Father, thank you for this safe haven. Thank you for this place, this shelter. this sheet pen. Father, I do pray that you protect it in every way. Father, I do want to add my prayers to those that have already been prayed. Our hearts go out to Barb. Father, we thank you for the testimony of your grace that she and her husband have been, and Father, as Paul once feared sorrow upon sorrow by losing Epaphroditus. Father, it seems that you have allowed this sorrow upon sorrow in Barb's life, but you have not left her alone, and you have not left her comfort from her. So, Father, our hearts are joined together, our prayers are ascending to Thee to provide what only You can provide. I ask that in Jesus' name. Thank you for Chris's testimony as he sits in that chair, Father, and Victor also, that remind us of their contribution to the kingdom of God. Thank you for them, Father. I too want to add my prayers to what the powers of this earth try to do. And Father, they are nothing compared to your power. And so we ask, Father, on the behalf of your truth and your light, that you would not allow any interference into the instruction of godly parents into the lives of their children. We ask this in Jesus' name. for his sake, his glory, and the safe haven of your Christian family. In Jesus' name we pray. And Father, I would also now ask your blessing on this word. Father, the horse has been prepared for battle, but victory rests with you. My part, in a sense, Father, is over in preparation, but I do pray, O Holy Spirit, that you would quicken this word, strike it as lightning, and bring about that which only you can bring about. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. First thing I want to say is Gwen offers her greetings, and sorry that she couldn't be here this morning. All right, things are well. You're right there. But our oldest son from Massachusetts is down for the last few days, and he's leaving today. In fact, he'll be gone by the time I get home. But Gwen wanted a few more hours with them and the grandchildren, so she asked to give you her greetings. But her heart is certainly here. We do love you. I thank you for this group. Don't give up. This is a safe haven. And thank you for who you are in our lives and certainly to each other. Keep on keeping on. I got here first today. And every time I come, I look at the graveyard. This beautiful relationship with Jesus Christ has preceded us. The dear saints sat in here, I'm sure, that are out there today. Their bodies are there, but they aren't. And some of us are closer to those little headstones than we know. But it's all part of a wonderful, wonderful plan. Doesn't end here. And it blesses me to see the youngest among us, with us, hearing the Word of God in the presence of a Christian home and family and influence. We don't do it perfectly, but we keep on keeping on. We aim for perfection. I live in a 55 plus and a lot of my male friends are golfers and always asking me to go with them. But I'd rather play pool on Monday nights, I have conceded that, rather than chase a little white ball around a cow pasture. But it struck me where Paul says, aim for perfection. That we aim for perfection in much the same way a golfer aims for that flag. How many of you do golf? Anybody? Few of you do, okay. Well, I can't imagine that a golfer gets up there and aims for the bunkers, you know, or the woods. They seem to hit it pretty often though. In the same way, we aim for perfection knowing that in this world we will not attain perfection because we dwell in a body of sin. But we aim for it. It doesn't make sense to aim for anything less than the flag. And so the flag is what we're aiming for, the perfect will of God. And that's the text we'll be in. The Sermon on the Mount, chapter six, is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. And that's where we'll be, in Matthew chapter six. We're just going to pick a small passage of it. But I think when I was here last, are both these on or just the mic is on? Mic? Good. I think I shared with you last time I was here, Easter, that I had just had cataract surgery. Did I tell you that? Back in November. And did I tell you the story about the shirt? I didn't tell you the story about the shirt. Oh, well, you're going to hear another story today. I wrote down the Mayo Clinic's list of symptoms for cataracts. Let me read them to you quickly. Some of you might get enlightened here. Some of you might have some of this stuff. Clouded, blurred, or dim vision. I had that. Increasing difficulty with vision at night. Sensitivity to light and glare. A need for brighter lights while reading or doing other activities. Seeing halos around lighted objects. Frequent changes in eyeglass or contact lens prescription. I didn't have that because I wasn't going to the eye doctor. Fading or yellowing of colors and double vision in a single eye. Now, if any of you have those, make an appointment. But I would like to point out the second to the last one, fading or yellowing of colors. That really happens. I have a shirt. that is one of my favorite flannel shirts. I'm a flannel shirt person. And so one day it didn't show up in my closet. And so I asked Quinn, hon, where's my brown shirt? She says, you don't have a brown shirt. She says, you know, my brown shirt. Because obviously I'm insinuating that she has lost my brown shirt. And so she's looking here in my closet. The first thing my wife always does is she goes and looks where I said I already looked. And she is, miraculously it appears there. The mayonnaise was exactly where she said it was. But she couldn't find it. She goes out to the laundry room. She spent some time out there. And she comes out with a shirt on a hanger and says, is this what you mean? Yes, my brown shirt. She says, Lenny, this is green. And I felt bad for her. Han, that's brown, and I'm thinking my poor wife is colorblind. She's picked up a color blindness. And I was, we, I insisted on it for the next couple weeks, and finally, we have a community group in our home every two weeks. I says, Han, I'm going to pull that shirt out on my community group, on community group night, and I'm going to go around, I'm going to have fully lighted, and I just want to prepare you that you can avoid this embarrassment. She says, go for it. So I did, totally convinced in my mind that my brown shirt, which I have worn many years, me in my brown shirt, would prevail. I went person to person. Green. Olive. Olive green. Kind of a Robin Hood green. Forest green. Green. until I got to Flossie. Now there's about 15 people in the room. Flossie said, well, it's kind of brownish. Guess who I listened to? Flossie, you and I are the only ones in this room that don't have colorblindness. All I needed was one person supporting me until I got my cataract surgery. I have an olive green shirt. I'll be the first one to confess it. I also thought my car was brown, brownish gray. My wife insisted it was gray. I have a gray car and I've owned that car since 2005. The difference in clarity and truth was revealed before me. I had cataracts that had yellowed my vision, but I had grown into it gradually, and I was convinced that the way I perceived the world is the way it was. That's a perfect segue into our two verses here, Matthew 6, 22 and 23. I love the, thank you for the last song that we picked. I never noticed that line, more and more about Jesus in every line. This is Jesus speaking. And this is a passage in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus kind of says, you think you were seeing things the way you thought? Let me pull back the curtain. You have heard, the phrase repeats, you have heard that it is written, I say, you thought, I say, you thought that you didn't commit adultery? This is adultery. You thought that you didn't hate people? This is hatred. You thought, and he goes on and on and on. It's like, whoa, there's the flag. There's perfection and that's what the Sermon on the Mount does for us. It just pulls back, it takes away the yellow tinge and lets us see clearly what perfection looks like. And these two verses appear in the context of two passages that talk about wealth and possessions and where our provision really comes from. But the principle that Jesus unveils in these two verses apply to the whole Sermon on the Mount, at least to increase our understanding, if not to all of it. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, How great is that darkness? I think the first time in prison that I ever was confronted with that verse, I was going down the middle of the cell block, cells on each side, and one of the benefits of that is that men that don't come down the chapel, don't go to the Bible studies, but are wrestling with something, see the God person go by, they'll say, hey, I had that instance early on, very early on, because this is the first time this passage ever confronted me with those who find themselves in difficult situations, such as inmates often do. He pulled me over, and he had been reading this very passage, and he showed it to me, and he says, Now, you've got to picture what he looks like. He had what we used to call Coke bottle glasses, you know, the ones with the real thick lens. He was wearing those kinds of glasses. He obviously could not see well without them. And he pulled me over and he says, read this. And I read it. He says, does that mean I'm going to hell? Now, no. But it was the first time that it struck me that in answering the question, what was Jesus talking about? This man, knowing that he doesn't see well, reads a Bible verse. I don't know whether it was haphazard or random. As far as I know, I don't remember him ever going to any of the Bible studies. I'm not sure I ever even saw him again. But I remember his face, and I remember his question. Does this mean I'm going to hell? If your eyes are good, said Jesus, your whole body is full of light. But if your eyes are bad, and if the light within you is darkness, then how great is the darkness? The word here for good is, literally, it means without folds. But from that means there's no, I picture a piece of paper with no fold, just a nice clear sheet of paper. The King James has it as single. That's a good translation. Many translations use if your eye is healthy, if your eye is clear, undistorted. Without folds means undivided, undistorted, single. Had it only been that, I would still think possibly it's physical sight, good eyes. But it's that second word, bad. In the Greek, it's poneros. It means wicked, malicious, evil, and can also be translated bad. And that's the word Jesus used. Had he not used that word, we would be still in the dark somewhat. But because he compared it with wickedness, evil, maliciousness, then healthy must mean the opposite of moral deficiency. Does that make sense? And so the healthy here must be moral efficiency, moral clarity, singleness. We see it as it really is. If your eye is really got good new lenses in it, you're seeing clearly, just like I'm seeing clearly with my new lenses. not knowing that the yellow lenses, the old lenses, the ones I thought was the way I looked out on the world was the world as it was. And that's what Jesus is saying is if I have, eyes are the lamp of the body. It's what we look out through. It's how we perceive our world. But what if the information, and that's the meaning of light often in the scriptures, isn't it? Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Light in scripture is either physical light. God said, let there be light. It was the first act of creation was to penetrate the darkness with light. And there is that moral sense. Light meaning knowledge, understanding. If my understanding of what I see through my eyeballs is right, then my actions will be right. And that's what struck me. That illustration I had with that first inmate was not the last time I ever used that with men and women in prison. This principle is so foundational that if I am operating on some sort of belief system, some sort of knowledge that is incorrect, then what does that mean for my actions? Paul said, I believed, therefore, I spoke. In other words, what I believe, I speak. What I believe, I do. Henry Brandt was a Christian counselor who spoke all over the country, had a sense of humor. He was traveling from about this area to Chicago, and they got on the turnpike, and his wife noticed that they were seeing signs for New York City. And she said, I think we're going in the wrong direction. And him being a male full of pride, knowing directions far better than his wife, he said, I spent the next hundred hours trying to figure out how to get to Chicago by heading towards New York. That's how prideful we are. How is he going to get to Chicago heading towards New York? But he thought he was going in the right direction. His wife even brought the light and understanding into the situation, but pride kept him from, He says, I just tried to figure out how can I take a road that will look like I'm going the same way but will be turning around. That's the situation we find ourselves in. Our eyes can see what we think is right and be wrong. Isaiah cried out once, woe to those who put light for darkness, evil for good, bitter for sweet. There's a consequence for not seeing right. Do I see a thing accurately? So I'm gonna say that there's three points. I don't usually do a three-point message today, but I thought I would. Because we're only gonna be in those two verses, and for three pegs to get our hats on, I want you to think of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. The diagnosis here, continue in an ophthalmological, I don't know if I got that right, direction, eye doctor stuff. The diagnosis of my situation was cataracts. The treatment was surgery. And there was some follow-up to prevent, to see if everything went well and to maintain this treatment. What is the first diagnosis for poor eyesight in a spiritual sense? What is a spiritual cataract? What is the cause of a spiritual cataract? The first answer is sin is the darkness. Sin is the distortion. That which keeps me from seeing clearly, the yellowing, if you would, of my vision is indwelling sin. We are not free from that, are we? That's why we aim for perfection, but constantly challenging us is our input. We all perceive the world the way we perceive it. We're all actually a, we believe what we believe through a patchwork of influences that we've had throughout our life. That little one sitting there in Shad's prayer for his children. The first instruction they're gonna get is through you, and through the family, through the church, those things that they see. We've adopted what we believe early from our family, friends, as we grow older we get it from media, other friends, our culture, our world. I think it was Gary that spoke about it, was it you that mentioned the three enemies that we have? The world, the flesh, and the devil, they distort. our perception, but you know, if we are not thinking about what the light is that we're receiving, it influences us. It can happen even to Christians. In some sense, we see it every day when we see different denominations. No two people think alike, do they? Would you say that? I would say no two people think exactly alike here in this room, even though you are mostly like-minded theologically. but there will be, with every person here, a set of eyes that views a thing a little differently than you do. How is it that someone raised in a Pentecostal church almost invariably thinks differently about the gifts than those who are raised in a Baptist church, if I can use an example? How is it that almost everyone in that church holds the theology that certain manifestation gifts are for today. When someone might have been raised, say, in a Baptist church, who believes that those gifts are scriptural, but it no longer exists for today. The people going to that church will almost, to a person, espouse those beliefs, isn't it? We are influenced. It can't be that everybody is individual in their thinking. We've picked up stuff from other people. Otherwise, a Pentecostal church would have as many Baptist views as it has Pentecostal views, if people are thinking clearly for themselves, right? Is it wrong? No, it's just a reality that each of us has a perception, even theologically, on the less essential things. Let me be clear about that. They have to be clear on the essentials, which is what makes us Christians. But on less essential things, discussions about baptism. how one keeps the Sabbath, even head coverings, Bible translations. Christians differ on these kinds of things, and that's okay. What I'm trying to say is that somehow, through our perception, each of us is trying to do the right thing and operate on the right thing, and we've made choices based on our perception. And so it behooves us, I think, to make sure that we keep getting the treatment. Now the diagnosis is sin has darkened our spiritual vision. You know, sin brought with it four dimensions. Darkness, death, destruction, and distortion, in a way we see in 4D. Part of the natal inheritance of sin is that darkness clouds our vision. Death is now going to end this physical body. Destruction is evident everywhere. But distortion, I never really thought about distortion. Distortion is what? A lie. The only antidote to the lie is the truth. And that's our second point, isn't it? The Word of God can be the only antidote to distortion, the only antidote to darkness. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path. The entrance of thy word bringeth light. I see by this book. When one holds to any theology, they have to support it by this book. This has to be the measure of all things. They called it canon in the old days. Canon with one N or two Ns. Only one N in the middle. But do you know that our word for canon, the big gun, comes from that same root word. C-A-N-N-O-N and C-A-N-O-N, canon meaning read or measure. When we say that canon is closed, in other words, these 66 books of the Bible we have, that's it. I had a friend ask me, well, what if we find Paul's missing letter to the Laodiceans? Doesn't cut it. I think that's why God keeps it hidden. There were plenty of false books in those days, but the early church, many of them paid for their lives defending these 66 books. But you can trust these 66 books, can't you? This is canon. Later on, the word evolved into the artillery that enters a battlefield in the Middle Ages, still meaning rule or measure. When a cannon came on the field, it kind of put an end to all the argument. That's what this book is, the end to all the argument. If it isn't here, it ain't so, in theological terms. But we differ as to how we perceive this word, isn't that true? We can differ on the lesser, not lesser in terms of that what they're stating isn't true, but they are not the essentials. They're relatively few essentials that we must believe. We can differ on the less essentials. And the problem is we often major on the minors. And that's when Christians get in trouble with each other. But light is often used for knowledge or understanding in scripture. Psalm 36, one and two says, there's an oracle in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. Number one, there is no fear of God before their eyes. And number two, they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their own sin. So one of the causes of our wrong perception is A, a lack of a fear of God, and B, we flatter ourselves too much to detect or hate our own sin. That's essential to our understanding what's going on here. There's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. That was such an important principle that the writer of the Proverbs put it in twice. There's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. I had a friend, I have to call him a friend, he's home with the Lord now, I trust. I say I trust because he had some different views from mine, but enough to have me ask on the day before he died if he knew which end was up, and he asserted that it was. But he had displayed error before he got there. He was in prison for murder. An accomplished man, an accomplished organist. He actually was the organist of his church. A Christian church. Or one that claimed a Christian doctrine. But he came home and found his wife with another man. And he killed the man. And to the day that I knew, as far as I know, he never changed his mind that he did the right thing. He said any man worth his salt would have done what I did. He says, I only have one regret. That I didn't kill her too. Now think about that. Is that error or is that truth? What do you think? Should he have killed the wife too? He shouldn't have killed the guy. If we're reading the scriptures accurately. But one can understand rage and anger. We can understand his determination. But he believed something that was false and he acted on it. And to this day, even as we would walk around the yard, he enjoyed our conversations to the last day that I knew. He asserted that what he did, any red-blooded American would have done. That's false. We know it's false. And yet, how is it that he could get from here to there? He had a belief system that supported what he believes. We all have a patchwork of influences, but we need to be able to separate the essentials, that which cannot be challenged, from the non-essentials. Christians are freed from the power of sin, but not its presence. We are continually under the influence that wants us to do that which God is opposed to. And it's only the word of God, only the spirit of God that keeps us from doing that. There is a danger for a young Christian and there is a danger for an old Christian. The danger for the young Christian is that they have zeal without knowledge sometimes. That they run before they can walk. Zeal without knowledge, the Bible says, is error. But what about the older saints that have known the word a long time? There's a danger for them too. There's a danger that they have quit learning. We can all get together and speak the language well enough to believe that we're all on the same page. But the day we stop learning, the day that we think that we've learned it all, we're in danger. So there's a danger on both sides of it. We need to stay close to the Lord, his word, and have an attitude of humility before it. Otherwise, how do people get into the conditions they get into? Proverbs 19.27 says, stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. Think about that. Stop listening to instruction, my son. And not that you might stray from the words of knowledge, you will stray from the words of knowledge. We have a need to be Taking in this word every single day in a new and fresh way. Lord, teach me today. Teach me. Sometimes we can come to a passage that seems so familiar to us. Sometimes, you know, I quit writing in my Bible, for the most part. Because I found that my mind was attracted to what had struck me before. And I still put writing in here and there, because I'm still learning some new stuff. But if it starts getting too crowded, I get another Bible. Sometimes I get it in a different translation, although I've learned most in the NIV, and I find myself getting in trouble when I try to memorize in different translations, so I decided I better stick to one. But the intake of this word, we can live 1,000 years in never penetrated steps, but there's enough here for the young Christian, the month-old Christian, there is enough here to keep them munching all day long. Isn't that true? This word never gets old. Stop listening to instruction, my son, and not you might stray from the words of knowledge. You will stray from the words of knowledge. The danger for older saints is that we think we've accumulated enough knowledge to do the Christian thing well enough. But we should never settle for that. There should something be in our heart that's like a neck straining forward to, Lord, teach me more. Isaiah's first commission. after he beheld the Lord high and lifted up, was the Lord sent him back to his people and he said, they are gonna be ever hearing, but not understanding. That was Isaiah's delightful message for his people. You guys aren't getting it, was Isaiah's first task. Ever hearing, but not understanding. In a way, I'm glad Gwen is not here today. I can often hear Gwen without listening. And she knows it, she's got like this Lenny detector, you know, she's, you're not listening. Yes, I am, what did I say? Oh, something about, you know. And she catches me cold every single time. I can hear without listening. Unfortunately, I can read the Bible the same way. How many times have you come to the end of a whole chapter, and if God's Holy Spirit were to ask you, what did you just read? You wouldn't be able to give him an answer. What did you just read today? Not that you haven't read it before, no fair fudging from your past memory of that particular chapter. What did God say to you today? And I can realize that I've just read a whole chapter, but it was only my eyes going down that page. And when I get to the end of the chapter, I thank the Lord that he has a new number there. I know it wasn't there in the original, but it does help me, because I usually stop after a chapter. Lenny, what did you just get? I was thinking about the Red Sox, Lord. Go back to verse one of that chapter. I'm not going to treat his word that lightly, that I won't, that I'll go on to another chapter. I go back to that verse. Stop listening to instruction, Lenny, and you will stray from my words of knowledge. To cease listening is disobedience. The word for obedience is Listening under. And if I ever came to you before, and I might have, I used to think that the word was huperakuro. Hyper listening. You know, we get the word acoustic from listening. Hyper means over and above. It's like super listening, or so I thought. But the word isn't hyper, it's hypo. the way we would say it today, in the Greek it's hupo. It means under rather than over. If someone's hyperactive, they're overactive. There's such a thing as being hupo-active, being under. The actual word for obedience is hupo-akuo, the word we get acoustic from, acoustic guitars. Listening under, rather than hyper-listening, it's listening under. That's the word for obedience. You ever stop to think about that? I think of obedience as doing, doing, doing. God thinks of it as coming under his word. Coming under his word. That's listening. And that's where my heart needs to stay. Stop listening to instruction, Lenny, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. As you approach the scripture, do you come with a sense that you are under it? And that you're listening under it? Because that's the word for obedience. Hupo akuo. Listening under. That the word gets priority. What is the treatment? The only treatment for the lie is God's truth. Jesus says in verse 22 of verse chapter 6, if your eye is healthy, meaning clear, undistorted, single, your whole body will be full of light. Truth is the only antidote for the lie. Light is the only substitute for darkness. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. Jesus cried out, sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is true. So what is the only antidote for darkness? That wasn't a trick question. Light, that's right, it's the only antidote for darkness. This is the light of God's word, this is what instructs us. And our attitude in coming to it is, not with my past understanding of the verse, but Lord teach me today, what is this verse saying to me? Teach me. I'm under it. You have spoken to me. I'm not just reading this chapter today to get from chapter two to chapter three and I'll start chapter four tomorrow. And sometimes I do that. And when I get to the end, the Lord convicts me that I'm not listening. And I go back and I say, what is it that you have? Speak. Your servant is listening. So if you ever have done that yourself, I don't say that you get into the same thing, but it's probably likely since you share the human condition, that you can come to the end of a passage and know that your mind was 100 miles away. That's not coming under the word. That's ignoring the word. You stop listening, you will stray. Jesus said, the entrance of thy word giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple. It's actually in Psalm 119, verse 130. Psalm 36 says, in thy light we see light. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Isaiah cries out to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Some say light of day. The word actually light of isn't even there. It's if they do not speak according to this word, they have no dawn. What is the difference between dawn and daylight? Dawn is the end of the darkness. It's this book that puts an end to the darkness. May it always be our instruction. We have indwelling sin, that's number one. That's what keeps us from hearing right, doing right. If I'm thinking wrong, we will do wrong. Brothers and sisters, this is so important. I see it every day in the jail. They acted on their belief. You know, let's use an example like Hitler. Was Hitler consistent with his beliefs? I'm not saying he did good, did evil. But it was consistent with his worldview. Let's leave Hitler alone. Whenever I do something that is contrary to the word of God, to whatever degree, I'm acting wrongly. What I know, I'm going to act on. That's the scary part. What you believe is what you're going to act on. We have to be sure that we're acting on truth. I quoted a line from Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress. That word, above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth. The spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us sideth. Who is him that sideth with us? Not a trick question. The Lord Jesus Christ. Let good and kindreds go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's truth. Abide it still. Dawn is the end of darkness. But let me spend a little time now with the third point, prevention. What is preventative medicine? Apart from the word of God, that's the antidote, that's the remedy to darkness. Light is the answer to the darkness. But indwelling sin is still our problem. Galatians 5 says that we're at war with the flesh. The flesh wars against the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh so that we do not do what we want. But if you walk in the spirit, you will not gratify the deeds of the flesh. That's our task, isn't it? To walk in the spirit. If we walk in the spirit, we will not gratify the lie, the distortion, the yellow tinge to everything we see. We need our eyes washed. Someone once told me, you Christians are brainwashed. I agreed with him. I said, buddy, that is just what I needed. I needed my brain washed, and so do you. I said it in love, but he was the one behind bars at this time. I once was behind bars, more than once. I feel a great compassion for men and women in prison. That's why I keep going. It's been 42 years this year. going back into a place where people have believed the lies of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and look at the consequence. We shouldn't be surprised that men and women are in prison. I have a channel that just gives me the highlights of the news in Philadelphia overnight. Almost every morning, the news in Philadelphia is that someone has been killed. Something's wrong with this picture. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out something's wrong. If the news in a city every single day is there was a shooting last night, one young man 20 years old was killed, another one was wounded, there's something wrong with this picture. A lie is being propagated somewhere. Richard Baxter, one of my favorite Puritans, and I might have quoted this to you before. If I did, I'm sorry. He said, it is possible for a man to sit in my congregation, and he was preaching at Kitterminster, and he moved that small town to a church of 600 people through the preaching of God's word. He said, but it's possible for someone to sit right up here in the front row and be confused about the deity of Christ. That means Jesus being God. In other words, through their yellowed grid, somehow in their mind they've worked out that Jesus is not really the same essence as God the Father. They've made Jesus a lesser God. He said it's possible for someone to hear godly preaching Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and still be confused about the deity of Christ. But give me one night in his home and I will remedy that. So what's the point he was making? It's easy to sit in the congregation and to assent. to a viewpoint that I'm not being challenged personally to. I can receive what you're saying and agree with it through a grid, but as long as I'm just part of the congregation and you never really ask me what I believe, it's possible to sit in a congregation and hear something incorrectly. Would you agree with that? Yes, that's possible, isn't it? But give us one sit down with the person. Do you believe that Jesus is God? Do you believe that he's the almighty God? Same essence of the Father. Three persons in one. A mystery, but only one God, revealing himself in three substances, Father, Son, and Spirit. And if you can ferret that out one-on-one, you'll get the answer what it is they really believe. So the third point I want to make is this. Schedule an appointment with an eye doctor. The only cure I know for cataracts is you've got to see the eye doctor. Who is the eye doctor? We've already said that the word of God is the treatment. But if I'm never held accountable to what it is I believe, I may be subject, and I want you to hear me on this, to a yellowish tinge to those things that I believe. I may think that my shirt is brown as I'm wearing it, but in reality it's green. How did I learn that it was green? My wife, God bless her, Pulled it out. Is this what you mean? And I had to be confronted with the truth. And I said, that's my brown shirt. Wrong. Someone is telling me green. I need more witnesses than just my wife. I got the community group. Green. Green. Green. Green. Flossie said brown. Brownish. Green. I got my eyes fixed. I have an olive shirt and no brown shirts hanging in my closet. How did that happen? I really believed I had a brown shirt. It is possible to sit here in the closet with each other. But unless someone is holding up our shirts and saying, what color is this? We're likely to be unchallenged. So what is the third remedy? It's accountability with another person. We all need Pauls and Timothys in our life. What do I mean when I say that? The Apostle Paul, who was he to Timothy? His mentor, right? We need Pauls in our life. I know it sounds so, duh, but do you really believe you need someone who is either where you are or better, further down the road in Christian maturity than you are? Would you acknowledge that we need those people in our lives? You say, but I have the word of God. God's word instructs me, and that is true. The Bible even says, you do not need anyone to teach you, the Holy Spirit teaches you. But what if the only input into you is the word? Is it possible, being still creatures of the flesh, that you begin to interpret it a little off. Is that possible? I say it's not only possible, it's likely. Unless there are other truth bearers who know what I'm thinking, hear what I'm saying, Elihu, that fourth guy in Job, I've never quite figured out what his role is, because he doesn't get condemned at the end, but he said that the ear tastes food, the ear tastes truth as the mouth tastes food. As I'm listening to you one-on-one, I will get a pretty good sense of what it is you believe. We all need Pauls in our life. Not many. I have three. I have four, two locally, and one of them is your beloved pastor. Imagine I've had the privilege of meeting with Chuck once a month for 15 years. For those of you that know Chuck, my theology is getting really good. This is a guy that knows the word. The Bible says iron sharpens iron. Chuck will say he benefits by our meeting. Why? Because when you strike iron against iron, there's sparks. We each lose a little in our touching of each other's lives, our clashing with each other, but the result will be sharpening. I need Pauls in my life, people who are listening to me and will go, wait a minute, wait a minute, what did you just say? You think, what? Of course, and if you've got Chuck, it'll be something humble like, Shane, you meet with Chuck, right? Oh, Shane, what did you mean by that? That'll be a little phrase, what did you mean by that? He does it in such a beautiful, gentle way. He probably does it here at the pulpit. Those of you that are Pauls to others, that's the other thing we need in our life is Timothys. We don't want to become pipes that get clogged with input. We need to be giving it out. It's through comprehending what someone is saying in their teaching and me being able to assess it well enough to teach it. There ought to be Timothys in our lives. I asked our community group, This question not too long ago. How many of you have a Paul in your life, and I described it as someone who's a little further down the road than you, or at least where you are, that you meet with on a regular basis, minimum once a month? And we got the women, the women met with each other, and the men met with each other. Do you know one of the men raised their hand? I take it back, there were two. Young believers who had Pauls in their lives. Most said they had people like that in the past. Now let me ask you a question. Do we ever stop needing a Paul in our life? No, all right. Do we? How is it then, if I'd have asked that question in a large church, what would have been the answer? I fear what the answer might be. Oh, I know enough. God speaks directly to me. God sent them out two by two. We need balance, we need comparison. Do you know that when they did my cataracts, they only did one eye? When I went to get the first eye, it was with trepidation, because you know what I was thinking? Don't mess with my eyes. That's what I was thinking. It seems like I see pretty well, even though I knew now I wasn't. They told me I had the beginning of cataracts five years before I did anything, and they said, you don't have to do anything at the beginning, but when you start seeing these symptoms, Glare at night, double vision, halos around objects that are lit, time to see the doctor. We need those people in our lives that can say, Lenny, you're not seeing this clearly. And my question would be, and you don't have to answer it, who are the Pauls in your life that you're meeting with regularly? I'm also excluding spouses. Why would I exclude a spouse? My spouse, my wife, is the first line of defense for false looking in my life. Gwen, God bless her, has a beautiful way of letting me know. She rings bells that you wouldn't hear. She shines lights that you wouldn't see, but I'll tell you what, all she's gotta do is move her in her chair a little bit and I just know I must have done something wrong. There's something about husbands and wives that you speak a language that is so intimate. The problem is we each have developed a dynamic of coexistence. And there are things that a male friend will tell me that I might not even bring up to Gwen. I can't think of anything, but there are things that men will say to other men or ask other men. that a wife will not, because you've already gained your dynamic, you've gained your level of communication, and God willing it's 100% transparent, but there are things that another man and another man's life will ask that a wife might not have thought about. And the same with the woman. It tells us in Timothy that the elder women should teach the younger. Same with the men. And so I put that question to you. I don't want to hear that you had Pauls in your life in the past. Who is the Paul or Pauls in your life today? For the women, who are the Paulas? If that's helpful. Those people, those Christians that have grabbed hold of the kingdom with both hands, if you want to come to the end of your life and say, like Paul, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. If that's your goal, and it isn't everybody's goal, but if that's your goal, then you need Pauls in your life. And so I ask you today, who are the Pauls in your life that have the love for you and the maturity and the freedom to speak into your life and that you will receive it? And I would say to you, if you cannot answer that, there's someone like that that you're meeting with regularly today. Then you are in danger of Proverbs 19.27 that says, cease listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. Cease listening to instruction, and I think your passage in 2 Kings 17, that verse 40, that really caught my eye. It says, but they did not obey the Lord. My translation said they did not listen. Same word, remember that hupo akuo, that listening under. Obedience, from God's perspective, is submission to what we have heard. That's obedience. We kind of think of it as do, do, do. But God says, listen up. Are you hearing me with both ears? Putting myself unto the word of God, and sometimes, brothers and sisters, I am, and I'm ashamed to say this, but there have been times in my life when I've been more responsive to a flesh and blood Nathan than I was to God's own word. I can't speak for you, but when another person here on earth, in the flesh, tells me, Lenny, you are the man. Sometimes that hits me more like a spear than God's own word. I'm ashamed to say that to you. I pray that my heart is always responsive to the word of God. But I do declare to you that it was God's plan to encourage one another daily as long as it is called today. That's Hebrews. And you know what it goes on to say? So that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Indwelling sin is our problem. And brothers and sisters, if any of us are in a condition today where we do not have Pauls or Paulas, mature men and women, who have the freedom to speak into our life, you need to make an appointment with an eye doctor. Because what will begin to happen is, in your own mind, you will begin to do what is right in your own eyes. You will interpret the scriptures, The way this eight-inch distance between your ears says that's the way it's got to be. Even sitting under a sermon, you can receive it through a yellowed grid that says, oh yeah, I agree with that, and be off. Brothers and sisters, this is not a maybe thing to do. We need models, mentors, people who exemplify where we want to go. Not perfect people, don't follow them over a cliff. but people who have demonstrated a serious hunger and pursuit for the kingdom of God and for loving Jesus Christ. Those are the people we want in our lives. And if you don't have that person, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but if you don't have that person, you need to see there's a kink in the hose. I'm going to ask that same group that question again in about two months, because that night when I asked them, And all but two of them said they used to have some. And these are saints who have been with the Lord, some of them, for a long time. I'm going to ask them in two months, did you ever remedy that situation? Did you put a Paul back in your life that you're meeting with regularly? I would say a minimum of once a month. You can pick your own schedule, but someone who's taking your spiritual temperature, who has the freedom. You may not even talk about anything vulnerable or transparent, but by the words you speak, by the intimacy of your meeting, by the focus on the word of God, I guarantee falsehood will come out when falsehood is there. If you've got two people that are committed to each other. I've had enemies speak truth to me out of their hatred. How much better to have a brother who loves me speaking truth to me? The student is not above his teacher, but when he is fully trained, he will be like his teacher. If you have people in your life that you would like to pattern your life after, or they have gifts that you feel that you're interested. There's a like attraction, but it's further down the road for you. That's the kind of person you're looking for. They don't have to be a pastor or an elder. They have to be someone, though, who is seeking the kingdom of God with all their heart and soul. That's what you want, because the student is not above his teacher, but when they are fully trained, they will be like their teacher. David had his Nathan, even Peter. I gotta read that passage if I can find that. I don't know what I did with it. It's in Galatians where Paul confronts Peter. He says, I opposed Peter to his face because he stood condemned. Until certain people from James came, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but now when those people from James, the circumcision party came, he pulled back. This is Peter, the head of the church. in that area. Not the head of the church as the Roman Catholics have made it, but he was a leader in the church. And Paul, a brother in the Lord who was there with him, opposed him and said Peter stood condemned. On this point he was wrong. If Peter's need it, if Paul's need it, and certainly Lenny needs it. My first line of defense is my wife, I need someone challenging me, because my wife has her parameters of challenge, and we've agreed to that. And I pray there's nothing that isn't transparent. But you know what I'm saying? There's something that another brother or another sister for a woman will bring out that we need. The Mayo Clinic's website says this. Most cataracts develop slowly and don't disturb your eyesight early on. But with time, cataracts will eventually interfere with your vision. Make an appointment for an eye exam and if you notice any changes in your vision. I'd say there's a spiritual lesson. If we do not have those spiritual eye doctors in our lives, we don't know whether our shirts are green or brown in certain areas. Mortify the deeds of the flesh through the power of the Spirit, says Romans 8.13. Walk by the Spirit, says Galatians 5.16. Raise the sword of the Spirit. We are not looking for input from human philosophers. We're looking for input by the Spirit of God. And sometimes I need a brother speaking from the Spirit of God to me. before I'll listen. I can sometimes be more responsive to a flesh and blood brother than I can to, I hate to say it, sometimes reading the word. Sometimes a brother will see something that I don't see. And if the goal at the end of my life is to say like Paul, I have fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the faith, then I need Pauls in my life. And the ladies need Paulas. Amen.