Amen. Remain standing. Grab your Bibles. Turn to Revelation 22. Revelation 22 in your Bibles. Revelation chapter 22. going to try to use my iPad today. I bought this for that purpose like years ago and just we'll see. I know it's it's a no go for some people. I'm sorry. Revelation 22. No, updating. Very nice. All right. That was that was quick. Amen. Revelation 22 and verse number 10. Verse number 10. He sayeth unto me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. Let's pray, Lord. We thank you so much for your goodness. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to open your word today. We thank you, Lord, just for giving us life and giving us the word of God. We pray, Father, that you just help us, Lord, to Seek to know you. Seek to understand you. Seek to walk with you. Help us, Lord, I pray. Meet with us in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Alright. The title of the message this morning is Seal Not. Seal Not. We're going to focus just on that part of the verse this morning, then we'll look at the other part next week, Lord willing. I've got five points, but the first point is an introduction, and the last point is a conclusion. So that makes it real easy for you. It's really just three points, I guess, at that. So we're focusing on this statement here in verse number 10 that says, seal not and in relation to the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And so point number one, we're going to look at. We're going to look at the context of seal, not the context of seal, not. And so in our context here, what are we talking about? What what are we not to seal? the sayings of the prophecy of this book specifically from the verse. But what are the sayings of the prophecy of this book? The things that he's seen and the things that he's heard, the things that he's written down, right? Particularly, we are talking specifically about the book of Revelation. This is unlike. Daniel's visions, which we'll refer to in just a moment. But actually, yeah, we're going to go to those first. Go to Daniel chapter 8. Daniel chapter 8. How's everybody this morning? Amen. Praising the Lord. Amen. Amen. I remember Dr. Willett used to say that. He'd say, how are you doing brother? And he said, I'm praising the Lord. Amen. Alright chapter 8 of Daniel notice here in chapter 8 of Daniel. There's This is repeated a couple few times here in chapter 8 and verse number 26 notice he says and the vision of the evening and morning Which was told is true. It says wherefore Shut up the vision for it shall be for many days." Interesting, huh? He says to shut it up and to stick with some of our context here, go over to chapter 12. Or at least the words of our context. Chapter 12, verse number 4 says, But thou, O Daniel, Says shut up the words and seal the book. Even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. Look at verse number 9. Says and he said go thy way Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Isn't it interesting that the prophecy given to Daniel, he is told to close it up, seal it up, because there's some time going to pass between now and then. In fact, I would say it's been almost like 2,500 years, roughly, give or take 50 years or so. That's a long time. But he said what he said to seal it up, close it up. So unlike Daniel's prophecies now, by the way, there's a specific timeline on the seal on Daniel's prophecies. Anybody know how long that is? No. No. What? What did it say in verse number four? till the time of the end, yeah. So I read a common, Brother Ramsey's gonna love this, I read a commentator, not a commentator, but a commentator, all right. So I read Brother, oh, it was Brother David Cloud on this subject. And he was, I believe, if I remember correctly, he was quoting, Harry Ironsides or someone else that he would follow. Yes, you have to have a cool last name to be a commentator. Cloud or Ironside or something like that. I'm kidding. I just noticed that as I'm referring to those guys. So anyhow, one of the things that was mentioned when looking at this passage was that the time of the end was referring to some time in the 19th century. How do we know that? We don't really, but we do know that there has been a greater understanding of prophecy in the last hundred ish years than there was before. Now there's also a whole lot of misunderstanding of prophecy in the last 30 years or 40 or maybe 50 years. Right. Then there was but it has been typically recognized for a good amount of time that we are in the end times. In fact we were in the end times all the way back when the book of Revelation was written. But here's a particular thing that was mentioned. And referred to related to the time of the end. Notice in the text in Daniel chapter 12 and verse number four. What does it say? It says even to the time of the end. And then he describes what's going to happen in that time. What what happens? Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. Now, I don't think that we necessarily need total proof that this is being fulfilled. I think we can just kind of look around. Many shall run to and fro. Let's see, it's 1135. Where were we at 1135 yesterday? What's that? Running to and fro, yeah. We were in London, Canada at 11.35 yesterday morning. And here we are in Indianapolis today. We didn't even fly. We ran the whole way. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. We didn't run. In fact, we didn't run at all. We did walk eight and a half miles on Friday, though. Toronto's a big city. Anyhow, so we went and traveled for Amelia's 18th birthday, and kind of Amelia and Isaac are gonna hopefully graduate here in the next few weeks, maybe. Maybe. Two tests, three tests. Easy peasy. Right? So before the end of the year. So we also made it their senior trip. Okay? So when you do homeschooling, you do senior trips differently than everybody else, I guess. So anyhow, had a good time. But we were two and pro. That's a pretty good distance. I mean, it seems a lot further than it is really, though. It is fro, that's right. No, it was four-hour drive from here to the border and then a two-hour drive to London, two-hour drive to Toronto, two-hour drive back to London, two-hour drive back to the border. Well, actually, no, we did a two-hour drive to the southernmost point of Canada. And then from there, hey, you know, the southernmost point of Canada is a lot further north than the southernmost point of America. What's that? Yeah, well, southernmost point of the continental, whatever, anyhow. So, and then we did an hour to the border and then four hours home from the border. So, that was a lot of driving, a lot of running to and fro, right? And we didn't do the trip so that I would have this illustration, okay? I just mentioned the illustration because it fits, right? And by the way, you can get to Canada faster than you can get to Gatlinburg. Yeah. So get your passports. What's that? That's right. Walk across the street. Anyhow, so we live in a time where many run to and fro. I mean, you go to an airport and airport's a good place to people watch. You go to an airport and you just sit down and watch people coming and going. And it's amazing. The Indianapolis International Airport, you can go in there and you can find people going all over the world. All over the world from that location or coming from somewhere, stopping in here and going somewhere else. When did all this start? I mean, you know. In the book of Daniel. You might be riding a Camelac, you know, or you might, you might be riding on a Mustang, right? Something like that, but not a Mustang, a Ford Mustang, it would be a somebody else's Mustang. And, or, you know, your Camelac, you know, your camel, how fast do those things go? You might be able to get Nah, it's like 40, 30, 40 miles per gallon. I don't know, they don't drink gasoline, fortunately, so that's nice. They drink a lot of water, camels, yes, that's right, yes. They do hold them a lot, hold the water for a long time. But they don't move real fast, right? Or they, like horses can move a bit faster, but they're not moving real fast for a long, long, long time. All right, you gotta stop and give the horse a break and feed it and all that. I mean, yeah, we have to stop and feed our car gasoline and stuff like that, but you can just go, go, go with vehicles. So what we had, we saw a Model T Thursday, and it was 1914 was that particular model. And it had headlights that were gas headlights you turn it on and the and the gas comes out and you hit the button to start the headlight and it and they were lanterns they were like they were like Coleman lanterns you know that had the little filament on it and had like the gas things and and it would catch the thing anyhow that was pretty crazy that you'd be driving around with a flame with, well, four flames, lights, you know, and I don't, I wouldn't drive that thing at night. I don't know, it's, turn it down, turn it up, turn it down, turn it up, turn signal. No, there probably wasn't a turn signal. There weren't as many vehicles on the road. Many weren't running to and fro. What's that? Yeah, well, you had horses and stuff too. Many would run to and fro. or rather back then, many would not run to and fro. It would just be a few. And then, you know, we started seeing a lot of traveling going on, right? I'm making a larger point of this than I wanted to. So anyhow, look around. It hasn't been this way for very long. Maybe a little over 100 years we've started having traveling moving faster. Some would argue back in the 1800s, you know, with with a lot of train travel, there was a lot of people moving to and fro, right? But I don't know how we would get any faster travel than what we have now without starting to do like teleportation and stuff. So I think we're probably, we've reached the limits of traveling to and fro. And knowledge shall increase. Huh. You know, back in the 1900s, at the end of the 1900s, we were saying, it's coming to pass. Knowledge has increased. You can get on the internet. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Oh, they answered. Right. And yeah, you got it. You got the sound. But those of us that lived during the 1900s, that's how you got Internet. The computers talk to each other with these strange sounds. Right. You dialed up. Right. I had I had a little little wireless Palm pad thing. Okay, and it had a speaker and a microphone on the back of it You could sit it on a phone receiver and you could dial a phone number and open that screen up and you had a little keyboard and it you had to be real careful because it had to sit on the phone receiver and You could send emails using dial-up internet and with you could get a cordless phone because those were around what 1988 ish something like that no 86 yeah cordless phones were yeah 80s yeah so so you could take a cordless phone and put that thing on there and dial up the number if you had internet service that you purchased through them you could dial up the number and you could send an email off from that little word processor is what it was that could send emails. And it was like the most amazing thing ever. And you could get information at your fingertips if you knew who to send the email to. And if they got it and responded, you could get a lot of information there. That was so great, right? You remember when studying for a message used to be like having a desk this size with books everywhere? Now I can get all the books, all the books I would put on the desk right here. Now I don't really like using my phone to do that. Sometimes if I'm on the run, I can do some of that. But like now I like getting, you know, just getting on the computer and I have them that way. And I've got a lot of digital books now. And so you reference and check different things and stuff. But yeah, so information, knowledge shall increase. Y'all realize how much, I don't really have to like mention this too much, but how much information we get on these things. Yeah, that thing too. It's not really artificial intelligence. There's really no, it's just language engines that learn to process language. That's really all, and it's really quick though. and it can gather information, but it's all language based though. So it's not really intelligence, they're just using the term. But you can get all kinds of information now. We've gotten so used to that, haven't we? Knowledge has increased so much. I listen to audiobooks every day, and I, unfortunately, they don't count each individual book when you buy a package, because I just did a package of books, there were 22 books in it, and it counted as one book. So, I think somewhere along the line, I think 150, 200 books, something like that this year, that's a lot of information. Just listening to books. You just get access. I don't have to go to the library. I don't have to go to, What else would I go to? The bookstore. Yeah, do those exist anymore? Yes, okay. Barnes and Nobles, half-price books, anything like that, right? I don't have to go do any of that. I don't even know why I have a library back there. I've got all the information I would need at my disposal right here or there or on a computer somewhere or whatever, right? Knowledge has increased. The book of Daniel sealed for a little while, right? That's really why I was going there. Make sense? There are some things in the book of Daniel that have recently been, and I'm not saying recently like the last 10 years, recently like in the last 50 years or so, maybe the last actually 100, 150. I've got a book in my office from Clarence Larkin. He's got a bunch of neat charts and things like that on prophecy if you're interested in those things. There's a bunch of neat charts that he did on those things. and all around the time frame of the knowledge increasing, maybe not the internet boom, but the running to and fro. Does that make sense? So, unlike Daniel's prophecies, The book of Revelation was written to be understood. That's your sub-point letter B there. Written to be understood. Sub-point letter A was unlike Daniel's prophecies. Letter B is, understandable, or written to be understood. So you can read the book of Revelation right as the ink was still wet on the scroll. You could open it and you could read, or if you're from one of the seven churches of Asia, you know, when he brought those out there, they could just take it and read it and understand what he's talking about. Maybe not 100%, but the book of Revelation is meant to reveal, right? It's not meant to hide things. It's not meant to hide secrets. It's meant to reveal the truth. And so it's understandable. In fact, the whole New Testament, the whole Bible at this point in time is meant to be understood. There are some things that could not be understood back in the day because of the prophecy that needed to be fulfilled in order for it to be understood. Does that make sense? So those things were a little harder to understand. But then as prophecy was being fulfilled, it became more understandable. Does that make sense? So, in Ephesians 1, verses 9 and 10, it says, "...having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one All things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him. That's Ephesians 1 9 and 10 Verse number 9 there. Remember it said that he's made known the mystery of his will He's let us know those things. We're able to see those things now and so the book of Revelation point number one is about the context of the seal and Now, now that we've seen the context of the seal, we're going to make application and we're going to look at things more broadly. Does that make sense? So as I as I said before, oftentimes we're going to go from a passage. We're going to look at the concept within its context, and then we're going to broaden it for larger application. Does that make sense? All right. So now we're not just going to talk about revelation. the book of Revelation, we're going to talk about the whole of the Word of God. All right, so I'm broadening the application. Number two, command to seal not. Within its context, God commands John, don't seal this. In the broader application, the Word of God is not sealed. It's not closed up. It's no mystery. Subpoint letter a here is no mystery in Colossians chapter one and verse number 26. It says even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints. To whom verse number 27 says to whom God would make known what is the riches of his glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." You see, there's no longer a mystery because we have Christ in us. We no longer have a mystery about the things of God because the Spirit of God dwells in us and illuminates the Word of God to us. And so it's no longer a mystery. It is not sealed because it's not a mystery. Letter B, there's no confusion. No confusion is meant to be in the Word of God or in the prophecies of the Word of God. In fact, he said, relating to these things, in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 33, For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. In James 1, it says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." There's no longer need for confusion. There's no longer need for. I wonder about this. The word of God is not sealed in that sense that we cannot gather that information that we cannot go to the word of God and get it. He's commanded that it not be sealed. The mysteries are no longer mysteries. Now, I say all that because I want to make sure that we understand. I know there's a lot of stuff out there where people are like, look what I found in the Bible, this mystery that I've uncovered. If you've got the spirit of God in you, you don't need to be looking for mysteries because there aren't any. It's open for us to see. It was commanded not to be sealed. There's nothing sealed up in the Word of God anymore. It's all there for us to see. And God's intention is not that we would be confused now for the ages before when they were looking forward. There were some things that they didn't understand because they would make assumptions about things that might come to pass when we can look back and say, well, this is how it came to pass. And I'm not talking about things that happen after the Bible was completed. Talking about things that happened along the way as the Bible was completed. Right, yeah, fulfilling of prophecy and things. So number three, A call. The call to seal not. And we're going to look at how this applies to us, right? So we looked at the command to seal not. That's how it applied to the writers and the readers early on. And then the call to seal not. Two sub points here. Letter A. Don't close your Bible to yourself. Don't seal the Word of God up. That doesn't mean that when you get home you open it and lay it down open and leave it for a week. It means you don't seal it off to yourself. Don't seal it off to yourself. Now, not yet. That's the next point. We'll get there. You're getting ahead of me. So don't close your Bible to yourself. Don't seal it from yourself. So we're going to look at four sub-points real quick. Number one, it's powerful. You don't want to close off the most powerful thing that you have access to. In Hebrews 4, verse 12, it says, For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, And of the joints and morrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents. Of the heart. It's powerful. A whole message could be preached out that one verse. OK, I'm not going to do it. Just giving you that point, it's powerful. The Word of God is powerful. Number two. It is to be lived by. It is to be lived by. Now, this could be taken like five different directions, and it should, but today we're just gonna focus on one. In Matthew 4-4, which we recently mentioned, not today, but recently in a recent message, but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. It is to be lived by as though it is the source of your life. If you go without eating, eventually you will die. But you're not to live by bread alone. You're to live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And so, we are to live by the Word. If you seal it up, you can't live by it. If you seal it up, you miss out on its power, the power to discern you, show you who you are and what you need to do. If you seal it up, you miss out on those things. Number three, it is to be memorized. Psalm 119 verse 11, Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. I think that's our memory verse for the week. Psalm 119 verse 11. Maybe it's not. Oh, it's 105. Yeah, yeah, we'll get we'll get there too. All right. It's to be memorized. If you don't, if you seal up the Word of God in your life, if you seal up the Word of God from yourself, you miss out on Freedom when it comes to sin. If you miss out on the things, on what you need to overcome sin. You need the word of God to overcome sin. It is to be understood. It is to be understood. Proverbs chapter 2 and verse number 3, 3 through 5 here says, If thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." That's good stuff. The Word of God is there to be understood. You see, we ought to go to the Word of God every day. I know a lot of you do every day because we're tracking it, right? But not just to go through the motions, but what is it that we're doing when we open the Word of God? We're crying after knowledge. Maybe as you open the Word of God, or you open the app, or whatever, and you're getting into the Bible, you're listening, or you're reading, and you cry to the Lord, cry out to the Lord, I want the knowledge of the holy. I want the knowledge of God, I want to understand you. I want to know you, right? As Paul said, he says, and I just quoted this recently, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, right? He wanted to know him to be to be attaining to the call that God has given him. and reaching forward and pressing toward the mark. You can't do that in life. You can't move forward and move up and move ahead and grow without having the Word of God unsealed. Letter B. Don't close the Bible to the world. Don't close the Bible to the world. In Mark chapter 16 and verse number 15, the Bible says, And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. We're given a commission. Amen? Now, we went to Canada for fun, and every time I turn around, either my wife's saying, I don't know if you guys caught that, you gotta look up at me to see it. Where I'm talking to somebody, I'm just, I'm talking to a random person, my wife's like, like trying to give me a hint, you know? What's that mean? Oh, yeah, tracked, yeah. I kept my passport in here too, so that way if I had to get my passport out, oh, here's where we're from. Hey, had somebody ask, where are you from? I'm glad you asked, there you go. If you're ever down there in the states, you know, check us out. Or hey, we're online, check us out online. What's that? Oh, I know, I'm still passing out the blue ones. I'm getting rid of all of them, right? And I've got a stack in my truck, so I keep, in my truck, so I keep like refilling with that and not the new ones. And we gotta update those ones too. Anyhow, so y'all, we need to pass out all the tracks so that we can get new ones. All right, so, yeah, every time, we were in another country and got to, we did a missions trip. Didn't plan it that way, didn't start any churches or anything, but we invited some people. There's a guy, he's a security, I don't know what they call him, security person, officer, whatever. He was like police type force security, I don't know what, they've got mounties, all these different things. And so you don't know which, what is what up there exactly. And so he's from Barbados and somehow ended up in Toronto and he's standing there. And I went over and I sat down and was waiting on the girls doing something. And I said, I said, oh, I gotta sit down. I said, I've walked eight miles today. He said, wow, that's a lot. And then we just started talking. And he said, where are you from? Where are you visiting from? And I said, from Indianapolis. He said, oh yeah, I know, but down in, and he started talking about Minnesota. And so, and he said, I'm gonna go to California here soon. And I said, oh wow, what part are you going to? I said, are you going to Northern or Southern California? He said, Southern California. I said, you will probably pass through Indianapolis. You should come see us. Gave him a gospel track. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you're going to California from Canada, you're going through Indianapolis unless you go all the way across the top and then down. And they don't really have highways like we do. So it's and they also don't know the population of Canada is like forty four million. That's it. The whole population of that whole country, and you know where they all are? They're right at the edge of our border. Not all of them, but a lot of them, most of them. And Toronto is the biggest city. And what was it? How many? I forget. Anyhow, we'll have to check that out later. But anyhow, wherever you go should be the mission field, not just, you know, well, you know, you're taking a family trip. Hey, guess what? People in other places get to hear the gospel or hear about this little congregation in Indianapolis and and what they're doing to try to reach the world with the gospel and so oh yeah if I gave you a track and you're watching us online because of that hi thank you put a comment say hey and anyhow there you go so we and and you know we do that wherever you're going, wherever you're going. I know you get so used to just living life and not thinking about that. But, Cary, you know who gives out gospel tracts? People that have them. Yeah. Easy. Christians do. Non-Christians give out gospel tracts if they have them. uh when we go down to the the tree lighting thing downtown i get lost people to pass out gospel tracks all the time yeah you know you get like 10 people walking the line i'm like here take one pass down there you go there you go right uh so Take gospel tracks. Share your testimony. Give your story, right? Tell them about how Jesus saved you. Don't close the Bible to the world. Take the gospel. The good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that He was buried and that He rose again the third day. Take that message with you wherever you go. Do not close the Bible to the world. In 1 Peter 3 and verse number 15 it says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Need to be ready always. Always to give a reason. So, what are the consequences of sealing the Word of God? That's number four, consequences of sealing. Consequences of sealing. Letter A, there are some personal consequences. And letter B, there are some public consequences. We're going to look at each of those. The personal consequences. There's a disconnection. You know, when you don't seal the Word of God, you're able to do what 2 Peter 3, verse number 18 says, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen. You see, you can't do that if you seal the Word of God. if you close up the Word of God from yourself, if you close up the Word of God in your life. You can't grow in grace. If you want to grow, if you want to be a stronger believer, a stronger Christian, you need to be opening the Word of God, spending time in the Word of God. It needs to be, again, like I said earlier, it can be powerful in your life, it needs to be lived by, it needs to be memorized, it needs to be understood. You need to seek to understand it. John chapter 15 and verse number 5 says, I am the vine, this is Jesus speaking, I am the vine and ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. I'm going to say something that might not make everybody happy. You do not have Jesus in your life if you do not have the Bible in your life. Jesus isn't just having the Spirit of God. Now, if you have the Bible and you don't have the Spirit of God because you're not saved, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And then, have Jesus in your life. Right? The Word was made flesh, Jesus. It's the Word. 1 John 1, verse number 6, says if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. We need to have the light in our life. Right? God is light. And in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him, you see, when we seal off the Word of God in our lives, we don't have fellowship with Him. And we're walking in darkness. By the way, if you're not opening the light, and you keep it closed, and you keep it sealed off, there's no light in your life. Or there's very little light in your life. I know a lot of you have your light open right now. That's good. You're here. You've got the light open. You're here to hear the light preached. That's good. But open the light every day. Every day. How many of y'all wake up in the morning and put a ski mask on backwards and leave it on all day? Brother Ramsey, he's the only one. All right. Figured you would. You don't. How many of you wake up in the morning and glue your eyes shut? And then just live your life that way? You don't. You try to get out in the light. You open your eyes and you try to go where you can see and you can do things, right? Nobody wants to walk in darkness, hopefully. Why do we do it? Because men love darkness because their deeds are evil. Psalm 119 verse 105. Psalm 119 verse 105. This is your memory verse for the week. Easy one. You're welcome. If you don't memorize it, shame on you. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Brother Terry, the word of God. What is it? A lamp, right? I'm just helping you here. It's a lamp. It's a lamp. And it's a light. Right? A lamp to your feet. Alright, picture this. You ready? Picture this being a big lamp. That foot there. Big lamp. See it? It's funny, isn't it? That'll help you remember. The Word of God is a lamp to my feet. Oh, that's still in there? You guys. Somebody put a picture of me in the bathroom doing a kick. Anyhow. What's it say on it? Get you back to the sanctuary. Y'all have it memorized. You spent too much time in there. All right. A lamp to my feet. A lamp to my feet. Got to do the other side to keep it even. A lamp to my feet. Right? And a light to my path. By the way, what that tells you, what that shows you from the Word of God is that the Word of God shows you the next step. If you want to know what the next step is in your life, you need to be in the Word of God. If you want to know what the next step is in your walk with God, you need to be in the Word of God. You need to be in the Word of God daily in your devotions. You need to be in the Word of God in church. You need to be in the Word of God. You need to get yourself in the way of the Word of God all the time. Yes. And then if you want to know what's ahead, what's down the path, it's a light to the path. Without it, when you seal it up, You can't see what's next. You can't see what's down the road ahead. You've got to open it. And you've got to let the light of God shine in your life. Let her be. public consequences. You have personal consequences, now public consequences. What happens? What happens when we seal the Word of God from the world? People won't get saved. Romans 10, 14 says, How shall they hear? Or rather, how shall they call on Him of whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? A preacher. As one brother put it, every creature needs a preacher. Amen. Or a creature for a creature. No, a preacher for every creature. Right? I keep messing it up. A preacher for every creature. Right? Yeah, yeah. Yep. I mean, we could sit around the dinner table and talk about that, how preachers need creatures. Anyhow. So that's that's why I kept chuckling when I was getting it wrong, flipping it around. All right. So that's, you know, some of the pastor lunch things, you know. So but the idea is that we go and tell that we go and tell and don't get don't get mixed up on the word preacher there. It doesn't say pastor. It doesn't say bishop. It doesn't say elder. It doesn't say. Yeah, those are the three words. It doesn't say clergyman. It doesn't say deacon. It says preacher. Well, women aren't supposed to be preachers. not in the sense of pastoring, okay? But women are supposed to be preachers in the sense of giving the gospel. Preaching the gospel. That doesn't mean that biblically speaking, they're not teaching in the congregation. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask me later. I'll take you to some passages in the Word of God. But the Bible does not support the concept of women pastors. But it supports the concept of every Christian being a preacher of the gospel. A preacher of the gospel. You say, well, I don't know how to preach the gospel. It's simple. Jesus Christ died for your sins. He was buried and He rose again the third day. Trust Him. Simple. What must I do to be saved? Right? Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Now, I'm not trying to oversimplify the gospel, but you know what? People try to overcomplicate the gospel. It's simple. Trust Jesus. He did all the work. You can't get there yourself. Don't trust other things. Don't trust yourself. Trust Jesus. Amen? So, if we close off, if we seal off the Word of God to the world, they don't get a preacher. And they can't hear the Gospel without a preacher. And they can't believe what they've not heard. So the consequence is hell. Isaiah 55 verse 11. You know, God desires for His Word to be effective, and it is. But it must be taken to its audience. So shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. You know, there's a reason that there's a whole period of history called the Dark Ages. And it's not just because people couldn't read. That's part of it. Or allowed to, yeah. The reason that it was called the Dark Ages is because there was an organization that worked hard to seal the Word of God away from the public. And they were able to do it. Somewhat successfully for the majority of the population, and because of that. It was called the Dark Ages. They shut the light off. Now, there were still lights shining. There were still faithful believers. Just because most of the population wasn't getting the Word, doesn't mean none of the population was. There were still Waldensian preachers. There were still Albigensians and Petrobrussians and Lollards and Picards. There were still preachers taking the Word of God and shining the light. But far be it from us that we start another dark ages because we're ashamed to bear the good news of the gospel and shine a light in a lost and dying world. Or because we're uncomfortable with it or we're afraid of persecution or something. Or rejection. The preachers of old during the dark ages when they take the message into the dark and shine the light. Their ministry would last on average a year and a half. I know some pastors that's the way it is now, but that's because they're lazy, not because they're being killed off. But their ministries would last on average a year and a half because they would be caught and they would be martyred. but their murderers, the murderers that killed them, said that their blood spilled on the ground as though it was seeds, as though it had been seeds spilling into the ground, and it sprouted up with converts everywhere. Everywhere they were martyred, there would be converts, sometimes right there at their execution. but it was because they were not afraid to take the light into the darkness. Go to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5. We're drawing close to the end here. Point number 5 is real fast. Matthew chapter 5, verse number 13. Ye are the salt of the earth, But if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick. and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." In order for that to happen, you must have the light open. You must have the Word of God open and not sealed shut. It needs to be open in your life. It needs to be open in public. Conclusion, number five, the conclusion. The Bible is our source of life. It doesn't need to be sealed. The words of life are needed for this lost and dying world. So what are you going to do with it? Let's all stand. Heads bowed, eyes closed. All right. All right. You can look up. Sorry. All right. So, tomorrow is Sister Gimlick's birthday. All right. Amen. All right. Does it also end? Never mind. All right. Last will and testament. It was nice knowing you, brother. It's good serving with you. Amen. So, Sister Tisha, you go and bring those up here for her. All right. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. God bless you. Happy birthday to you. You're welcome. Last year, your birthday was on Sunday, and we let it pass without embarrassing you. I'm sorry. So, enjoy your birthday tomorrow. We have cupcakes in the back, if anybody would like to celebrate her birthday. What's that? Heather has cupcakes in the back, if anybody would like any, ask her permission. No. Amen. All right, Pastor G. You come close in prayer. You got one announcement there and don't go eat the cupcakes yet. All right, we're gonna have our 10 minute class. Then you can eat the cupcakes. Cupcakes will not be served until after the 10 minute class. Okay, Brother Ellis from the tent meeting has requested that you guys will or anybody that is willing to to give a testimony of any sort was able to be a help to you or a discouragement to you from the tent meeting, please email brotherellis at J-T-O-D-D-E-L-L-I-S at hotmail.com. So that's pretty easy to remember, right? J Todd Ellis hotmail.com and also I asked for prayer from our church family for my dad He fell in the middle of the night and he's in the hospital now getting all kinds of x-rays his CAT scans and different things and so he's He's doing okay, but I guess there's some other consequences from the fall. So please pray for him throughout the day. All right Let's go ahead and pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for being good to us and giving us birthdays that count up to high numbers, Lord. We thank you for those seasons of life, Lord. We thank you for the cupcakes that have been provided and the fellowship around those. Lord, we just pray that you'd be with the service as we do the music lesson, Lord. We also pray that you'd be with my dad as he's in the hospital today getting checked up.