly women. I want them to, because you know what, I don't want them to marry some guy that just is lusting after them and doesn't actually love them. And I want them to understand the difference, and I want them to understand their value, that they have way more value than just their body. No matter how they look, whether God has blessed them just naturally with being what the world might consider beautiful or not. Either way, they need to understand the real value of who they are is actually what's on the inside. It is not this outward appearance. Turn to Matthew 23. I'm going to read you from Proverbs, chapter 6, for the men. Don't be driven by physical beauty alone. Now I think it's important when people are looking to marry somebody that there's an attraction there between a man and a woman. It's important. You need to have that between the spouses. But don't get blinded just by some outward beauty. Because what matters way more is what's on the inside and who that person really is. Because like I said, that beauty is going to be... It's like any shiny thing, right? Any shiny toy, any shiny gadget, any shiny vehicle is like, oh man, that looks great, I like the color. And after you've had it for a week, it's not that shiny anymore. It's not quite that special. That's kind of how that physical beauty is. It's like, oh man, it's so great. You're lusting after whatever, and then it's like, oh yeah, that's why when the Bible's talking about the men like that, they don't love them. They treat them just like a whore. Because they got what they wanted. They're satisfied, okay, that's it. And then they're just going to care about moving on to gratify their flesh more with someone else, whoever the next person's going to be. Don't attract that type of person. And men don't, you know, on the flip side, men and women are both guilty of this. Proverbs 6.23 says, for the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life to keep thee from the evil woman. From the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman lust not after her beauty and thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread, and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life. Watch out, guys. Don't just get taken in and taken captivated by this external beauty that a woman might have. Because you could be brought to nothing by just allowing yourself to go forward with a whorish woman. Oh, man, she's just so beautiful, I can't, you know. First, show some self-control, and two, why don't, you know, if you're going to do anything with someone, it ought to be after you get married, and if you're going to marry someone, you better know more about who they are than how they look. Matthew 23, verse 25, of course, Matthew 23 is a famous chapter where Jesus is just totally laying into the Pharisees and totally rebuking them, and the Pharisees had this same mindset and attitude about their external appearance, right? Now, they do it because they're these wolves in sheep's clothing, they're these false prophets, right, and they want people to think that, oh, they're so spiritual, and they're so holy, and they're so good, but let's take a look at this, because this can also apply to that same mindset of just beautifying the outside of your body and not the inside. Verse number 25, the Bible reads, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. So, yeah, they fool the people out there going, oh, yeah, they're so clean, look at their robes, look at their fancy clothing, look at their collar turned backwards, oh, man, those guys, they must be just like super spiritual. You know what's on the inside? Extortion. Excess. They care about the money. They sell people out. Verse 26, now blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness, even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. He's likening them to the graves, the tombs, where you can have these really fancy, ornate, beautiful tombs. Right, all these fancy engravings, it may have gold in there, plating, whatever, you can have these really fancy things, but you know what's inside that? You know what's inside that casket? You know what's inside that tomb? A bunch of rotting, stinking, dead men's bones and, you know, that's what's on the inside. Congratulations, you got this beautiful sarcophagus. Apply this to people. I don't want someone who's full of stinking, dead men's bones on the inside. I'd much rather sacrifice some of that external beauty. If I found someone, now obviously, I'm married and I haven't been married for a long time, and I don't even want to think about ever having to try to find another wife, ever. I'm just like, I got one! And she's great and good and I love her, and I don't ever want to have to think about that again because, man, that process is, maybe some people have a lot of fun with whatever. Not me, all right? I'm just really, really thankful for where I'm at. But I would not want, if I were to find myself in that situation, you know, I want to find someone that is really beautiful for who they are. Because that's who you're staying with. And, you know, for the length of time that I've been married now, that is way more important. Way more important. You're spending your life with somebody. And instead of everybody, instead of focusing too much on how you look on the outside and worrying about what are people going to find attractive, work on the inside of you. Who you are. Make yourself a better person, a better Christian. The better you can make yourself on the inside, the more attractive you're going to be to the right type of person. Because you, in the long run, you're going to want the right person with you. Proverbs 11, verse 20. Turn, if you would, to 1 Timothy, chapter 2. I love this illustration in Proverbs 11. It demonstrates the silliness of being so focused on the outside and not worrying about the inside. With this verse where it says, as a jewel of gold and a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. So imagine seeing a pig. Right? We all know what a pig looks like. Pigs roll around in the mud. Pigs, you know, some people think, I'm not even talking about a pig. I'm not talking about a pig. I'm talking about a boar. And think about a boar that has this piece of jewelry on its face. Oh, it's so beautiful. No. Just because you add a little piece of jewelry onto something that's inherently not very beautiful, that's not going to all of a sudden make it beautiful. Right? As silly as that sounds, like, that's not silly. Well, that fair woman, that is the natural beauty, but has no discretion, that does not know how to behave. That whorish woman is like that pig. That little bit of beauty that she has that the world may fawn over through the right lens, the lens of the scripture, you're going to look at that person, you should be able to look at that person and be like, that's a pig with just a little, a jewel on her nose. That's the beauty. That outward, that's how much value that outward appearance really has. Because on the inside, she's just a pig. She just wallows in the mire. She's just wicked and whorish and as much as I'd want to have, you know, have this beautiful pig is how much I'd want to have a woman like that. Oh, but it's got the nose jewel. So what's beautiful to God? And what's beautiful to God should be beautiful to us too. Because this is what we care about. 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse number 9, the Bible reads, This is a modesty I was talking about. Modesty. With shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works. The focus is not on the external. I'm not talking about the gold and pearls and all this other stuff, all this flashy stuff that's going to just draw attention to you. Oh, wow, look at your, that hair is amazing. Look at that hairstyle. It must have taken how long to put that together. You're just drawing all this attention on your hair or on your clothing or on your jewelry or whatever. The woman naturally in her flesh is going to like that, that type of praise. That's why you do it. But what you really ought to be focused on is the good works. A woman professing godliness. And here, on the flip side, a man can get caught up the wrong way in their appearance also. It's not just women that can do this. It's more common for the women, but it's not just the women. Pull out the man that just is so focused on how ripped it could be. Man, I've got a muscle on top of muscle on top of muscle. Look at this right here. It's easy for me to make fun of this. The six-pack, all the abs, all this stuff, and it gets to a point of total vanity and even idolatry where people are just standing up there in front of others in Speedos, just showing off. Man, look how good this body is, huh? Do you see that? It's vanity. It's vanity. It's empty, okay? It's going to lead you into pride and be full of yourself and start thinking, oh, man, well, I'm just, like, no. Bible says bodily exercise profiteth little. There's a little bit of profit to it because it's going to help keep you healthy, right? I mean, you want to stay, live long, you want to be healthy, you want to be able to have endurance and stamina and be able to go out and work and do things. Great. There's a little bit of profit to that. But godliness is profitable unto all things. That's what you really need to be focused on, godliness. Notice it's the same with the women, 1 Timothy 3, 10, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works. The answer is the same. What you think on your external might be a little bit different. Guys are focused on muscles, women are focused more on their appearance in other ways, whether it be with jewelry and things like that, but the answer is the same for the Christian. Be more concerned with who you are, be more concerned about the inside, be more concerned about cleaning up that inside of the platter. 1 Peter chapter 3, we're almost done, 1 Peter chapter 3. Again, we're looking to see what's beautiful to god. What does god think? Well, god made every one of you. I mentioned this already, god made every one of you. I think he likes you the way you are on your physical appearance. You know what's really going to make him happy? You working on the inside of who you are. Working on your relationship with him, working on how pleasing you are on his side, no matter how good you make the outside of your appearance look unto god, he's not going to be impressed with that at all. In fact, he might think you're marring yourself. Talk about marring your face with painting, right? God's like, no, I made you this way. I don't want you, and honestly, I don't really like it when my wife puts on makeup. Let me be honest here. I don't forbid her, so she's not like being disobedient to me or anything like that. I don't like it because I like the way she looks. I honestly do. I'm not just saying that because I'm in front of everyone. I honestly like the way that she looks. I care more for her natural beauty that god gave her than for anything else that she can do to try to make herself look better. And I think women in general need to understand that the right kind of guy is going to be more interested in who you are and your natural beauty than they're going to be on that outward appearance. So you don't have to waste very much time on that at all. 1 Peter 3, look at verse number 1, the Bible reads, likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Who's adorning? So now this is what you're wearing. You're adorning. Let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold or putting on of apparel. Again, it's the same type of list that we just saw in 1 Timothy chapter 2. But let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible. Even the ornament, so he's got to say if you're going to put an ornament on something, how about this ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of god of great price? That's valuable to god. The meek and quiet spirit. That's what god wants to see on a young lady or an old lady. The meek and quiet spirit. That has a lot of value. That's the ornament you ought to be worried about making sure is right. Is it this way or that way? A meek and quiet spirit. For after this manner in the old time, the holy women also who trusted in god adorn themselves. We have good examples of this. Be in subjection unto their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are as long as you do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. This isn't just something for the young people either. This is for young people, old people, especially my age group. When you start thinking about getting older, because you're going to start showing signs of age. I'm already trying to play off the back pain that I've had all day today because I really feel like an old man today. So if you've noticed that, I've been trying to play it off, but you start getting to age and you start to get gray hairs. And a lot of people, they don't want to look old. Look, you are where you are. I say bring it on. I think it's great. I've been starting to get a few white hairs on my chin here, and I just joke about it. I think it's funny. The Bible says, though, that the hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. So on the flip side, too many people are thinking, oh, I want to hide that. I want to cover that up. I'm going to dye my hair. I'm going to do something and color it and make sure you can't see my gray hairs and my white hairs. The Bible says it's a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. If you could be living in the way of righteousness and living in the way of righteousness and you start getting old and you start hearing those gray hairs, you know what? When you have that gray head, that's a crown of glory because that means you've made it so far in your life and you're wearing that as a crown if you're wearing it in the way of righteousness. Proverbs 20, 29 says the glory of young men is their strength. Remember we were talking about that? And the beauty of old men is a gray head. I don't like the childish old men that want to color their hair as if they're not really that old and they're trying to still be cool with the young kids or connect with the young. Look, the Bible says, look, God's beauty, if you're old, you've got the white head, embrace it. Wear it. Amen. God thinks that's beautiful. You know what? I don't care if the world thinks that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's probably very few. I don't follow as much. You still see it because it's slammed everywhere. But I know there's a lot of old actors that are still like popular and doing things. I mean, I'm talking about people who were around when I was watching movies like 20 years ago, 30 years. I think these guys are still alive and doing movies, right? Has anyone noticed, like, are they actually letting their hair go gray or are they still just like, like Tom Cruise? I mean, the guy's got to have gray hair by now. Seriously, I mean, I was like, yeah, I was, you know, in the 80s, that's like when Top Gun came out, he had to at least be in his 20s or something when he did that movie. I don't know how old he was, but, like, I was a little kid, maybe 44 this year. He's got to be, like, mid to upper 60s at least. But I bet you he's out there with his, you know, black hair and everything else, like, I know you're going to be having some gray hair in there. But it's because they care so much about the appearance, right? And, you know, all the people that just care about the fame, they care about people looking at them and everything else, it's all fake. It's not really going to get you the joy that you think you might get by putting on that front, putting on that appearance. It's not, it doesn't really matter at all. All you're doing is covering up the truth. You're old, okay? Just accept it, just embrace it, and just who you are, right? And thank God for it. When I get old, you know I'm going to thank God for every gray hair and wrinkle that I have. I'm able to endure that long in this life. A couple other things that the Bible says are beautiful. You'll never guess this though, it has nothing to do with how you look. The Bible says in 1 Chronicles 16, 29 and in many other places, I was actually surprised how many times I've seen this, I've never picked up on this before. I've never picked up on this phrase before. But it's actually in the Bible multiple, multiple, multiple times. The Bible says, give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name, bring an offering and come before him. And then it says this, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. This is found I think at least five times, I didn't count them, but as I was just kind of looking up, like what is God, because they're beautiful, I'm trying to search the scriptures that I'm looking for, using my tool for beauty. This came up over and over, wow, I've never really noticed that before. The Bible says worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. What's holiness? Keeping yourself unspotted from the world, right? Trying to be pure, trying to do right, follow God's laws, follow his commands. God sees that as beautiful. You want to worship God? Don't worry about getting all decked out externally to worship God. How about you deck yourself with the beauty of holiness? Don't worry about what everyone's going to be looking at you in church. Worry about when you come in, how is God looking at you when you come into church? Because he knows if your life is holy or not. You may be able to trick everyone else here about how holy you are, but that doesn't matter. Because who cares if I think you're holy or not? That's not what matters. But what God knows, I mean, that's what matters. God can see through your front if you're just putting on a facade, and God can also see the purity of your heart and the holiness with which you're worshiping him. And God says, wow, that's beautiful. One last place we'll close with this, Romans 10, 15. You all should know this one. And how shall they preach except they be sent? As is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad kindings of good things. That's beautiful. How beautiful are the feet? How much time are you investing in your feet? All of you people that are caring about how beautiful you look. Some of you maybe, I don't know, maybe you've got all the toes painted and jeweled and everything else. Maybe you're spending a lot. You're getting the pedicures and doing all that. Maybe you're spending a lot of time. But you know what the beauty that God sees? It's not that jewel that's in the paint on your toenail. That's not going to impress God. Okay, again, I'm not saying that all these things are just inherently sinful, right? Like we do that or something. Take the sermon in whole. Take all of what's being provided here. Take everything that the Bible's saying about these things and apply it to yourself. Apply it internally. Apply it to who you are and who you want to be. God's not looking at how many hangnails you have on your feet. The beauty of the feet is that you're using them to do his work. You could worship God in the beauty of holiness and have those beautiful feet that preach the gospel. You're doing great. And those are the marks by which we should be looking at how beautiful people are. That's what matters. And you know, parents, make sure your children understand this. Because everything in the world today is saying the opposite. Men and women, boys and girls, these are not the values that the world is going to teach. This is not the beauty that the world is going to tell them at all. The world is so full of hypocrisy, they can't even see, you know, what the fundamentalists are teaching for the values. And they've got it all backwards. It would be so much better if we could just let our little daughters go off and just dress as whorish as possible, but that's all fine. But how dare you prepare them to be a wife and a mother? Craziness. Thank God for his word and his instruction. We have questions on things. Let's go to the Bible for them. Let's ask God to help us see clearly on any areas in our own life where we should be improving on and how God wants us to be. As far as that word of prayer. Dear Lord, I love you and we thank you so much for your word. God, help us all to do right, to have the right mindset, to not worry so much about our own appearances, dear Lord. This is a common thing that I think everybody deals with, to one extent or another, male and female. Even if it is more prevalent among females, dear Lord, I pray that you'll please help all of us to have the right mindset of true beauty. And I pray that you'll please help, especially with the younger people and the single people that may be searching for spouses, Lord, to understand where the true beauty lies so that they can have joyful lives and find a spouse that's going to be the best spouse for them, Lord. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, please lead us in that song. Alright church, you can open up your handrails to song number 461. Song 461, Resting in His Promise. Song 461. On the first, all my sins were laid on Jesus, on the cross my debt He paid. Then He cried out, It is finished, if He in the tomb was laid. Resting sweetly in His promise, rest my soul on what He said. Trusting fully, wholly, trusting in the price my Savior paid. Now there is no condemnation, not of love my record bears. For my sins, the blood of the Lord, Jesus Christ, His robe I wear. Resting sweetly in His promise, rest my soul on what He said. Trusting fully, wholly, trusting in the price my Savior paid. I have taken life eternal, I am now a son of God. Of God's feature, now partaker, of no fear of judgment's done. Resting sweetly in His promise, rest my soul on what He said. Trusting fully, wholly, trusting in the price my Savior paid. I will never leave for safety, not hitting me from His hand. So the Savior's promise claiming, now I live in new love land. Resting sweetly in His promise, rest my soul on what He said. Trusting fully, wholly, trusting in the price my Savior paid. Amen. Great singing. Thank you so much for coming. You guys are dismissed. .