Now we are yours, and we pray that as we get to know your word better, that we would understand it better, be faithful, teach us, we pray, send your spirit to instruct us. Lord, without his help, we just fall flat on our face, and we so need your help. We do pray that we would all the more be grateful for the work you have done to us, and continue on with the race that you have laid before us. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, we are in Jude. And we started with verse 14. You remember that Jude has been describing these false teachers in the church. And he used a number of historical examples or historical comparisons. Then he had some comparisons with nature. And now he's getting in, in verse 14 and 15, into a prediction from Enoch, the seventh from Adam. And we spent some time last week, and I've erased, or maybe it was Abigail who erased for me. You didn't clean the board, Abigail? Oh, it was already erased. Oh, okay. Well, thank you for cleaning things up. But we did a comparison. You remember that? We looked at Genesis 11, and the genealogies are compared to Luke 3. And what did we see? Yes, what's the difference? One individual. So, in other words, we had the names of the people here that Luke, when he's giving us the genealogy of Christ, and we go to Genesis 11, and Luke had an extra one named Canaan that was not here. And I want to make sure that when I bring this up to you, that you understand, I am not advocating that there are errors in Scripture. Let's understand that. But we have to deal with issues that are there. I mean, we can pretend that the issues aren't there and just never talk about them, but I don't think that's being honest with God and honest with the Word and honest with each other. And it's really not being honest with the world out there because they will bring up these issues, at least some of them will, and then we're blindsided and we don't know what to do if we haven't thought about them. And these are the kinds of things that people bring up in college, you know, errors in the Bible, et cetera. And we can be anti-intellectualists and just run away from the stuff, or we can just be open and honest and deal with the issues that are there. And I think that as God's people, we ought to choose the latter approach to be aware of the issues and look at them. So we did this, but what was the point in doing this comparison? Okay, we're studying Jude, we're not studying Luke, and we're not studying Genesis. What was the point? Right? Yeah, and the issue was... Yeah, exactly. It says Enoch is the seventh from Adam, but if we go up there and we go to Genesis, not in 11, but in Genesis 5, we have Adam, and we go on down to Enoch, and from here to here is six. And when you say 7th from Adam, we think that that would be not counting Adam. But what most people do when they deal with this in the writing, they say, well counting Adam there are 7. And that's true. Counting Adam there are 7. But the preposition from, to me anyway, and I think probably to you, seems to say the from and maybe it doesn't seem to be right. And my point is, well maybe there's a gap in this genealogy too. That was the whole point of all this. Now for us to be aware of that, of the issues that are there, but perhaps there's a gap here. So the answer to this seventh from Adam question is either there's a gap in here or we count Adam as the seventh. That was the point of all of that. Okay. Any questions? Okay, so top of page 13. Again, I'm assuming you all have that. Anybody not have page 13? Here you go, bro. So, who was Enoch? You're the seventh from Adam, thank you. Yeah. Okay, what else do we know about Enoch besides he was the sixth or seventh from Adam? He was a prophet. He was a prophet, okay, because it says here he prophesied, right? Okay, what else do we know about him? He walked with God. Very unusual expression, okay. Why? That's a compliment, right? Okay, why does Genesis, or maybe to be a little more precise, why does Moses make a big deal about that? He walked with God, and what's the next expression? Yeah, he was not, because God took him. Gone. He's one of only two that I can think of, major biblical characters, that there isn't a statement, and he died, or something about it. The other one is Elijah, right? So Enoch walked with God, and he was not. So he died. Or no, he went to heaven, or something like that. And when we go back and we look at him, in Genesis. In verse 21, Enoch lived sixty-five years and begot Methuselah. So he was the father of Methuselah or the ancestor of Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." That's it. Sum total of the history that we know about Enoch, right there. Now there's another man named Enoch, and we don't want to confuse the two. Are we able to handle different people with the same names in Scripture? Seriously, we're not confused about John the Baptist and the Apostle John? We're not? Okay, or Jude and other people with the same name. The Greek name for Jude is Judas. All right, so we can handle that. What? Joseph and Joseph, right. One in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament. Separated by, you know, a couple thousand years. Yeah, okay. No, I'm serious. Years ago, there used to be a radio station in San Diego called Family Radio, okay. And Family Radio used to have a program called pastor study or ask the pastor. It was, I think, Friday nights from about 8 until 10 or 8 until midnight. And I went on there a number of times. And also a person who was a Christian Reformed pastor, whose name was Brent, and I forget Brent's last name, he used to be down in Otay Mesa. Now he's back east. And Brent is the brother-in-law of a guy named Bob Godfrey. Y'all know Bob Godfrey? So we brought Bob Godfrey with us once, and they wouldn't let Bob Godfrey talk, because he wasn't a pastor, he was a professor. Okay? I mean, what a mistake that is, right? But anyway, but one time, somebody called up and said, how come we have this Enoch that says one thing about him in Genesis 5, and then it says something else about him over there? And the answer was, well, it's two different people, okay, with the same name. So it's important for us to know. Okay, so Enoch, that's about all that we know about him. And then we have the statement that there's this quote that Jude has. Now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about those men, or these men also saying, behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them, all of their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Now what's the problem here historically with this passage? Yeah, Jude quotes an apocryphal book called Enoch, or 1st Enoch, okay, which we have pieces of it to this day, and the book apparently was originally written in either Aramaic or Hebrew, and then been translated into other languages, one of which is Ethiopian or Coptic in that language. But Jude, this quote, you see, is almost an exact quote of the actual statement in this apocryphal book. And so the problem we have is Jude quoting an apocryphal book and attributing it to being scripture. After all, he said some pretty positive things about this quote, right? Enoch prophesied, and he said these things, and the point of which, of course, is that this prophecy is true. So what is your answer to that issue? The issue of, is he actually quoting an apocryphal book? And it's an almost exact quote, okay? And does that make that book Scripture? So what do you think? So Ray wants to say, no, it's not Scripture. Yeah, Jim, do you think it's Scripture? So scripture, there are times when biblical authors quote pagans, right? Okay. Cindy, what were you going to say? No. You disagree as what? Oh, you just agree. Okay. So you agree with Ray. That doesn't make it scripture. So Jude quoting this apocryphal book does not make the apocryphal book scripture. Yeah, Mike. Ah, very good. Okay. Because of the language here. So let's talk a little more about the history of the interpretation of this. Some people have argued back in the ancient church that Jude quoting First Enoch makes First Enoch Scripture, the whole book of First Enoch. Other people have argued, Jude quoting this apocryphal book means, therefore, that Jude is not Scripture. Okay? I mean, so you can see how the arguments are crossing each other. Okay? So those are some of the arguments in the ancient church. Because remember, one of the issues they dealt with a lot in the ancient church is, what's canon? What books actually belong in Scripture? And Jude was one of the disputed ones. And this was one of the reasons it was disputed. So that's the question. What do we do with it? Now... Okay, why? Yes. Even your own poets have said, right? And Paul is... Exactly. And you all remember the famous quote in 1 Corinthians 15? Bad company corrupts good morals. That one? That's in ancient Greek. That statement right there. So Paul is quoting a pagan. Does that mean that Paul is attributing to the writings of that pagan author scripture? No. What Paul is saying is that one statement by that author is correct. He's not making any statements about the value of the other things that author has written. Yes, Jim. Not that I know of, although, you know, your question is, is Maccabees quoted in the New Testament? No, not that I know of. I don't know that it's quoted anywhere in the New Testament. But there's another one. You remember the statement in, is it, is it in 2 Timothy 2 about Moses argued with Janus and Jambres? Remember that statement? Well, who are Janus and Jambres? Yeah, the Egyptian high priests, but how do we know? Because they're never mentioned in Exodus. And that was, it was some tradition or some history, and apparently that's what their names were. So that's the issue we have here. Now, one author that I was reading, a guy named Lenski, and if you ever want to read a very interesting commentator, read Lenski. He's a Lutheran. Very thorough with the Greek, very thorough commentator, writer, Lenski was. And he doesn't really deal with the body of the prophecy. He just says, it says this is scripture, you know, he quotes it, and that much is scripture. In fact, he even wants to say, Linsky wants to say this. We have Jude quoting the book of Enoch, E-N-O-C-H, right? And this really is just a little section out of it, okay? He wants to say this section that he quotes, actually Enoch said. Why? What's the language that's here in Jude? Enoch prophesied, and then it's got a quotation from him, right? We today would call it a direct quote. So he wants to say that this part right here, actually Enoch said. I don't know if I agree with that, because the word prophesied there might be, and perhaps is better translated a little more loosely, things like predicted, you know, kind of a general language like that. Some people want to say that, okay? But some people want to say, no, that quote actually is from Enoch himself. Again, it would be an extra biblical source, because back in Genesis, we didn't have that quote at all. But that's the issue we have here. Yes, Rebecca. The problem is why an extra-physical place is so upsetting, and like Moses wrote in the first chapter of the Bible of Genesis, like, either the fire in Jericho doesn't really care with all that knowledge, or there are extra-physical places that don't care. Why is it such a big deal? Let me make your argument even a little bit stronger. Do we ever quote unbelieving authors from something and say, you know, there's wisdom here in this, whether it be like, say, economic, personal finance, history, philosophy, you know, do we ever do that? So we're saying that somebody over here, some pagan that we're quoting had some insight. What are we really saying? We're really saying God gave this guy some wisdom and we ought to be aware of that and we ought not to deprecate it. Just because the guy's an unbeliever doesn't mean that everything that comes out of his mouth is false. So it's okay to do that. Even okay to do that in writing, for us to do that in writing? And then Rebecca's talking about, and Moses in his writings actually quotes other sources at times. We looked at that in the past. We ought not to have any problem with that. And I think that's part of your argument, that this kind of thing happens in scripture, let's not have it throw us a curveball. Right? That's your point. And that's what I want us to be aware of. Why? Because these kind of arguments come up. I don't want us just to pretend they're not there. Let's look at it and let's get down now to the body of the quote and see what it actually says. Yes. Yes, that's the point. Do they universalize it? And I want to say I don't think it's proper to do that. I don't think it's proper to look at that apocryphal book and attribute scripture to that whole book. Yeah, that's the issue. Yes, Thomas. That's very interesting. Let's ask the question and let's get to a little more area we're comfortable with. Why do we consider the Gospel of John to be scripture? Okay, here's the ultimate answer that theologians like to use. The self-attestating nature of the book. What does that mean? Self-attestating. To attestate to something is to say something is true, right? Y'all heard of expert witnesses in court? So you got some issue and you bring some expert in and this person attests to the truth. So you bring in the expert. And here's the theological conundrum we have. If we want to say Scripture equals the Word of God, right? We want to say that? Well, if we have this as a basic presupposition, what is more authoritative than the Word of God? Nothing, right? Okay, so what do we use to evaluate if a book is part of Scripture? Yes, there's nothing you can go outside of that book you know, outside of scripture, to say this meets the criteria and therefore is a scripture. That's the conundrum we have. And yes, it's circular thinking, and we admit that it's circular thinking, okay? But that's the conundrum that we have, okay? So the question is, as we deal with the issue before us, how do we determine if something is scripture or not, the book of Jude? To answer your question, how do we deal with the issue of First Enoch is not scripture? And we would look at it and say, you know, it's just not very self-attestating to us. And yes, that appears to us to be subjective. In my opinion, the question of canon, you know, what is and is not scripture, is the most difficult question of all theology. It's the most difficult question. Much more difficult than You know, inflelapsarian, suplepsarian, all that kind of stuff, because it all boils down to what is and what is not scripture. That's the most difficult. Okay? it's profitable to teach them and be correct in the form of righteousness. So if you left something out, there may have been something in it. That the man of God may be perfect for all good works. And it is complete. And yes, we understand it's a circular argument. The problem with us and the unbelievers is they don't understand that their arguments are circular, too, because they make themselves the ultimate authority, rather than Scripture. Okay? Yes. Oh, yes. What's your name again? Y'all realize, seriously, that I went to introduce her once and forgot her name? I'm serious, okay? It was cold supper that night. Yes, Mrs. G. I'm so in trouble. Yeah, they're so different and so disagreeable. Yeah. Yeah, notice if you've read any of these New Age books, New Age meaning from back in then, not modern New Age books, but books from that era, which Diane took a course in that. Peter Jones was the professor. Very interesting course. I don't know if he's still teaching it now or not. The nature of the books is so different. They are not self-attestating. Yes. If you want to read an interesting statement about the self-attestation of scripture, read the first chapter of the Westminster Confession. And it says, ultimately, we accept them for the Word of God because they are the Word of God. And yes, that is circular. But there's a good summary of the thought and argument. OK. So Jude has this quote here. The seventh from Adam prophesied or predicted about these men, saying, and then here's the detail here of his. Now, who are these men? The Greek is kind of confusing here, but this is a legitimate translation. Who are these men? These are the troublemakers that Jews have been talking about in the church, right? That's who he's talking about. The people that are like the clouds without water, the people that are like the angels who did not remain in their domain, the people that are similar to Balaam, similar to the rebellion of Korah, these false teachers, okay? Here's what they're like, okay? Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them for their ungodly deeds, which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken in them." So what is the statement here? I have some questions in your handout, or your study sheets, about Jude's prophecy or Jude's prediction So let's take a look at them, okay? So the first statement is what? The Lord comes with his, yeah, 10,000. The Greek term is just myrids, which sort of means like thousands and thousands and thousands. It's not a precise number of his. Now, this translation has his saints. Do you have a different translation? Holy ones, that term. I like that better. It's the same Greek word. It's hagios. We all know that word, right? From Hagia Sophia. What is Hagia Sophia? Holy wisdom. It's a church building in Istanbul, was Constantinople, okay? Today, it's a mosque, okay? Hagia Sophia means holy wisdom, okay? So, Hagios is the term. It's a typical word for saints. The problem is, if we translate this word there, saints means typically what in the New Testament? God's people. Right? Particularly God's people here on earth. Okay, that's the idea that's there. But this doesn't seem to have that idea. It seems to have the idea of the Lord coming with his angels, you know, at the second coming. It seems to have that concept, possibly. So the translation, holy ones, probably is a little more helpful. So the Lord comes with the holy ones to do what? What was that? Yeah, to execute judgment, on all. That's key for our understanding of this passage and others. So the Lord comes to execute judgment on all. See that? Now who's included in the all? That's not a trick question. It's a very important question in American theology today. Who's included in the all? The elect. Is it just the elect? Is it everybody? It's everybody. Now we'll see why when we get to the top of the other side of the handout why this is important. So the Lord comes. He's going to execute judgment on everybody. Now, so that's one thing he's coming to do. What's the next thing? To convict all the ungodly. Okay. Among them, for all their ungodliness. Now what does the among them mean? Yeah, Milton. Yep. Yep. We'll get to that. Now let's talk about that for a second. How is it fair for God to judge somebody who never had an opportunity to hear the Gospel? That's sort of the kind of broad issue that you're talking about, right? Yeah. Can God do what he wants to do? I want you to notice that I loaded the question. What was the question that I asked? How is it fair? And the issue ought to be, how is it just? That's not a minor change, justice and fairness, okay? Okay, just means that people are held to an external standard of theirs, okay? Fair is how I'm treating you compared to how I treat other people. Just means how do I treat you compared to this external standard? That's not a minor difference, okay? So the question is, is it God being just to hold somebody up against the standard and to evaluate them based upon the standard? What is the standard? His law, his character. If we want to do some more thinking about that, let's look at Romans 1 sometime. To execute judgment on all, to convict all ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds. Now what do we learn about the among them? To convict all the ungodly among them Who's the them? Let's understand our prepositions and antecedents. Right, so the them is the all. So this, in other words, this is a subgroup of this group, right? Okay, so we've gone from executing judgment on all to convicting the ungodly. So the ungodly is the subgroup of the all. That means there's another group that we would call what? The godly, okay? That's pretty straightforward. Yeah, Melvin. Sure. These people here? Yeah, exactly. Isn't that the point that he's getting at? Where are these people that Enoch is talking about? No, I didn't word that right. Where are these people that Jude is talking about when he brings Enoch's quote in? People in the church who are teaching this false doctrine, right? So if they're in the church, what are the one things we know about them? they have a credible profession of faith, right? Okay, so we know that. They're teaching, they're ungodly, even though they have a credible profession of faith. So, to use theological language, the difference between the visible church and the invisible church, right? Yeah, Mike. Yes. Yeah, isn't it interesting the repetitive nature of the word ungodly? Yeah, Jude does that a lot here. He's kind of, remember they didn't have italics back then or exclamation marks, so they would emphasize by repeating terms. Okay. Yes. Yeah, exactly. People within the church, look what they did. Okay. So to convict all who are the ungodly among them of what? Okay. of their ungodly deeds. So we have the repetition of the word ungodly. So these are people within the church doing things which they have committed in an ungodly way. So they've done the deeds in an ungodly manner. Now, we tend to think of the issue of ethics is behavioral. And remember when we taught the course in ethics or we had the course in ethics a few years ago, we looked at behavior. But it's not only behavior, right? Here's doing things in an ungodly manner. Okay, let's continue on. And of what? Okay, so here's another thing. Convict all the ungodly among them, and of all the harsh things. Now this is talking about talking. Harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. And so to convict, and to convict of the harsh things. And these are harsh things that are spoken to whom? What does it say? Who's the Him? God, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. The harsh things spoken against God. Well, do any of these items remind you of some earlier items in the book of Jude? Balaam, Korah, Cain, Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember those historical events that Jude was talking about? The angels and their rebellion, those things that were a little earlier. The Lord saved the people out of Egypt and destroyed those who did not believe. Any of these things remind you of that? How? What I'm trying to say is I don't think these are statements made by Jude in the abstract of his book, or abstract outside of his book, that there's some content or context that Jude's thinking about. Okay, do you remember what did the people say in the rebellion of Korah? They say to Moses and Aaron, who put you up there? You just made yourself up a leader. Do you think you're hot stuff? Right? And who had put Moses up there? They were bad-mouthing God and what God had done. Right? What about Balaam? Those things. Ungodly behavior. Ungodly speech. With Balaam and those kinds of things. So I think there's some context to that. Now, let's go back. Also in our thinking. Where does this quote come from? Enoch, what is the date of Enoch? Well, he's what's called antediluvian. Isn't that a great word, antediluvian? What does that mean? Before the flood, right? Antediluvian. Do you think this maybe has some context about the flood? God coming to execute judgment? Maybe, we don't know. But it could be, I'll get to you in a second, it could be that Jude is bringing this statement that had sort of an antediluvian, perhaps, context to it with the flood coming, and Jude wants to say the flood is a picture of God's ultimate judgment. And was it not a picture of God's ultimate judgment? Don't know. Maybe there's a little of that nuance in there, okay? Just as a thought. Yeah, John. We have, obviously, a similar thought in Peter and in Revelation. So the context of it is, as previously, as well, the different judgments on these godly people. You have this continual theme throughout the entire book of the Bible that God has a plan to judge the people Yes. Right? God's going to judge. And God's had little judgments all along. If you want to call the flood a little judgment. But God's had little judgments that are pictures of the great judgment to come. And in a sense are warnings. Don't mess with God. Right? Because he's going to judge ungodly people for their deeds and the way they talk. What do you think? Okay. Now we get controversial. Ray doesn't believe it. Turn the page over. We're going to get controversial. Now remember this, when is this going to happen? When the Lord's going to execute judgment on all, and then within the all, there's a subcategory of the ungodly who do bad things and say bad things, right? But in the context of all. The Lord's going to come with his holy ones to do this. Well, let's have a little excursus. We do that every once in a while, don't we? Okay. Let's have a little excursus and talk a little bit about eschatology. You all know what eschatology means? End times. Okay. The word eschatos means what in Greek? Last. It's the last things. Eschatology. Now, eschatology is typically when you have a study, eschatology is divided into two major categories. General eschatology and personal eschatology. or individual eschatology. Usually the individual eschatology is dealt with first. What does that mean? That means what happens to us when we die. Now, there are some people, and I think it's rather interesting, that want to say all soteriology is eschatology. Now, doesn't that sound great? I mean, picture that. You're at some party and you just drop that statement. People are going to be so impressed with how erudite you are. Come on. All soteriology is eschatology. Don't you like that? What does that mean? All soteriology is eschatology. Soteriology, I think that's how you spell it, is eschatology. Okay, what is soteriology? Doctrine of salvation. What is eschatology? Doctrine of the last things, right? Now, what do you deal with here? How about the issue of eternal life? Isn't that an eschatological concept? Is that at all related to soteriology? Okay, right? How about resurrection? Does that at all relate to this? How about when you are regenerated, you are resurrected, and also the final resurrection? So you see how they want to bring these together? Seriously, people are serious about this. This is seminary talk. We use this kind of stuff. So let's talk a little bit about eschatology. There are three major views when it comes to the issue of end times, or last things. And we're going to talk about those, and then we're going to evaluate them from scripture. And we're going to begin our evaluation from the book of Jude. Because that's why we're going to go on this little excursus because we've been talking to you now the first view is called premillennialism And I'm going to draw a picture up here our timeline Okay, and what this says is that there is a thousand years Okay, and you have a So you have the Old Testament time and then the New Testament time. And you have a thousand year reign here of Christ on earth as a literal 1,000 years long. So it's 1,000 years times 365 days approximately, because, you know, leap year or whatever else. Okay? So you have 1,000 years. And what happens just before the beginning of this? Well, that's got some controversy in that also. Some people want to say there is a seven-year period called the Tribulation. Tribulation. Just before this thousand year period, so the total period is a thousand seven years. And some people then want to say that Jesus comes at the beginning of the tribulation. Some people want to say Jesus comes in the middle of the tribulation. Some people want to say Jesus comes at the end of the tribulation, but he comes here. And when he comes here, he establishes his thousand year reign in Jerusalem where he's the king there. And who reigns with him during the thousand years? Well, God's people. Jesus' people reigned with him there. And then there is a judgment here at the end. But you see, there has to be a judgment here also at the beginning of the thousand years because Jesus has to differentiate between his people and not his people, right? Okay? So some people disagree with this view, and one of the reasons they disagree with it is they say that premillennialism has eschatological diplopia. What is diplopia? I have diplopia. It's a miserable condition. It's double vision, okay? I'm serious, okay? You see the microphone stand over there? If I look at it without my glasses, I see two microphone stands. Right there, I see two mics, right over there. I only see one from here. I didn't see the little one. The little one was hiding behind the piano. No, no, no, no, no, no. Now, see, the problem is I see two Dianes. That's a blessing. I have two Diane's. But seriously, I have diplopia. And I wear these things, not only because I'm presbyopic and myopic, but also because I have diplopia. I got all these medical conditions going off my eyes. In other words, they don't work right. Some of you have the same problems. I can see you wear glasses. And they want to say there's theological diplopia, because you have double vision. You have Jesus coming twice. You have the judgment occurring twice. Those kinds of things. So that's premillennialism. That is probably the prominent view in America today and in the English-speaking world and in much of other areas. Some people have dispensational premillennialism and then there's historic premillennialism. Historic premillennialism does not make a big deal about Jews and Gentiles as separate kingdoms. Dispensational premillennialism does. There's the alarm. Okay, you got a question? Come on up afterwards and we'll talk. Oh, okay, I answered it. Now, just a thought. There are OP people, ministers in good standing and others, who are premillennials. The confessional standard is basically, when you look at it, it's not premillennial, but it's one of these allowed aberrations, okay? I have an aberration, right? You all know that I hold it to office view, right? That's not consistent with the form of government. We all know that, right? But I'm allowed to hold that and still be a minister in good standing, okay? So we have that, and the whole question is how important are these differences, okay? That's an important judgmental question or issue, evaluation question. When we examine somebody for licensure, we never say, do you agree or do you disagree with the Westminster standards? We always say, where do you disagree? And I have a couple places that I disagree with. So this is one view, premillennialism. There's two others. And we're going to have to be historically precise when we get to the other two, when we get to them. And that will be Lord willing next week. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. And we pray, Lord, that you would encourage us and teach us from your word. Help us to be cognizant of it, to be faithful to it, to those people that disagree with us, Lord, to be gentle and to realize that we have so much in common. Lord, it's our nature to highlight disagreements because we always want to prove we're right. Lord, we pray that instead that we would be more concern to prove what we have in common and encourage those that we become all the more like our Savior. Hear us, give us wisdom for our life, especially for this afternoon and this evening and the week. In Jesus' name, amen.