I want you to take your Bibles and join me in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4. We have some scripture that we're going to look at tonight, but really the purpose is to have a conversation. I've been doing the best that I can with the time that I have to try and pre-prepare what I want to talk to you about. And I set this idea probably about a month ago. And I really wanted to talk about it because in a ministry like ours, when it's question and answer, there's a tendency to begin to build a divide. We have to watch against this because when you start answering questions and you're giving definitive answers, people don't like that. If you only have a five minute video and you can only say what you can say in that video, there's bound to be people that say, what about this? And have you thought about this? And this guy's out of his mind. Just go look at the comment section on our YouTube videos and you'll see exactly what Trenton has to filter through and what I have to see on a daily basis. Most of it is encouraging, but sometimes people get on a vein and they're just going at it. It's very easy sometimes to become entrenched against people. And it's very important to recognize what's really happening when it comes to false doctrine. I want to read to you an email that was sent to me. I had preached a message a couple of weeks ago called Looking Up. And in that message, there was a discussion about loving people. Do we really love people? Are we sacrificing opportunities to reach people because we know the gospel? Are we just totally alienating people? and only talking about the clarity, the clarity, the clarity, and missing the individual, trying to reach the individual. So somebody wrote this in, and he's probably been on the YouTube channel since about a week before I went to Israel. And he said, thank you, Jesse. After I watched your sermon, I sat for a moment and began to cry, not for me, but for the lost. My heart was fixed on doctrine more than loving the lost. I'm not sure I'm saying this correctly, but please stay with me. I know you are busy, and I thank you for your valuable time. About 10 years ago, I stopped at a truck stop and sat down at a table where a guy was sitting. We struck up a conversation, and somehow, God had entered into that conversation. He wasn't saved. He asked me a question about the Old Testament law. I explained what it was for. We sat for some time and talked, and he trusted Christ during our conversation. he believed. A guy came around the corner and said it was nice to hear someone preaching the gospel. He also said he had a ministry focusing on demons. He said he was a Baptist. I told him there was only one ministry that was preaching the cross of Christ and we disputed for a time. Then he stood up and said, are you calling me a liar? And I said, no, you are believing a lie. As I sat and thought after your sermon, I asked this question, what was the first lie? It's an excellent, excellent question. What is the first lie? And as our writer here accurately says, you shall not surely die. And who was the author of that lie, folks? Satan. I'll continue here. Eve said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. The point I am making, the writer is making here, that I am attempting to make is that those who are believing a lie, any lie, are beguiled. So we should see them as being lied to rather than the origin of the lies. What so much truth and analysis in that. We have got to remember that people are not the deceivers, they are the deceived. And some of them don't know that they're deceived. If we just zoom out and look at our own testimonies, how we came to faith in Christ, at one point we were deceived. And maybe we were deceived so strongly that we went out and continued to promote a lie, a false doctrine of how to get to heaven or what is required to receive eternal life. He said, did I believe a lie for decades? Of course I did. What freed me? The power of the Holy Spirit opening my ears to a man opening his mouth and pointing to the power of the cross. It doesn't matter what they are deceived in or under, they are being lied to. If it is transgression or law, it's all the same. It's a deception to keep them under the law of sin and death. Satan is the father of lies and he will use any and all lies to destroy God's creation. Pray that God continues to soften my heart and compassion for the loss and increase my understanding in his love Thanks again. And this is from a man named Leo Boy, isn't that encouraging? And that's my very very first point is we have to remember that people are deceived And they don't know that they're deceived. And it's not our job to beat them out of that deception. That doesn't work. Think about your marriage, right? I mean, if there's two different sides to the argument and everybody is just shouting about their side, what's going to get accomplished? Nothing, and if you're the husband, you are at more of a risk of being in trouble for a longer period of time. People have to listen to one another in order to come to an understanding of what each other is saying. But as we continue to walk through this truth that there is false doctrine out there, we need to understand where it originates from. And I want you to see this here. If you take your Bibles there in 2 Corinthians in chapter four, In verse four, we have this verse, you're familiar with it. A couple of things here. Number one, the devil is actively deceiving those who have yet to believe. At some point, your minds were influenced by whatever you thought you had to do to get to heaven. For example, I thought I had to ask Jesus into my heart. Literally, I thought this. And I thought this for a long time until my uncle shared with me, it's not what I can do for God, it's what he did for me. And I am responsible to make a decision about Jesus Christ. Is he able to pay for my sin, or is there another way to get to heaven? And so I put my faith in what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross, and the Bible says I was justified. 12 years old, I was fully justified of all sin. I was given a new nature. I have a new name. I have a home in heaven. I've been passed from death under sin and the law into eternal life, placed into the body of Christ. Praise the Lord. That's how simple salvation is. But for all those years of my life, I was under deception. And that is because the devil wants to keep me from getting to heaven. Now he's lost that battle because my soul has been eternally redeemed. But how can he win the battle in someone else's life through me if I'm not clear? If I don't know the truth well enough to share it with somebody else. If I can't spot a lie posing to be the truth, then the devil can try and keep other people away from hearing the truth. I want you to look in Acts chapter 17. the book of Acts in chapter 17, and we'll look there in verse 22. This is when Paul is in Athens, not Athens, Georgia, Athens over there in Rome, and he's standing in the midst of Mars Hill, okay? Lots of pagan activity going on in Athens under a lot of Greek influence, so there's all these pagan gods and these pagan rituals. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, and this is what I want you to focus on here, who therefore ye ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you. And he goes on to make a case for Jesus being that unknown God. By the way, what a wise approach. What a wise approach to use what he had to reach the people and the culture in which he was trying to reach. But I want you to see here, that they worshipped ignorantly. What does it mean to be ignorant? Wives, any opinions? No, I'm just kidding. What does it mean to be ignorant? I can tell you what my husband is. You don't know what the truth is. You don't know that what you're doing is incorrect. So these men in Athens who were listening to Paul, Paul knew that they did not know the truth. He did not chide them. He did not say, you guys are so incredibly dull. He instead recognized the problem and offered a solution. That's how you love those who are deceived. If Paul just merely got up there and said, you guys are so wrong. Here's the truth. I can't believe you haven't seen it. Who has he reached? He's done nothing but satisfied his own desire. If you look a little bit further down in verse 30, same chapter, look there in verse 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. And this is clearly a great use of the word repent, meaning to change their mind. They thought this unknown God was some pagan God. Paul is making the case that it's Jesus, so they need to now change their mind and believe on Christ. because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." Who is the ordained man of God? It's Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, the word Christ means anointed one, that one who is chosen. And so we can understand the operation of Jesus even in his title. Wherefore, he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead." By the way, you see the significance of the resurrection? That's our assurance, folks. That's our receipt that Jesus is who he claimed that he was. Verse 32, and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. So some, even hearing the truth, remained deceived. Well, whose fault is that? Well, the fault of the hearer. But does that mean what Paul did was ineffective? No. And others said, we will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. How be it certain men clave unto him. And here's what I want you to see, him believed. That's the operation there. I love this story. By the way, the book of Acts, so good. It's one of those books you could just sit down, and you're reading, and the next thing you know, you're like, oh, it's over? It's like a screenplay of church history. It's so, so informative. But look at the result of this conversation. You worship ignorantly. Here's the truth. Some mocked. Some said, we'll come back and consider this later. but some, and even if it was one, believed. That's what it says. Among which was Dionysus the Areopagite, and you can tell I haven't read that before, and a woman made Demeris and others with them. So these people obviously had believed, and as a result of that belief, they have been born into eternal life. That should be the operation of answering false doctrine. You acknowledge it for what it is, and then you provide the truth in a way that is clear, communicated in love, so that they have a chance to change their mind. What's the point of making a video exposing somebody and never giving the gospel? As a matter of fact, I don't even like doing exposed videos until there's at least been an attempt to talk to people. Trent and I have done this with a very large YouTube channel. You remember we did this? And I emailed the guy and I said, hey, you're saying some things, you've got a great audience, I want to ask you about it. I got a response back, I issued another response back, and there's been nothing. My goal, if I were to ever make a video about some of the doctrine that he preaches, is not to tear down the man. It's to expose the message, what it says, and bring it under the light of the scripture and come to a conclusion. Is this what God says? And the whole result is so that people, whoever are watching and they're under this deception, would come out of it. How do they come out of it? Not by any works that they could do, but by simply responding with faith in Jesus Christ for the payment of their sins. I wanna take another look at a passage here, Romans chapter 10 in verse three. Romans chapter 10 and verse 3. For those of you that know where this is, this is Paul talking about his desire for his kinsmen, the nation of Israel, to be saved. But he says in Romans chapter 10 and verse 3, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. The key word I want to draw out here is that word ignorant again. They lack The application of the knowledge which they have and let me tell you Israel prime nation to trust Christ All the prophecies came through them. They have all the lineage. They have all the Old Testament prophets. They have all the records, but they do not see that Christ is the Messiah. Why is that? They are under a deception. And we're going to study that in the next coming weeks when we dedicate an entire week here at Calvary before Resurrection Sunday to the crucifixion week. And you will see how step by step, piece by piece, the people's opinion of Jesus is dismantled. You remember the triumphant entry, Hosanna, Hosanna, God save us now. And not even a week later, they shouted, crucify him, crucify him, let his blood be upon us and upon our children. What changed? The deception of the devil is what changed. Their minds were changed from the truth. So that's the first point here, deceiver or deceived. The second point is we need to speak the truth in love. We don't have a lot of scripture to go over here, but I do want you to look in 2 Timothy chapter two. 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 15. while I read to you some points here. Point number one under this is that the truth is found in Jesus Christ, okay? We see that in John 14, six, John 17, 17. We also see that in Galatians chapter three in verse one. And one cannot speak of what he does not know. Therefore, you must know what the truth is. Then you will be able to identify what is a lie. And this is where I think young believers get tripped up the most. They're so excited about what they have come out of, they're saved now, they put their faith in Jesus Christ, but they don't know much outside of what they have believed. So sometimes they're encouraged to go out there and start winning people to Christ. And as a result of that, they're being asked questions. And these questions are the first time they're ever looking at it through the lens of grace. And they're like, make up something, which is the worst thing you can do. Don't ever make up an answer. It is so okay to say, I don't know. As somebody who runs a question and answer ministry, I've written many emails that says, I don't know. Let me look. And then I go and look. And every time I look, I find an answer and I get them an answer. And it's much better than something I made up and you find out the Bible condemns what I said. That would be a horrible thing to go and say something that God said and found out he never said it. Yikes, I don't want to do that. But you can't speak about the truth if you don't know what the truth is. So who do we need to know if we want to know the truth? We need to know Jesus. We need to know about his life. We need to know about what he said. And by the way, in Galatians chapter one, when Paul gives his authenticity as an apostle, he says he met with Jesus for three years. The doctrine of the gospel that he received was not from a man. He was not taught it by another apostle. He got it from Christ. You know what that tells us? The entire New Testament is all the words of Christ. There's nothing in there that would have been able to pass the test of the canocity of Scripture without it first being understood as inspired. So when we see, for by grace are you saved through faith, that is the words of Jesus through Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So we can see there's no contradiction with what Jesus taught in the Gospels and what's taught in the New Testament, but we have to be workmen. And I want you to see that here in 2 Timothy 2.15. We're going to pull out two words and a phrase here. It says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. If you're an old Awana student, boy, you know that's the heartbeat of that ministry. Awana, approved workmen are not ashamed. A-W-A-N-A. I even said it in the little chant of the Awana song, for those of you that know. An approved workman is not ashamed. Why? Because they can rightly divide the word of truth. I want you to see two words here. The first word is study. And all the students from spring break returning back have fear struck in their hearts now. Just kidding. But you know what the word study means if we look at that word in the original language of the Greek? It means to diligently apply. Diligently apply so if we're going to study something we are diligently applying what? time it's time that we apply to the Dissecting and understanding of a doctrine the second thing I want you to see here is the word workman Which means a teacher the responsibility of a teacher is not to retain knowledge but to give back what he has learned. So you not only have to know through studying and applying time, you have to be prepared to teach when the time comes. And then of course the last phrase here is rightly dividing. This means to make a correct cut, okay? This is a proper dissection. For those of you who understand the importance of measure twice, cut once, when that saw starts and you bring it down, if you're wrong, you're gonna know. So you better make sure the cut is right. Folks, this is why I don't own a saw. This is why I have a drill, and I'm blessed with a father-in-law who knows all about that stuff. And I have done jobs with my father-in-law, Steve, and he's precise. I remember a very specific story, and many of you have heard this before, where we were putting in a new fence at his house. I've never done work like that before. I showed up, and I'm clearly the guy who does one job. What's that? Dig the holes. That's my job. We don't need an auger. We got Jesse. Look at the guy. He can definitely put a shovel in the ground and boy I could. And over and over I put those post hole diggers in there and grabbed the dirt and put it out and all that. But there was coming a time when I was on the third hole and the fourth one I was digging too deep. And to me, I'm like, what does it matter, right? This is the fifth hole that I'm digging. What does it matter? But Steve pointed out, if you've got one that's off by an inch, the next one's gonna be off, and the next one's gonna be off, and then you're gonna have a fence that looks like this. And he said, that's not gonna be my fence, brother. And so I had to do it correctly. And then after we had all the posts lined up properly, the next thing is putting the panels in. And if you don't have a chalk line to go across and make sure you got a good line, you're gonna have a fence that looks like this. And guess what? As Steve would say, mister, we're not gonna have that. And I was irritated by that. Cause you know, I'm doing all this work and it's not my fence. I'm just here to help. But you know what he said? I'm gonna do all things properly as unto the Lord. And he showed me a verse in Colossians. And that impacted me. So I wanna make sure when I'm studying my Bible, I'm not just gonna, okay, well, I did a little bit there. It's not exactly right, but it'll figure itself out. I'm gonna have doctrine that looks like this. And that's not gonna work, brother. That's not good. So what's the lesson here? When you're studying the scripture, you need to study it accurately. Just because you're spending a lot of time, you could be spending a lot of time on doctrine that's false. Rightly dividing means an accurate cut. You need to know that what you're studying is true. How do we base ourselves off of truth? Jesus Christ. What does he say? Is there any doctrine that I'm teaching that teaches against what the Bible says? Then I need to put myself in a proper position. All of this requires accuracy. Accuracy is gained with proper study. Lean on the Lord as you study his word. I pray this prayer often as I study. Lord, open my eyes that I might see the wonders that are in your law. What do you have for me? And there's been times you can ask Trent, because he does my title screens. There's been times where late on a Saturday night, I'll say, Trent, I got to change what I was going to talk about. Can you make this correction? Because the Lord put something different on my mind. All right, let's take a look here at this last point, or this last point within this second one here is you cannot speak in love to someone that you hate. You gotta catch a burden for souls. No matter how much they may be disrespectful to you, no matter how much they may malign you, may we see the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is silent as they nailed him to the cross. who was silent as they whipped him and mocked and said, tell us who strikes you, thou son of God. Wow, how much we can learn from our Savior, which leads me into the last point. We need to be meek, and just because meek rhymes with weak, doesn't mean it's the same thing. Meekness is strength held and reserved. Learn to soften the blow when telling someone they're wrong. Look in Colossians chapter four. Colossians chapter four, specifically in verses five and six. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. You think it's wise to walk up to somebody with your hands drawn like you're about to fight them? Go do that to someone who's built like our friend Grant and see how you're responded to. How rude would it be if someone gave you your food and it was incorrect, and they're looking at you like, you wanna fight, yeah? There's a barrier that's gonna be crossed there where we're not gonna be talking, it's gonna be violent. What is that? Verse six tells us to let your speech be always with grace. Now that doesn't mean you speak timidly. You can speak the truth boldly. You can be firm about the truth, but do it in a way where you're trying to win the person. If you're shouting so loud that the sinner's never gonna hear you, what are you doing? What is gonna be the accomplishment of that? Look at the rest, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Boy, don't you like salt on your food if it needs it? Now if your wife made it, you just, it's perfect, right? Amen? Husbands, I'm giving you a shot here. I offered it up. Let me give you some phrases you can use when you're talking to somebody and you hear some false doctrine. Here's what you can say. I see how you came to that conclusion. However, the text indicates something different. May I show you? It's just an invitation to have a discussion on what? My opinion. No, no, no. On the text. Let's look in the Bible. What does it say? Can we look at it? Here's another one. I used to believe the same thing until I came across this verse here. And this is probably the phrase you'll use the most. Because many of us have come out of false doctrine, believing you have to turn from your sin, ask Jesus into your heart, give your life, that you have to have fruit to show that you're really saved, whatever it is. I have a friend right now that I'm counseling. We're gonna have our fourth counseling session next month, and he has come out of Calvinism. He understands the gospel now, but there's a lot of things in his mind that are still jumbled, but he recently just led somebody to Christ, who believed in certain points of Calvinism, but was questioning it, and he was able to use what he believed, and how he found the truth in the scripture, he used that scripture to help him trust Christ. What a proper response. And here's another phrase you can use. I know of some places in the Bible that may shed light on what you're saying. Can we have a look? You wanna deny the doctrine without eliminating a conversation. Things like, nope, you're wrong, nope, that's stupid, that's not a good way to go, that is not a good way to go. You know what that does? Shuts down conversation. Now they're in their camp, and you're in your camp, and we're gonna duke it out, and whoever's tired and loses, they're the loser, yeah, and I'm the winner. And guess what? They stay lost. They stay lost. Paul did not have that approach. Although he spoke boldly, he spoke the truth in love, and people believed as a result. That should be our goal. Always be prepared to explain the truth with Bible verses in their proper context. This requires a working knowledge of a book's audience, setting, author, and main topic. This is all something called context. Folks, this will be the greatest thing that you do, is to learn the context of the New Testament letters. Learn the context of the book of Isaiah. What is the point of the Lamentations of Jeremiah? What is he lamenting about? Who is he lamenting about? These are good questions to ask. Let me give you some of these and then we'll close. Look at books in the Bible as the following. Historical records, like Genesis, Exodus, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. Wisdom writings, like the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. Prophetic messages, Micah, Isaiah, Daniel, Zephaniah, all those other ones. Letters to churches, can we think of some of those? Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, well, 1st and 2nd Timothy was actually to an individual, but they're letters to be written in that, or to be understood in that vein. And then we have historical eyewitnesses, which I put that in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four different viewpoints of the same man, the same ministry from four different points of view. When you understand the books in this way, it removes all the mysticism of the Bible. The Bible's not some, ooh, foggy book with foggy interpretation. It's written so you and I can understand it and apply it to our lives. There's no voodoo magic there. It's God communicating His truth to us for the purpose of edifying our lives and then using that knowledge to reach other people. When you look at the Bible through that lens, all of a sudden you find yourself having a great tool, a very, very good tool. You can close your Bibles as I give you this closing thought here. I remember when I took Greek, and this is nothing bad about Greek. Most of you are like, ooh, what bad story is he going to tell? No, no. No bad stories here about Greek. But I remember when I took Greek, I had a thin little book. It was our textbook, all right? And in the very front, the first two or three chapters were all about the alphabet of the Greek language, all about how you pronounce things, all about the little things on the top and the things on the bottom and all those different things. And those three or four chapters were the most used part of my book. Because every time I had a homework assignment, every time I had a problem that had to be solved, something that had to be translated, I went to that section because it taught me how to get the answers that I was looking for. In the beginning, those first four chapters were absolute nonsense to me. I had no idea what I was looking at. I would constantly think to myself, how does this said? What does this mean? I don't know. But over the process of time and diligent study, those four chapters became second nature. And I began to see things naturally that I had learned from those chapters. Friends, the Bible is the same way. The more that you bring yourself under its teaching, the more that you submit yourself to the studying of passages and larger thoughts and themes, the more you're going to be able to spot something without having to go to your Bible. And this is why it's so important that we continually read the scriptures. Dr. Gilbert told a story of when he was a kid and he first finished reading his Bible, he zipped it up and put it on the shelf. He finished it. And he learned, he learned, I got to keep reading that thing. And he's probably read the Bible over and over and over. Is it just the mere reading of it that makes him a wise man? No, he's applied it. He's applied it. He's sharing it with others. We can read the scripture until we're spiritually fat, but guess what? That's not going to help anybody if we're not willing to go out and give it to people. But that's the proper response to false doctrine. Do you love the people that are deceived? Realizing that at one point you were in their position, communicate that, help them understand that what they're believing is not true, and instead of it being you versus them, You need to put them under the light of the scripture and help them come to a conclusion there. That's what the word repent means. It means to change your mind, metanoia, a change of mind. That's what the hearers in Acts chapter two did. They heard the truth, they understood what Peter was saying, and they put their faith in Jesus Christ. And the Bible says many were added into the church. And as a result of that, thousands put their faith in Christ. And even in a pagan city of Athens, Paul, a Pharisee, he was once a Pharisee, touching the law of a tribe of Benjamin, all those different things. Guess what? He put his faith in Christ, and he was out there winning people. Gentiles, ooh, nasty Gentiles. That's how the Jewish people looked at it in their time. the heathen we are the chosen well guess what paul saw them as lost they need to hear the truth boy if we have a burden for souls like that we'll change this community you become a wonderful wonderful tool for the lord I have so many illustrations I could give you, but we're over time. So let me share with you the best news in all the world. If this hand represents you and me, I'll let my wallet represent sin. I'll put this on top of my hand because the Bible says for all of sin and come short of the glory of God. God, he loves us, but he hates our sin because our sin separates us from him because we have to be absolutely perfect to get to heaven without any sin. And many people miss this. They say, well, I'm not that bad. Or, I've got a lot, but I'm really sorry for it. Any sin separates us from God. The wages of sin, as the Bible says, the payment for sin is death, eternal separation from God forever in a place called hell. Somebody has to die for this sin. No amount of good works, the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works a city man should boast. There's no amount of tithing or turning or starting or stopping. that could ever pay for our sin. Jesus has said in Hebrews, it is said of Jesus in Hebrews that a body was prepared and he had to make a sacrifice for sin, and he did that. This hand represents Jesus Christ. And what happened on the cross 2,000 years ago is described to Nicodemus in the garden at the dead of night in John 3. How can you know you're going to heaven? How do I know, regardless of what I ever do in the future, that my sin is paid? For God so loved the world, that's you and me, that He gave His only begotten Son, that's Jesus Christ, that whosoever, again, you and me, believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. What is the message that is communicated there? God loved me so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross in my place to pay for my sin. And if I would simply believe on Jesus Christ, I would receive as a free gift everlasting life. And by definition, it is everlasting so it can never be lost. Once I put my faith in Christ, just a simple response of belief on Christ for the payment of my sin, the Bible says in John chapter five and verse 24 that I am never to be brought into condemnation. I am passed from death into life. And that is a message that saves. And that is the message which we need to carry with love and compassion and urgency to those who have yet to put their faith in Christ. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Would you bow your heads, please, and close your eyes before we pray? If you're here tonight and this makes sense for the first time, would you put your faith in Jesus Christ and in him alone? I know we have many watching on the Internet live stream, so the invitation is open to you as well. If you're in the audience and you would like to let us know, just simply slip up your hand and let us know and we'll pray for you. And if you're on the internet, you can simply leave us a comment or send an email and we'll be more than happy to pray for you. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful truth of the gospel. We know, Lord, that there are people within our family and our circle of friends that have yet to put their faith in Christ. They're under some type of deception. I pray, Lord, that we would not pit ourselves against them, but that we would, with love and speaking the truth in love, do what is necessary to reach them with the gospel. I pray, Lord, for those who are already doing that. We think of our friend Grant as he attempts to lead his brother to Christ, and our student Vinny, who has been able to bring his brother under the sounds of the gospel, and his brother has trusted Christ. We think of Brian, and he's led his mother, who has been against the Lord for so many years. She has now put her faith in Jesus Christ, and we praise you in all these things. I pray as we continue to try and reach people that we would understand that they are the ones who are deceived. We would do whatever is necessary to win them. Lord, we pray for the choir practice to follow. We pray for all the ministries scheduled for the rest of the week. Bring us back here safely for worship on Sunday morning. In Jesus' name, we pray these words. Amen.