Good morning, if you would turn in your Bibles with me to the little book of Habakkuk toward the end of the Old Testament. Let's begin with another word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we do ask Your blessing upon this time now as we desire to open Your Word and to present ourselves before You to hear from Your Word, Lord, and ask that the Holy Spirit would tune our hearts to listen, to heed Your Word, to learn by it, to grow by it, to be conformed into the likeness of Christ. Father, I pray for grace as I seek to to declare Your Word, keep me from error, I pray. Bless this time, make it, Lord, useful and edifying to those in this body. If there are any without Christ, that You would be using Your Word and Your Holy Spirit to draw them to Yourself. We pray these things in Christ's name, amen. So Habakkuk, chapter one, and verse one, the oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. Now the word translated oracle, if you have N-A-S-V or E-S-V, it's oracle. If you have King James or New King James, it's gonna be burden. And that really, the word burden actually better captures the Hebrew word here. Burden, it's the Hebrew word masah, which literally is used to describe that which you place upon a mule or a donkey, something that is heavy, burdensome. Habakkuk's message was a burden. On the one hand, there was rampant evil among the people of God, as we talked about. This was during the final days of Judah, prior to being taken captive into Babylon, a day under the reign of most likely Jehoiakim, when evil was reigning among the people of God. And that caused much anguish to the prophets. But even more than this, this burden was the message that God gave him in response, a burden because of what God intended to do about the evil and injustice that was there and present among the people of God. And this is the message of Habakkuk. It is something burdensome, something that is very perplexing and very heavy. I heard an illustration this week as I was listening to messages on Habakkuk, which I thought was very helpful. And the fellow described it like this. He said, suppose I was to go up here and draw a circle, circle on the board. And that circle were to represent all of the knowledge of mankind. including all of science and philosophy and history, everything. I mean, if you think about walking into Hale Library and the volumes of material there, and just the extent of the knowledge of mankind through the ages that has been collected. And then I was to go up to that circle and try to make a representation of how much of that knowledge I possess. can tell you it would be a very small mark, a very small dot within that larger circle. And the truth of the matter is, in comparison to what man, who is finite, understands and knows, we ourselves individually know very little. Now, take this circle, of man's collective knowledge and understanding and compare it to what God knows. God who is infinite. Our circle doesn't even show up. His wisdom and his understanding is as vast as the universe that he has created. And we have to understand some of the things that we read in scripture in light of, in view of, the reality of how much God knows compared to how much we know and understand. And I think that that helps us today as we look in this first chapter of Habakkuk, as we enter into this book, as I've titled it, The Perplexing Problem of Prevailing Evil. So let's look at the theme as if not all of you, I don't think we're here for the introduction a few weeks ago. The theme of Habakkuk could be summarized as this, the just shall live by faith. Now we find that actually in the second chapter here in Habakkuk. And that's the outcome of this book and what we need to take away from it is the just shall live by faith. Chapter one, we see this theme, prevailing evil is both grievous and perplexing, and God's ways beyond searching out. And so what I'd like to do this morning as we walk through chapter one here is go through the passage itself. We'll take it in little snippets and sort of walk through this passage. We could break it down into three parts. There's Habakkuk's initial grievance that he brings before the Lord, and then God's shocking response, and then Habakkuk's compounded grievance after getting God's response. And that response is gonna set us up then for next year, next year, next week rather, next chapter, when we will hear God respond again to Habakkuk. And then next, we'll look at the principles that we can draw from this text, at least the ones that, as I studied it out, were impressed upon me. And that is, first of all, that sin and evil are indeed grievous. Secondly, that God is not indifferent to sin. And thirdly, that God is sovereign over evil for His good purpose. We'll talk about that here in a short bit. So then moving on here, we see Habakkuk's initial grievance, verses two through four. And this book begins with sort of what we might describe as a holy wrestling between the prophet, who's very perplexed, and Almighty God. And I think, as I understand Habakkuk here, we don't see any sort of disrespectful attitude, but he truly is just taking his heart and bringing it before the Lord to hear from God. And that's the way I understand the manner in which Habakkuk is coming before God. He's bringing his grievance, his burden to God. How long, O Lord, will I call for help and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence, yet you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me. Strife exists and contention arises. Therefore, the law is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, justice comes out perverted." And so here we see first the cause of his grievance and the question of his grievance. The cause of his grievance is this, it's evil among God's people. Again, the context of this book is during the final years before Judah falls to the Babylonians, likely during the reign of King Jehoiakim. And though they're marked out as God's chosen people, as a whole, they had disregarded the laws of God in spite of many warnings that God had given them through many prophets, that people were once again doing what was right in their own eyes. And those who did seek to live out righteously before him were being abused by the wicked, and justice was being perverted. And it's important, I think, at this point to note that Habakkuk is not grieved over any sort of personal discomforts. or any sort of hardship that he's facing, physical, financial, emotional, not to say that there's not time and place and cause for those sorts of things, and we might go to God, those are appropriate things to go to God with, those sorts of burdens, but that's not what's bothering Habakkuk. His grief is actually grief over the corporate sin of God's people. We see in this passage, iniquity, wickedness, destruction, violence, strife, contention, lawbreaking, and injustice. In other words, it was born out of spiritual mindedness. He looked out among the people of God and he was grieved. He anguished over what he saw. And I think another point worth noting as we walk through this conversation is that behind all of this is Habakkuk's understanding of God's covenant relationship with his people. It's really foundational to the viewpoint that he has in coming before God. And then there's the question of his grievance, which is simply, how long? How long will you let such evil and injustice continue? I keep crying out to you to rectify the evil, but you're not doing anything about it. How long will you let this go? Now, that question, how long, did not originate with Habakkuk. In fact, we will see that question asked by many people throughout Scripture, and particularly in the Psalms. If we go through the Psalms, we're going to see this often brought up in relationship to injustice or judgments of God. Men who are appealing to God in His loving kindness and His mercy and His covenant faithfulness. So just a few of these, Psalm 13, one through two. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Psalm 35, 17. Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my soul from the ravages, my only life. from the lions. Psalm 74, 10. How long, O God, will the adversary revile and the enemy spurn your name forever? Psalm 79, 5. How long, O Lord, will you be angry forever? Will your jealously burn like fire? Psalm 89, 46. How long, O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire? It's a question that many have asked, and not only among the people of God here on earth, but we see this little snippet into heaven. That question is being asked by those who are in heaven in the presence of God. Revelation chapter six, verse nine through 11. When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And there was given to each of them a white robe, and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also. How long? It's a question that's forever on the lips of those who face the problem of this world and the great mystery of evil. How much longer until God makes things right? And this question is going to be asked both in heaven and in earth until the day when God completes his judgment of sin and removes all injustice forevermore. Let's move next to see God's shocking answer to Habakkuk. He responds, look among the nations, observe, be astonished, wonder, because I am doing something in your days you would not believe if you were told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that's also another word for the Babylonians, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs. God knows this is a shocking answer. He's about ready to use godless heathens as instruments of judgment against his own people. But here's the most shocking thing about it. God is doing it. God is doing it. He says, I am doing something in your day. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans. It's not as though God said, oh, look, I see this wicked people, and maybe they might come and destroy you, and then justice will happen. But rather, God takes the cause of this. He stands behind what is happening. As the originator, in some sense, and we're gonna come to this later, of what's happening, of the judgment that's gonna fall upon them. In fact, God says it's so shocking that they will choose not to believe it. You would not believe if I told you. They're not going to believe it until it actually comes to pass. And isn't that how it has always been with the judgments of God? Men refuse to believe, even though God should tell them what's coming. They're comfortable now, And they can't imagine that that comfort would possibly come to an end. It was that way in the days of Noah, wasn't it? And it will be that way until the end at the coming day of the Lord. In fact, the Apostle Paul actually quotes verse 5 in Acts 13 when he's addressing his fellow Jews in the temple at Antioch as a warning to drive them to repentance and to seek salvation in Christ. He says this, this is Acts verse 5, I'm sorry, Acts chapter 13 verse 40, therefore take heed so that the things spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you. Behold, you scoffers, and marvel and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you." And so it's a message in reality that we too carry with the word of God, that judgment is coming. So flee to Christ for salvation. The Chaldeans that are coming, so we read next, are as fierce as they are evil. Reading in verse 6 down through 11. For behold, I'm raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs. They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces move forward. They collect captives like sand. They mock at kings and rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it. Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty. They whose strength is their God. So not only is God raising up heathens to bring judgment against the people, shocking as that is, but a people who is both vain and godless. who will execute judgment with exceeding violence. And God gives a very vivid picture of the Chaldeans that are coming, of how terrible are these agents of His justice. In fact, as I read through it, I felt like the description here sounds much like an army of orcs. For those of you that are familiar with the Lord of the Rings, like an army of orcs that are marching towards Jerusalem. And then God ends here with this brief word of comfort. He says, but they will be held guilty. They whose strength is their God. And God's gonna elaborate on that more in the next chapter. So we will come back to that next week. So then we get Habakkuk's compounded grievance here. Again, we look at Habakkuk's response, and what we're gonna see here is what I believe is godly fear and reverence mingled with confusion and grief. So he begins this response with a rhetorical question and a declaration of God's attributes, which I think are marked or a mark of the prophet's faith. This is what he says. Are you not from everlasting? O Lord, my God, my Holy One, We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge, and you, O Rock, have established them to correct. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor. In other words, he's saying something like this. There are none like you, O Holy One of Israel, and none that can overwhelm the protection that you give to your people, because you alone are almighty. It is within the frame of your unalterable sovereignty that you send the Chaldeans to bring correction, and they can do no more than what you have appointed. I think there's some application here as we look at his response. It's always good. especially when going to God with your burdens, to recite to Him in His presence, glorious truths about Him. And we see this pattern actually throughout Scripture. It gives honor to God and it helps us as well to bear in mind the one with whom we speak, the one with whom we take our burdens. And then from here, we see Habakkuk give expression to his puzzlement and his grief. He says, why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they? Why have you made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them? The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, drag them away with their net and gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their nets and burn incense to their fishing net. Because through these things their catch is large and their food is plentiful. Will they therefore empty their nets and continually slay nations without sparing? Habakkuk is asking God, how is it that you being holy and just will allow a godless and an idolatrous people more wicked than the sinful Jews to be the instrument of chastisement. How long shall such a wicked people revel in their successful conquest? And next week, in chapter two, it's gonna begin with Habakkuk giving one more statement, saying, look, I'm ready, I've positioned myself, now give your response, God. And then we get God's response to what Habakkuk has just said here. We'll cover that next week. So for now, let's sort of just... kind of look back over this chapter and draw out the principles that we see here. And again, I've marked out three of them. First of all, sin and evil are indeed grievous. The perplexing problem of prevailing evil is not unique to the days of Habakkuk. Currently, 33% of our marriages end in divorce. Sadly, that statistic is nearly the same among those who consider themselves born-again Christians. And even if we isolate out the evangelical Christians, that number is still 26%, fourth. There are more than 800,000 abortions performed every year in our country, which is nearly 20% of all pregnancies. Get your mind around that one. Per a survey done in 2008, more than 37% of abortions were performed by women who affiliate themselves with the Protestant church. And half of these by those who identify themselves as born-again evangelicals. Over a third of our marriages in the United States are marked by adulterous affairs by either one party or the other. Again, sadly, 23% of married Christians admit to having an extramarital affair. In the US alone, internet porn pulls in $2.84 billion a year, which is not surprising considering that 12% of all websites on the internet are pornographic. Porn revenue is pale, though, in comparison to the estimated $99 billion a year spent worldwide in the human trafficking industry, which affects more than 20 million adults and children. Now, these are shocking statistics, and these are sort of social evils that are readily identified. But what of pride, deceit, lust, gossip, bickering, gluttony, contentions, et cetera, et cetera, so-called respectable sins? Here's the question. Are we grieved by sin? Are we grieved, first of all, and this is the most important question, are we grieved by our own sin in whatever form it should take? We should be. Are we grieved by sin among God's people? We, like Habakkuk, should be grieved by the sin found among those who identify themselves as the people of God. the followers of Christ, that should grieve us. Matthew Henry said, the servants of the Lord are deeply afflicted by seeing ungodliness and violence prevail, especially among those who profess the truth. Are we grieved by the sin of our nation? Now, this is somewhat different because our nation is not the covenant people of God. But like Lot, as we read in 2 Peter, he was vexed by the sin of Sodom. So we ought to be vexed by the sins of our nation as well. All sin ought to grieve us. But have our senses become dull? Does sin no longer shock and alarm us? Have we soaked so long in the sin-saturated entertainment of this world that we have become the proverbial frog boiling in the water? Do things that used to bother you five, 10 years ago still bother you? They should. More so. Why should we be grieved by sin? Well, we should be grieved by sin because it is a primary ministry of the Holy Spirit. That's what Jesus said when he talked to the disciples about the Holy Spirit that he was sending. He said, and he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. I mean, the result of that is to lead men to repentance to seek out a pardon for sin and a righteousness that is not our own according to the mercy and grace of God through His Son, Jesus Christ. It is a primary ministry of the Holy Spirit. And if we have the Holy Spirit, then we too should be grieved by sin. Second principle, God is not indifferent to sin. When we look around and we see sin and evil prevailing, like Habakkuk, or even as we read of David, we're tempted to think that God doesn't really care, that He's become indifferent to sin and evil. But that truly is not the case. God is infinitely holy. God is infinitely just. And His holiness and His justice are so far greater than our own that we cannot even fully comprehend them. So great are His holiness and His justice that He gave up His own Son to die a cruel death and bear the guilt and the shame of His people. God is not indifferent to sin, and if we're ever tempted to think so, we just look at the cross. With God, justice delayed is not justice denied. Have you ever heard that maxim? Justice delayed is justice denied? Apparently, that's a statement that originated by William Gladstone, a British statesman in the late 1800s. Wikipedia summarizes it this way. Justice delayed is justice denied is a legal maxim, meaning that if legal redress is available for a party that has suffered some injury but is not forthcoming in a timely fashion, it is effectively the same as having no redress at all. This principle is the basis for the right to a speedy trial and similar rights which are meant to expedite the legal system because it is unfair for the injured party to have to sustain the injury with little hope for resolution. Now, this sentiment holds great value in legal matters among men, men who are finite. but it is not so with God, who is infinite, with whom a thousand years is like a day, and a day like a thousand years. In the grand scheme, justice delayed has not been for the purpose of denying justice, but rather for the establishment of God's mercy and grace. God could have completely destroyed Adam and Eve, or you and I, when they first sinned. But in mercy, He has stayed his final justice for the purpose of redeeming mankind in Christ until the final number of elect are brought into the kingdom of heaven according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will and for the purpose of his own glory. And we see this in Romans chapter three. because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Or again, in Romans 9, What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called. So we see in the grand scheme of redemption, God's patience and His forbearance, not for the purpose of abandoning justice, but for the purpose of establishing His mercy and His grace in Christ to the fullness of His own divine satisfaction and glory, that He might be both just and the justifier. Now here's some application to this point that's important to think about. We ought not presume upon God's patience. Repent of sin whenever it is discovered. And this is the message of the author in Hebrews. Chapter three, verse seven through 14. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried me by testing me and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore, I was angry with this generation and said, they always go astray in their heart, and they did not know my ways. As I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brethren, that there not be any one of you, an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. Go to the third principle. God is sovereign over evil for His good purpose. God is sovereign over evil for His good purpose. In other words, God in His sovereignty at times uses evil men to accomplish His good purpose. Now, this was a truth that was very perplexing to Habakkuk, and he's not alone. Many have wrestled with this truth. It raises the question, how can God cause evil and yet not be guilty of sin? We read about that in James, didn't we? That is a difficult question then to answer. So let's go to the divines of the London Baptist Confession of 1689, and they borrowed their substance from the Westminster Confession of Faith, and they put it this way. God hath decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever come to pass, yet so as thereby Pardon me. Yet so, as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree. We might go, that's kind of thick language and difficult to understand. We can take a little snippet from John Frame, who answers this question perhaps in more simple terms. On this issue, somehow we must confess both that God has a role in bringing evil about, and that in doing so, he is holy and blameless. God does bring sins about, but always for His own good purposes. So in bringing sin to past, He does not Himself commit sin. I think at some point, we come back to that illustration that I gave to you at the beginning of the message, and we admit that the ways of God simply are far above our own comprehension. We can go and look and see that what is true here, what we're seeing in Habakkuk, is found other places in Scripture. In fact, it's taught very plainly in Proverbs 16.4, the Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. Or consider the story of Joseph. who was sold by his brothers into slavery and went ahead of them into Egypt. And through the sinful acts of his brother, God brought him there and established him that he might save his people. Reading from Genesis 45, then Joseph said to his brothers, please come closer to me. And they came closer and he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God." I think the most pertinent passage that we can go to in understanding and wrestling with this idea of God using sinful men and evil to accomplish his good purpose. We read in Acts, this is Peter speaking to the Jews regarding Jesus' crucifixion. This man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put to death. And then a couple chapters later, Peter is praying to God and says, this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge. Oh, let's see, I've duplicated the quote. Let's see, I duplicated it on there. Anyone have a Bible handy? I don't have mine up here. Acts chapter two, verse 23. Acts, no. It's going to be Acts chapter 4. It's not going to be verse 23. I apologize. Verse 27, for truly in the city they were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever thy hand and thy purpose predestined to occur. In other words, the death of Jesus was really the climax of God in his own sovereignty using evil, wicked men to accomplish his good purpose. Prevailing evil is both perplexing and it is grievous. And we may not understand how it is that God in His sovereignty can use evil men for His good purposes, but in a very real way, our salvation actually hangs upon that truth. And at the end of the day, God is God, and we are not. And His ways are beyond searching out. And next week, we'll come to the heart of this book. And this is where this is all taking us. The just shall live by faith. That's really the heart of the matter. The just shall live by faith. Let's close. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the message here in Habakkuk, Lord. We admit, God, there are so many things that we just can't get our minds around. But this much we know, Lord, that you, Father, are wisdom. And your ways are so far above our own. And God, you are also holy and you are just. And you will deal, Lord, with all wickedness and evil and sin with complete and total justice. Lord, we believe in the promises that you have given, that you will eradicate everything that is sinful in due time. And we are so thankful, Lord, that we would have been part of that eradication, that we would have felt the full weight of your wrath were it not for your mercy and were it not for your Son who bore our penalty in Himself. May our hearts, Lord, continue to be fixed upon Him. We pray these things in His name, amen. So I open it up now for any corrections or additions or other questions or thoughts that you might have this morning. sharing the gospel and being a witness to other people. I feel like we can't go around to other people and simply look at their external behaviors as a result of their sin nature, not walking with God and say, hey, you should do that. That's sinful. You should do that. Don't swear. If their heart's not right, if their heart's not right with God, a display of that is not going to lead them to Christ. And yet, we live in a culture that holds sin so lightly and accepts sin, that we do forget the weight of sin and its seriousness. I mean, it's so weighty, like you said. And so I'm trying to figure out how, you know, I feel like, so maybe we don't address those things instead of their heart, and yet we need to be very honest and it needs to be very obvious that sin Someone I hang out with a lot, one of my friends on the design team, he's Catholic, and he's very indifferent to sin. He makes his confession every once in a while, and I asked him about it about a month ago, and he said, oh yeah, it's been two years. Well, I should probably go do that again, should I not? But he's very, and I think he did, and that kind of cleared his plate, and he's good for a while now. But he's very indifferent to sin, until he realizes that sin is very serious and he's not going to come to Christ. Right. So, of course, when presenting the Gospel, two important requirements are for people to understand who God is and to understand who we are. And part of that is understanding the holiness and the righteousness of God, and the fact that He is not indifferent to sin, and the fact that He does have an expressed will of what mankind ought and ought not to do. And then in reference to that, in reference to the standard of God, the fact that His creatures are in rebellion against Him and living in sin and are guilty of sin. Because there's no need for God's grace and His mercy apart from that understanding. And therefore, Christ doesn't even come into the picture until those truths have been established. There's no need for Christ other than He's a neat guy that, you know, had a good following and had some good teachings. But there's nothing to offer beyond that. There's nothing life-changing about Jesus. if there's no holy God and sinful man. And yet at the same time, you're right, there's a sense in which that ought to be communicated in a way that's not the same in which the standard that you're holding people to that would be true of those who are brothers and sister in Christ, who are professing the name of Christ, you expect them to live. They're in rebellion against God, therefore they're just living out what you would anticipate they would. And I think, as some have pointed out, sometimes the best way of exposing the sinfulness of others is to live the righteousness of God. And when they see that in your life, and when the Holy Spirit is at work, the Holy Spirit comes to convict of sin, and they will, when the Holy Spirit is at work upon them, they will realize that there is something terribly amiss about themselves. Yeah, I don't know if that, sort of addresses your point. Keith. So you were talking around some of the statistics that you had kind of went out and found. And you just talked about how we were living that life in the world and displaying that for others. But from a statistical standpoint, it seems like we're not. We're not. And from a church, I mean, that's a core issue that we need to address as a church. And as a church, it is a true truth. So to be able to live with that and to shine that light into the world and display that, that's an alarming statistic. I know some of those are more dated and have some h-tones and things like that. But I would expect to see the same thing. I don't think the stats have changed much. And I, you know, I did the best I could to identify legitimate statistics. I can't give necessarily the veracity of all of those statistics, the validity of all those statistics, but as best I could find information, sought that out to find good, solid statistics. Yeah, it is troubling. And I think the issue, from my perspective, is there are many people who carry the name of Christ who are not truly Christ. And that's the problem in this world. We have the visible church and the true church. And right now, there just happened to be a lot of goats mixed in with the sheep. And it makes us look like we're no different than the world. And that's where you come back to the need for the true gospel to be proclaimed and for churches to abide faithfully before God and doing the things and teaching the word of God faithfully, carrying out church discipline, et cetera. I mean, from the ground up, there needs to be a clearing, you know, and even in the, We can think about the parables. You can't just destroy it all. But certainly the hope in the prayer is that more and more churches will be established that are being faithful to Christ, because it is difficult to project then, you know, the righteousness of God when we live like the world. And the problem is there's so much of the world within the church. It is a problem. Yeah. Yeah, it's a complex issue, and I think the easiest way for me to understand it is man certainly has a will, but God's will is sovereign. Man's will is not sovereign, God's is, and His will trumps man's. So somehow, in a way that is worked out beyond my comprehension, God is able to sovereignly decree things, even with men who have wills that they think are free, but at the end of the day, God's will is sovereign over their wills too. Right, and so that's the difficulty here, is we see specific instances in Scripture where God not only allows things to happen, God causes them to happen, including the very crucifixion of His own Son. And so then trying to answer that question, well, how is it then that God, who is sovereign, caused that to happen, but he's not guilty of the sin that was done? And we say, yes, he is not guilty of the sin. And so theologians wrestle with that question and answer it in different ways. And there are many times when there is a permissive will of God where he lets things work out their natural consequences and doesn't intervene. But there are other times where we see God somehow sovereignly working even over those people who are doing their sinful acts, and he is somehow behind the scene and sovereign yet even in that. As we see here in Habakkuk, as he describes, raising up the Chaldeans to bring the chastisement that will fall upon the Jews. And some of it, if you read anything by theologians, a lot hangs on words and their definition. You know, what does it mean to be an author of sin versus, you know, the cause of sin and so forth. Stuff that goes beyond my brain. All right, let's go ahead now and we'll move towards the Lord's Supper.