Proverbs chapter 12. We started working on verse 13 last week. Proverbs chapter 12. Proverbs chapter 12. Alright, we all there? Alright, let's pray. Father, we come to this evening, and Lord, again, we are grateful for all you've done for us. Lord, in our hearts, we truly sing to you, wherever you lead, I'll follow. And sometimes that's difficult, Lord, but it is the way to go. Lord, we come to you tonight and pray that you'd bless us. Pray, Father, that you would take this piece of dirt, stand around this pulpit, without you could do nothing. And pray, Father, that you would fill it with your wonderful spirit and your power and your passion, your words, your wisdom. Give it grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Put a watch by its mouth and a guard by its lips. Holy Spirit of God, please stand behind this pulpit. I need you up here. And please sit next to us, Lord, because we all need your help. understanding the word, illuminating it to us, reproving us with it, rebuking us with it, whatever needs to be done, I pray, Father, that you would minister to your people tonight. Lord, help us to get what you want us to hear. And we'll thank you again in Christ's name, amen. Proverbs chapter 12 and verse 13. And the first part of that talked about, let me get back to it, about people that are wicked and snared by transgression of their lips. In other words, people that are having a problem with their mouths that are getting themselves in trouble. And we looked at a few examples of that. And then we started on the last part of verse 13, but the just shall come out of trouble. We looked at Lot who was considered a just man. Not a great witness, not a great testimony, especially to his family. We can find a lot wrong with Lot. But God called him just. He called him righteous twice. He called him godly. And the Lord delivered him before he nuked Sodom and Gomorrah. He will deliver the just. We talked about Jeremiah last week. Jeremiah the prophet who had prophesied all of his life, was trying to warn Israel day after day after day after day. And he gets punched in the mouth. He gets thrown in jail. He gets dropped down into a pit. Very very much mistreated by the people and the the priesthood that was there and the preacher so-called preachers that were there Gave him a very hard time to go. Well when God judged the temple in Jerusalem with the Babylonians And began taking people back to Babylon. Jeremiah was given a break and And there was Nebuchadnezzar, I believe, was the captain of the guard who said to Jeremiah, you know what? You can go with me. Everything will be OK. I'll make sure you have a good house to live in. I'll make sure you've got a decent wage to live on. You've got food. I'll give you a wonderful place to live in my country. Or if you want to stay here, it's up to you. and gave Jeremiah that option. Everybody else had to go into captivity, but Jeremiah was given that option because the Lord has a special place in his heart for people that serve him and will deliver the just out of trouble. And we talked about another guy, it was an Ethiopian named Ebel Melech. Ebel Melech was the guy that when Jeremiah was put into this pit in the ground, and you need to understand this pit had hit the water line, And so you had mud or muck or like quicksand in the bottom of the pit, and they dropped Jeremiah down in that. And I don't know if he was knee-high or waist-high or what have you, but there he was. And Ebal Melik went to the king and said, King, do you realize what they just did to this guy? And the king said, well, they shouldn't have done that. Go ahead and get him out. And so Ebal Melik went around and he got some old, it says, clout rags. And in other words, old bed sheets and blankets and rags and stuff like that. Tied it all together. and dropped it down to Jeremiah, and he put it underneath his armpits and tied it, and they pulled him out. And because of that, God said to Abel Melech, I'll deliver you in that day. When judgment comes, don't worry, I'll deliver you in that day. And it's something very interesting. He says, you don't have to turn here, but in verse 17, it says, But I'll deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord, thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men whom thou art afraid. Abel Melek is an Ethiopian, and I don't know if you understand how this works. I ministered in the black community for 13 years with the young people primarily, and also ministered in the rescue missions and things like that. And in the black community, I'm not even trying to be tactful here, In the black community, the darker you are, the more likely you are to get picked on by someone that's lighter skin. I had a black fellow come into our church. His name was Carl. He was black as black can be. And he said to me one time, he said, Pastor, he said, you know what? My own people, black people have done more to me than white people ever have. And they picked on him because he was dark. And that is the pecking order in the African American community. If you're light complected, you're up here. If you're moderately, You know, colored, you're here. If you're absolutely black, you're down here. And you're more likely to receive trouble. I remember teaching a class one time. I had the third and fourth grade boys in my class. And we had two guys there. One fellow was named George. And George was a good guy. And he was respectful and all that. But he was very dark. And then there was another guy just sitting at the other end of the row, his name was Ty, and Ty was also a good young man. He never gave us much of a problem. He was very light-complected. Well, they got into it. And George said something to Ty, and Ty turned to him and said, you fat black Ethiopian. I said, yeah, there it is right there, right there. The darker they are, the more likely there is to be a problem. I think Abel Melech was scared to death of what the Babylonians were gonna do to him. A lot of it because he was an Ethiopian. And that terrified him. And so God said, I'm going to do you a favor. You did me a favor. You got my preacher out of the mud. I'm going to do you a favor. When this all happens, you're going to be OK. And God is able to deliver the just out of trouble. And for us, that's good news. All we have to do is be like Jeremiah, or be like Abel Melech, who did a work of faith, getting Jeremiah out, and we are more likely to be taken care of by the Lord than if we were just the average Christians who just came to church on Sunday, and et cetera, et cetera. So that's how that works. Now, and that one, let's go to the next one, Proverbs chapter 12. Proverbs chapter 12, new topic, another popcorn proverb. And again, has to do with the mouth. The Bible has a lot to say about what comes out of your mouth, what you do with your tongue. Proverbs chapter 12, and look, if you will, at verse 14. a man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth and the recompense of a man's hand shall be rendered unto him the sister verse that goes along with that was proverbs chapter eighteen so current turn to that one proverbs chapter eighteen this is the verse that goes along with that proverbs eighteen and look if you will at verse twenty one proverbs eighteen and verse twenty one this is a great text Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. So death and life are in the power of the tongue. So this proverb we're looking at is more or less on the positive side of good and right, and speech, subsequently right, good results, et cetera. However, there's a negative which is also true. And I don't know if you ever stopped and tried to figure out history or how this world runs or why things have happened, but do you realize so much has happened in this world because of speech? Terrible events have taken place because somebody opened their mouth, right? There's something called verbiage reverberation principle. You say something, there's gonna be a result. If you say something good and blessing, you're going to get it back. If you say something mean and nasty, it's going to come back. Verbiage reverberation principle. Think about the sin of Lucifer. What do we know about Lucifer? We know he said, I will be like the Most High. We know that he said, I will ascend the sides of the north. I will sit upon the throne of God. He said there were five I wills that he said. And those words that he said got him kicked out of heaven. Jesus said, I saw Satan's lightning fall out of heaven. So those words got him in trouble. Think about Eve. Here's our wonderful great, great, great, great grandmother Eve in the Garden of Eden. And what got her? What tempted her? A serpent with the ability to speak. And he spoke. And started by saying, yea, hath God said, questioning the word of God. And his speech ended up leading her to fall into sin. You take a guy like Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was an incredible orator. I don't know if you've ever seen some of the old videos of his speeches that he gave. And it doesn't matter if he's speaking German and you can't understand it. You're listening to it. There's a rhythm to it. There's a power to it. And you just watch him and you can understand why people are getting excited. And the mass multitude standing in front of him of Germans just, you know, Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! I mean, they're going crazy. Hitler was an incredible orator. And as a result, This world faced five years of war, world war. Jewish people were killed by the number of six million as a result of the Nazis. Not to mention the Soviets, but the Nazis. Six million Jews because a guy spoke. He simply spoke. Death and life are in the power of your mouth. And it doesn't just have to be verbal. It can be written because many times a person speaks through writing. In fact, many times some fellows speak better through writing than speaking. Karl Marx was one of them. Marx was not a captivating speaker. He's not the guy you'd cross the street for to go here. He had a lisp. He was just not, he was dull and boring. But his writing, his written works impacted and inspired revolutions and social movements worldwide. He knew how to write. And that's a strange thing that some of these guys that can write are not great speakers and some that are great speakers can't really write. And I've listened to a few guys that preach and that write. And one fellow in particular who writes very well, but I've listened to him preach and I'm thinking, eh, you know, okay. Sam Gipp is the exception. Sam Gipp is a great speaker and he's a great writer. But that's the exception to the rule. Marx was a great writer. His writings, Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto, led to revolutions around the world. He is the father of that stuff. And again, not verbally speaking, but speaking in written word. In 1546, the Council of Trent was written. I don't know if you're familiar with church history or not, but there was a reformation going on in Europe. They try to say started by Luther, but there were others that were doing stuff. But you kind of pin it on Luther. He's the one that nailed the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church, and they kind of point him out as being the trigger there. And so this reformation is starting, And it's catching on steam. And so what do the Catholics have to do? They had to do a counter reformation. And so they put in writing what needed to be put in writing. And that was the Council of Trent. Do you realize? And people criticize us for being intolerant and bigoted and all that. Do you realize that the Council of Trent had over 100, what's called anathemas, which means curses? And what they simply did was they cursed everything Protestants believe. They cursed everything that we believe about salvation through grace, about not having a purgatory, stuff like that. They put a curse on that. All right, I don't know if you knew that or not. So if the Catholics wanna act like they're tolerant and all that stuff, the Council of Trent put a curse on us over 100 times. Vatican II, the Second Vatican Council came out and never refuted or changed any of those curses, never did any of that stuff. What Vatican II was, they simply said, let's change with the method. And instead of calling Protestants heretics and what have you and trying to take some kind of physical action against them, they said, let's just let's try to bring them back in. Let's not call them heretics anymore. Let's call them separated brethren. How many have heard that term? You know, we Protestants are separated brethren. And the idea is to bring them into the fold in ecumenical, using ecumenical unity. How many have heard of ecumenical? Ecumenical is the concept that we all believe the same thing, let's just all get together. And of course, we don't believe that. But again, Vatican II never said, well, we're sorry about the anathemas. We're going to change. It never said that at all. Vatican II never touched that. They simply decided to use a different method. And those writings, the Council of Trent, those writings inspired the Roman Catholics of the day. Now, they had the Inquisitions before that. Those were already going on, but now there's new life given to it. This is called the Catholic Counter-Reformation. This is what some have titled the Catholic Revival, that now the Catholics are charged up about what they believe, and so the Inquisitions got more intense. They got more severe. They began to deal with people on many, many fronts, such as art. If there were artists that were painting things that disagreed with the church, they were taken in, tortured, or put to death. That's what the Council of Trent did. And the Catholics feel the same way today, but they've taken a different tact. So don't be deceived, don't be fooled by it. And understand this, the Catholics have adopted evangelical language, but by their own definition. So when a Catholic says, well, I believe you're saved by grace through faith. So what do you mean by grace? And the average Catholic that's honest with you will tell you grace is something you have to earn. Well you just blew the definition of grace. But they're going to take our terminology and they take our methods and they're doing everything they can to try to convince you just like the Mormons That they're just like us, we're Christians just like you, and you have to know what these people believe. And I've got a copy of the Code of Canon Law in my office, if you wanna look it up. And it's all that stuff is still there. You have to be baptized by an authorized Roman Catholic priest. You have to have the last rites by an authorized Roman Catholic priest. You have to partake of the Eucharist performed by an authorized Roman Catholic. It's all there, it's still there. I've got the Code of Canon Law. So they lie to you. They lie to you and tell you, you know, we're just like you and use the same terminology. They got away from the Latin. They started doing it in English. They started having guitar masses where some young lady would get up there and sing some beautiful song on a guitar and trying to make it sound like an evangelical service. Don't be deceived and don't be fooled. And I've told you before, that's ecumenism. You know, we're just like you. Come join us. There shouldn't be a difference here. Promise Keepers has Catholics, and Methodists, and Baptists, and Lutherans, and Presbyterians, and all that. We've all come together. Yeah, you've all come together, all right. But the Bible says, they that worship the Lord must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And when you get into ecumenicalism, truth is set aside for the sake of unity. And I've told you before, the bridge to that, the bridge to this unity is contemporary Christian music. I've told you that. And you've got artists like John Michael Talbot, Kathy Tricoli, Rick Elias, Tony Melendez, Sarah Hart, who wrote a lot of Amy Grant's junk. And I could give you 20 or more popular ones. And all they do is when they want to attract evangelicals to come to their concerts and all be one and one together and all that stuff. And evangelicals will walk away and say, well, Catholics aren't so bad because they have no idea what they really, really believe. That's the problem. And again, that all started with somebody writing a bunch of stuff down. If you believe this, anathema. If you believe this, anathema. Writing it down. Then others would take those writings and take it out and actually speak it and orate it and get the Catholics all worked up. The media. is another source of speech that causes a problem, media-led rhetoric of today. I mean, if you listen to what they say about the ICE agents, you know, these are Nazis, and tell them blatant lies about what the ICE agents are going in and doing and who they're arresting and all that stuff, and Customs and Border Protection, other forms of law enforcement, until you get to the point where some congressman says, we need to tone down the rhetoric. Because they understand the power of the rhetoric. And so life and death are in the power of the tongue. And we have to be very careful what we do with that thing. So the positive side, or the good side, is that anybody speaking for Jesus Christ, that's the soul winner, the evangelist, the pastor, the missionary, anybody who witnesses, witness on the job, witness in school, et cetera, et cetera, that's the good side. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. The words that we have the capability of speaking are words that can bring somebody out of darkness into light. What we can do with our tongue is to explain to somebody the plan of salvation, explain to them what sin is, explain to them the need of repentance, explain to them what grace is through faith, trust in Christ. We can explain all that stuff and see people born again. That's the power of the tongue that we have. And the sad thing is we don't exercise it. We don't exercise it. When the enemy, the agitators, they're exercising their mouth all the time. You see some of these pictures of these riots and they're chanting and they're running their mouths and all that stuff. And where's the Christian who has the freedom, the same freedom and the same right to speak up for Jesus Christ? That's the necessity. Now, There's good talk, there's bad talk. I don't know if you know this or not, there's even trash talking in the Bible. If anybody's involved in sports, you know what trash talk is. You got one player talking up a storm to the other player, and they're going at it back and forth. And the idea is just try to get the other guy upset, to make him do something stupid. And you've seen it in the NFL. Maybe you've not, but it's been seen in the NFL where you've got two guys that are going at it the whole game, and eventually one takes a swing at the other. Well, that guy's thrown out of the game. Mission accomplished. And they warn him ahead of time. This guy's gonna run his mouth, he's gonna cause a problem. Ignore him. Don't get involved with him. Smile at him and say you're right or something. But don't get involved in trash talking with him. And a lot of times that guy will sucker a guy in and get him so upset he takes a swing at him. And then he turns around to the ref and points at the guy. It's hilarious. But there is trash talking in the Bible. Go to Judges chapter nine. I'll give you an example of it. Judges chapter nine. Have to be careful with the way we speak and what we say. Judges chapter nine. Starting in verse 26, we'll read this through, verse 26. And Gael, the son of Ebed, came with his brethren and went over to Shechem. And the men of Shechem put their confidence in him. And they went out in the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trod the grapes, and made merry, and went in the house of their God. And they did eat, and drank, and cursed Abimelech. And Gael the son of Ebed said, Who is Abimelech? Who is Shechem? That we should serve him. Is not he the son of Jerubabel, Gideon? And Zebal his officer? Serve the men of Hamer, the father of Shechem. Why would we serve him? And would to God this people were under my hand. Then I would remove Abimelech. I'd get him out of there. And he said to Abimelech, probably yelling across the field, increase thine army and come out. I'll fight you. Come on out. And when Zebal, the ruler of the city, heard the words of Gael, the son of Ebed, his anger was kindled. Now go to verse 35. And Gael, the son of Ebed, went out and stood in the entering of the gate of the city. And Abimelech rose up, and the people that were with him from lying in wait. So he got them stirred up all right. Abimelech got the word. You want to fight me? Okay, well, we're going to have our time. And so an ambush was laid outside the city. It's outside the city, but they're there early in the morning, and they're ready to come. Now look at verse 36. And when Gael saw the people, he said to Zebal, Behold, there come people down from the top of the mountain. And Zebal said to him, ah, they'll see a shadow of the mountains as if they were men. I think Zebal was on the side of the other guys. He said, ah, you've just seen a bunch of shadows. Verse 37, and Gael spake again and said, see, there come people down by the middle of the land, another company come along by the plain of Minoanum. Then said Zebal unto him, here's a good question, where is now thy mouth? wherewith thou saidst who is Abimelech, that we should serve him. Is not this the people thou hast despised? See what he said. Okay, big mouth, you're so tough. There he is right there. So where's your mouth now? Go get him. Verse 39, and Gael went out before the men of Shechem and fought with Abimelech, and Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many were overthrown or wounded, even the enter of the gate. What's he gonna do? He's in the city, he can't run and hide. He's already shot his big mouth off. Okay, tough guy, go get him. And he goes out there and he gets his, excuse the expression, butt kicked. And it all started with him running his big mouth. If he just kept his mouth shut, that would have never happened. But you have so much trash talking. You got people running their mouths. That's most fights, most fights start with somebody running their mouth. And it's like if you could just learn to keep your mouth shut, you'd stay out of trouble. Somebody said this to me. You don't have to respond to that. Well, they called me this. You don't have to respond to that. Unless they attack you physically, then you have the right to defend yourself. You know, but sticks and stones may break your bones, and they'll break yours too, by the way, but words will never hurt me. That's a good expression to go by. Unless you're physically attacked, you don't have to defend yourself. If you're physically attacked, then you need to defend yourself, okay? But there's trash talking in the Bible. I thought that was interesting. Where is thy mouth now? Let's hear it now. How many have ever been in a situation like that where a bunch of guys have gotten together and somebody's been running their mouth and then the guy shows up and you see the fear in the guy's face. Okay, there he is, why don't you go beat him up? Anyway, verse 14, go back to verse 14 of Psalm. Psalm, Proverbs, verse 14 of Proverbs. So he's already said about the mouth, now he says, and the recompense of a man's hands shall be rendered unto him. So there's a connection between what you say and what you do. Recompense is punishment for evil, reward or payback. Render is to return to pay back or restore. If you've ever smoked meat, you understand the process of rendering. You know, you've smoked something for four or five hours, and when you cook something, and if you're smoking it, it's low, it's low heat. But still, you're heating something up, and the juices have a tendency to try to work their way out of the piece of meat. When it's done, you bring it in, you cover it with foil, and you let it sit for about 30 minutes. What happens? It's cooling off. When it cools off, what do the juices do? They go back, and that's called rendering. You let the meat render for about 30 minutes. Then you cut into it, and man, oh man, you got juice all over that thing. Boy, I'm talking myself into buying a rib roast. Anyway, so the recompense of a man's hands shall be rendered on him. Isaiah chapter three, and starting at verse 10, you can turn there if you'd like, Isaiah chapter three. starting at verse 10. And this is the Lord speaking through Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 3 and verse 10. He says, Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him. Tell the righteous it's going to be okay. For they shall eat the fruit of their doings. So if you're righteous, what's the fruit of your doings? or whatever you've been producing with your hands. Nothing illegal, nothing criminal. You've been working, you've been producing, you've been growing, you've been doing stuff, and you will eat of the fruit of your hands, of your labor. Verse 11, woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hand shall be given him. He's been doing criminal activity, he's been committing crimes, he's been doing bad things with his hands, and it's going to come back on him. And it's the same old principle, sowing and reaping. If you sow good stuff, good stuff is going to come back. You sow bad stuff, bad stuff is going to come back. That's what he's trying to say. This is not complicated. This is not a complicated thing. You live right and you do right and that comes back on you. You sow good, you reap good. If you decide to do evil, then you're sowing evil and it's going to come back on you. Not a complicated thing. All right, let's go to another one, Proverbs chapter 12. Another popcorn proverb, Proverbs chapter 12. Proverbs chapter 12, look at verse 26. The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor, but the way of the wicked seduces them. Let's look at the New Testament application. Righteousness is in Christ. Excellence, meanings to excel, surpass others in some good quality, or the sum of qualities, great worth, eminent, a good sense, superior, as an excellent man, an artist, a citizen, husband, discourse, book, song, et cetera. Excellent breeding principles, aims, and action. In other words, what excellence is, is superiority. And what did that verse just say? The righteous is more excellent, more superior, more surpassing, has more surpassing qualities than his neighbor. If you are ever accused of thinking that you're better than everyone else, somebody says, oh, you Christians, you think you're better than everybody else. We usually come back with something very humble like, you know, I'm just a sinner saved by grace, you know. But you know what the reality of that is? We are better than they are. When you consider what you are in Jesus Christ, we are superior. We are more excellent. Someone may say, who do you think you are? Well, since you ask, I'm a child of God by the new birth, and I'm adopted, and I have the righteousness of Christ, and I have total forgiveness, and I'm a future king, and I'll be glorified with Christ in a resurrected body. I have resurrections in the Father's house, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the reality is we are better than the lost. Oh, did that sound like heresy or what? How could you say that? We're just sinners saved by the grace of God. Yeah, we're sinners saved by the grace of God and look what we have now since we're saved. We are better than the wicked. Our lifestyle is better. Our marriages are better. Our work habits are better. Our intellectual pursuits are better. Our morality is better. Yes, we are better, more excellent than the lost world is. And that's something we can tell each other as family here. It's not something you want to promote when you go out. When you go out there, then it's okay, I'm a sinner saved by grace. But never forget what you are in Christ. we're nothing but a piece of dirt as Rush Limbaugh you should say an animated dirtball but because of salvation you realize what we got I mean Jesus said in my father's house are many mansions I'm gonna go make you one he doesn't promise that to everybody in the world just his children so We are more excellent and more superior. Now, and anyone can get in on this, that's the point. We're not exclusive. Well, you know, we're Christians and you can't be what we are. Yeah, you can be what we are. You can get in on this and you can be superior too. That's just a way to put it. Now, the next part of that verse says, And the wicked seduces them. So the them in this sentence appears to be referring to the neighbor who's been seduced on the way of the wicked. Now, that's a good word, seduce, seduction. Turn to 1st Timothy chapter 4. Get 1st Timothy 4 in one hand, get 1st John 2 in the other. And what does seduction mean? Well, you want to define the word. To draw aside or entice from the path of rectitude and duty in any manner by flattery, promises, bribes or otherwise, to tempt and lead to iniquity, to create, to deprave. You know what it just said? We talked about the path. Here's the way walking in it. You know what the seducer tries to do? The seducer tries to say, well, you got to go over here. A lot better over here. Or a lot better over here. The Lord says, this is the path walking in it. This is the way walking in it. A seducing spirit or the mouthpiece for a seducing spirit will try to get you to go this way or try to get you to go that way. It's a good word that it's used. 1 Timothy chapter 4. Seduce is found nine times in scripture. In almost every case it's spiritual, a seduction into error and false doctrine. 1 Timothy, excuse me, 1 Timothy chapter 4. Look at verse 1. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, are we there? We're there. Some shall depart from the faith. Are we seeing that? We live in the day and age of apostasy, and one of the signs of that is a departure from the faith. Giving heed, now watch this, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Believing all the stupid stuff that comes out there. Seducing spirits, I think their goal is, if they live on a day-by-day basis, is to wake up every day and say, what stupid thing can we come up with today that people will believe? And off they go. And all of a sudden this cult pops up or that cult pops up. And they're teaching this and people will fall for it. People will fall for it. I mentioned, we were at Sky Vista today talking about the cross and some people, I mean minor, some people believe four people were crucified with Christ instead of two. Why do they believe that? Because one verse says malefactor and the other one says thief. So you got two malefactors and two thieves, that's four. When the fact of the matter is, when Jesus was crucified, it said one on this side, one on that side. A malefactor is a general term for a criminal. Okay, so you say, somebody's a, you're a criminal. But what did you do? Well, I'm a thief. Okay, so this is a criminal who's a thief, and this is a criminal who's a thief. You got one on this side, one on that side. That's how you look at it. There were not four people crucified with Christ, there were two. And then, back in Ohio, in the late 70s and early 80s, you had this nut show up, whose name was Victor Paul Weirwell. And he started this thing called the Way International. And he starts this cult. And you know what he believes? He believes there were multitudes of people crucified with Christ, along with a bunch of other stupid stuff. And people fell for it. People fell for it. There's something seductive in every cult that causes people to fall for it if they don't know their Bible. And that's why he says, seducing spirits and doctrines of devil. These spirits seduce you into this nonsense and then you're indoctrinated by some devilish belief and you end up a Mormon or a Jehovah Witness or of the way international, et cetera. And I used to look at that and think that's strictly spiritual, seducing spirits. But after looking around and after seeing and hearing time and time and time and time again of preachers that are falling in to adulterous sin and stuff like that, it may not just be limited to spiritual seduction. It may be actual physical seduction. I've told you before some of these big mega church pastors almost every month a guy's name pops up and he's had to resign because he was caught in having an affair with blah blah blah and some story like that. I told you before about some of these mega churches where the pastoral staff swapped wives. Well, that's a seduction there that's not necessarily spiritual, it's physical. So let's not eliminate the concept of a physical seduction. Spirits would love to get us all to fall into that, like I mentioned Sunday morning. Primarily doctrinal, but if they can get you to fall flat on your face, they'll do that too. And just understand the source of it. Spirits speak expressly that in latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meat. So these are the two areas they seem to be going after. Marriage issue and eating of meat. So we have confusion now about marriage, not with us, but with the world out there confused about what marriage is. and confused about what they should eat. I said, if you're a vegetarian, help yourself. Knock yourself out. Eat your lentil burgers and all that stuff. If you like that, go ahead. I always said, if we had more vegetarians, the cost of meat would go down because we'd create a glut, and then we could stock up. But there's a, you know, you'll have people actually go out there and say, well, Jesus was a vegetarian. Oh, he didn't keep the Passover then, huh? because you're eating a lamb on Passover. You're gonna tell me he was a vegetarian? Well, they just ate that stuff, fruits and vegetables, in the garden. Well, something happened in the garden that kind of changed things, didn't it? But this marriage thing, you know, I mean, there's so much confusion about marriage today. The concept of one man, one woman, one lifetime sounds strange to a lot of people. And the idea of a man marrying a woman, well, why do we limit it to that? Well, men should be able to marry men. And the Mormons saying, a man ought to be able to marry four or five wives. And somebody else will say, I'll be able to marry my dog. That's all taking place in this day and age in which we live. And so that's a seduction. 1 John 2, verse 26. John says, these things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. The issue there were a bunch of Gnostics running around. And some of the Gnostics said, you know, Jesus never died on the cross, like Muslims. God could not have been in a human body because a human body is depraved and God would never put himself in something depraved like a human body, unless it was virgin born. But anyway, that's what John is dealing with. Mark chapter 13, go ahead and turn there. Mark chapter 13. And even in the Tribulation, there's a segment of Judaism that gets converted. 144,000 are running around preaching. There is a segment, a remnant of Jews that gets saved during the Tribulation time. And he warns them, he says, for false Christs and false prophets shall rise and show signs and wonders, that's tribulation. And why are they going to do signs and wonders? To seduce. If it were possible, even the elect, even those of you that know better. They're trying to seduce you. They're using signs and wonders and so on and so forth. Don't be deceived by it, Jesus is saying. And we live in a day and age where you see a bunch of nonsense. Don't be deceived by it. Don't be seduced by it. Okay? And the simplicity of the thing is read your Bible, study your Bible, and if you have questions, there are other Christians around, like me, who can help you answer those questions, okay? I've heard of people say, well, our church used to believe, our church believed this, and I left it because I had a question, and nobody could answer it, and so I joined this cult over here. Well, how many people did you ask? Why don't you keep asking more and more people? Somebody's got the answer. Or they had the answer and you didn't want to hear that. But if you have questions, for heaven's sakes, my door is always open. And I've never called anybody stupid. That's a stupid question. I've never said that because every question has validity, if you will. except my oldest son, he asked a couple questions one time and thought, how could anybody be that stupid? Seriously, we came out of my aunt's, his aunt's house, my sister-in-law's house one time, he'd been looking at the fish in the aquarium. And he came out to me with a serious look on his face, he said, do fish get wet? I said, I don't know. And then one time we were unhooking the bus and we were parked at a place and we had to run, I don't know how many hoses together just to get to the faucet. And it was time to go and I said, unhook the hose. And he started to unhook it and I said, you have to turn it off first. Yeah, that's right. And he starts walking and he turns around and said, where's the faucet? I said, follow the hose. Oh. So yeah, there are some dumb questions. But any question you have, I would never consider it to be dumb or stupid. My door is always open. But you know, there is an answer. And you all are on the right path, stay on the right path. All right, any questions or any comments? I can say that about my oldest son now because he's a lawyer. Ever imagine that? Georgetown graduate, where's the faucet? Growing up is a difficult thing, but eventually we get there, maybe. Anyway, any questions or comments? All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you tonight for your word. Lord, we have to be very careful about what we do with our mouth and with our tongue. Our tongue is a world of iniquity. And so, Lord, I pray that you'd help us to speak the way we should. The world talks about influencers, but we need to be influencers for you. and speak for you and for your truth and for your word. So help us, Lord, to do that. And thank you again, Lord, for your goodness and grace. Lord, I pray that you'd bless these dear folks. Keep them safe traveling on the way home. Bless our church services this weekend. Lord, that you'd bring some more visitors in. It'd be good to see somebody get saved. But Lord, thank you for the visitors that have been coming in. And Lord, pray you'd bless this church in Christ's name. Amen. All right, you are dismissed. Thank you for