SPEAKER_00: Does anybody have anybody won't bring to her attention this morning for interface reporting?
SPEAKER_00: Yep, maybe.
SPEAKER_03: Um I heard that I posted her for about a month or so ago, um, Germany that she had a dementia he has somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Jenny.
SPEAKER_03: My face for scale is having uh web for I think that she's gonna have third.
SPEAKER_02: Um keep no one also maybe from the family members there because having a lot of personal problems, maybe uh questions to the kids and stuff to keep the family and friends.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Yep, where I'm about to try for my mother and stepfather trekking today to come visit and ready at home today.
SPEAKER_07: Yep, check.
SPEAKER_07: Uh just praying for my grandpa and acts like he's not.
SPEAKER_07: Um but that's why we love him.
SPEAKER_07: And uh he fell last week, but he's doing good.
SPEAKER_07: He's just testing his limbs like Jackson.
SPEAKER_00: Well, old Israel, Dave, you know that.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Yep, Donna.
SPEAKER_05: Uh yes.
SPEAKER_07: I hope everybody trying to keep explaining to me a prayers.
SPEAKER_07: Uh her hands are giving her a fit, and there's nothing they can do.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Well, not to sound uh wimpy or anything, but I'll ask y'all if you will keep me in prayer tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta go see a dentist.
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna have to commence to work it on my teeth.
SPEAKER_00: And that is something very new to me, because I've never done it before, so I get to have one yanked out and uh something made to go back to this place.
SPEAKER_00: Because apparently I didn't look my pen toes good enough that particular time, and I bit down on a rock.
SPEAKER_00: And split my tooth in two.
SPEAKER_00: All the modern miracles that medicine has.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we just bow our heads.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you again for this opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: We we bring our cares to you.
SPEAKER_00: We have uh people that we love and uh that are very dear to us that are experiencing issues and difficulties and pain and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, we just we want to take a minute to bring them to you because we know that uh you are the master healer.
SPEAKER_00: You are the you are in total and complete control of every situation that we may ever face.
SPEAKER_00: But it does hurt us whenever we see those that we love hurt, and we've bring to you this morning, of course, Wendy's friend, um, who's lost her husband.
SPEAKER_00: We just pray that you would be with that family and and just wrap your arms around them during this difficult time with a bond sister who's looking at an upcoming surgery, and we know, Father, that you have advanced our medical professionals in such a just an awesome way, but it's still kind of spooky for us sometimes to know that we're gonna have to lay down there and let them go to cutting on us.
SPEAKER_00: But we just pray that you would be with the doctors, let them handle Shelley's uh eye surgery without any problems or difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll pray for our sister Marilyn, who this morning is uh suffering from bronchitis and um and also a friend of hers who's going through some issues there, family related.
SPEAKER_00: We know, father, that Satan's main goal, it seems, is to attack the family.
SPEAKER_00: And he's he's seems like he's gaining ground at times.
SPEAKER_00: But we just pray that you would make your presence known there and put a hedge about them and hold back the forces of evil.
SPEAKER_00: Please be with Barry's mother and father, father, as they're they're traveling.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the roads are just full of crazies.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we just pray that you would give them safe travel and take them home safely.
SPEAKER_00: And Jake's grandpa continue to be with him and uh just watch his every step, if you will, father.
SPEAKER_00: And please be with our sister Linda and the difficulties that she's dealing with.
SPEAKER_00: We just pray that you would just let us see healing in each and every situation that we've mentioned this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And those that we haven't mentioned, Father, that um that that'll come to mind as the day goes on and as we communicate with people in our circle, there we know that there's hurting and we just pray, Father, that you, the God of healing, will make yourself known.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, we praise you, and we love you.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' holy name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll ask Keith to come up with Thanksgiving prayer.
SPEAKER_04: And for Thanksgiving prayer, anybody have anything they'd like to mention this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Richard, thankful for this radiating beautiful cold weather.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04: It was nice up on the mountain this morning.
SPEAKER_04: Nice and brisk.
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
SPEAKER_04: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_08: I'm just glad we could all be here today.
SPEAKER_08: We're walking and talking and just another day of life.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: We're not promised one.
SPEAKER_04: It's so much a blessing to have another.
SPEAKER_04: Wendy.
SPEAKER_03: I'm thankful for the little bit of rain we had.
SPEAKER_03: Not that I like rain, but we need Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: I thought we were supposed to get more this weekend, but something happened.
SPEAKER_04: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
SPEAKER_04: For sure.
SPEAKER_04: Well, if you will, bow your heads.
SPEAKER_04: Father, we come to you this beautiful, beautiful morning.
SPEAKER_04: Uh just in all again of your your creations that uh seem so easy to you and so magnificent to us, Lord.
SPEAKER_04: We thank you each and every day for these things.
SPEAKER_04: Uh thank you for watching over us and giving us the love we need to uh live life.
SPEAKER_04: And thank you for uh all the many blessings that uh that go unnoticed, Lord.
SPEAKER_04: I I'm sure there's plenty there watching over me that keep me out of trouble, and I'm sure for everybody else all the same.
SPEAKER_04: So thank you.
SPEAKER_04: Thank you, thank you for all that you do, and thank you so much for your most precious gift, our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ, for whom we pray.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.
SPEAKER_09: Let your moderation be known unto all men.
SPEAKER_09: The Lord is at hand.
SPEAKER_09: Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts in mind through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He was born over 400 years ago, and yet he still touches each one of our lives every single day.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna explain how some of these things work.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this guy here now, he was born in 1623.
SPEAKER_01: He was a mathematician, he's an inventor, he's a physicist, he studied philosophy, and he was a Christian apologist.
SPEAKER_01: His name was uh Blaise Pascal.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you get over in Italy, you had Leonardo da Vinci.
SPEAKER_01: You get over to France, you're there, you had uh Blaise Pascal, all the things that he invented and throughout all his life.
SPEAKER_01: So one way he touched Stalberry Lionchar, he he uh came up with what they call Pascal's law.
SPEAKER_01: Now, every one of y'all that drove into church today, when you went to put your brakes on, your car stopped, and okay.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one that invented the hydraulics and did all that stuff kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But as an inventor, well, even before that, even when he was 16 years old, he wrote a treatise on uh what they call conical uh conical algebra and and uh spheres.
SPEAKER_01: He shared this with uh with a guy, guy right here in all umstanding.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, he's he's a cartographer right there, and he's the one that there that was able to mathematically take the earth, the map of the earth right there, and lay it down and a flat plane and yet have it uh accurate.
SPEAKER_01: So that's Cardiff.
SPEAKER_01: That's the guy's name right there.
SPEAKER_01: He's he shared that with him.
SPEAKER_01: He was 16 years old when he wrote this.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, he uh he was watching his dad work.
SPEAKER_01: His dad was a lot like Tony in a way.
SPEAKER_01: Um he was a uh he was a tax official with Vatican, but he's also been in charge of all the taxes being collected and all these things here.
SPEAKER_01: So he was watching his dad right there and all.
SPEAKER_01: And uh he was adding all these figures constantly right there and all, just driving himself to just driving himself crazy, trying to keep all the records straight and everything now.
SPEAKER_01: And if you just stop and think there, like let's say the job that Tony does, how would he ever do this right here with just a pen and a pencil right there without a calculator or adding machine or anything like that?
SPEAKER_01: But yet that's what this guy was doing.
SPEAKER_01: So his son said he's gonna fix that problem.
SPEAKER_01: He's he's an inventor.
SPEAKER_01: So he he invented the first digital digital calculator.
SPEAKER_01: It was mechanical.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't have electricity back then, but it was mechanical.
SPEAKER_01: And uh he also wrote the basic language that uh all of our computers today run on.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in 1968, when they started building the first computers right there, they they did a high-level uh computer language called Pascal.
SPEAKER_01: And it's one the the based on the base two numbering system.
SPEAKER_01: Like we we use base 10 and everything here, but all all digital stuff ever runs on base two.
SPEAKER_01: And by by this thing here, he was able to uh figure away back there to mechanically calculate numbers and add and subtract and things like that.
SPEAKER_01: Because in the early days, before these things were invented there, it was thought there that only a man had the reason and intellect to be able to add and subtract and do all this thing that anything was even possible, you know, to even be able to use a mechanical device right there to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01: But he showed them different.
SPEAKER_01: He's also a physicist.
SPEAKER_01: So he did other experiments, things like the barometer, for example.
SPEAKER_01: He showed that the barometer works that they can use that to start uh forecasting weather.
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, if your barometer starts dropping right there, you got a low pressure area, and uh you got clouds and your storm fronts and all this stuff coming in.
SPEAKER_01: So he he showed how to do all that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this guy here, he's like 21, 22 years old when he did this.
SPEAKER_01: He was just an absolute genius.
SPEAKER_01: Let come down into philosophy.
SPEAKER_01: He he just turned to uh figure out the the uh problems of mankind and try and try and solve them as wet butch as he can.
SPEAKER_01: So he had he had some problems though.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, it was like John Fossil Paul right there.
SPEAKER_01: Um he had his thorn in the flesh, you know.
SPEAKER_01: This guy had his thorn in the flesh too.
SPEAKER_01: He had celiac disease.
SPEAKER_01: Now, nowadays we know how to take care of that.
SPEAKER_01: Back in the Nerd's days, they didn't know how, because what celiac disease is an autoimmune condition caused by eating gluten.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you're in agrarian society right there, you're going to eat ground.
SPEAKER_01: So he was actually actually killing himself by eating all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But uh the thing is, it's his health suffered greatly.
SPEAKER_01: He he had osteophorosis there.
SPEAKER_01: They said he had got down there being a hunchback kind of fella right there and all, and yet he still had all his intellect, but he still had to deal with all this the headaches, the migraines, uh anemia, and all the other things that this this uh celiac disease caused.
SPEAKER_01: So that was his thorn in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you look back, you know, Paul had his.
SPEAKER_01: This guy here had the celiac disease right there.
SPEAKER_01: And then you look at another fellow like Stephen Hawking, you know, the cane hardly function even though uh communicating even, yet he's an absolute genius.
SPEAKER_01: I think you know, that God sometimes gives us these talents, you know, to make up for some things that other things that we can't do.
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's that's another thing there.
SPEAKER_01: And uh this is a philosophy there.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to figure out all the problems of mankind and and try and solve them, and and yet he had turned to religion to do that.
SPEAKER_01: So as a Christian apologist there, he was uh very much are in favor of God.
SPEAKER_01: And through all these things here that uh he was trying to figure out everything, and yet, you know, he was he was down loaded, he was miserable, you know, and yet he's he looked at this whole state of mankind that we can do better, but we have to do it through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the things he did too with uh the barometers and things, in the in the old days, they didn't believe the vacuum even existed there because nature horses a vacuum is going to fill it with something.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he got to philosophizing and uh figuring that uh the problem with mankind is that we have a God-shaped vacuum in our soul that only God can fill through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So he worked on that angle for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: He just he made us a peace with what with his own condition, and yet when he prayed, he he prayed such that uh I don't pray for pray pray for sickness.
SPEAKER_01: I don't pray for help.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that God can use me in any way possible, you know, in my present condition.
SPEAKER_01: So that he designed himself too, and yet he he still keep up kept on going and doing all these great things.
SPEAKER_01: He also finds the pressure, uh like with with when he designed hydraulics in the United States.
SPEAKER_01: He defined pressures, which are still used today, especially in engineering and medical terms and things like that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, like we get a blood pressure, we're going inches of mercury.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you get in a hospital situation there, you go go Pascals or Kilpatskills, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's a whole different system than a whole thing there.
SPEAKER_01: Because they they go over in France, they go by what they call systems internationale.
SPEAKER_01: That's an SI units and um and basically the metric system.
SPEAKER_01: So he had everything pretty much with the metric system right there.
SPEAKER_01: He also defined the law of probability.
SPEAKER_01: He's he's flexible enough that he can see if something's doing this, it's gonna cause this.
SPEAKER_01: He used the first computer language, and they like to say they used that in 1968.
SPEAKER_01: Also the name Pascal, but has a uh biblical type type terminology.
SPEAKER_01: Pascal in the French language, there means Passed over.
SPEAKER_01: As in they still call it Pascal, or uh Easter, what whatever you version you have, Passover or Easter, one like they're gonna go.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they call it over over in France.
SPEAKER_01: Now, he's also prayed on different other things too, but you know, but he he was he was very much there, wanted to be with God and in in accordance with God.
SPEAKER_01: So they said on his last his last words right there before he died right there.
SPEAKER_01: He says, uh, may God never abandon me.
SPEAKER_01: But all the things we have today, so many things here 400 years ago, the fact you got brakes on your car, that you can use a calculator or you can use a computer.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one that broke the laws that determined that those things were even possible.
SPEAKER_01: So even in his infirmity, he he still he still affects all our lives every single day.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, next Kentucky.
SPEAKER_04: Umfty six.
SPEAKER_00: I told Wendy back there earlier eventually, I think I'll get this morning coughed out of my head.
SPEAKER_00: It's just taking a little while.
SPEAKER_00: We read of our God in Isaiah chapter twenty-six and verse three.
SPEAKER_00: You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you?
SPEAKER_00: I would ask you to consider this morning that very question: Do I really trust in God and in his word?
SPEAKER_00: Am I really this morning experiencing perfect peace in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Or does the current state of events going on in the world around us seem to be leaving us with feelings of uncertainty, possibly fearful or even overwhelmed?
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, it seems like every day, if we chose to turn on the TV, there's something different, bad going on somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting in the Lord is the foundation of our Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot fully obey, follow, or serve our God until we fully trust in Him.
SPEAKER_00: And as I believe most each and every one of us here today, as trusting, obedient followers of Jesus, will agree, it's clearly evident that we're living in the final days of man's earthly rule.
SPEAKER_00: We look around and see Jesus' words, which he spoke 2,000 years ago, coming to pass.
SPEAKER_00: And although this is not the main area that we're going to be looking at today, I'd ask you to turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter 24, and let's just take a look at some current events going on in our world today.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 24, beginning in verse 1, we'll start there.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Do you not see all these things?
SPEAKER_00: Assuredly I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in reading that first part there, it says the disciples brought Jesus up to show him the buildings.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus fully knew and understood what those buildings looked like.
SPEAKER_00: But his disciples at that time were so caught up, I guess, in the moment and the grandeur of this mighty temple that they had constructed, they were basically Jesus, come on up, let us brag about this temple.
SPEAKER_00: Let us just look at this glorious, majestic temple that our hands have made, that our forefathers have constructed.
SPEAKER_00: Ain't it magnificent?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes on in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as he said on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
SPEAKER_00: I'll stop right there just a minute to say, we're not studying prophecy today, but right there in just that verse 3, there's about 40 different uh messages that we could draw out of that.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't ask him, but three different questions there.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot to unpack in when will these things be, talking about what he just mentioned, the destruction of that temple, and what will be the sign of your coming, question number two, and what would be the sign of the end of the age, question number three.
SPEAKER_00: That will take quite a while for us to unpack that.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, and Jesus answered to them, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
SPEAKER_00: See that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
SPEAKER_00: For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places, and all of these are the beginning of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: We're not necessarily reading this as prophecy today, we're reading it as current events.
SPEAKER_00: Because anytime, you know, in the last several years, how many wars have we heard of?
SPEAKER_00: There's a new war popping up, it seems like daily, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because people can't get along.
SPEAKER_00: Pakistan, India, US, Iran.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: Wars and rumors of wars.
SPEAKER_00: We're reading about current events.
SPEAKER_00: Nation will rise against nation.
SPEAKER_00: We see it.
SPEAKER_00: Kingdom against kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: What's that look like?
SPEAKER_00: Kingdom against kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That looks like Democrats versus Republicans, common party versus Whigs, Sunnis versus Shiites.
SPEAKER_00: And the list goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: We see it.
SPEAKER_00: There will be famines.
SPEAKER_00: How many people in this world today are starving to death?
SPEAKER_00: There will be pestilences.
SPEAKER_00: How many are plagued with things that a simple anecdote that's readily available to me and you each and every day here in this country?
SPEAKER_00: It would cure an entire nation of the pestilence that they're going through.
SPEAKER_00: Earthquakes just this past week.
SPEAKER_00: They're getting pretty active right here around us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, all these are the beginning of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: These sorrows have been going on for quite some time now.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on in verse 9, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.
SPEAKER_00: I want to just take just a minute and say there.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people misread that.
SPEAKER_00: They look at that and say, see, the church is going through the tribulation because it perfectly says it right there.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a misunderstanding.
SPEAKER_00: How many of our brothers and sisters have lived in tribulation for the past hundred, two hundred years?
SPEAKER_00: How many of them face death on a daily basis?
SPEAKER_00: And then many will be offended, will betray one another and hate one another.
SPEAKER_00: Sound familiar?
SPEAKER_00: Go to any political rally today and we'll see great hatred just in this country.
SPEAKER_00: And because, well, let me back up.
SPEAKER_00: Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
SPEAKER_00: Brother, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Don't we see that each and every day?
SPEAKER_00: I want you, church, to know if you will just start sending me an extra 10% of your monies every month, you're going to be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
SPEAKER_00: Lawlessness will abound.
SPEAKER_00: Defund the police sound familiar to anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Cashless bail sound familiar to anybody?
SPEAKER_00: I see it firsthand each and every day.
SPEAKER_00: Lawlessness abounding greatly.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have committed the crime treated with more dignity and respect than their victim.
SPEAKER_00: Naturally, the love of many would grow cold.
SPEAKER_00: But he goes on to tell us, but he who endures the end shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
SPEAKER_00: I feel certain, convinced that we are there.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel has been preached to every place it could possibly be.
SPEAKER_00: Because even in third world countries where people may have to rummage through the trash to find them something to eat, miraculously, they seem to have a cell phone.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing going on in the world today that Jesus didn't warn us about.
SPEAKER_00: So my question for today is: why do so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ seem perplexed when they see the rise of evil in the world?
SPEAKER_00: I've had this conversation several times with people in my circle.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't understand how things could be so bad.
SPEAKER_00: We could argue that that's due to false doctrines infecting our churches.
SPEAKER_00: We could argue that it's church leaders who were have selfish motivations.
SPEAKER_00: We could argue that it's a lack of diligently studying scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But it all goes back to the foundation of the Christian trust in God and in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to trust God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it means a few different things.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting in God means to be at peace in our inner being with God's unchanging character of who he is.
SPEAKER_00: It is to believe in his words and his promises for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it is for us to submit to his will for our lives, even when things around us seem to be unraveling.
SPEAKER_00: That's what trusting in God is.
SPEAKER_00: A right understanding of God's character strengthens our trust in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Just who exactly is this God that we serve?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that brings us here Sunday after Sunday after Sunday to listen to someone present his word out of the scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this God we serve?
SPEAKER_00: Many people have a vision of God in their head as an old man, silver hair, sitting on an old concrete bench, looking through his crystal ball down out there at the earth at each one of us with a big old fly swat in his hand, just waiting.
SPEAKER_00: You mess up.
SPEAKER_00: That's what many people, the vision they have of God.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations 3, verses 22 and 23.
SPEAKER_00: We read, Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed.
SPEAKER_00: Because his compassions fail not.
SPEAKER_00: They are new every morning.
SPEAKER_00: Great is your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Our God is merciful toward us.
SPEAKER_00: Our God is compassionate toward us.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 100 verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: We read, For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't sound like an old silver-haired man with a fly flat.
SPEAKER_00: We have all at some point in our life put our trust in someone who has let us down.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe to the point of even doing great harm to our physical or our emotional health.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't turn out to be the person that we believed them to be when they hurt us.
SPEAKER_00: God's not like that.
SPEAKER_00: God's not like that at all.
SPEAKER_00: Malachi 3, verse 6, we read, For I am the Lord, I do not change.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you are not consumed.
SPEAKER_00: O sons of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: God's love toward you and I, it's not based on what we did yesterday, what we did last week, what we're going to do tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: God's love for us isn't based on what we do, it's based on who He is.
SPEAKER_00: He loves us in spite of us.
SPEAKER_00: So much so He sent Jesus to die for us.
SPEAKER_00: James 1 of verse 17, we read every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
SPEAKER_00: God does not change.
SPEAKER_00: Unlike those in our past who have hurt us, who we thought to be someone who they turned out not to be?
SPEAKER_00: God will never, ever let us down.
SPEAKER_00: He's promised that he can't change.
SPEAKER_00: It's not in God's character that he would not do what he says he'll do.
SPEAKER_00: And we can fully trust in God's character.
SPEAKER_00: Now wait just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: What about those times in scripture when, you know, let's take Sodom even more?
SPEAKER_00: He was going to destroy the whole place.
SPEAKER_00: But he changed his mind.
SPEAKER_00: What if one were righteous?
SPEAKER_00: What if two?
SPEAKER_00: What if three?
SPEAKER_00: God changed his mind then.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that he changed his mind so much as he already knew the outcome of how many righteous people were there, but he was just gonna let the one making the request fully understand that he was God.
SPEAKER_00: We can fully trust, fully trust in God's character.
SPEAKER_00: We can also fully trust in God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: We see so many people in society today.
SPEAKER_00: Spewing empty promises.
SPEAKER_00: Left and right.
SPEAKER_00: Politicians immediately come to mind, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: And sadly, we know that they're lying just as soon as we see their lips moving.
SPEAKER_00: But again, that's not so with our God.
SPEAKER_00: That's not so.
SPEAKER_00: Our God does not change, and our God does not lie.
SPEAKER_00: Titus 1, verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.
SPEAKER_00: Our God does not change, our God does not lie, and we can fully, fully put our trust in that.
SPEAKER_00: Since the beginning of time, the devil has used lies to deceive the world.
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, so many have fallen victim.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout God's word, he condemns liars, and he commands his elect, you and I, his church, not to take part in deceit.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 12 in verse 22, he tells us that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But they that deal truly are his delight.
SPEAKER_00: He commands us in Exodus 20 in verse 16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Bearing false witness is uh that's the same thing as lying.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's funny how in our society we water down the words of sin to make them not sound so bad.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't murder people, we just commit homicide.
SPEAKER_00: We don't steal from our neighbor, we just go commit a little arsoning.
SPEAKER_00: And heaven forbid if we used to ever hear a politician lie, by no means he just misspoke.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5, 37, Jesus commands us, but let your yes be yes and your no be no.
SPEAKER_00: For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: We're commanded to be truthful in all that we do, and unfortunately, there's times that hurts.
SPEAKER_00: But that's what we're commanded to do.
SPEAKER_00: We could go on and on throughout the Bible, studying the destruction that comes from the lips of a liar, and we know God eventually gives the lost over to their lies.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 11, we read, and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.
SPEAKER_00: Something interesting about that verse.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard a lot of prophecy teachers, I guess you'd say, here lately.
SPEAKER_00: They're talking about, well, we can see with the things going on with especially the United States.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they've been a lot of buzz about UFOs.
SPEAKER_00: All these files is coming out.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, they are little big-headed orange men that fly around in saucers.
SPEAKER_00: Because they got pictures of them.
SPEAKER_00: And they might be, I don't really care.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of like the old Jerry Clare was.
SPEAKER_00: If they as far aliens lie, we'd be sending them some, you know, some kind of government check.
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of Bible scholars these days are saying the lie discussed there in 2 Thessalonians 2 11 is see, when the church is raptured, there's going to have to be Explanation why all these people are just suddenly gone.
SPEAKER_00: And uh these teachers say, Well, most likely the government is all gonna get together and say, Well, we can't have mass chaos, we can't have people revolting against us, so we'll just tell them that the aliens took them off.
SPEAKER_00: I can just see that that would sell around here, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Ladies, you seen Hart lately?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, who gone up to that spacecraft last week?
SPEAKER_00: Why would I come back for a third time this year?
SPEAKER_00: I can see that happening around here.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, people are gonna be so used to hearing lies because lies make them feel good about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wished I looked like Brad Pitt, but I don't.
SPEAKER_00: I'd be lying to myself if I said it.
SPEAKER_00: I wished I weighed 200 pounds and was muscular, but I ain't.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fat and I'm happy, and I know it's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But there's coming a time when people don't want to hear the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And they put people in front of them to satisfy their itchy ears, scripture tells us.
SPEAKER_00: It's not nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: We can fully trust in the promises of God that he's made to us because he can't lie.
SPEAKER_00: He promises, he promises us in Deuteronomy 31, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord, he is the one who goes before you.
SPEAKER_00: He's always with us.
SPEAKER_00: Always.
SPEAKER_00: His Holy Spirit lives inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: He will be with you, he will not leave you nor forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear nor be this nor be dismayed.
SPEAKER_00: We can trust in God's character, we can trust in God's promises, and we can also fully trust in God's time.
SPEAKER_00: One of the hardest things to master, I can't even say master, for one of the one of the hardest things to do in our Christian law is exhibit patience.
SPEAKER_00: Patience.
SPEAKER_00: We want it all, we want it now, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: When we have a trial, when we have a difficulty, a financial problem, a health issue, when we wonder if a bomb's gonna drop on us from some foreign country.
SPEAKER_00: We take these things to God in prayer, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we hope for an immediate, immediate deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: And when God's slow to react to our request, to our prayer, we tend to get a little anxious, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We tend to start wringing our hands a little bit, getting a little worried.
SPEAKER_00: But see, our patience is one of the greatest ways that we express our trust in our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: David wrote for us in Psalm 40, verses 1 through 3, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry.
SPEAKER_00: He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock and established my steps.
SPEAKER_00: He has put a new song in my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Praise to our God.
SPEAKER_00: Many will see it in fear, and will trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: We also read, but if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: God's timing usually never coincides with our schedule, right?
SPEAKER_00: His timing never seems to show up when we want it to.
SPEAKER_00: His answers never seem to be there when we think they should be.
SPEAKER_00: But God's timing is always, always perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Just as his answer to our question.
SPEAKER_00: All too often, something comes up in life.
SPEAKER_00: And we go to God in prayer, regardless of what it is.
SPEAKER_00: We've just lost our job.
SPEAKER_00: We already know the perfect, the perfect resolution, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I've just got fired.
SPEAKER_00: Can you please give me a new job down at Walmart where they give me that 15% discount and I get the shop foot?
SPEAKER_00: We've always got the right answer whenever we go to God.
SPEAKER_00: You notice that?
SPEAKER_00: God, I need a new car.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I saw that little red convertible down there on side road for sale sign, ain't it?
SPEAKER_00: Only got 120,000 miles asking$29.95.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11 tells us that he has made everything beautiful in his time.
SPEAKER_00: In his time.
SPEAKER_00: When I look back over my life and I revisit those times when I thought I had the best solutions for my trials, when I thought I had the perfect time frame for God to show up and resolve my problems.
SPEAKER_00: Looking back down, I can say I am so, so very thankful that God already had everything worked out.
SPEAKER_00: Because if I would have received the answers to my prayers that I had hoped for, I can say things in my life would be totally different.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, I sure would have missed out on a lot.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so thankful that you and I have a father that we can trust, who has our best interest in mind, in spite of whatever solutions we think would work best for our problems.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we read and we know that all things, all things, even those things that sting, even those things that cause us to bleed, even those things that keep us up nights on end, pouring the tears.
SPEAKER_00: God works all things together for the good to them that love him, to them who are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: The key there is according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: As the days turn into weeks, as we leave out today, the days turn into weeks, the weeks turn into months, we're gonna continue to see evil abound, not just overseas, but across the street.
SPEAKER_00: There was a time when we were sheltered, very much so.
SPEAKER_00: We marked 250 years of this nation's existence this year.
SPEAKER_00: This nation was founded, as we all know, on Christian virtues, Christian values.
SPEAKER_00: Look how far we've strayed.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus says, enter by the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of into ultimately heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But the path that we're on is a narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: But the world outside is on the big path, the flashy path, where everything's cool and it looks good.
SPEAKER_00: They feel good about their self.
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay if they tell a little white lie.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus commands us not.
SPEAKER_00: The straight and narrow is just that.
SPEAKER_00: It's straight and it's narrow.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage each and every one of you today to continue to be that beacon of hope in your circles of influence.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's people who look to us each and every day.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's one of them Christians.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of them people that says they follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But there is something about them.
SPEAKER_00: They do seem to be peaceful for some reason.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder why that is.
SPEAKER_00: Let's continue to be that beacon of old.
SPEAKER_00: Let's remind ourselves and those around us that we can fully put our trust in our God and our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to leave you a psalm.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm chapter 3 and verse 1, we read from David.
SPEAKER_00: Many are they who rise up against me.
SPEAKER_00: Many are they who say in me, There is no help for him in God.
SPEAKER_00: But you, O Lord, are a shield for me.
SPEAKER_00: My glory and the one who lifts up my head.
SPEAKER_00: I cried to the Lord with my voice, and he heard me from his holy hill.
SPEAKER_00: I lay down and slept.
SPEAKER_00: I awoke for the Lord sustained me.
SPEAKER_00: I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.
SPEAKER_00: O my God.
SPEAKER_00: You have broken the teeth of the ungodly.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation belongs to the Lord, and your blessing is upon your people.
SPEAKER_00: Let's remember that.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what we see on the TV, no matter how bad it seems, we already know it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: Because He's told us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you so much for your word.
SPEAKER_00: And as we enter into dark times, as we see things unfolding that you have told us would unfold, we pray that we would not be moved or shaken.
SPEAKER_00: But that we would be that light that you called us to be.
SPEAKER_00: That city on the hill that stands firm.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Father, that you would put in us a desire to just gorge ourselves on your word and be equipped for this battle that we're going through and that's only going to intensify.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Father, that you would protect us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would bless us.
SPEAKER_00: We would pray that you would come for us quickly, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you and we praise you.
SPEAKER_00: We love you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Seven seventy nine.