We are studying and preaching through the book of Genesis on Wednesday nights, and we are still going to be in chapter 1 again tonight. And I want to read the entire chapter to you, and then we'll get into tonight's thought. And I've been reminding you each time we talk about the book of Genesis that the Bible is a book about God. It's a book about God. It's not about us, not about our comfort, our wants, or our desires. It's God. It's about His character, about His desires, and about what He would like for us to be. He wants us to be redeemed or to be restored to Him. and that's what the Bible really is about. In Genesis chapter 1 it really lays down the ground work that this book is about God. 32 times in the 31 verses the name God is mentioned here in Genesis chapter 1. So beginning in verse number 1 the Bible says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Do you believe that tonight? And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day. and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that it may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let the fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every herb for meat, and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day, everybody said. Thank you, Father, for this time together tonight. I pray you'll just open our hearts to the truths of your word tonight, to the majesty of it, to the beauty of it, to the power of it. And, Father, I pray it would speak to us tonight, show us some things, teach us some things, correct some things. And, Father, that when all is said and done, you will have gotten all of the praise and all of the glory and all of the honor. We ask these things and pray them in Jesus' name. Amen. We talked about last Wednesday evening that when God said, let there be light, when He said, let there be light, He spoke that word. into existence and it really energized the universe. All of the laws of motion, the forces that we wrongly call the laws of nature were put into place. The gravitational, the nuclear attraction, the magnetic pulls, all those things were brought into action when God said, let there be light. Because they're not really laws of nature, they're born out of the nature of God. And God is the controller of those things. He's the creator of those things. He is the sustainer of those things today. And we know that God's laws are so perfect and unchanging because He is so perfect and He never changes either. And so these laws, these truths about the world we live in really do reflect the unchanging character of God, the perfect nature of God. Those first four days that we just read about here in the first part of chapter 1 really talk about the forming of the earth. You know, whether it was the light or the firmament or the dry ground or the seas or the day and the night, things of that nature. Those were the forming of the earth. And then the next two days, days 5 and 6 of creation, really talk about the filling of the earth. How God is going to populate the planet with both animal life and human life. And so those things are happening. And God established for our benefit, He established a thing called time. And we measure time according to this first chapter of Genesis. We do it by days and by seasons and by years. And I'm always reminded that God made time for us to understand. He wants us to be able to measure our days. He wants us to be able to count our years and to learn to apply whatever days we have left, whatever number of breaths we have left on this earth, that we would apply our hearts to wisdom, that we would have eternal things in view. And think of Him often. God gave us time so we could measure things and we could keep track of things in our lives. And so we're glad for for things like holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. And we're glad for the first day of the week. And we're even more glad, aren't we, at the end of the week when we're finally punching out for the final time of that week and getting ready to go into that day of rest, the day of worship on the first day of the week again. Amen, saints? But on day five, God filled the earth the seas and the skies with every kind of animal. Every kind of animal you can think of was placed into existence on the fifth day of creation. And when God got done with that fifth day of creation, He looked at everything that He had seen and said that it was good. And that's what He's been saying every day so far. If it was the first day or the second day or the fifth day, God created something, He spoke it into existence, and then He's the one who declared it good, right? And we know that we look at the world around us and we should marvel at the creation. We should marvel at the decency and the order and the harmony of how all these different systems and animals and plants and humans all work together, and how we feed off each other, and all those different things that make up the creation. I love going out and taking photographs of creation. I love landscape photography. And as I'm taking pictures, I'm thinking, yes, there's another manifestation of God's handiwork. There's another photo that I'm going to put on my wall that will remind me that I serve a mighty God, a creator God. And there's nothing too hard for Him, somebody say amen. But everything works perfectly in harmony and in order. You know, it has to be a creation of order because the very nature of God, the very definition, I believe the very manifestation of God that we read about here is of order. He created everything and then He designed everything with a purpose. Whether it was the the greater light to rule the day or the lesser light to rule the night, whether it was the fish of the sea or the fowls of the air, He created them all with a purpose. He created them, excuse me, and then He designed them also. He's a designer God, isn't He? But on day six, where we're going to focus our thought tonight, He created man in his own image. Look at verse 26 again in your Bible this evening if you have the Bible open in front of you. Verse 26 of chapter 1 of Genesis says, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Just think about those few words and the power and the potency of those words and trying to process with our finite minds, our limited understanding, the magnitude of those words. God said, let us make man in our image. Let us make man in our likeness. And what does that mean? What does that entail? Amen? It's an amazing declaration that God's going to make. It's the sixth day. He's got everything created that He's going to create. He looks back at the globe. He looks back at the universe, the span of the universe. He looks back at the dry land and the flowing seas. He looks back at the plant life and the tree life and the animal life and the life in the seas and the life above the seas and the skies. And He looks down at man, which I believe man was the crown of God's creative work. And He says, all of this, I look at it, it's not just good, it's very good. Very good. But for me, the most very good part of this chapter is that God made man in His image. He made man in His likeness. He says, let us make man in our image. And I think I know that most of you already know this, but when God said, let us, It's the singular God talking to the three persons that make up the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit have been the three in one for all eternity and will continue to be for all eternity. Isn't that right, saints? So God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit made man in their image. And there's different ways that we can talk about how God made mankind in His image. We would say that, first of all, because there is God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit, that God is a three-part being, and man also is a triune or a three-part being. We all have a spirit, a soul, and a body, don't we saints? First Thessalonians 5 and verse 23 speak to that truth and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and so we interact we see the physical body that's what we we really interact with the most then secondly we interact with the soul because the soul defines our personalities have you ever known someone to have a big personality? Talk about their soul and what comes out of the inner man or the inner woman, whichever is the case. And then the spirit is the part of us that's able to commune with God. And aren't you glad for your spirit that can commune with God, that can worship Him in spirit and in truth, that can go to Him in prayer at any time for any need. We can ask God anything, can't we saints? Joshua asked God to stop the sun for a little bit, and God stopped the sun for a little bit. All right? So we shouldn't be afraid to ask God these things, the big things in our lives. Then he goes on to say, you know, he's a three-part being, and then it says this, I'm sorry, in our image, in our likeness. What did God mean when God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit came together And this divine meeting said we're going to make mankind after our image but also in our likeness. What does it mean to be made in the likeness of God? Well, humans or mankind is different from animal life. We're not the same. Although the way the world looks today, I think you're confused about that. But we're not the same. Animal life and human life are not the same. God made man in His likeness. And when God made man in His likeness, He gave human beings, male and female, the ability to reason, to have rationale, to think over some things, to think about some things. There's an invitation to reason from the great God of heaven, found in the book of Isaiah in chapter 1 and verse 18, where the Bible says this, Come now and let us reason together, saith who? the Lord. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." It's a pretty awesome thought to think this, that God is inviting every man, woman, and child to have a reasoning session with Him, to have a dialogue. God's going to do the talking, we're going to do the thinking, we're going to do the responding here. But God says, we need to have a reason session, a time to talk about some things, for you to think about some things, for you to mull some things over in your mind. And He says, your sins are like scarlet, they're red. You're marred, you're marked. You're depraved. You're unregenerate. You're unredeemed. Here's a word you might understand. You're lost. And God says your sins be as scarlet. They can be. They shall be as white as snow. What a transaction and what a transition to go from something that's blood red to go something that's pure white like snow is. And God says that can happen, but you have to be willing to come to me and reason with me. And what's God going to say in the reasoning? He's going to say this, He said, For all have sinned, it comes to all the glory of God. Right? Everybody. There's nobody who's outside of that purview. There's nobody who's outside the idea that you were born a sinner. That's your sin nature, the way you're born into this world. And God says you need to reason over this. You need to think about this thing. You need to think about eternity and where you're going to spend eternity because I've read the book over and over again. There's only two places to spend eternity. And one is good and one is awful. A place called heaven. Pretty good. A place called hell, eternal torment. Somebody say amen. So you make that decision while you're alive, while you have breath, while you have mental faculties, the ability to reason. And I'll just say this, I know you know this, I know this, but maybe you didn't hear it again tonight. The most important thing you'll ever reason over is what you'll do with God. Amen. God also gave us a mentality. A mentality. Look at Colossians chapter 3 and verse number 10. And have put on the new man. which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him. It's renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him. God has given us a mentality. He's given us the power to think. He's given us some knowledge about Him. And this book is just chock full of gold nuggets of knowledge of God. and wisdom and all those different things, but we have to be willing to put in the effort, to put in the work and actually get our Bibles out and blow the dust off and read them? Come on. He's given us a mentality and the ability to go through these things. We're never going to be as smart or wise or as, quote, intellectual as God is. He's all-knowing. We are not all-knowing. We are much less than all-knowing. But we do have the mind of Christ, and the mind of Christ will help us understand these spiritual and eternal truths. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. That's not bad. Amen. We're not going to ever achieve God-mindfulness, but we do have Christ with us, Christ in you, the hope of glory, who's able to teach us some things. In his likeness, we have the ability to reason. In this likeness, we have a God given a divine spark of a mentality. God also gave us a morality. a morality in that you put on the new man, Ephesians 4, 24, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. We can say this, that when you got saved, God put a moral compass within your soul. You don't need me to get up here every Sunday and Wednesday and tell you right from wrong. I do it, but you already know it. Right? You don't need me to tell you what's right and what's wrong. God already put that in your soul. When He saved your soul, He taught you those things. God even put that in the morality of unredeemed mankind. Even unredeemed mankind is able to discern what is right from wrong. It doesn't take a lot of... It's not rocket science, somebody say amen. You know, God does those things. He put that into our hearts and He put it into our souls so we could have this morality and we could choose right things and reject wrong things. But why do we still choose wrong things and reject right things? Because we're sinful creatures, because the old man never does really die, the flesh is alive and well, and we often become our own worst enemies. Everybody say amen. Amen. And when God gave us that morality, when He saved our souls, when He redeemed us, God also made us to hunger for worship. You'll find out whether a person is saved or lost, everybody worships someone or something. Everybody does. A lot of them worship themselves, right? We can go down and talk about all the athletes of the day, multi-million dollar athletes. who are convinced that they are their own gods and they worship themselves. We can worship our families. We can worship our pets. Don't get me started tonight. We'll be here all night long and you're all gonna be mad at me when we get done. Let me just say this though. Let me just say one thing. If you want to have a birthday party for your dog or your cat, go ahead on, but don't put it on Facebook. I just sit there, I scratch my head thinking, really? I mean, he had a little blue party hat on. He doesn't know it's his birthday. He can't reason like you can. Excuse me. He can't reason like you should be able to reason. Maybe I should rephrase that. Amen. But it gives us this desire to worship someone or something. And as a saved person, we know that we have to give our worship, our devotion, our love. to the God who created us and the God who saved us. We owe Him everything there is in the spiritual realm. I found this quote. I don't know who said it, but I thought this is so beautiful. I'm going to put it up here for your eyes, too. Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. We're never at peace completely until we've made our peace with God and found peace and rest in Him. We come to Him and He gives us that sense of peace and that sense of rest and that eternal joy, that joy unspeakable and full of glory. He's such a good God to us. He really is. God gave mankind, didn't he, dominion over the animals. Back in verse 26 again of chapter 1. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. It's okay for you to squash a spider with your toe. It's okay. Shouldn't probably kill all the spiders because spiders do some good things, right? It's okay to go out and to have dominion over fish and to catch some fish and eat some fish. Amen. It's okay to go out and in the right season, go out and take some quail. It's okay. God gave dominion. God gave dominion over all of the animals, right? But again, you know, I've preached it before. I'll probably preach it again tonight. Just say something briefly so we know we're on the same page. We need to stop applying human attributes to animals. They're not the same as we are. They're not made in the likeness of God. They're not made after His own image. They're made in a different way, and God made us, mankind, to have dominion over them. But sometimes you make me question, I wonder, who has dominion over who? Amen. Why did you get all quiet tonight? I thought you loved me. Alright. Verse 27. This speaks so much to today's culture. I'm not going to camp here. I'm not going to labor here, but we could. So God created a man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. God gave gender. God gave two genders, male and female and none in between. Now I grew up, I grew up and you know, I knew there was, there were some girls who were very athletic. We called them Tom boys back in the day, but they still knew they were girls, right? And there were boys that weren't so athletic. We called them other day, but we're not going to go down that road right now, but they were still boys. They used the boys facilities and the girls used the girls facilities. There was never any confusion about that at all. But now there's so much confusion and gender identity has become such a hot button topic. I do understand what's causing it. It's fueled by the pit of hell itself. It causes confusion, it causes division. that they like division when it comes to those things, because division helps them to continue to cultivate hatred. And as long as you hate something or hate someone or you hate a movement, you'll never listen to that thing. Ever. Ever. I was working out in the gym today. I was overdoing my little kettlebell swings, as they're called, Jim. And I was doing those, and I was in the mirror watching my form, because Tim is big on form. You don't want to have bad form, because Tim will chew you out. He will. He won't hurt myself. And so I was watching my form, and then I heard this younger, two younger guys talking, and they were having a conversation. It was a good, happy conversation. But then the one guy said, wow, the universe took care of that, didn't it? And I said, Huh? So I pulled my little ear pods out and I walked over there. I said, let me just tell you something right now. The universe doesn't care about you. He's like, what? I said the universe doesn't care about you, but the creator of the universe loves you. That's why I said it exactly like that. He goes, you're talking about God? I said, I am. And he got up in my face. He was just about this high. But probably 28 years old. And there's a term shredded, Tim. Is that right? He was shredded. I mean, he was ripped. He could have taken my head clean off. And I was thinking to myself, is he really going to escalate this because I said that God loves him? And I said, no, seriously. I said, God loves you. And I believe this, that he has a plan for your life. And there was like three or four people around me that had phones out. They were starting to record it. I thought, if he escalates this, I'm going to be on Facebook Live. And never be able to show my face here again. Amen? But he said, here's the way he said it. He said, oh, I feel you, bro. I feel you, bro. I said, well, come talk to me afterwards. We'll talk some more about this. And I invited him to church. Everything was like that. And I thought, wow, he's going to confront me over the creator of the universe versus the universe has spoken? Please. So foolish, isn't it? So foolish. But we get caught up in these things. I mean, the media says it. The TV programs we frequent say it. The books we read say it. And so we get kind of indoctrinated in this stuff. That's why I say it's so important that you develop a biblical worldview. Amen? It's going to help you. It's going to help you when you come to points like that. So you're not afraid to stand up and say, you know, I don't think of this universe thing as spoken at all. The universe is inanimate. Amen? Say amen. Where was I at? Male and female created he them, right? Two genders. The same humans that God gave the ability to reason have the ability to be unreasonable. They have shown, they've proven the ability to make poor decisions, to fight counterfeit battles, on and on and on. And I want to say this tonight for the pulpits so you understand where I'm at. Gender is not a social construct. Gender is not a social construct, it's a divine design. Male and female, created he them. And your problem, if you do not believe, man, I know in the room I'm okay. If you do not believe me, your problem is not with me, your problem is the one who assigned the genders from the beginning. Somebody say amen. Because he said, I've made male and female, I've given male and female a commission, a mandate, verse 28. And God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. The two genders are required to go forth being fruitful in multiplying. The two genders are required. I thought you knew that tonight. This is seventh grade education right here. Are required to go forward being fruitful in multiplying. If you believe that men can get pregnant, please come down here tonight and talk to God about that. Amen. Two genders are necessary for fruitfulness and multiplication so the earth can be replenished with other human beings. And God created, whether it's animal life on the earth, or it's fish life in the sea, or bird life in the air, or human life wherever it might be, God created it so only their kind can produce their kind. That was God's design. Again, His order and His decency and His understanding of how far men and women would go. If you want to know how far they would go, go back and read Romans chapter 1. And it began to worship the creature of the creation over the creator. And that gets us in a world of hurt, doesn't it, saints? Now, He's given us a mentality. He's given us a morality. He's given us dominion. He has given us gender. We are not the owner of any of those things. We are not the owners of the earth. We are simply stewards of the earth. God owns the earth. God owns the mentality He gave you. God owns the morality He blessed you with. God owns the dominion that He sets you loose and allows you to have those things. God owns the gender He assigned to you at birth. Amen. We're stewards of those things. We're simply managers. We get to use them on our rental contract while we're alive, whether it's 10 years or 20 years or 80 years or 100 years. However long God gives us life on this earth, we are stewards of those things that He has given us. Amen? Now, I'm going to fast forward from the beginning all the way to a blessed event that's in the, I believe, the near future, and that's the coming of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And when He comes, He's going to come looking for something. In Luke chapter 18 and verse number 8, the Bible says this, I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find what, saints? faith on the earth. And I do believe that faith that he's looking for is the faith of the redeemed and how well we have done with the things that God has given us stewardship over. And that is mentioned for tonight, mentality morality, dominion, gender, that all align with us being made in the image and the likeness of God. And God's going to come and He's looking for how we stewarded, how we were stewards over those things that He has entrusted us with. And we as His people must continue to stand with Him. And I know what you're thinking, Pastor, I've stood with God, I find it to be a very lonely place. It's not lonely at all. You are standing with the creator God of heaven. You are standing with the one who said, let there be light, who spoke the universe into existence. His very words energized the world that you enjoy tonight. You are never alone when you stand with God. Ever. Amen. But then I thought about it on a personal level too, as Mark Hoffer, Saved man. Saved in 1985. I was thinking this next year, I will celebrate 40 years as a child of God. That's amazing to me. That seems like it was just almost like yesterday when I got saved. And now 40 years, four decades will have passed. And I have to ask myself and reflect. I've got to examine myself and say, how have I done reflecting the image of God in my life? How have I done since salvation? Reflecting the image and the likeness of God in my life. Think about it. Think about all the people that you don't like in the world. Think about all the political things that you absolutely detest right now in this life. Think about the things you have written on Facebook about people. who have done things that are just absolutely anti-God in their content, anti-God in their character. Think about those things. And remember, this always gets me, remember that that person that you're attacking, that person that you hate was also made in the image of God. I mean, when I'm down in Phoenix and someone cuts me off, that idiot who cut me off was made in the image of God. I got to stop calling him an idiot. Amen? I got to think about those things. I'm supposed to reflect the image of God. He made me. He saved me. He's coming back to get me, somebody say amen. And I need to think about those things before I go out and start spewing those things. You can say amen. It's alright. I've been there, you've been there. I've done that, you've done that. How are we doing? I know this, that one day I'm going to be like Him. Right now I'm not too much like Him, but I'm going to be like Him. Aren't you glad about that? 1 John 3, 2. Beloved, now we are the sons of God. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall what, saints? Be like him. Looking forward to that day. For we shall see him as he is. This is what it's going to be like around the throne. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them. was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands sang with a loud voice worthy of the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them heard I say, blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever." God said, let us make man in our own image. And in His image created He them. Somebody say amen. We need to be mindful of reflecting the image and likeness of our Creator. our Savior and the one who's coming for us again. Everybody did say again. Thank you, Father, for this time tonight. Thank you for the Word of God. How it speaks to us and helps us, Lord. I know I need to be reminded of these things on a regular basis. Father, I think about certain things I've done in my life where I just wasn't doing real good reflecting your image or modeling my life after your likeness. Father, I know you don't expect perfection, but still you have behavioral expectations and worshipful expectations and spiritual expectations. And Father, I don't believe that any of them are grievous for me. I think they're good for me. I think they're good for all your people. And Father, you just want to draw us closer to you. You want to make us more like the image of the Only Begotten Son. You want to make us more like the image of Jesus, so that others can see the light and, Father, they can hear the gospel count and be saved. And, Father, We were like those one day that we don't care for, and the ones that irritate us, and the ones that annoy us. We were like that one day. But Father, You saved us, and we're different now. And Father, that difference needs to be far-reaching and soul-searching. Help us, Lord, to draw close to You. Help us to reflect your image and your likeness in our lives. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's all stand. We're going to sing, Take My Life and Let It Be for our hymn of response tonight. If God has spoken to you, would you please take some time and speak back to Him? If you don't know Christ as your Savior, come tonight. Let's take the Bible. It says so many great truths to show you you have a willing, ready, loving Savior in Jesus Christ. He really does love you. Now, do you believe this? He has a plan for your life if you'll simply come to Him and begin to submit your will to His. Everybody said, Amen. Brother Russ, come ahead. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my moments and my days. Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands and let them move. at the impulse of Thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee, swift and beautiful for Thee. Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee, filled with messages from Thee. Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose, every power as thou shalt choose. It shall be thy royal throne. Don't forget to grab a couple of VBS flyers for your friends and neighbors and family so they can be aware of our five Sunday Vacation Bible School every Sunday in June from 945 till about noon. You know, I never keep you long. Right. Keep that in mind. And so I want to have Brother Mike Dorr come up and say a word of encouragement and closing prayer, Brother Mike. And we're thankful for God's goodness to us what he's doing in the ministry and we're looking forward to what God has I just Just a few weeks ago. We received a four-month-old baby in the orphanage and Sunday afternoon my wife Was worried about him because he wasn't really making eye contact with people and I Just a few days later after he'd been in the orphanage a few days She noticed that whenever the house mom would come around and little baby would hear her voice when that baby would start looking for For the house mom and what we realized is a neglected baby quits crying after a while and quits looking for help and I thought as Christians, isn't it good that when we cry God answers us and And we cry again, and we cry again, and God is always good to us, amen. Lord, we're so thankful for this time, thankful for this great preaching. Lord, I pray that you'd help us to apply it to our lives. Lord, I pray that you would use us in this dark world so that people could know the love of Jesus. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.