Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to church. Good to see you guys. Beautiful day. Man, I know we got an extra hour, but I am not extra hour worthy. Not even close. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 28. Jeremiah chapter 28. And I've titled the message, but I'm not going to give you the title yet because it may direct your thoughts. I don't want to direct your thoughts. I just want to get into it. Jeremiah chapter 28. Let's read this chapter. It's 17 verses. I'll read it pretty quick, and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer and we'll talk about it. And I don't have a ton for you this morning. Famous last words, right? So, Jeremiah chapter 28, it says, And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year and in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azur, the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spoke unto me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken," Now this is Hananiah. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place and carried them to Babylon. And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah that went into Babylon, saith the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. In verse five it says, then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the Lord, even the prophet Jeremiah said, amen, the Lord do so. The Lord performed thy words which thou hast prophesied to bring again the vessels of the Lord's house and all that is carried away captive from Babylon into this place. Nevertheless, hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people. The prophets that have been before me, and before thee of old, prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him. Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck and break it. And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Then the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the prophet, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Thou hast broken the yokes of wood, but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and they shall serve him. And I have given him the beasts of the field also. Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth. This year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord. So Hannah and I, the prophet, died the same year in the seventh month. It's a very interesting story. Let's talk about it. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you, Lord, so much for your word. Thank you for giving us today, another day, waking us up. Lord, a beautiful sunny day, and I pray that we'd appreciate it, appreciate everything we've got, the breath in our lungs and the clothes we wear and the bed we sleep in. And Lord, everything we've got is from you. And if we remember that, we'd be in a better place. And I pray that you'd help us to appreciate what you've given us today. I pray that you'd help me to preach this message just right, the way you want. I pray that you'd help me to communicate exactly what you would have. I pray every heart would hear what you want them to hear, that you'd have soft hearts that would receive the message. Lord, help my heart to be soft and receive the message. And I pray that you'd bless this church, bless this group, bless this time, bless everything that's done here today, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Hananiah gives some relatively good news, and I want, I didn't write this in my message, but it's interesting as I read this again, it calls Hananiah a prophet, all right? So there are prophets, there are preachers out there, they're called preachers that you probably ought not listen to. But Hananiah gives relatively good news, and basically it's that everything's gonna be fine, and everything's just gonna get better. And, you know, today people would give us a wrong message and they would say, well, we can find some scripture to justify it, right? And Hannah and I could find scripture to justify everything he said, which is why when Jeremiah spoke, he said, you know, hey, Amen, the Lord do so. The Lord perform thy words which thou hast prophesied to bring again the vessels of the Lord's house and all that is carried away captive from Babylon into this place. But then he says, nevertheless. So there's more to it. And something I've learned about what I'm gonna call the false prophet, but really just a preacher that'll just preach whatever he wants to you, rather than what God wants him to preach to you, is that he can find it in the Bible. You can find just about whatever you wanna find in the Bible. I've said this a lot. You said this another way the other day that I liked, and I can't remember it, I will think of it, but basically I've said this and I learned it from somebody else, but there's enough slack in here to hang yourself. And if you want to rest the scripture, if you want to get it out of context, if you want to take something that doesn't belong and put it somewhere, you can. You can do that. You can rest the scripture to your own detriment. It's there. It's free to do. So Hananiah gives some relatively good news, and again, we can find scripture to justify it, so that doesn't necessarily mean it's always right. You've got to take it in context. You've got to take it along with the Spirit. Hananiah's message was very likable. It was a message that if they were going to hear the two messages, and they heard two messages from two prophets, and Hananiah's was the more preferable message, for sure. And we hear some similar messages today not with these particulars But you know we hear about restoration without any sacrifice, and we hear about fellowship without any repentance, and we hear about Healing without any truth, and we hear about you know love just a just a feeling kind not the choice kind and we hear about you know healing That's just a physical kind and not the spiritual kind and we hear about these things Good times all the time is basically what we hear that everything will be fine And it's only getting better just like Hannah and I preached But the Bible says in Isaiah, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. So there's a pit, there's a snare that is to call something that's not right and not good, right and good. and we do it all the time. I mean, and I hope not us, but we've fallen prey to it also, but it happens all the time out and about in the world. You see people calling things right or true or good or just or righteous or for God that have nothing to do with God that may not even be right or true or good. And by the way, there can be things that are right and true and good that are not necessarily for God either. So That's not what I'm preaching on. But I'll say this, when it comes to the message, if it is not the truth, then God is not pleased with it. And if it's never upsetting to you and your position and your pride, it's probably the right thing, and it always agrees with your flesh and your will, then it's not the truth, it's false, and God is not pleased with it, all right? So in Jeremiah, I'm gonna read just a little bit out of Jeremiah chapter 28, what we just read. But in verse five, it says, then the prophet Jeremiah, in fact, I just read this, so I'm gonna skip this part. Prophet Jeremiah says unto Hananiah, amen. You know, the Lord performed that which you said. But verse seven, nevertheless, hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears and in the ears of all the people. The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries and against great kingdoms. of war and of evil and of pestilence. So a biblical message, a true message, has always included both the good news and the bad news. It's always included the conditions. It's always included, you know, the if this, then that. God's message hasn't changed, all right? And that is the truth. We don't have to worry about King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon taking us captive. In a manner of speaking, we do. We don't have to worry about this. But God's message has not changed. Salvation has not changed. Salvation is still by grace through faith of what it was back then. It's what it's always been. There's no change. There are people that'll preach to you that it's changed, that it will change, that it has changed. It has not changed. It won't change. That's God's message. It says, the prophet, this is verse 9 of Jeremiah 28, the prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him. So the guy who says, you know, all is well, everything is well, when all is really well, then he'll be revealed. And that'll be the day of the Lord. That'll be the day of evil for some of these people. That'll be that great day. The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him. So when it comes to pass, when there really is peace, then we'll know. But until then, the guy prophesying everything's fine, everything's okay, is not from the Lord. Verse 10 of Jeremiah 28. Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck and break it. And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people saying, thus saith the Lord. Don't be fooled that the false prophet will stand up and tell you that the Lord said this. And by the way, he can find it in here. Thus saith the Lord, even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Then the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the prophet, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah. Don't you hate it when you go away and you're like, ah, I should have said this. That's what happened to Jeremiah. Verse 13, go and tell Hananiah, saying, thus saith the Lord, Thou hast broken the yokes of wood, but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron." He said, listen, you're breaking these yokes, you're taking these yokes off the people, and it sure looks good to them, but what you're doing is fastening them and putting on them a yoke of iron. You're taking off these light, easy yokes, and you're putting on a hard, heavy yoke, a yoke of rebellion and disobedience. And that's what we're getting at. Verse 14, for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and they shall serve him. And I have given him the beasts of the field also. Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, hear now, Hananiah, the Lord hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth. This year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month." You say, how? How can Jeremiah say that God didn't send Hananiah? How can he say such a thing? you know, clutch your pearls. How can he say such a thing? Well, here's how he can say such a thing, because he's preaching a different message. And all that Jeremiah knows is that he's preaching the message from God. Go to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. All Jeremiah knows is he's preaching the message from God. And we even see, and I didn't, you know, I'm not digging too deep into this, but we even see he goes away. But then he, God comes back to him and says, listen, you need to go and say this. And so it seems like Jeremiah is just content to say, well, they're gonna believe the one they're gonna believe but Jeremiah is preaching a message that God gave him and he knows that but then you've got Hananiah preaching another message. Two different prophets, two different messages. So you say, well, how can you say that that church is no good? How can you say that that preacher's no good? Listen, all I can tell you is that I'm preaching to you what the Bible says. I believe Pastor Turk's preaching to you what the Bible says. And I can give you a list of people that I believe are preaching to you what the Bible says. It doesn't mean they're infallible, but I believe that when I check it against the Bible and what it says, that it's right. You know how I can know a lot of people are not right and not, because they're preaching another message. It's that simple. 1 John chapter four, look at verse one. Just read a few verses here. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. That's an easy one. And this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come. And even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. The world is going to eat up the false prophet's message. He's speaking to them what they want to hear. We are of God, verse 6. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And I'll just read a couple more. It says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. Boy, this is so much in this. I could preach, somebody could preach days and days and days on those eight verses. That is really good. But it says right here, ye are of God, little children, and of overcome the world. Why are you of God? Because they've overcome the world. The Bible says, who is he that has overcome the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So if you put your faith in Jesus Christ, if you've been born again, you've overcome the world, you're of God. The Bible says, as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So if you believe on his name, you're a son of God, you're of God, you've overcome the world. And then it says, greater is he that is in you than is in the world. They are of the world. Hananiah and the people that are going to listen to his message are of the world, therefore speak they of the world and the world heareth them. But verse six, we are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Now, it doesn't mean that if they won't hear my message, if they won't hear Pastor Turk's message, that they're not of God. There's a lot of people that I don't believe are, you know, they may not be saved. They may be saved. I don't know. They just, they're not right there. They're not here. Maybe the Holy Spirit's not talking to them. Maybe it is that my way of communicating just doesn't hit them hard. But if they're preaching another message, it's not of God. Now you can compare it to the message you get out of the Bible. Don't compare it to my message. Don't compare it to Pastor Turk's message. Compare it to the message that you pull out of the Bible with the Holy Spirit's approval. If they're preaching another message, they're not of God. Two prophets, two different messages. You've got Hananiah prophesying that Babylon would not come and take them captive and that they should not submit to Babylon's king. But Jeremiah prophesied that they would be taken captive by the king of Babylon, and if they wanted to live, they should surrender. And again, I said this before, but of the two messages, Hananiah sounded better. If you were to say, you know, what the world, it says they're of the world, and the world heareth them. What the world would say is, well, Jeremiah, your message is a message of bondage. You want us to submit to the king? Your message is a message of of a yoke and of bondage and then you've got Hananiah saying well my message is of freedom and he takes the yoke and he breaks the yoke off of Jeremiah and the yoke the Jeremiah it was a wooden yoke it was a light yoke it was a yoke that God had placed there if you Let me put it this way. I guess probably I feel like I'm maybe beating around the bush and not just hitting the point, but it's kind of like the communism that Pastor Turk has been preaching about just over and over and over. There is a yoke, all right? You'll bear a yoke. I preached this recently. You gotta miss something. Everybody's missing something. You're always missing something. You miss something to be here. You miss something the next choice you make. Every choice you make, you'll miss something. It's economics. There's going to be a yoke, all right? You can either cast off the yoke of morality and cast off the yoke of God's commandments and cast off the yoke of God's word and you just feel, man, I'm just free, but you're asking for a heavy yoke of iron. And that's what Pananiah is doing here. He said, let's don't submit to the king, cast off that yoke, but God would have them submit to the king. And so what he's doing is bringing on when it looks like he's preaching a message of freedom, and of love and of healing and all the things that I said at the beginning. He's actually preaching a message of bondage and of hate. He doesn't love these people. He hates these people. He's bringing them into bondage. Does he even understand this? I don't know. It doesn't matter. All that matters is he's preaching another message. Two prophets, two different messages. One of them sounded a lot better. Your associates would have thought you a fool for believing in Jeremiah. My associates would think I'm a fool for believing in Jeremiah, but I would believe Jeremiah. You know, today, the things I believe, the people that I associate with, just out and about on a large scale, think I'm a fool for the things I believe. You know, not just an absolute raving idiot. You know, Bo's a sharp guy, but man, he believes some weird stuff. He's pretty drastic about the things he believes. He sure is missing out a lot. His family sure is missing out. Everybody's missing out on something. What are you missing? What are these guys going to miss? Are they going to miss the light wooden yoke? They're sick of this wooden yoke. Or are they going to miss the hard heavy iron yoke? Only Jeremiah's message was scriptural. The Bible says, My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Entice, to pull it out of the dictionary. I'm just going to read these. It's got three definitions from Webster's 1828. To incite or instigate by exciting hope or desire, usually in a bad sense, as to entice one to evil, hence to seduce, to lead astray, to induce to sin by promises or persuasions. And it says, My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Second definition, to tempt, to incite, to urge, or lead astray. Another Bible verse, every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. It's James 1. And then third, to incite, to allure in a good sense. So the good sense is the last. It's not a good sense, but to entice, to tempt, to urge, to lead astray, to incite, to instigate by exciting hope or desire, usually in a bad sense, as to entice one to evil. So what does all that look like? Well, turn to Proverbs 1. I've already quoted one verse out of Proverbs 1, but turn to Proverbs 1. And I don't know if we'll get back to... No, we won't get back to Jeremiah. Proverbs 1, it says, verse 11, Now we saw at verse 10, my son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, come with us, let us lay wait for blood. Let us lurk frivolously for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them up alive as the grave and whole as those that go down into the pit. We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil. Cast in thy lot among us. Let us all have one purse. Man, don't join those whose call doesn't agree with the Holy Spirit, all right? But the call of sinners, if we just look at this, and I just went through this this morning and marked off some of these things, and somebody could preach a long time out of these three verses, but if you look at these things, it says, come with us. They have a call to join a group. I've told you before that the false prophet, the false religion, their assurance is in the group. And how could possibly we be wrong when we all believe this? Their assurance is in the group. Your assurance should not be in the group. It doesn't matter if everybody says you're crazy. And when you believe the truth, most people will say you're crazy. So don't think that your assurance needs to come from a group. Their call, come with us, a call to join a group, a call to laziness. I'm just going to go through these. a call to laziness, a call to violence, a call to secrecy, a call of malice, a call of aggression, a call inconsiderate of consequence, an unrealistic and dishonest call, a selfish call, a call for unity, a call to submit and relinquish ownership, a call that demands doing and consenting to wickedness, a call whose authority is death, a call that acknowledges and mocks its own consequences, a carnal call, a greedy call, a selfish call, an auspicious and dubious call. Come with us. Let us lay wait for blood. Let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause. Every word of this is just sin and wickedness. Let us swallow them up alive as the grave and whole as those that go down into the pit. We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil. Cast in that lot among us. Let us all have one purse. So, how do you discern? between a preacher that's preaching the truth and not preaching the truth? Or how do you know which preacher you should and should not follow? Well, again, I mean, this feels like what I've been talking about for weeks and weeks and weeks and not even trying to. But I'll tell you one way is that the false prophet, his message is a message of convenience. His message is always going to be more convenient. It's not going to upset your life. It's going to just fit right in there. Boy, God just made it happen. You're gonna have to upset your life to obey the Lord. Did you know that? Did you know that your life, my life, is not just ordered the way God wants it to be in all ways? Did you know that? You're gonna have to change something to praise the Lord. And so when a preacher's preaching a message that's just convenient, it's just, I'm already headed that way, and look, it's right on the way. That's what convenience is, a convenience store. You don't have to go out of the way to get there. It's on the way. It's the convenience store. A message that's convenient is not the message from God. If a man is preaching the truth or claiming to preach the truth and it never happens, that's something we can see in the Old Testament where they would say something's going to happen and it never came to pass. We see that today where somebody says, oh, the Lord's going to return at this day or this day or this day and it doesn't come to pass. That's obvious. But another way somebody can preach something that doesn't come to pass is to call good evil and evil good. To call sweet bitter and bittersweet and light dark and dark light. Hananiah didn't tell the people that there were two yokes, and he might not even understand that there are two yokes. But I'll tell you this also, you'll not be able to discern exactly where the false preacher stands. The Bible says that her ways are ever movable, that she cannot know them. So her lips drop as honey, and she's very convincing, but her ways are ever movable. You're not gonna be able to pin the false prophet down on exact truths, They don't want that. And his message is very convenient, all right? So Hananiah's sermon was bold, but it was false. And a preacher is about what he preaches. You know, today, people mark preachers by a lot of things, but not the things the Bible says to mark them by. And the Bible says to look at these few things in their life, and check the boxes in their life, and okay, now we can even see if we can listen to their words. And then you can listen to their words, you can mark that against the Bible and against what God says, and then you can know, you can mind the Lord and have some discretion and know. But the false preacher is going to preach a message of convenience that's very comfortable. And again, you may not be able to look around and say, real, fake, true, false, but with enough time, with enough study, you should be able to tell when something's not right or not true. If you get to know the truth. You know people that just can't tell a fake dollar bill or a fake hundred dollar bill? They just could never tell. They could never tell. They don't know what a hundred dollar bill looks like. They don't know. You could pass a fake $100 bill off on me if it was a pretty good one. You couldn't pass Monopoly money off on me. But if you were from another country, you might be able to pass something that to us looks just comical because they have no idea what a $100 bill looks like. I say this with enough discretion, with enough discernment, with enough study, with enough perspective and counsel, you should be able to tell when something's wrong. The people that say, I can't do that, that's crazy. It's because you don't know what right looks like. That's what the problem is. When you know God's precepts, you're going to hate every false way. That's what the Bible says. When you know what right looks like, you're going to look at wrong and say, I don't like it, that's wrong. So, the false preacher is going to preach a convenient message. The product of the false preacher's message is bondage. He's not preaching bondage. He'll never preach bondage, but the product is bondage. Let me give you an example. The false preacher today will say, listen, everything's fine. You're good enough. You're going to be fine. God loves you just the way you are. Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe these facts? Go home feeling good. Don't worry about a thing. The false preacher, here's what I want to do. I want to preach you lost. I want to tell you, you better hold your feet to the fire. You better watch. You better listen to the Holy Spirit. You better make sure you're salvation. With fear and trembling, you better get this right. And I want you to get before God and the Holy Spirit. Not before me. I don't want you to agree with the group. I want you to get before God and the Holy Spirit and get it right. And if you won't, if you can't, that's on you, but I'm going to push you that way. I'm not going to give you comfort and convenience, and that's what the false prophet's doing. He's not ever going to give you bondage or say bondage, but if you'll obey him, just like Balaam, you're in bondage. They don't want to offend anyone. They don't want to tell you all the standards, and I don't want to just go through standards, but all kinds of things, the people who you run with, the people you identify with, the things that you put into your eyes and your ears, the things you put onto your body. There are standards that we should uphold, biblical standards. Now I'm not going to stand up here and say, this is what you need to look like, and this is what you need to do. But I'll tell you this, if you'll get in God's word, and if you'll begin to love God's precept, you will begin to adhere to God's standards. Not because I said to, but because that's just what you're pulled to do if you get the Holy Spirit. Let thine heart keep my commandments, the Bible says. So if you're born again, there's something in you that wants to do it, let it do it. You will if you'll just let it happen. You'll find it hard to discern between the listener of the false preacher and the world. And that's what I call a fruit inspection. When we could go to somebody's church and just sit down and ask a member that's been there for years a bunch of questions and you can figure out what the preacher believes just like that. You can make a fruit inspection by looking at an overall look of the congregation of a church, and if they look like the world, if it looks like a rock concert, if it looks irreverent and sinful, then you can't tell the difference between the world's listeners and the false preacher's listeners. You've got a false preacher. Anyway, what sounds like a message of freedom and peace and healing is actually a message of rebellion and contention and there's no healing in it. The message of healing is God's message. I've said this before, but Jesus Christ is both a judge and a deliverer. So when you're guilty, boy, you hate standing before the judge. But when you're innocent, boy, you can't wait to stand before the deliverer. You don't even see him as a judge. He's a deliverer. So if you'll get it right with Jesus Christ, if you'll get it right with the Lord, then you can stand before him and you can know what's right. You can know what's true. You can hear a message that would be a hard message, a message of bondage to the lost world. That is a message of peace and freedom to you because you got right with the judge. You got right with the Lord. That's about all I've got. I'll say this, you want to get right with the Lord, you've got to trust Him. That's what you've got to do. I'm closing up, I don't have anything else. I told you I had less today. That never happens. You've got to trust Him. There's got to be a time when you've gone in humility and truth before the Lord and realized that you deserve help. We all do realize that you deserve hell that Jesus Christ paid a price that only he could pay that you deserve that He didn't owe that you owed, but he paid the price for you. He died in your place He paid for your sins. It's not superstitious. He did it because it's a it's it's all just it's all legal and it's owed All right, and there's a debt that's owed and you owe it and if you pay it you You say, Bo, I'm going to pay my debt. I pay my debts. Fine. You'll go to hell. You'll be there forever, because that's the price of sin. Or you can receive a gift. To receive a gift takes humility. It's always going to take humility to receive a gift, but it takes even more humility to receive a gift when you've done something really wrong, and you're in the transgression, and you deserve a punishment, and somebody who's done nothing wrong for no reason, just for love's sake, says, I'll pay it. I'll take care of it. It's going to take a lot of humility to admit, man, I put this guy to death. I caused this guy. And that's important to know. If you were the only one, Jesus Christ would have died for you. So don't think you didn't do it. Well, he's doing it anyway. No, he died for you. He died to pay for your sins. He died to pay for my sins. And when I saw that, I saw that, boy, I am ashamed, and it is a sad, shameful thing. And I didn't know what to say, and I didn't know all the words, and I didn't know all the Bible, but I knew I owed a debt. I surely owed a debt. And I'd known all these things my whole life, but that moment I saw that I owed a debt, And I trusted the Lord to pay it. I already knew who he was. I already believed all the facts. I believed he died on the cross. I believe he rose from the grave. I believe he never sinned. I believe he was the son of God. I believed a lot of things in the Bible, but you know what? I had never believed on Jesus Christ because I was still believing on Bo's righteousness to get to heaven. And there came a day when I said, Oh my gosh, I have no righteousness. I am a worm. I am a dirty dog. And that was falling broken in truth and humility because that is true and that is right. And so in truth, I received it and was humble enough to say, God, save my soul. The words don't save you. You can say, Lord, save my soul. Take me to heaven from now until you die. But if you will not surrender in your heart, to the counsel of God against yourself, then you're not being saved. That's what it takes to be saved. You just got to surrender to the Lord, receive his free gift. He paid it. He's not asking you to do anything, but admit, acknowledge and admit and receive it. It's free, but it takes humility. And boy, that is the most expensive, costly thing on earth for a lot of people, isn't it? The rich young ruler had so much. but he didn't have humility. He didn't have that. Boy, he thought he was just doing everything right. He's probably doing really good. He's probably better than most of us, but he didn't have humility and he didn't really love the Lord. You know what? We see him. Jesus said, hey, sell all you got and give it away and come follow me. And he would not do it. He would not do it because Jesus knew he had an idol. You don't have to sell all your things and go follow Jesus to be saved, but you gotta get rid of your idols. What's your idol? It's probably not a false god. You're probably not a Hindu or whatever, but if your idol is you, You gotta repent of that, whatever it is. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for the truth. Thank you for giving us today. Thank you for this message, Lord, and I pray that you bless us, bless Pastor Turk as he preaches, help each of us to receive it. In Jesus' name, amen.