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Um certainly ask that you continue to pray. Uh appreciate the prayer that was offered up um publicly in our hearing. Particularly one thing that Brother Bobby mentioned in there that struck my heart and what's on my mind this morning. So I'm gonna ask that you continue in prayer. Well, I still have on my mind um this subject that I kind of started with um I guess during our annual meeting, but um really tried last time I was here to to speak about this, and as I mentioned then, it's it's so big that I was like, I can't possibly um take it all on. But uh Brother Owen asked me, he goes, are we gonna be here a while? I don't know, but it seems like so. You know, sometimes in my studies of the scriptures, I follow a path. You can imagine you're just going down kind of a path and you stay, like you might go here and there, but then you open up, like you you reach a clearing. Imagine you're walking, you know, along a trail and then you reach the valley and it just opens up. And sometimes that's what it's like. And if I hit a valley of a beautiful valley, I just want to stay there for a while, you know. You just want to look at it. Um, what I've landed upon is this what's shown in Psalm 115 about our God in contrast to the false gods of the heathens that created idols. And what we have to understand about this comparison is um we know that those idols are, and Paul says this in one of his letters, we know that an idol is nothing in this world. It's not a thing. You know, they would invent these gods out of their mind. But I will tell you that the reason that men that did not know the God, the one true and living God, invented gods uh unto themselves was because there's something in man that must worship something. Now, um, we were designed and created by God ultimately for his praise. When he created man, he said, let us create man in our image. God said that, let us create man in our image. Of course, he used the plural, God used the plural because he is three in one God. Um if you read in Genesis, right after that says, so man, God created man in his image. Use the singular because when we're talking about God, he's one. God within himself was God the Father, God the Word, God the Holy Ghost. These three are one. So God created man in his image. Now that means more than it got we look like God. It doesn't, I don't even think it means we look like God. It's more about in his design that he thought of in his mind. And it does include some aspects about man that is different than any other creation, and one of those things is the living soul that God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. There's not that's not said about any other creature. There's nothing else created by God that is that has a soul. And within that soul is this conscience, this awareness, this self-awareness and abilities that God Himself describes as He has. And one of those is speech. Now, I don't intend to talk this morning about speech, but in Psalm 115, this is what really started my mind on this, is that the heathens, Psalm 115, um verse 1 says, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth sake. So again, God's creation of man was for his glory. It was not for man's glory. But every, I've said this many times, I'll say it again. Everything God does is secondarily for our benefit. God never does anything that is not a benefit or a good thing for his people. Even his chastisement is for our good. But first and foremost, for his glory. And then he says, Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? The answer to that question is we know where our God is. The heathen, they had invented gods to themselves. They asked, Where is their God? And Israel was able to say, we're able to say, But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Then he says, Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. And I tried to talk way, I don't know how many weeks ago now it was, about God speaks. God designed man to speak in a way that no other creature has. I think that comes from within the soul, within the conscience of man, that we have that self-awareness and the ability to express complex thoughts through language that no other creature has. I mean, to the point of making beautiful literature and poetry that can express unexpressible thoughts. And there are people that are extremely gifted in that ability. Um but think about, even the most simple language of man can express thoughts that no other creature has. And God expressed himself to us through speech as well. From the very beginning, when he created, he could have told us he created things with his hands. And in some verses, God does God told men to write the scriptures down. God spoke to men who spoke who wrote it down, and he said, He created the creation is like his handiwork. Uh, even says, like with his fingers, you know, he did things. But in Genesis, he described creation by this way. He said, and God said, Let there be light. So God expressed himself through speech, even to the point of the second person of the Trinity, the God himself, God who made the worlds. God, the second person is Jesus Christ, but the word of God, in Hebrews it says that by him was everything made, and without him was not anything. No, that's in John. John says the word was with God and the word was God. The point is, he describes himself as the Word, the Word. And Hebrew says he is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. We see God in Jesus Christ, who is the word made flesh. We can see where speech comes in to express who God is. But the next verse says he has, they have eyes, eyes have they, the imagination gods of this world. They have eyes, but they see not. Now the contrast to that is that God, our God, the true, the living God, who is in the heavens and does things. He does, he works, he does whatever he pleases. He sees. He has eyes and he sees. Now, last time I was here, I know I spent the entirety of the time on that his eye, in Proverbs, it says that his eyes are, I don't get it exactly right, so I'm gonna go read it. Proverbs 15, verse 3. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. I spent the entire time, I think, on the fact that God does have eyes, he does see. And the the danger I fall in is when I start thinking about God like he's a false God. I never, I don't ever, I don't ever not believe in God. Now, I'm not casting judgment on anyone else. I'm just saying, like, that's not where my my problems lie. When that man came to Jesus and said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. That's such a good prayer because even in our belief, we fall into unbelief. I I don't just I don't waver back and forth between there is a God, there isn't a God. That's not that's not where I have uh failure. But I do have failures in my belief. I do. Everyone does. And I'll tell you where mine is so oftentimes. It's not that I don't believe God is, it's that I start to forget that He does have eyes, he does have ears, He does have a mouth, He does speak to me, He sees what I'm going through, and all of these things. I I and when I forget that, I'm treating God like an idol. And that is where my con I feel convicted. That's I guess what has brought this all on. I don't want to treat our God as if he is an idol. So I want to remind us again that God sees. Now, last time I talked about he sees the evil, and I think I barely mentioned on the good. But it is important to us because do we ever not feel like, where are you, God? That's what the heathens say. Where is their God? I don't want to be like that. But I do. I'm like, where is God in all of this? Everything we're going through right now, does God see it? Yes, he sees it. And again, I danger of getting right into just preaching the exact same thing from uh two weeks ago or whatever. Um, but God sees the evil. Okay, but it he also sees the good. It says, Behold in the evil and the good. Um turn to Hebrews chapter 4 and read something that the apostle writes here to them. In Hebrews chapter 4, and it says in verse, I'm gonna start with verse 11 because it's weird. I don't like to start in the middle of Hebrews at all, but Hebrews chapter 4, let's start with verse 11. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall under the same example of unbelief. Again, I'm so tempted to go back and find out why he said this. Um, but we'll have to save that for another day, or you can read above it to find out what he's talking about. Um but apparently from just reading that verse, that we have a potential of falling into unbelief. That's not it's it's not um, it's not only not impossible, it is a tendency of every man. Being a child of God does not absolve you of falling into unbelief. Um you don't go from being dead in sins to being alive in Christ, and therefore you have no more problems with sin. Now, in fact, that's when your problems with sin begin. Um, before you're born again, you don't have a problem with sin. Sin is your entire being, and you understand you're dead in sins, you're gonna bear all the guilt and the weight and everything. But what I mean is you have no conflict. Paul describes to us in Romans chapter 7 the conflict that dwells within every child of God that is born of the Spirit, and he owned it right then while he was writing the letter to the Romans as the apostle. We understand that Paul knew himself to be alive in Christ, and yet he says, O wretched man that I am, present tense right now. We know that he believed that Christ had saved him from his sins, and yet he says, When I would do good, evil is present with me, right here, right now. So Paul's describing this conflict that happens only within the born-again child of God, because you still have sin, but you also have within you this new creature, this born child of God that cannot sin, and then this nature of sin that cannot please God, and they're at enmity with each other. They're fighting each other. You ever fear that, feel that fighting? You ever ever feel like you want to do the right thing and somehow you keep messing up? Well, that's every child of God. Okay? Everyone feels that way. Paul's writing, or in Hebrews, I believe, is Paul, so I'll say it many times. Is Paul writing here? We need to be careful because we can fall into unbelief. That unbelief is not going to actually be a, it's not mutually exclusive from belief, which means you're not in belief or unbelief. You can be in belief and unbelief. Like that man that prayed, God, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. And so what he's saying here is there's an example that was set for us by the Israelites, and we don't want to fall into that same example of unbelief. And their example of unbelief was this they knew who God was. They had been led by God out of Egypt. They had seen works of God, they had seen it with their own eyes. They had heard his voice at Mount Sinai when he spoke the Ten Commandments. So, but then they get to the promised land, and not only have they seen the works of God in the past, and the deliverance through the Red Sea, and all the manna in the wilderness, and the water that God provided from a rock, and the heard the voice of God from Mount Sinai, they had even seen some judgment of God against those that would question God's authority. And they get to the promised land, and the spies literally bring fruit from the land of Canaan, so big, so much fruit, that they had to carry it on a staff between two people. The evidence is overwhelming. And yet they don't enter into the promised land. Why? It's because they didn't believe the promise of God that he would fight their battles. They thought, we can't go in because the giants of that land are too much. I know God's delivered us in the past, but he's not going to deliver us from this. We can't do this. They didn't believe the promise of God. That's the unbelief they were in. So, since they couldn't enter in because of their unbelief, what he's telling us is let's not fall into the same promise of unbelief. So the same problem of unbelief here is that you can believe in God and yet not believe his promise will be applied to you in this present problem. Do we see that example? They knew God, they believed God, but they didn't think God was going to be with them in this particular moment. Then he goes on to say this for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open under the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Now I'm going to be honest, I've read that many times, and when I read it, I fear. Like, this is some quaky, trembly language here. Like, talks about a sword, talks about like dividing asunder, that's like cutting in two, that talks about powerful, it talks about the uh everything's manifest in front of him, that nothing is hid. It talks about he knows the heart and the thoughts and intents of the heart. And I it just in isolation, just reading those verses, it sounds fearful. You know why? Because, see, I know my own heart. I know my own sins and unbeliefs. I know my sins better than anyone here, and I the reason I can prove that because you wouldn't have me standing in front of you if you did. If you knew me like I know me. But I don't even know me like God knows me. Okay? I don't know my sin as much as God knows. You know why? Because sometimes I sin without doing it on purpose. Sometimes I sin accidentally. Sometimes I sin and don't even know I sinned. But God knows every sin. I understand this from Scripture that God knows every sin that I have ever committed or ever will commit. I'm thankful for that when I realize that that's because Jesus paid for every one of them. See, what if Jesus knew only what I know? What if he only could pay for the sins that I actually know I committed? What if he missed one? See, Jesus doesn't miss one. The Lord paid for every one of every sins of every child of God. He doesn't miss a thing. And that's that's where I hope we'll end up with this thought. But see, I do know me. And when I know me, I fear when I think about a God who knows everything, who knows every thought, who knows every intent, who doesn't miss a thing. He doesn't, you can't slide one by him. God knows everything. And it's scary at times. And this verses sounds scary. Okay? The word of God is quick. The first thing about that is this is not talking about the scripture, because the word quick doesn't mean fast. The word quick means alive. When you read things like, He, you hath he quickened who were dead, that word means alive. He made you alive. Uh the word quick in another verse it says that he shall judge the quick and the dead. That means the alive and the dead. Okay? So I'm just you need to get a little definition here because when you read the word quick, make sure it's not talking about, that's not talking about speed, like we're like, boy, you know, you that person's really quick. It's talking about alive. So the word of God is quick. It's not talking about the scriptures, because the scriptures aren't alive. This is talking about the word of God who was made flesh and dwelt among us, the God of heaven, God Himself who is manifest in the flesh, God who spoke everything into existence, who became flesh and dwelt among us, is Jesus Christ. So he is the word of God, and he is alive, and he is powerful. The next thing is he's powerful. The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of asunder. So I want to uh look at those words and that what's he describing here about Jesus Christ. When he says he's sharper than any two-edged sword, what it's saying is he can get into places no one else can get. Okay, the dividing, this dividing asunder, the joint and the marrows, and the soul and the spirit, it's not talking about Jesus is actually going to do this. It's a metaphor for saying that the Lord can get in places no one else can get. Okay. The Lord can see into places no one else can see. His eyes are on The whole earth, beholding the good and the evil, he can see, he knows the difference between the joint, the joints, and the marrow. We can't really make that division. I know they can nowadays do uh bone marrow transplants, but what it's really talking about isn't that you, it's like not say, well, can you divide out the bone from the bone marrow? It's saying, and I'll I'll admit that as Elder Mark Richards kind of taught me this, someone taught him this. Um what we don't know today, even today, scientifically, is how the bones get loaded in the first place after conception. Okay, they they can they can literally create new bone even today. But what they don't know is how you go from the conception and the cells begin to multiply and divide or divide rather, they divide and divide and divide, and then somehow you go from these cells to like a person, and bones grow in the womb. They don't know how that starts from where it starts. They can't divide that out. Maybe someday they can figure out more stuff about it, they'll never get to where God is. See, God forms in the womb, God created it from nothing, He spoke it into existence. The biology we're trying to learn about, God created, He knows exactly how it works. This dividing the soul and the spirit. As I mentioned earlier, humanity, humans, people, man has a soul. No other creature has it. But every other creature that breathes, you know, animals, they all have a spirit. There's a spirit of beast. In Proverbs, it talks about who knoweth that spirit of man goeth upward and the spirit of the beast goeth downward into earth. And when animals die, they they their spirit leaves their body. That's the life within them. They have a body and a spirit, but they don't have a soul. What's the difference? I don't know. That's the point. I can't tell you where the soul is. I don't know what the difference between a soul and a spirit is, except that a soul makes us like an image of God. And spirit is like life, you know, within creatures. But God knows. That Jesus Christ is able to divide between the soul and the spirit. He's not telling us here that that's what he's going to do. He's not trying to give us some example of what Jesus does at any point. Don't take it too far. He's just telling you just that God can get in places no one else can. He can split that hair and we can't. Okay? So when he does that, he's doing that to tell us that he's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. See, I only know what you're thinking if you tell me or if you do something, right? And a lot of times doing things speaks louder than words. You know, if you say, or if let's put it on me, let's put it on me. If I say that I love you, and then my actions are quite the contrary, then what's the real intent and thoughts of my heart? You know, if I'm if I'm like, I will, I'll be there. If you need me, you just call, and but every time the phone rings, I don't answer. I mean, like, did I intend, did I mean it when I said, just call anytime, if you need me, just whatever. And then I'm never there. The the actions speak louder than words, but words also speak, can speak your your thoughts and your intents. But God knows them without me having to do things or speak them. Right? This is what he's really driving at. That God sees what's inside the thoughts and intents of humanity. And there's plenty of scriptures that I mean, I was like, okay, I got this, this, this, and these different accounts in Jesus' life where he did this. And I don't I don't want to take the time to go read all those. But as you're reading through scriptures, you'll see where the Pharisees would come up to Jesus and they had it in their mind to trick him, to ask him a question that would twist it so they could, aha, I got you. He knew their thoughts. He knew exactly what they were doing, and he would answer them with such wisdom, it would just confound them. Just shut them up. They're done. Because he knew what they were getting at. When they asked him, is it lawful that we should pay tribute to Caesar or no? They knew, they were like thinking, if he says pay taxes, then we could go to the Jews and say, see, he's on the Roman side. But if he says don't pay taxes, then we'll go to the Romans and say, see, he's a rebel. Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking, so he answered their question with like just such wisdom that I think it's still good for us to remember today. He says, show me a penny. And they showed him a penny, a coin. Now in the Roman days, they we don't do this. In America, if you look at any of your money, you have a person's face on it, that person is dead. Yeah, because in America they passed a law that says you don't put living people on coins. But every other country before that, every other country is like, put your living person on the coin. Like, I want my face on that coin because I'm the ruler, and definitely way back in Rome. Caesar's like, put my face on the coin. So he says, Let me have the coin. What does the penny say? Whose face and inscription is this? And they say it's Caesar's. And he says, Jesus says, okay, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's. So he answered their question in a way they could not possibly get him, you know, trick him, because he knew what they were getting at, what they were trying to do. But he also answered it truthfully for us to remember today that we should give to God what is God's, and give to Caesar what is Caesar's, or what, you know, that means obey the laws of this land as long as they don't conflict with God. But God gets your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength, your everything, right? So that's good for us to remember today. But the point of that was just one example of where Jesus knew what they were thinking, and we understand he does. He knows what we're thinking. And like I said, it can be really scary to realize that he sees my thoughts and my intents at times. It can worry me. Um that neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Again, it can be a fearful thing when I think that Jesus sees me. Like, you think you're over there talking and like to each other and not listening, like, but he sees what you're doing. Like you think your parents can't see you talking or listening, but but Jesus sees you. Like God sees you all the time. And it's scary. Because I'm a sinner. But the next verse and the verses we had talked about earlier really change the context. Because before it says there is a rest we can enter into, and the danger is when we fall into unbelief about not thinking that God will keep his promise to us, or that he won't. Everything he's done in the past, but today, in this problem, today, he's not gonna be there for me, or he can't, or I have to do this one myself, or whatever the Israelites were thinking when they're like, we left Egypt under the power of God when we could not possibly have beat the enemy, but now we got to fight this enemy that God says he's gonna fight for us, but we're scared to go into this battle. That was their unbelief. And when we're going into the that's the the context again was believing the promise of God that he would be there for us. And here we got these verses that say, God sees everything. And then the next verse says, verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Do you feel like those contexts seem strange when we think about the verses that we've been talking about? How Jesus sees our heart and our mind and our thoughts, and I'm scared because I'm a sinner and I sin all the time, and he sees that, and he's sharp and powerful, and a sword he's gonna like divide. But the context is that we need to believe the promises of God, that he is there with us, and we have this high priest that we can come to to get help? Well, yeah, the context seems very strange. If I only think about God seeing everything as a scary thing. So instead, let's think about what is he trying to say here? Is there ever a thought in your heart, in your mind, that you love God? Is there ever a thought in your heart and mind that you want to please him? And that you want to worship him in a way that pleases him? That you want to love your brothers and sisters, you want to love people, and you want to do good. But like Paul, you say, evil is present with me. Do you ever have a thought in your mind that you just can't do right, but you want to? Well, I'm telling you this, first of all, those thoughts in your mind, the intents of your heart to love God and love others, they didn't come from you. They didn't come from your nature. That's a sinful nature. They came from God. They came from the Spirit of God that was placed in you when you were born again. They came from the good source that is God. And when we think about this, that we have these thoughts and these intents of our hearts that we don't perform, God sees the thoughts and the intents. That flips it all on its head, right? That comforts me when I realize that if God only saw my actions and only heard my words, then God would not find me to be a faithful servant. Because I failed so many times. But God sees the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Well, yeah, he put them there, right, to begin with, and he sees that we're striving, he sees that we're trying to love him and love each other. He knows that we are dust, he knows our frame. That's one verse that says he knoweth our frame, he remembereth we are dust. He knows. He knows that we're sinners, he knows every sin, but he also knows the good. The eyes of the Lord are upon the earth, beholding the evil and the good. He knows that we have within us a heart that loves him. And seeing that that's true, we can come boldly. When, like, you know what keeps me from coming to God? My sin. When I see my sin and I know that God sees my sin. You know what allows me to come before God boldly to the throne of grace and pray to him? So when I realize that Jesus saw those sins and he paid for them on the cross, every single one. Even the ones I missed, even the ones I don't know about. God's dealt with that sin and he's put it away. And that he knows the good that he's placed in me. He knows that I love him. If I only was judged based on the love I actually show forth, I'd have no love for God would say, I don't love you, you don't love me at all. But God sees it, He knows it, and He beckons us to come to the throne of grace where Jesus Christ sits, victorious over our sins, and we can approach boldly, it says, because we have a high priest who we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. That means, that double negative in that means that our high priest, it is impossible that he not be touched. It is absolutely an absolute certainty that he is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. See that means more than just our infirmities. I mean, he certainly bore within his own body on the tree of the cross our sins. That's what we're told. He bore all of our sins. He bore the weight of our sins, he bore the guilt of our sins, he bore the punishment of our sins, and he paid for them in full. He put them away. He bore our infirmities. But this is saying that he bears, he's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. You know what one of the feelings of my infirmities are? Like, that I'm a sinner, that God would never love me. That's a feeling that comes from my infirmity. There's a psalm, I didn't look it up ahead of time, so I don't remember where it is, but there's a psalm where the psalmist writes, Will God cast me off forever? Will God not hear? Will he not listen? Will he not answer my prayers? And then he says, This is my infirmity. This is my infirmity talking. He goes, This is my weakness talking. When I think that God won't hear, or he won't listen, or he won't be there with me. That's my weakness talking. My feelings. But Jesus is touched by the feelings of your infirmities. And he's there, he sees that, and he will be there. The unbelief says, God won't help me in this, or I'm too much of a sinner for God to help me. Or I don't, I just, I got everybody fooled. They think I love God, but God doesn't get fooled. You know, God doesn't get fooled. God knows more than you do. God knows your heart better than you do. Because, see, there's really like two hearts in man. There's the heart of wickedness that you can't trust. It's deceitful and exceedingly wicked. Who can know it? There's also the heart that God's placed within you, the heart that loves God. Okay? God knows that. He sees that. And that's the one that he's in communion with, because that's where he dwells. That's where he lives. He's in the heart that he placed within you in the new birth. You can't fool God. You can't make him think you don't love him when he knows you do. Right? Even with all of our sins, God is aware. Now, in no way does this license us to just live in a way that disrespects and does not show love to God in any way. I promise you, your Heavenly Father sees, knows, and will chastise those that he loves. I don't recommend disobeying God. But when we do, when we fall, when we fail, God knows what he's done. God knows what he's done in the heart. God knows where you where you're coming from. That's a comforting thought that he knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. When you think about that, when you think about how my worship for him would not be acceptable, except he knows where it's coming from. It's coming from the place he gave me, right? I can't offer to God any kind of worship and praise that is worthy of him. I don't sing good enough for God. I don't pray strong enough and fervent enough for God. I don't preach anywhere near good enough. I don't even preach good as good as I would like to preach. Certainly not good enough for God, but God knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. And when we come to worship Him with a sincere heart that says, I love you and I want to worship you, God. God knows that. And that by the throne of Jesus Christ, our high priest, it cleans it up. It cleans up the worship. Psalm 139, the psalmist writes, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsetting and mine uprising. Thou understandeth my thought afar off. And thou compasseth my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Now again, those verses, when thinking only about how I'm a sinner, can frighten me. That God sees everything. He knows every thought. He knows every word. He knows the angry words I'm going to say before I even say them. Like, sometimes I have the ability to stop the words from coming out of my mouth because he already knew the thought. That's scary. But when I come with thoughts of praise, thoughts of love, thoughts of worship, but I can't get them outright. God knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. He searched it, he's seen it, and he knows it. He's aware of it, he perceives it. The downsetting, the uprising, thou compasseth my path. Now, this was interesting because, you know, I'm not a Greek scholar or a Hebrew scholar by any means, but I try to dig into the words and see if they can add a little, as Adam Green said, color to the. It doesn't change, it shouldn't change the understanding. The King James translation, I trust the translators more than my own knowledge and intelligence. But reading it can give deeper, deeper thoughts. And this word compasseth. Thou compasseth my path. The word compassive means like to surround, right? To totally surround it. But the Hebrew word for compassive in this more often means to spread or to winnow. Now, winnowing is an old farmer thing. Because, you know, some of you make bread straight from uh like from scratch. So I don't. I go to the store and I buy it. But you make bread from scratch, but do you really make it from total scratch? As in like you cut down the wheat from wheat from the field straight to bread? Because if you do, then you have to do something with that wheat. It isn't ready for bread yet, as soon as you cut it off the stalk. You take it and then you have to crush it. And when you crush it, there's some grain that's good, and then there's something called chaff, which you don't want in your bread. It's not good. And winnowing it is when you take that crushed up wheat that has grain and chaff, and you toss it. Like you, you kind of toss it like this, and the grain is heavier than the chaff. The grain falls back down, and the chaff kind of blows in the wind. You usually do this in a breezy place. The chaff blows away, and then you're left with the grain. That's what winnowing means. This word compasseth, kind of surround my path. Also, the Hebrew word carries that winnowing meaning. Now think about what that means. Or what does that mean to you? What do I what's my point? What's your point, Mike? My path in trying to serve God is filled with a bunch of junk, it's filled with chaff. My trying to worship God is not good in itself, all by itself. But God is aware, He knows the Thoughts and intents of the heart. When we come to worship, we come with all our infirmities, we come with all of our feelings, and we come with all of our failures. But he knows the heart that comes to worship. He knows the thoughts of worship. And he can take them and winnow away the chaff. In other words, how does he do that? By the merit and finished work of Jesus Christ on the throne of grace, when we come to him and pray to him, he is able to clean up the worship. Now, when we think of it that way, it makes much more sense when we get down to verse 6, when he says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain to it. See, that verse seemed weird when I think about just how scary it is that God knows all my sins and he's not going to be mocked. What a man sows, he also reaps. I mean, that's scary. That's not a knowledge that would make me say, oh, that's just so wonderful. But you know what? Knowing that God knows that I love him, knows that I want to worship and please him, because he put that within me, and knows and takes all my failures and cleans them up through the blood of Jesus Christ, and he's pleased, that is too wonderful for me. That's the kind of knowledge that makes me rejoice and want to come back and worship him again and again. That's the kind of knowledge that we should have to fight that unbelief that God isn't going to be there with us. Because if God is pleased with our worship, then even as faulty and flawed as it is, then we can come boldly to his throne and find grace to help in time of need. He is there always, even when we fail. So let's not fall into that sense of unbelief after the same example of those Hebrews who said, Yes, God has been there in the past, but now He's not going to be here. Let's instead remember God's eyes are upon those that, well, that's that's verse Psalm 33. I didn't even read it earlier, but I read it two weeks ago or whatever. Um verse 18. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy. To deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Notice in that verse that talks about an eternal and a timely deliverance. God's watching, his eyes are on those that respect and reverence him, that fear him, that hope, that expectant hope in his mercy. When he is going to, he has delivered our soul from death, he's gonna also deliver us in the famine or in the times of life. Don't fall into unbelief. Trust in God and give thanks for the loving mercy he's given upon us to be able to worship him, even as flawed as it is. I thank you for the time. We'll stand to be dismissed if there's well, no, we won't. We'll stand and offer opportunity for membership. If anyone wants to join Grace Church, you have that opportunity right now. We'll sing a hymn. Um afterward, we do have our conference day. So um, is there a number we can sing? 319. 219? 319.