Thru the Bible - #155-Deuteronomy 4- Israel Urged to Obey God's Law

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Passage

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Welcome to Barine's Corner, the podcast where we go through books of the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Wherever you are in the world, thank you for joining. Grab a glass of water, a cup of coffee, a tea, and let's get into today's lesson. All right, welcome back. Thank you once again for joining me here on Through the Bible on Bereen's Corner. Open your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 4. The title of today's lesson is Israel, Earth Shall Obey God's Law. Now, hope that you do have your coffee, your water, your tea, or whatever it may be, because we do have quite a bit of reading. This uh particular chapter has 49 verses. So I was going, I was contemplating if I was just going to uh go through the verses as we went, but I'm gonna go ahead and bring the reader in. As always, that's very good information in there, and I always believe that it's good to have that repetition. You know, you get it from the reader and you get it from me. So, Deuteronomy chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4 Reading Begins

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Let's read.

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The book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 4. Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them, so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you. You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did at Baal Pior. The Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Pior. But all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today. See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully. For this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations who will hear about all these decrees and say, Surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people. What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? Only be careful, and watch yourself closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, Assemble the people before me to hear my words, so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land, and may teach them to their children. You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. There was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, the ten commandments which he commanded you to follow, and then wrote them on two stone tablets. And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt, and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like an animal on earth, or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground, or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars, all the heavenly array, do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshipping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are. The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan into the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance. I will die in this land. I will not cross the Jordan, but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land. Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you. Do not make for yourselves an idol in any form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. After you have had children and grandchildren, and have lived in the land a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, and provoking him to anger. I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day, that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long, but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear, or eat, or smell. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. Ask now, about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth, ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire as you have and lived? Has any God ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes. You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God, besides him there is no other. From heaven, he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth, he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you, and to bring you into their land, to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. Acknowledge, and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above, and on the earth below, there is no other. Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time. Then Moses set aside cities east of the Jordan to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if it had unintentionally killed his neighbor without malice aforethought. He could flee into one of these cities and save his life. The cities were these, Bazer in the desert plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth and Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan and Bashan for the Manassites. This is the law Moses set before the Israelites. These are the stipulations, decrees, and laws Moses gave them when they came out of Egypt, and were in the valley near Beth Peor, east of the Jordan, in the land of Sion, king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. They took possession of his land, and the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings, east of the Jordan. This land extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sion, that is Hermon, and included all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.

Why Deuteronomy 4 Matters

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All right, welcome back. Now, stepping into Deuteronomy 4, this is one of the most important chapters in this entire book, in my opinion. And if I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be that your entire life, your blessings, your direction, your future is directly tied to how seriously you take God's word, which is one of the reasons why over here at Bereen's Corner, we believe in going through the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, in chronological order. So you get every bit of the word of God because we believe in taking the word of God serious. Now, Moses is talking to a generation that's right on the edge of the promised land. Remember where we are, they are getting ready to enter the promised land. They seen what happens when people disobey God, but they've also seen what happens when people obey God. So this generation is getting ready to go into the promised land, they have seen it on both ends. But here's the question what are they going to do moving forward? Now they know these things, but going forward, what are they gonna do? How are they going to handle situations and how are they gonna handle this relationship and this responsibility? God's people must hear and obey God's word because that's the key to experiencing his blessings and victories in life. So they have

Eight Teachings On Obedience

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seen that. They've seen what happened when their forefathers obeyed the word of God. And we're gonna break this down in parts like we usually do, starting with the first part, the power of obedience. Notice verse one. And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform in order that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done in the case of Bael Peor, for all the men who follow Baal Peor, the Lord your God, has destroyed them from among you. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you. See, I have taught you statutes and judgments, that says the Lord my God commanded me that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep to them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call on him? Or what generation, excuse me, or what great nation is there that his statutes and judgments, as righteous as the whole law which I am setting before you today. Now, Moses starts with something very powerful but very simple. Listen to God's word and obey it. And he gives eight teachings from this. The first is hear the word and obey it. This is where everything starts. God didn't just give his word just so we could study it, he gave it so we could live it. You know, now there's a difference between being a child and being an obedient child of God. Those are two totally different things. A lot of people are children of God, but being an obedient child of God, that's a whole nother level, and that's what the Lord wants us to have. And only one of those experiences, the full blessings, and we know which one that is. Which brings us to the next teaching. Don't add to God's word. Don't put your opinions, your traditions, your preferences on the same level as scripture. God already said everything that needs to be said, and this is something that we experience a lot in his life. There's a lot of opinions, there's a lot of traditions, you know, there's there's a lot of uh people who have added to the Lord's word or taken away from his word because they want it to say what their denomination or their particular sect or church uh sect uh wants it to say. This is something that the Lord has warned us plenty of times not to do. The next teaching is don't subtract from God's word. At the same time, don't it don't ignore the parts that you don't like. You know, you can't pick and choose. We don't get to edit God's word. You know, we are to submit to God's word, not to edit it, not to give our thoughts on it, not to say, well, yeah, I want to follow that part, but not this part, that's something else we notice a lot with people. They will go through the scriptures and it's all good when they think it's something that's benefiting to them, that's easy for them to follow. But as soon as they come to something uh that's controversial to them, now all of a sudden they want to pick and choose and say, Well, you know, that's your interpretation, or you know, plenty of people interpret the Bible wrong. They start going through all of these things. When the Bible is actually very clear, when you go through the Bible in its order, in its chronological order, and you put it together, as I say all the time, like the puzzle that it is, and you put it together, the picture is very clear. The fourth teaching is remember God's judgment. Moses reminds them of real consequences they saw when people disobeyed. The truth is you can choose disobedience, but you cannot choose the consequences. And that's the thing. You can be disobedient and the Lord will forgive you, but he never said that there wouldn't be consequences. Teaching number five is remember, you're still here. Some people disobeyed and they were destroyed, but others obeyed and lived. Sometimes the blessing is this simple. You're just you're still standing, and that's something that he wants them to remember. There are those who disobeyed and got destroyed. There are those who obeyed and lived. You have to choose which one of those you want to be, which brings us to the next teaching. Obedience is the key to moving forward. It wasn't talent, it wasn't strength, it was obedience that got them to where they are. It was obedience that got them on the edge of the promised land. Obedience is the key to moving forward. Number seven, obedience makes you stand out. When you actually live according to God's word, people know this. It shows wisdom, it shows discipline, it shows something different. There's something different in you that stands out, that shines, that shows people that you are in obedience with the Lord. The eighth teaching is obedience brings God's presence. God is everywhere, but there's a special closeness with those who obey him. Remember, he is omnipresent, but there's you feel more close when you're obeying his word. You feel his presence more. Which brings us to the second

The Danger Of Forgetting God

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part. Don't forget what God has done. And he's reminding them of all the things God had done for them. We see this in verses 9 through 31. Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life, but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horab, when the Lord said to me, Assemble the people to me that I may let them hear my words, so they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children. And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens. Darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form, only a voice. Verse 12 again, listen to that. Then the Lord spoke to you. What is Moses telling this generation? The Lord spoke to you. It wasn't he spoke through me in secret. The Lord spoke to the people from the mountain, and he's reminding this generation that you remember how the Lord spoke to you from the mountain. You heard his words, you saw no form, but you heard the words. This is something that he wants to remind them of that it wasn't just me, it wasn't just Aaron, but you heard the words of the Lord. So he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it. So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Harad from the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make a grieving image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any wedge bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. Beware, lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the people under the whole earth. Later on in the Bible, it will say that they worship the uh the created instead of the creator. Verse 20. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace from Egypt to be a people for his own possession as today. Now the Lord was angry with me on your account and swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. For I shall die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this good land. So watch yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you, and make for yourselves a grieving image in the form of anything against which the Lord has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. When you when you become the father of children and children's children, and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, your God, as you provoke him to anger. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you shall surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but shall surely be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations where the Lord shall drive you. And there you will serve God's, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search for him with all your heart and your soul, when you are in distress, and all these things have come upon you. In the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God, he will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which he swore to them. Now Moses shifts to memory because one of the big biggest dangers, I believe, in your spiritual life is not rebellion, but forgetfulness. What happens is that we sometimes forget the victory that the Lord has given us. We forget how he used us to cause victory in others. We forget the people that he used to cause victory in you. We forget the Lord does a thing for us, it's great, it's good, and then you move on, and then you forget about those things. You know, now the key thought to me there is spiritual decline happens when we forget what God has done. You have to always remember what the Lord has done for you. Now, I want to look at a couple of uh different memories here.

Guard Your Soul And Teach Kids

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The first one would be guard your soul. You have to protect your mind, your heart, your thinking. Nobody else can do that for you. You are in that is something that you are in charge of. Uh, as my pastor would say, you are the king and the queen of your own life. And this is an example of that. You are in control of your uh of your mind, your heart, and your thinking. The next memory is teach the next generation. Don't rely on church alone. Parents and grandparents, it's actually on you to tell the story. It's on you to teach the next generation what happened in the past. You don't just say, okay, we're gonna get up on uh we're gonna get up, we're gonna go to church, you know what I'm saying, or maybe even um Sunday school, maybe even go to uh Wednesday night Bible study, and that should be good enough. No, parents and grandparents is on you. The third memory is remember God's voice. They stood at Mount Sinai and heard God speak. And that moment mattered. And in your life, you know, those are moments where God showed up. Don't forget them. Remember what I said a little bit ago. These people were actually there on the edge of the mountain and heard God speak. So, like I said, unlike some of these religions where they have their quote-unquote prophets who heard from the Lord and He's giving you all of these things. No, these people, the children of Israel, they heard the Lord speak.

Modern Idols And Slow Drift

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Memory number four is stay away from idols. Anything you put before God becomes a problem. Money, status, people, success. Um, it could be your job, it could be other vices. If it replaces God, it will corrupt you. And a lot of us are guilty of that. I know I've been guilty of that in my life. I can't speak for you, but I can speak for me. There have been times in my life where there were things that were more important to me than the Lord. Now, you don't come out and just say it that way, but you do it in your actions. To give you an example, you know, I like video games. But if you spend two hours a day or more, let's say playing video games, but zero time reading the word of God or being in prayer, that is putting something before the Lord. Some people work a lot and there's absolutely nothing wrong with working, but some people put so many hours in that they take no time out to the Lord. Their job is their whole life. That is putting something before the Lord. Some of you are really into fitness. You know, you have no issues getting up at five o'clock in the morning and going to work out, going to your uh workout class, your aerobics class, your uh uh swimming class or whatever it may be, and you will do it again in the evening. Maybe you go bike ride it, but you don't spend any time with the Lord. You have now put those things before the Lord. That is what the Lord is speaking about, and he says that he is a jealous guy. Now the Lord is not saying don't have fun activities. So I want you all to hear me. The Lord is not saying don't enjoy your video games, don't enjoy a TV show, don't don't uh don't enjoy reading you know mystery novels, don't enjoy you know uh hiking or vacations or whatever it is you do, but remember to put the Lord first, which brings us to the fifth memory. Remember where God brought you from. You weren't always where you are now. I know I wasn't. God brought you out of something. Don't ever act like you know like you did this on your own. Don't act like you brought you pulled yourself up. Where there was a time that you were somewhere, you were in the lowlands, and it was the Lord who brought you up out of there. The sixth memory is disobedience has consequences. Moses himself missed the promised land, not because God isn't gracious, but because God is serious. The Lord is serious when he tells you to do something, and he has a problem with disobedience, and Moses was disobedient, which is what caused him to not be able to cross over and go into the promised land. Memory number seven, don't drift over time. Success can lead to complacency, and complacency leads to compromise. That happens to a lot of people. Over time, you start to drift. In Revelation, it talks about you know, don't forget your first love. You begin to drift away from your first love. And then you get into this place of uh where you're complacent, and then you start to uh move away from the things that you once did. Which brings us to memory number eight. Sin brings consequences. Moses lays it out clearly here. You lose blessings, you face discipline, you drift to things that will destroy you. This is what happens when you get into sin and you stay in sin and you choose not to overcome it. The ninth memory is but God does offer grace. Even after all of that, even after everything that I just said, if you return to God, he will restore you. Now that's grace, and that is what the Lord will do for you. He uh He has done it for me, and He absolutely will do it for you. If you uh obey the Lord, remember that He also offers grace even after everything that you've been through. Which brings us to part number three.

What Makes A Life Great

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What makes a life great? We see this in verses 32 through 49. Indeed, as now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other, has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard of it, or heard like it? Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire as you have heard it and survived? Or has a God tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an arch outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did you in Egypt before your eyes? Now that was a question Has there ever been a God who did the things that he did to bring you up out of Egypt? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord He is God, there is uh no other besides him. Out of the heavens, he let you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth, he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire, because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their descendants after them, and he personally brought you from Egypt by his great power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you to bring you in and to give you their land for an inheritance as it is today. Know therefore today and take it to your heart that the Lord He is God in heaven above and on the earth below, there is no other. He's God on earth, he's God in heaven. So you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time. Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan to the east, that a manslayer might flee there, who unintentionally slew his neighbor without having enmity towards him in time past, and by fleeing to one of these cities he might live. Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in uh Bashin by the Masonites. Now this is the law which Moses set before the sons of Israel. These are the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt, across the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth Peor in the land of Shahan, king of the Ammonite, uh excuse me, the Amorites who lived at Heshban, whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. And they took possession of the land and the land of Og, king of Beshan, the two kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan to the east, from Arior, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnan, even as far as the Mount Sion, which is also Hermon, with all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, even as far as the sea of the Arabah at the foot of the slope slopes of Pisgah. Now, Moses answers a big question. What actually makes a nation or a life great? Not power, not money, not influence. It's taking God and his word serious. And we come to a few realizations. There is only one true God. And he has done things no other God has ever done. He is personal, he is powerful, he is real. There is only one God. The next realization is obedience leads to a good life. God literally says, if you obey me, things will go well for you. Not perfect, but blessed. Remember, the Lord never said there's not going to be trials in life. He never said that life was going to be perfect, but he said that it would be blessed. The next realization is God makes room for grace. The cities of refuge, they show us even when life isn't perfect, God still provides grace. And that's what those refuge cities were for. Realization number four. The word of God is everything. Moses is about to lay out the law, and he's basically saying everything from this point forward depends on how seriously you take it. And that right there is nothing but the truth. And I would like to make a final uh application here.

Take God’s Word Seriously

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Uh if you forget God's word, you hurt yourself. If you ignore God's word, you limit your life. But if you take God's word seriously, you will make better decisions, experience real stability, see God move in your life. And then let me get my final thoughts here, people. God can absolutely change your life. If you give your life to the Lord and you ask Him to take over your life, He can absolutely change your life. God can also bless your life. He can bless your life in ways that you could never imagine. He just asks for your obedience. God can take you further than you ever imagined. You might think that there's a ceiling up there, but when the Lord, when you're on the Lord's side, you can break that ceiling and you can go further and farther. But here's the condition you have to take him and his word seriously. All right, that brings us to the end of Deuteronomy chapter four. I told you it was a very important chapter, and I hope that you got something out of it. I hope that you learned something. I hope that it uh uh stays in your heart and your soul and it just sticks there. As always, I thank you for joining me, and I appreciate you all way more than you will ever know. I ask you continue to pray for me here at Berean's Corner as we go through the Bible. Pray that uh I stay in good health, pray that I stay steadfast, that I stay on the that narrow path that leads to righteousness, and always stay in the scriptures to keep bringing them to you as we learn together. And as always, wherever you are on the six continents, you know, I'm I'm always looking and seeing every time we have uh new listeners or you know where people are coming from, or some very interesting you know, cities out there, especially in the other countries. I am praying for you as well, as I always say. I uh think about you regularly. I'm always praying for you. I pray that you're doing well, and I pray that every time we're going through these scriptures that you're getting something, and I pray that I'm I'm doing a uh a good job for you. Uh, I do take it serious, and I thank you for coming back. Well, that is it. That brings us to the end of Deuteronomy chapter four as we continue this chronological story through the Bible. That is all for now. God bless.

Closing Prayer And Stay Connected

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Thank you for listening to Berean's Corner. We appreciate you joining us as we dive into God's word and seek biblical truth together. If this episode encouraged or challenged you, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. You can find Bereen's Corner on BuzzSprout, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Amazon Music, and more. Let's stay connected. If you have questions, comments, or prayer requests, reach out to us at Bereans Corner.buzzsprout.com where you can follow along with show transcripts and leave a message in the fan mail slot. Also follow us on YouTube at Berean's Corner and don't forget to subscribe. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep searching the scriptures like a Berean. Stay discerning, stay faithful, and God bless.