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Good morning everyone. Today we'll be reading out of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11, and the Bible reads, Now faith is the substance that things hope for, the evidence that things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the world is refrained by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto Cain a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see dead, and was not found, because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith, Noah being warned of God of things not seen yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, that hares with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged and faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even at one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky and multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea, offshore and innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they see the country, and truly, if they have been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had an opportunity to have returned. For now they desire a better country, that is, in heaven, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises, and offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, for whence also he received him in a figure. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob, and he so, concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hit three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was coming years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches in the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect in the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land, which the Egyptians the same to do were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them, that believed not, when she had received the spies of peace. And what shall I more say, for the time of Pharaoh made to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and of Samuel, and of the prophets? Who through the face of two kingdoms wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth. And these, all having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. God hath provided some better thing for us. A day without us should not be made perfect. Dear Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for this church. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this chapter. Lord, please fill Brother Joe with your Holy Spirit as he preaches your word, so he can head fire this church. Thank you, Lord, and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Alright, good morning. So there in Hebrews chapter 11, the great faith chapter. So we'll get verse number 1. We'll start off there. It says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Right? We're not atheist scientists here, you know. People always want to accuse us of, you know, you have blood and faith, and they don't even understand what the definition of faith is. The Bible says right here, it says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And obviously we're saved by grace through faith. You actually have to walk through that door of faith to be saved. You have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we understand that. And then after that, this chapter goes through, and it explains all these great acts of faith that people had, right? So we know that we're saved by faith, but after we're saved by faith, we need to learn how to use faith in our lives, you know, in our walk with God, but just in, you know, in our everyday life. And that's what this chapter is about. It's a motivational chapter. And the writer of Hebrews, who, you know, often I think it's Paul, I could be wrong, I'm not sure, but, you know, he just goes through, and he's trying to motivate people. He's trying to motivate the Hebrews. He's trying to motivate us to do great things for God. So for this sermon here, we're going to be all over the place. So keep something in Hebrews, but we're also going to go to, like, 2 Samuel. We're going to go to Chronicles. We're going to go to Psalms. We're going to be all over the place. So when I tell you to turn to a passage, just keep something there. Keep a finger, a pen, something there so that you can get back to it rather quickly. But let's start here in Hebrews chapter 11 again. Look down at verse 33. Look at verse 33. It says, Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. And verse 34 says, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed, valiant in flight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. And these are obviously great, heroic, mighty acts that were done. And I want you to notice there that he mentions stopped the mouths of lions. Now, if you've read the Bible or you've been in church for a while, I'm sure you've heard of Daniel and the lion's den, how God stopped the mouths of the lions so they wouldn't eat him when he was thrown into the lion's den. But then notice down here in verse 34, it says that man he waxed, valiant in flight. And just keep that in your mind because we're going to come back to that. So now turn over or look at Hebrews chapter 12. Look at Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1. Because here now in transition, there's a smooth transition between chapter 11 and chapter 12. He says, here he says in verse 1, he says, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which death so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. So notice what he says there in the beginning of that verse. This is wherefore, so because of, right? So because of all these things that we just read in chapter 11, because of all these great acts, you know, he says, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, did you know that we right now have people in heaven watching us? And you say, okay, Brother Joe, prove it. Well, it says right here that we're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. So not only is God, not only is the Lord Jesus Christ watching us on a day-by-day basis, but I believe that this is saying that there are people out there also that are watching us. And if you've read, if you're doing the nine chapters a day challenge, by now you've already read through Luke chapter 16, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. So you know when Lazarus, you know, he gets taken to heaven, he gets put into Abraham's bosom, you know, and the rich man cries out from hell, and he's like, said Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, you know, put him in anguish in this flame. Abraham says, you know, he basically, I'm paraphrasing, but he tells him, hey, you know, remember in your life you had all these rich things, you had your chance, you had all the good stuff, and Lazarus was poor. Well, how did he know that? Obviously he knew that because we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. And so that's something that they're telling us here. Hey, you know, let that motivate you. Think about that every day. You know, don't think that, you know, you're going to just go through life and that nobody in heaven cares, that nobody's watching because they are watching. And look at verse 2, it says, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And then in verse 3, it says, For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be weary. And this is where I get the title for my sermon, this last part here. It says, Lest ye be weary and faint in your mind. And the title of my sermon is, Are you faint in your mind? And it's a question, because it's a question that we all need to ask ourselves. It's another honest evaluation of our own selves. He says, look at verse 3 again, it says, For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, unless, so he says less, so lest ye be weary. So if we don't consider these things, if we don't consider God's word, we don't consider all the things that we just read, it's going to lead you to become faint in your mind. And if you become faint in your mind, you will not be like these great men of God, these great men of God that are in the Bible. So go back to Hebrews chapter 11, and look at verse 32. So just like we read in Hebrews 11, right, there's a bunch of Old Testament characters that are mentioned here, right? He says, For time would fail me. So look at verse 32, it says, And what shall I say, or what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell Gideon, and Barak, and of Samson, and of Jetha, and David also, and of Samuel, and of the prophets. So notice he says, Time would fail me to tell of each of these men, and all the great acts that they did. And so this morning, I want to look at the life of an Old Testament character that he didn't mention in here, but somebody who did very, very great and mighty acts. And that's a man of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada. How many people have ever heard of that? Of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada? A few people, right? A few people. You know, it's not, but Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, if you've only read the Bible for a few times, cover to cover, and please, I'm not, you know, making accusations. Oh, you're not spiritual. It's not something you're probably going to pick up at first or second or maybe even third glance, right? And so there's somebody that I study. I preached about this man about two years ago up in Vancouver, and I had a lot of people tell me that, you know, after I read the Bible after hearing that sermon, you know, a lot of other things jumped out at me because I, because you preached that. So I hope that this is a blessing. And so we're just going to go through, like, ten different facts about this guy, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. So turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 12, and we're going to just basically, I'm just going to steam oil you, a bunch of different things that this man did, a bunch of great acts that he did, similar things to what we read of the man in Hebrews chapter 11, and I think it's going to be a blessing to you. So turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 12, and we're going to take a look at who was Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, because if you've never heard of him, you'd probably ask yourself, well, who is this guy? I mean, in Hebrews 11, you know, we read the common characters, you know, Noah, Abraham, Moses, but who was Benaiah, and what can we learn from this guy? And so let's take a look at that. Who was Benaiah the son of Jehoiada? Well, number one, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was the son of Jehoiada. Well, who was Jehoiada? So his father Jehoiada was a loyal priest, a very loyal and mighty priest. So 1 Chronicles chapter 12, look at verse 23. Verse 23, it says, And these are the numbers of the bands that were ready on to the war, and came to David, to Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to the war of the war. The children of Judah that bare shield and spare were six thousand and eight hundred, ready on to the war. Verse 25 says, Of the children of Simeon, mighty men of valor, for the war, seven thousand and one hundred. Verse 26 says, Of the children of Levi, four thousand and six hundred. And Jehoiada was the leader of the Aaronites, and with him were three thousand and seven hundred. So notice verse seven again, it says, And Jehoiada was the leader of the Aaronites. So he was a Levi, he was a priest. It says, The leader of the Aaronites, and with him were three thousand seven hundred. Now jump down to verse 38, it says, All these men of war that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel, and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king. So this is right after Saul's done. Saul had already fallen on the sword. You know, and the people come and they're going to support King David. They're going to support him. They're not going to allow other people to come in and take over and cause an influence. But it's about Jehoiada. I just want you to notice that he rallied three thousand seven hundred men to support David when he was crowned at Hebron. And so you might be thinking, okay, what's the big deal about that? Well, the big deal is you need to understand that this guy here Jehoiada, the Bible doesn't say a whole lot about him, but what it does say is very powerful because when we, as we go through the study of Benaiah, you're going to see that he was a mighty man. So what I wanted to point out is that how you fathers, how you mothers, how we act during crisis, how we act during times of trial, your kids are watching, right? Our kids are watching in how we deal with these things. You see, Jehoiada did all these great acts. And so, you know, when we read and we learn about Benaiah, it's no wonder that he became a mighty man as well. And he was somebody who was not faint in his mind. So that's the application there, right? You know, how you act when things go bad, how you act, you know, when trials and tribulations come your way, that speaks volumes to your children, how you act. I remember when the Orlando thing happened down at Verde Baptist Church, there was like, was there six families from Washington that came down there? Five, six, maybe even more. You know, and we all just decided, you know, we didn't have a satellite church at the time, but we heard that there was going to be, you know, hundreds of protesters there and we were like, you know what? We're just going to go ahead and go down there. We're just going to take the faith. We're all going to take off work. You know, we're going to bring our families down there and we're just going to see what happens. And a lot of people were telling us, you know, like, you're crazy, you're bringing your kids down there to that. You know, you want your kids to see these sodomites and stuff. It's like, look, we don't want them to see that necessarily, but, you know, what I do want is I want to send a message to my children, you know, that, hey, we're not afraid to fight. We're not afraid to do valiant, mighty acts for God. We're not afraid to support the man of God. And the result was Sure Foundation Baptist Church. I believe that Pastor Matt has looked at that situation, looked at all the people that came down there and said, wow, this is, you know, this is a serious group of people and God bless that effort that we all, you know, the fact that we all went down there. And, you know, you know, it was a horrible thing. There was hundreds of people screaming and yelling at us as we were walking the church, you know, and think about this, too. And I'm not bragging, I'm just simply stating a fact. You know, if you're fainting your mind, that, a situation like that would reveal that. A situation like that would basically send you packing your way. Now, I don't know how many people left very Sacramento at that time, but like Pastor Matt said, the people who left needed to go anyways, you know. And all the people who left were people that were fainting their minds. And so I just wanted to show that, that Jehoiada was somebody who was a leader, who was loyal, who, you know, during this time of crisis, you know, said, you know what, we're just going to stand with David, we're going to support him, we're going to go through this. So point number two, Benaiah commands David's non-Israeli forces. So turn to 2 Samuel chapter 20. 2 Samuel chapter 20. So if you're familiar at all with the time of David, one of his nephews was basically his top general, his commander of his host, commander of the Israeli army, if you will, and his name was Joab. So turn to 2 Samuel chapter 20. Point number two is that Benaiah commands David's non-Israeli forces. So 2 Samuel chapter 20, look at verse 23. It says, Now Joab was over all the hosts of Israel, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the Cherithites and over the Pelethites. So, though Benaiah wasn't over the whole army of Israel, Joab was, you know, he still had great responsibility. So I'm just going to basically sum this up. The Cherithites and the Pelethites. You might be thinking, well, who was that? Well, I'm not going to have you turn there for the sake of time, but in 1 Samuel chapter 30, you're going to read about this situation where David was out to war, and basically while he was gone, his wives and his men's wives were captured. So the Bible says that they come back to a town called Ziklag and they discover that it's been burned with fire and all their families are gone. I mean, that would be a terrible thing. You come home, your family's gone, your house is burnt up. I mean, that is definitely something that would be discouraging. During the process of this time, David runs into an Egyptian boy who's faint and sick. They give him something to eat. He's like, hey, what happened? Who came through here? Well, it turns out it was the Amalekites. The little Egyptian boy tells him, you know, I was a servant unto the Amalekites. We came through here and we basically, we invaded the Cherithites and we took all the wives here. You know, David was like, hey, can you lead me to them? And he's like, I will if you promise not to kill me. And he said, you know, don't worry about it. So to make a long story short, David recovers all. They go down and they smite the Amalekites. They destroy them, they beat them, they recover their wives, they recover all their goods and all of their spoil. Now, why am I saying that? It's because it's the first time in a while we're going to see the word Cherithites or these people. So David rescues them, and it's my opinion, but I believe that they probably became very grateful, right? Because David recovered their goods, too. He probably recovered, you know, all the missing people from them. And they probably said, hey, you know, we're with you. You know, we're going to support you, we're going to fight with you. And so, though they weren't of the nation of Israel, so to speak, David places Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, over them. So just think about that for a second. To place one of your own people over this, over foreigners, would have had to have been somebody that had a great deal of trust, right? Because you wouldn't want to place somebody that was kind of sketchy over, you know, over people that weren't of your own nation, lest maybe they would defect and go to the other side, right? So obviously, Benaiah had a reputation. We're going to talk more about that. But he's trusted in leadership over these people, the Cherithites, and the Pelethites. And then another quick point about Benaiah is that if you read 1 Chronicles 27, it goes through a list of all the mighty men that basically took a one-month rotation of commanding David's army, and he was commander of the third month. So what does all this mean? And like I said, though Benaiah was not over the whole army, he still had a great and tremendous responsibility, and we're going to go through that, over managing these people that weren't of the nation of Israel. Yeah, turn to 1 Kings Chapter 2. Go to 1 Kings Chapter 2, and then after that, we're going to go to Psalm Chapter 75. You're going to have to bear with me a little bit today. My mouth is super dry. I feel like somebody filled me up with gravel last night, and I'm just having a hard time hearing and talking and everything. So pray for me. So 1 Kings Chapter 2. And like I said, we're going to come back to Samuel and Chronicles. We're going to be all over the place. It's good to do that, like I said last week. We want to get used to these stories. We want to get used to being exposed to these great truths. And this guy was definitely somebody who was not faint in his mind, and that's what we're trying to learn this morning. We're trying to motivate you through this guy to not only show you somebody maybe you've never read about, maybe you've never thought about, but somebody who we can learn a great deal from, who was steadfast in his mind from the very first mention of him in the Bible to the very last, and that's hard to find. So 1 Kings Chapter 2, look at verse 35. It says, And the king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his room over the host. And Zadok the priest did the king put in the room of Abiathar. So we just took a look at who Benaiah was. He was the son of Jehoiada. We learned that he was a mighty priest. And then we learned that Benaiah was trusted over the Cherithites and the Pelethites. And then you fast forward to 1 Kings Chapter 2 here, and this is after Solomon is taking power. And notice he gets a promotion. Remember the Bible said that Joab was the original general of the army, but at the end of his life he was placed over, he was basically elevated. He was promoted in Joab's place, and we'll read more about that later. But like we read in Hebrews Chapter 11, that we need to run the race that was set before us with patience. With patience. Benaiah displayed that from the beginning of his life. He was loyal. He was hardcore. He was not fainting his mind. He was a valiant, mighty person. And in the end of his life, he got promoted. And there's a great deal of lessons we can learn from that. So turn to Psalm Chapter 75. Let's talk about that for a second. Psalm 75. Because basically what we're looking at here is that this guy got promoted. Right? And I mean, a lot of people with promotions and a lot of Christians just kind of go about life the wrong way. A lot of times we get a little bit puffed up in our flesh, and we're doing a good job at work, and we maybe feel like we're underappreciated. And you know what? A lot of times that's true. People of the world and the devil, they're going to try to attack you. They're going to try to hold things back from you. But you know what? God's given us the recipe to overcome that. And you see that through Benaiah, through his consistency, through his steadfastness. But look at Psalm 75. Look at verse number 5, and let's talk about that. It says, Lift not up your horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck. Hey look, whatever it is you're going through, whether it's at work, whether it's in your life, I mean, you know, look Ben, you guys go to work, you need to have this attitude, not lifting up yourself on high. And you might ask why. Well look at verse 6. It says, For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. And then look at verse 7. But God is the judge. He put it down one and seteth up another. Whether it's promotion in your job, whether it's, you know, being promoted amongst the brethren, you know, whether, you know, mothers, whether you want to be promoted in the sight of your children, amongst your own family members, that comes from God. Look at verse 7, it says, But God is the judge. See, we have to understand that, that God is the judge. He put it down one and seteth up another. And that's exactly what you see with Benaiah the son of Jehoiad. You know, he wasn't necessarily the top dog, the greatest. He wasn't the main general. But at the end of his life, God gave him that promotion. And we're going to show you how to get it. And it comes from these three verses here. You've got to know, you've got to memorize it. You know, lift up, lift not up your horn on high. Speak now with a stiff neck. You know, because what, why? You know, when you're at work, you know, just in your everyday life, you're just complaining all the time. You know, that just produces a negativity. And the people, you know, the worldly people at your job or in your family, they're not going to want to give you that promotion. You know, because you're just negative all the time. And that's why God's telling us here in the Psalms, hey, don't lift yourself up and speak now with a stiff neck. It's better just to be quiet and trust God. You know, because maybe God's making you go through that for a reason. You know, maybe he's testing you. And it says, for promotion cometh neither from the east. So what does that mean? Nor from the west, nor from the south. It means it's not going to come from sucking up to people. It's not going to come because necessarily you're the greatest thing on the earth. It's going to come because of your humility. And it's going to come because God says it's going to come. That's what he loves going on here. And so number three, a key to a strong mind, a key to being not faint in your mind is consistency. Consistency throughout your whole life. Just understanding that and just making up your mind, you know what, I'm going to be consistent in everything I do. I'm going to be the hardest worker at my job. I'm going to be the hardest working mother that I can be. You know, and God will lift you up inside of your children. God will lift you up at work in due time. All right, so point number three, go back to 2 Samuel, chapter 23. 2 Samuel, chapter 23. This is where it starts to get really interesting about this guy. So number three, Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, kills two lion-like men of Moab. So look at 2 Samuel 23, verse 20. It says, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Chaziel. So that's his grandfather. You see what I'm talking about, what I was talking about earlier? You know, that we want to be able to pass these things down to our kids. It says, who had done many acts. Now look at this next part. He slew two lion-like men of Moab. He went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow. So the first thing I want you to notice here is that he kills two men, right? These aren't just two ordinary men. It says they are lion-like men of Moab. So you've got a situation here where Benaiah is faced with two guys. Now I wish the Bible went into more detail in here, but look how thick our Bible is. We've got 66 books in the Bible, and we can't even handle all the information in here, right? So don't get discouraged when there's certain things that we don't know about these guys. Look, if we knew we had all this information, we would never be able to make an application. We would never be able to thoroughly study, to edify each other, because it would just be too much. But nonetheless, it says he killed two lion-like men of Moab. And I just kind of wonder what led to that exactly, but obviously if you know anything about the Moabites, they stem from Lot and his daughters in that whole situation, which I'm not going to go into right now. That's a topic for another time. But these were always just wicked, evil people. And you've got a situation here where there's two on one, and Benaiah kills them both. Now it doesn't say at the same time, but probably. And I'm going to prove that as we go through some of the acts that he did. But you might be thinking, well, what are lion-like men of Moab? Now if you were to read the NIV, and I'm not kidding, if you were to look at the story of the NIV or the ESV or one of these false Bible versions, I forgot what they say, but there's always a note at the bottom which basically takes away from this scripture here. It doesn't say lion-like men. Well, if you go back to the Hebrew, it's actually just two normal guys. It basically downplays the story. A big surprise there, right? The modern Bible versions are just a bunch of junk. But it says he killed two lion-like men. So these were obviously probably pretty ferocious warriors, people who were well-known. Well-known warriors, probably pretty muscular, probably pretty strong, and known for killing a lot of people. They're probably a pretty bad duo. Now point number four is that he kills a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow. So look down there again. It says he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of the snow. What does that mean? That means that excuses are for the weak. I mean, who here would want to go out in the middle of winter in the time of snow into the midst of a pit, into the middle of a pit and take on a lion? I wouldn't want to do that. I'd be like, this is crazy. But this guy here obviously didn't care. Obviously he had enough faith. Obviously he had enough valiance and enough might and had no thing in his mind that would cause him to be faint, where he just said, you know what? I don't care. This is a problem. I'll go take care of it. Think about this. It's cold outside. That lion, it doesn't say why he did this, but what would cause somebody to go and kill a lion? And it's probably because the thing was coming out at night and maybe terrorizing the community. Maybe it was attacking people. Maybe it had killed children. We don't really know. But something made Benaiah go do that. Now turn to Proverbs chapter 22. Just going into the midst of any kind of a pit is enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck, let alone knowing that there's probably something down there that can eat you alive. And remember, these guys didn't have 50 cals back then, or AK-47s. This guy went in there with his weapon, which was not a rifle and it wasn't a pistol. He went in there and slew them. So Proverbs 22, look at verse 13. Look what this says. It says, the slothful man saith, there is a lion without. I shall be slain in the streets. One more time. The slothful man. So the lazy man. The slow person, right? The sluggard. It says the slothful man saith, there is a lion without. That word without there just means outside. As you read through the Bible, you might read this phrase without the camp. That just means outside of the camp. So what it's saying here is, hey, the slothful man says, oh, there's a lion outside. You know, I'll get killed if we go out there. What was Benaiah's attitude? Somebody who was not painting his mind. What was his attitude? What was his mindset like? He said, oh, there's a lion on the streets. No problem. I'll go kill it. I'll be right back. And you know what? That's the attitude that we need to have. That's the same attitude, because what this is saying here is that the lazy man makes excuses. The lazy man creates false reasons. The lazy man will always try to justify his weakness. He's always going to find a reason why he can't do something. And those of you that have jobs, you know this is true. I mean, every single day at work, there's some kind of a task that needs to be done. And there's always some kid or some guy that's just like, oh, I don't want to do it. I can't do that. I used to be a government worker, and I would see this all the time. I mean, you know, we'd get some simple job, and we'd have to maybe go down into the dry dock, which is like 90 steps down into this thing, right? And people would just come up with the dumbest excuses, like, oh, my knee's kind of sore today, or I think I'm getting sick. It's like, you think you're getting sick? What does that mean? It's like either you are sick or you're not, you know? I mean, I knew guys that would shut jobs down because their paperwork would have missing punctuation, things like that, and, you know, that's just how that game was played then, you know? You could shut a job down. I watched a guy shut down, and I'm never going to forget this. I watched a guy shut down a job for two weeks. Now, this job, when we finally did it, it took two minutes. I timed it. Two minutes. Two minutes. I think it was two bolts and we had to tighten on something. This guy shut this job down for two weeks because of a missing comma. Two weeks because of one missing comma. He went to the engineers and he's like, what's this? What's this, huh? And then he just started playing this game. Well, I don't know if I'm supposed to tighten this and then tighten the other one, or if I'm supposed to pause here. I need clarification. People are like, oh, I got a good job, man. Well, what a, what a, what a discretion he has, you know? You just wasted thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars because you really didn't want to go down the dry dock underneath an aircraft carrier in the pouring rain. That's why he did it. He wanted to go sit down outside the bathroom and eat his pizza, which I found him later doing. But anyways, that's another story. And actually, since I already mentioned that same guy, when I did get my promotion later on, he found out it was a Friday. He came in on a swing shift. He took a pipe wrench. It was a 42-inch pipe wrench, this tall, right? Super heavy, big pipe wrench. He takes it. He goes outside and throws it right into the set of lockers, knocks him down. And he's like, I'm done. I'm out of here. I'm not coming back for five days. That kid didn't come back for five days just because I got promoted. But that was the same guy that shut down that job for two weeks over a comment. You see what I'm saying? That's, that's what I think about when I read this verse in Proverbs. The slothful man sayeth there is a lion without. What it said, hey, don't be lazy. Don't be weak. Don't, you know, if there's a problem, you need to figure out a way to take that thing head on and just do it. Just fight it. Just work through it. That's what this guy did. That is a sign when you do that that you are not faint in your mind. That you're not weak. That you're not going to back down from problems. Because look, we have this great cloud of witnesses, you know, that are watching us. I'd rather have us build a character and have them look down and say, no one, amen. Praise God. You know, thank God that the very Baptist church of Boise is out there winning souls. That they're reading the Bible. They're memorizing. You know, they, you know, they have things going on in their lives. They're not letting it get to them. They're going to stay strong and keep moving on. So if you're there in Proverbs still, go back to Proverbs chapter 12. Proverbs chapter 12. But I was obviously somebody who listened to David. Obviously somebody who knew that truth about the lion. You know, wasn't going to be slothful. And so therefore a key to not being faint in your mind is getting laziness and slothfulness out of our lives. So look at chapter 12. Look at verse 24. It says, the hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. You know, and that guy that threw that pipe wrench into that locker. You know, to this very day, he still has not gotten his promotions. You know, when you get that federal job, there's a certain set of promotions and you can pretty much get them automatically. So after four years, you get this HBA. After five, you get this. And you get your step increases. He's not getting any of them. Even to this day, that is sad. That is sorry. But what does the Bible say? The hand of the diligent shall bear rule. Look, do you want promotion? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to be trusted with more in your life? Then give this advice. The hand of the diligent. People who are diligent in business, not slothful, not laziness. You know, they are the ones that are going to bear rule. And God is the author of promotion. He's going to lift that up. So go back to 2 Samuel. We're going to go to 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles again for this next point. But point number five is that Benaiah killed a mighty Egyptian warrior. So 2 Samuel chapter 23. 2 Samuel chapter 23. So point number five. Benaiah killed a mighty Egyptian warrior. Alright, 2 Samuel 23. Look at verse 21. And he slew an Egyptian. And he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man. And the Egyptian had a spear in his hand, but he went down to him with a staff and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand and slew him with his own spear. Now you don't need to go back to the Hebrew or the Chinese or anything like that or a new version to understand what goodly man means. In fact, I'm going to show you. So just go to 1 Chronicles chapter 11. Go to 1 Chronicles chapter 11. We're going to read the parallel passage and we're going to learn by rightly dividing the word of truth, by comparing spiritual things with spiritual things, what goodly man means. It's not goody-two-shoes like the NIV crowd is going to tell you. 1 Chronicles chapter 11. Look at verse 23. Same story, same account. It says, And he, again we're talking about Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he slew an Egyptian, so he killed an Egyptian, a man of great stature. So a goodly man here, we read in 1 Chronicles, is a man of great stature, five cubits high, and so obviously this guy was a big dude. Maybe not Goliath's size, but this guy had great stature. Somebody who had a very big bone structure, probably very muscular, very tall. It says, And in the Egyptian's hand was a spear, and we get a little bit more detail here now, a spear like a weaver's beam. And you'll see that again because, that's a popular phrase to describe the weight and the magnitude of this guy's weapon, and you'll see that in reference to Goliath in other places. But it says a spear like a weaver's beam, and he went down to him with a staff and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand and slew him with his own spear. I mean think about that. Let's read that again. And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits high. This guy's like seven feet tall. Five cubits high, and in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam. Now notice this, and he went down to him with a staff. So he goes down there with Donatello's bow, his wooden bow staff, his karate bow staff, his pugil sticks. And he says, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand. There's your hand-to-hand combat in the Bible. You know, that's the original Krav Maga before it became a business in America. I'm just kidding obviously, but it says it slew him with his own spear. Now in this story versus the one in 2 Samuel, we see the most detail here, right? We learn a little bit more, and you might be asking, well why is that? Well the first thing I want you to notice is the situation here. We have a staff versus a spear. We have a man of great stature versus benign. We don't know how big Benaiah was, but nonetheless, obviously not as great stature as this guy. You know, and sometimes we go into battles, as Christians, as people, outnumbered, right? We go into battle outnumbered, or seemingly outnumbered, seemingly outgunned, but we're really not. With God's help we can make the enemy's weapon, you know, to our advantage. But what I want you to notice here is that Benaiah brought the fight to the end, right? Read the verse again. And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature brought him to his high, and in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beak, and he went down to him. So Benaiah decided to go down to him. Now again, we don't know exactly what caused this fight, but we do know that Benaiah was a righteous man, that he was saved, that he was a godly man, and he went down to this guy. He went and brought the fight to the Egyptian. So what does that mean for us? That means that we need to bring the fight to other people, right? Not just to each other, right? I'm not saying we need to fight each other. What do I mean by that? I mean it like this. There are things in our lives, sins that we all have, that are of great stature. Sorry, yeah, you wanted to give me one of those. I'm about to lose my voice. Anyways, we have sins in our lives, things that seem impossible, things that seem hard. To me, at first glance, seeing an Egyptian that sits like a power lifter, like a power builder, that is not something that at first glance I would want to take head on, but Benaiah did it. So we need to take the sins in our lives, the things in our lives that are of great stature, and we need to just cut it off. We just need to get rid of it, right? If you're the type of person that cannot handle the internet, you need to just take a break, get rid of it. If you're the type of person that can't handle Facebook or your worldly friends at work because of their stupid jokes, you need to cut them off. Your family members that are just dragging you down, dragging you through the mud, and you're just looking at this like, man, I don't want to offend them because they've been such a great part of my life. They've done all these horrible things, but they're against the things of God. You just need to take a head on. You need to take that from them and cut it off. That's the application here, right? Benaiah went down to him, and we need to do the same thing in our lives. We need to go down to our problems and take them head on and get rid of them and get them out of our lives. That's why I believe that in this passage we get the most detail because we need to bring the fight to them. There's this guy named Doug Trowbridge who called me a little while back when we were talking. He was before I had made my decision to come here to Boise. He was trying to get me to go somewhere else, a real strange guy anyways. He said, why do you want to go to Boise? That's just a speck on the map. You're not going to get anybody saved out there. They're all Mormons. You know what I'm thinking to myself? I'm kind of thinking about this story, right? In his mind, there's a lion on the streets. In his mind, there's an Egyptian here with great stature, with a spear like a weaver's beam. But you know what? I would rather have Benaiah's attitude and come here and take that stuff from them. I'll take your book of Mormon, and we'll rip it apart. We're going to take your word of salvation, and we're going to tear it apart. All these liberals, these people that are sending people to hell every single day with their false gospel, we're going to take our weapon, and we're going to destroy that through soul and through knocking on people's doors and getting them saved, teaching them the truth. We're going to fill Boise. We're going to fill Idaho with our doctrine, which is God's doctrine. That's what we're going to do here, and that's what we need to learn from this guy. Point number five again was Benaiah killed a mighty Egyptian warrior. How did he do it? He brought the fight to him. He took the fight to him, and that's what we need to do. Point number six. Point number six. Second Samuel chapter 23. I don't know where we're at. I'm all over the place here. Number six. Benaiah does not seem concerned with competition. Benaiah does not seem concerned with competition. And here's why. Second Samuel 23. Look at verse 22. It says, These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and have the name among three mighty men. We don't have time to go through the list of all the mighty men, but in verse 23 it says, He was more honorable than the thirty. So there's a list of thirty names in Samuel 23. There's thirty men, and Benaiah was more honorable than those thirty. But now look at the rest of the verse. But he attained not to the first three. That's important. But he attained not to the first three, and David set him over his guard. So the first three, you can read later about Adino, Eleazar, and Shammah. So Adino slew, I think it was eight hundred. I might be wrong. I think it was eight hundred people with a spear. Eight hundred people with a spear. Eleazar fought so hard with his sword that the Bible says that his hand claved to the sword. And what's the lesson there? If we have this sword, we need to make sure that our hand is cleaving to this. So obviously this guy, Eleazar, is fighting so hard with his sword that his hand basically just formed to it. It just would not let go. They probably had to wait a few hours after it was done. You know, actually in combat, you know, killing people to actually pry his hand off. And then Shammah. The Bible says that Shammah stood in the midst of a lentil field. It says the troop of the Philistines came after Shammah. They were probably going to burn the lentils. And Shammah stood in the middle and said, let's go. He said, come on, bring it. And he killed all of them. Right? So Benaiah didn't attain to the first three, but he did, however, do a lot of mighty acts. And we can tell from his attitude that he did not seem concerned with competition. You don't have to turn there. I'm just going to read this for you. Because we need to talk about this. Comparing yourselves amongst yourselves and comparing yourselves with other people is only going to bring discouragement. Second Corinthians chapter 10, verse 12 says, we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measuring by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. So what does that say? Comparing yourselves to others, like I said, is going to cause you to become faint in your mind. You're going to say, wow, look at all the stuff that this guy has. Look at all the stuff that this doctor has. Look at all the stuff that this worker has. Or, you know, look at all the stuff that my brother has. Look at all the stuff that my sister has. Look at all these goods. You know, that's just going to bring covetousness in your heart, and that's going to cause you to walk away from the faith. And I'm not saying you can lose your salvation. I'm simply saying you're not going to do these mighty acts. You're going to become faint in your mind. You're going to fall out. You're not going to keep frank. And you're going to be of no use to God. And that great cloud of witnesses is going to look down and say, what a shame. What a shame. And all because you decided that it was a good idea to compare yourselves with other people. Don't do it. Worry about yourself. Worry about your own walk with God. You don't have the book. The Bible says that you don't have any need that may I teach you. Now, that doesn't mean you don't need to go to church and learn from the pastor or from different preachers, because God said that he gave those things to us to advise. But you can clearly sit at home and read the Bible, and you and the Holy Ghost of your say, you can learn anything that I'm teaching you. You can learn more. You can, you know, you can just fuel your life with great knowledge. And that's something that I see here. But I obviously wasn't concerned with competition, because the Bible never mentions that he ever got discouraged, or that he ever did anything that would even come close to this. In fact, what did we read in the beginning? That he wound up getting promoted later in life. All right. So point number seven. Benaiah was reliable. Benaiah was reliable. Turn to First Kings. Turn to First Kings, chapter one. First Kings, chapter one. Now, I think I mentioned earlier that we would come back to the situation here in First Kings. David's at the end of his life, and Solomon should be crowned king. Now, before Solomon gets crowned king, his brother, his half brother, Adonijah, decides that he's going to go ahead and declare himself king, you know. He's going to go ahead and decide to self-promote, right. He's going to self-ordinate himself, you know, because he feels entitled. He feels that he's the best. He feels that he, you know, deserves to be king, even though it's already been mentioned, it's already been talked about that Solomon should reign. And so, Benaiah gets called to ensure that Solomon is made king. And Benaiah is obviously loyal. Sorry. All right. So look, let's see. First Kings. Look at verse 38. So First Kings, chapter one. Look at verse 38. Almost done. Tonight's sermon is going to be really short because I don't know how much voice I'm going to have left. But look at verse 38. It says, So Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoi, and the Cherithites and the Peltites, so there's that again, so now you understand, you have to have that knowledge there, right, went down and caused Solomon to ride upon King David's mule and brought him to Gihon. Look at verse 39. And Zadok the priest took a horn of oil out of the tabernacle and anointed Solomon and they blew the trumpet and all the people said, God saved King Solomon. So when Israel is in crisis, there's a coup, there's a plan to overthrow, to sidestep Solomon. Who do they call? They call Benaiah the son of Jehoi. Why? Because he was loyal. Because he wasn't fainting his mind. He was consistent his entire life. So when something tragic happened in the kingdom, there was one person they called and that was Benaiah the son of Jehoi. So point number 8. Point number 8. So point number 7 was about being reliable. Point number 8 is about loyal. Having that loyal reputation. Because remember, we're talking about not being fainting our minds, we're talking about having a good character. You know, not just to please our friends, not just to please the pastor, but to please God because God's watching. So stay in 1 Kings chapter 1. So point number 8 is Benaiah had a loyal reputation. So look at verse 5. 1 Kings chapter 1 verse 5. So Adam and Isaac, you know, he's already decided, I'm going to set myself up as king. So 1 Kings chapter 1 verse 5 says, Then Adam and Isaac, the son of Hagat, exalted himself, saying, I will be king if you prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. Then his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? So that's also a problem. And that's another sermon for another day. He says, And he also was a very, very goodly man, and his mother bared him after Absalom. And he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah and Abiathar the priest, and they following Adonijah helped him. So see, this is where Joab goes wrong. Remember, Joab was mightier. He was David's nephew. He was very mighty. He was over the Israeli army. And look what it says here. And he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they following Adonijah helped him. I'll give verse eight. But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei and Rei, and the mighty men, which belong to David, were not with Adonijah. Then in verse nine, Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zobileth, which is by Enrogel, and called all his brethren, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah the king's servants. Now we'll get verse ten. It says, but, this is key here, because what are we talking about? We're talking about reputation. But Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, or it doesn't say Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, that's what we're talking about. So Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother he called not. So Adonijah didn't call Nathan. He didn't call Benaiah. He didn't call the mighty men. He didn't call, obviously, Solomon's brother. He didn't call them. Now why would he not call them? It's because they had a reputation for being loyal. Adonijah knew that Benaiah is not going to take this garbage, that the mighty men weren't going to take this garbage, and Nathan the prophet wasn't going to take this garbage, because they were loyal to David and what David had ordained, what God had ordained. And the result of you having a strong mind versus a faint mind is loyalty. Loyalty is something that is missing today throughout the world. There are very few people that are loyal. Yesterday I had a job interview, and this was brought up, I mean obviously not the story, these people don't know that. Not at all. But, you know, they were just like, the reason why we decided to meet with you on a Saturday afternoon when it's our day off is because not only is it hard to find people that are wanting to do trade work these days, there's a hard time, we're having a difficult time finding people that are just loyal to their bosses, and we can tell by your resume in your past careers that you are loyal, that you're a loyal person. Now obviously they have a lot of different changes in careers. I explained to them that I'm moving here to start a church, and even though they aren't church-going people at all, they were like, you know what, we respect that. You know, we respect that. If you didn't leave your past jobs because you were angry with your boss or this or that, you just get to a place and it looks like you're a pretty good worker. You know, and that's loyalty. Loyalty is going to take you a long way. Do you want to serve in the church someday? I mean, you know, when we get this thing going full-time next month, you know, there's going to be opportunities for ministry. There's going to be opportunities for leadership, you know, and we're looking for loyal people, people that are going to say, hey, I'm not faithful in my mind. I'm going to stick with the cause. I'm going to decide to be loyal to God, and we're going to press forward and carry on with the mission. All right, point number nine. Before I get to that, before I get to that, like I said, the result of you having a strong mind opposed to a faith mind is that your reputation among people is going to shine, and that's what I wanted to point out here. You know, Adonijah didn't call Benaiah because of his reputation, because he had a loyal reputation, and that's the kind of character that I want that cloud of witnesses to see of me, and I hope it's the same for you. All right, first Kings, go to chapter two. First Kings, chapter two. First Kings, chapter two. Point number nine. Benaiah was not afraid to put down the enemies. I like to joke around and say that Benaiah became a hit man, and you're going to see why here in a minute. So first Kings, chapter two, look at verse 25. This is the death of Adonijah here. So first Kings, chapter 25, it says, And King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he fell upon him that he died. So after all this gets ironed out, David's like, okay, I'm going to set Solomon up as king, you know, I'm done playing this game, sorry Adonijah, a lot of you are my son, but you're done. You know, Solomon, who does he call to finish the job? He calls Benaiah. He calls Benaiah, and it says that he fell upon him. It doesn't mean that he tripped over the guy, or that he took him down. He fell upon me, he came, and he slew him. He killed him. Did he die? Now look at verse 33. Here's the death of Joab. Look at verse 33. It says, Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed forever. But David, and upon his seed, and upon his house, and upon his throne shall there be peace forever from the Lord. So Benaiah the son of Joab went up and fell upon him and slew him, and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. And there's more to the story than that, but for taking time, we don't have time to read it. So basically, Solomon puts the order out to kill Joab, because what did we learn about Joab? He was a traitor. He traded, he turned on the king, he turned on Solomon. And, you know, Solomon sends Benaiah the son of Joab to go kill Joab. And Joab runs to the town, you know, he holds on the horns of the altar, and Benaiah's like, I don't know, what do I do now? So he goes and he asks for clarification. He's like, Joab's grabbing the horns of the altar, and he said this, and Solomon says, go fall upon him anyways. Go kill him anyways. So that's what he does. Now look at verse 46, another hit that Benaiah does. Shimei. Remember, Shimei was a guy who cursed David. So when David's on the run from Absalom, this guy comes out, this guy named Shimei, he curses David, he kicks rocks, and, you know, he's just angry. David, you know, just keeps moving on with his life. But at the end of his life, it's obviously something that still bothered him as a shit. And Solomon said, you know, you know how to handle Shimei. And Solomon, being a very wise man, put this stipulation on Shimei and said, you know, we're not going to mess with you as long as you never leave. Well, guess what? Shimei goes and he leaves the country, and he goes and leaves and chases after things and comes back. Solomon finds out about it and says, okay, now it's time to die. In verse 46 it says, So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, which went out and fell upon him that he died, and the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. So not only was Benaiah instrumental in the establishment of David's kingdom, but he was also instrumental in the establishing of Solomon, his son, his king. And point number 10. Let's see here. I need to turn to this one. So back to 1 Kings chapter 1. 1 Kings chapter 1. We're going to take a look at, there's one time here in the Bible where we actually get to see communication from Benaiah. We get to see a little bit of his heart. Before I close this out, I just want to show you that. So 1 Kings chapter 1. Let's look at verse 35. 1 Kings chapter 1 verse 35. It says, Then he shall come up after him, that he may come and sit upon my throne, for he shall be king of my stead, and I have appointed him to rule over Israel and over Judah. And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king. So this is important here. Where we get to see his heart. We get to see what he's like. So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king and said, Amen. The Lord God of my lord and king say so too. As the Lord hath been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David. And so that should speak volumes to you about, you know, the Bible says from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaker. You know, we don't have a lot written down in the Bible about Benaiah's conversation, but we have a lot written down about the different acts that he did. If you study them out like this, there's a ton of things you can learn. But look at his heart. Look at what he says here. He's just all in. He's just loyal. He's reliable. He's trustworthy. He's faithful. And if you study this out even further, if I had another hour to preach this to you, you could follow on down the line. His children became faithful. His grandchildren became faithful. But it says, you know, he says, amen. The Lord God of my lord and king say so too. You know, what does that tell you? It tells you he was saved. He was completely sold out, completely zealous for the things of God. You know, we need to make sure that we don't have a fate line because there's a lot of drama, a lot of garbage that goes on out there, you know. And if we let that kind of stuff cause us to get weird cause us to get faint, how are we going to handle the tribulation when that comes? How are we going to handle it? I mean, you know, when they say, okay, no more soul winning, no more, you know, no more Bible reading, you know, keep taking our rights away. You know, what are we going to do? If we're, if we're going to faint, you know, with, with, with all the drama and the things that are on the internet, you know, the tribulation, we're not going to make it. You know, and the Bible does talk about people that are saved and Daniel, you know, doing great exploits in the end times. And I want to be part of that, you know, I'm not saying that the tribulation is going to happen in our lifetime, but you know, some tribulation can happen, right? I mean, that's, that's a possibility. And I'll tell you one thing, we're not going to be successful if we have the wrong character. If we don't have the right character, we need to be strong in our mind. We don't need to be fainting in our mind. So the title of the sermon was, are you faint in your mind? Are you fainting in your mind? Something that we all need to ask ourselves every day. And if you are, hopefully this was a benefit to you. You know, hopefully you saw some lessons about Benaiah. Hopefully the next time you read through the Bible and you read about Benaiah the son of Jehoioth, you know, some of this will stick out to you and you'll remember. You'll pick up other things as well. So let's go ahead and bow your eyes and have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity to preach. And I just pray you bless us, O Lord, during the sowing. Please bring us back this afternoon, Lord, to learn from your word as well. And in Jesus' name I pray, amen. I just want to say one thing real quick here. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but after the sermon tonight, I want to have a question and answer time. So if you have any questions about myself, my family, about Verity Baptist Church, about our plans next month when we start the new church, just think of them, write them down, bring them tonight after Brother Stephen's done with the last song. You know, we'll just lay it all out there. You know, I'll tell you my plans. Any questions you have, you know, we'll just open up. We'll just talk about everything, all right?