Amen. Well, in chapter 24 of the book of Acts, the high priest, Ananias, and the elders, they hired an orator to speak against the apostle Paul, Tertullius. who informed the governor against Paul and he began to accuse saying that he is a pestilent fellow, one who stirs up sedition and he's a ringleader of this sect of the Nazarenes who profaned the temple as if Felix cared about the temple. And we would have judged him according to our law. We wouldn't be here bothering you. But this chief captain named Lysias, he took him away from us. We would have killed him there. But he with great violence, isn't it interesting? that here is Tullius saying that Lysias was the one committing great violence when in fact it was the Jews that were doing this. And we have seen even in our own day that those who commit such things always accuse others of committing such things. He commanded the accusers of Paul that they should come unto thee that you may know these things. Where have we accused him? Why would we be accusing him if he were not guilty? And all the Jews assented, saying, these things are so. Then Paul, after the governor, beckoned him. You see, as we read through this, look how genteel and how much a gentleman the apostle is. awaiting his turn, waiting for the governor to beckon him to speak. And Paul says, for as much, verse 10, as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation, I do more cheerfully answer for myself because that thou mayest understand that there are yet but 12 days since I went up to Jerusalem for to worship. How could I be doing these things in such a short time? Because it's five days, took them five days to get to Felix, so it was just a week. And I went up to Jerusalem to worship. And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man. There was no argumentation, no disputing. Neither raising up the people, either in the synagogue or in the city. Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me. But here's the issue. But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my father. So he doesn't back down from what he's doing, doesn't back down from what he's preaching, what he's saying. You see, lesser men in lesser situations would have indeed ran away from the truth, but he didn't. He said, I will tell you the truth. I worship God. They call it heresy, but this is the way I worship God, the God of my fathers. And the reason I'm led to this, it's not anything new, but I believe what they do not believe. I believe all things which are written in the law. They accused me of overthrowing the law. Now you can go all the way back that when Paul met with the Christians, when he met with James and the church, James brought all this up against Paul. Well, there are some that say that you discount the law, that you preach against the law. Why would James buy into all of these things? but the apostle over and over and over again. And then you go to the book of Romans and you can see that there is a righteousness without the law. It doesn't mean that it has nothing to do with the law at all, but it is not a righteousness that you earn by obeying the law. It is a righteousness that has been given to us by faith in Jesus Christ, but yet it is witnessed to by the law and the prophets. This is a consistent theme with Paul, which teaches us what? Well, it surely teaches us that we don't even really have to come to the New Testament. Now, obviously, the New Testament clarifies it. Obviously, the New Testament advances the understanding that we have of God and of salvation and of Christ and our need for Christ. But this gospel is in the Old Testament. The law witnesses. I remember a number of years I came across a book, it was a doctoral thesis by a man named Keevan, Ernest Keevan, and the name of the book, and indeed I've never seen a name of a book capture the subject so well as the title of this book. It's called The Grace of Law. The grace of law. It is grace that the Lord has given us the law. And what is this law? This law never one time ever pretended or purported to be a way of righteousness. But it points to our need for righteousness. And that's why the great preachers of the gospel in the past, from the Puritans and from the Reformers and the Puritans on to our great heritage as Reformed Baptists, they always preach the law, not as a principle for righteousness, but as a witness to our need for righteousness. And many of you who were here when I first began my preaching ministry at this church, you know that that's exactly where I started. I preached through First John to give those who are truly Christian, to give those who truly believe in the Lord, to those who have truly bowed to Christ, I preached so I could give them some assurance. That's why The book was written, the book was written that you might know that you believe. And I knew that when I began to preach the law, because these people had never heard the law, they'd never heard the law preached evangelically. And I knew when I began to preach the law and the depth of it, that it would shake many of their, many of them, it would shake them to their foundations. when they are exposed to just what kind of person they are by nature. When the law comes and begins to thunder it, then that is indeed a proper response to the law, to fear. You read through the scripture, you read when God shows up, when God shows up and declares himself among men, when he shows up to show himself to men, the one thing that you hear over and over and over again is, fear not. It's a fearful thing to meet God because of our sins. That's what the law teaches us. And if we had to work our way to heaven by the law, we would be undone. But the law thunders at us and chases us away from any kind of idea or from any understanding that we could work our way to heaven. It chases us to Christ. That's what the law does, that's what the prophets, that's what it did. That's why we can preach the Old Testament. We don't just come to the New Testament, but we preach the Old Testament. And many of our forefathers, many of those that were used of God in the First and Second Great Awakening, many of their sermons, in fact, one of the greatest sermons of the Reformation, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, preached by Jonathan Edwards, came out of the book of Deuteronomy. These things are written in the law in the prophets. So the way they call heresy, So worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets. I believe them, they do not. And I'm standing before you because I've preached the truth and they did not accept it. They would not believe it. They considered themselves unworthy of eternal life. And they're the ones who stand here as if they're in the right. They're the ones who stand here as if they are righteous, and if they have done what the Lord has commanded them to do, and as if they believe the truth. They're so ignorant of the truth that when they heard the truth, they believed it was heresy. I've seen that. I've been in churches and preached the gospel that people have never heard this gospel. They've heard some kind of truncated view of it, some kind of half approach to it, some half truths, some things that did have truth in them, but never to bring them to the conclusion of that truth or the acceptance of that truth. And so they thought what I was preaching was heresy. And they would say things to me like, well, Calvin's just a man. As if we believe this because Calvin believed it. No, we believe it because the word taught it. We believe it for the same reason Calvin did believe it, because the word taught it. They're ignorant of the truth. They're ignorant of the word. They're ignorant of the law. They're ignorant of the prophets. And yet they think they know. I can tell you this, ignorance and arrogance make a deadly combination. Believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets and have hope. I have hope toward God. which they themselves also allow. They allow this hope. There are those who are standing with you now that accept the resurrection from the dead, both of the just and the unjust. There's a resurrection unto life and a resurrection unto death. And the Sadducees didn't believe that, but the Pharisees did. But after they got together and got their story straight, you see, colluding together against the apostle, but Paul brings them as if it were grabs the ring in their nose and brings them to the Word of God and say they themselves know about this resurrection and that is my hope toward God and they allow this thing, so why am I standing here condemned to them? And herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God which is the most important thing, a clear conscience toward God. It is void of any offense. And it leads me to give no offense to men except those who are offended by the truth. And that's what we must be. That's what we must be careful to do. knowing that what we preach is surely a powerful thing, and knowing that what we preach is surely something that will make men's souls quake before God, that we must be careful with these things, you see. That if they have offense, let their offense be against the truth and not against us because of our arrogance or sinful living. My conscience is clear, Paul says. Now they may hate me, men may hate me, and men may accuse me of these things, but I'm telling you, when I look into my conscience and when I apply my conscience to these truths, It is void of offense toward God. And these people should never have taken any offense toward me. Now, after many years, I came to bring alms to my nation, offering alms to my nations and offering money. I was so moved by their need. But isn't this the way it is? The apostle came to give them something and they thought the apostle was coming to take away something. Why do we stand where we stand? Why do we do what we do? Again, politically, it seems as if we're in a political climate, an atmosphere. Why do we believe what we believe politically? It's not because we have affiliated ourselves with any party. It is because we are Christian, and we as Christian, that is our great mandate, that is the thing that motivates us. That is the thing that moves us. You see, again, I'm not against a public school or the government-run schools. I'm not against that, but I am for Christian education, you see. I'm not against a government-run welfare program, but I'm for Christian charity. I'm not for any Republican platform per se, but I am against the killing of babies in their mother's womb. And we put it positively, I'm for life. And I don't want death to bring in, to come in to the most innocent sanctuary of a child developing, I think because of what I am before God, my conscience being clear toward him and toward men, that I must stand for the life of these innocent ones. And I must believe the Ten Commandments. So I must believe that it is right that we should have an economic system that protects property rights. That is a free enterprise system that the government cannot come in and steal from us because they have guns and badges. Because theft by majority rule is still theft. We're against theft, you see. The Ten Commandments, we're for God. We'll have no other gods before Him because we serve Him. And we will not serve Him in ways that He has not commanded us to serve Him and to love Him and to worship Him, you see. I'm not against, per se, all of these churches that have become entertainment centers to entertain the flesh of men. That's not my motivation to be against them. My motivation is to be for the living God, to understand that my worship of God is an audience of one, and I'm going to worship Him, and I'm not going to bring these things in to him and to his worship that would adulterate his worship and that would cause his worship to be a worship from the flesh instead of from the spirit. A worship devoid of truth. Jesus said to the woman at the well, they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. She said, well, our father said we could worship here, and y'all say that we should worship in Jerusalem. Jesus says, you don't even know what you're worshiping. And when there is a name I love to hear, and I love to sing its worth, it sounds like music in my ear, the sweetest name on earth. I'm not going to make void that name. I'm not going to use it in vain. And I'm not going to participate, nor am I going to countenance those that would take the Lord's name and use it as some kind of byword, cuss word. And I'm going to remember His day. And I'm not going to forsake the assembling of myself together as the manner of some is. Because I want to come and to worship him, and I want to come and worship him with people who want to come and worship him. God being who he is, Christ being who he is, must be sought for himself, is what Torrey said, and not as a means to something else. How horrible it is. that we are in a religious atmosphere, that we have to add entertainment and fleshly pleasure to the worship of God to get people into buildings. And once we get them there, we make them twofold the child of hell. And I'm for honoring mothers and fathers. instead of treating fathers as if they're some kind of dolt. That's what the modern, look at the shows, look at the novels, look at the men that God has put at the head of their family. These men are created or are presented, I should say, as dolts and ignoramuses. and women are promoted. Well, we saw the example of what DEI does for presidential security. Didn't we see that yesterday? This leader of the secret service is more interested in being diverse than being efficient. Why are we for men? Why are we for men to stand at the head of their house? Why are we for? It's because we hate women? No, because we love God. And we call men to the thing God calls them to. And we believe in life because it's sacred. You think that guy that climbed up on that roof yesterday with that rifle, that 20-year-old sniveling child, you think he's for life? No. No, he's bullied every day. And I guarantee you, I don't know this, he got the gun from his father, but I guarantee you he's raised by a single mother. There's about a 90% chance that it's a single mother that raised that child. To try to get some kind of recognition out of this life, poor pitiful fool. He's going to climb up on a building and shoot a president. I'm for the family. I'm four men standing at the head of their house. This is the law. This is what teaches us and shows us, you see, that life is precious and he that takes life forfeits life, his life. And for purity, I'm for purity. for treating women as if they are precious gifts from God, he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing, instead of treating women as if they're some kind of object of our wicked pleasure. And it is the feminists who have been exposed, right? These people, they don't love women, they hate women. This transgender idiocy is an attack on women. They're so foolish. They're so mixed up. They're so ignorant that they hold two opposite opinions, mutually exclusive opinions in their mind without tension. We believe it is a right of a man. It is the right of people to own their property and not to have it stolen. Because we love God. And because we love God, we don't tell lies. All a natural man believes are his eyes, but his eyes tell him lies. If you reject the word of God, then you must accept the lie. The father of lies is the devil, and the world is captured by him. And if you believe anything that's contrary to this book, to these words, to this law, to these prophets, and to this gospel, you believe a lie. And we are satisfied, content, because we love God. And we know that God has given to us what he has purposed to be our good. And so it is this law, as prophets. I have hope toward God. And here and too, I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward our God and men. And after many years, I came to bring alms to my nation and all three whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude nor with tumult, who ought to have been here before thee, an object, if they had ought against me, or else, like these, Same here say if they have found any evil doing in me while I stood before their council, except it be for this one voice that I cried standing among them, touching the resurrection of the dead, I am called into question by you this day. And when Felix heard these things, having more perfect knowledge of that way, he deferred them and said, when Lysias and the chief captain shall come down, I will know the utmost of your matter. And he commanded the centurion to keep Paul and to let him have liberty, that he would forbid none of his acquaintances to minister or come unto him. And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, which was a Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith of Christ or the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance and judgment to come. Felix trembled and answered, go thy way for this time. And when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. He hoped also that money, what a wicked human being, trembling at the truth of the gospel, still holding on to the hope that money should be given him of Paul. He neither knew Paul nor the gospel Paul preached, as if Paul would give this wicked man money. He thought Paul would give him some money that he might loose him. Wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him. How do we win the wicked? By being righteous. And after two years, Porcius Festus came into Felix's room. Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound. What a conflicted man. trembling at the law that he'd spurned, yet with his hand behind his back, hoping to get a gift. And he brought him more often. Is this real? Is this man real? Is he real? Maybe I can continue to control him and show him some favor and then he will give me what I want. But Paul consistently did not. Consistent with the truth, living it, preaching it. But Felix played both ends against the middle. Trying to please the Jews and yet being fearful of this one. Who is this one? Drusilla knew who he was. Do they know who we are? Let's pray.