Thank you so much. And it's great to be back at Beth Haven. And first time in about three years that we've been up here. And we see your pastor at football camp. And so that's always an exciting week. We're going to look at three different scriptures this morning. And some of you could, you know, you're welcome to move up. The front seats are better. But anyway, Daniel, we're going to start in the book of Daniel chapter 3. Thank you. Daniel chapter 3. And we're going to look at a couple of passages of scripture this morning that I think are pertinent in a teaching context. Daniel chapter 3. And what time are we needing to be done? A quarter till. All right. We have enough time for half of this, but that's OK. That's the way it always works. There's always more material than there is time. But anyway, Daniel chapter 3, and we know the story of Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah, and also known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We're going to start there this morning and kind of branch out into a couple other accounts in scripture. I want to introduce my wife. She's third row back here in the blue. Wave at us, honey. And she's the pretty one of the team. And we're glad to be traveling together. We have a book and picture and CD table out in the lobby. So please stop out there. Mother's Day is coming. Father's Day is coming. All kinds of reasons to pick things up that would be of help to your home. And so please feel free to ask any questions you have. There are prayer cards out there as well. Daniel chapter three, and let's pick up the reading in verse 12 where the Bible says there are certain Jews whom thou set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not regarded thee. They serve not their gods, nor worship the golden image which thou set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in his rage and fury, commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king, Nebuchadnezzar spake unto them and said, is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do you not, or do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if you be ready that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sacred saltary, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made, well, But if you worship not, you shall be cast the same hour into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful to answer thee in this matter. The word careful here meaning anxious or unsettled. We're not troubled about this at all. Verse 17, if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king, but if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship thy gods. the golden image, which thou hast set up. We have a story in the book of Esther. We'll not go there this morning. We have a story in the book of Esther about a man by the name of Mordecai, who had taken over the care of a much younger cousin by the name of Esther, her Hebrew name, Hadassah. Haman, the Amalekite, was an Agagite who was a descendant of the Amalekites. When he was elevated to position and began to enact wicked laws, Mordecai would not bow to him. Mordecai just refused to bow. In the book of Ruth, if you want to back up to the book of Ruth, we'll look at that passage this morning. The book of Ruth, backed by the book of Judges and before 1 Samuel. Let's look at Ruth chapter one this morning for just a few moments. The words of Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi, and some of the most precious words that are found anywhere in the Bible. And let's look at those, Ruth chapter one. And let's begin in verse eight. Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go, Return each to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant you that you may find rest each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them and they lifted up their voice and wept and they said unto her, surely we will return with thee unto thy people. Naomi said, turn again, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb? that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I'm too old to have a husband. Then she said this, if I should say I have hope, in other words, if I were to have another child, it's basically what she's saying, if I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband also tonight and should also bear sons, would you tarry for them till they were grown? Would you stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her. Bible says in verse 15, and she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people and unto her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law, and Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death, part thee and me. What we have in these passages of scripture is the story of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the story of Mordecai, the story of Ruth, and what we see is people who were not going to be controlled by their culture. Instead, they chose to be led and guided by the scripture. And we're living in a day where there is a whole lot of cultural sweep across the church of Jesus Christ. We're living in a time, we're living where it seems to me as I travel around the country that in many families, culture has more impact than scripture. We do what everybody else does more than we do the rare thing, the uncommon thing, the godly thing, the righteous thing, the holy thing, the scriptural thing. And we justify certain changes to what Christianity has been for centuries. And we justify that because, well, that's what everybody else is doing. My father never trusted the Lord to my knowledge, but he had a lot of common sense. And one of the things that I recall, I recall this distinctly, sitting on the bed one night talking to my dad, and I was just complaining about why can't I do a certain thing? All the other kids are doing it. And my dad said to me, the worst reason in the world to do something is just because everybody else is doing it. I have not forgotten that, good common sense. And you know, as you study the Bible, you're gonna find out that what he said, even though he was not a saved man, what he said is true. There has never been a time when culture has really been the answer. When Jesus Christ came, the Roman culture was a culture of paganism. The Greek culture was a culture of paganism. The Jewish culture, by the time that Jesus came into the world, the Jewish culture was a culture of religion, but not faith. And that's the reason they stumbled over scripture after scripture after scripture to be found acceptable within their Jewish culture. The reason they rejected Christ is it went against their Jewish culture. The reason the Romans rejected Christ, it went against their culture of paganism. The reason the Greeks rejected Christ is it went against their culture of artistry and philosophy and paganism. And what we're coming into in the United States of America, we call it post-modern America, or post-Christian America, and indeed post meaning after, and indeed we are no longer a Christian nation. It's interesting that in recent polling, over 40%, nearly 50% of millennials, and I'm not picking on millennials, it's just the culture that is growing up in our country, almost 50% of millennials don't know if God exists, don't care if God exists, or don't believe that God exists. Not that, okay, there might, no, no. I don't even care. It doesn't matter to me. What difference does it make? And this is the generation growing up that will be filling our country in the next 15 to 20 years. No, we're no longer a Christian nation. We may have had a Christian founding, and what we have to do is we have to rise out of that If you're gonna be outstanding, you have to be willing to stand out. If we're going to make a difference, we have to be different. Nobody makes a difference by being just like everybody else. You realize that Samson never made a difference after he became weak like all the other men? It's just the truth. And everywhere you see compromise in the Bible, you see failure. It's interesting to study the life of Abraham versus the life of Lot. And the angels and God come to see Abraham in Genesis 18, and Sarah puts on a feast for them, and then Abraham kind of goes out, the two angels head towards Sodom, and God and Abraham have a conversation. And Abraham in Genesis 18 begins praying. And he says something to the effect that, now Lord, if there be 50 righteous in the city, will you spare the place for all 50 righteous? Surely the judge of all the earth will do right, and surely it would not be right to judge the righteous with the wicked. And so if there are 50 righteous in the city, would you spare the city? And God said, no hesitation. God said, if I find 50 righteous there, I'll spare the whole place for their sake. Abraham said, what about 45? God said, that's plenty. What about 40? What about 30? What about 20? And every time God said, yes, if I find 45, if I find 40, if I find 30, if I find 20, I'll spare the whole place. That means Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the plain, Admon, Zeboiim, and all those other cities, it's all gonna be spared, right down to if I find 10 righteous. And Abraham stopped praying. Because in Abraham's mind, surely in the 20 years that Lot had lived in Sodom, he would have reached 20 people or 10 people. Compromise doesn't reach people. And the whole place was burned up because Lot in 20 years had not reached those people. And he didn't reach them because he became like them. He didn't reach them because he joined in marriage with a Sodomite, that is someone from Sodom. There's no mention of his wife till after he's in Sodom. He didn't have a wife. He married a woman from Sodom. and raised up children in that culture, and never said anything to anybody about anything, and then when God said he was gonna destroy the place, he goes out and starts warning people, and they're like, what's wrong with you? When did you change your message? No, you see, when we come down to culture or scripture, we need to choose scripture every time. God can deliver you when you are in a tight spot and you're commanded, you're pressured to bow. When Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah walked out to the plains of Dura, and there's Nebuchadnezzar's statue 90 feet tall and whatever, 10, 12 feet wide, just a massive structure out there. Some Bible scholars believe it was a resemblance of Nebuchadnezzar himself. And the command was that when all this music plays, everybody bows down and worships the golden image, everybody. Now, if you study a chronology of scripture, you're gonna find out that by this time in the nation of Babylon, in the city of Babylon, and in the Babylonian Empire, tens of thousands of Jewish people had been taken captive. You notice how many did not bow to the golden image? Just three. It is so easy to bow. It is so easy to be scared of the fiery furnace. It is so easy to look around and say, man, nobody else is doing this except those fanatics. You know, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're gonna burn, they're gonna be toast. It is so easy to just assume that if I don't conform, if I don't cave in, if I don't let up a little on what the Bible says, I'll never have any friends, I'll never get married, nobody will want me. No, not anyone other than somebody else who's godly. And by the way, godly people do make the best marriage partners. You see, God can deliver you from bowing, and it takes some courage, and it takes some stamina, and it is baffling to me as an onlooker to see all the different areas of life where we honor and respect great courage. When you see somebody fighting a difficult physical challenge, There's, for instance, the story of the young woman who was out surfing and fell prey to a shark attack. And the shark took her arm off right up here at the shoulder. There's a movie about it. And I mean, there's all kinds of stuff on the web and everything. And the bottom line is, we're excited when we hear victory stories like that. Somebody rising above the odds. Somebody who can just make life work regardless, takes courage. We honor people who have the courage to become military heroes or we honor people who, for instance, are our first responder heroes. We respect the courage that it takes to get out of an ambulance and walk up to the scene of a car wreck and you don't wanna be there. And there's a reason that these men and women in uniform have PTSD when they have come upon the scene of a terrible, terrible car wreck. Night after night, week after week. We honor that kind of courage. We're glad that they are there. We're glad that there are people who are called firemen who have the courage to run into a burning building and rescue you. They're not the commoner, they're people that are just, I don't know what makes them up. I don't have that kind of makeup. I wanna run out of a burning building, not into one. And yet when it comes to being courageous against our culture, that is absolutely unscriptural. We somehow wanna back away from that. I challenge this generation. We see all kinds of young people in here, and that's wonderful, and I challenge you young people to say, you know what? It's gonna be Scripture for me, not culture. I challenge dads and moms and say, it's gonna be Scripture for our house, not culture. We're gonna open the word of God, and we're gonna find out what God says about things, and we're gonna hang true to God, and we're gonna stay true to God, and we're not gonna bow to the culture. We're not gonna bow to what is being popular today. We're not gonna bow to the thing that is cool, even though nobody says cool anymore. That's, you know, my generation gap is showing now. If God chooses not to deliver me, I still will not bow. That's what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said. They said, now look, Nebuchadnezzar, you don't understand us. I know you've made us a second offer. You're giving us a second chance, but listen, listen. Our God is able to deliver us, but if he doesn't deliver us, we're still not bowing. We need that kind of courage today. We need that in our young people, we need it in our newlyweds, we need it in our parenting, we need it in our churches. Listen, we're living in a time that doesn't look good for the church of Jesus Christ. And unless we have some courageous people, it's not gonna look good in 20 years. I was in Canada last year. A family drove, are you ready for this, four hours in one direction because there are no churches any closer. You know how that happens to a country? It happens when people compromise and they start letting the culture impact them more than the scripture impacts them. Until there are no churches, except when somebody has a burden for a town and goes and tries to plant a church, and the church where I was, 20 people, church has been in works to get planted for the last eight or 10 years, and they're up to 20 people, that's a good Sunday. Can you imagine having to drive four hours just to get to church, and then four hours back? And that man works a job, and he brings his family, and then he drives home after church on Sunday night, and gets to bed at one in the morning, maybe, and gets up and goes to work the next day. Because it's that important to him. But it's not that important to most Canadians. And when our churches start dying out, people are going to say, well, it's just too far. And we need some courageous young men and young women who will not bow. We need some courageous young men and young women, young men who will say, you know what? I'm just going to say what Isaiah said. Here am I, Lord, send me. And we need some courageous young women who will say, you know what, God's not gonna call me to preach, but I'm gonna stand beside a preacher for the rest of my days and encourage him so he can preach. I got saved at the age of 17. Before I was ever saved, this lady sitting down here had already settled the matter that she was gonna marry someone going into the service of the Lord. It was already settled in her mind. before God ever saved me. I have not had to drag my wife through life. She was as dedicated to the call as I have been. And that's so necessary today. And believe me, it takes some courage. It does. We see the example of Ruth telling her mother, I'm not going back. What did she mean? She had met this Jewish family that came down to Moab there and... They had a couple of nice looking boys and Orpah chose one and Ruth chose the other one and they got married and it wasn't long before the bad news came that the father-in-law had died and then over the course of a few years both of the husbands died and now you have Naomi and Orpah and Ruth, three widows and they're just trying to make ends meet and help each other out and Naomi gets the message that the famine is over back in Bethlehem, Judah and God has visited his people and there's bread to spare. And so she tells her daughter's-in-law, look, I'm going back to Bethlehem. And they said, well, we're gonna go with you. And we read the story. And Orpah kisses her mother and turns around and walks away. And I'm baffled at what Naomi said. She said, go back to your people and to your gods. And the God of the Moabites was Chemosh, a God that required burnt baby sacrifices. And before you drop your jaw in shock, what is the incineration of an aborted baby? I mean, there's some God that's being worshiped there. I'm sorry, that's not just an option. It's devilish. It's wicked to the core. And Ruth comes to her and she says, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going back. And if you study the life of Naomi, she openly admits that the hand of God had gone out against her. She openly admits that God had dealt very bitterly with her. And so apparently what we can draw out of Naomi's own words is that the reason they went to Moab to begin with is she pressured her husband and kind of forced the issue. And now she wishes she had never come there. because compromise is never a good idea. And certainly going to Moab is not a good idea any more than going to Sodom was a good idea. And Naomi gets there and she's not the brightest light in the kingdom of God, but I wanna say something and I wanna say this carefully. She was the brightest light that Ruth had ever seen. I was talking to one of the men here, the gentleman that's out at the welcome desk this morning, and he asked a little about my salvation, and so I was communicating that story. And when I was a junior in high school, a new girl came into town, and she was a sophomore, one year younger than me, and she started witnessing to me. I'd never heard the gospel before, never heard the Bible before. She started witnessing to me. Well, what I found out as I got saved in my senior year and started to grow is she wasn't the brightest light. She was the brightest light I'd ever seen. And in a world of darkness, some of us are, we're just concerned that, well, maybe I'm not as good a Christian as somebody else. Well, don't compare yourself to somebody else, just draw near to God, amen? drawn near to God, and probably you'll be brighter than you realize you are. And you can have an impact and you can shine for Jesus Christ in the dark world. And even though Naomi was not a very bright light, even though Naomi was not really a good testimony as far as the scripture was concerned, it was the most light that Ruth had ever seen. And she said, I'm not going back. If your God is anything like what you've said or perhaps better than what you've said, and by the way, the half has never been told. So God is always better than any of us have ever said. And if your God is anywhere near as good as you have said, I don't wanna go back to Chemosh. I don't wanna go back and listen to the screams of babies who are being thrown into the fire to Chemosh. I wanna go where Jehovah is God. And might I remind you, this was during the years when the judges ruled. Not exactly a time of spiritual high for the nation of Israel, but it was still better than Moab. Amen? Still better than Moab. No, she said, I'm not going back. I don't wanna go back, don't tell me to go back. Where you go, I wanna go. Where you live, I wanna live. I want your people to be my people and I want your God to be my God and where you die, I wanna be buried there. And God do so to me and more also if ought but death part me and thee. You know, some of us need to take those words of Ruth and just tell them to God. Now, God's not gonna ever entreat you to leave him. I'll tell you, the world will entreat you to leave the Lord. The world will entice you and tease you and ridicule you, and if you won't go back to the world, if you won't have fun with the world, if you won't, boy, they can tear you apart on social media and everything. I mean, we have more ways now to tear somebody down than we've ever had. By the way, if you use social media to tear other people down, Well, it's Sunday, so I just won't say what I'm thinking. It's all right to identify issues. We can judge issues right and wrong, but we can't judge motives. We need to be careful how we use social media. No, she said, I'm not going back. When the issue came down with Mordecai and Esther, and Esther had to go into the king, you know what her attitude was? Well, she said to Mordecai, there's a law in the land. And that law is that if you're not called to go into the king, you can't go. Because if you walk in and he doesn't hold out the golden scepter, you die. That would keep some of the riffraff away, wouldn't it? You're not called, you're not gonna live. Mordecai sends a message back to Queen Esther and says, you're the only hope. You're the only one of us that can get to the king. You know what Esther said? She said, if I perish, I perish. You know what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said? We're not gonna bow. We're not going to bow. We're not going to bow. Whether God delivers us or not, we're not going to bow. We're not going to bow. You know what Ruth said? I'm not going back. I'm going forward. I wanna be closer to God next year than I am this year. I wanna be closer to God today than I was last year. I want to progress. I wanna grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's what Peter commanded at the end of two letters. I don't want to be that backslider. I don't want to be that prodigal. I don't want to be that person that just caves in and ends up like Samson, grinding mill, a blinded prisoner with no testimony anymore. He no longer had a testimony. He gave it all up. and his whole big thing was if you do this, I'll be just like any other man. Is that our goal in life? How many of you want a surgeon whose only goal in life is just to be a mediocre surgeon, just like all the other surgeons? Botch up a few of them, maybe botch up yours. How many of us want a pilot who graduated from pilot school with D pluses and C minuses. He's happy because he's just like all the other pilots. I think you see where I'm going here. You want a mechanic like that? Takes four visits for him to find out you need an oil change. Why is it we want excellence everywhere else? You know we go to a restaurant and we get yucky food? Now if you go to McDonald's more than once, I don't understand that. The only thing McDonald's has that's any good is a mocha frappe. I go and I get mocha frappes and I get out of there. I get the diet version, no whipped cream. probably 4,357,000 calories, but I walk a lot. We need some young people, we need some couples, we need some grandparents. Listen, you know it's dangerous to become grandparents? All of a sudden you got these little kids you can spoil. That's not wise. Because you're making it harder for their parents to raise up a godly seed. Don't spoil anybody. We all like to be spoiled, but we ought not be doing the spoiling. And God'll spoil you well enough if you just walk with him. God's a pretty good father, amen? No, we need some young people, we need some middle-aged people, we need some old people that'll just say, I'm not going back, I'm not going back. God saved me and God called me out of this and out of that, I'm not going back. If I perish, I perish. What did Jesus say to his disciples? He said, look, don't fear those who can kill the body. And after that, have no power to do anything. That's a weighty statement. That's a weighty statement. You know what Jesus is doing in that statement? He is putting the spiritual so far above the physical life that they're not even invisible one from the other. The spiritual life is what's important. When I stand before Jesus Christ, I'm not gonna be judged for the length of my life. I'm not gonna be judged for the number of athletic trophies I have. I'm not gonna be judged for the number of degrees, academic degrees that I have. I'm not gonna be judged for my looks or lack thereof. I'm going to be judged based on whether I went back or kept going forward. I'm going to be judged based on whether I bowed or refused to bow to the culture. I'm going to be judged based on whether or not I went all the way with Jesus Christ, whether he was my God all the way. This is the Jesus Christ, no matter what kind of Christianity. That's what it is. This is, I will serve Jesus Christ. This is Joshua saying, as for me and my house, you guys do whatever you wanna do. serve the gods that your father served, serve the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And if you remember, as we read Daniel chapter three earlier, the words worship and serve are used interchangeably because when you worship God, you serve him. And when you're serving him, that's worship. They're used interchangeably all through the Bible. And that's true whether you serve the culture or whether you serve the God of Scripture. Worshiping and serving go together. You can't separate them. This is whatever it takes kind of Christianity. This is a young man, this is a couple, this is a husband and wife who come to the altar, this is a husband and wife that sit down at the dinner table and after dinner's over, they say, you know what, we need to talk about some things. We need to be whatever it takes, Christians. That's what we need to be. We don't need to have a price that if the devil offers us that price, we'll sell out to him. I've heard it said that everybody has a price. And I'm not bragging because I am as weak as any other person. But so far, the devil hasn't come up with anything better than eternal life. So far, the devil hasn't come up with anything better than the call of God on my life. He's made many offers. It is a shame when we take that which God gives us and use it to buy what the devil offers us. God gives you things for free. Don't invest them in what the devil is offering you. This is the kind of Christianity that says Jesus Christ, no matter what, whatever it takes. This is actually true discipleship. If you study the passages on discipleship, we don't have time to really look at a bunch of them this morning, but Jesus said, if you come after me, you gotta pick up your cross. amazes me, I guess is the best word I can use, when people are all agog and gaga on social media about how Jesus bore his cross for them. But they get all, no way, when it comes to bearing their cross for him. Jesus said, if you don't pick up your cross daily and follow me, you're not my disciple. You can't be my disciple. He said, except you hate father and mother and brother and sister. You say, I already hate my brothers and sisters. Well, you're partway there then. Except you hate father and mother and brother and sister and houses and lands and your own life. You can't be my disciple. And it's the language of an exaggerated contrast. And what Jesus is trying to get across there is that our love for the Lord Jesus Christ needs to be so huge Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, that kind of love, that any other love by comparison is hate. When my wife tells her story, she tells about desiring to marry somebody who loves God more than he loves her. I've heard her tell that story dozens of times. I haven't always lived up to that. but it's been the general trend. It's true discipleship, it's abiding in Christ. It's staying in fellowship. It's Holy Spirit-filled Christianity. Be filled with the Spirit, the Bible says. And I encourage you this morning, as we wind this up to quarter till, I heard the trapdoor creaking, so I know it's getting ready. I wanna ask you a question this morning. What is it? What is it that is the chief influencer when you get around to make a decision? Is it scripture? What does God say about it? And you say, well, you know, I've got issues the Bible doesn't say anything about. I realize that. But there's no issue that you face where there is not a principle of scripture that governs it. And so many people are hiding behind, well, there's no direct command about that to justify behavior that they know full well is wrong. and that's why they fight so hard. It's like W.C. Fields on his deathbed. Somebody came to him, he was sitting there reading the Bible, and the guy said, what are you doing reading the Bible? He said, I'm looking for loopholes. There aren't any. It's Jesus Christ or hell. There's no loophole. And there aren't any real loopholes, you can try to find them, you can try to weave them into the fabric of Scripture, but there are no true loopholes. And if you're trying to justify wrong behavior, you'll find a way to do it. Because the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And when you fight against what you know is right, That's not spirituality. That is not the kind of Christianity that separated Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego from thousands of other Jews. By the way, you know they're the only three people that ever got thrown into a fiery furnace and came out with Jesus arm in arm. Maybe if Lot had walked into Sodom and lived like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he would have come out like they came out. But he didn't, he came out in shame. He came out with loss, he didn't come out with gain, he came out with loss. Compromise has never proven helpful, never. And it's not gonna prove helpful for you. I challenge you this morning, look at this story of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Look at the story of Mordecai and Esther. Look at the story of Ruth. Look at 100 stories in the Bible of people that we elevate as Bible heroines and Bible heroes. You're gonna see a common thread, and that common thread is they would not bow to the culture. They obeyed the scripture. All right, it's quarter chill, so whoever is going to, I guess I'll just close in prayer, shall we? Close in prayer? All right, Father, I do come to you this morning on behalf of this congregation. Thank you for each one. Thank you for those that are here in the house of God on the Lord's day. And now with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I won't let there be anybody will not extend an invitation right this minute, but if anybody by an uplifted hand would say, Brother Farnam, I need to make scripture more important in my life than the culture. Let me see your hands. All right, I see several. Any others? Okay, hold them up. Any others? Any others? All right, Father, for these that have raised their hands, I pray that you would give them Holy Spirit power to actually bring this decision into practicality. I pray that you would use these who have determined in their heart to live by the scripture, not by the culture. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.