Like God is there for us. We know that He is because He's told us so. And so hopefully that's a word of encouragement for you. And so we're going to continue that hopeful encouragement in 2 Thessalonians. We're going to jump into chapter 3 now. Beginning in verse 1, we're going to hopefully, Lord willing, get through verse 5. And the title of this message is How Christians Survive Hard Times. So as Paul has wrapped up his eschatology review for the Thessalonians, encouraging them that the words that they're hearing, the teaching that they're hearing, that they're in the day of the Lord is completely false, and that they can be comforted with the fact that that day won't come until certain things come first, and since those things haven't come, the day of the Lord hasn't come. So after comforting them, He's now going to comfort and encourage them with what they're going through, because what they're going through was apparently bad enough that they believed they were in the day of the Lord. And so sometimes we, and maybe you have faced this, or you will face this at some point in your Christian life, a level of suffering that you need to be equipped and prepared to walk through. And so hopefully this passage is a guide to how to survive those times. Yeah, Jonathan. Oh, I hate to distract this. No, you're good. Great train of thought there. I was wondering, and David, if you wanted to, Is it like literally believed that they may have received an actual physical letter as though from Paul, a fraudulent letter, or does he just say that as hypothetical? Do you have any thoughts about that? Yeah, at the beginning, he says in verse, and if someone finds it, point it out to me. Well, I guess it's chapter 2. Yeah, chapter two, verse two, verse one for context. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Now, it's not maybe as clear as him telling, this has happened, don't believe it, so we're writing this, but I think by way of implication, And then at the end, in verse 17, it says, the salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is a sign in every epistle, so I write. So I think in general, and we know this from church history, that there were a lot of the technical term, and you probably know this, pseudepigraphs, false writings. So that happened broadly in the early church, but I think specifically with the content of what Paul is dealing with, it seems to be suggesting that they're writing and saying, we're in the day of the Lord. Anything that you might add, Dave or Dan or anyone? Yeah. And part of it, again, it was convincing enough based on the suffering they were experiencing that they believed it. And so we want to be somewhat sympathetic. Paul isn't coming in and just saying, you know, suck it up. What you're going through is nothing compared to what the day of the Lord will be like. That's not his aim, but his aim is comfort that, no, we're not in the day of the Lord. Now let's talk about your suffering. Let me come alongside you and comfort you in what you're experiencing. Because I think the church at Thessalonica, if you compare it with the events in Acts, you know, they face persecution pretty early on and I think before long, they even had people dying. And that was part of the purpose of the first letter to Thessalonica, is that people were dying, believers, and the fear was that they were... Is he needing to be out? All right. Apologies. Yeah, good. Yeah, Trevor. Well, kind of on that note, if you even see it these days, the day of the Lord, and of course we have all of our different views of end times now, but And I was not there for this, but I know this individual. Actually, our friends at Cox's were sitting in church when the preacher said this, and they talked to him about it afterwards, because they were like, oh, what? They had him actually say, because they were full preterists, saying that all this prophecy had been fulfilled, all prophecy had been fulfilled. In 70 AD when Titus was bombarding the city, the stones were pulled from the Jerusalem white granite. And so when they saw those going through the air, they knew, Caiaphas knew that that was the sign of the Son of Man appearing in the air. And that was that prophecy being fulfilled. Like the desperation to prove the theological point. There is some gymnastics that are needed to get to those interpretations. But I was thinking about this last night. We want to be somewhat empathetic or sympathetic with the Thessalonians because while a lot of Jews, because Paul would go into the synagogue, share the gospel, and Jews would be converted, but also Gentiles. Now, I think that those Jewish believers had the background of the Old Testament and were able to kind of walk with their new Gentile brethren. But think about the Gentiles coming to faith. A lot of this is brand new. How many of you were eschatology experts when you first became a Christian? Maybe even now, there's still things you're just kind of like, I don't know what this is saying. And so I think that... They would associate, okay, suffering, intense suffering, even martyrdom. Well, this, if I remember right, Paul even kind of spoke about this and they get their lines crossed and they get confused and they get discouraged. But what's the solution to that? The word, right? Knowledge of the word. That's why it's important for us as a church to preach the whole counsel of God verse by verse. And there's some who attack verse by verse teaching saying, well, we need to pursue something that's relevant. Well, first of all, this is relevant. What's going on in the Middle East right now? This is relevant. Not saying that we're seeing fulfillment of prophecy, by the way, but it's relevant. And my response to that is you may not be going through suffering now, but you will. You may not be going through it now, but you have at one point, and maybe you weren't prepared then, and you wish you were. How do you get prepared? Well, I think it's through that systematic verse-by-verse teaching that solidifies in your core the truths of God's Word that when everything is getting shaken around you, You can be at peace knowing that your relationship with God is on solid ground. In fact, that's how I would essentially define the biblical concept of joy. Joy is not a superlative to happiness. Joy is that deep-centered peace, knowing that our relationship with God is solid. And having that joy is when you're able to face suffering and know that and rest in that. And it doesn't mean you're happy about it. It doesn't mean you like it or that you enjoy it, but you have joy knowing what God has prepared for you. And so that's what Paul is preparing this church for and encouraging and reminding them. And so in chapter three, verses one and two, verses one through five can be broken up into three parts. Number one, reciprocal prayer. So how do Christians survive hard times? Reciprocal prayer, praying for one another. Number two, remember biblical truth. And number three, redirect towards spiritual living. And so verses one and two, reciprocal prayer, Paul says, finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified just as it is with you. And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for not all have faith. So first of all, I want to compare this, look at 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15. when it talks about, therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle. So in other words, Paul is encouraging them knowing that they have been well taught. They just need to remind themselves of these truths. That's why I said, in chapter 2, for us it might be new, new truths about the prophetic future. But for the church at Thessalonica, it was review. And that's why it seems like Paul does kind of more of a highlight rather than a... exposition through the prophetic passages, because I think he already did that with them. And so he reminds them of those things. And so frequently, scripture has some something to the effect of remember these things, remind each other of these things, I am reminding you of these things. And so we have to avoid. And this is something particularly Christians mature in the faith need to really be on guard for. thinking you know scripture. I forget, I want to say it was maybe Harry Ironside says the more that he learned scripture, the more he realized, I don't know what I think I know. Now he's not claiming that he's ignorant or he's untrained. He was probably more trained than most of us. But he's admitting that as you learn more about Scripture, you realize we're just scratching the surface, comprehending who our God is. And that's just what God has revealed to us. And that's why I think there's certain times, and we covered this in Romans, there's certain times when Paul is writing about these deep spiritual truths, that he just has to stop. And he says, praise be to God. How unfathomable are his ways? How unsearchable are his ways? And he just can't help but praise and glory in God's incomprehensibility. Yet we have certain things that we can comprehend about Him, but all in all, we only have what He has revealed to us in special revelation through the Word and general revelation in creation. But I think all of eternity is going to be spent glorying in God in things that He hadn't revealed to us or hasn't revealed to us. These are, it's always good for us to remind ourselves of these things. And this is a battle I faced after Bible college, you know, read through the whole Bible a few times now, and I'm an expert. I don't need to read this again. How many times have I read through the historical books? How many times have I read through the epistles? Do I really need to read them again? Well, Paul thinks so. Yeah, Trevor? I was going to say, there's one of my professors when I was at Summit Semester, Michael Bauman. He was at Hillsdale College. He has a whole collection of essays. And the title of the collection is Pilgrim Theology. And the first one is the name of the book. It's Pilgrim Theology versus Fortress Theology. His idea, again, not that you aren't sure in what you believe, but that your theology should be more like that of a pilgrim wandering through the land as you read Scripture and study it and learn and grow. He says the error comes with theologies that we've seen throughout history where they create their theology and then they build their fortress around the theology and then they say here is where we will die instead of what the Bible says. He kind of draws a whole parallel with Abraham and Isaac. It's a really good reminder and interesting. Absolutely. Jonathan, did you have? I just wanted to understand how you're using the word reciprocal here, like in response to what are we praying? Yeah, so I think from other passages, we know Paul is praying for them, right? Every time he writes, he's praying for the churches. But now he's saying, pray for us that these things happen. And so I think an implication that we can draw from that is as believers, we need to be praying for one another. And so a point we're gonna get to, I think part of that prayer is preemptive prayer. We're praying that in this instance, the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified. Or maybe it's God protect us in the days ahead with the elections coming up. Or God protect us as the climate globally is starting to take shape that seems to be moving away from God's standard. So we'll talk more about that. But yeah, that's what I mean for reciprocal prayer. So he says, finally brethren. So he's starting to kind of wrap things up. This is a short letter. And so he's starting to reach a conclusion, but before he gets there, he has some of these charges to issue to them. And then brethren pray for us. So brethren, again, he's talking to believers. He has no doubt of their salvation. In fact, I would submit to you, I think all books of the New Testament are written to believers. except perhaps arguably the Gospel of John, right? Because he says, I've written these things to you that you may believe on Jesus Christ and know that you have everlasting life. Otherwise, all of them are written to believers. And I get frustrated sometimes when I hear teachers or read a commentary that says, Well, here Paul isn't sure whether they're believers or not here at the church. If he's writing to the church, it's under the assumption that he's writing to believers. Now I'm not saying in the narrative parts of scripture that he's addressing unbelievers. That's certainly true. And we're gonna deal with that when we get into like Matthew, for example. But otherwise, the books in general are written to unbelievers. You could also, as I think about it, maybe make an argument of Luke and Acts written to Theophilus as kind of apologetic. Okay. But otherwise, it's still for believers. And so finally, brethren, pray for us that, and he mentions two things. Number one, the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified with the additive, just as it is with you. So in other words, no need to pray, not necessarily no need to pray, but He's saying, you're doing well. The Word of the Lord is running swiftly and being glorified in you, but pray that that continues. Everywhere I go, pray that that continues. Now, this is fascinating to study this passage with the passage we're about to look upstairs at in Rome, where Paul talks about all the areas that he's gone and preached the gospel and how the Word of God has been effective. And so you see some of that answer to prayer, but that's what Paul is praying for. He's a man on a mission and he's asking the churches that have come to faith to support him in that. And then number two, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men with the additive for not all have faith. So those who are unbelieving anywhere Paul goes, he's asking that they would be delivered from that. from unreasonable and wicked men. And so if you read Acts, especially the mid to later Acts, You get the background to Paul visiting these churches, evangelizing them. And it starts really good where he shares in the synagogue and many come to faith, many of the Gentiles as well. But then what's almost anticipated in every one of those occurrences. But then there arose men from the city or men from the synagogue and they would persecute Paul. So Paul has grown into the habit of just expecting that, not to mention if you read Acts, Paul admits, he says, the Holy Spirit warns me everywhere that I go, that I face persecution and trials. And so Paul is praying that they would be delivered. Not that necessarily delivered from the trials, he knows because God has told him that he will face trials, but that he would be delivered from them. We've lost sight of this, I think, in some sense. Here, 20th century, not in particular. But we've lost sight of the fact that the entire world worships idols. As a general rule, people aren't Well, I'm just an atheist. I just move on. Well, that's an idol. You're worshiping something. But the majority of the world worships idols. And it has always been that way. That's why the problem with Israel in the Old Testament, all the way from the beginning, why? They kept turning to idol worship. when he accused him of adultery, what was he talking about? The fact that they didn't worship him like they were supposed to, but then they start worshiping these other idols. And I think the same thing is here, that he faces when these are unreasonable and wicked men. Why? Because they're idol worshipers. I mean, the problem in the Pesah Alamak is why is he turning them away from their idols? And mankind hasn't changed. No, and I was going to add to that. Behind every instance of idolatry is the first false god that you see in Scripture. Do you know what that is? Eve, right? What did Satan tell Eve? Did God really say? And so what did he do with that question? He transferred the decision or the authority into Eve's hands and Adam's hands on what is true. And that's at the heart of idolatry, right? I decide whether there's a God or not. God exists whether they decide or not. And the truth of scripture is that we suppress the truth of God's existence that we clearly know And what happens? We receive a foolish darkened heart. And so sometimes as that goes further, and Paul deals with that in Romans one, and to Dan's point, that's what leads to idolatry. We exchange the image of the incorruptible God for images like birds, animals, reptiles, and creeping things. And so a very good point. So to summarize this section, Paul, Silas, and Timothy prayed for the Thessalonians and also requested that the Thessalonians pray for them. The prayer for the Thessalonians was for them to stand fast to the teaching they received from Paul. The prayer Paul requests is that the gospel would run swiftly and they would be protected from evil men. So with that, you can see somewhat of what our priorities as a local church should be. Now again, it's fascinating because this is really a great segue into upstairs in Romans, where we're going to talk about the function of the local church. And we can take principles from Paul's ministry and bring out implications for us and how we ought to be living. And so the way that this reciprocal prayer might look is, we as a church, church leadership, we are set to oversee the individual growth of the people that come here and meet here. and to see them grow and develop in the grace and knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ, but to also be forward thinking and to reaching our community with the gospel. And so reciprocal prayer, we as elders, and we do at our every elders meeting, we pray for everyone that comes to this church and we pray for those that don't come or have come that they would come here and receive a a sanctuary, a place where they can grow and develop. But we would also appreciate your prayers for our church collectively, that we would be doing the things God has called us to do, and that we wouldn't, to use Trevor's words, be a fortress. To some extent, a fortress is good, right? To give a little bit of history, in the ancient world, nations conquered other nations all the time. Nothing is new under the sun. But something that became new is a man named William the Conqueror invades England, and he was the only one to subdue all of the kingdoms in England that before were warring with one another. Vikings would come in and invade and set things in chaos. But why did William the Conqueror receive that nickname? Why did he conquer the British Isles? because of fortresses. He developed castle technology. And so he would go and conquer a place. And the reason he was able to keep that place is because he would build a castle and it became hard to reconquer that place. And so to some, my point being, to some extent, fortresses are good. We want to hold the line as a church, but we also want to, not in a crusader sense, but advance, right? We want to spread the gospel. We want to see the things that we hold dear. advance in our area, in our region, in our state, in our nation, in our continent, in our world. That's what God has called us to do. And so a few points of application. Do we preemptively pray, I'm missing the word pray, pray for our fellow believers? So are we praying for one another preemptively? Praying that this would be accomplished, that God would see this major obstacle in your fellow believer's life, that you would be able to overcome that? Maybe you're dealing with a sin issue. Are we praying for victory for our fellow believers? Are we praying for encouragement when someone faces a loss? Are we preemptively praying? Now this isn't a rebuke, I actually would commend you because I think we do well, but let us exceedingly do these things. Secondly, do we pray that the word of God would be effective in our lives and the lives of those we share it with? That was a convicting point that I gleaned from this is, in general, are we praying to be effective? Yes, but that specific prayer, are we praying that the word of God would run swiftly and be glorified? Are we praying that the Word of God would function in its role, being living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword? Are we praying that God's Word would not return void? Now we have those promises, right? So you could argue that we need not pray, but Paul's praying for these things. So are we praying? Are we praying personally? God, as I'm opening Your Word to study it in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the evening, whatever works for you, for your daily Bible reading, are you praying for this thing? God, show me something that I am deficient in. Show me something I need to strengthen. strengthen other believers, perhaps. Lord, is there something that someone from our church comes to mind and they need a word of encouragement? Maybe I can share what you showed me, Lord, from your word with them. Are we being proactive and thinking about those things? section number two remember biblical truth verses three through four but the lord is faithful who will establish you and guard you from the evil one and we have confidence in the lord concerning you both that you do and will do the things we command you." And what a gentle reminder. Paul says, you know, don't take this letter as a church spanking. I'm not rebuking you. I'm not trying to come down hard on you. There are some serious corrections that need to be made, but otherwise you guys are doing well. Let me come alongside and encourage you, but also take into consideration what I have written to you and do them. because they are a command. And so a few observations, but the Lord is faithful. Now this is contrasting the Lord's faithfulness with the unreasonable and wicked men not having faith. So these men don't have faith, but God is faithful. He will bring us through these things. And also I think it's adding to the development of Paul's request for prayer. As we pray for these things, don't forget God is faithful. He will be there for us. He will walk beside us through these trials and we will trust in Him. Adding to developing the Lord, He says, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. So He's asking for prayer for these unreasonable, wicked, evil men, but He's saying, God is gonna protect all of us from the evil one who seeks to devour, as Peter puts it. He says, and we have confidence in the Lord concerning you both that you do, so you're doing well and will do the things we command you. In other words, he's saying you've been very teachable. You've been responsive to our teaching in the past. So we're confident that you will do the things that we've commanded you here. We take comfort in knowing that. So to summarize, Paul urges the Thessalonians to defend themselves with the knowledge of what God has revealed about himself and what he has revealed concerning his outworking plan. Now, this point is something I hope to really develop in a short series after we're done with this called the faith rest drill. And the faith rest drill is basically what I've been saying. It's that idea of how do we take our Bible knowledge and equip ourselves to live the Christian life? especially when you face trials. So the common illustration, and I'll develop this more when we start that study, is think of a guy in the National Guard. They go through drill, after drill, after drill, after drill, after drill, after drill, after drill, after drill, until it's, they're doing it in their sleep. They know the protocol for what happens when they jump out of a helicopter into an icy ocean and are trying to save someone. If they didn't have that training, what would happen when they jumped into the icy ocean? They need saved, right? They're the ones that their system is shocked. They forget where they are. They forget who they are. They forget how to swim. Their body seizes. But if it's ingrained up here, what they're to do, step one, step two, step three, what happens? They jump. They hit the water. The shock happens. It passes. Step one, step two, step three, person saved. And so applying that to our lives, we need to be studying the Bible in such a way that it's like a drill. Now, I don't mean to, we need to be cautious not to burn ourselves out, but at the same time, we need to be diligent is the word that Paul told Timothy. Be diligent. Diligence requires work. We need to work at understanding what God has written. Why? Because it's what is going to safeguard us when we face trials. That's it. Otherwise, what happens if you don't have Bible knowledge and a trial comes your way as a believer? What happens? You cry out to God, God, why are things the way that they are? And what is it? He wouldn't respond this way, but what could he say? I told you why they are the way that they are. But I also told you this isn't permanent. I'm here with you and you'll get through this. And on the other end, it's much better. It's worth it. And so these are the types of principles that I really want to help develop. And this is what Paul and all the other New Testament writers we're trying to accomplish in these churches, to teach them the whole counsel of God, to build that foundation so that the local church can take the steps to continue doing those things, to grow and develop the body of Christ so that they'd be edified and that they'd be able to weather storms. To use the parable that Jesus used, is our house built on solid rock or sinking sand? I know Jesus had a particular use of that, but I think he used several illustrations in several instances. So I will follow suit. What is our foundation? Is it the word of God? If it is, that's a sure foundation, right? If it's not, what is it? Maybe our emotions. I feel good today. God must love me. Oh, I'm down in the dumps today. I must have done something wrong. God doesn't love me. And you know what happens when you start thinking that way? Well, because I'm down in the dumps, God must not love me, so I must reform my life in some way so that I can gain God's favor. Is that the Christian life? If you think that, please re-listen to all of our Romans tapes. The heart of Romans is to establish the believers at Rome in their position. Because if you know your position, and it's a sure position in Christ, not based on your behavior, and you know that God accepts you there in that position as you are, made righteous with the imputed righteousness of Christ, how does that change the way we behave? We're not doing what we do to earn His favor. We do because we have it. We do because we want to glorify Him. We do because we want to honor what He has commanded us and to obey. So he's confidence in the Lord concerning you that you do and will do these things. So application, if you don't know what God is doing, an open question, how might you stumble when you face trials? If you don't know God's plan in scripture, how might we stumble as Christians when we face trials in particular? Sure. Yeah. And in the last few years, wouldn't fear be an appropriate word that describes the climate we're in? And how many believers do you know? Or maybe you're one of them. And I want to be sympathetic to that and not beat you over the head. But have you been fearful? There's been times where I have, I'll admit that. There's been times where it's like, God, how much longer? Now would be a great time to rapture your church. It's natural to feel those things, but what's our response to those things? What's our response to fear? It should be to trust the Lord. And so emotions, very good. Any other stumbling blocks when we face trials if we don't know what God is doing? Well, he says in verse three, he says, the Lord is faithful who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. And so when you understand that Satan's older, he's a prince of power. And so he will establish you, he will guard you. He has so much impact, he can. And so many people who profess to be believers, so many people who are believers, they think he's all power, all they can do. And they don't understand that the issue here is he's going to guard them from him. You don't have to be afraid of him. And when you consider everything that's going on in the world right now, ultimately you can find, you can see that he is the one who's behind that. But he can't touch me. See, that's the lie Satan wants us to believe. And so when I understand that he's lying, that he's the liar, he's the father of lies, that in my life, as I'm going through and I'm working, he can't touch me. He doesn't have a foothold. I don't give him a foothold. I'm not going to give him a foothold. And so I need to be established and he'll guard me. And we understand that Satan is the one who's there. He's in control. We know he's going to do what he's doing. Well, and what's the opposite of a lie? Truth. What is truth? God's Word, right? And so to illustrate Dan's point, it's almost, not almost, it's as if Satan is getting us to believe this image of us dangling over the fires of hell. And we're dangling from a string. And if we don't behave, or if we don't do this, or don't do that, or maybe we do, he's holding the scissors and can cut. That's not the biblical truth. Yeah, and we can't think of him just like that. Right. I met a young lady walking in church one time. And I'm thinking, why is this young lady here with her mom? Because they don't come that often. But then they sat on the back pew. And then I knew, OK, something's wrong. And my immediate thought, I won't mention who it is, but I thought, she's pregnant. And so anyway, we met afterwards. And that wasn't the problem. She tried to commit suicide. Because she had a little voice in her head all the time, constantly, for a number of days, telling her, she's no good, she's this, she's that. This is on the prairie ground. All the people were against her. And she was believing a lot. And she told me, well, this is the problem. I said, oh, that's easy. I said, I thought you were pregnant. We can't change that. But we can change what's going on. And Satan's the liar. And so he directly was attacking her. And we don't recognize when Satan is the one at times who's behind some of the attacks that people can receive going to scripture. So you have to be established and you have to say he can guard you against him. You've got to be firm in the word. Yep. You know the truth of the Word. And that's how Jesus handled Satan, right? He handled him completely with the Word. Jonathan? I just want to speak up on that and your admonition that we be applying ourselves to the study of God's Word. Satan is the deceiver. He is the father of lies. And he's amazingly crafty. The reason I asked whether it's believed there was literally a letter as though from Paul is That's a very clever way to see. And it shows how busy Satan and his demons were in trying to distort the truth from early on. And I, you know, I've been a teacher these days. I'm subbing a lot. Others here, like the Gaines, have been teachers. You teach classes. And it's interesting to me that in school, we would expect students to apply themselves and study. And that if they're refusing to do so, that's bad. I really feel in our shallow and lazy American church, you rarely hear that admonition anymore. That's a part of what we definitely should be doing. Not at all in a sort of a legalistic way, always depending on God's grace and His Holy Spirit, but we need to be doing that. The other thing I want to just quickly say that I appreciate that you said is the subtle error of making our minds the highest authority. I think Christians can slip into that also. I wondered if you felt this little phrase from Psalms backed up that point you're making, Jacob, in Psalm 36, for with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light, we see light. in thy light. Well, and how else does the Psalms caricature the word of God? A lamp under our feet, right? So the light of God's word. So I would say that's absolutely. And I think this speaks to what I call the doctrine of no neutrality. The doctrine of no neutrality is there's not a group of people or a large collection of people that are just maybe in the gray area of life. You're either abiding by God's word or Satan's lies. And it may seem harmless if you're abiding in Satan's lies, but isn't that what he wants? He wants dormancy. He's satisfied with dormancy. And I think that's largely been his strategy in the American church, is just people growing apathetic to the word of God. And so I'll close with this. That's why I subscribe to what has been called content-rich teaching. Content-rich teaching, which what that means is I don't expect that you're gonna understand everything first time around. In fact, I'd be astonished if you did. But content rich teaching means that something is going to be learned by everybody in the church because there's a spectrum there, right? There's people who've been walking with the Lord for decades, but then you've also got those who have only been maybe a Christian for a few weeks. And so the challenging task of a teacher, and it's funny since being in Denver at first at Front Range and now with the merger at Fellowship, I found my teaching developing because one of the things we learned at Bible colleges, and I love this, you have to exegete your people. You have to study your congregations. You have to know where they're at. And then a teacher's job is to teach on every level. As some have said, it's a one-room schoolhouse. And so I hope that encourages you that if you maybe don't understand a word that I use or a concept that I use or a doctrine that I use, don't be discouraged. Keep pressing in. Keep fighting. Keep being diligent. It will come. may not be in your ideal time, but it will come. And I can testify to that. When I first went to Bible school, I was ignorant. I knew the names of the books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and Revelation. Past that, I was ignorant. There might've been a few Bible stories here and there that I remembered from my Catholic days, but I was a blank slate. And I'm not looking for a pat on the back, or I'm not patting myself on the back, but I am so thankful for God providing, in my estimation, some of the best Bible teachers the world has ever seen, and learning from them. And if you sit under a good teacher long enough, something might stick. And I'm still a work in progress. But just be encouraged is my point. No matter where you start, diligence will reap. You reap what you sow. So if you sow diligence, what will you reap? A bountiful harvest. And so keep sowing. We are past time, so I will close with prayer.