1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and we just want to read the first verse. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 1. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Our father, we thank you this morning that we can fully trust you. No matter what the circumstances of life may bring. We thank you that when we fully trust you, we find that you are wholly true. We thank you that you are our rock and we thank you that our anchor holes. We thank you for the stability that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would help us as we look into your word today and speak to our hearts as we study it together for a few moments. And we pray that you might speak to any who are here, believers who are out of fellowship with you, believers who are out of your wheel. Speak to those who are lost, who've never trusted you as their savior. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. This morning, we want to continue thinking about the question that is on the minds and hearts of many of God's people as we begin this new year. And that question is a very simple one. Is this the year? Is this the year? Is this the year that the Lord Jesus Christ returns to the air to take his people out of this world? We've come here to 1 Thessalonians 5 because here in this first verse we have the biblical basis for approaching and exploring this question. Notice again the words there, but of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. The biblical basis for approaching the question, is this the year, is not trying to know the day and the hour of the Lord's return. The biblical basis for approaching this question is contained in five words there, the times and the seasons. And something that we don't want to overlook here in this verse is the implication of the words of it. And that implication is that we are to be so familiar with the times and the seasons. Our knowledge is to be so perfect. It's to be so exact and so accurate. Our study is to be so diligent. That's what this word perfectly means. That there's no need for the Spirit of God even to write to us. That's what Paul says to these Thessalonian believers. If that thought doesn't convict us, it's not because it's not intended to. It's because we won't allow it to. And so this morning, even though there's no need for it, we want to think about the times and the seasons because they are obvious. And the aspect that we want to think about is Islam. You cannot listen to a newscast today without hearing about Islam somewhere in the world. a suicide bomber or men going into a place like Charlie Hebdo in Paris and killing 14 people because of the things that they put in their paper, or going into a Jewish deli and killing people, or blowing up an airliner as was done over Lockerbie, Scotland back in, I think, 1988, or crashing planes into the World Trade Center, or setting off bombs at the Boston Marathon a couple of years ago. Wherever you turn in the news, wherever you look in the world, there is Islam. So the question that we want to think about is, where does Islam, where does its rise fit into our thinking when it comes to our knowledge of the times and the seasons? Now I want to begin by saying something. I am not an expert on any subject except food, perhaps. I may claim to be an expert on food. But beyond that, I'm not an expert. I'm not an expert on prophecy. I'm not an expert on the times and the seasons. I'm not an expert on Israel or the Middle East or on Islam. But I want to give you the good news. And the good news is that we don't have to be experts to be obedient to the Word of God. And the Word of God says that we are to study, to show ourselves approved unto God. a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The word of God says that if we lack wisdom, then we're to ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. And so directed by God's command to study and equipped with his promise to give wisdom to those who ask, we want to think about what this book has to say about Islam and its rise here in the last days. Now, I'll tell you at the very beginning, you will not find the word Islam in the Bible. But I think as we think about these things, I believe that we'll see it very plainly. We want to begin this morning by looking where I believe the roots of Islam are, where they begin. And that's back, as we might expect, in the book of Genesis. And so I'd like for you to turn back to Genesis chapter 12, if you will. Genesis chapter 12. Now, obviously, we aren't going to be able to talk about all of this today. We aren't even going to be able to get very far today. But we can make a beginning today, some foundational thoughts to put in our thinking as we go forward, as the Lord directs. In Genesis chapter 12, after a number of years that we cannot determine for sure, Abram leaves Haran and he comes into the land of Canaan. And verse 8 tells us, verse 8 of Genesis chapter 12 tells us where Abram comes. He comes to a mountain. He comes to a mountain between Bethel and Hai, or Ai. And he pitches his tent there and he builds an altar there. And it's there that Abram calls on the name of the Lord. And it's here that the Lord speaks to Abram. And He speaks two words to Abram for the first time to a human being. The two words are forever. And the Lord tells Abram how he's going to give him and how he is going to give his seed, this land that Abram has come into, he's going to give it to him forever. Forever. Very important word to keep in mind. Now, you don't see that word forever in verse 8 here. It's over in chapter 13, but it's the place is where he says it. And it's this place. We've learned over the years from Pastor Kelly, from his messages and from his book on Bible symbolism, that a mountain is a place of revelation. Abram is in a place of revelation, a place where God is going to reveal His Word and where He's going to reveal His will to this man. And so it's here that Abram pitches his tent. And it's here that he builds an altar to the Lord. An altar is a place of faith. We've talked about these things over the years. It's a place of sacrifice. It's a place of worship. So here, all of these elements here in chapter 12, the mountain, the altar, the place where Abram called on the name of the Lord and the place where the Lord spoke to and revealed Himself and His will and His plan and His exceeding great and precious promises to Abram. That makes this an important place. And this is where Abram pitched his tent, by the way. That's the same place that we need to pitch our tent in this hour. and the mountain of this hour, the place where the Lord reveals His Word to His people, the place where He shows us His way, the place where He shows us His will, the place where we call on His name, the place where we sacrifice and worship and demonstrate our faith, and the place that we serve is the local New Testament church. Abram came to a mountain, he came to a place of revelation, and there he pitched his tent. The place of revelation came first. The place of revelation dictated where Abram pitched his tent. And I would suggest to you this morning that what was true of Abram should be true of believers today. The mountain, the place of revelation, the local church that the Lord brings us to, that's where we need to pitch our tent. That calling to that place is to dictate where we pitch our tent. is to dictate where we build our altar, is to dictate where we sacrifice, where we serve, where we sacrifice financially, where we give of ourselves. That is to be the priority in our lives. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Get the first thing right. Get first things first. So many Christians live their lives upside down. Kent taught us many times about the right order and the wrong order. So many Christians find a job. That dictates where they pitch their tent. And then, after they found a job, they'll look around for a mountain. They'll look around for an altar to worship, a place to worship. But they've already got the order wrong in their lives. Abram had it right. The mountain dictated, the place where the Lord met with him dictated where he pitched his tent. And it ought to be that way in our lives today. Now with all that in mind, we come to verse 9. And Abram journeyed going on still toward the south. There's a one word question that comes to mind when we read this verse and the question is why? Why? Why would Abram leave this place of blessing? Well, the circumstances of his leaving are there in verse 10. There was a famine in the land. But the reason that he left is there in verse 9. Abram had journeyed in a southerly direction to reach the mountain where he pitched his tent and built his altar. But there are two words in this verse that tell us something that tell us that something's wrong here. Something's not right. The first one is the word still. And Abram journeyed going on still toward the south. If you look that word still up, it's a very interesting word. It means to pull out or pull up. It means to set out. It means to depart. In other words, Abram pulled out and pulled up and set out and departed from the mountain, from the place of revelation, from the place that the Lord had brought him to, from this place of blessing. So that's the first word that tells us that something is wrong. The next word that tells us that something is wrong is the word south. South is a direction on the compass, it's a direction on the map, and in itself, It's certainly not evil. The land that God promised Abram had a southern boundary to it. In fact, the language here indicates that this mountain in verse 8 was in the southern part of the promised land. In chapter 13, God told Abram to look out over the land and he told him to look northward and southward and eastward and westward and he told him to walk through the land. So there is nothing wrong with Abram walking through all of the compass points of this land that the Lord gave him to, that the Lord was giving to. When God gave instructions for making and adorning the tabernacle, he gave instructions for the south side of the tabernacle. And so there's nothing inherently wrong with the direction of south in itself. Are y'all listening? I thought somebody would say, amen, the South. There's nothing inherently wrong with the direction of the South. Thank you. And so when we encounter that word here in the word of God, we have to examine it and we have to examine it in the context of the passage. And the context here is determined by this word still that we talked about a moment ago. Abram is pulling out and pulling up and setting out and departing from the mountain, from the place that the Lord had brought him to, from this place of blessing, and he's continuing still south. And the spiritual significance of this direction here, as we've talked about through the years, is that it's the opposite of north. And the significance of north, again, as we've talked about on a number of occasions, is that north is the direction of God. In Psalm 75, we read God's warning. that we aren't to lift up our horn on high, or we aren't to speak with a stiff neck. And he says in Psalm 75 and verse 6, For promotion, lifting up, cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. It comes from the north. And it's like that because promotion comes from God. Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 13, Lucifer declared that his desire and his goal was to ascend into heaven and to exalt his throne above the stars of God and to sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. Heaven, God's throne, the mount of the congregation is in the north. North is the direction of God. And so when we see Abram here journeying and going on still toward the south, then the very plain message here is that Abram is heading away from the Lord. Abram is in rebellion against God. He's pulling out and pulling up and setting out in his own way. But God is not going to let Abram do that without putting up a roadblock. Look at Genesis chapter 12 in verse 10. And there was a famine in the land. And Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. And there was a famine in the land. God sent discipline. God sent chastisement to Abram's life in order that Abram might see that he was leaving the place of blessing, that he was headed in the wrong direction. And I'd like for you to think about something. As we look at this scene here, there is a physical boundary, a southern boundary of the land that God promised Abram and to his seed. And there is a spiritual boundary. There is a roadblock. There is a barrier that God has put up to get Abram's attention, to keep him from leaving the place of blessing. And that roadblock and that barrier is this famine. But Abram didn't see the famine as having any relevance in his life. It had no bearing, it had no effect upon him. He may have thought something like, well, that's for these other people. This famine is for these people here in the land. And besides, things like this happen all the time. You ever know anybody like that? I have. Me. I can think of times in my life when I pulled out and I pulled up and I set out on my own way, headed south, away from the Lord. And He put up roadblocks. And He put up barriers. He put them up in the form of trial. He put them up in the form of testing and chastisement. He put them up in the form of difficult circumstances. But the deception of my heart was so great that I thought those things were just a coincidence. It's life. Things like this happen all the time. And so the roadblocks had no bearing, they had no effect on my life and I just kept going south and I broke through the roadblocks. And I busted through the barriers. And I crossed the southern boundary, if you will, of the safety and the blessing of the will of God. And I was headed down into Egypt just as hard and just as fast as I could go. And so Abram ends up in Egypt. It's where you'll always end up in the world. Egypt is a picture of the world. It's where you'll always end up when you head south away from the Lord. When you break through the barriers, when you break through the roadblocks, what roadblocks is the Lord putting in your life this morning? What barriers is he putting there to get your attention? Abram ends up in Egypt. And you remember what happened. He tells Sarah to say that she's his sister in order to save his life. Abram was afraid that they would kill him. And so she does, and Pharaoh takes her into his house, and the Bible tells us here that he entreats Abram well for her, and he would have married her except for the Lord. In verse 17, we see that the Lord protects Sarah and he plagues Pharaoh's house because of her. And in verse 18, we read, and Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this that thou hast done unto me? And why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why didst thou? Why saidst thou she is my sister? So I might have taken her to meet a wife. Now therefore, behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away and his wife and all that he had. Then we come to chapter 13. And the first thing that we see is that Abram went up out of Egypt. It's worth noting that in chapter 12 and verse 10, he went down into Egypt. Egypt is always down. The world is always down for the believer. In chapter 13 and verse 1, he went up out of Egypt. Glorious day. Glorious day. And notice at the end of verse 1 where he went. He went into the south country. And verse 3 tells us where the south country was. It was Bethel, under the place where his tent had been at the beginning. between Bethel and Hai, under the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there Abram called on the name of the Lord." Abram went from the south into the south country. Now folks, the only way that you can do that is by going north. Abram left Egypt. He turned north from the south. He turned to God from Egypt. He turned to God from the idol of self-will. He turned to God. He turned from Egypt to God, to God from Egypt to serve the living and true God. That's repentance. That's repentance. A change of heart, or rather a change of mind that results in a change of heart that results in a change of direction in the life, a radical change, a 180 degree change in the life. Abram heads north and comes back into the south country of Canaan. He comes back to the southern border of the land of Canaan. He comes back into the boundary. He comes back into the blessing. He comes back into the safety of the will of God. And that's wonderful. And there is no better place for the child of God to be than in the boundary of the will of God. Wow, what a place. But folks, sin has consequences. Consequences that have eternal implications. Because the Lord Jesus Christ will bear in his hands and in his feet for all eternity the marks of the consequences of our sin. That's how serious sin is. And so many times we treat sin so lightly. We treat it so flippantly. We say something that we shouldn't say, or we do something we shouldn't say. Do, and you know, what do we say? Well, that's just me. That's just me. Galatians 6, 7 is a verse that we ought to memorize. It's one of the verses that we ought to hide in our heart that we might not sin against God. Galatians 6, 7 says, be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And if we will hide that verse in our hearts and we'll pull it out and we'll think about it, think about what our sin cost the Lord Jesus Christ, then we'll cry out as Joseph did in Genesis chapter 39, how then can I do this great wickedness? And we're confronted with sin. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Because it has consequences. It has consequences. Abram's sin in pulling out and pulling up and setting out in his own way, his sin in heading south away from the Lord and breaking through the boundary of the will of God and going down into Egypt and lying and deceiving, that sin has consequences. The first consequence is in chapter 13. You remember that Abram's nephew Lot went with him out of Haran. He left, actually, I should say, go back farther than that. He left with Abram when Abram left Ur of the Chaldees. And when they left out of Egypt and they come back into the south country, we read in verse seven that there was a strife. So Lot goes down into Egypt. We don't read about him there, but he went. Because verse 1 of chapter 13 tells us, and Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him into the south. Where Abram went, Lot went. You have people that look at you that way, you know. It's called being an influence. It's called being an example. Where are we leading people? Where are we leading people? Well, when they come back, to the land of Canaan, there's this strife between the herdmen of Abram and the herdmen of Lot. And so Abram says, look, let there be no strife. And so he tells Lot, the whole land is before us. And so you choose, you choose where you want to go. If you take the left hand, then I'll go to the right. If you take to the right, I'll go to the left. Now look at chapter 13 in verse 10. And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, is thou comest unto Zoar. We notice the words there at the end of verse 10, like the land of Egypt. The first consequence of Abram's sin was his nephew Lot. Now listen very carefully. Lot made his own choice. Lot made his own choice. The language here is unmistakable. Look at it. Lot, Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan. James chapter 1 and verse 14 says that every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. And Lot is being drawn away of his own lust and enticed by specifically the lust of the eyes. The lust of the eyes. Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld. Then Lot chose him. Lot chose. Lot chose. All the plain of Jordan. And Lot journeyed east. The scripture could not be more plain here. Lot chose him. And he's accountable to God. He's accountable to God for the choices that he made and the consequences that followed his choice. But I'll tell you something that's true. And the Lord is the one who knows exactly how to meet this out. And he will meet it out one day at the judgment seat of Christ. Abram is accountable for putting a stumbling block before his nephew. Romans chapter 8 and verse 12 remind you and me that every one of us, every one of us shall give account of himself to God, every one of us, not somebody else. We're not going to be able to blame somebody else for our sin. We're going to give account of ourselves to God. And then in the very next verse, Romans chapter 8 and verse 13, in the light of that statement in verse 12, verse 13 says, let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. Abram put a stumbling block, an occasion to fall in his brother's way. And the stumbling block was Egypt. Egypt. And when it came time for Lot to choose which way he wanted to go, notice what attracted him. What he saw was like the land of Egypt. What a responsibility we have as believers to walk circumspectly, to walk honestly before the Lord, to surrender our hearts to him, that we might not be a confusion, that we might not be a stumbling block to the people around us. The first consequence of Abram's sin was the influence that he had on Lot's life. The second consequence of Abram's sin affected his own life. but it has also affected the lives of countless millions of people around the world. In Genesis chapter 15, God makes his covenant with Abram. And that covenant includes the promise in verse four of chapter 15. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him saying, this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. God tells Abram that he's going to have a son, a son that would come out of his own bowels. He was going to father a son and the vessel through which that son would come would be Sarai, his wife. God had no other plan than the one that he established in the Garden of Eden when he created and established marriage as being the union between one man and one woman. And so it goes without saying here that God is saying, I'm going to give you a son, Abram. I'm going to give you a son, and Abram, that son is going to be born through your wife, Sarai. Now look at chapter 16 and verse 1. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. There are two words here in these verses that we want to notice. In verse one, we see that Sarai had a handmaid, and notice the next two words, an Egyptian. An Egyptian whose name was Hagar. And then in verse three we read, and Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Twice in these verses, the Spirit of God gives us Hagar's name and makes a point to tell us that she was an Egyptian. Hagar's name has a couple of meanings, and both of them are very instructive. Her name means ensnaring, and it means the sojourner. The sojourner. That last meaning of her name brings to mind the words of Genesis 12.10. And there was a famine in the land and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there. And while Abram was sojourning in Egypt, he met Hagar, the sojourner. And she became a snare. She became a snare in the life of Abram and Sarai. Folks, sin has consequences. It has consequences. The immediate consequence of Abram's sin is conflict in his home. Conflict in his home. Hagar despised Sarai because she was the wife who was going to give Abram what Sarai had not been able to give him, a child. And so she elevated herself to a position of superiority over Sarai. She was the handmaid of Sarai, but that's not how she was dealing with her. And the immediate consequence of Abram's sin was trouble in his home. I had to chuckle when I was thinking about this. This might be the place where the phrase originated, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. And Sarai's not happy. It was her plan. But she wasn't happy with the results of the plan. And there's trouble in the house. Folks, there will always be trouble in the home when we're out of the will of God. There'll always be trouble in the home when we leave the pattern of the will of God. When we do something that's not according to His will, when we do something that does not bring Him glory, when we are not willing to wait on Him, there'll always be trouble in our life. We'll never be happy. Never be happy working our plan instead of waiting on God's plan. And so Abram being a real backbone of a guy, he says, OK, Sarah, she's in your hand. You do with her as you want. And so the Bible says that she dealt hardly with Hagar. That word means to afflict. It means to humiliate. And so what pleased Sarah was to afflict and to humiliate Hagar. And so Hagar flees. Look at verse seven. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? And whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, return to thy mistress and submit thyself unto her hands. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, behold, thou art with child and shall bear a son and shall call his name Ishmael. I heard a sermon this week and it made the point that this is the first person in the Bible who God named Ishmael. He's going to name Isaac. And the spiritual lessons that are in these two boys are amazing. Ishmael's born after the flesh, and he's a picture of the flesh. Isaac is born after the spirit. He's the promised child, and it pictures to us the old nature, our old nature. It's born first. It's what we come into the world with. The Isaac, the son of promise, that pictures to us the new nature, it comes after we're saved. And so there's these spiritual lessons here that we could spend months and months thinking about. Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. Now notice verse 12. And he will be a wild man. By the way, the flesh is a wild man. If we want to think about how this applies to us personally, the flesh is a wild man. And he will be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Now, we're not thinking about those implications of the old nature and the new nature specifically this morning. We wanted to mention them. Because it's a great treasure trove of study. But this is a prophecy concerning Ishmael, and it's a prophecy concerning the people who would descend from Ishmael. And the people that descended from Ishmael are the Arab people. And out of the Arab people has come the religion of Islam. That religion, or at least the seeds of it, are right here with this prophecy. And what better description is there of what we see from Islam today than wild men? Wild men who have no regard for life, whose hands are against every man. They're against Christians, they're against Jews, they're against other Muslims. They're against every country of the world. Somebody sent me an email this week, I think it was Brother Dennis that sent me an email this week, and it lists all of these terror attacks and where they've taken place. There is not a place. You look at Spain, you look at Australia, you look at America, you look at France and Germany. Just go down the list of the places. His hand shall be against every man and every man's hand against him. One of the meanings of the word presence is face. We find it translated as face in other places. He shall dwell in the face of his brethren. Listen, you know what it's like. What do we tell people sometimes? Don't get out of my face. Don't get in my face. When you dwell in someone's face, then you're provoking and you're challenging and you're confronting them. It's exactly what Islam is doing today. I believe that the seeds of it are right here. And as I mentioned when we started this, when we can't, we just are starting. And as the Lord leads, we want to trace this through the word of God. But there's three words that do apply to us that we ought to think about. The three words that flash over all of these verses like a neon sign, sin has consequences. And we think to ourselves, but it was just a sojourn in Egypt. It was just a short stay. It was just a temporary, a trip to avoid a famine. You know, it's most instructive that the first time that we find the word sojourn in the Bible, we find it describing the length of time that a child of God was going to stay in Egypt. And Abram didn't stay in Egypt long. Do you know what? You don't have to stay out of the will of God very long to have devastating circumstances come to your life, devastating consequences come to your life. Abram didn't stay long in Egypt, but the consequences of that short stay in Egypt have spanned over 4,000 years. Christian, sin has consequences. There are consequences when we pull up and we pull out and we set out on our own way and we leave the place of blessing that God has brought us to. There's consequences when we head south away from the Lord. It's a dangerous thing to break through the roadblocks and to break through the barriers that the Lord puts up to cause us to see our sin and to see our rebellion. And to cause us to stop. And it's a dangerous thing to see those things and think that they have no bearing on us. And we just keep going south away from the Lord. And we just break through the boundaries. We break through the roadblocks. We break through the barriers. And then we break through the boundary of the Word of God, or rather the will of God. We're outside of that place of blessing and that place of safety and that place of protection. Christian, where are you this morning? That's the question. Are you headed south away from the Lord? Are you breaking through the roadblocks and the barriers that He has set up to get your attention? Or maybe you're already sojourning in Egypt. Maybe you're already there. The way back is to turn to the north from the south. The way back is to turn to God from your sin and rebellion and confess and forsake your sin, because he that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you're lost this morning, your sin has consequences. Eternal consequences. The eternal consequence of the wrath of God abiding on you forever. The eternal consequence that we read about in Revelation chapter 20 and verse 15. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. This morning, right where you are, you can do what Abram did. Saved or lost. Whatever your condition is this morning, you can turn to the north from the south. You can turn to God from the idols of your own will and your own way. If you're lost, you can trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. If you're saved, you can confess your sin. And he's faithful and just to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Let's close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the opportunity to look into it together. And we pray that you would just take this message and speak to our hearts today as only you can. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.