Well, join me in your Bibles
this morning for our last lesson from Luke chapter 15. These three parables that we've
been talking about. It would be good for us to remember
the rule of parables that when Jesus was speaking, And we covered this back in Luke
chapter 8, and it's also elaborated on quite more extensively in
Matthew 13 on the parable of the sower and the disciples. So why do you speak to them in
parables? Or Lord, explain this parable. And He said, unto you it is given
to know, and unto them it is not given. And so here we are
with three parables in a row. And as we go through the rest
of the book of Luke, there's just a number of more parables
coming up. There's just a lot more of them.
And so it's always good to keep that rule of parables in mind
as we look. And this whole chapter consists
of three parables. We've already talked about two
of them, the parable of the shepherd, the great shepherd and the lost
sheep, and the parable of the lost coin and the light. And each one of these, it's layer
after layer of grace. And then we finally come to this
last parable, the parable of, it's called in your Bible under
the topics, it may be called the prodigal son or the lost
son. And we mentioned that prodigal
really isn't a word found in the Bible, but it's just kind
of descriptive of what this person, this younger son did. But it's
not nearly extensive enough to, as Norman was pointing out this
morning, it doesn't really cover the depths of depravity that
enter into it here. So let's read through this last
parable. I think it's called the longest
parable in the Scriptures. It's the longest one. But as
we read it, I just want you to think that the Lord He tells
them three parables for a purpose. He tells them three parables,
and in each parable he lays on another layer of grace. He lays
on another layer of truth. He lays out another thing that's
valuable and precious to the church. And the first two parables
all come to play in the third parable. These things that he
has done, And he talks about first, he uses the metaphor of
a sheep. The shepherd goes after the lost sheep, the way that
the Lord goes after His elect. The second parable talks about
shining that light, the light of the glorious gospel. And now
we come to the third parable that focuses it on a man or a
person. So, let's begin reading in Luke
chapter 15, verse 11. And he said, a certain man had
two sons. And the younger of them said
to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth
to me. And he divided unto them his
living. And not many days after, the
younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far
country. And that'll be the message title
of our class today, a far country. And there wasted his substance
with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there
arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want.
And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country,
and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain
have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat,
and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself,
he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough
and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to
my father and will say unto him, father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee. And I'm no more worthy to be
called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and he came to his
father. But when he was yet a great way
off, his father saw him. and had compassion, and ran,
and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him,
Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and I'm no
more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his
servant, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and
put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither
the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry.
For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost and
is found, and they began to be merry. Now his elder son was
in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he
heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants
and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, thy brother
is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf because
he has received him safe and sound. And he was angry and would
not go in. And therefore came his father
out, and entreated him, and answering, said to his father, Lo, these
many years do I serve thee, and neither transgress I at any time
thy commandment. And yet thou never gave me a
kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this
thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots,
thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto
him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
It was meet that we should be merry and be glad, for this thy
brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found."
Boy, there's just a... I think that we're just going
to try to condense this into one half-hour lesson for this
class, but really, there's enough material in here to go for months. There's so much valuable stuff
in here, but just to kind of keep it in context, we have the
application of the previous two parables, the possession. It's always good to remember
that the Lord speaks, there was a possession. It was called a
sheep, a metaphor for the elect. It was called a coin, something
valuable, and now it's a son. that was a possession. And the
possession becomes lost. And the possession is sought
and searched out. You know, God knew where this
fellow, this younger son was. He doesn't have to search for
him because he doesn't know where they are. He searches them out
according to his purpose and according to his will and time. And this possession is found
and turned. In the sheep, he went to the
sheep and he picked it up and put it on his neck and carried
it back home. And the coin was found and returned
to its owner. The repentance, the sense is,
I'm not worthy. Before, I thought you owed me
everything and I was pretty worthy. He says, no, I'm not worthy.
Rejoicing. There's always the end of every
one of these parables when the last thing is, the last valuable
possession is returned, there's rejoicing from God. So it's important
to remember those basics as we look at these three parables.
Now in the first parable, they use the sheep and the core principles
of grace. We had the great shepherd and
the rejoicing of God and his successful work and finding that
sheep and restoring it and returning it. In the second parable, the
lost coin and the use of light, the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ and the diligent sweeping to find it again and rejoicing
in heaven. You know, I think we read a passage
from the Old Testament said, I'm going to search out my sheep
from the far corners of the planet, wherever they've been driven,
I'm going to find them and return them. And so now we come to this
third parable, And this lost son, this son that's full of
himself and thinks that he's owed, thinks that he is deserving,
thinks that he's worthy. He says, Father, give me. He
demands things. Isn't that what happens when
people think about God. They're kind of demanding of
Him in their unregenerate state. And this parable is so expressive
of how we are in our natural condition. He's like Adam. He had everything. He said, I've
given you everything in the garden, every herb, every fruit, only
this one thing that you can't. He wanted it all. He wanted everything
plus the one thing that he was not permitted to have. And he
said he wanted it all. So we see this young man takes
it and he just blows it. He just spends it all in riotous
living. That's what that word prodigal
means. Expansive spending. just wastefulness, and yet it goes far deeper in
the spiritual application of it. You know, it says He began
to be in want after He had gotten everything that He thought He
wanted, everything that He thought would make Him happy, everything
that He thought would fill His desires. It turned out not, and
he began to be in want, it says. And that means to fall short,
to be inferior, destitute, deficient. And it's the same word that we
find in Romans 3.23, for all have come short of the glory
of God. It's the same. same translation there. Norm was talking about this pastor
friend of ours down in rescue that preached a sermon on things
he couldn't see, and he listed off the things of grace that
a lost person can't see. And John Gill said, this young
son began to be in want, of everything good. He lacked everything good. He was destitute of everything
good. He began to be in want of wisdom,
of grace, of knowledge, and of righteousness. And actually,
he never had these things. And he didn't even know his lack
until the work of the Holy Spirit in him. And Noah doesn't come
right out and say that in this parable that it says he came
to himself. And we'll have to look at that
a little bit because how does one come to himself? But we have
to apply those previous two parables because they're linked inextricably
together here. The shepherd searches out his
sheep. The Holy Spirit shines the light of the gospel in them
and causes them to believe, gives them eyes to see and ears to
hear. And then all these things that he couldn't see, he couldn't
hear. I like what that hymn we sang
said, I was deaf, I was blind, I was dumb. I didn't have ears
to hear, eyes to see. The very things that Rule of
Parables talks about from Matthew 13 and Luke 8 where he's quoting
Isaiah. He says, your eyes are blind,
your ears are waxed gross, and you don't have a heart. all those
things that it covers in there. So, this young man is in that
condition of he doesn't have any of those things and he doesn't
see that he doesn't have any of those things until that light
shines in him. Until the Holy Spirit does a
work in him. And then he came to himself.
And in religion, it falls into their scheme of free willism
and universal salvation. Well, we all have a spark of
life in us, and all we need is something to fan that into life,
and then we'll believe, and then we'll come to the Lord, we'll
come to Jesus. But really, the true picture
is Lazarus. The true picture is Lazarus.
Now he's laying there in his tomb, and the Lord didn't come
to him for four days on purpose, because he wanted everybody to
understand that he was dead. And when he finally did go there,
they said, don't open that tomb, because that's just going to
be bad. If you've ever been around, something's been dead four days,
just laying around, you know what I'm talking about. It's
not pleasant. But the Lord's purpose was that
they understand that he was dead. And Lazarus could no more come
to himself than anything. He was dead. In the metaphor
there was spiritual death. And he didn't come to himself
until the Lord said, Lazarus, come forth. Then he came to himself. That's kind of the picture that
we're dealing with here. This young man, he couldn't come
to himself. He was just down the wrong road. He was down the
wide path that leads to destruction. He was gone to a far country. And you know, a far country, there's a kind of a dual picture
here of in the religious institution
of the time, the Jewish religion, kind of pictures that. But really
it pictures anywhere that we are that's away from God. And
a far country is just away from God. And in religion, the place
where you think that you would be nearest to God turns out to
actually be probably the farthest far country that you can come
to. And so this young man, he joins himself to a citizen of
a far country. And, you know, it's just a picture
of the religious works. Well, you know, you come to a,
you think you want to get some relief from where you ended up. Well, I'll go to a church. I put that in air quotes there.
And they say, well, your problem is you're just not doing enough
stuff. And you need to do more, or you
need to do this, or you need to do that. There's this commercial
on TV. All you have to do is read this
prayer and then call this 800 number and send a check. And so it's just, it's just,
that's the way it is. And, and you know, this far country
is just a picture of religious works and, and oriented toward
uselessness. It's just, there's no satisfaction
there. And, and this This young man,
he joins himself to a citizen there, and the citizen says,
ah, another one. Here's some more useless stuff
for you to do. Go out and feed the swine. He sent him into the fields to
feed the swine. And when I read that, I just
pictured You know, you just have the door-to-door false religion
peddlers coming all the time trying to give you their swine
feed. You know, eating of swine, and with swine,
All that would have been kind of contrary to the traditions
and the laws of Moses. You weren't supposed to eat them,
but it didn't say anything about raising them. I guess you could
raise them and not violate the law, but to what end? If you
weren't going to consume them, why would you be in the business
of being the swine business. And, you know, we ran into swine
a couple times earlier in the book of Luke. The maniac of Gadara
and the Lord put the legion of devils into the herd of swine
and they ran off the cliff. And there's a couple other instances
where swine were represented. But, you know, the Pharisees
would have looked on swine, anything to do with swine, they would
have... It's the same as eating with sinners and publicans. They didn't want anything to
do with that. Swine would have been bad. They would have been
despised. Yet there always seemed to be
a market for bacon. Yeah, I always thought that was
revealing that God said, don't eat swine, and then there was
bacon. It's like, oh yeah, that smells
pretty good when it's cooking. Whatever you say, we will do.
We won't eat that. So there was a rule against that. No doubt it was secretly consumed,
but this fields of a far country. Let's kind of review that a little
bit here. When he spent all there arose
a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. In
this far country, there was a famine. There was no There was really
nothing to eat that was satisfying. And he went and joined himself to a
citizen of that country. And the citizen sent him into
his fields to feed the swine. And he would have filled his
belly with the husks that the swine did eat. And no man gave
unto him. And when he came to himself,
he said about his father, how many hired servants does he have,
and they have plenty to eat, and I'm starving. So, you know,
these fields of a far country, they didn't really produce anything
good. And it's full of the same swine,
we'll say, of self-righteousness. They were not feeding on anything
good. And he would have, it said he
feigned, would have filled his belly. It means he desired still,
his desire was to fill his belly with the same husks that the
swine was eating. That was what he was, well that's
better than starving to death, I'll just go with that. and no
man gave unto him." What a picture is presented of the religion
that natural man offers. They were not feasting on the
bread of life, but husks, the pod. And in the commentaries,
well, this is probably the husk of the cherub tree produces these
pods that have Some kind of a fruit substance in them and in the
hot the husk protects the fruit while it's ripening and growing
and then the husk when that becomes ripe the husk falls off and the
seed falls down and can Reproduce the whatever tree that it was
and and But the the pod the husk is not nutritious really and
It's just a protective layer there that protects the kernel
or the seed. And many times, like if you have
peas, the peas are really tasty, but the pod is a stringy mess
that you can never chew enough. And you end up spitting out a
wad of stringy, fibrous, nasty stuff. That's what this guy wanted
to eat. He wanted that husk. I think
I can get that down. I think I can digest that. I
think I can chew it up enough to where it'll sustain my life.
And what a picture that you have of religion and the things that
they lead you to and want you to do. And so they're not feeding
on the bread of life, but the husk, the pod, the wrapping,
the external, which contain the food. But the real food had been
separated from that. and set aside and the husk was
what was given to the swine. And you know, the husk can never
satisfy. The husk is, it may give you
a temporary sensation of fullness while you're chewing on it. But
in the end, you could never eat enough of it to sustain life. It's kind of like eating a pomegranate.
You could starve to death eating a pomegranate. By the time you
peel away all the external stuff and you get to the little bitty
kernels, there's not enough nutrition in there to make it worthwhile economically
for your body to say, OK, I can get enough of these out to eat
and stay alive. So these husks, they give you
a sensation of fullness as long as you're chewing on them, as
long as you're doing it. And that's the way we find a
lot of times with religion. As long as you're doing something,
you feel satisfied, sort of. But the minute you quit chewing,
the satisfaction goes away and you're left with an empty, unsatisfied
feeling because you quit doing. And so when we have that doo-doo
religion that we talk about, you just have to keep doing,
doing, doing, doing, and it can never be enough. It can never satisfy. And it
can never be enough to sustain life. And likewise, You know,
we might think of it in terms of the Bible in the hands of
unbelievers. It contains the very Word of God, the fruit,
the bread of life, and all the scriptures concerning Christ.
But to them, it's really just a husk. They never get past the husk
part and the wrapping. You know, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, there's foolishness to
him. Neither can he know them because
they're spiritually discerned. And you know, Wednesday night
in Norm's lesson on Zechariah 11, you know, some are given
a heart to believe and eyes to hear. Eyes to see and ears to
hear and others is not given. And that has to be what makes
the difference between a person that's satisfied with the husks
temporarily and a person that says, there's nothing in these
husks. I'm dying here. I have come to
myself and learned because the Holy Spirit shined the light
of the gospel that there is nothing in this religious stuff that
I've been hooked up with. It's just husks. It's just stuff
to do. The Bible is just to the loss,
it's just a book of Well, it's partly history, partly behavioral
modification suggestions and rules to live by and kind of
a Zen, love everyone behavior type oriented issues. And they never get to the Christ
or the Bible. And when he told those guys in
Luke 24, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself. And before, they couldn't really
see that. And we find that He does the
same thing with the church, and with the elect, and with His
disciples. He gives them to understand the
things that they need to understand concerning Himself. And He's
not going to not do that. He's not going to be that shepherd
that goes and looks for the sheep and finds them and puts them
on His shoulder and carries them back. He's not going to be that
light that shines the glorious gospel and draws them from darkness
into His marvelous light and then makes them come to Himself
and not let them be aware that He did all that. It's just not. It's just not. It's necessary that you have
to be given eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to believe
before you can come to yourself. You know, in 1 Corinthians, Paul's
telling him about, as Norm's been pointing out,
his messages from the Old Testament from Exodus when they left Egypt. all the wonderful things that
God did for them, and yet it didn't really faze most of them.
It didn't really, in Hebrews it says that a lot of them, most
of them perished in the wilderness. And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians
chapter 10, he says they all ate the same spiritual meat, but with many of them God was
not well pleased. for they were overthrown in the
wilderness." And they were just kind of eating the husk part
and not getting that bread of life. He said, Moses gave you
not that bread of life, but my Father which is in heaven. And
he said, I am that bread of life. I am the bread of life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. And from John, we could read
that. So the far country didn't really
provide the bread of life, and as we often find in religion,
you're given religious words and religious works to do, and
then you must really supply your own needs, because they really
can't do that. What they give you can't supply
that. So you're kind of largely left
up to your own self to supply that need. And I've just seen
so many that their relationship with what they consider their
relationship with God, it's like a sine wave. It's up and it's
down. It's up and it's down based on what they've been doing or
not doing. There's no consistency there. There's no dependence
on God having finished the work having loved them from eternity,
gathered them and picked them up over his neck and carried
them back and shined the light of the glorious gospel in their
eyes and caused them to come to themselves like we often read
in Ezekiel where, I'll give you a new heart. I'll clean you up. I'll wash you with the water
of the word and give you a new heart, take away your stony heart
and then When all that takes place, He says, then you'll look
at yourself and your ways that were not good, and you'll loathe
yourself. And that's what we find happens in regeneration
and repentance. You look at yourself and say,
oh, I had no idea how far down in the pit I was until He took
me out, and how far away I was in that far country. And you
know, that far country doesn't have anything to give you. besides
stuff to do, more works. And if you're still not satisfied,
well, there must be something else wrong. Maybe you should
be on the mission field. Maybe you're not surrendering
this or that. It's all stuff to do. It's not
being led by God. It's all stuff that they come
up with you to do so they can say, well, that person had a
problem, but I put him on the right track. I sent them to Brazil
or Russia or someplace else to get more swine food out, so other
people could be equally unsatisfied. They only have nothing to give.
No grace, no gospel, no knowledge, no understanding, just more useless
works. And you have to keep eating the
husk. You have to keep feeding the swine and waiting for satisfaction,
for relief that never really comes. And in the far country,
like we have portrayed in Egypt, we think we have bread to the
full. That's what they told Moses. Oh, I wish we were back in Egypt
where we had bread to the full. 18 hours a day we had to be out
there tromping in the mud and straw, making bricks with a whip
guy over us, beating us. And they thought, well, that's
wonderful. We forgot about that part. But you know, Moses said, when the Lord gives you bread
to the full, then you'll be full. But that bread you get from Egypt,
it's not nutritious. And it disguises a really horrible
situation. And like those ones in the wilderness
said, did you bring us out to kill us? That's how they viewed
it, all the wonderful works of God. Did you bring us out here
in the wilderness to kill us? with hunger. You know, it seemed
like those husks were pretty appealing to those guys, even
if it meant being a slave and a miserable existence. But for
a few, there were a few that saw Christ in all of it. There
were a few that came to themselves. There were a few that the light
of the gospel shined in. But most of them, They went to
their graves chewing on a husk. When he came to himself, he said,
how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to
spare and I perish with hunger? And boy, we could go back to
Joseph and his brothers and look at all that story, but we're
almost out of time today. But we have to look at how does
one come to ourself? The result is a realization of
our true circumstance and need. When the gospel shines into us
and we've been reborn, we say, boy, I do need a savior. I do need help to get out of
bondage of where I'm at. We do find out that we're in
a far country. away from God. And like Lazarus,
did he come to himself rising and saying, well, I need to get
out of this musty old tomb. It's not nice in here. Not much
to eat. No, he really couldn't. And that
maniac of Gadara, he didn't come to himself unaided to abandon
the far country and sit at the feet of Jesus. clothed in his right mind. Again,
it took the command of Jesus to free him from his bonds. And
that's what it always takes. It always takes that. And yet
we don't see it in our dead condition like Lazarus. Until God Almighty
command him to arise, he would never, he couldn't. We have to be called out of the
far country. And, you know, we see example
after example of that in the Old Testament. Norm mentioned
Abraham this morning, called him out of a nasty place, full
of nasty people, full of husks, called him out of that country
and into where he wanted him to be. We have to be called out
of the far countries in Ephesians 2, verse 13 says, but now in
Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by
the blood of Christ. That's what makes the difference. Called out of darkness where
the husks seem appealing in 1 Peter 2, verse 9, 1 Peter 2.9 says, you are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. And we always stress that that
peculiar doesn't mean you have like three ears or an eyeball
in the middle of your forehead or something weird like a sideshow. That word peculiar means a valued,
treasured possession. a valued, treasured possession. Like that sheep that the Lord,
the shepherd, he went after it. Like that lost coin. Like this
younger son. You're a peculiar people that
you should show forth the praises of Him who makes a difference. Of Him who called you out of
that darkness. Out of the land of husks. into
His marvelous light. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ." The true bread that satisfaction only comes from
God. The only bread that satisfies.
The bread of life. Moses said, this shall be when
the Lord shall give you flesh. in the evening flesh to eat,
in the morning bread to the full. That's what makes the difference.
Jesus, that true bread from heaven, which in the law was only a picture,
And He sent them bread, the manna from heaven. But it was only
a picture of Him bringing Himself, because He said, I am that bread
from heaven. But not many people were able
to see that. Repentance and a new knowledge
comes to us in verse 18. I will arise and go to my Father
and will say to Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before Thee. So he goes from where he was
back to where he should have been. He's been turned. He has a new view of things. He has a new view of God. He
has a new view of himself and his father. I've sinned against heaven and
against thee. And that's how he viewed his
prior activities that were what I was owed, what I should have
gotten, what I really wanted in my old nature. Now he said,
that was all done. That's what Paul said. I had
all that stuff and it was done. called out of darkness into the
marvelous light that we saw in parable number two. So the result is turning from
a far country and turning to the Father. I will rise and go
to my Father. Only then is there recognition
of the condition that we were in before God in need of redemption.
I will rise and go to my Father and say unto Him, I have sinned
against heaven and before Thee, I'm no longer worthy to be called
thy son." And, you know, we always mention several of those instances.
Jacob said, looking back, he said, few and evil have been
the days or the years of my life, even though the Lord blessed
him just hand over fist all the time, and he was kind of a scoundrel. And Isaiah, he says, I saw the
Lord. And I was undone. I said, I'm
a man of unclean lips in the midst of an unclean people. Paul
said, wretched man that I am. Like, it's on and on. Every time you
look at somebody, Old Testament Job, Job says, oh, he opened
my eyes and now I'm undone. Every instance we see that happening,
it's recorded that same way. When they've been born again,
when the Lord has revealed to them, they have a different view
of things. That just can't be denied. It can't be explained really,
but that's what happens. So we're about out of time. You could go back and read Ezekiel
36, 22-31 that reveals that same thing that after the Lord does
all that work, then you look at yourself with eyes that look
at things the way that God looks at them. In our text in Luke
it's the same. I'll rise and go to my Father
and say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
Thee. I'm not worthy to be called a son. Make me as one of the
hired servants." Where before he thought he was owed, he was
okay, he was justified by rationalization. He went from give me to make
me. Big difference there. And then
we find God's joy in this repentance. Likewise, joy shall be in heaven
over one sinner that repenteth. more than the 90 and 9 just persons. You know, these Pharisees, they're
kind of like that elder son. I've done all this. I tithe twice a week. Dad, why
am I not getting a reward? I keep the law. I've done everything. Here's my list of stuff that
I've done for you. I kept track. And, well, we know how that worked
out. So, you know what's really telling
about that? He was angry over grace. He was not happy that his brother
came back. He was angry that the Father
displayed grace to him. And that's what we find in religion. Boy, you start telling somebody
about grace that's steeped in Arminianism or free willism,
and you start telling them about grace, they're going to hate
you. And if you're in their body, they're going to throw you out.
Because they do not want to hear about that. So that's very telling
that the elder son was angry. He said, you never did that for
me. You're to blame. We were talking about verses. You're unequal. You're not treating
us equal. So, lo these many years I served
thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment. What
a lie. What a lie. If you say you've
never violated the law, you just violated the one that says, do
not lie. Because it's just not true. And you know, no flesh is going
to be justified by deeds of the law. You're not going to be able
to go to God and say, all these I've kept from my youth up. What
lack I? Well, you lack ears to hear,
and eyes to see, and a heart to believe. It's not been given. So, we've
seen all these examples of Phariseeism. I thank God I'm not like other
men. And the elder son certainly didn't honor his father in murmuring
against his actions. And so much for that part of
transgressing. Thou shalt honor thy father and
thy mother. Well, secretly he was taking
his father to task for his actions. Why do you eat with sinners and
publicans? They that are whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick. And I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. You know, there's
no rejoicing by God in the ones who think they need no repentance,
who are content to dwell in the far country and feed on the husks
with the swine. That's the end of our message
today on Luke chapter 15. That's the close of this chapter.
And next time we get together, we'll be in chapter 16, Lord
willing. And next week, we'll have a guest speaker here, Bill
Parker. And so we won't have Bible class
next week. So until the next time, as always,
be free.