Amen Romans chapter 12 verse
6 we have been contemplating for some time the radical imperative
that the Apostle Paul laid down on the latter part of verse 6
to make sure that if one was given to the office and call
of prophecy that he does it according to the analogy of faith or the
proportion of faith and what he is underscoring is three things
one is boundaries and There are boundaries that are necessary
for the person who alleges to be a prophet. They don't get
to simply prophesy or flow or utter without a sense of parameters,
without a sense of scrutiny. The person who calls himself
a prophet is under obligation to proclaim what they proclaim
on three principles. One is the principle of personal
faith. You can't be a prophet of God
if you don't believe God, it's not possible. As the scripture
says in one place, I believe therefore I have spoken. And
so when it says, let them prophesy according to the proportion of
faith, it is referring to those who are called believers. God
does not use an unbeliever to articulate divine truth for the
edification of the body. He has operated in times past
in very unique scenarios to prove his sovereignty, but it is not
God's normative rule to operate in the life of unbelievers to
edify the body of Christ. I say that because of the faulty
notion that folks buy into God can do anything. God can't do
anything and God won't do anything. Very important for you to know
that. God is omnipotent. And so it's a post de facto reality
that there's nothing too hard for God. But when you read your
Bible carefully, the Bible is not about what God can do, but
what God will do. When you read your Bible carefully,
what you find in the Bible is a revelation or disclosure of
the will of God. This is critically important.
So if you are living on the false notion that you serve a God that
can do anything, you have a flawed understanding of biblical revelation.
The Christian operates according to the will of God, the will
of God. And so one of the wills of God
for us is to take up his yoke and learn of him. So learning
is a critical element in the Christian walk, particularly
if you're gonna be a successful Christian, successful in the
biblical sense. The child of God doesn't have
the right to just jump off the cliff and spread his wings and
say, I'm just trusting in the power of God. That's paganism.
And then it's slothful too. It's sort of a cloak for slothfulness.
Cause you know, we talked about this last week. Most people don't
like to study their Bibles. And my people perish. for lack
of knowledge. God moved men of old to write
down the scriptures and to live very sacrificial lives to put
together this book we call the Bible, and we call this a miracle. He didn't give us this miracle
so that we can throw it aside and exercise some sort of fanciful
faith and hope that that fanciful faith will strengthen us in God.
He's actually called you and me to be disciples. And you know
what a disciple is? A taught one. Someone who is
under the discipline of instructions, being taught. And the end game
for the teaching ministry, which we are actually contemplating,
is edification. The end game or end product for
the teaching ministry is edification. And this is why for the apostle,
dealing with this concept of prophecy, it was very important
that he underscored, let him prophesy according to the proportion
or the analogy or the rule of faith. the rule, the standard, the principle
of faith. And again, we understood that
the last two weeks as meaning that when this individual utters
prophecy, that prophecy must stand in strict accord with everything
else that was declared prior to that individual's prophecy.
Now, when we're talking about prophecy in the general sense,
we haven't brought into the equation the concept of chronology or
covenant. We haven't brought into the equation
the concept of canonicity. Now, canonicity has to do with
God's word being authoritatively identified. And what I mean by
that is prior to the canonizing of scripture, this here is your
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. This is what we call the Word
of God. This is it. This is it. You're not getting any other
Word of God until Jesus comes. This is it. I know some folk
don't believe that, but to step outside of the parameters of
Scripture is to be bitten by the serpent. And some of you
have been bitten, and you know what that means. When you operate
outside of the Scripture under the assumption that your human
faculty, I don't care how confident you are in your reasoning skills,
how confident you are in your thinking skills, how confident
you are in your alleged discernment capabilities. The reality is,
is when you step outside of the parameters of the Bible, you
can and will be deceived. You just don't have the capacity
to deal with the devil in terms of reason and logic and utterance.
He has won that battle every time an individual alleged to
step outside of the scriptures, operate on his own reasoning
and understanding to dialogue with the devil. Our first parents
failed because of it. And the church will fall in the
latter days because of it as well. And so when we talk about
the canonization of scripture, what we're talking about is the
only rule of faith and conduct for the Christian church is the
word of God. The only rule of faith and conduct
for the Christian church is the word of God. Now, I contemplated
the concept of prophecy with you for the last two weeks. without
bringing this idea of the boundaries into the equation because I didn't
want to not consider the method of prophecy that was used particularly
in the first century so very prominently to help affirm and
establish the Word of God. You can't deny in the book of
Acts nor in the epistles that the ministry of the prophets
were an active part of the development of the church. They were. Prophets
were authentic gifts to the church in the first century. They were
part of the building process. So when you read your Bible and
you see this in the book of Acts, And you see this in the epistles.
And you see when Paul speaks about the gifts of the church,
he puts the role of the prophet at what we call the almost top
of the list, the penultimate top of the list. At the top of
the list were always the apostles. Subsequent to the apostles were
prophets. And then your teachers. And then your gifts to the church,
whether they were ministry gifts or sign gifts, and that's a whole
nother category of discussion. The sign gifts, which most people
are enamored with who want God to touch them in a special way
are the sign gifts, but they are always classified as lower
and inferior gifts. They were in the early church
and they are even more so today specifically once we have had
the foundation of the gospel established in that first, second,
third, fourth, fifth century, and even on to today. And what
I mean by that is this, the office of prophet in the first and second
and third century were critical offices to continue to expand
upon the revelation that was given and to affirm that Christocentric
message that was given to the church by the apostles. Interestingly
enough, you notice that Paul doesn't even put apostles in
this category, does he? The seven gifts that are here
are seven gifts that start with prophets and it ends with acts
of mercy. But he doesn't make mention of
the apostles. And that's because the apostles
had their own unique category. Do you know that the apostles
did not come under the boundary principles that are set forth
in the word of God? In other words, when the apostles
preached, the gospel for the salvation of sinners and the
establishment of the New Testament church, it wasn't the job of
the prophets to go behind the apostles and scrutinize and determine
whether or not the apostles were telling the truth. They didn't
have that luxury. The only person that could judge
the apostles were the apostles. The only persons that could judge
the apostles were the apostles. Now hear me very carefully. I'm
not saying that the apostles themselves were infallible. I'm saying that the message that
was given to them from the master was a message that could not
be altered or changed or critiqued by the prophets and the teachers
in the church because they didn't have the qualifications that
the apostles did. They didn't get to walk up to
the Lord Jesus Christ and ask him personally. Why did Paul
say what he said about the ministry of the gospel in a relationship
to the New Testament church? They didn't get a chance to do
that, but now the apostles could reprove one another. Are you
guys hearing me? This is critically important.
Now the apostle Paul did put what we call a regulatory principle
on the apostles in Galatians chapter one. He says, now we
preach the gospel to you. And if you hear anyone else preaching
another gospel, let him be anathema. We will also say this. If we
who are apostles come back after having already preached the gospel
to you and say, you know what? I got a new word from the Lord
and preach another gospel to you. Now let us be a curse, which
means the apostles themselves came under the obligation and
curse of the gospel. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? but in terms of the prophets of the church which would be
more frequently involved in the ministry of the church particularly
teaching ministry of the church the prophets didn't have a right
to assault paul or to challenge paul even though they did they
didn't have a right this is what paul was arguing about in first
corinthians 3 god made me a wise master builder not you there's
only one foundation laid we laid that foundation you get to build
upon it but you don't get to change the foundation So in the
area of the prophecy, that's a business that the apostle has
laid upon those who call themselves prophets. And he said, you have
to operate within the boundaries. You have to operate within the
framework of that which has been consistently laid down by all
the prophets of the Old Testament. Your message cannot be diametrically
opposed to the message of all of God's other prophets. To do
so is to foster confusion. Isn't that right? So I'll take
you to a Bible verse to build on this. I want you to go to
Ecclesiastes 12. We've talked about this dealing with the concept
of systematic theology, and we underscore it in dealing with
systematic theology, the critical necessity of recognizing that
God is a God of what? Order. He's not a God of confusion. God doesn't have a nay and a
yay. God has all yays. And so we read in Ecclesiastes
chapter 12, this set of analogies, and it will underscore the order
of event concerning the ministry of the gospel, particularly in
the category of teaching, but it's comprehensive as well. Ecclesiastes
chapter nine, I'll start at verse nine and go through verse 11,
and you'll see what I'm talking about. Ecclesiastes chapter 12
is after the book of Proverbs, before the book of Song of Solomon,
and it reads like this. Now moreover, because the preacher,
see even King Solomon was called a preacher. Ecclesiastes chapter
12 9 and Moreover because the preacher was wise He still taught
the people knowledge So teaching is critical to the development
of the church. Yeah, he gave good. He that means
he personally heard he gave good he and he sought out and said
in order many Proverbs that means he had a a systematic approach
to teaching in a way that was cogent and effective. He wasn't
just speaking in random, whimsical fashion. He set in order. He
set out and set in order. Many Proverbs, the preacher sought
to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was
upright, even words of truth. Now notice the analogy that he
draws here. The words of the wise, you guys
got that? The words of the wise here correspond
to the words of the prophets. The words of the wise will correspond
to all of the writing of the Old Testament up to this point.
The words of the wise are as goads, goads. We've talked about
that before, right? You know what a goad is? It's
that stick that you prod, that ox or that ass to keep him on
track so that he moves forward so that he can be productive
in his calling as an ox or an ass in the treading out of the
corn. You guys understand that? That's the goad. He says wise
words are like goads. And then they are also as nails
fastened by the masters of assembly. You guys see that? So the wise
words, the words of the prophets, those inspired by the Holy Ghost,
moved by the Holy Ghost, are as goads and as nails. Nails
fasten things, don't they? Wise words fasten truth in your
heart and in your mind, don't they? Wise words confirm truth. They reinforce truth. They establish
truth. They inculcate truth. When you
hear wise and sound teaching, what they do is reinforce the
truth. They clarify the truth. They
fix the truth in your heart. That's the goal of the wise teacher. So you, you're goaded and you
are established. by the words of those who are
called masters of assembly. Now the analogy is that of building
a house. You guys see that? The masters
of the assembly are carpenters. These carpenters are like your
preachers. They're like your prophets. They're
like the people of old, the holy men of old, the godly people
of old who participated in the building of the theological house
of God's word. They all participated in that.
But now notice how they were instructed they were all given
their instruction from one shepherd. Do you see that? Now, that principle
underscores the headship of Christ in the ministry of the word,
which was given to every particular master of assembly, so that on
his particular aspect of the work, he did what the master
told him. The other person working in another
part of the house did what the master told him. In other words,
Isaiah did what what Jesus told him. Jeremiah did what Jesus
told him. Joshua did what Jesus told him.
Habakkuk did what Jesus told him. And by the time everyone
did what the one master told them, we had a house that looked
like something. In fact, we had a house that
the son of God could come to when he was born. And so this
is the analogy that's being set forth. And what it underscores
is order. Can you imagine the head shepherd,
the one shepherd, giving one set of instructions to one prophet
that's diametrically opposed to the other prophet that he
gives a whole nother set of instructions? What would that house look like?
Ripley's believe it or not. And I would say to you, don't
believe it. Have you ever been to the house in San Francisco?
Ripley's Believer in the House. Have you been to the Crooked
House? You know, with weird shapes and dimensions and diagrams and
the doors are all centered and all that. That's what you would
get if men were left to themselves when it came to Revelation. If
men were not constrained by the Spirit of God and governed by
the One Shepherd, we wouldn't have a continuity of truth that
we could depend upon, precept upon precept, line upon line,
here a little, there a little, to lead us into the comprehensive
truth of the Gospel. But because God supervised and
watched over the ministry of the Word all of those thousands
of years, what we have in our Bible is the comprehensive continuity
of divine truth that we call the word of God and it is without
contradiction. There's no contradiction. Oh
pastor, I find all kinds of contradictions in the Bible. No, you don't.
The contradiction is between your two ears. That's where the
contradiction is. God doesn't contradict himself.
We learned that in the book of Job the other night, didn't we
ladies? God is of one mind. The Father, Son, and the Holy
Ghost are always in agreement. There are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three
are one. They speak with one mind. And
so the contradictions that you think you find are contradictions
based upon your finite brain not able to get around infinite
truth coming from its manifold wisdom. And it requires patience,
and it requires humility. for the truth to settle in a
harmonious, cogent way. And the proud will never be able
to see the beauty and continuity and symmetry of the scriptures,
never. God always resists the proud,
gives grace to the humble, always. And so this is a fundamental
rule here of which the apostle Paul is saying, so now those
who are calling themselves prophets with a word from the Lord, they
have to be subject to the boundaries scripture go with me now in your
Bible to the book of Revelation chapter 22 Revelation chapter
22 there's another boundary that must be brought into the equation
as well Revelation chapter 22 and by the way children of God
if you don't understand these boundaries you won't necessarily
know when a preacher is out of bounds and that becomes a problem
for you especially when you go yes and amen to a lie, which
happens all the time. Revelation chapter 22 verse 18,
are we there? For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written in this book. Do you see that? And if any man
shall take away from the words of this book, this prophecy God
shall take away his part out of the book of life and of the
holy city and from the things which are written therein so
there's a takeaway principle here and then there's also an
additional principle in other words if a man or woman who alleges
to be a prophet speaks contrary to God's Word they will do one
or two things they will add to God's Word or they will take
away The fact of the matter is when an individual says they
have a word from the Lord and that word from the Lord is not
the word of the Lord, they have both added to God's word and
they have taken away because they have taken away the warning
not to add. And they have added by saying
something that they should not have said, if you read Jeremiah
23, God said, woe unto you who say thus said the Lord and the
Lord have not said thus. Got it. There's a wall for those
people. And yet people do it all the
time. They do it all the time. And so one of the safe things
for a child of God to do is to take the scriptures and say the
scriptures alone are the divine authoritative word of truth.
All you need is to know your Bible to live a life of fruitfulness
and prosperity. Do you believe that? Hold on. Let me say that one more time
before I take you to a verse. Do you believe that the Bible
is sufficient for life and godliness? Do you believe it? Then if you
do, here's a question you really have to ask. What on earth am
I doing listening to somebody telling me they got a word from
the Lord for me? Because God doesn't operate in
the principles of redundancy. Let me see if I can help you.
This is called logic. I know this is a little tough, but I'm
just going to toss it out there. And I know it's Friday and I
know you're hungry and you're tired and the blood didn't left
your head, especially if you did eat. So you're not hearing
me right now. Here's a question that I've often
asked people who fancy themselves to be prophets. And they have
a word from the Lord for brother Jesse. And they often do. So you got a word from the Lord
from, for me, Does that word correspond with the scriptures?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well show me where
it corresponds over here Matthew chapter 11 verse 28 Okay, but
God gave you that word to say to me When he already said it
in this word to say to me See what we are Contemplating right
here at this point and I want you to be very careful is the
subtle but prominent narcissistic megalomaniac attitude of people
who think that they aren't important unless God is talking to them
personally. Now this actually gets into the
psychosis of the largest social dynamic of people groups who
are not persuaded that the word of God is capable of making us
holy. sanctified and profitable for
the master's use. Are you guys hearing me? Let
me see if we can develop this a little bit more. Go to 2 Timothy
3. Now the reason I set that caveat
down for you is because if you don't know it, here's the reality. The particular venues and constructs
in which people operate in the so-called prophetic word realm
where they are used to hearing words from the Lord, whether
they know it or not, inadvertently, they actually diminish the significance
of the scriptures as the central means of ministry. Whether they
know it or not, inadvertently, they diminish the significance
of the scriptures as the central means of the ministry. The Word
of God is part of the ministry, but it is not the foundation
of the ministry. The prophetic word now becomes
more important and more prominent and actually takes on a much
more authoritative position in the life of that church. Otherwise
it has no real practical functionality if all it is is an echo of the
scriptures. I'm showing you how the subtlety
of the enemy works to displace that which God has called to
be the ground and pillar of the truth in the midst of the church
with the words of men and there's a reason for it but look at 2nd
Timothy chapter 3 you guys have heard this before I just wanted
to be quoted again in our hearing so that you know this In 2 Timothy
3, 16, the apostle Paul speaking to Timothy about the efficiency
and sufficiency of scripture. I'll start back at verse 14. But continue thou in the things
which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing whom
you have learned them, knowing of whom you have learned them.
This is Timothy, the preacher now he's talking to. You continue
in the things that you have learned and have been assured of, knowing
of whom you have learned them. Who did he learn them from? First
Christ, then Paul. What you have been learned, what
you have been taught and what you have been assured of. Now,
this is what I was saying earlier, when you're taught sound doctrine
and you are taught sound doctrine cogently, consistently in a continuity
of truth and clarity, you gain assurance. that the things that
you're being taught are sound. And so there's an assurance that
the Spirit of God gives you as you are hearing the truth in
an effective, clear, continuous fashion. The truth becomes clearer
and clearer to you. Is that not so? The path of the
just is as a shining light that shines more and more and more
unto the perfect day. Do you believe that? So the Bible
tells us in second Peter chapter one that we have a more sure
word of prophecy. You know what that is? The scriptures.
We're unto, we do well to take heed as unto a light that shines
out of the darkness unto the rising of the noonday star. The
metaphor, once again, is the word of God becoming so crystal
clear, so perspicuous is what they say in theology, that you
are ready to die for the divine truth. Because it's so clear.
It's so clear. It has emerged to speak to you
clearly. The Bible has that kind of sufficiency. Are you hearing me? The Bible
has that kind of sufficiency. And you and I are in trouble,
children of God, when we cannot derive from the word of God the
kind of comfort that it alleges to be able to give to us. The
word is a light unto our feet, a lamp unto our path, is able
to make the simple wise, is able to enlighten the eyes, It's able
to convert the sinner. It's able to purify the soul.
It's able to sanctify you and give you an inheritance among
those that are set apart. It's called the word of grace.
So many things that the word of God says or alleges about
its own efficiency that you and I would spend all our lifetime
discovering. That the affirmative of those
things is being true. And so we have a wonderful truth
before us. Listen to what it says. And that
from a child, you have known the what? which are able to make
you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
Now, listen to what he says. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God. And it's profitable for what
doctrine and for reproof and for correction and for instruction
and righteousness in order that The child of God, that's Anthropos. It's not in the genitive. It's
not on the air. It's not it's not for the man
or for the woman. It's mankind in general. The
man of God may be perfect or mature, thoroughly furnished
unto every good work. So the word of God is able to
fill us, facilitate not only salvation is able to make you
wise in the salvation, but it's also able to put you in the ministry. Got it, the word of God. the
Word of God. And so this is the reason why
we're stressing the absolute importance of this. Go with me
to 1 Corinthians 14. I'll share with you one more verse in regards
to the necessity of the prophetic ministry being reigned in by
discernment and criticism so that we don't find ourselves
dealing with a maverick and courting error. I'm in 1 Corinthians chapter
14. We won't deal with the context.
That'll take us way off of our subject. But Paul is in the corrective
mode in 1 Corinthians 14, in the corrective mode. A lot of
things are completely out of whack in the church of Corinth
and as well the concept of the ministry of the word. He warned
in the earlier chapters about the confusion that would take
place in the church if people came in and everybody had a word
and everybody had a dream and everybody had a doctrine. Verse
26, how is it then brethren? when you come together every
one of you have the song every one of you have the doctrine
every one of you have the tongue every one of you has a revelation
every one of you has an interpretation let all things be done unto edify
that's what we're dealing with in the book of Romans as well
so we go on down now to another regulatory principle for the
prophet and it's in verse thirty two do you see it and verse thirty
two look at it And the spirits of the prophets are subject to
the prophets. Got it? Now, here's what this
means. The spirits is not some strange
experience that you have coming up on the preacher, taking him
into some kind of ecstatic utterance. Sorry, it's not. You just have
to do your work. The spirit corresponds to the
gift of the prophet. The spirit corresponds to the
gift of prophecy. When Paul talks about the gifts,
he calls all of them spiritual gifts. And the spiritual gift
of the prophet is the gift of prophecy. That's his spiritual
gifts. And so the gift of prophecy given
to the prophet is to be subject to the what? This is the prophet. This is the prophet from Genesis
through Malachi. You guys got that? So his prophetic
exercise was to be subject to all the other prophets who also
prophesied from the beginning of time. We've already been dealing
with this for the last couple of weeks, haven't we? That's
what that means. It doesn't only mean for him to be subject to
the other prophets in the church. Because what good is that if
they're all in cahoots just to deceive the whole church? See how I'm helping you, am I?
This is so critical because we don't think objectively enough
to be able to ward off these types of designs and machinations
on the part of men. OK, you come into a church, you're
a naive new Christian, happy in the Lord, you're on your honeymoon
with Jesus. And as far as you're concerned, you know, in the kingdom
of God, there's no snakes nowhere. You cool, you in the garden,
no thorns on the rose bush or nothing. Just, you know, everywhere
you go, just blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing.
You sit down and you are in the midst of a worship service and
they go to prophesying and speaking in tongues and doing all that.
You go, whoa, man, I'm right next to heaven. That's what happens. You have no capacity to discern
whether or not they have all gathered together like false
witnesses against Jesus to deceive you. Just because it's two or
three witnesses don't make the two or three witnesses valid
witnesses. Am I telling the truth? So it is not enough for us to
merely say, well, we got three brothers in the church who also
are prophets and they examine the fourth brother who called
himself a prophet and they said his word was good. That's not
what we're talking about. We're talking about the prophets
who have been proven to be God's prophets whose writings are right
here in the book. Let the spirit of the prophets
be subject to this prophet. Am I making some sense? Because
all I've been saying is the same thing in different ways all the
way up to this point. So it's very important for you
to know that. So now everything is to be brought into subjection
to the word of God. Go back to our text now. I'll
just leave you with that for you to think about it. It'll
help you down the line now when you get into some trouble with
these things. And so we can move forward. The ministry of the
prophet was critical in the first century. It's a blessed ministry.
The classical function of the prophet was to utter revelations
that God would give to them for the church's edification, for
the church's development, for the church's benefit. We see
this with Agabus in Acts chapter 11 and Acts chapter 18. We see this operating. But the
prophets in the church in general were individuals who had the
capacity to articulate God's word in a way that was relevant
to the needs of the people. His ministry was different than
the ministry of teaching. Let's see if we can go on to
our next gift and see if we can work that through. Verse six,
verse seven, or of ministry. He says in verse six, let us
prophesy according to the proportion of faith or ministry. Let us
wait on our ministry. Do you guys see that? Now, That
last clause there after, or ministry, let us wait on our ministry,
or let us wait on our, is not in the original language. The
original language, it's very contracted in the Greek. It is,
if ministry, then on ministry. If you prophesy, prophesy according
to the rule of faith. If ministry, then on ministry. And actually what he's saying
is with regards to your ministry, and we'll talk about that in
a minute, the ministry is to be subject to scripture too.
You guys got that? Because he'll change the qualifications
when he get past the teacher into the gifts that have to do
with service. But he's saying here with regards
to ministry, your ministry needs to still be subject to the proportion
of faith or the rule of faith or the standard of scripture.
You don't get to do ministry any kind of way you want to.
OK, so let's let's let's talk about this a little bit. If you
have your outline, you'll see it in your outline. Ministering.
Do you see that? I put teaching before that and
I jumped, I'll go back to teaching in a minute. Ministering the
Greek word is diakonos, the root word is diakos and it really
means to serve. It means to minister. It has
a broad application. They're not just being a deacon
in the church. It does have that official capacity and it emerged
in the book of Acts chapter six when the church had grown and
there were very practical difficulties of food issues, and our older
widowed sisters having been neglected in the area of care because the
church was becoming so massive. Once the church grows there are
a lot of sociological ramifications that come along with it and it
requires the gift of ministry to maintain an equitable and
functionable environment, as well as to continue to temper
the body. And that requires ministers.
This is a remarkable concept because you might think that
a minister is an individual who has a lesser task than the prophet. In reality, that's not true at
all. Let me see if I can help you a little bit. The prophet,
not the apostle or the pastor, Because we've talked about it
before. If we were to write all these
categories down, a pastor could be a prophet. He could be a teacher. He could be a minister. And in
fact, a pastor should be all those things. But they are not
always all those things. It depends on the ecclesiological
construct of the church. If the church is set up in its
ecclesiology in a way that keeps the pastor exclusively doing
the ministry of teaching, where he's not engaged in the membership
on any other level, then he doesn't feel the burdens of the practical
challenges and issues of the church. And so he may not have
the ability to function in the area of ministry. Ministry on
this level the diaconate level. Are you guys hearing me? So you
can have and this is this goes on in your churches and it has
gone on in your high churches your Older state churches for
years in your Anglican churches and your Episcopal churches you
have had a the ministry of the word being executed by the priest
or the bishop or the pastor and yet the other task being done
by your ministers or by your deacons the very practical things
in the congregation they would all meet together in a senate
or in a presbytery are in a session and they would work through the
issues and the pastor would have an opportunity to sit in and
snore while they're talking about the practical issues. I know
what I'm talking about from experience, I'll be honest with you. Because
I've been both a deacon, a treasurer, an elder, as well as a pastor.
And I know all the positions and when you're just a pastor
and you're not engaged in the minutia of the church, you go
to sleep. You wake up right when it's time to pray and close out
and bless the brethren to get the job done. But you may not
have the capacity to do this job of being a deacon. And the
reason why I say that this role is a very prominent role is because
this is a term that referred to the Lord Jesus himself. The
Lord Jesus was a deacon. He was a minister. The son of
man came not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give
his life a ransom for many. So now let's see if I can make
that true just off the top of your head. This is, I think it's
Mark chapter 10, verse 45. Let me see if I can make this
good. Can I, can I try to make this good? So when he was called
to preach, he preached, didn't he? But when people were hungry,
he did what? He fed them, didn't he? And when
people were hurting, he did what? He healed them, didn't he? See
what I'm getting at? The concept of the ministry is
comprehensive when it comes to the master. He is the quintessential
minister. And therefore, in some cases,
particularly, let's say we have small churches or we have missionaries
who operate in the dark regions of New Guinea, Africa, with our
almost barbaric brethren who still eat people. And I'm not
exaggerating, this is true. They get mad at you, they'll
chop you up in the middle of the yard and eat you. This still
goes on. I have missionary brethren, I
know how this goes. But if you are a missionary and
you have just started to work and you're dealing with virgin
territory, folks that are just not they're not learned in any
way, they are unruly and you've got a lot of sociological issues
going on. You've got to help civilize these
people. You've got to help them learn
how to walk with what you become a father to them. You become
a mother to them in every aspect of their life. You have to teach
them how to read and how to write and how to dress and how to be
a Christian. from bottom to top. Now you are functioning not only
in the capacity of teaching, but also being a deacon because
missionaries don't have the luxury of bringing in a ministry team
with him. He or she is out there in the
field working by themselves, looking at this group of people.
It might be just 10, might be 20. I know pastors who did missionary
work, preaching to one person for 10 years. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? A dear pastor friend of mine,
every year I love to get with him. He's one of the older pastors.
He would talk to me about when he was preaching, when he was
doing missionary work in Central America amongst the Hispanics,
how he would just He would find himself going to one man's house
for 10 years. Now he did missionary work for
25 years. He's been in pastoral ministry
for 50 years, but for 25 years, he did missionary work and he'd
go from one home to another home. And sometimes in that home, it
was just the mama listening to him. And sometimes it was just
a son listening to him. And sometimes it was just the
father. Now that's ministry. That's ministry. Most of my weak
peer preachers wouldn't dare want to spend their life pouring
into the soul of an eternity bound man or woman that kind
of ministry because they feel like they're a failure because
under the false notion of what we call American Christianity,
if you don't have a bunch of numbers, then you're not being
used by God. That's a farce. Do you know what
the Bible says in the gospel of Luke concerning one soul that
returns to the Lord? The whole heavens shake with
joy. Isn't that amazing? And yet we're
ready to discard the one soul because we can't get 10 people
to listen to it. Well, the reason you ain't got 10 people listening
to you because you ain't saying nothing worth the Holy Ghost
drawing 10 people to listen to you. You need to come back, get
some instruction and get on your face and learn how to value one
soul. My master was ready to cross
the line from Jewry over into Samaria to meet one woman at
a well to preach the gospel to her. See what I'm talking about? Big difference in what's going
on today. Huge difference. And so the idea of the ministry
here has to do with the comprehensive nature of it. And when Paul,
when the intimation is let him wait on his ministry, he's simply
saying be submissive to the biblical standards, which qualify you
for ministry, because I'll tell you something else concerning
ministry. And this is very important. You will find out your weaknesses
when you have to deal with other human beings. That's why you
got some preachers. All they like to do is climb
up in the pro pit, preach, and then go out the back door. jump
in their car and go home. Because dealing with souls requires
a lot of wisdom, a lot of patience, and you got to have a certain
brevity of experience. You have to be well-grounded
and well-versed in human nature to deal with people. You really
do. If you're an inpatient individual,
if you're an individual who doesn't have a proper worldview, if you
aren't real clear on the human makeup and the disposition of
the character of the soul, if you don't have a real sensitivity
to people's idiosyncrasies, you're not going to be a good minister.
If you are not sympathetic and if you are not empathetic, If
you don't have a fatherly instinct as a man, a motherly instinct
as a woman, you are not going to be good at ministry because
you got to know how to say no when it's time to say no and
say yes when it's time to say yes and to get involved when
it's time to get involved and when not to get involved so you
can grow people because we got a whole lot of people that just
want to just jump up in your arms and suck on them on the
bottle and never grow. So we're not about becoming a
nanny. That's not what a ministry is.
He's not a nanny You get you find yourself running out of
here real quick if you think I'm gonna be your nanny Bunch of y'all didn't figure
that out. I don't jump when you call What what the thing is is that
pastoral ministry which is comprehensive of the of at least the The fundamental
ideology of, of ministering pastoring has to do with caring for the
flock requires knowing how to deal with people where they are
and actually nurturing them. Nurturing people takes a lot
of wisdom and just like little children don't like to be nurtured
by their parents. Grown folk don't like to be nurtured
by their past. It's just true. I don't care
what you say. It's just true until you become mature enough
to understand, okay, this is good for me. And then you benefit
from effective pastoral ministry. But if all you want is attention,
go pay a psychiatrist $100 to give you some attention. And
you can lie to them all you want to. But the pastor don't get
paid that much to be sitting around having you lie to him.
So leave him alone. It's very important for you to
know what I'm talking about. The reciprocating relationship
between the minister who operates as a prophet and as a teacher,
but also as caring, requires for you to be honest and mature
about your own weaknesses, having a true assessment of yourself
so that you are not wasting anybody's time. Can I just be a little
pastoral right now? I'm already in there already.
I've already got some of y'all upset, okay? So let me be a little
bit more pastoral. There are people who live their
whole lives in an altered state of reality. And as a consequence,
they can never face this truth squarely so as to profit. They
are so wounded in themselves and so inward-minded, so in the
cocoon of their own misery and morbid preoccupation with themselves
that they cannot accept any kind of constructive criticism to
help them grow. Because they really don't want
to grow. Because they're too afraid of
growing. Because to grow you've got to challenge certain assumptions
and deal with certain hypotheses and deal with certain notions
and address certain attitudes to grow. And we don't like that. We want to hide behind doctrine. And we want to hide behind protocol. And we don't want to grow until
Jesus comes. Is this true? So the ministry,
I consider the individual who has the gift of ministry, a very
Christlike individual, a very Christlike individual. And even
the Lord Jesus was remarkable to me when it just became very
clear to me, the Lord Jesus, he had a lot of enemies. How
are you going to hate Jesus? How are you going to hate the
Lord Jesus? You got to really be wicked.
Isn't that right? Our subject this Sunday is the
absolute depravity of mankind I hope to help us get back to
some sound doctrine and realize by nature you and I are desperately
wicked We are vile Vile by nature if it wasn't for the grace of
God, we ripped the heart out of the Savior. You don't believe
that Believe it It's absolutely true Absolutely true, so I don't
stand a chance with you I just don't. I didn't gave up long
time. My master, by the end of his three and a half year ministry
was wiped out. It's over with. So the concept
of ministry is a fabulous concept. He doesn't go into any detail.
He simply says, wait on your ministry. Wait on your ministry,
wait on your call to be a deacon and prepare for that. Be qualified
for that or else if you enter into it, what you'll do is make
more of a mess than if you had left it alone. In regards to
that, I have over the almost 25 years that I've been in ministry,
I have seen a lot of pastors come and go. because they could
not get through the early novice stages of ministry. They really
couldn't overcome the overwhelming burden of the ministry. It just
sunk them into despair and they saw their utter weakness and
they didn't know how to navigate themselves out of their weakness
into the strength of Christ. to resource them to be able to
help buoy up the people of God so they can get down the road.
And they just abandoned. The statistics is that 1,500
pastors exit the ministry every year. Minimally 1,500 pastors,
they go in under the illusion that this is just a piece of
cake. After a year or two in the ministry, realizing that
most people don't pay them much attention, they have a rude awakening
and they go out and get a job to pay the bills. I don't blame
them. I just don't blame him, particularly
if you go in with a family. Brother, you better pay your
bills. Don't wait on these knucklehead folk that don't care about you
to pay your bills. You better pay your bills. And
then you can sit back over time and think about why it is that
it didn't work. Because it's miserable when a
pastor doesn't understand what he lacks and then find himself
operating out of a negative or a deficit Now he's negative. Now he's operating out of a deficit.
He's in a mode of takeaway. Things are being taken away from
him, not added to him. He's not drawing from resources.
He's not operating out of the fullness of Christ. He's operating
out of desperation, out of disillusion, out of out of anger. How many
pastors, you know, angry with a church and you hear it in their
conversation to little little nips at the church all the time
because they're angry. That's not how you do it. That's not how you do it. And
so the concept of ministry is very, very important. You guys
pray for the ministry, whether it's an official deacon or an
individual who has the gift of serving in the church, who has
the hands on experience of dealing with people because God gives
people those gifts and they have an inclination to get in the
trenches with people. They find themselves in conversations
face to face with people. They find themselves burdened
with talking to people about their issues and taking those
people's issues to the Lord. They're burdened with that. They
can't get away from it. You pray for those people. Because
this is the glue for relationship. The other thing I would say is
be careful. Because I see in churches that are just they just
don't understand it. that somehow everybody has to
be a minister to everybody else. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't think you have to be a
minister to your sister just because she sat down next to
you and said hi. This ain't a time for you to
do the ministry with her. Just say hi and let's hear the
word. And if you see her next week, say hi again. My name is. And then the week after that,
hi, my name is. I live over here. But don't say, but now, so what
is your problem so I can pray for you and talk with you? This
is what messes up a lot of churches. People think, you know, you've
got to open up the book and tell everybody what's going on in
your life in order for us to be able to connect. A psychobabble,
it doesn't work. It does not. Am I telling the
truth? It doesn't work. You've got an
undercurrent of all kind of iniquity taking place in those kind of
environments. Because that individual says
something wrong to you when you weren't ready to actually share
with them what was going on in you, but because you're in an
environment where you hear all of these religious click phrases,
we need to connect, we need to communicate, we need to talk,
we need to get in small groups and tell everybody what's going
on in our heart. No, you don't. No, you, listen. No, you don't. No, you don't. Because once you
fall into this horizontal role of self mediation, you stand
in the way of the spirit of God and you defraud Christ of his
personal ministry to you. We are actually operating out
of a Christian socialism and a Christian socialism doesn't
work any more than a secular socialism. Are you guys hearing
me? A Christian socialism doesn't
work any more than a secular socialism. The philosophy of
socialism rooted in humanism, rooted in Marxism is under the
faulty presupposition that man is basically good and he is not. And you are not either. So when
you take one rotten apple and put it in a bowl with another
rotten apple, you don't have one good apple. You got two rotten
apples. Now they both stink and it smells
worse. It's okay to have one over here
and one over there. You can manage that with oxygen
around it. You can cut off the bad part
and we can do something. You put two rotten apples together
and boy it just starts stinking up the whole place. It's very
important to understand what I'm saying. And this is why men
and women who haven't lost their mind to socialistic paradigms
in the church, they have a great deal of hesitance of talking
to people and opening up to people and confessing to people. That's
not your priest. That individual is not your priest.
They don't have the right to engage in dialogue concerning
the deep issues in your heart, let alone the qualifications. Is that OK? Very important to
know that you can have a very healthy and vital environment
of saints who love one another and delight in seeing one another
and pray for one another and encourage one another who don't
have to know everything going on in your diary. And I'll tell you how that's
achieved when every one of us is looking to Christ who is the
fullness of the Godhead bodily, who says that we are complete
in Him. So we are drawing our resources
from the one who actually can meet our needs as we all look
to Him. Am I making some sense? Now we
have our real unity. Because unity is not established
by you and I saying that we will allege to agree with one another.
Our unity is in Christ. And to the degree that we agree
with Him, we agree with one another. This is what we're talking about
when we talk about the one shepherd and many masters of assembly.
So the house gets built. See what I'm saying? And the
problem in our churches is Christ is not preached because when
Christ is preached, we leave the church in unity because we
are all looking to the one savior who is the head of the body from
whom every joint knitted together is increased with the increase
of God. It starts from the head on down.
That's called ministry. And that is the ministry of the
Holy Ghost. So let's go into our third point while we have
about 10 more minutes before we move on, before we end for
the night. The Apostle Paul deals with ministry,
says, let us wait on our ministry, or he that ministries on ministry,
and he that teaches on teaching. Senior outline is above ministering,
and that's the term didosco or didoscalon, and it is a very
important concept. Teaching is what I'm doing right
now. Teaching is what our master did. Teaching is what the prophets
did. Teaching is what God did. Job
says, you, O Lord, teach better than the birds of the air, the
fish of the sea, and the beast of the field. God is the great
teacher. To whom shall I teach knowledge? To whom shall I make
understand? Those that are weaned from the
breast and drawn from the, are weaned from the milk and drawn
from the breast. Those who are willing to grow in Christ. Desire
the censure word that you might grow thereby. Desire the sincere
milk of the word that you might grow thereby God actually is
the teacher of all of his people and Jesus came to teach his people
and Jesus told his disciples go ye into all the world and
do what preach the gospel doing what? Teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever commanded you now the concept of teaching
carries a number of interesting metaphors and Shades in the Hebrew
you see I have written up a number of the Hebrew terms It means
to instruct in divine things One of the Hebrew words is Allah.
It's a prominent word. The other one has been been the
Hebrew word been the other one is the bar the bar is the fundamental
word for the word and inherent in the the ministry of the word
is teaching itself and In the Hebrew, the term bin has to do
with with development, the efficacy of the word to develop somebody.
And what that means is. When you have been instructed
properly, you then have been taught, teaching is not simply
the impartation of data, teaching in the sense of the Hebrew word
bin is for that data to actually make impact in your life and
to change your life so that when people see you, they can say
that individual has been taught. They are a taught individual.
They are a learned individual. They are not an unlearned individual.
So it has to do with the efficacy of the word. So does the word
Zabar, so does the word Yadah. The Hebrew word Yassar and Yadah
are words that have to do with the methodology of teaching.
One of the metaphors in the Hebrew language for teaching is to point,
is to point. It's the idea of taking an arrow
and shooting it in a certain direction. And the metaphor is
that of people following the direction of the arrow and watching
it land on its bullseye and getting the point. So a good teacher
knows how to help you get to the point. They don't actually
take you there, but they point you in that direction. They speak
in a way where they can shoot the arrow, and you can follow
it, and you can make the logical conclusion. And when you have,
you say, you know what? Our brother's a good teacher.
I got the point. And so that's the that's the
whole concept. Lamar also is a word that has a very strong
connotation in the instruction to teach is to instruct. It's
to cause to understand. Sometimes it teaches to merely
speak. It also implies warning. And certainly without a doubt,
it means to make known you have not been taught if the truth
has not been made known to you. The goal of teaching is to expound,
to open up the scriptures. So let's just look at a couple
of verses with regards to that. Go with me in your Bibles to
Psalm 51, 13. David will talk about teaching here. I like this
one. And this will help us with the concept of ministry too.
Just in case you got a little beat up on the term ministry,
this will help you. You wanna have some help about
that. This is a very good verse with
regards to that. David has a couple of passages
where he, Several passages in the Psalms where he talks about
ministry. But. Here is a very interesting way
David puts it, I'm going to start back at. Verse seven, and then
I want to go through verse 13, 13 is our verse, but I want you
to get a context on this. This will help you if you're
called to teach or if you're called to do ministry. What you
are called to do is to actually enter into an
experience of grace. Psalm 51, I'm gonna start at
verse seven, go through 13. When you're called to teach,
what you're called to do is enter into an aspect of ministry that
allows you to subjectively experience what your other brothers and
sisters experience so that when you teach, you teach from experience
and God blesses that. You guys got that? Because this
is what David is about to say. In other words, you don't come
and academically learn propositional truth and without experience,
go out and think you're going to help somebody. That doesn't
work. I don't want to fly anybody's plane who got a certificate in
flying and never flew before. Verse seven. Are we there? Purge me with Hyssop. That's what David said. David
understood the inefficacy of the Christian life that is in
a continued state of sinful behavior that blocks fellowship with Christ
and leaves him insensitive to the things of God of which he
is called to be a mentor and example for the rest of the flock
he's the king so everybody's looking at the king am i telling
the truth everybody mama everybody in the house is looking at you
mama daddy everybody looking they turning their head when
you go by but they're watching you got it So if you're constantly
walking in a state of inconsistency and hypocrisy and you're wallowing
in carnality and frivolity, and you are not aware that you are
called to be a living epistle written and known to everybody
in your house, then you're gonna be ineffective in teaching your
children, because you're actually gonna teach them the wrong thing.
You're just actually gonna teach them the wrong thing. So now
David said, because this is a penitential psalm, right? Is this a penitential
psalm? David's show up right now. He
didn't he didn't messed it up for a good year and a half now,
and he's coming back saying, OK, I didn't got it, Laura. You
desire true on the inside. Not just outward sacrifices of
bullocks and oxen and going through the protocol of religion and
screaming, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Truth on the N-word is what God
requires. I don't know how to stress that.
I don't know how to how can I make this come home to us? That the
truth of God's word has one legitimate ground zero one point of contact
and that's the heart. The heart. Truth has to land
on the heart. When it doesn't land on the heart,
we missed it. And you know it. You know. So Here's what David
is saying. You desire truth from the inward
part and from the hidden parts, you'll make me to know Christ.
Verse seven, purge me with his hop and I'll be clean. Wash me
and I shall be whiter than snow. Mark it now, David didn't say
I'll wash myself. David didn't say I'll purge myself.
You can't do it. If you could, you would have.
Come on now, you ain't never washed yourself. Told you that's
how desperate we are as sinners. You think about washing yourself.
You contemplate it. You find all the scriptures that
says, you know, cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh
and spirit, you know, perfecting holiness in the fear of God,
but that's all you do. You contemplate it. You don't do it. All I need
is one real sinner today. That's all I need. One real sinner.
Can I get one real sinner? Good. You can go to heaven with
me. Verse seven. And I shall be whiter
than snow if you do it, God. That's true. Make me, here's
another passive supplication, to hear the joy and gladness
that the bones which you have broken may rejoice. Hide your
face from my sin. Blot out my iniquity. Create
in me a clean heart, oh God. Renew a right spirit within me. Every born again child of God
should be uttering these things without words in the depths of
their soul all the time. All the time. It's just up in
your soul. I shouldn't nobody teaches a child of God this language
This is part of the DNA of his soul. This is what he cries all
the time Because we missed the mark all the time and here's
the reason why we miss it You don't have to teach a brother
to cry out that God cleaned me up Verse 11 created me a new heart.
Oh God and renew a right spirit within me. She noticed the right
spirit Have you met the Christians with the jacked-up spirit? Because
you were one of them, isn't that right? I'll tell you why, because
the Christians with jacked-up spirits, they can always see
other Christians with jacked-up spirits. You got a jacked-up
spirit. Well, how did you pick up on
that so quick? I must say this I'm gonna say
this and help because a lot of you guys are new to the gospel
You really you never heard the gospel before you just hearing
the gospel. You're enjoying what I'm saying, but you don't really
understand the The tacit laws of the gospel. Here's the tacit
law of the gospel If when the truth is preached You look at
somebody else You're legalist in the Pharisee If when the truth
is preached you look at yourself Now you are a hopeful sinner
You guys got that? Now you're a hopeful sinner.
Now you're a hopeful sinner. But every time the truth is being
preached, you start turning and looking at folks. Now, I know
this here applies to that person. Interesting. All right. Verse
11. I love this. David said, Renew
a right spirit in me and do not cast me away from your presence.
There you go. That's a verse that means you
can lose your salvation, right? Of course not. Of course not. What David is saying in this
verse is I'm king. You gave me call to be king.
You can take the kingship from me just like you gave it to me. But I'm asking you to leave me
in my kingship, therefore clean me up and get me right so I can
continue operating as king. Otherwise God will discard the
king the king will be discarded as king, but he wouldn't be discarded
as a child of God because Once saved always say that's absolutely
true When you are born again, you cannot be born again Do you hear me But David understood
his calling as a king, and he realized that the calling of
the king came with qualifiers. God already said that if you
obey me, I'll bless you. If you don't, I'll take you out.
You guys understand that he did that with other of David's sons.
We went through the kings and we saw that, didn't we? I'm talking
about godly kings after the food and God took him right on out.
Now they went to glory, but their ministry was done. Am I helping
you? Because it's very important for
you to know that David is not talking about David was never
ever worried About the fact that he would lose his salvation and
go to hell and take not your holy spirit from me again Is
he suggesting our plan that the holy spirit comes in goals based
upon human performance? No He's saying don't take your
spirit away from me because if you do I will not have the qualifications
to govern as king The office of prophet priest and king required
the anointing The office of prophet, priest, and king requires the
anointing. He could not be a fruitful king
without the spirit of God upholding him and guiding him and keeping
him and allowing him to be a man of integrity with flaws in the
life of the people of God so that they could still love him
and pray for him and serve with him and subject themselves to
him. Since none of us have ever been
under the authority of a perfect man, with the exception of the
Lord Jesus. And we still don't obey him. Got it. I don't worry about folk
that won't obey me. You don't obey Jesus. I don't
expect you to obey me. So now watch this. Cast me not
away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from
me. Restore unto me the joy, not my salvation, the joy of
my salvation. And uphold me with your free
spirit, your liberating spirit. See, when you're right with the
Lord, you're walking in liberty. That's what David said in Psalm
119. I will seek your precepts, O
Lord, because I am walking at liberty. When God has freed you
from the guilt of your sin, from the condemnation or the guilt
of your conscience because of your disobedience, he has affirmed
to you that you are in right relationship with him again.
He liberates you. It's a wonderful experience.
to be forgiven of the Lord and to be walking again in the light
of the living and being able to have fellowship with the Spirit
of God as if that whole matter is done and it is done and to
be able to go on in the Lord as liberty as liberty when we
get to chapter 14 we'll talk about that that's a blessing
when God frees your heart to continue to run for him after
you have messed it up that's the grace and mercy of God that's
what flows from his redeeming glory David said I want that
Cause you know, you can't really serve anybody when you're bound. Is that true? You can't serve
nobody when you're bound. Listen to it. Then at that time,
because of this operation of grace, because of this sanctifying
process, will I teach transgressors your ways? Got it. Did y'all
get that? Then when I teach sinners your
ways, when, when you have restored the joy of my salvation, when
you uphold me by your free spirit, When you affirm your presence
in my life, when you clean me up, when you wash me, when you
hide your face from my iniquity, when you make me to know the
joy of my salvation, then will I teach sinners in the way. Because
you know what you'll be doing? You will be empathetic with sinners. You'll be able to be touched
with the feeling of the infirmity. Now you can do priestly ministry
because you're not acting like, you know what, you over there,
I'm over here. In order for us to talk, you
got to come up here. Touch not mine anointed. He's so holy.
Feet don't touch the ground. You know, when he walk, his legs
don't even move. He just kind of flows. These are the holy
preachers, you know. And when they get near you, they
kind of stand back and shake their hand like that. God bless
you. God bless you. So holy. Holy. David wasn't like that,
and the Lord Jesus wasn't like that. And Paul wasn't like that. And we shouldn't be like that
either. Then will I teach transgressors in the way, teach transgressors
your ways. And this is what Moses was talking
about. Remember, Lord, teach me your ways. Exodus 33. And
sinners will be converted. Got it? And sinners will be converted. Unless you reprobate. And that
is not having the capacity to discern right from wrong. That's
what it means to be reprobate. And we got a lot of reprobate
people, people who don't have the qualification to discern
what's right or wrong. Unless you reprobate, you actually
know when people are pulling the wool over your eyes, when
people are lying to you and being hypocritical, unless you reprobate. Now, when you reprobate, you're
just giving over to false religion. Hypocrisy is just status quo.
But when you are sensitive to inconsistencies and exaggerations
and equivocations and lies and manipulations, you know, you can't be converted under
that kind of atmosphere. Are you hearing me? When you
hear the truth, you know that too. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for your time. Thank you for your word. Thank you for an opportunity
to hear it one more time as we go our way. Give us traveling
mercies. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.