Open your Bibles to Acts chapter 22. Acts chapter 22. Here in Acts chapter 22, we're going to find Paul's sermon in the temple. And we have many of these sermons in the book of Acts. Paul's sermons, Peter's sermons, others. And there are some consistent principles through all of them. when they preach the gospel, but one of the things we will note is that they adapt how they present their message to the people who are hearing them, which is obviously always a good way to communicate. You want to make sure the people who are hearing you understand what you're saying, and you have to say it in ways that they understand it. Have you ever had a conversation with somebody who thought things were in the Bible that weren't? So I had a friend when I was growing up who grew up in church, but he didn't grow up in a church that really taught the Bible much, so they didn't learn the Bible. They would go through various rituals in church, but they didn't learn the Bible. And so he didn't know what was in the Bible, and he knew that I went to a church that taught the Bible, and so sometimes we would talk about the Bible. And he said to me one time, he said, you know, what's that story in the Bible about the monkeys? I said, the story about the monkeys? I'm not sure which one you're referring to. It's the one where the monkey's covering his eyes and covering his ears and covering his mouth. I'm like that, like, hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil monkeys? He's like, yes. I'm like, that's not in the Bible. I said it might be, you know, a moral kind of story, a kind of, you know, object lesson, but it's not in the Bible. And I remember having someone else say to me, now doesn't the Bible say something like a penny saved is a penny earned? No, I think that was Ben Franklin. It might be a wise proverb, it might be a good idea, saving some money's a good thing, but the Bible does, that's not a phrase from the Bible, okay? And so sometimes there are things out there that people think are in the Bible, and they, doesn't the Bible say, and they don't really know what it says, they just know it sounds like something that might be in the Bible. On the other hand, though, there are Christian people out there who do know their Bibles fairly well, who think that their applications of scripture are identical to scripture. So that, let me give you an example of this. I heard a preacher, and I've used this one before, say years ago that it was a sin for a woman to wear the color red. Now, my wife looks good in red, so I was kind of like, this is strange. Where did you find this in the Bible? But he basically said, in the Bible, red is the color of a harlot, and so women shouldn't wear the color red. Well, the Bible doesn't say that, does it? Nowhere does the Bible condemn the color red in women's clothing. It just doesn't. It simply doesn't say that. But he was preaching this as if this was clearly in the Bible, and anybody who did this was somehow immoral. Now, here's the problem with that. If you wanna make an application of scripture in a particular culture, there are times that we're gonna say, in our culture, the best way to apply this principle is, okay, and we're gonna make an application of it. So, for example, let's use facial hair as an example here. Okay, in 1970, most facial hair was a symbol of being of the counterculture movement. That you were a hippie, basically. Okay? You know, or say in the late 60s. It was usually a part of the counterculture movement. And so a lot of pastors were saying to their Christian people, you know, don't grow facial hair, you don't want to identify with those people. But on the other hand, you know, you go back and you look at photographs of Charles Spurgeon, the best known Baptist pastor, he's got this big old beard. He wasn't a hippie. Okay? He lived 100 years before the hippies. And on the other hand today, you know, if you tell our young people, you look like a hippie, they're going to go, what is that? I don't know what that is. We've moved 50 years past that point and people don't think beard equals hippie, right? So sometimes pastors would make that kind of an application because in the cultural context it might have made some sense. In other words, You don't want to be the people who are for immorality, smoking marijuana, you know, and overthrowing the government and setting up communism. Those are not the people you want to identify with as a Christian, so don't try to dress like them. Okay, that's a legitimate application of scripture. But what can happen though is we can say, well, you know, everybody knows Christians don't grow beards. I mean, you know, it's not like Jesus had one to pull out. Obviously, these are cultural things that are set in cultural times. And what can happen, though, is that we can make our applications, which can be genuinely good applications in certain times and places, we can make them equal to Scripture. And one of the things we're gonna find here, that's exactly what the Jewish people have done, and one of the reasons they reject the message that he proclaims to them here in this passage is because they're making their understanding, their misunderstanding of Scripture equivalent to Scripture, and they're not willing to hear Paul's sermon. What we learn in chapter 21, as we were preaching through this passage, was that Paul had been arrested in the temple because he was accused of bringing a Gentile into the temple and thereby defiling it. And the Roman soldiers came in and pulled him out to find out what was going on. And he's allowed to address the crowd that's gathered in the temple, the mob really, and he begins speaking to them in Hebrew. Says the Hebrew tongue, that could be Aramaic. It depends on, there's some archeological discussions about whether they were speaking Hebrew at that time in Judea, but there does seem to be some evidence that the Pharisees did prefer to speak in Hebrew rather than Aramaic. So either way, Hebrew or Aramaic, he's speaking not in Greek, which was the common language of the Roman Empire. So they hear a language they know that identifies with them culturally and ethnically. And he says, verse one, men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my defense which I make now unto you. He says, listen. Listen to what I have to say, I wanna defend myself because I'm gonna tell you what God has been doing. And when they heard that he spoke in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence. In other words, he's speaking our language, listen. And he saith, I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus. Okay, I'm Jewish, just like you. I was born in a city of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel. Now once he invokes Gamaliel's name, they know Gamaliel was the best-known rabbi of the day. Okay, so this would be like the chief theologian today in Christianity. I don't know that we could say that there's one particular one, but you could come up with a name of a well-known theologian, and people would say, oh, you studied under him. And that would perk people's ears up. Wow, Gamaliel. This is like saying, look, I went to Harvard. In other words, everybody's going to say, OK, that's kind of known for its education. It's the credentials that get people's attention. And taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers and was zealous toward God as ye all are this day. In other words, I was taught the law by Gamaliel from my youth up and I was zealous just as you are today. I was excited and energetic and just ready to serve God according to the law. And I persecuted this way unto death. What's the idea of this way? This is a common way to refer to Christianity in the book of Acts. In other words, and I persecuted Christians even unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. So I didn't spare anybody. It wasn't just the men. I was rounding up the women, too, and we were arresting them, tying them up, and dragging them off to court so they could be executed for their false teachings. Now think about this. This is a pretty, it's pretty hard to say that you were more serious about this than Paul. because he was arresting people, okay? I mean, he was serious about this. You know, it would be like saying, you know, that somebody who, it'd be like saying, I don't know how well you know history, but it'd be like saying Che Guevara wasn't really serious about the Cuban Revolution, okay? Che Guevara was responsible for killing thousands of people in Cuba just because they were politically in, you know, politically in his way. So if you look at that, you wouldn't say, well, you know, he was just sort of half in on the Cuban. No, he was all in. He did whatever he thought needed to be done for that revolution, that communist revolution to take place. Okay, so I'd hate to link the apostle Paul to Che Guevara, but what they were doing was kind of similar at that point, all right? Killing people because they don't agree with you. as also the high priest doth bear me witness." In other words, the Sanhedrin knows who I am. And all the estate of the elders, in other words, if you graduated from Harvard and then you got that high-paying job and you got all the connections and the people in power know who you are and they're giving you assignments to go find Christians and persecute them, they knew exactly who Paul was. And he's saying, they know who I am. From whom also I received letters unto the brethren and went to Damascus to bring them which were bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished. I was going to Damascus and I was going to find more Christians there and I was going to bring them here to be punished. And it came to pass that as I made my journey and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon. There's some extra details in this passage that aren't in Acts 9, which is the account of Paul's account of his conversion about his coming to faith in Christ. For example, that passage doesn't tell us it's noon. This passage does. So if you think about this, in the Middle East, noon is, sun is right up high in the sky. This is a hot time of day, the sun is bright. It was about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. He doesn't say the sun was really bright. Think about how bright this light was. Okay, the sun is really bright, and yet this light is so bright that it knocks him off his pack animal, off his donkey. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he says, I fell to the ground and I hear somebody saying, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And the voice identifies himself. I'm Jesus. Now this is interesting because what we find here, and we mentioned this in our Bible study on Thursday with our prime timers, was that when someone is persecuting Christians, it's like they're persecuting Christ. So if you think about this, it's a fearful thing to think of what, say, Kim Jong-un will give answer for. I mean, there are hundreds of thousands of Christians in prison camps today in North Korea. And someday when, you know, if he doesn't come to faith in Christ and someday he will stand before the Lord, Jesus is going to say to him, the King of kings and Lord of lords is going to say to him, why did you persecute me? And the petty dictator won't have his bodyguards to protect him. But the same thing's true whether it's one person persecuting Christians or whether it's corporate persecution like Kim Jong-un. But here what we find is Jesus says, you're persecuting me. Now Jesus had already died and risen before Paul has this encounter with Christ on this Damascus road. And what we find is he says, why are you persecuting me? And they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. Now some people will point to this as a contradiction. to Acts chapter 9. Let me invite you to turn there because I want you to be familiar with this. Some people say, see the Bible contradicts itself. Verse seven of chapter nine, and the men that journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. Now Acts chapter 22 says, and they were that with me saw the light, and were afraid, but heard not the voice. So isn't this a contradiction? One says it didn't hear the voice, and the other says they did, okay? Actually, notice the seeing isn't so hard, because you can see a light without seeing the person in the light, okay? So they didn't see a man, they saw the light. But what does it mean, hearing the voice and not hearing the voice, between these two verses? One, okay, here says, but they heard not the voice. That word for heard means they didn't understand the voice. And in chapter nine, verse seven, the word there means they heard the sound of it. In other words, they could hear that somebody was speaking, but they didn't know what was being said. There are actually two different words for heard there, and they're giving a different color to this. In other words, they're not contradicting themselves. It's not the book of Acts contradicting itself. What's going on here is in one passage it's saying, they didn't see the man, but they heard the sound of a voice. And in the other passage it's saying, they saw the light, but they didn't understand the voice that was being spoken. Those two things don't contradict each other. In other words, they complement each other. They're just giving different details here. So it's not a contradiction in scripture. So if somebody ever points you to this passage and say, see the Bible contradicts itself, you can explain to them that actually there's different meanings of the word heard here. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus, and there shall it be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do. God says, I have a mission for you, and I want you to go into Damascus, and you'll be told there. And when I could not see for the glory of that light being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus, and won Ananias. And now notice, Paul's preaching to a Jewish audience, so he established his Jewish credentials. Now he's going to establish Ananias' Jewish credentials. Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there. So he was a man who kept the Old Testament law, and he was in good regard of all the Jewish people there. Everybody recognized him as a good law keeper. He came unto me and stood and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. Now the other thing we have to recognize here is that the Jewish people recognized that when a miracle was done, God was working. So this is why they were confused about Jesus. Their leaders were telling them, don't listen to Jesus, but yet everything Jesus was doing in his miracles told them Jesus was from God. And so again here, when he says, this man was a devout Jew who kept the law and had a good reputation, and then he healed my sight, this is gonna perk the ears of all his audience and is gonna say, God was doing something here. One, you heard a voice from heaven and God spoke to you and now God healed your eyesight through this man Ananias? And he said, the God of our fathers has chosen thee that thou should know his will and see the just one and should hear the voice of his mouth. And so what does he say? The message here again is very much in a Jewish context. The God of our fathers has chosen you. In other words, who is that? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That thou should know his will. He wants you to know what he wants you to do. And see the just one. You saw Jesus. You saw the Messiah. Again, they hear the just one. They know that's the Messiah. They're listening to this. And shouldest hear the voice of his mouth, and you heard him speak. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men, and what thou hast seen and heard. He's called you to be an apostle. And now, why tarryest thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. What are you waiting for? You're gonna respond to what Jesus said to you? And then he calls on him to be baptized. And in the New Testament, we have some of these passages that sometimes bother us a little bit when we're worried about the idea that, you know, the thief on the cross was never baptized, but Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. Alright? People go to heaven without being baptized. You don't have to be baptized in order to go to heaven. But, having said that, let's not minimize baptism and think that it's unimportant, okay? And so in that day, baptism was so closely linked to your profession of faith that they would talk about the fact that it symbolizes the washing away of sins. The act of baptism, we know no works will save anyone, right? Doing good works doesn't save us, it's the grace of God alone. So being baptized doesn't somehow earn me something before God, but I do recognize the fact that baptism was very closely linked to a person's profession of faith, and so therefore It's often referred to as what it symbolizes, the washing away of sins. It doesn't actually wash away of sins. It symbolizes the washing away of sins through the grace of God received by faith. Calling on the name of the Lord. And it came to pass then when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance. And I saw him saying unto me, make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. Jesus gave him this message, and I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee. And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiments of him that slew them. When those people were throwing stones at Stephen, they handed their cloaks to Paul, and he held them. He says, all the Christians know who I am. I helped kill Stephen, and I've been locking people up. They know who I am. And he said unto me, depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. In other words, I'm sending you to go to the Gentiles. You're gonna be my messenger to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he's not fit that he should live. And as they cried out and cast off their clothes and threw dust into the air. Now what is their response to him here? Their response to him is, you're gonna go preach to the Gentiles? You don't deserve to live. In other words, now we know you're not from God. They were giving him a hearing into this. He's Jewish. He's got good Jewish credentials. He heard a voice from heaven. He kept the law. He was trained by Gamaliel. After he heard the voice from heaven, he went to a good Jewish man who was a law keeper. And that man told him what to do. And that man told him about the Messiah. And, oh, this is really interesting. And then he says, and God called me to preach to the Gentiles. And then they, no! They get angry. Now had God called him to preach to the Gentiles? Yes. Did the Old Testament even give indication that the Gentiles would come to faith in Jesus? Yes, absolutely. All right. The book of Zechariah talks about the fact that in the kingdom, when Christ rules and reigns, that nations like Egypt are gonna come up and offer and pay tribute to the King, to Jesus. In other words, Gentiles are gonna serve the Messiah too. So there's kinds of hints like that all over in the Psalms and Isaiah and Zechariah. Hints like that all over that eventually God is gonna reach out and reach to the Gentiles. This was in their Bible, but they were ignoring that portion. Because they liked the portion that said, you're special. And they were God's special people. But they liked that part so much that they wouldn't hear the other part of the Bible. Now we have to be very careful about this, and that is that we can be so set on what we think the Bible says that we won't hear the other parts of it. And there are people who are there sometimes. The question is, will you hear Scripture? First of all, will you hear Scripture about Jesus? Here he's talking about the Messiah, the just one. Who is it that Paul, I mean, this is an amazing thing. Here's a man who was on one side, and now completely, I mean, in a day, It changes direction completely. I mean, there was really no good reason to do this. There was no promise in becoming a Christian. In other words, this is just proof of a genuine conversion, because you just wouldn't do this otherwise. But what we learn is that he preaches Jesus. Who are we talking about? We're in the Christmas season, and we have some wonderful Christmas decorations in here, He's preaching Jesus. Who's Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God. He's the second person of the triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit. He's the Son. And the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Jesus took on our humanity. Born as a baby in a manger. Born sinless. Conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Born on this earth. But unlike us, he never disobeyed God. He perfectly obeyed God. Being God and man, he was the God-man. He perfectly could obey His Heavenly Father. And being God, He could be that infinite price for sin on the cross. That is, He could satisfy God's wrath against sin on the cross. But being man, being human, He could represent us on the cross. And so God sent His Son because He loved us, as John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. God loved us so much that He sent His Son to come die for us. that he took on our humanity, lived a righteous life, and he died on a cross. Our sins were laid on him. He bore our sins in his body on that tree. What do I mean sins? The Bible teaches that all of us are sinners. What do I mean by sin? What I mean by sin is that we've all rebelled against God. We've all gone our own way. We all do things the way we want to do it, not the way God wants us to. Okay? We've gone our own way in life. We've said, God, I know you say to do that. I know you say don't lie, but you don't understand. In certain situations where I can get an advantage, I won't make that sale at my job if I don't lie to people about what I'm selling, because they won't buy it otherwise. I got to make a living, right? And then what we do is we color it. We say, oh, you don't understand. Lord, I know you say, don't commit adultery, but, you know, my wife and I, we just regret marrying each other so many years ago and, you know, people justify all these kinds of things. You know, even the kindest, you know, the hardest ones like adultery and murder and some of these that we view as the harshest kinds of sins. I think I've said this before, but my aunt told me that when she was studying law in Texas, she was an attorney in Texas, that they studied a case where years ago in Texas, one of the defenses that was made was, you know, a man shot somebody else in a gunfight, and the guy he shot was, you know, causing all kinds of trouble in town, and the defense was he needed killin'. And the jury said, okay, you're right. You know, today that wouldn't hold up in court. He needed killin', wouldn't hold up in court. But there was a day in Texas You know, he needed killin', the jury's like, yeah, you're right, he did, okay, thanks, you're free, free to go. And so we could justify things sometimes that are even murderous. Now, most of us haven't committed murder, but, you know, all of us have sinned against God, we've tried to go our own way. And what God calls on us to do is to recognize that we're sinners who've tried to go our own way, and he calls us to turn to Jesus. We turn from our sin to Jesus. As Acts 20, 21 says, with repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, what we mean by repentance is not doing something good, not turning over a new leaf, not making my life good enough for God to receive me, but simply going, look, I've been trying to run my own life, and I've thought that, God, what you've said is stupid and doesn't make sense. And instead, what I want to do is recognize that this has only caused death, condemnation, separation from God, heartache in life, and Jesus has died on the cross, and I can have a right relationship with you if I come in faith to Jesus. Repentance isn't doing good works to be received by God, it's turning from my former autonomy and loyalty to sin, and turning to Jesus, and recognizing he's the only hope I have of eternal life. That's the good news of the gospel, that Jesus died and then he rose again for us, and that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have what? Everlasting life. Why? Because he has life. He conquered death. And so this was what Paul was preaching. Now, this is the message of the Bible. There are a lot of people out there that they hear that and they go, that's really kind of nice, but I just don't know if I believe all of this. Well, I'm asking you, will you hear the word of God? I'm asking Christians that. Will we hear the word of God? When you come to church, how do you come? Bored? I don't wanna hear the word, I gotta go to church, that's what I'm supposed to do, I'm a Christian. And I apologize if I'm boring, but this is the way a lot of people look at it. They're not eager to hear the word of God. Or there are some who come, I don't have anybody in mind here, but I've met people like this, okay? And they come to church and their goal is to try to find how many mistakes the preacher made in his sermon. How many times did he misspeak? And now with modern day smartphones and Google, They're doing research. The pastor said. He used an illustration, and he said this happened, and I googled it, and Snope said he's wrong. Or whatever. Okay, and you know what? If you find out that I'm wrong about something, I'm glad to hear it. I'll try to correct whatever I said wrong. But, on the other hand, that's not really a healthy way to listen to a sermon. To sit there and go, You know what's sort of in that sometimes is a heart that says, if I can prove he's wrong, I don't have to listen to what he says. And it's not me you need to listen to, it's the Word of God. So if you're using that as an excuse that I might have misspoken once, which I've done many times, if you're using that as an excuse not to hear the Word of God, that's just an excuse not to hear the Word of God. We can have all kinds of excuses for not hearing the word of God. In other words, when somebody can show you something clearly from the scriptures, and it's clearly in the scriptures, I recognize there are passages that are difficult and there are some that are hard to interpret, and there are different ways that different interpretations people approach it. So I do recognize there are some difficult passages that are hard to interpret. But the basic message of the Bible is clear. and that if you won't hear what the Bible has to say and what it clearly says, then you're being more like these Jewish people who wouldn't hear the gospel from Paul than you are like what a Christian should be like. That's a dangerous thing, okay? When the Bible clearly says something, I don't want to disregard it. And there are people who are that way, who you can show them clearly, look, this verse says this. Well, I think, well, When the Bible says something and then you answer with, I think instead, you're trusting your wisdom and not God's. And God calls on us to trust his wisdom, to trust his word. I've even had people say, if you tell people what's really in the Bible, then they may not live as holy of lives. I had a pastor tell me that. He said, I preach against this. And I said to him, brother, I don't see that in the Bible. And he said, well, yeah, but if I don't preach against that, then people are gonna go into sin. Well, if it's not in the Bible, sanctification is a work of the Spirit of God using the Word of God. So if you're not using the Word of God, you're not gonna see sanctification, you're just gonna see changed behavior. That's not the same thing. All right, there's lots of people out there who aren't believers, who aren't being sanctified at all, they're not being made into the image of Christ, but they overcome some vice in their life, or they live good, decent lives. That's great. But that's not sanctification. Don't misunderstand me. There are times to make an application of scripture in a particular culture, but we have to recognize those are applications, and not confuse sometimes our applications with what the Bible says. Let me give you an example of this. Years ago, one of our, actually the first, the first American citizen, so you have to qualify these kinds of things, right? It's sort of like St. Augustine. You go to St. Augustine, it's oldest city, right? Well, yes, but it's the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the continental United States. Okay? Because San Juan, Puerto Rico is older and that's in the United States. And Pensacola is older, but it was not continuously inhabited. And out west there's Pueblo, New Mexico I think has been continuously inhabited, but it wasn't a European settlement. And it's older. So there's places that are older. But if you put all those qualifications on, Okay, that works. So when we talk about a man named Adoniram Judson, he's what we say the first American to go to a foreign country as a missionary. First American citizen, okay? Not necessarily the first American. There was a man named George Lyle that was born in the Americas, but he was born a slave. He was an African man who was born in the United States, not in the United States, but the Americas. And he went to Jamaica as a missionary before Judson went to Burma. He's an American who was born in the Americas who actually went to a foreign country as a missionary before Judson. So there's qualifications there. But with all these qualifications, one of the things that happened was Judson and his wife, Anne, they called her Nancy, they went to Burma. And one of the things they started to do in Burma was to dress like the Burmese. And Burmese women wore a long skirt that came to the middle of their calf. And then they wore a tunic over the top of that, like a long shirt. And that was the way Burmese women dressed. But it caused a buzz back in New England, where Anne was from, because in New England in the day, women never went out without their ankles covered. That was considered immodest. Okay? Now, in a culture where women don't uncover their ankles, Christian women don't uncover their ankles. Because there's no reason to be scandalously immodest in that culture. I do believe there are some objective things that are immodest, okay? I think it's hard to say walking around without enough clothes on is, you know, just culture. But I was driving to see Scott Green after he had his accident. I was going to the hospital, and I'm driving down the 408. And they've got roads closed off over by Tinker Field and Camping World Stadium. And I see these people, and I'm like, is it legal to be dressed like that in public? And there was this event called the Electro Daisy Carnival, EDC, which is this big dance festival. And there are people dressed in all kinds of crazy ways going there. I'm like, what is going on here? And I'm on my way to the hospital. at ORMC, I just thought, this is not real wholesome. Whatever's, I don't know what's going on there, but I can tell by the people, the way people are dressed, this is not wholesome. Nobody was, I mean, nobody could say the way some of those people was dressed was modest, okay? It was objectively not modest. No, it doesn't matter what culture you're living in. It wasn't, it was intended to be immodest, okay? But in different cultures, sometimes different things are considered immodest, right? Different cultural expressions. So in New England, in early America, when the United States was a young country in 1810, 1812, about the time they sailed for Burma, if a woman didn't cover her ankles, it was scandalous. People wondered why she was being so brash and brazen. So when Ann Judson goes to Burma and she's wearing a skirt that only comes to the middle of her calf, how could she be a missionary's wife? Do you see my point here that what happens is there's a cultural application that's not necessarily a biblical application. It's a valid cultural application in New England in 1810, but it's not a cultural application for Burma in 1810. You follow what I'm saying? The women in Burma were still dressing modestly, they just weren't dressing the same way. I don't mean to rock your boat and make you think that some of the things that you've stood for are not biblical, but what I want us to do is to recognize what was a valid application of Scripture and what did Scripture actually say? Does the Bible clearly teach that women are to dress modestly and men to dress modestly? Is modesty taught in the Scriptures? Yes. If you deny that, you're denying what the Bible says. Now then, we have to apply that. But the problem is that when I make up a rule about what's modest, it's always immodest for women to wear red, then I'm making that up, and I can't say God said that. I can say God said be modest. I can't say God said don't wear red, because he didn't say that. You follow what I'm saying? And what happens is we can have some traditions that we make equal to scripture, and we need to be very careful. This is why the scriptures are the basis for our sanctification. And what I've watched, for example, is we had a young man visiting our church years ago, and he came to me, and he was discouraged. He wanted to find a young lady to marry, And he came to me and he said, none of the godly girls ever give me any time of day. But the girls I work with who are unsaved, you know, they're willing to go out on dates with me. And I said, well, what do you mean the godly girls? He's like, they all make fun of me and call me names. And I'm like, what do you mean the godly girls? Well, the ones who wear skirts. And I said, well, if they're calling you names and mocking you, they're not godly. I don't care if they wear skirts. Okay? Now, I think it's great, you know, if a lady wants to dress nicely, modestly in a skirt, it's good. But he had a definition that says, if a girl wears a skirt, she's godly. No, she isn't. Do you follow what I'm saying? And so therefore, those girls aren't being nice to me, so therefore, I must, and so what he's saying is, I'm gonna start dating unsaved girls because they're nice to me sometimes. No, you're gonna disobey a clear commandment of scripture because you've got a misunderstanding of scripture. Because my point is, you can look real good on the outside and try to look Christian on the outside, but if you're being cruel to a Christian brother, you're not godly, you're sinning. Do you follow my point? And so what the Lord calls us to do is to be set on his word. What does his word say? Let's hear it, let's obey it. And when we don't give hearing to the word of God, just like this group isn't giving hearing to the word of God, we're in a very dangerous place spiritually. So God calls us to obey him. He calls us to hear his word. When God has spoken, I mean, think about this from the very beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Lord said, let there be light, and there was light. God created by speaking. God has spoken. We need to hear when he speaks. We need to have a very high regard for the word of God and its authority and what God has said to us. All right, but that's two things. It doesn't just mean that I believe the things in the Bible that are miraculous and things that sometimes the world rejects. But it also means that I recognize that when it conflicts with my traditions, which sometimes I confuse with Bible, I recognize that we have to go with what the Bible says and not just my traditions. All right, we're gonna bow our heads.