Thank you, boy, I appreciate that. Amen, and he's glad that there is someone leading, even when you, I remember years ago when I was growing up, you saw the picture of the two footprints, two sets of footprints, and they merge into one, and you know, it was, someone asked the Lord, why did you leave me in those difficult times? He said, I didn't leave you, I carried you. And I always, Remember that, that, uh, the shame when I don't understand, I can trust him and interesting things. It's easy to trust him when it makes sense to us, isn't it? It's more difficult to trust him when things don't make sense. Right. And, uh, Hey, listen, no one questions when something bad happens to what we consider bad people. Right. I mean, it will say, well, that's just so when in reaping, right? But then when something bad happens to what we perceive as a good person, we'll say, well, I don't understand why bad things happen to good people. Well, look at it this way. The Bible said that none of us are good. There's none righteous. No, not one. So the miracle, the grace of God is that more things do not happen to us. And so I'm glad that when we cannot. One guy said this, said, when you can't track him, that's when you gotta trust him, amen? I'm glad we can trust him, even when we don't understand. I was talking to a guy the other day, and he said, preacher, he said, you've never met a man that has had more bad stuff happen to him than me. And I thought, there's a whole book in the Bible of a guy that, Brother Bart, if something bad was gonna happen, it was gonna happen to Job, wasn't it? Amen. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own storms, we forget that the trials and temptations we go through are common to all men. Amen. So I appreciate the good song, We Can Trust Him, and I'm glad of that. Romans chapter 10 tonight, if you'd turn there, we're gonna focus on the first four verses. I so appreciate, uh, this missions month. And again, it's been a good year missions wise. And, and, uh, it's been amazing to see how God has met the need of the church, even given the missions, you know, and we've increased, I think, uh, we've taken on miss Andrew around 20 this year. Is that right? And, uh, I mean, when you look at the, uh, missions fund, it really has not taken a hit now it's gone down some, but, uh, we've given to quite a few projects and things, but Uh, God's been good to us. And so, uh, we've got one more missionary family coming in next week, uh, or Sunday with, uh, the wall family. Uh, but also I talked to, uh, uh, young man that, uh, is a church planner out in Idaho. I met him when we were in Wyoming just a few weeks ago or months ago. Uh, his name's Raleigh Hill and, uh, he's doing a good work out there. And so, uh, I'd like to take him on if we could. Uh, I think that'd help us. And you said, well, we're not mad at him. Well, you just going to have to trust me on this one. And if he messes up, I'll go out there and. jerk him up, me and Brother Bart will go get him. So if we could do that, I've got a motion, second, all in favor? All right, any opposed? Praise the Lord. Well, Miss Angie, Miss Angie gets nervous. She don't like odd numbers. She said, well, that's gonna put us, if we take this one on Sunday, at an odd given number. So now we're even, amen, on Sunday. So that'll help, amen. Romans chapter 10 and verse number one. Last week we looked at the whole chapter of chapter nine and really what Paul is dealing with is how salvation affects the Jew. In other words, Jesus came, and again, we know that you go back to the Old Testament and the prophets were talking about Jesus Christ coming and being the Messiah. And then when he came, the Jews said, we'll not have this man rule over us. They didn't want him, they wanted a different type of savior, right? And we're the same way. salvation, many people want to be saved, they want to go to heaven, they don't want to go to hell, but they don't like that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, that they want some other way to heaven besides him. And so in chapter 10, verse number one, Paul said this, he said, brethren, he said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. That is, it is amazing to think that here's a man who loved, have you ever prayed like that for America? We want revival, right? We want things to change and we want morality and we don't wanna see the sin and the perversion going on. But have you ever just prayed, God, my heart's desire is that America, the American people, every single one would just simply be saved. Well, that's a burden, isn't it? And so then he goes on, verse two, he said, for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Zeal is a good thing when it's tied to knowledge, right? Zeal without knowledge is radicalism. So here, Paul said, listen, they're zealous of God, but they're not knowledgeable. And you know, in the Old Testament, the Bible said this, my people are destroyed for what? Lack of knowledge. Verse three said, for they being ignorant of God's righteous. Listen, let's slow down on verse three. This is important. He said, they being ignorant. Now the word ignorant does not mean dumb. It means they don't know, right? You can be ignorant. We'll say, man, he's ignorant. We'll get offended at that. But the word ignorant just means they simply don't know. And so he said, they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about, notice this word, to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Well, let me, the righteousness of God is not a what, it's a who. And in verse four, he says, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now verse four is interesting to me because as we study that verse, what he's saying is if you believe, if you trust Christ, that's the end of it, right? But if you don't, you are constantly gonna continue to try to be righteous. And we know this, the Bible said the wages of sin is death. And so there's no way you will ever attain righteousness in your own ability, in your own power. So from now till eternity ends, which will be never, you are constantly trying to gain this righteousness with all your good deeds and you never will. So you can either fall on the righteousness of Christ and accept that, or you'll never have righteousness. That's what he's saying. So I wanna focus on these four verses and just give you two points tonight. And someone said, The outline, some of them say points one and two, and some say three and four. Well, they're all one and two, so if yours says three and four, you're smart enough to write a one or a two, right? So we'll do that. So the key to God's past dealing with Israel is his sovereignty. The key to his present dealing is salvation. In other words, in times past, it was different. Now, the Jew, Brother Barry, has to be saved just like the Gentile. There's no difference. If he's gonna go to heaven, he's gonna have to come by the way of the cross just like the Gentiles. So God is offering salvation to the Jew on the same terms he offers the Gentile. So we always set the grounds level for the cross, but it's not just that way for you and me, it's also that way for the Jewish people. If they're gonna get to heaven, they're gonna go by the way of the cross. And so he makes no national difference at all. And if a Jew today wants to come into God's favor, he must come to Calvary as a lost sinner and accept his Messiah as his savior. And that's the problem, right? They're still looking. Here's the problem. The Jew is still looking, unless they've come to know Christ, they're still looking for the Messiah to come, and he's already come. And so you and I have to be, we're like John the Baptist of old. We're proclaiming that he'll come again. John proclaimed he'd come the first time. We're proclaiming that he'll come again. And so that's the theme of Romans 10, the Savior and the Jew. And so two things I'll share with you in verse one, Paul states that the Jew is lost. If they're trusting in Judaism, if they're trusting in their religion, if they're trusting in anything besides Jesus Christ, he's saying the Jew is lost. You say hallelujah, that's exactly right preacher, but listen to me. Every person, Gentile or Jew, who is trusting in something or someone other than Jesus Christ, we look and we'll say, well, the Jew has to come the same way as the Gentile. 100% right. But also the Gentile's just as lost as the Jew is if he's trusting anything or anybody but Jesus Christ. And so Paul says, listen, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Can I just, can I have a, I'm gonna have a time here. I like good Bible words, don't you? I like that word saved. Hallelujah. I like born again, saved, redeemed, amen. I like it that the Bible's so clear that we don't have to water it down. You know what, and today we used to go knock on our door, Brother Sean, and say, hey, are you saved? And they'd know what you meant. You can't do that today. You have to explain what being saved means. And what it means is you no longer are going to hell, you're going to heaven because of what Jesus did on the cross. And I just like Bible words, don't you? He said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Well, what's he saying? First of all, we see in this one scripture, we see Paul's compassion. You ever wondered what would happen if we showed compassion? The Bible said some having compassion making a difference. Here's the problem, Brother Matt. We've got our doctrine just right. I mean, listen, I believe our doctrine's accurate. But independent Baptists are some of the most hateful people I've ever met in my life. They don't have compassion. Listen, they'll look at somebody and say, well, they ought to be living right. They ought not be doing that. Well, you don't know that they know any better. You don't know that they've ever been trained. All of them didn't grow up in church like you and I did, amen. I mean, we ought to get to the place where some having compassion, and you know what compassion does, it makes a difference. It's not compassion unless it's making a difference. Sympathy is not compassion, by the way. Compassion is changing the state of someone, changing the eternal destination of someone, getting down where they're at, helping them with a physical need so you can share the spiritual need with them. So Paul's compassion was his brethren or countrymen, his greatest desires that they may know Christ. Can I ask you something? Is that ours? But Jerry, we like to hear them say, well, we had three saved, praise God. But when's the last time you told somebody about Christ? When's the last time you handed out a tract? And I'm not trying to get on us as a church. I'm saying we ought to be so tore up about the state and condition of mankind that it's our heart's desire and prayer. that not only do we pray our family and friends to get saved, but we do something about it. Here's what I want to challenge you with in 2026. You say, preacher, it's not even December. Well, it doesn't hurt to go ahead and get started. I want to challenge each person here, and you look here tonight, and I mean, this isn't near our church family, and it's a Wednesday night crowd. You are the cream of the crowd. Now, some of them are watching, they're going, preacher, I couldn't be there tonight. But Jimmy, we're not talking about you, okay? But I wonder what would happen if just this crowd right here, we got a burden to reach one person. You ever thought, I'm not talking about 15 or 20, I'm talking about if we all would reach one. Your heart's desire for 2026 would be somebody that you know or somebody that you meet, that you could share the gospel with, that you could get them in church, that you'd want to see them saved and baptized and discipled. What would happen, I'm not talking about thousands and tens of thousands of tracks. It would change the trajectory of the church if we would just get a burden for people that are lost. I ain't talking about him, he's sitting in the pews. Listen, we judge everything off size, don't we? Well, God's really blessing down there. That church is growing. You don't know if God's blessing or not. I mean, they may have all come to eat chicken stew. You don't know why they can't. So my point is this, we're here not to fill the pew. We had a great crowd Sunday, praise God for that. But listen, if we don't understand that our primary purpose of being on earth is to see people saved for the glory of God, that's why we're here. Buses, Spanish ministry, handing out tracts, whatever it takes, it ought to be our desire that everybody we know in Davidson County especially would hear the gospel. And so his greatest prayer in his prayer life is this. It's not about, listen, keep me out of prison. Think about Paul, what his prayer life could have been. God, I'm trying to serve you. Hey, you think you have some problems. Well, preacher, I've been trying to serve God. I don't understand why all this is happening. Think about Paul. Here he is on the road to Damascus. He gets saved. That man, he's religious, everything's going good for him, and God changes the trajectory of his life, and now the very people he's trying to persecute, he's trying to lead them to win others to Christ. Everywhere he'd go, they'd throw him in jail, they stoned him, they've tried to kill him, they hate him. Listen, everywhere he went. Yet he said, I'm not worried about me, Lord. I'm worried about my countrymen. So he is empathetic toward his people because he had been where they are. You know what I found? It's hard to be empathetic for someone that you've not walked in their shoes. Amen. It's hard. Listen, you ride down the street and you see the homeless folks under the bridge. It's hard to have empathy for them if you've never been homeless. You might feel sorry for them or you might look at them and say, well, they ought to do better. But if you've never been homeless, it's hard to have empathy for them. If you've never been a drug addict, it's hard to have empathy for a drug addict. If you've never been pregnant out of wedlock, you don't know what that's like, do you? What I'm saying is, you ever thought that maybe sometimes that you cannot be empathetic, but you can understand and be compassionate? But Paul, listen, here's what I know. Before I got born again, April 21st, 1996, my life was not good, Brother Chad. Listen, if I told you some stories, you may not ever listen to me preach again. So I can look at people and I can see them and I can say, man, I'm not gonna look down my nose at them because if it wasn't for the good grace of God, I would be where they're at. Well, you better be careful. And that's what Paul's saying. I can have empathy and compassion for them because I was where they are. So you see Paul's compassion, but also his conclusion. Notice what he said. He said that they might be saved. Well, what's that mean? That word might means they must be saved. Folks, that's it. Can I, I wanna give you something tonight. Don't get upset with me if you do, that's fine. Brother Joe said he'd be my bodyguard tonight. You know what, we'd better get real honest with our family. We'd better get real honest about the salvation of our kids and grandkids and our aunts and uncles and nephews and all that. You know why? Because all of them, well, they made a profession when they were six years old. They're just not living for God. Listen, if you got the Holy Ghost of God living inside of you, you're not gonna get away from God for 25 years and 30 years. There's no way. There's something wrong. And we'll just say, well, they made a profession. They're just not living for God. Can I ask you something? That may make you feel better on earth, but what's gonna happen when you walk into heaven and they're not there? Amen. I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm saying, Brother Shane, we ought to have a greater prayer burden for family and friends that say they're saved and not in church. We better be concerned about them because if we believe what we say we believe, Brother Justin, here's the problem. If Jesus comes back and they're not born again, they're not getting in. Amen. So we'd better get a burden, folks. And Paul's conclusion is this, the Jew, like every other human, must be saved. Saved. Not baptized. Amen. Not turn over a new leaf in life. They have to be saved. You know what? Can I say this? Every Baptist, you gotta be saved. Every Methodist, you gotta be saved. Pentecostal, Presbyterian, doesn't matter. See, you can't trust in your church, you can't trust in your denomination, you gotta trust in Jesus Christ. That's what, when we get to heaven, there's not gonna be certain sections of heaven for different people. Amen. So Paul's conclusion was this, if you're going to heaven, you gotta be saved. Doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't matter who your daddy is or your mama. Doesn't matter if you grew up in the church or the first time you ever darkened the door was tonight. You need to understand that if you're gonna get into heaven, you gotta ask Jesus Christ to be your savior. Amen. So number one, he understands the Jew is lost, and also number two, he tells why the Jew is lost. Notice what he said. He said, for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. So what he's saying is two things. First of all, he deals with their misguided religious exercise. Here's what he said. He said, they got a zeal. You ever heard somebody say this? Well, you know, they're sincere. That person sincerely believes what they believe. And so I think God's going to honor it. No, no, no. Listen to me, church. You can be sincerely wrong. Jesus didn't say, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me, except if you are sincere about your religion, then I'll let you in. No, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So you can, we gotta get off of this thing where we're like, well, they're sincere. The Jew is sincere, and that's what Paul's saying. But he's saying they're misguided because they did not understand the righteousness of God. Here's what Jesus said and what they should have known. Remember this? When Jesus said this, we've been studying on Sunday night. He said, accept your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, that you wouldn't see the kingdom of God. That's what he said, wasn't it? So what was he saying? He's saying, listen, he's the only one, Jesus would be pointing himself saying, I'm the only one that exceeds that righteousness. And the only way for you to get to heaven is to accept the righteousness that I have. And that's imputed or given to you when you get saved. And when God sees you, he sees the blood of the lamb. And when you get to heaven's gate and God asks you, why should I let you into my heaven? He's not asking what denomination or if you've been baptized or a good person. He wants to know if you've ever received Christ as your savior. And so Paul's saying this, he was exactly where these Jews were. And he said, listen, I understand they were zealous, but they were zealously wrong. Nothing can be worse than a misguided religious exercise. You don't believe it? You look at all this Muslims and the car bombings and they think they're doing God's work, right? They're killing infidels, but they're misguided. And so not only is misguided religious exercise, but also is misguided religious enterprise. What do you mean by that preacher? Look what the Bible said. The Bible said he's ignorant of God's righteousness. And notice it's going about to establish their own righteousness. What's that mean? Here's what it means. They're trying to work their way into heaven. Right? They're trying to make their good outweigh their bad. They're trying to say I'm not that bad a person, right? Least I've never killed someone. Least I've never committed adultery. Least I've never, you fill in the blank. We do the same thing. You let somebody, you let the community drunk walk in the door and get on the altar and get saved and we'll say hallelujah, finally. But we get like them publicans, don't we? I thank my God I'm not as he is. Right? Thank God he got saved, but I sure am glad I'm not like him. Well, can I say this? Your sin is as vile to God as his is. Your pride and arrogance is just as much a stench in the nostril of a holy God as his alcoholism. Amen. So we need to be real careful because what he's saying here is that the Jew, that God gave them the law to show them they could not be righteous enough. And they, you know what they did? They twisted that thing around and say, well, yeah, we are too. You know, when Jesus got there, they said, we're of Abraham. We don't need you. We got the law, we've kept the law. And they're lying about that. Remember they brought the woman taken in adultery And they brought her to Jesus. Well, here's the funny thing to me. First of all, brother Dennis, they didn't bring the man. They brought her. And then Jesus told him, said, listen, Now watch, cause again, I've said it before and we'll say it again, you better write this down or put it in your memory bank. Cause we misquote this. He said, he who is without sin cast the first stone. Remember that? What was he saying? He wasn't saying any of you that have not sinned at all. And that's how we read it. That's not what he meant. What he meant was the law said that the person who had not committed the same offense was the one who cast the first stone. So it wasn't Jesus was saying, if you're not perfect, the only way you can judge is if you're perfect. He's saying, listen, all of you are guilty of the same thing. And so what I'm saying here tonight is this, if we're not careful, we'll look down our nose at somebody else and not realize that our sin hung Jesus on the cross. I mean, listen, I'm as guilty as a murderer. I'm as guilty as an adulterer. You are as well. No, I'm not preacher. Then you're not saved. I mean, listen, if you can't see yourself as vile, you can't come to Christ. There's no reason to. Listen, well, this is probably not a good analogy. I was going to say, if you're not dirty, you wouldn't take a bath, but some people just like to waste water, right? Take seven baths a day. I'm like, ain't that dirty? But the point is, if you don't think you need to be saved, you won't get saved. Well, I'm good enough. Well, one day we'll figure it out because when you get to heaven or when you get there and don't get into heaven, you'll realize that you did not fall on the rock. The rock fell on you. So it's based on the law. And they based it on their own strength, their own ability to keep the law. And so what they're, what we have to understand is they're not acknowledging their complete failure. They're saying I'm good enough to get to heaven. And so Paul is saying here, I was the same way. And so he said, listen, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. They've not acknowledged their sinfulness. and the righteousness of Christ. He said, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So there it is. God's saying, here's my standard. It's up here. We're down here, right? Now you're trying to earn your way to heaven. Doing pretty good. Didn't cuss, didn't drink. Didn't have any negative thoughts today. I moved up, right? Now the next day, guess what? Doing pretty good. Somebody cut you off the light. Went backwards. You cannot get here. It's too high standard. But here's the good news. God knew that and he provided a way of salvation. His name's Jesus Christ. Paul wrote this. I'm grateful for this. Aren't you? He said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God and the salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The only way any of us go to heaven is the power of the gospel. We just have to submit and fall on him. And tonight, if you don't know him as your savior, you say what's Wednesday night preacher, we're all safe. I don't know that you don't either. I don't think I'd leave here and not know. Right. If you don't know, I think I'd, I would make sure I knew. So we're gonna do things different tonight. Let's stand together, bow our heads. Brother Dennis is gonna come play verse two invitation. I think the Lord would have us do it this way. We normally get around the altar and pray, but tonight we're gonna do it different. And if God spoke to your heart, you come. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Maybe tonight, I'm grateful for those that got saved on Sunday, but maybe tonight you need to come. Be a good time to come. If you're here tonight and you don't know for sure you'd go to heaven when you died, I wonder if you'd do this by an uplifted hand, you'd say, pastor, would you pray for me? I don't know that I'd go to heaven if I died tonight. Do you and I have a burden like Paul? My greatest desire and my