Does anyone need I have one more less than three from last week, anybody missed last week and needs less than three melody. OK, well, maybe we'll be happy to make a copy. Just one copy from last week for the current. All right, well, less than four. We are on part two of this first chapter. We'll be able to finish the chapter tonight. There's not that much left here. We began last week this chapter where Matthew Henry wanted us to understand that he was speaking. He's talking about true piety. The title, of course, is The Pleasantness of a Religious Life. And what we really wanted to get across was that he's talking about the truly religious life, which means not that life which is just taken up with religion, or spirituality of any sort, or generally. But rather, for Henry, the religious life is the Christian life, because that's the only true religion. And so when we talk about the religious life, we talk about the religious life described and put forth before us in the scriptures. And so he said last week that he's talking about true piety, true holiness, to which hypocrites are strangers. A hypocrite is a stranger to true piety because whatever piety he has, it's faked. And so his piety is faked, and therefore he doesn't at all have any understanding. He's a complete stranger to the pleasures of true religion, because his religion, however true it may look to us, it's counterfeit. And if the religion is counterfeit, then whatever pleasure he appears to have in it is also counterfeit. The two go together, true religion and true pleasure. So now we come to the second part for tonight. In true piety there is a pleasure. Not just a pleasure generally, he's saying. The word pleasure, that's obviously an abused word today. We have to, again, think of these things in the context in which Henry is using them. He's talking about pleasures which are real pleasures, real delights, spiritual comforts, encouragements, delights of the soul. What he says are soul pleasures, not by contrast, pleasures of the flesh or carnal pleasures. Not sinful pleasures. You've got to get your mind out of that and bring it back to what he is talking about In true piety, there is a pleasure. And in fact, from what Henry is telling us, the only real pleasure that exists is found in true piety. And what kind of pleasure is this? He says, there is that, that kind of pleasure, in which we may find comfort and from which we may fetch or take or get real satisfaction. There is a pleasure in religion from which we can find real comfort and get real satisfaction. But he goes on, think about what we consider to be pleasant. We consider that to be pleasant, which is agreeable to our person, our nature, something that's not contrary to our nature, something that's agreeable to us, something that the soul rejoices in and rests in and something which the soul relishes, pleases itself with and desires the continuance of and the repetition of. The question is, what do we find pleasurable, truly pleasurable? That which we find truly pleasurable is that which is pleasurable to the soul, that which we love to rejoice in, that which we could rest in, that which, as I said before, you feel like once you get there, you can just stop. The world can stop. You can just spend the rest of your life here. You're as happy as a bug in a rug. You're completely thrilled about where you are. And what you have, the soul rejoices in, or at least rests in this. The soul relishes itself with this. The soul is so pleased that the soul wants it to continue forever. And if it ever stops, the soul wants it to repeat. You want to have that pleasure again. That's what we would define, he's saying. That's what we consider to be truly pleasant. Something that we respond to in that kind of a way. And then he says, let a man's faculties, your mind, your rationale, let a man's faculties be in their due frame and temper. That means let a man's faculties be where they should be, not corrupted by sin. And there is this kind of pleasure and satisfaction for the soul in religion. If we were not corrupted by sin, if our sinful heart didn't lunge itself towards sinful pleasures, if we were in a right state of mind without the corruption and the pollution of sin, and our mind were in the right state, our heart was in the right state, our desires, our affections were all where they should be when God created us good. If that were the case, we would find that kind of satisfaction and that kind of pleasure in religion. Now he's going to unfold this. Consider this. First of all, letter A. The ways of religion are right and pleasant. Which, for one, means they are pleasant without being diminished by injury or iniquity. Something that is right and pleasant must not be able to be diminished by injury or iniquity. If it can be diminished by, well, it's pleasant, but there's pain involved. Well, then it's not pleasant. It's not truly pleasant if there's injury, if there's pain involved. And it's not truly pleasant if there's sin involved, because that's not true pleasure. That's not true pleasure for the soul. That's pleasure for the flesh, which in the end is bitter, as we'll come to find out. So the ways of religion are right and pleasant without injury and iniquity. Take two sides of this. And here's just basically a list he gives us. First of all, the ways of religion are right. Here's four reasons. They're marked out for us by our rightful Lord. who has the authority to give us a law suited to our being. He made us. He created us. He has the right and the authority to give us a law that is suited to our being. And he has pointed out, he has marked out this way, our rightful Lord, and therefore the ways are right. And he has done so both by natural conscience. The law is written on our heart. We know the right way. The law of God is written on our heart. We know this. But more than that, he's given us, he's pointed out and marked out this right way of religion by his written word. As I said this morning, he's revealed to us the way we are to go. Secondly, they're not only the permitted ways, they're the commanded ways. So the ways of religion are right. Not just because they're permissible, but because they're commanded. God commands us to walk in this way. The Lord doesn't leave us to our own devices and say, well, go whichever way you want, go whichever way you please. No, God commands us to walk in His way because it's the right way. Yes, God is glorified by it. Yes, we should walk in that way. But the reason God commands us to walk in His ways, the ways of true religion, is because it's the right way. He's a true and a faithful God. He's not going to lie to us. He's not going to lead us astray. He's not going to deceive us. He's going to give us and tell us the truth. And the truth is walk in this way. It's the right way. All other ways are the wrong ways. A third reason that they are right is they lead directly to our chief end, the purpose for which we were created, and they prove profitable both for this life and that to come. So they're right ways because they lead us to the very place for which we are destined by creation, which is the worship and service of God, our Creator. And fourthly, they are right, they are the only right way to happiness, which we will come short of, which we will come short of it if we do not walk in them. A fourth reason, the ways of religion, the true religion, are right, is because it's the only way to happiness. Which means, if you come short of this way, or if you turn out of this way, if you don't walk in this way, you'll never know happiness. This is the only way to happiness. If you go in any other path, there are not many ways that lead to God. There's one. This is it. If you choose any other path, whatever pleasures you know, they will not be real. They will not be enduring. They will not be lasting. They'll be sweet as honey to the mouth and bitter to the stomach. In the end, they bite, right? So this is the way to true happiness, the only right way. And therefore, in these ways, the ways of religion are right. But they're also pleasant. Remember, Henry said the idea is to bring these two together. And that's what the way of Christianity does. It brings right and pleasure together. So the pleasure for they are pleasant ways for four reasons. First of all, he says sin pretends to have its pleasures, but its pleasures are a perversion and stolen waters. Versus. The ways of sin, or the pleasures of sin, are a perversion and stolen waters. Job 33, 27, he sings before men and says, I have sinned and perverted what is right, and it was not repaid to me. The idea of the wicked. Proverbs 9, 17, stolen water is sweet. And bread eaten in secret is pleasant. Why is stolen water sweet? It's not because stolen water is sweet in and of itself. It's stolen. How can it be sweet? It's sweet because our sinful palates find it sweet. The problem is, because it's stolen, the problem is with our palates. We find we have in ourselves a palate that has a taste for sin. We need to retrain by God's grace, have new hearts and new palates so that we delight, as we heard last Lord's Day, delight in the ways of the Lord and no longer find delight in sin. Sin's ways are unjust and therefore they are only pleasant to a sinful palate. Letter B, second one. But the pleasures of godliness are as agreeable to the rectitude, the righteousness of our nature, as they are pleasing to the pure desires of our nature. Like we said in the beginning, if our nature was where it should be, we would find nothing pleasurable but true religion and nothing right but the way of true religion. The ways of religion are the ways we should go, and they are the ways we would certainly choose to go if we were not sinful. The way of Christianity is so the right way that if we were not sinful, we would choose it of our own accord. Remember that's what he said in the first lesson. If we could just state the proposition, if I could just state it, and if we were where we should be, we would just latch on and agree with it immediately. Yes, of course. True piety brings true pleasure. I agree with that. But the problem is there's so much sinfulness in us that we doubt that. And instead we say, well, God, I'll come back to you later. Let me really try the world on for size. Let me try the world myself. Let me see if stolen waters really are or are not sweet. Let me see. And we run in the ways of wickedness. And if God is gracious, he brings us back. But we come back with many regrets and pains and scars and everything else. If we would just believe the Lord and take him at his word, this is the way we would go. It's the only right way. Thirdly, they are the ways taught us by God. And God tempts no one to evil. God cannot tempt people to sin. If these are the ways the Lord teaches us, then of course they're right. How can the Lord lead people astray? And more than that, how pleasant must they be who have infinite wisdom choosing their way and guiding them in it. Infinite wisdom. Think of the character of God. Think of the attributes of God. God's essence is wise. God is wise in His essence. He is wisdom. God isn't just wise. He is wisdom. And if He is teaching this as the way to go, then it must be the right way, and it must be the most pleasurable way, because what does the sermon text say? Proverbs 3.17, Her ways are pleasant and her paths are paths of peace. The ways of godliness. If these are the ways the Lord's teaching us and he is infinitely wise, then they have to be the best and most pleasurable and delightful and most right ways. The tree of knowledge, which basically stands for the anyway, all the ways that seem right to a man, remember the word says there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is See what God's telling us? I know it seems right to you guys, but it leads to death. Isn't this what Solomon told his son? Don't go near her house. I know she's calling you. I know she's beautiful. Don't go near her house because those who go to her, go to Sheol. They don't come back. This is how good the Lord is to tell us very clearly. God speaks the truth to us. He tells us the reality. The tree of knowledge is pleasant to the eyes, but it's forbidden. Why is it forbidden? Because God is being sour, because God, as the devil says, is trying to keep something back from us that is good. No, it's forbidden because God has said it's forbidden. It's forbidden because it's not the right way. But look what the Lord does. He opens clearly the right way and says, walk in it. And so the way of religion is called in Proverbs 318, a tree of life, because it is allowed, but it's also pleasant. A second consideration. The ways of religion are right and pleasant. They're pleasant without being diminished by injury or iniquity. Secondly, the ways of religion are easy and pleasant, pleasant without being diminished by toil and difficulty any more than what arises from the corruption of our own nature. That which is pleasant isn't diminished by difficulty or toil. That if we're if we're engaged in something, but we find it to be difficult, then it's no longer pleasant because it's too hard. Right. The things that are pleasant are the things that are easy. Henry's point is true religion is easy. The only difficulty we meet with in the way of Christ is the difficulty that arises from our sinful heart. The way of Christ is good. What did Jesus say? My yoke is easy. My burden is light. That's not a lie. God can only speak the truth. Of course it's true. Why does it ever feel hard and heavy? Because of our sin. So Henry is saying the only troubles you're facing is the troubles because you're a sinner. The true religion, the ways of true religion are easy and pleasant. They are not in any way diminished by toil and difficulty. Consider 1 John 5 3, in which we're told that his commandments are not burdensome. This means more than just the fact. If you read this, Henry says we're being told more here than the words tell us. It doesn't just mean. It doesn't just mean that the ways of our Lord are not grievous. It means more than that. It means the opposite. In fact, it means that his ways are gracious and pleasing. His commandments are not burdensome. They are pleasing and right. And again, we have Matthew 1130 here. My yoke is easy, Jesus said, not only Henry says easy and painless as a yoke to the neck, but the opposite is equally true. The yoke of Christ is sweet. It's gentle. It's as easy as a pillow for the head. Did you ever think that Christ was talking like that when He said, my yoke is easy? You're thinking, yeah, but it's still a yoke. Then you're saying, no, it's not. It's your sin that makes it a yoke. It's your sin that has in mind this yoke around an ox. And you're thinking, well, at least it's lighter than it could be, but it's still a yoke. No, Paul rejoiced in slavery to Christ. That's the idea here. It is so sweet and so gentle, it's as easy as a pillow to the head. It's not merely tolerable, a tolerable slavery. It is a comfortable slavery. Changes the whole perspective, doesn't it? Henry's arguing for the pleasures of true piety, the pleasantness of true religion. There is not only nothing to complain about in the Lord's ways, But there is much to rejoice about. He is not only he is not only excuse me, his his is not only work that does not weary, but work that has its wages in it. It's not that his work isn't wearisome. His work is profitable. Again, the other side of it, a tree of life to protect us and under the shade of which we can rest with great delight and satisfaction. A third consideration, the ways of religion are gainful and pleasant, so they're right and pleasant, they're easy and pleasant, but they're gainful and pleasant without being diminished by expense or loss. Something may be pleasant until we hear how much it costs. Something may sound good until the price tag, and then we say, ooh, no, too good. I can't do it. I can't afford it. So here, Henry is saying the ways of religion are not only pleasant, but it's actually gainful. There's no diminishing of it by expense and loss. The gain of this world is usually gotten by much unpleasant toil and labor. They who serve the world are its slaves, not its kings. Psalm 127, verse 2. It is in vain that you rise up early and go to go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Those in the world who are racing and running after the world rise early and go to bed late, working, working, working, working, anxious toil. Ecclesiastes four, verse eight, one person who has no other either son or brother, yet there is no end to all of his toil and his eyes are never satisfied with riches. So they never asked for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure? This also is vanity and an unhappy business. It's vanity because a man who has to work all his life to store up a great number of riches for himself never really gives thought to the fact, wait a minute, I can't take all this with me. What am I going to do with this? To whom am I going to leave it? And what's he going to do with it? As it says in Ecclesiastes, you leave it to your son and he wastes it in a month. It's gone because he's not as wise as you. He's just a young child, as it were. He's immature. He doesn't have the wisdom you have in your old age. And everything you worked for all your life and never got to enjoy, he's going to destroy in one month and you've got nothing to go with you. It's vanity. There is a way that is not vain, and that is the way of religion. So those who serve the world are not its kings, but its slaves, they only gain. The only gain they got by the works of sin was death. What are the wages of sin? That's what you get. That's the wages of going in the path of wickedness. But the ways of religion bring both pleasure with it and profit after it. Pleasure during and profit after. We get profit during, of course, but our greatest profit is in the life to come. And they do not, the ways of religion, do not cost us our lives. Instead, we gain our lives by the way of religion. We lay down our lives for Christ and we actually gain our lives. Isn't that what Jesus said? He who seeks to save his life will lose it. But he who loses his life for my sake will save it. That's the point. When all accounts are settled, no man will be seen to be a loser by the ways of religion. When all accounts are settled, regardless of what it may look like in this life, regardless of what the world may say, regardless of what we may sometimes think, when all accounts are settled on the day of judgment, no man will ever be seen to be a loser because of religion. The true religion, of course, Christianity following the Lord Jesus Christ. He will be seen to be a gainer. Moreover, the ways of religion bring present comfort. Not just future profit, right? But present comfort. Not only after keeping, but in keeping the Lord's commandments, there is great reward. Psalm 19, 10. The saints sing with joy in the ways of the Lord. Psalm 138, 5. Why do they sing with joy in the ways of the Lord? Because they find the ways of the Lord to be pleasant. And the closer we adhere to the rules of religion, the commandments of Christ, the more intimate our conversation is with divine things. And the more we live with an eye to Christ and another world, the more comfort we will enjoy. What does that mean? The more religious you are, the happier you are. The more zealous you are for the Lord, the happier you are. The more on fire you are for God, the happier you are. Those who love God's law have great peace, Psalm 119, 165. Then what can we say? The more they love it, the more peace they have. If those who love the law of the Lord have great peace, then what about those who really love the law of the Lord? Those who love it more, well, they have more peace. A third thing to consider then is it is a true pleasure. In true piety, the first point he made, in true piety there is a pleasure. Now he says, I call it a true pleasure. What does he mean by this? Well, he wants to make a distinction that Paul makes in 1 Timothy 6, verse 20, where Paul speaks of knowledge falsely so-called. That which is falsely called knowledge. Well, he says there's a pleasure falsely so-called. There is that which is falsely called pleasure. I'm not speaking of what's falsely called pleasure. I'm speaking of the true pleasure that belongs to the true religion. We are sure that it is a true pleasure which religion secures to us, a pleasure that deserves the name and answers the name to the fullest. Now, he gives us a couple of things here to think about. Three things in particular. First of all, he says it is a true pleasure for it is real and not counterfeit. Pleasures of the worldly are the pleasure of the worldly is but a pretended pleasure accompanied with many pains. Those who make a god of their belly or money find such constant pain and uneasiness in their idolatries that their pleasure is but from the teeth outward. It's just a great, a great Puritan quote. From their teeth outward. Basically, it's all in word. It's not real, right? It's from the mouth forward. It's just in word. Their happiness is in word only. In name only. There's no happiness, there's no peace of conscience, right? There's no happiness of soul. Whatever happiness they have is in name only. That's what he means. They are discontent with present disappointments. Things don't always go the way they want, and they're afraid of worse disappointments. So they have discontent, they have fear, and they're ruled by their ungoverned passions. Their affections and desires actually rule them. They're a slave to their own appetite. Those who run after the pleasures of the world are slaves to their own appetite. That's his point here. And they're never satisfied. They keep running. And above all, they are conscious of their guilt and dread God's wrath. Above all, they are conscious of the fact that they are on the wrong road, living the wrong kind of life, and God is going to judge them. At the bottom of that downward spiral in Romans chapter 1, verse 32, they who do such things know that they deserve death. And yet they do them anyway. They know that those who practice such things deserve death, yet they not only do them anyway, but they rejoice in those who do them. That's where Henry gets that, I think. They don't want to be thought disappointed in that which they've chosen for their happiness, and therefore they pretend to be pleased, when if they really know their own wickedness, they cannot help but know their own bitterness. They don't want to prove, they don't want to let out the fact that they really went the wrong way. They don't want the world to know that they took the wrong bath. So they carry on the hypocrisy. They carry on. They continue to wear the mask and they go throughout day after day after day saying, I'm just so happy. I'm thrilled. I went the right way. I made the right choice. I have no regrets. Where I am is where I want to be. I don't want to be anywhere else. Life is great. I'm having a great time. When they go home at night and they know they're just miserable and they wish they could change things. But they're afraid to change things. They're afraid of what people will think. They're afraid to be considered a failure. They're afraid to admit the fact that they made the wrong choice. They're afraid of repentance. And so they continue on their journey, miserable all the way, putting fake smiles on their face, pretending to be enjoying themselves when they're not. They know their own bitterness. Moreover, many of the things of this world, which we believe will comfort us, prove to be vexations. We set our hearts on the ways of sin. We deceive ourselves with promises that such ways will prove both pleasurable and profitable, only to find it a painted fire. The problem is we make promises for ourselves about things of the world. We promise ourselves, our conscience pricks us that what we're doing we should not be doing. That what we're pursuing we should not be pursuing because it's not the right path. Our conscience is God's deputy and our conscience is telling us that we're on the wrong path. And it's only going to lead to a miserable, miserable, regretful place. But all along the line, how do we quiet our conscience? We make promises to ourselves, you'll see, it'll be okay this time, I'm better this time, I learned my lesson, I won't make the same mistake, you'll see, it's okay, it's okay. And we quiet our conscience with these promises of, like Jeremiah says, peace, peace where there is no peace. And we carry on in this way. But what do we prove? What do we find in the end? It's the painted fire that we were hoping it wasn't, but what we knew it to be. It's a painted fire. It's neither pleasurable nor profitable. By contrast, the ways of religion are solid, substantial pleasures, not painted. worldly people pretend a joy they do not have, while godly people have a true joy. Remember what Jesus said in John 4, 32? I have meat and drink you know not of. Disciples are all worried about him. When he's talking to the Samaritan woman, the woman at the well, wait a minute, did he eat? We went to get him something to eat. Now he's carrying on as if he's not hungry anymore. I have something deep inside of it. I have a pleasure, a joy you do not realize. My greatest joy is bringing the gospel to this lady. So it's a true pleasure because it's real and not counterfeit. Secondly, it's a true pleasure because it's rational and not brutish. This is a very powerful point. It's rational. It's rational in that it makes rational sense. It's not brutish. Look at what he says here. The creatures have the same pleasures of sense, sensory pleasures, that we have. Well, because God made us both, right? And in some degree, in some sense, they have them to a much higher degree because they don't have the checks of reason or the checks of conscience. Sometimes we're indulging ourselves in pleasures and what's our conscience saying? You're wasting time. Get back to work. Sometimes we're giving ourselves, indulging ourselves in something and our conscience is pricking us because we know we should be doing something else. Well, the beasts don't have that. The beasts just give themselves to their pleasures, he's saying. He said, it's wonderful. They have a higher degree of pleasure in this sense. Think of the happiness of the birds which sing in the morning without a care in the world about how they're going to eat, how they're going to clothe themselves and what food they're going to find for the day. Think of the bears resting in a cave for days or months. How would you like to sleep for months? Maybe for days at least sometimes. Think about that. So he's saying that they have the same pleasures we have in terms of sense. And in some sense, they have them to a higher degree because they don't have conscience and reason checking their indulging of themselves in these pleasures. But what are these pleasures to one who was made higher than the beasts? It's the whole argument. Don't forget who you are. This is one reason why the catechism begins as it does. What is the chief in demand? Why were you created? For self? For pleasure? For self-sinful pleasure? For the world? You're created for God. You were made higher than the beast. What are the pleasures of sense to a man who has an undying soul designed for spiritual and heavenly delights? This is why the pleasures of life, no matter how much of them we have. can never, ever satisfy. And why Solomon, for all his earthly pleasures, Ecclesiastes, found them an unsatisfying vanity, because our souls are not made for brutish animal pleasures, but our souls are made for true, rational, satisfying pleasures. Pleasures which can only be found in God. If we run to the world in search of what only God can give, this is what he said last week, remember? In search of what only God can give, we'll always come up short. Always remember that our bodies have been given to us to serve our souls. Our souls are not given to us to serve our bodies. We have sense, and we enjoy sensory pleasure, seeing and hearing and tasting and touching. These are things God's given us, and these are good senses, but they're given to us for the service of the body. They're given, excuse me, for the service of the soul. They're given to us for the service of religion. If we give our senses to the world, we're giving them to the wrong purpose. They weren't created for that. They weren't created for the pleasures of sin and the pleasures of this world which are vanity. They were created for our souls. Building up for our souls' benefit. It is a true pleasure, thirdly, for it is remaining and not flashy or transitory. The idea of a flashing light, right? Not flashy and transitory. That is a true pleasure which is durable and continuing. Not like the candle which goes out, but as the sun which abides. The pleasures of sense are fading and perishing with the world upon which they are founded. 1 John 2.17, he says, the world is passing away along with its desires. Even its desires are passing away, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. The pleasures of sense please and satisfy at first. But afterwards, they're bland and pale. No taste, no beauty. In fact, we could say afterwards, they're bitter. The joy of the world is but as the crackling of thorns under a pot. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 6, a great verse. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools. The crackling of thorns, loud, bright. Gone. Gone so quickly. The flame dies down almost immediately. The crackling ceases. These great thorns which made such a fuss upon their entrance are nothing but ash. No substance, cannot give heat, make a great blaze, a great noise, end in ashes and silence. The pleasures of sin are but for a season, having neither consistency nor continuance. Remember, Moses, we're told, he chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God, the Jews, the Hebrews, than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin in the house of Pharaoh. See what the Hebrew says? Fleeting pleasures of sin. It calls them pleasures. But because they're pleasures of sin, they're fleeting. They're transitory. They're flashy. They don't last. They're not enduring. There's no consistency. And there's no continuance. But the pleasures of religion will abide. They do not wither in winter, nor tarnish with time, nor wrinkle with age, but continue through the greatest opposition. And they despise time and change. The treasures, the pleasures of religion abide. Not only do they abide in this life to the end of our days, but they abide in this life and in this life is their beginning. They abide into eternity. Even in their sorrows, he says, believers are always rejoicing and triumphing. Because their eternal souls make the eternal God their portion, nothing of time can hinder their eternal rejoicing. In other words, the taste we have of heaven now is a an eternal taste, it's a foretaste of the real taste. Our souls are eternal. If we make God, the eternal God, our portion and delight, the portion and delight of our souls, then indeed we have eternal rejoicing. Our pleasure is laid up with our treasure in heaven, as Jesus says in Matthew 6, 19. So Henry applies that verse here. We're told there, lay up your treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust can destroy, nor thieves break in and steal. Henry says, well, that's where our pleasure is. Our pleasure is laid up in heaven. Our pleasures aren't in this life, fleeting and vain, the crackling of thorns, transitory and flashy. No, our pleasures are laid up in heaven where Christ is, where our treasure is. There's our delight. It's enduring and lasting and eternal and abiding. Their present pleasures are the beginning and foretaste of everlasting pleasures and are therefore eternal pleasures themselves, which none can take away. What we enjoy now, we will not, cannot lose. The taste we have now, we will not, cannot lose because it's a taste of heaven. As has been often said, and surely the martyrs understood what this meant, that you can take away our Bibles, you can take away our church, you can take away my life, but you can't take away my Jesus. You can't take away what's in my heart. You can't take away my joy. You can't take away my delight. And so, as you read many of the great stories of sad stories, but great stories of those who went to the stake and went to the lions rejoicing at a loss for all things. Everything had been taken away. Now they're being thrown to the beasts, thrown to the flame. Where is the rejoicing? Well, what does that manifest? But their pleasures weren't in the things of this life. Their pleasures were locked up where their treasures are, and that is in heaven in Christ. And as Christ dwells in us by his spirit, you can't ever take that away. You're going to lose the world. The world passes away with its desires. Those who follow the Lord God abide forever. And so he closes this. So then, the great truth which I desire my heart and yours may be fully convinced of is this, that a holy, heavenly life spent in the service of God and in communion with Him is without doubt the most pleasant and comfortable life any man can live in this world. That's what he's trying to prove. That's what he's trying to get us on board with. That's where we're headed. So we need to pray that God would help us see and understand and appreciate that and come to be convinced of this very thing, that without doubt, we know, we believe and we walk out in faith in this journey, in a life that is given completely. to true religion, to the service and worship of the great God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen. All right, any questions or thoughts?