It's so good to see you this morning in God's house. I appreciate you being gathered together this morning to worship our Heavenly Father and to praise our Savior Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us. I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Daniel. I was thinking this morning as I was preparing to preach, you know, we as God's people, we live by principles. We live by truths. We don't live willy-nilly. We don't make up our own standards on how we're going to live. We don't make up a purpose for our lives. God has designed all of that for us when He created us in His image. So the world is out here and they're trying to figure things out, you know, and they can't seem to get it all figured out. But we as God's people, we've got it figured out. Not because we're so smart, obviously, but because God has told us how to live our lives. So we gather together every Sunday. We come into this building, as many churches do, and they open up the Word of God, and they find in there principles. We live principled lives, folks. We don't live fairy tale lives. We don't live made-up lives. We live lives soundly, established on the principles of the Word of God. We have meaning and we have purpose every day that we live. I hope you found your place in the book of Daniel, and we're going to start reading in verse 17 of chapter 2 of Daniel. 2.17 So, once again, I'll ask those who are willing and able to rise and stand with me, please, as we share together the reading of the Word of God. Then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah about the matter, so that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon." Let's pray together. So Father, we come before you and we thank you for the opportunity to be gathered together today in your house and to worship you and to praise you. We thank you for the book of Daniel. We know that even though it is thousands of years old, it still has principles that are applicable to us today. So Father, I pray that all the difficulties and everybody here has struggled this week with something in one way or another. We've all gone through the fire in one way or another. We've all gone through the deep waters in one way or another. We've been faced with temptation. We've been faced with tribulation, and maybe even faced with persecution, I don't know. But I know, Heavenly Father, that we've gathered together here today to set apart this hour for You, for You to take control and dominion over our lives once again. We love You, Lord. We thank You for the goodness of life. But we also need You to guide us. We need Your Word to be in our hearts, not just in our minds, not just in our ears, but in our hearts. So that when we leave this building today, we will make decisions that will please You, and we'll live a life. that will please you. Every breath we draw is a breath closer to the time we're going to stand before you on Judgment Day. But I pray, Heavenly Father, that we will not fear standing before you on Judgment Day, that we'll anticipate it. We'll also anticipate the glorious return of Jesus. Oh my God, how we look forward to the return, the soon return of Jesus Christ to save us from this old world in which we live. May God help us not to fail, but to be faithful lights for you. In Christ's name I pray, Amen. So thank you and please be seated this morning. I think I've shared this with you before, but I'm going to share it again anyhow because it applies. Most of you are familiar with the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. And that list actually came about as an accident. It appears that J. Edgar Hoover was in an interview with a man who was interviewing him to do an article in the FBI and print it in their newspaper. And in the process of the interview, the editor asked J. Edgar Hoover, who are the most wanted men in America? J. Edgar Hoover named off 10 guys on it. Well, of course, as being part of the interview, they published that list in the newspaper. Well, lo and behold, to the surprise of Hoover and the FBI, they started getting dozens of calls about those men and the descriptions of those men. And indeed, many of those tips led to some of their arrests. Well, that was in 1949. Well, a year later, in March the 15th of 1950, they decided that it worked so well that they would make it a part of their institution to publish the list of the 10 most wanted in America. And sure enough, they got several tips. Probably more than 490 men had been listed on that 10 Most Wanted. At least a third of them, over 30% of them, were arrested because of the tips of the public. Now, used to, in the old days, in the old, old West, they had Wanted posters, right? We've all seen Gunsmoke. We've all seen Gunsmoke and we know how they would take those posters and they would put the picture of the man that was wanted on there and they would give a slight description of him and post that thing on saloon posts and various places in the city and the sheriff's office and stuff like that. Well, the FBI kind of went back to the old, old West, and they would post mug shots, you know, they'd post mug shots of the men that were wanted and a little description of them. Of course, we don't have them on saloon posts anymore, but if you go into the post office, you still see the FBI's 10 most wanted mug shots. Well, we're looking at a story of not the ten most wanted, maybe, but maybe more than that. Daniel's wanted now. Daniel's a wanted man. Meshach and his friends, and, let's see, who were they? Meshach and, where am I? Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, as well as the rest of the magicians and the Chaldeans, they were all on Nebuchadnezzar's most wanted list at this particular point. And so they're going out and they're trying to find Daniel and his friends in order to haul them in and do them great harm. The king has asked for them to be destroyed or to be killed. Now, the FBI consisted of one man, Ariok. Ariok was going from place to place, searching out all these men, rounding them up in order that he might kill them. He was the one who was to find them, and he was the executioner at the same time. The king wanted them dead, but here's the deal about the king wanting them dead. They hadn't broken any moral laws. They weren't guilty of breaking any real law of the kingdom. They had done nothing morally wrong. They were going to be murdered on the whim and the impulse of King Nebuchadnezzar. That was it. That was it. Let me give you a civics lesson 101, okay? Generally speaking, a government has to have objective laws in order to protect as well as to punish their citizens. Without laws to protect and to punish, you cannot have a prosperous or a just or a fair society. If you don't have objective laws, you have chaos Because everybody then is making up their own minds about what they think is right and what they think is wrong. In order for a society to exist, it's got to have just laws. It's got to have a common set of laws that people have agreed that they are going to abide by. And that simply means that everybody is going to get treated equally. That's Important. That's important. What do you call it when you treat everybody equally? You call it justice, okay? That's what you call it. It doesn't matter what color your skin is. It doesn't matter how dark your skin is, how light your skin is. It doesn't matter what your social status is. It doesn't matter what your financial status is. The fact of the matter is, if you have broken the law, everybody gets treated justly according to the law. Sounds simple, right? Sounds logical. Sounds pretty basic. But let me ask you another question. How then does a government decide its laws? How does a government decide? We've got to have laws. So how do we arrive at those laws? How does the government decide which laws are right and wrong? How do we decide what is right and wrong? We have this thing called Morality. It's kind of like a dirty word today in our culture, in our society today, you know. But some things are right and some things are wrong. All law is based on morality. Period. All law is based on morality. Morality is determining what? Determining what is right and wrong. So we've got to get down to the basics here. of trying to figure out what's right and what's wrong. Some things are obviously right. Some things are obviously wrong. Where do you get your standards from? Well, we get them from God. We get them from the scriptures. Here's the deal. Without God, there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong. None. How do you know murder is wrong? How do you know rape is wrong? How do you know whether stealing something is wrong? Who determines those things being right or wrong? Give me a mathematical equation to prove murder is wrong. Give me scientific, empirical evidence to prove that rape is wrong. I mean, I can tell you that two plus two is four, right? Some people say it's five, but you know, we believe truth, you know, we believe in absolute truth. So we believe two and two is four, you know, but you can come up with formulas to say, you know, this is, this is true. This is true. This is true. This is true. But give me a formula to tell me, give me empirical hard based evidence, facts, and data to prove to me that murder is wrong. You can't do that. It's a moral issue. It's a moral issue. And morality does not exist outside of God. I'm not a huge fan of Dennis Prager. I've read some of his stuff. I still read some of Dennis Prager's stuff. He's off. When it comes to salvation, he's off, okay? But there are some things that he's very good on talking about morality. And I agreed with him on this particular idea that he has here about morality. He basically says that without God, all morality is based on opinion. And that's true. That is exactly right. That is exactly true. Without God, society is free to make up its own laws, its own morality. You know what? Without God, morality is reduced to whatever society says is right, whatever an individual says is right, or whatever a government says is right. That's what's called moral relativism, right? You've heard that term. Surely everybody here has heard the term moral relativism. Here's how moral relativism operates. A person looks at an action or looks at another person and says, I like that. That must be right. it looks as if something else says, I don't like that. I must be wrong. Or, I feel like. I feel like. That's good. I feel like that's right, so it's good, right? I feel like that's evil, so it's wrong. So here we have a whole society going, I feel like this, or I like this. And that is the definition of moral relativism. Everybody's got their own feelings. Everybody's got their own likes. And based on that, we determine right and wrong. That leads to, that is chaos. That is absolute confusion. And it's going to lead to, it is leading to the destruction of both people's lives and society. And we're witnessing that before our very eyes today. This is the way the world operates today. Everybody has their own opinion. So without God, you get this anarchy. You get this everybody living by their own opinions with no objective basis for making a decision about what's right and wrong except your own, and that's it. That's it, that's it. That's what we have with Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar has decided in his own self that he's going to kill Daniel, his three friends, and the rest of his spiritual advisors, because they are incapable of telling him simply what he wants to know, and they're incapable of doing what he wants them to do, right? He wants to know something, they can't tell him. He wants them to do something, and they can't do it. with genders, is that right? Transgenderism? Yeah. Okay, so you have these transgenders out here who say, well, I don't like the way you're talking to me. I don't like you referring to my pronoun. You're not using the right pronoun. They're going on the way they feel. What's going on with them? They can have you arrested today simply because you don't use the right pronoun that they feel like you're supposed to be using. So here we go. He just, you know, he wants to kill these guys because he doesn't feel like they can do what he wants them to do or say what he wants them to say. So they're, you know, in his mind, in his mind, he's completely rational. In his mind, he's completely rational. But in his mind, the reality is his irrational mind killing wise men is a great idea in an irrational mind, in his way of thinking. When a person or a society or a government does not have God's laws and God's morality to guide them in their decisions, you have an irrational person, you have an irrational society, and you have an irrational government. Listen to this. Godlessness leads to lawlessness. Godlessness leads to lawlessness. That's called sin. Here's what the Bible says. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 1 John 3 and 4. Without God, lawlessness becomes the law of the land. And that's exactly where we are in America today. That's where we are. Irrational people become their own little gods determining their selfish standards of right and wrong and its own penalty. That's the context of what we're looking at this morning. Let's look at verse 17. So he says in verse 17, then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah about the matter. So Daniel is going back to his house. Why is he going back to his house? Why is Daniel going back home? Well, because Daniel had asked Ariok for an audience with the king. The king granted Ariok's request. Daniel goes in, talks to the king. If Daniel, of his own mind, decided he was going to go talk to the king, he would have been killed on the spot. He was on the king's most wanted list. He couldn't go directly into the presence of the king without forfeiting his life. So Ariok then goes on the behalf of Daniel to the king and makes a request to the king on his behalf. You are somebody's Ariok. And somebody has been your Ariok. You see, what do you mean by that? I mean that you are not where you are except you are where you are on the shoulders of somebody else. None of us got to where we are without the help of somebody else in our life. Brother Doyle was telling me a little earlier about how he didn't know how to farm except for cotton. And he went to his brother-in-law, Herman, and basically became Herman's slave for a year. And said, teach me how to farm. And Doyle said, he taught him how to farm. He got where he is on the shoulders of somebody else. Everybody here is the same way. Somebody took an interest in you. Somebody cared about you. Somebody said something to encourage you. Somebody lent you some money. Somebody did something to lift you up and get you started on your way. Nobody here, nobody here is where they are without the help of somebody else in your life. God puts people in our lives, folks, to help us along, to strengthen us in our walk with Him, to speak on our behalf. My life is easier. My life is easier today because men invested in me, like Don Price, and Vernon Lyerly, and Dan Malek, and John Penn, and David Robinson. These men invested in my life and made my life easier because they were interested in me. You have somebody like that. You have somebody that you can look at, that God used in your life to mature you, and to help you, and to strengthen you, and you need to thank God for them once in a while. You need to stop and you need to pause and thank God for those who invested in your life. But let me tell you something, they didn't invest in your life just so that you could be where you are and just so you could be a better person. They invested in your life for a spiritual reason, for a spiritual cause. What was the spiritual cause and what was the reason they really invested into your life? Maybe they might not be thinking about it consciously, but unconsciously, God used them to bless you because God wants to use you to bless somebody else. This is a serious matter. You say, why is this so serious? Because this is how you get your rewards. This is how you get your rewards, folks. by investing whatever God has given you, whatever talents, abilities He's given you, whatever physical things you have. God has given you those things so that you might use them in somebody else's life to build them up and to encourage them. This is where your blessings, this is where your rewards are going to come from, folks. You don't bless yourself just to, you know, you're not going to get rewards for blessing yourself. You get rewards for blessing other people. That's God's economy. That's the way it works. You're somebody's Ariok. You need to open your eyes. You need to look around and see who you can be a blessing to. That's the way God wants to live our lives. We need to get our eyes off of ourselves. And I struggle here. I struggle here because I am a singularly minded person, folks. And when I'm looking at what I want to do, I'm not thinking about anybody else around me. That's not a good attitude. That's not a good thing to do. I need to be thinking about people around me all the time. I probably miss thousands of blessings by not thinking of those around me, even my own wife. Let me tell you something else. Let me tell you something else. For you to be a blessing to somebody else, it's going to cost you. It's going to be an interruption in your schedule. It's going to require, in order for you to bless somebody, it is going to require a sacrifice of you. It just is. That's just the way it operates. That is a spiritual principle. When Jesus Christ came to this earth, He came to bless you, but I'm going to tell you what, He came to be a sacrifice for you. That is a spiritual principle that has been working not only in His life as an example to us, but we are to be practicing it in our own lives. People are going to come along and you're going to think, man, this is an interruption in my schedule. I don't have time for that. You're going to have a thousand reasons not to be a blessing to somebody that's coming to you. Listen, never refer, never refer to someone who has been created in the image of God as an interruption. That's a dangerous thing to do. Dangerous thing to do. Look at the image of God and say, man, you're an interruption in my life. Oh, don't let God catch you saying that. That's not a good thing to say. That's not how we need to see it at all. The Bible says this. I'm going to tell you the truth. As much as it pains you to hear me say this, it pains me a lot more because I know I'm a lot more guilty than you are. Here's what the Bible says, though. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that He comforts us in our afflictions, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with comfort. Here's Paul talking about what God has done in his life. He says, God's blessed me with comfort in all my affliction. You know why God's done that? He said, He did that so that, so that, so that we will be able to comfort you. God gave him this so that he could use it to be a blessing in the lives of other people. This is a spiritual principle. It applies to everything we own, beloved. Everything we own, everything we have. This is how God operates. Nine times out of ten, it's going to be an interruption. Maybe you get one once in a while according to your own schedule, but it don't happen very often. Like I told you before, this is how Jesus Christ operates, my friends. He came to this earth to die on the cross. You don't think that was an interruption in His heavenly glory? I'm telling you, he left heaven above, came to this earth, born of a virgin, laid in a manger, lived a life on this earth as a human being, subject to all the things that we're subject to, went to the cross, was nailed to a tree, had a crown of thorns put on his head, and he hung there for six hours, died for us, in your place, so you wouldn't have to die under the wrath and the hand of God. That's how it works. That's how it operates, folks. So the Bible says that Daniel, after the interview that he had with Nebuchadnezzar, because of Ariok, because Ariok went on his behalf, right? So the Bible says in verse 17 that he leaves that time that he had with Nebuchadnezzar, that interview he had with Nebuchadnezzar, and the Bible says he went home. He went home. He'd done all he could do. We have a heavenly home we're going to. You see, we're going home. Daniel went to a physical house. We're going to a heavenly home. You see, that ought to motivate us even more to be a blessing to somebody else. Because we're leaving this world behind and everything we have, we're leaving it behind. We're not going to take anything. As it's been said a thousand times, there's never been a U-Haul behind hers. And it's true. We are leaving it all behind. Heading toward a great heavenly future. You are never more like Christ than when you are sacrificially giving yourself for somebody else. That's hard. That's really, really hard. It goes directly against our sin natures. But they were never more like Christ. and we're sacrificing for other people. This is the essence of Christ-likeness. May God help us to see it and to do it. Well, let's pick up the scene again. So Daniel went to his house and informed his friends, Hananiah, Meshachel, and Azariah about the matter. Now, he doesn't tell us what the matter is, does he? He says, I'm going to go, I'm going to tell my friends about the matter. Well, where is the matter? The matter is back in verse 18. It says in verse 18, Daniel said to his friends, at the end of verse 18, he says in verse 18, he said to his friends that they would not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. So Daniel gets home and he says, hey, I just came from the king's presence. Guess what? He's got this crazy idea that he's going to kill all of us. You know, that's the matter. That's the problem at this particular time. The king's going to kill us all. And so you can imagine how they would react. They reacted very naturally. They said, we don't want to die. They said, we don't want to be destroyed, it says in verse 18, with the rest of these wise men. Pretty natural reaction. You would expect that to happen, you know, and they hadn't done anything worthy of that. They hadn't broken any laws. It's just the king wanted them dead. So Ariok's influence with the king was over. And Ariok had gone as far as he could go, right? He couldn't do anymore. He could not save the lives of these wise men. He was done. He was through. Daniel himself had exhausted all of his human resources. He had done everything that he could possibly do as a human being. Matter of fact, you go back to verse 14. What does it say in verse 14? That Daniel used his discretion and his discernment. If you've got another version of the Bible, it may say there that he used his wisdom and his prudence. The point is this, is that he had bought some time by doing everything that he could possibly do, but he didn't solve the problem. He was definitely killed. He bought some time. He used his discretion. He used his wisdom. He used his prudence. He used everything that he had available to him, but he still was a dead man. He was still a dead man. There's a guy by the name of Solomon in the Old Testament. Solomon was one of the wisest men that ever lived. He was a godly man, okay, up to a point. He was a wise man, godly man, man of faith, right? Good guy. Here's what the Bible says about Solomon. He also built Upper Beth-haran and Lower Beth-haran. fortified cities with walls and gates and bars and Baalath and all the storage cities that Solomon had and all the cities for his chariots and cities for his horsemen and all that it pleased Solomon to build in Jerusalem and Lebanon and in all the land under his rule. So what's going on here? What am I talking about here? I'm telling you that Solomon took his resources, every resource he had. And the Bible says here that he fortified cities with walls and gates and bars, and that he had cities for his horsemen, and he had cities for his chariots, that Solomon had done everything possible for a human being to do. Right? He'd done everything. You know, God expects us to do everything we can do. God expects you to do everything you can do. That's not a sin. You know, when God put Adam in the garden, He told him to cultivate the garden, to work the garden, right? But Adam couldn't control the rain or how much rain they had. He couldn't control the clouds. He couldn't control the sun. He couldn't cause what he was cultivating to grow. He couldn't do any of that. He had to go out there and cultivate it, and he had to leave the rest up to God. He didn't have any control over that other stuff. So Solomon goes out here and Solomon does everything he can do. Daniel goes out here and does everything he can do. You ought to go out here and do everything you can do. Right? Bible says this, Paul talked to the church at Rome, and he said, hey, don't be lagging behind in diligence. What? Don't be slackers. Don't be lagging behind in diligence. Be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. And again, in 1 Peter, Peter said this, As each one has received a spiritual gift, employ it, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. He says, hey, you got a good, you got a spiritual gift, put it to work. Put it to work. Go out there and do something. Colossians says this, Paul said, whatever you do, Do you work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men? Get out there and he says work hard, heartily. He says this in Proverbs, the soul of a sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat. The soul of the diligent is made fat. When you go to Walmart, don't apply that. You see a lot of things at Walmart. Not what he's talking about, not what he's talking about. You know, it's one thing for us to do what we know we need to do and trust in ourselves. It's another thing to know, another thing to go out here and do what we know we need to do and trust on the Lord, right? And that's what Solomon, and that's what Daniel is doing here. Daniel did what he could do, everything humanly possible, but ultimately here to trust the Lord. And we're going to see that next week, or week after rather. Paul said, "...slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men's pleasures, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." I want you to notice how important what Paul said there was. This is important. Why do you think Paul is telling these slaves to do their work, but to do it with their eyes on the Lord? Why do you think Paul was telling these slaves to do that? Because being a slave was horrible. You did the most menial, what? Something like that. What is it? Thank you. That's what I'm looking for. Menial. They did the menial despised, lowest, tasked, that could possibly be done by a human being. But what does Paul say? Hey, look at your lowly life, and as boring as it is, as menial as it is, as lowly as it is, as humble as it is, you do it to the Lord. Why? Because that gave their work meaning, and fulfillment, and even contentment, and dignity, and value, and importance. That's why. That's why. If they did it with their eyes on the Lord, they had dignity, and they had value, and they had importance, and they had meaning. And this is just true of the slave. It is a biblical principle that we are to apply to our everyday lives. For the Bible says this, whatever you do then, eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. And that's what Daniel was doing. But he was limited. Well, so, what are we gonna take home? Okay, we gotta go home, right? Gotta go home. Well, number one, as I've just told you, God has given every one of you talents, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. And they are to be used to do His will. And everybody here has what it takes to faithfully serve God. And God expects you to do those things. So you get up tomorrow morning. I don't know what your schedule has tomorrow morning. I don't know what you've got to do this week. But you get up tomorrow morning and you're saying to yourself, I am going to live this day for the honor and glory of God. I don't want to see you standing on the street corner paddling. I don't want to see you there. That's not what you're supposed to do. That's not God's will. Don't do it. Okay? He expects you to go to work. Don't depend on the government. Don't be idle. Don't be daydreaming. Go to work and trust the Lord with whatever you're doing. Alright? I tell you what, if you'll do that, I guarantee your life will be fulfilled. Okay? And you'll be content. You'll be content. Second, be a blessing to somebody, okay? Be a blessing. If somebody was a blessing to you, you'll be a blessing. You open your eyes and you look around and you see something that you can do. And yes, it's probably going to be an interruption in your life. It's probably going to be an interruption in your schedule. It probably is. That's the very essence of being a blessing. It's being a sacrifice. It's making a sacrifice. That is what being a blessing means. Okay, number three. Thank someone for contributing to your life. You know, thankfulness is a powerful joy maker. Thankfulness is a powerful joy maker. You get out and you think of people that's contributed to your life and you thank God for them. And I tell you what, it'll encourage you. It'll strengthen you. It'll lighten your load. You may not understand at the beginning, but you keep doing it and it'll lighten your load in life. Number four. Please don't be swayed by what the world is promoting as right and wrong. Outside of God, men cannot truly determine what is right and wrong. We live in a God-rejecting society, a God-rejecting age today. We are living in a lawless age, and you can see it in the confusion in our society, in our culture, in our government. Confusion reigns everywhere. People can't figure out if they're a man, they can't figure out if they're a woman, they can't figure out if they're a cat or a dog. They don't know who they are. They can't get it straightened out. It's lawlessness. It's crazy. They're trying to drown their pain in drugs and alcohol and pornography and sex and entertainment, whatever they can do. People are killing people because they don't like the way you talk to them. They don't like the way you say, they don't like the way you act. Whatever the case may be. We're out here trying to kill each other. That's the essence of lawlessness. This world needs Jesus, folks. This world needs Jesus. And I realize that some people you're going to talk to, they don't want to hear about Jesus. I get that. I understand that. It is true. It is real. But they still need Jesus. There's a moral void in our culture. There's a darkness. And you're the light. You are the light showing them their depravity, showing them their sinfulness, and showing them their lostness. You need to show them the righteousness of God with the law of God. They don't know, folks. They don't understand the depth of their depravity or the depth of their sin, how it's going to cost them eternity in hell. They don't understand that. You do. You have a responsibility. You have a responsibility when you leave this building to take the gospel with you and share it with somebody. You're going to be held responsible for that by God. People need to know that they are lost and undone, that they're on their way to hell because they are unrighteous before a righteous God. They don't understand that God is completely and wholly righteous and He does not accept anything less than His standard and cannot accept anything less than His standard, and that He sent Jesus Christ to be the righteousness that they need. They need to understand that. They need to understand that Jesus Christ went to the cross in their place as their substitute, as their Redeemer, to pay for their sins. They need to understand that. You and I are the lights. We are their only hope in transferring the gospel to them. Get serious about it. Get serious about it. You say, well, this country's going to pot. I don't care where it goes. You still got a responsibility to run the gospel of Jesus Christ. Period. You're not released from that. I'm going to ask Brother R.D. to help us with a hymn this morning. The message is the same. It doesn't change. Repent. Repent. That's what we tell people. Repent of your sin. Of any ability you think you have to do right before God. You have none. Please put your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior before it's too late. Please. Let's stand together. Father, we come before you and thank you so much for the opportunity to open up your Word and to study it. It's painful. The truth and reality of it strikes my own heart, my own weaknesses, my own sinfulness. And I have to confess that before you. And I do that right now. Father, I pray that you would help me to understand and see people like you see people. You see them, Father. You see their eternal destinies. And you also know, Heavenly Father, those eternal destinies can be affected by the gospel of Jesus Christ if we'll just open our mouths and share it with somebody unashamedly and unabashedly and prove to the world that we are Christians. Because we love, not only do we love each other, but we love lost people. No matter what they say, no matter what they think, no matter what they do, it doesn't matter. There is no condition on our love for lost people. It is conditionless. The same way you love us, even right now, even at this very moment, your love for us is unconditional. And you love us. And You sent Your Son to die for us and to give us the hope of eternal life. Now, Father, I pray that You would cause us to reflect on this message throughout the coming week, that we might apply these precious principles of the Word of God and live boldly for You. Help us, Lord, because we're weak and we're fallible and we're subject to the temptations of this world. Help us to meet those temptations in the power of Christ and be patient with us. In His name we pray. Amen.