Well, it's good to see everybody
this morning. I'd like for you to turn back to the passage of
Brother David just read John chapter four. I asked him to read this just
for the sake of time. But I want to, I want to use
my text around Verse number 24, John 4, 24. The Gospel of John 4, 24, which says,
God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth. Now, as we read that, we have
to put this text in context, and that's why I asked Brother
Dave to read it for us, because only by reading the full context
of what the Lord has said here can we fully understand what
this verse means. So I wanna begin in verse number
three. I'm not gonna read all these
verses again. In verse three, well, let me
back up, verse two. Verse three, he left, let's go
to verse three. He left Judea and departed again
unto Galilee. And the scripture says in verse
four, and he must needs go through Samaria. Now we're gonna read
later on, and we've already read this, that the Jews had nothing
to do with the Samaritans. So the question is, what does
it mean by he must needs go there? Well, that term means a binding
necessity, a binding. God's children were in Samaria. The Lord had some people there,
and he had to go there. It was binding upon. He came
to do the will of the Father that sent him, the scripture
says. He had to do that. He had some saints there that
he was going to call out of darkness. But like I said, the Jews had
nothing to do with the Samaritans. And the Lord says in one place,
he says, I am not sent but to the house of Israel. So why? Why Samaria? Well, like I said,
he had some people there. But what were these people? And
we're going to read about that. In verse five, it says, then
cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near
to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph. We've been reading on Wednesday
night the history and genesis of Jacob. And this well, Jacob's
well, as you'll recall, there was a city called Shechem, and
this was near the city of Shechem. So what does all this mean? Well,
we're gonna see that. In verse six it says, now Jacob's
well was there. Jesus, therefore, being worried
with his journey, set thus on the well, and it was about the
sixth hour. Here's the humanity of our Lord.
He was worried. He didn't take on the nature,
the scripture says, of angels. He took on the nature of Abraham.
He took on the weaknesses. Our Lord was weak. He was thirsty,
as we shall see. He worried, he got tired. He
had to, in order to be that perfect substitute for God's righteousness. He had to fulfill the righteousness
of God as a man. That's one thing we always got
to remember. There is one mediator, the scripture says, between God
and man. What's it say? The man. Christ Jesus, he came as a man. And in verse seven it says, then
cometh a woman of Samaria. It wasn't by accident. This was one of the women that
he came to call out of darkness. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, give me
to drink. He's thirsty, again, his humanity. He's sitting there on that well,
he's thirsty, he has nothing to draw water with. And here
comes this Samaritan woman. He must needs be at that location
at that particular time. Verse eight, it says, for his
disciples, he was all alone, for his disciples were gone away
into the city to buy meat. In verse nine, then saith the
woman of Samaria unto him, how is it that thou, being a Jew,
askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews
have no dealings with the Samaritans." Why is this? Well, let's back
up and get an understanding here, because this is important. You'll
recall when Solomon was king, that he had, the Bible says,
700 wives and 300 concubines. And the scripture says that in
his old age, his wives drew him away into idolatry. Now I often, I marvel at that
scripture that Solomon, here is a man that God said he loved,
and we think God, We know that God keeps his sheep, but here
was a man that went into idolatry. A man that God loved went into
idolatry. And it just, every time I think
about it, I'm amazed because I just can't comprehend that.
But nonetheless, it happened. It happened. And God told Solomon,
he says, well, because you've done this, I'm going to wrest
the kingdom. Now remember, the kingdom was
in David's hand. He was the king of all Israel.
He says, I'm going to arrest the kingdom from you. I'm going to break it up, but
I'm not going to do it in your time because of David, your father,
but I'm going to do it in your son's time. So when his son took
power after Solomon died, his son's name was Rehoboam, he had
a heavy hand on the people of Israel, and 10 tribes of Judah broke fellowship with the other
two, the other two being Judah itself and Benjamin. These 10
tribes broke away, and God, in his mercy, gave those 10 tribes
a king, a king by the name of Jeroboam, and he was a wicked
man. So now we got 10 kings, or 10
tribes, and two tribes. And over time, when you read
through the Book of Chronicles, and you read through the Book
of Kings, these two different kingdoms were in conflict with
one another, constantly. And over time, by the time that
took place, and here where the Lord is, the hatred must have
been terrible. We want nothing to do with you
10 kingdoms, that's what Judah said. So, in present day language,
those 10 tribes are called the Northern Kingdom. If you look
at a map of the time of the kings, there's a line across Israel.
Northern kingdoms, the 10 tribes, the Southern kingdoms was Judah,
and Benjamin, but it was under the name of Judah. And of course,
Judah was the tribe by which our Lord came into this world. Now in verse 10, it says, Jesus
answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst
have asked of him, and he would, have given thee living water."
Here the Lord immediately begins to open the gospel to
this woman. And he calls himself the living
water. What is living water? You can
picture, the Lord puts us in our terms that we can understand.
You can imagine a spring in a hillside that's bubbling forth water and
through the winter and through the hottest times of the summer,
it keeps putting out water, never ends, it's always putting out
water. That is the living water of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
is the blood that was shed that ever make us intercession for
us, that blood ever covers the sins of his people. And that's
the living water he's talking about. But not only that, We
read in the scripture he talks about the bread of life. Now
we understand about what bread is and we understand about water
is. We understand somewhat of hunger for lack of food. We understand somewhat of thirst
for lack of water. But here is the bread come down
from heaven, the bread of life. Here is the living water of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Ever living, ever living, whose
blood and body we feed on daily, and that's why we're here today.
We're here to learn something about this precious blood that
was shed, this living water, this bread of life. In Hebrews 7.25, it says this. And this scripture amazes me
when I read it because, and I'll make the point, wherefore he
is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing
he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Ever liveth, the scripture
says, to make intercession. It's continual, always, always. People say, well, I can remember
when I was saved, when I was first saved. Well, that's not
how it works. The believers are in constant
salvation. We're being saved right now here
on this life. And in that future life, we will
continue to be saved. That blood, makes intercession
throughout all eternity. That's what it says, he ever
liveth to make intercession. He's gonna make intercession
in heaven. He's gonna be forever the intercessor. So salvation's just not a one-time
thing, and that's what false religion teaches you. Well, it's
sad to say, just to relate a quick story. I had a cousin that passed
away, and he never made a profession of faith, and he was, well, he
was just, I mean, he was a decent fella, but had no interest in
the Bible. And his father told me one time,
his father professed to be a Christian. He says, well, he says, he says,
I can remember back when he made a profession of faith. Brothers
and sisters, that don't get it done. No, that don't get it done. Salvation is a eternal thing. Christ ever lives to make intercession
for you and for me. Okay, back in verse 11. The woman
saith unto him, sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the
well is deep. From whence then hast thou that
living water? She still didn't understand.
He called himself the living water. Her eyes were still closed. She didn't understand what he
was talking about. And in verse 12 it says, art thou greater
than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof
himself, and his children, and his cattle. Now think about what
this woman says. She says, our father Jacob. The Samaritans, even though they
were the northern kingdom, and if you read the history on them,
the Assyrian army come in and took the whole northern kingdom
captive. And some of the Jews in time
came back. But here was a Jew, here was
a Jew, not in a strict sense as being belonging to Judah,
but she was of the descent of Jacob. She was one of the children
of the 10 tribes. And that's why she says, art
thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us this well. She was, as I said, one of the
10 tribes. And that's why the Lord went
there. He had people there. When he said, I am not sent but
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, here was a lost sheep
of the house of Israel. She was an Israelite. And so
he went there particularly to preach to the Israelites. In
all fairness, the 10 kingdoms become very wicked. When you
read through the Kings and Chronicles about the differences, the 10
tribes in those books were called Israel. The tribe of Judah was
called that, Judah. And there was a king of Judah
and there was a king of Israel. And these Israelites, by and
large, were wicked people under Israel. You read about Ahab. King Ahab was a king of Israel.
His wife was Jezebel. We've all read about that. They
were of the king. They were of the tribes, the
10 tribes. And by and large, they were more
wicked than that of Judah. But Judah was also wicked. We
see that. The Lord over and over condemns him for that in those
books. And she says, art thou greater than our father Jacob?
She was an Israelite. In verse 13, it says, Jesus answered
and said unto her, whosoever drinketh of this water shall
thirst again. Here again, he's making a comparison,
but she's not understanding it. Verse 14, but whosoever drinketh
of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life. That's a blessed thought, that
Christ himself is our everlasting life. He has the water, the water
of life. He is the water of life. Salvation
is only found in him, none other. In verse 15, the woman saith
unto him, sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come
hither to draw. And she still hasn't quite understood
what he's talking about. And Jesus saith unto her, go
call thy husband and come hither. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, thou hast
well said, I have no husband. where thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, in that saidst
thou truly. Verse 19, she says, the woman
saith unto him, sir, I perceive, now she begin to see something
a little bit, her eyes are beginning to open, the woman saith unto
him, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Verse 20 says, our fathers worshiped
in this mountain. And ye say, that is the Jews,
she's talking, here's her words, our fathers, our fathers, Jacob,
Isaac, Abraham, worshiped in this mountain. And you say that
in Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship. And that was true. She's talking
about the kingdom Solomon's Temple was built, and the picture in
the Old Testament gives a very beautiful picture of that building. And it was where God says, I've
put my name there. They went to Jerusalem to worship.
The Jews said that, and she was right about that. But she said,
we worship in this mountain. And she's almost equating the
two. Well, you say that Jerusalem's where they ought to worship,
but we, our fathers, our fathers worshipped in this mountain.
And so she's questioning, she's questioning, she's still doubting. And we read it in the book of
Genesis, Marvin's been going over it on Wednesday night, that We read about Jacob and his worship
in these mounts. We read about Abraham. This is
where God, in this mount, this very mount was where God first
met Jacob. And so these Samaritans, these
Israelites of the 10 tribes kind of put their faith in, well,
that's, You know, this is a place. But, but, verse 21 and 22, listen
to what it says. Here the Lord is about to strike
all this down. He's gonna put the truth that's
gonna bring us down to the verse 24 that I read to you earlier. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
believe me. The hour cometh when ye shall
neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the
Father." And I'm sure that she still didn't understand what
he was talking about, but he's about to tell us that. He says,
you worship you know not what. We know what we worship for salvation
is of Jews. He was saying, salvation of God,
Christ himself, has came to the Jews first. That's what Paul says to the
Jews first and also to the Greeks. Christ came to the Jews. He preached
to the Jews. He's going to preach to Israelites
here in a minute. And I encourage you to read the
rest of the chapter because it tells us that he preached to
them and he actually stayed and preached to them for a while,
dwelt with them. They were his people. He says, you worship you know
not what. He was telling the truth. Isn't that the way it
is today in the worship of religion and Christianity? People are
worshiping a little G God and they're satisfied with it. They
don't know what they're worshiping. They have something in their
mind. They know a few verses of scripture
and they have a lot of opinions. There's a lot of opinions out
there. But here's what he's began to say. Worship of the Jehovah
God is not confined to a location. Now we thank God that we've got
this place here to come together to worship. But it is not the
church. The word church means the called
out. The church is the people. If
our worship is confined to this place only, then we've missed
it. That's it. We've missed it, and we shall
see what he says about that. Now, in the Old Testament, the
worship was confined to the temple, I mean, the tabernacle. In Solomon's
time, it was confined to the temple. As I said before, the
Lord said, I've put my name in this place. and the Jews lived
and died by going to Jerusalem to worship. But the Lord says,
look what he says in verse 23, but the hour cometh and now is,
right now, right now, because he has come, he's brought truth,
he's brought the truth of true worship, which we're gonna see
here in a minute. But the hour cometh and now is
when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to
worship him. True worshipers, who are the
true worshipers? Well, it says that they worship
according to the truth, the truth, the truth. We can't emphasize
that enough, the truth. Why? Why? Why must we worship
in spirit and in truth? Verse 24, God is a spirit. And when I go there and I tried,
as I was preparing this message, I tried to conceive in my mind,
how do I explain it? And finally, I just said, I can't. I cannot explain the spirit of
God. I can't. Now in 1 Corinthians, listen
to what it says in 1 Corinthians 2, 11. For what man knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? We know
the spirit in one another. We all have similar tendencies. I know somewhat of your spirit,
certainly not the depth of it, but I know how you think. what the spirit does. I look
out and I see all of you there with different attributes and
different qualities. And I can see that spirit within
you. But that spirit is confined to
this body. God made man out of dust and
it said he breathed into him life. And my spirit is confined
to this body. This body is nothing. This body is but a shell. It's a shell. Nothing more than
that. There's a spirit within me that
drives my thinking, my actions, my words. It all comes from a
spirit. And even there, I can't understand
that. I cannot understand that. But we know it's true. We know
it's true because of experience, and we know it's true because
of what the Lord has said. But when it comes to saying God
is a spirit, that's over our head. Here is the very spirit
of God that is everywhere, but once. The spirit that knows that
God is a spirit, I think I was on television the other day,
there are 7.3 billion people on this earth. And he knows the
thought of every person, every minute, every second of every
day. I can't comprehend that. That
is totally over my head. He's all knowing. He's all knowing. He knows everything. And he's
in every place. We've got a war going on over
there in Israel. God is there. We've got things
going on here in this country. God is here overruling, overseeing,
directing, working all things the scripture says, after the
counsel of his own will. Who is sufficient for these things? So we don't go there. We have
to just say, well, God says he's a spirit, the eternal spirit,
And one other point I often think about, he's the self-existent one. You
try to think about that, your mind just runs up against a brick
wall. My mind is, why is that? Because everything I know has
a beginning. Everything I know has a beginning.
You had a beginning. What we have in our home, our
house had a beginning, it was made. The earth was made, it
had a beginning. Everything we know had a beginning,
but the God of the Bible, Jehovah Himself, the great three in one,
is self-existent. Totally, totally beyond our comprehension. But we're not told, brothers
and sisters, that we're to understand everything. We're not told to
understand everything. We're told to believe it. That's
what Christ, when he came to preach, the first thing he said
was, repent and believe the gospel. Two things, repent, believe the
gospel. Do I understand it all? No. Scripture
says, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now it says in verse 24 again,
God is a spirit, and they that worship him must, there's that
little four-letter word again, binding. That's what it means,
it's binding. No options, no choosing. There's no choosing. People say,
these false preachers say, you gotta make a choice, you gotta
make a choice, you can make a choice, you got free will, you can make
a choice. No, it's binding. must, God is only going to accept
worship in the spirit and in truth. But we've got a problem. We've
got a problem. Scripture says we're dead spiritually. We are dead spiritually. No spiritual
life in us. How can we worship the spirit
in us? toward God is dead. How can we
worship God with a dead spirit? And that's a real problem. Romans
8, 7 says this, and you're all familiar with this scripture,
because the carnal mind, that's the fleshly mind that we're born
with, is enmity, is hatred against God. For it is not subject to
the law of God. And listen to these last four
words. Neither indeed can be. An impossibility. It's an impossibility
for a man to turn himself to God. Well, you know, these false preachers,
they want to tell you, well, you do this, and you do A, B,
C, and D, and no, no, you've got no ability. They've got no
ability, and they lie. They lie. Let's just be honest.
They lie on God. So, What do we do? Well, we can't do anything. God
is gonna have to do something. God himself, in John 6, 63, it
says this. It is the spirit, that is the
Holy Spirit, that quickeneth, that draws, that awakens, that's
what quickeneth means, it awakens. It is the spirit that quickeneth
the flesh, that is our human nature, as we're born in Adam,
The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. Now, in the second place, in
addition to worshiping in the spirit, we must worship in truth. Truth being the word of God and
Jesus Christ himself. The Lord says, I am the way,
I am the truth, and I am the life. But let me ask you this
question. Just from common sense, how many
truths can there be about anything? Can there be two truths about
one subject? I think you know the answer to
that. The answer is no. There can only be one truth. I got to, as I was working on
this, I got to think about the Christian denominations. Why
are there so many Christian denominations? All obviously have different
interpretations of the Bible. Isn't that strange? Think about
that. If you, let me give you an example of where I'm going
with this. If you were, if you're going to buy a new car, you open up the glove box, there's
gonna be an instruction manual in that car. It's gonna tell you how to operate
that car. It's gonna tell you how many
miles you need to drive it before you do an oil change. I've watched
on television, especially on YouTube, people will go out and
buy new cars and they won't change the oil in for 40,000 miles. and all of a sudden it doesn't
work anymore. Why? Because they don't follow the
instructions. There's only one instruction in how to operate
that manual, and that goes for anything. Anything, if you're
gonna build something and somebody writes a book on how to do it,
he expects you to follow those instructions. Or you buy an electronic
gadget, you're gonna read the instructions on how to operate
it. There's only one truth in how to do it. So now, here's
the question. Why, when it comes to the Bible
and scripture, do men allow the nonsense of various interpretations? I mean, reason says something's
wrong. I mean, you would think that
with intelligent people, that they could say, well, you know,
we met. But they don't. They absolutely don't. Men stand in the pulpits and
I don't call them churches. They're meeting houses up and
down the land this morning. And they're listening to the
people that's telling lies. and they don't even think about
going into the scriptures and saying, well, is that true? Marvin
points this out at the time, he says, don't believe what I'm
telling you, open your scriptures and read it. The Bereans, scripture
says they were noble than all because they searched the scriptures
daily to see whether those things be so. False Christianity has become
the Christianity of anything goes. And in scriptures are ignored. We don't need to read a Bible.
I think this boy, that's a, that's one of the drawbacks of man.
I think when a man says, I think when it comes to scripture, the
man says, I think be ready because you're about to get an opinion.
You're out to get opinion. I think you're going to get opinion. And all you have to do is say
the right words. And they think everything's good.
You're good to go. You say you're a Christian, you're
good to go. I believe in God. But brothers and sisters, what
is the truth? What is the truth? Well, here it is. And as I wind
this down, we're gonna talk about, just for a minute, the truth.
And here it is. And I don't like to, I didn't
know any easier way. I can say, well, A, B, C, D.
I don't like to do that, but here's the way I put it down.
First off, the truth is that the entire human race became
alienated, spiritually alienated, from our creator, our God, by
one man's disobedience. That's true. We read that in
the book of Genesis. Now this second one that I've
written down, men have a problem with. The alienation from God
is inherent in every person born in Adam. Inherent. Men don't believe that. They
don't believe in original sin. And you gotta ask yourself, with
all the sin in the world, if original sin It doesn't go from
generation, from father to son, to children, father to children,
father to children, father to children. Why is sin so rampant
among everybody if it's not original? We inherit it. And when you read
the scriptures, it's very clear in that. There's none that doeth
good, no, not one. That includes everybody, Psalms
14 and 53. God looked down from heaven to
see if there were any do good, and he said, they've all gone
astray, there's none doeth good, no, not one. Now, the absolute
justice of God demands satisfaction for the willful rebellion against
him. That's a truth. He is holy, he
is just, and that justice is absolute. In the Old Testament,
the Lord says, and you can look it up, an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. Has God changed his mind? No,
that's his absolute justice. You cut off a man's finger, he
said, the law says it, you lose your finger. That's absolute
justice. It's called equity, equity, equity. And eternal damnation is that
equity for sin. That's it. We're into a very
serious thing here. Think about, you think about
an eternity separated from the goodness of God and goodness
of the Lord Jesus Christ in eternal punishment. There's nothing in
this life, when you really get down and begin to think about
it, there's nothing in this life that even compares with that awful judgment. Yet men don't care. Men really
don't care. You see the depth of depravity
that's in us? You see how deep we are? You
see how deep this runs? We don't have any idea of how
this how deep this sin goes within us. We just don't see it because
it lies so close to us. But even though God's absolute
justice is gonna be performed on Judgment Day, that's gonna
be a terrible time. Let's get real with it. Let's
contemplate it. That I, as I stand here one of
these days, I'm gonna stand before that holy God. Now, am I gonna be Found in Christ
or am I not? Why? Why would a man in his right
mind give up eternal life for eternal damnation? But yet we
do, naturally, we do. That's a fact, we do. This thing called sin, we're, I just, sometimes I just, I just
don't understand it, let's put it that way. I don't understand
fully what this sin is and how bad it is. That God, the eternal
God, is gonna put men in hell forever. You think about that. How bad is that sin? We don't
think it's that bad. Well, we think, well, I did this
and I did that, but that's not all that bad, you know? We judge
sin according to our own thoughts, not according to God's thoughts.
My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways.
That's a truth. But, even in spite of this sin,
God loved his creation. He loved his creation, we read
that. God so loved the world, the order, the order. He loved
his creation, and in its original state, he saw that it was good.
He loved it. He loved it. before the world
was ever created, he determined, and you can't limit it to a time,
it's always been in God's mind. He determined that he wasn't
gonna let man and this world perish. One day he's gonna create
a new heavens and a new earth, the scripture says, wherein dwelleth
righteousness. And he's gonna have a people,
that's going to populate dead earth. Why in the world would man choose
death rather than life? And that goes right back, we
don't see the deadness and the depth of the deadness of our
spirit. But even though he loved this
world, he could not in his justice, look over the sin of his people. He's everlastingly beloved of
people and he chose them, but he can't, he will not. Absolute justice demands that
satisfaction be made. And so he took upon himself the
form of flesh and provided himself a sacrifice. in the form and the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Think about the love, brothers
and sisters, that he so loved the world, he so loved the order
of man, that he himself, and we have
no idea whatsoever, other than scriptures, reading in scriptures,
what he suffered as a man, far more than any man has ever suffered
in this life. took upon himself, lived perfectly,
obedient. I oftentimes think about his
childhood and his young adulthood and his peers around him, how
much they must have mocked him. They mocked him. We see that today. People call
you goody two-shoes, goody two-shoes. You think you're better than
everybody. Well, he was. He was. He was sinless. He came into this world to live
and die as a man for the sins of those centers he everlastingly
loved. Sometimes I wish I could grasp
the fullness of the love of Christ. Our prayer and my prayer, and
I know your prayer is too, that God would increase the love in
our hearts for the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would increase
the understanding and write it, what that man what that man has
done for us. And for those he loved, scripture
says the Holy Spirit gives the power to believe through the
preaching of the gospel. The gospel is the means of the
salvation of God's people. This, brothers and sisters, is
the truth. This is the truth. And if this
is not being preached in the pulpits today, then men are liars. They're lying on God. And we
ought not be ashamed to call them out on it and say, well,
you're lying on God. I ran into a guy the other day
up at Cheston. I had to run into that little
shop and say to pick something up. There's a guy there with
passing out tracks. I didn't read it, I didn't even
take it. I said, he said, I said, what church you from? He, oh,
some church of God there. I said, who's the pastor? And
he gave a name and I, he, I'd heard that man on the radio.
You know, sometimes when you're driving in a vehicle, you turn
things on and you hear somebody preaching, you turn it on, listen,
see what this guy said. Well, I heard this guy preach
and I don't agree with him. I just told him, I said, well,
you know, that man's a liar. I don't believe him. I just walked
on. But here's the truth, here's the truth. What I've said is
the truth. Does it matter what we believe?
Oh yes, must, think of that word, remember that, must worship him
in spirit and in truth, where we are, whenever we are. Scripture
says acknowledge him in all your ways. That's worshiping in spirit. Acknowledge Him in all your ways
and He'll direct your path. That's true worship. Constantly,
all day long, second by second, minute by minute. Thinking that
the Lord, it's the Lord that brought us here this morning.
He's enabled us to gather together to worship together. And I pray,
I pray in closing that the Lord would bless this to our hearts,
this passage. These feeble remarks are not
delivered like I could wish, but we know one thing, that what
the word says is true.