Father, we praise you for being the great and merciful God who sent your son to save us. Father, at this time, as we enter into the... proclamation session of our service to you this morning, that you would receive it in heaven as it is intended to glorify you and edify your people. And at this time, Father, we pray for those who have departed from among us, and we think most especially of our good friend Rick Krupnick, our neighbor and friend. We ask you, Father, that His family would know the presence of God at this time of grief in their lives and that we would weep with those who weep and be among them. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, last week we skipped ahead in our series and we went to chapter 16 from chapter 11 of Matthew and this time we're gonna go back a few chapters. A little review, because of some things that in my life I've been observing in the world and in the church today, and I want to go back to the Sermon on the Mount, of all places. Go back to chapter 5, and I'll read you verses 13 through 16 this morning. Very well-known verses to us. And so we read, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Oh, Father, may we take this divine directive to heart this morning and make it our own. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. And so we know Jesus went up on the mount. There were a lot of multitudes followed him up, but the Bible specifically says at the beginning of chapter five, that he was seated and his disciples came to him. So we think of the more intimate relationship he had with his close disciples. And so we take this teaching of Christ as something he's giving as a directive to the Church of God herself. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? Friends, it's a rhetorical question. It can't be re-seasoned. Only by a miracle of God can we return to the saltiness, to the flavorful work that we have to do in the world. We're here to add flavor and seasoning and tenderizing to a wicked world. As you know, I had the honor of addressing the men of the Rehoboth Baptist Church yesterday at their men's breakfast, and I told them the same things I say to you. I say to the men of the church all the time, I am a great promoter of toxic masculinity. But I prefer to call it by its old name, masculinity. I want to say a number of things to the men of the church today, to the women also, but I direct this particularly to the men. And so we're going to say this very succinctly. Perhaps you have not heard it said this way, but men of the church, you are Christianity. There's no Christianity apart from God's men who he sent out to finish the work of Christ in the world. Friends, the buck stops with us. We are the spiritual and moral leadership of the body of Christ. We are the custodians of the oracles of God, the recipients of the blessings of God. We are the purveyors of the word of God. Without us, it doesn't go out. Or as Paul said, we are not as so many peddling the Word of God. You know, peddling has a pejorative sense to it, doesn't it? You could say selling the Word of God, it wouldn't sound so bad, but peddling is like cheap. We're not so many just peddling the Word of God, but as sincerely, as from God, we speak in the sight of God. And the fact that God has chosen us to be the moral beacons of a depraved society explains for me the meaning of the passage that says, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And the fact that God has chosen us to be the moral beacons gives new meaning to that passage. God has chosen the weak things, Paul wrote, to shame the mighty. He chose the base things, the things that are despised, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. So don't be astounded that you feel unworthy to do it. Don't be astounded that you feel ungifted or unmotivated to do it. I'm quite certain that none of us feels up to the task that God has given us, but my message for the people today, for the men of the church today, do it anyway. You know, nobody stands in the pulpit and feels worthy to bring the message. Just do it anyway. Lean on responsibility. What did God say to Paul? He said, my grace is sufficient. We rely on the grace of God to bolster us at all the things that we do, especially the things we do as a directive from God to the church. We need grace. We need God's power. We need to exercise our faith, and faith is a great power. So none of us feels up to it. If we don't properly stand for Christ, friends, who will? No one will. And how am I so certain of that? It's because God said he chose us. He didn't choose the world to stand up for itself. He chose the church to be a light to the world. We just read it. He didn't choose the wise. He didn't choose the mighty, or not many of them, right? He didn't choose the scholars and the professors. He chose us. The first people he chose, friend, were fishermen and tent makers and a tax collector or two. And he was also You know, Jesus was also involved in a little bit of nepotism. He chose family members. John the Baptist was a close relative. He chose James and Jude to write epistles. Those were his half-brothers. So the Lord is guilty of nepotism. But we are in the family of God. He chose us to do this as well. We're the adopted sons and daughters of God. Paul wrote this, and let's drill this down into our hearts. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You know, I have to say, and I chastise myself, and if you're with me, then I chastise you. I complain way too much for someone who's been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him the day before yesterday, No, last Christmas. No, my last birthday. No, before the foundation of the world, God was busy loving us, showing mercy to us, dying for us even then. Before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. We take part in our holiness. It's called repentance. It's called turning ourselves around and walking rightly with Christ again. We were predestined, Paul says. That means it happened before destiny was written. Predestined to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself. And why did he do it? Because it pleased him to do so. And that's all he tells us. To the praise of the glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved. that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." Friends, if we really knew that, we would be the most courageous people on earth. that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. And Paul goes on, in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee. The Holy Spirit is that little tag inside of your cloak that says, don't tear this off. This is the guarantee. Tear this off, it's your peril. No, the Holy Spirit is our guarantee until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory. We are purchased by God. He paid a price for us, and it was a priceless price. It was the death of his own son. And so we are the men of God, friends, and we are the women of God as well, just as glorious, just as blessed. There are so many morally upright spiritual women among us in the churches today, like my wife or your wives, but we men are the heads of the families. And so we're husbands. And God tells us how to be that. He said we're to love our wives in the same manner that Christ loved the church, which is his bride. He gave his life for her. Our lives are sacrificial from beginning to end, friends. We're to raise our children in the love and admonition of the Lord, because as the prophet Malachi told us, God made marriage because he seeks godly offspring. Train them up in the Lord. That's why they're given to us. We're not to provoke them to wrath, the proverb tells us, yet at the same time, we're not to spare the rod. For he who spares the rod, what? Hates his son. But friends, having said all that, even before our wives, even before our sacred children, we are men of God and the Lord said it plainly, he who loves these more than me is not worthy of me. The Lord has to be first in our lives. It's all about priorities, friends. Seek first the kingdom of God. If we could grab hold of that, the church would be a powerful, moralistic army in the world, a righteous army. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I'm quite certain, friends, when Joshua made his famous statement that we all call one of our favorite statements, he said, as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. And I'm quite certain he didn't ask his wife's permission. I don't think he went over to his wife and he said, you know, I'm going to talk to the men today about that one true God thing we've been talking about. I'm going to put away the other gods, you know, the Amorites on the other side of the river. I'm going to stand for the one. Are you okay with that?" No, he's a man of his house. He stood up and said, as for me and my house, he spoke for his wife, he spoke for his children. We will serve the Lord. And I've been concerned lately, friends, that there's no moral example to the world apart from the example of the men who profess to stand and live for God. to those who claim to be that purchased possession. That's what redemption means. It means to buy back. The real owner comes in and buys back what's his. And he bought back and he paid the price. That's why Christ could say, it is finished. The salvation work of Christ is finished. You want to know the truth? It was finished when it was said before the foundation of the world. If you're ready to hear it. I've been concerned that the church in our time has lost much of its hard-gained respect and moral guidance to society that we once had. And both the church and the world have borne the scars of our moral indiscretions. Friends, a weak church is no good for God, it's no good for the church, and guess what? It's no good for the world. Remember, Great website, Sermon Audio. There's probably thousands of participating churches on that. We've been on it for, I think, 20 or 25 years. I haven't kept track. Where they put the sermons out for everyone. And they wrote us a letter, as I told you a few weeks ago, and told us they're losing 20 churches a month. And as I said, I don't really know what that means. You know, there's a lot of little churches that come and go all the time. But for them to lose 20 subscriptions a month month after month is a serious decline, it seems to me, in many ways. So, let's see how we repent. This regaining the saltiness of the salt, I could list the ways that the church has become morally sloppy in the last 40 years that I've been in the faith. And as you know, I usually look first to Sabbath worship, Worship is the right response before a holy God. There's not much else we can really give him if we haven't worshiped him. The word usually translated worship from the Greek is proskuneo, which means to bend and to kiss. Proskuneo. That's why we don't go around kissing dignitaries' rings and statues and such things. First and foremost is the matter of the Sabbath, the Lord's Day observance. I told you a couple weeks ago, I told the men yesterday, that Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, who seems like a very nice guy, came out and honored Tom Brady, and they built him a big statue, which is kind of eerie. It just reminded me of that statue in Nebuchadnezzar that had the feet of clay over here. And he was talking about all the great personal characteristics of the athlete, and then he made this statement, Tom Brady made Sunday sacred. Friends, we're in a society that has forgotten who made Sunday sacred. For such a statement to be preached and to go unchallenged is evidence that the Lord's Day is a footnote in American history. I wish I was there, I really do. I would have said, no, he didn't. Really, I'm surprised somebody didn't. You can be both. I think you can like sports and love God. I don't think you should do it the other way around. And so it didn't go unchallenged. The Lord's day, it seems to me, in much of society has become a footnote in American history. And the world didn't do it to us, friends. The world didn't take away the Lord's day from us. We did it to ourselves. So if the salt loses its flavor, and I'm suggesting that it has, how shall it be seasoned? Isaiah had a modest proposal. He said, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth. And I don't know what that means, but I like to try it. And feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your brother. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. These are times when I wish I was Pentecostal and the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Hallelujah. But alas, I'm just a poor Baptist and I have to keep myself very, very calm. I wonder if Christianity can even survive friends without the Sabbath. Can it survive? It's the visible part of who we are. You know, we're going to turn more churches into condos. It's happening all over the place. Friends, without the Lord day, Christianity becomes invisible. It is hardly that city set on a hill or a lamp on a lamp stand. Number two, and this always comes out as one of the first things in Paul's list of ways we sin before God. It's in the area of sex and sexual intimacy. We are created for a purpose, and God gave us a great gift. And they talked to us years ago, you don't hear much about this anymore. They used to say safe sex, and they were talking about prophylactic protection from diseases that happen. But friends, I'll tell you what safe sex is. Safe sex before God happens between a man and a woman who are married for a lifetime with a commitment before God. That's when it happens. And so he said, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And then he says, do not be deceived. Because when he said, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, we all want to say, but don't forget, we're under grace. We're not under the law. And he knows we're deceived. We think this, we live in an antinomian world, which means no law. There are still laws. There are still laws for Christians. It's just that we do it to delight our Father. We don't keep the Sabbath because it's the rule. We keep the Sabbath because we delight to be before God and as ministers praising God with the Word of God. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, or adulterers, or idolaters, or homosexuals, or sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And I warn you, friends, if you're sitting there going, My sin isn't on the list. The lists are always partial lists with Paul. Whether they're virtues or vices, they're always partial. He can't list them all. But note the change in the next verse. It changes to the past tense. Why? Because all those sins are in the church. All those are in sinners who were in the church. But he goes to past tense for the Christians of Corinth. And he said, and such were some of you. Such were some of you. You used to be that, but you're not anymore. The sins we bore before coming to Christ are not supposed to follow us into the new life. And the church has the difficult task, friends, and this is hard for pastors, I want you to know, to get up and speak and talk about sinners, and the churches are all full of them, right? to get up and talk about sinners and sin, we have to at the same time be hospitable to sinners, but unaccommodating to the residual sin in their lives. And it's very easy to be criticized that you're getting the balance wrong. And I want you to know, because someone said to me recently, you know something, you don't take criticism very well. Guess what? I know that. I hate criticism, and guess what? News flash. So do you. Nobody wants to be criticized. I don't take criticism well, but I take it, I take plenty of it, and I still stand for God without complaining and weeping about it. So that's not a complaint, it's just a proclamation. So if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It's only by regaining, friends, by reclaiming the moral uprightness that we had, that excitement for Christ when we first came in to the body of Christ, and to do it in some of the very fundamental ways. And so we said, but you were washed. Shall a sow being washed return to wallowing in the mire, Jesus asked? Shall the dog return to his own vomit? That's what he compares the sinner who has gone back to his old sin after he was nice and washed and sparkly. But you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, meaning you are already justified. You've already been sanctified. Don't keep acting like you're not. Men of God noticed that what we once were, we no longer are. Moses gave up his adopted family so as to be known only as the son of God and not the son of Pharaoh. Friends, Moses grew up in the household of the king of the world, and he gave it up for the real king. What we are is not and should not be what we were. You were saved out of something, and you were saved into something. You were saved out of this crooked and perverse generation, Acts 2.40, and we were saved into something, friends, the household of God. It's called the church. For those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Or better yet, Paul asks, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Your body is the temple. It's the holy of holies. And the spirit is in you. Whom you have from God, and listen to this, you are not your own. Americans, we like to stand up for our rights and say who we are and what we expect, and we want everyone to know that our rights are there and they're from God. Friends, you don't even belong to yourself. The Redeemer came and bought you back. You belong to God. For you were bought at a price, Paul wrote. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. They belong to God. You're messing with God's property when you go out and take back your old sin. So once again, friends, if the salt loses its flavor, how will it be seasoned? The risen Christ gave the answer. And I have the answer for you today. There's a great moment in our history, perhaps you remember it, when the Lord returned not only from the grave, but from heaven itself, and he met with his apostle in a most undignified place, a rock island prison in the Mediterranean called Patmos. And Jesus Christ appeared to John on Patmos during a church service. It was just John and God. just John and Jesus Christ. So far as we know, there was no one else, but we know that John said, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and the risen Lord appeared to him. So that's a great moment in our history. He spoke to John in his great state of the church address. He spoke about this, the seven churches, um, the seven churches in modern-day Turkey, the seven churches of Asia, he called them. That was the name of the Roman province of Asia in those days. He made a fair and reasonable assessment of the moral and spiritual and doctrinal state of each of the seven churches, and he made them to John. And to the angel of the church of Ephesus he said, I have it on good authority that angel is meant in the generic sense here, and angel refers to the pastor of the Ephesian church. And he spoke to him, and he told him he was noticing what's going on in the church of Ephesus. And so he said, I know your works. This is the risen Christ saying to John, write this down to Ephesus. I know your works. I know your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you've tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become weary. That's the real test of a Christian that we don't tire out of doing it. And so he gave them this remarkable commendation. So when they read this and they get to this point, I think what they're going to think is he's just about to say, well done, good and faithful servant. He listed all these great and wonderful things. He's going to say, well done, good and faithful servant. He talked about our wonderful list of virtues and accomplishments, gave us this great commendation. He'll say, well done to us. But friends, that's not what he said. That's not what he said at all. He said, nevertheless, even though you've done all those things, nevertheless, I have this against you. And the heads will drop. He said, We're going to find out that the single defect in this church that has this great resume of all these wonderful virtues and accomplishments has this one defect, but it's not just a defect, friends. It's a disqualifying defect. He will remove their lampstand. That is the light of Christ or the light of the word of God or the revelation of God. Whatever it means, friends, it's a bad thing. You don't want your lampstand put out. He said, I have this against you. And what did he tell them? You have left your first love. The fundamental things, the seek ye first kind of thing. We always presume that the love they lost was their love for Christ, and I think that's right. That's our first love, and in his behalf we do the first works, right? Sanctifying ourselves, humbling ourselves before God, drawing near to God that he might draw near to us. And from where did these get the idea, do you think, that the busyness of the spiritual battle could replace that close personal relation with Christ himself? Where do you suppose they got that idea? It's in this moment that the Lord himself prescribes the way back. He prescribes the way back to their first love, the way back to their first works. And he said it in three words. He said, first, remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. OK? That's one word, remember. Repent is two words, and do. Do the first works, or else, he says. do the first works or else, and then he goes on to tell them what the or else means. But what are the first works? Well, they're related to the first love, and they're none other than a renewal of that enthusiasm that we had when we first started our walk with Christ. And so he says, remember, examine yourself, in other words. Look at yourself. Go back. What was it that I repented of in the first place, that I was happy to give up. And then repent, turn around, go the other way, and then do. Do what? Do something else. Men, we have a calling. We have a glorious Christian heritage. We have examples to follow. What did he say in Hebrews? A great cloud of witnesses, right? We have examples to follow. We have examples to follow among ourselves. So there's precedent, friends, in the past for the men of God standing up for the demands of God in the presence of God's people. And he hasn't left us without tools. We still have all the tools. He didn't take them away. In fact, every instrument he gave them, he gave us. We still have our faith, right? We still have our faith. We still have our faith. We still have the Holy spirit, which is God working in us. That's the real Emmanuel. That's God in us. We still have the word. We still have the gifts of the spirit. We still have the promises of God to strengthen us and bolster us in all the hard places of life. We still belong to a long line of glorious men of faith. The book of Hebrews reminds us of this, that all we have to do in this life is enter into the long and ancient procession of men who went before us. So we read this, by faith, Moses refused to be called son of Pharaoh. Wouldn't it be something if, by faith, the Pharisees refused to be called the son of the devil and repented there and came to Christ? They didn't do that. By faith, he kept the Passover. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me. See, that's the trouble with preaching. There's never enough time. You know? I have a friend, Nick Stamm. I asked him to preach one time. You remember Nick. He was a good preacher. I said to Nick, I'd like you to come down and speak to our people and preach to them. He said, well, you know, he had his Dutch accent. Well, what do you want me to say to them, Dan? And I said, well, just come down and preach something that's on your heart. And he said, well, if I preach 10 minutes, I'll need two months to prepare. And I said, oh. And he said, but don't worry, Dan. If I preach for a half an hour, I'll only need one month. And then he said, but still, don't worry, if you want me to preach two hours, I can start right now. It's all about editing, friends. Preaching is all about editing. It's trying to stay on track. And as Paul's saying, he edited it down. He edited it down. He doesn't have time to say all the gifts God gives us. He doesn't have time for that, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah. So he just lists them. Right? He did not rewrite the whole Bible, but we have it to go back and refer to. Right? He said also of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms. Has anyone subdued a kingdom lately? I'm going to go out after church and I'm going to subdue a kingdom somewhere. He worked righteousness. He obtained promises. Has anyone stopped the mouths of lions lately? quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of aliens. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two. Legend has it Isaiah was sawn in two by the evil king Manasseh. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. And then he says this, men of whom the world was not worthy. I want to be a man of whom the world was not worthy. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. They did all those things and did not receive the promise. Why? Because God was saving it up for us so that we would all receive it together. Enter into the procession, friends. They did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. We're part of the same body listed there as the long hall of fame, so-called of the great saints of God. And it's full of the great men and female saints of God as well. If you go back and reread it, the second part of verse 13 is this. It is then good for nothing, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. So he's asking friends. if the flavorless condiment still has some intrinsic value. Friends, we are the salt. Wasn't there an old ministry called out of the salt shaker and into the world or something? It's kind of cliche. So, you know, I wouldn't normally use that kind of thing, but it's true. I mean, the salt has to come out of the shaker and into the world. We're here to flavor the world. If the salt cannot make the world taste better, friends, what can it do? Jesus said, it's good for nothing. You know salt can lose its flavor. Did you ever have flavorless salt? It can, it can lose its flavor. If it cannot season and tenderize men's souls, friends, what good is it? If the church works in cross purposes with God, it's a useless thing. And Jesus himself says, it is good for nothing. He's talking about the church. If we lose that one element, the church is good for nothing. but to be trampled and underfoot by men. Friends, I wonder if we're not in the trampling stage. Is the church being trampled? We had to pray for the safety of the church this morning because there's so many shootings and rumors of shootings. Friends, I love Israel, but Israel is not the light of the world. And I hope we know that. In some seven centuries, friends, 722 BC, 700 years before Christ, God gave them over to their enemies because they had become good for nothing, an idolatrous nation before him. The Assyrian Empire conquered the northern tribes. They were by this time just another idolatrous nation, tempting the Lord to destroy them. For their relative goodness, however, He allowed Judah to hold on to their nation. But as it turns out, it only lasted another 136 years, pretty much the length of time that Nineveh lasted after Jonah came. And so in 586 BC, the last tribe, Judah, who had vacillated between the one true God and the capricious gods of the Canaanites, were overrun by their enemies as well. And so Babylon came in and took the whole prize. They took a Syria. They took Israel. They took Judah. They even took the Egypt. The people of God are of old are our best illustration of the flavorless church friends being turned upon and trampled underfoot. And it was the Lord who did the trampling. Now I'm not going to open up a whole new doctrinal discussion today on the nature of Israel, but I will say this. that it is the Church of God and not Israel who are the people of God. And you might ask, then, Pastor, why do you side with Israel in political matters? Well, I've thought this through, and I'm going to tell you where I stand on it this morning. I tell you that my position regarding Israel is quite like David's decision of how to deal with Saul. Remember David? He was anointed by Samuel. They sang a song about David. Saul has killed his thousands of Philistines, and David his ten thousands. And David was just a little teenage musician in Saul's court, but he had already killed Goliath, alright? And Saul didn't like that. Saul was already out of God's affections, alright? Already out of God's affections. In fact, it came to the place where he threw a spear at David and he almost killed him, and David went on the run for years, friends, right? But when Saul was seeking David to kill him, David had occasion to sneak up next to Saul, and he could have killed him at that point, but instead he cut his robe just to show that he could have killed him, and he took the robe with him. And so we read from 1 Samuel, someone asked David, why didn't you kill him? And this is my position. The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord's anointed. to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord." Israel are the ancient people of God, the chosen people. And I won't raise my hand or my voice against God's anointed. But the church is the light of the world, friends, not Israel. And so where are we today? In times past, the church lost her influence. because she acted with cruelty upon sinners. There's a lot of examples of this in history, but I can refer you to biblical history. Go all the way back to the 12 tribes in the book of Genesis, chapter 34. And a man named, I think it was Shechem, whose father was Hamor or something like that. And they raped the sister. I don't know if you know the 12 sons of Israel had a sister. Her name was Dinah. And someone went in the kitchen with her. And I'm going to tell you, they raped Dinah and the brothers were not happy. And so they went out and they were about to conquer that family and that tribe. And let me just ask you to read it. They were exceedingly cruel and deceptive and God was not particularly happy with that. You know what it's like? It's like a man who was widely respected, So he took the liberty to discipline other men's children. That's what it reminds me of. In the 16th century, we had what was called an Inquisition, started with actually with Ferdinand and Isabella, the people that you know, supported Columbus in his journeys. And they put an inquisitor in place, his name was Torquemada, and Torquemada went around and if he even suspected someone was of the Catholic faith, and that was Muslims and early Protestants, the Reformation hadn't really happened yet, he would burn them at the stake. They were burning thousands of people, just calling them witches and burning them. The church lost a lot of influence because of its great cruelty. Disciplining other men's children, friends, Mercy had become rare in the very institution that should have had the grace to teach the world how to demonstrate divine mercy. Today, the pendulum, if you will, has swung the other way, and the church has lost its flavor because of what I'm going to call toxic tolerance. Tolerance is a good thing, friends. It's a necessary thing. It's an aspect of love. There's no question, right? Until it calls evil good and good evil. Parents, that's the line you have to stop with your children. Tolerance is good until it calls evil good and good evil, and then it loses all of its divine sense of godly discernment. We cannot be the teachers and the acceptors of what God says is evil. and then call it mercy, as though we're more merciful than God. Tolerance in the end, friends, when it is fully mature, becomes what? Apathy. Apathy is idolatry. What does apathy say? Doesn't matter. Apathy says it doesn't matter because it doesn't matter to me. Therefore, why should God worry about it? We have simply said yes to sin so long it has become the standard in some areas. Friends, a flavorless church in the land is not only bad for the church, it's bad for the society in which it is. I have always held that a righteous church in a nation blesses that nation, no matter how righteous the nation is. It becomes a languishing body with a dead church in it, like a tumor. So what's the road back? Well, I'll be honest with you, I was hoping the Lord would just do it with a revival and we would just sit back and praise Him, but He may or may not do that. There's some signs that things are going on, right? But that's when the Spirit of God poured upon the land and people recognized the power of God for what it is. He poured His Spirit out of the windows of heaven and people started recognizing what it is. The Word of God becomes relevant again in the society. It becomes respected again. It becomes recognized for what it is. But verse 16 tells us something else. It isn't all about God just pouring it out upon us. It says, let your light so shine before men. It's something that we have to do not to conceal the light of Christ that we live by. That they may see your good works. We are not supposed to be invisible. Let them see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Now, this application is a collective thing. The church does this as a body. But at the same time, it can be expressed in entirely personal ways that are unique to each believer. It's a call to the saints, as Jesus said to John, to remember, to examine ourselves and see if we are in the faith, see if there is any wicked way in us. Remember from where you have fallen, but you have fallen. You know, it's been so long since we looked at these things, we don't realize how high the pedestal was on that we fell from. That was God's grace. Now we're down here under God's disapproval. Remember from where you have fallen and repent. Repent of the very things that barred our entry into the presence of Christ in the first place. Do the very same things we did with joy when we came to Christ, the very same things we did with the fear and trembling when we first committed ourselves to God. Go back and do the first works. You know, back when the gospel was still fresh to us and when Christ stood before us high and lifted up. When our souls were first crucified with Christ, Like Stephen, we could see the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God making intercession for us. Receive him anew. Proclaim him anew. Live and work and worship him in an entirely new way, which is really our old original way, our first love of Christ, when it was unfettered by all the other things that distract the church today. As James said, be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Our Father, we ask that you make this word known to us, that we might own it, that we may be nourished by it, excited by it, and admonished by it, O Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.