All right, there's seven of these letters here. And these churches were written, or these letters, the churches written to were seven literal churches that existed at the time John wrote this. And actually they were in a hundred mile radius. If you had started at Ephesus and just started making a circle, you could go to all of these seven churches in about a hundred mile radius. Revelations 2 and 1 there begins the letter, two letters to these churches. And so we see here we're going to get into judgment once we get over to chapter 6 is when the judgment's going to start. But we notice here that the Lord is first of all judging the churches. he's going to be telling them, he's judging them, he's telling them what's right and what's wrong. And the Bible tells us over in Peter's writings that judgment must begin at the house of God. But what shall the end be of those that obey not the gospel? And so after the church is taken out at the rapture, what you're going to have left is a bunch of people that haven't obeyed the gospel. And so we look here and all of these All of these letters, just about all of them, there's a certain structure about them in every one of the letters that the Lord gives here. You know, when we write a letter in English class in school, they taught you about the heading, the greeting, the body, you know, all of that. And the Lord has something He uses here, a structure that He uses. And first of all, He starts with a destination. He tells who it is to. He said unto the church of Ephesus. So he tells where this letter is wrote to. Then he not only gives a destination, but he gives a description of each church as to what the Lord sees. Did you ever think about that what we see in our church may not be what the Lord sees? We might and others might think that we got a great church, but the Lord might not be looking at it quite like we do. This is the Lord doing the judging here. So he gives a description of, you know, what is going on in these churches. And he always, before he really gets into really telling them the problem and telling them what he's going to do and the condemnation, and everyone He first of all gives a commendation. He tells what's good about them, as he does here, as we'll see as we start through this letter. And you probably heard your grandma or your grandpa, I've heard mine say it years ago, maybe my mom too, but they used to say, don't ever say nothing bad about anybody until you've said what's good about them. If you can't say nothing good about them, don't say nothing. That's the way my grandma would say it. And, well, the Lord, I don't know if they realize it or not, but that's the way the Lord is. And this might be a help to Brother Jeff and even others, but I picked up on that many, many years ago. And sometimes you have to deal with people, problems. This will work even people that work at a job or at school whatever it might be, if you're working with other people and you have a problem comes up. I learned this later on in the ministry. I didn't always do this, but I've learned whenever I have to deal with somebody about a problem, and maybe we go up to my office, we sit down, we're dealing about a problem. I learned the Lord don't never start with just telling people what's wrong with them and never starts with just outright condemnation. But if there's anything good to be said, now one of these churches there's nothing good to be said. And sometimes that's the case. But if there's anything good to be said, always say that first in personal dealing with someone, a problem or whatever, even in your own family relationship. Because Whenever you start out just condemning people, and you're already off on the wrong foot. The Bible says, a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stirreth up anger. So when you start out with somebody, and you're saying, well this is what's wrong with you, and this is what you need, and we're already off on the wrong footing. But if we could start out and say, I just want to tell you I appreciate the job you've been doing. I appreciate your faithfulness to be at church or I appreciate all the years you've been teaching or I appreciate this, that. Ever how long of things you can say good about somebody before you have to say something bad and deal with a problem, that's good. That's the soft answer that will turn away the raft even before you get into the problem. So the Lord does that. We'll see here as we start. We don't read it, but we'll see as we go verse by verse. And then he starts telling them of their deficiency, of what's wrong with them. Once he's told them about their good works and all these things, then he starts telling them what's wrong with them. Here's where your problem is. The Lord puts his finger on their problem. And then he demands that they do something. He says, this is your problem and this is what you need to do to take care of the problem. And then he tells them, number six, that if you don't take care of it, then he gives them a promise that this is what I'm going to do. So the pattern is destination, where the letter's going to, description of the person or church he's writing the letter about. commendation of good things about them, deficiencies, what's lacking, the demand of what's needed, the discrimination if you don't, and the promise if you do. So that's how the Lord starts this letter out to the angel of the church at Ephesus. Some writers will tell you that that angel is the pastor, pastor. Other writers say that every church has an angel. How many ever heard that everybody's got a guardian angel? Alright, you believe that? Where that comes from is over in Matthew 18. I think it's the right place. It may not be the right place, but it's the same scripture. Yeah, it's the right place. Verse 10. He's talking about children there in verse 1 on down through there. But in verse 10, he said, Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. For I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. So it seems like not only from that one verse, but other places in the Bible. Psalms 23, the last verse said, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow thee all days of life. And I've heard it preached that those are three angels that follow surely goodness and mercy. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But it seems like that every person has an angel. We do know that every In the book of Daniel we learn and in other places in the Bible that every nation has an angel. We know Israel has an angel that watches over them and fights for them. Who is that? Michael. Michael and also Gabriel. Those two angels are always connected with the nation of Israel. Now you say what would a nation need an angel as a representative before them at the throne of God. And you will find different places in the Bible, you will find that those angels do certain things. In other words, if God needed the nation of Russia to do something tonight to fulfill His will concerning prophecy or whatever, It seems like that there is an angel that God would use to deal with the leader of that nation. There is a place in the Old Testament where that God, all His spirits come before the Lord. It is 1 Kings 21, 22. And Ahab is the king and the Lord is fixing to bring his life to an end. And so the Bible said that all these spirits come before God and God says, who'll go persuade Ahab from me? And it said this lying spirit comes forth and says, I'll go, I'll convince him. And the Lord says, okay. And so he goes and he leads Ahab to go into the battle to a place where he winds up his life being ended. So it's not just Donald Trump or Joe Biden that is really in charge of things. Really God is in charge. And God can move these leaders to do things that will bring about His will of what He wants done as far as Bible prophecy. To be honest with you, God is not concerned about any nation. God is not concerned about Russia or China or the United States. The Bible said they are all in Isaiah. The Bible said all the nations to God are like a drop in the bucket, nothing. Of course, the one nation He is always concerned about and they are the hub and everything else rotates around them is a nation of Israel. What I'm saying here is that it looks like that people have a guardian angel. And you know, if you don't want to take that as a guardian angel, every saved person has an angel with them. And in the Old Testament, it's called the angel of the Lord, or the angel of His presence. And everybody that gets saved has got the Lord's presence with them, always. So you could look at it that way. And looking at people have angels and looking at nations have angels, it could be that churches have angels. It might not necessarily be the pastor. It might be a messenger for those individual churches. Could be. So when we look here tonight, we realize that the church of S. Ephesus was founded. Does anybody know who founded the church at Ephesus? The Apostle Paul founded the church at Ephesus. And we read about his visits there. We won't turn to them tonight, but in Acts 18 verses 19 through 21 and chapter 19, verse 20 is the famous chapter there where he's leaving, verses 17 to 38. And so Paul was the founder there. And Paul was there for about two years. That probably shows why that this church was such a strong church. They were a strong church. And Paul was there. We know that Paul was only at Thessalonica for just a matter of weeks. And it's amazing when we read the Thessalonica letter how much they knew about Bible prophecy and the coming of the Lord and the Antichrist and all these things, and Paul was only there a few weeks. But he was at Ephesus for about a space of two years. He was at Ephesus. And so when you've got a man like Paul teaching and preaching every week for two years, the church is going to know something about the Word, and they're going to be somewhat strong in the Lord. It does matter what kind of pastor you got. It does matter. And you could have a very knowledgeable pastor and a very diligent pastor, and that don't necessarily mean you're going to know anything. I've had people say, well, so and so, they go over to his church and I couldn't believe they didn't know this. Well, that might not be the pastor's fault. He might have taught it over and over again, they just never did get it. They never was diligent to grasp it. But if you got a passion or don't know nothing, you probably ain't going to know a lot. You can always grow together. You can always, you know, help each other. And we all grow as we start out. Certainly you don't start out knowing everything. And I'll tell you tonight, after 40 years, you don't know everything. You realize that really you know less than sometimes you ever knew when you get to looking at things. But Paul was there and he was a great pastor. But this church was blessed to have a lot of great elders. They call them elders. And Paul was the founder of it. But then Timothy was there. John was there. Aquila and Priscilla was there. Apollos was there. who helped to get the churches established. And John is said to have been there for over 30 years. John wrote the Revelations. John was there over 30 years. So I guess it is no wonder that the first church he writes about is the church at Ephesus. And remember that all these churches are in a 100 mile radius circle. And so what had happened when they would write one of these letters, even though the letter was to Ephesus, they just passed them around to all the churches and everybody got to read what was wrote to everybody else. So it was kind of like, I guess you could say, a postal route, I guess you could say, is kind of what it was like. And again, these were seven literal churches that existed in the day of Paul. Each one are written in about a hundred year period of time. What's wrote about them covers about a hundred years of time. But not only does it cover exactly what was happening to them, but it's also an outline of the church age all the way down to the end of the church age. There's an age for the church. We're in the church age. In Acts 1, the church aides begin. That's the Ephesus letter, verse 1, and everybody's working, everybody's excited. They're doing great things for God. They're near the apostles. They know some of them. They've got other people, as we'll see in a minute, that were saying they were apostles. And as we go through the last letter of the seven, is the church at Laodicea. That's us. We're the last church age. Look what the Bible has to say about the church age. And unto the angel of the church of Laodiceans. Anybody know what that word Laodicean means? It means the rights of the people. You know what everybody wants in their kind of a day? Everybody wants their rights. The homosexual crowd wants their rights. They want their rights. Everybody wants their rights. We could talk about the Black Lives Matter thing we're seeing going on. Everybody wants their rights. But we have to realize that if everybody gets their rights that sometimes are not right, than some people that have the right rights don't get their right. As Brother Johnny said, ain't that right? So we see the last church age is a church that lives at a time when people are protesting, marching, rioting, and they're all doing it because they all want their rights. They feel like they're mistreated. And then he said that that age, he said that they wasn't what you'd say hot like the early church. They wasn't just cold with nothing. But he said they were lukewarm, middle of the road. That's where we're at. That's their church age. He said they're rich and increased with goods. Most churches today don't have money problems. The least of most churches' problems is money. They've got money to operate. They say we're rich. We're increased with goods. We've got some money in the bank. We've got everything we need. But the Lord said that you are You say you're increased with goods. We've got everything. We've got all that we need, and we don't need nothing. And he said, you don't know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. And so this last day church, verse 20, is a church. I'm talking about the whole age now, not every church, but the whole age. In verse 20, it is a church that the Lord is outside knocking, saying, somebody let me into my own church. But they don't want to run things according to what God wants. They want to use the Lord's name for their church, but they want to do things that are contrary to what God said He wants done in His church, so they lock Him out. and they're running the church. It even says so much in verse 14. And unto the angel of the church. See, it's their church. It's not God's church they took it away from. It's their church. Look in verse 7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. See, it don't say thee there like it does in the other letter. That's something I picked up on years ago. I still got a letter I wrote to a theologian and asked him about that. And he wrote me back. I still got the letter. He said, that's a very interesting thing you picked up on with that word thee in there. The church of thee Laodiceans. It belongs to them. It don't belong to the Lord. And so that's kind of the age we're living in. So you can see that all these seven letters They show the church age from the beginning in Acts 2 all the way down to the end in chapter 4. And chapter 4 ends and then what you got in chapter 3 ends in verse 22 with the Lord begging them to let him in and all that. And then in chapter 4 and verse 1, here's what you got. After this I look and behold a door was opened in heaven And the first voice which I heard was as it of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things that must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne." See, what you got at the end of the church age, you got John caught up immediately, caught up in before the throne of God. And that's a type of the rapture of the church. and the rapture of the church will come at the end of the Laodicean church age, and the church will be removed. Now the reason you know that the church is removed in chapter 4, because from chapter 1 all the way to the end of chapter 4, if I remember right, you've got the word church mentioned some 19 or 20 times. From chapter 4 all the way to chapter 19, The church is not mentioned one time, zero times. You say, how come? They're not here, they're gone. They're gone. So, you got a picture there of the church age. Now, Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the world. It had the temple there, Arminius, or built to the cult of Dinah. And they sold little silver shrines and little statues of this goddess Dinah. And you remember Paul got in trouble there in Acts 19 and verse 23. And it might be worth turning over there to read that. Acts 19 and verse 23, Paul is there at Ephesus and he calls a big uproar. And it said, at the same time, there arose no small stir about that way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Dinah, brought no small gain unto the craftsman, whom he called together with a workman of like occupation, and said, Sirs, you know that by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover you see and hear that not alone at Ephesus but almost throughout all Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away much people saying that they be no gods which are made with hands. So Paul had a big uproar there because Paul was preaching against this and people were getting it and they were stopping buying these little statues and shrines that they worshiped. Now, if you want to make somebody mad, mess with their money, people get upset. Start messing with their money. You remember Alexander the coppersmith? 2 Timothy 4, Paul said, He did me much evil. He said the Lord rewarded him. You remember Acts 16? You remember Paul went down there and had a prayer meeting down by the riverside? And Lydia got saved. The Lord opened her heart and the Word of God was put in there and Lydia got saved. And then there was this other lady there that was demonically possessed. And she kept following Paul and them all around, Paul and Silas, everywhere they'd go, this woman's walking behind them. And she'd say, These men are the servants of the Most High God. These men are the servants of the Most High God. Well, even though what she's saying is true, Did you know if somebody, if you have to listen to somebody say the same thing over and over and over again, and they follow you all day long, everywhere you go, they're following you and they're saying the same thing, did you know it don't matter how saved you are? You can only take so much of that. And Paul turned around and cast that devil out of her. And then she, you see, she had a spirit where that she could tell what was going to happen, what was going to go on, spirit of divination, if you will. And these men was going to her and she would tell them and they were making money off of that. Well, after Paul cast that spirit out of her, she couldn't tell nothing. And they got upset because they ain't making no money now. And so they go to the magistrate who has Paul and Silas arrested, and they beat their backs. And that whole story has to do with the fact that Paul's preaching had messed with their money. They didn't like it. And John wrote St. John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelations, five books. Four of those books John wrote from Ephesus. He was there 30 years. And four of those books he wrote from there. Of course, the book of Revelations is wrote from the island of Patamos. Okay? So he was there 30 years. That's a long time. Amen. So he had a heart for these people. You couldn't stay at a place 30 years and not know a lot of people heart for them. No doubt he won a lot of them to the Lord and had a lot of incidents with a lot of them. And so we've been there 30 years. So no wonder that this is the first letter he writes, the first one he writes is to these people. So he writes, while the church, this church was doing good in some ways, And the Lord tells him that. He said to the angel of the Church of Ephesus, write these things, saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand. And the Bible interprets the candlesticks for us. Go back in previous verses there, and he said, The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. So there the Bible, we don't have to guess about it, the Bible tells us. And anytime the Bible tells you what something means, don't try to make it mean something else. Just the Bible has been said the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself. And so the Bible says that. Now, He says, I know your works, I know your labor, I know your patience, I know how thou canst not bear them which are evil. Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and found them liars. Thou hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. So the Lord says several good things Jesus does about this church. First of all, he said they had works. That's good. James said in his writing, Faith without works is dead. So this church had some faith, and they're out working. They're out in the community. They're involved. They're reaching out. Probably supporting other churches, and so they're working. And a church ought to have some works going on. Church don't have any work, they're face dead. They labor. They labor. Now when you think about works, you know, and then think about the word labored. When I think about the word labored, I think about somebody that's really going at it. They ain't just got a few works, they're laboring. They're really laboring. So this church, I mean, they rolled up their sleeves and they're really doing the work for God. It's good to see a church like that. He said they're patient. They're not expecting everything to happen overnight. They're patient. They're waiting. And he said they hate evil. They hate evil. Doesn't say they hate the people that does the evil, but he said they hate evil. And that's the way we're supposed to be. You've heard it all your life, you know, You're not supposed to hate the sinner, you're supposed to hate sin. And there's a lot of truth to that. And sometimes it's hard to do. But they hated evil. This church would have hated abortion. This church would have hated drugs. This church would have hated prostitution. This church would have hated anything that was evil. They would have hated it. And the Lord said, that's good. The Lord said, that's good you hate evil. that you don't get in too big a hurry. That's good that you're really laboring for God. And then he said, you have tried those who claim to be apostles. Now we're close enough here to the early church, only 96 years after the founding, after the resurrection of Christ, there's still some apostles around because one's writing. So these people are familiar with the apostles. Now you still have some people today that claim they are apostles or that they have apostles. The Mormon Church does that, and there are others that claim that they have apostles. There are no apostles today, none. Look in Ephesians, if you will, Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 and look at verse 7. And he said, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. That means when the Lord, before the Lord went up to heaven, he went down and got those people that were down there in paradise. See, before the cross, people didn't go to heaven. Before the cross, people went somewhere in the lower parts of the earth called paradise. That's why the rich man looked across and seen Elias over there in Abraham's bosom. But after the Lord died on the cross, he went down there and got all of them and took those that were captive, he took them up to paradise. Up there he moved paradise. That's why Jesus told that thief on the cross, he didn't say, today you'll be with me in heaven. He said, ìToday youíll be with me in paradise,î because he was going down before he went up. Okay. He says, ìNow he that ascended, what is it, but he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?î He that ascended is the same also that ascended up far above all the heavens, that he might feel all things. And he gave, watch, he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers. And notice how you end up with pastors and teachers. That's what we've got now. We don't have prophets other than Ricky Prophet. We don't have prophets. We don't have apostles. What we have is pastors and teachers is what we have right now. But what they were doing, there were some people that was coming there to the church at Emphasis and they were saying, we're apostles. And the Lord commends them because He said, you tried them to see if there's really an apostle and you made liars out of them. Well, how'd the Lord do that? Look in Mark 16. How'd the church do that? Look in Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. I preached on this Sunday night. But he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents. And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. The apostles did all of that. The only thing I don't think that you can actually find is where they drank any deadly thing. As far as I know, it's not recorded in the Bible anywhere. You have people today that say they're apostles, and they handle snakes, rattlesnakes, copperheads, drank poison, and you know what happens to them? They find out they're liars. They wind up in the hospital. A lot of them die. I just found out a few years ago I always go through Middlesboro on the way to Virginia and North Carolina preaching. And sometimes I run through there about church time. I've often thought about stopping for a service there somewhere, but not no more. Because I found out they got snake handling churches in Middlesboro. And there was a guy that had his picture on Facebook where he was handling serpents and he got bit. He didn't die. I think his dad died, but he didn't die. And so you got people saying that kind of stuff. Now look at 2 Corinthians 12. Paul is, I think I preached from this Sunday night too. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says there in 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 12, No, it's not it. It must be 1 Corinthians 12. No, it's a problem. I'm in 1 Corinthians instead of 2 Corinthians. All right, 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12. Listen to what Paul says. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Paul said those signs the Lord said would follow those that believed on Him. He said those signs, Paul said those are the signs of an apostle and you've seen them performed in front of you, healing the sick, raising the dead, all these different things. Those were the signs of an apostle. Now, we got something they didn't have tonight. You know what that is? We've got the Holy Spirit, but we've got something else they didn't have. David's holding his Bible up back there. We've got a completed Bible. They didn't have a completed Bible. And so the Lord let them have signs and things to prove that they were who they said they were. We don't need signs today because we've got a completed Bible. Everything that God wants to say to humanity is in the covers of that book right there. Now, don't misunderstand me. That is not all that God knows. That's all God wants us to know. If God put all that He knowed in a book, it probably wouldn't fit in the state of Kentucky because God knows everything. So God gave them these signs and they validated. They were who they said they were. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 22, the Bible said the Jews required a sign. So these unbelieving Jews, that's why if you look in 1 Corinthians 14, that is the chapter that gives the reason for tongues and how they are to be used. And one thing you need to remember, a lot of people don't get this and it'll mess you up bad, that when the book of Acts was written, there's not one church epistle. Not one. There couldn't be. Because who wrote most of the church epistles? He didn't get saved on the ninth chapter of Acts. So when you read the book of Acts, you've got to remember that you're dealing with an early church that doesn't have the church epistles that tell what's to be done and what's not to be done, they don't have that yet. And that's why you have a lot of things in the book of Acts you can't really understand because it's a transition book. The book of Acts is a transition book and what we mean by that is that we're transitioning from the law and the Old Testament way of doing things We're transitioning into the church age and everything's different and don't change overnight. That make sense to you? That's what's going on there. Okay? So this church is doing some really awful good things. This church actually we could say from A.D. to A.D. 30 to A.D. 100 This church was made up primarily of saved Jews. Saved Jews. Jews that got saved. And the amazing thing is that the early church without cell phones, without social media, without computers, without cars, without church buses, without any of the major things that we have today, they evangelized pretty much the whole world of their day. of their day. They've done a good job. I preach over in North Carolina at Moxfield, and not too far from Moxfield, there's a church there that the pastor's name was Hubel Stearns. And that's one of the oldest, if not the oldest, church in America. And that church, there's over 1,500 churches that named their existence coming from Hubel Stearns, over 1,500 churches from that one church. Now, one thing we'll have to say about our forefathers, they probably did a better job getting the gospel out and evangelizing than we did. You say, why do you say that? Because every little holler you go up, and every road you go down, there's a Baptist church somewhere. See the way they did things, they wasn't like our day. Our day everybody wants the biggest church, mega church, huge church, what do you call those huge churches, mega churches? Now everybody wants to have the biggest one. But the way they done it back then was they'd get up about 50, 60, 70 people, 100 people, they'd send somebody out, go down the road and start another church. That's how they evangelized. You don't do that today. The Filipinos do that. That's how they do it in the Philippines. You know, we support three Filipino missionaries that we have for 20 years. Did you know with the money that we send them, they take part of that money and they support another church. That's how they do it over there. They take $5. There's a lot of money in the Philippines, $5 is. They'll take that and they'll support people out of their support. and they're evangelizing. So you got verses like this. You got verses that Romans 10, 18 said, their sound went unto all the earth. Romans 16, 26, that the gospel is made known unto all nations. Colossians 1, 6, the gospel has come unto us as it is in all the world. They done all that in a very short time. You say, why? They were on fire for God. They were on fire for God. They were that hot the Lord was talking about. And we're that lukewarm. We're not froze yet, but we're not ablaze of fire either. Now, in all the church age, you always got, and I'll quit here. I know I'm out of time. Let me just go ahead and get to this. They had one fault. One fault. They left their first love. And the Lord is saying, I appreciate your work. I appreciate your labor. I appreciate your patience. I appreciate your hate and evil. I appreciate you trying the people that said you were apostles. I appreciate your labor in my name. I appreciate you bearing the burden. I appreciate you not fainting. But He said, you left your first love. See, Paul said, In 1 Corinthians 13, the same thing the Lord Jesus is saying there. Paul says, Though I speak with tongues of men, of angels, and have not charity, I am become sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. The Lord Jesus is saying, And they left their first love. What is their first love? Well, every Christian's first love would have to be the Lord, wouldn't it? It'd have to be the Lord. And he's saying, you love the church. You used to love me. I was sharing this with my wife the other day. How many of you know who A.W. Tauzer is? Tremendous man of God and a great writer. I've read his life story by different authors. but the one is by his son. And he was a great man of prayer. He was a great man of the Word of God. He wrote books that are The Pursuit of God. It's a classic today. But in reading it, the last of the book, he says, my dad was a great man and a great preacher. but he wasn't much of a family man. He said he didn't spend a lot of time with us, and oftentimes he was off to his self. And after A.W. Tauzer died, his wife remarried somebody in the church. I can't remember the name, so I'm just going to say Stanley. And they interviewed A.W. Tauzer's wife, and they said, You've remarried. How's it going? She said, I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. They said, how do you explain that? And she said simply like this, A.W. Tauzer loved God. Stanley loved me. Father, thank you tonight, Lord, for letting us gather tonight. And thank you, Lord, for the Word of God. And thank you for the Holy Spirit that helps us. And I can tell tonight there's a lot of folks, maybe everybody was listening and grasping and getting something tonight. And that's what we're shooting for. That's what we're praying for. Now, Lord, I don't understand all the many questions they'll ask me over the next few months that I won't have answers for. But I thank you for what little I do know, and I'm praying to learn more. And I pray you'd help us all to be hungry about the things of God because we're living pretty close, I think, to the fulfillment of many of these things, Lord. So have your way. Bring us back Sunday. Please give us a great service Sunday morning. And let us worship you. Bless the singers. And then bless us. And then help both of us together bless you in worship. And we pray some lost soul gets saved, somebody to rededicate, get right with God. And we just ask the Lord's blessings. Thank you to all the people that have come tonight. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.