It's a length thing. Remember the disciples asked Jesus, increase our faith, and he never told them how. All he said was if you had faith, as the grain of a mustard seed, you'd say unto this mountain, be thou removed and cast into the sea, and it would. So he never gave them a formula for increasing faith. Why? Because there is no formula for this greater, bigger, heavier faith. The idea of faith is the duration of faith. Think about it. If it only takes the grain of a mustard seed of faith to say unto this mountain, Be thou removed. and be cast into the sea, whether you think that is a literal, you know, I can talk to, you know, Mount McKinley, not Denali, McKinley, and say, go into the Bering Sea, and if that's what you think that means, well, that's fine as well. But, I mean, generally mountains are indicative of problems, and there are illustrations of problems in the Bible. And Jesus was saying, I don't have time to get into that. But faith, let me say this, Jesus was not giving a formula to have a greater quantity of faith. He was saying just if you had faith, that's all he said. So it's measured in duration, not measured in length. It's measured in those that die in faith. They still have their faith intact when it comes time to die. So it is the trials of life that the faith that we do have is put to the test. And without trials, we would never know the power of the faith that is in our lives. I mean, think about that. We just wouldn't know. I mean, we can think of all the types of illustrations in life that follow this same suit here. I mean, if anybody ever broke in your house, you wouldn't know how that nine millimeter really worked, right? Yeah, it's like, wow, that thing works. That stopped him. That's a bad illustration, I know. But we saw that the, yeah. Alright, back to James. We saw last week that there are some things that we have to know about. There are some things we have to know if our faith is going to be in operation in our life. You can have faith and it can sit there dormant. Because you don't live in it, you don't operate in it, you don't see what the possibility of it is. And so, there are some things that we have to know, and this is what is listed here in James chapter 1. First thing that we saw that we had to know was that we must know that God allows trials in our life. Trials come from God to test us, to equip us, to prepare us for what He has for us down the road. Today's tests are preparations for tomorrow's trials. He's preparing us constantly. So we've got to know this. We've got to know that God allows trials in our life. Number two, we saw that we have to know that when trials come in our life, there is a response for us to have. And that response is that we stop where we are and we beg God for wisdom. We ask Him for wisdom. Do you know, this is the only thing of all of the prayer requests we can come to God before. We can have assurance that He hears us. We can have assurance that God is gonna answer us. But there are some things that we know that we categorize that God will answer us by this way, maybe a wait or a no or something like that. But it is the request for wisdom that we are told, without a shadow of a doubt, He will never say no. He will never say no. Why? I think it's wisdom to ask for wisdom. I mean, you're already starting out pretty good. And God will never say no. He said, he upbraideth not. He will never turn you away. He will never say no to wisdom. And anybody can get it. And you can see this in verse nine. The poor can get wisdom. In verse 11, 10 through 11, the rich can get wisdom. I love this. He only spends a little blurb in verse nine about those. Look at verse nine there. Let the brother of low degree rejoice, and that he is exalted. How is he exalted? He has access to the throne of God, this is the context of wisdom, to ask for wisdom. But then he spends two verses to talk about the rich. Why? Because they generally look for wisdom in their wealth and their riches. They can buy themselves off. They can buy their problems away many times. Look what he says, but the rich and that he is made low. You know what the rich have to do? They have to humble themselves to come for the creator of the universe and say, I need your wisdom. Because yes, I've got a pile of money, and I've got success in the world's eyes written everywhere, but I don't know how to deal with this. Well, you gotta humble yourself to come there. And he says, but the rich in that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. This is what the rich have to realize. All that money you have, all the property you own, all the things you have, you're gonna leave it behind. You've heard it a million times. Nobody's ever seen a U-Haul buying hers. They're not bringing it with them. They're not dragging it with them. It's all staying behind for somebody else. And this was what drove Solomon crazy when he realized, when he was so backslidden, he looked at all of his stuff and said, somebody's going to come along and just destroy and waste everything I've built up in my life. Well, yeah, Bubba, they are. And yours and mine too. That's why you don't leave it to your kids. Just, you know, send it on ahead. Send it to the kingdom of God, you know. So anyway, my kids are all richer than I am anyway. They don't need it. I'm going to need them for a good nursing home. That's what I'm going to do. So anyway, the rich can get wisdom though. The poor can get wisdom. And we have to know that when trials come, we need wisdom. Thirdly, we must know what isn't from God. I don't need to spend a lot of time on this, but the consequences of the lust of our flesh, that is not a trial of God. It may be correction, it may be discipline, it may be all sorts... You know what else it really is? It's just the consequences of sowing and reaping. That's all, I mean, God, I don't know why we get surprised at that. God said, whatsoever you sow, that shall you also, whichever you sow, that shall you also reap. You sow to the flesh corruption, you're gonna reap of the flesh, you know, you know, sow to the flesh a whirlwind, you're gonna reap corruption. I messed that up. You get the idea. You're gonna reap what you sow. So the consequences of the lust of our flesh, that is not, we cannot stop and say, oh, oh, the Lord is really trying me right now. Why is that? Why, how, what are you talking about? I was in a school zone going, oh, I don't know, about 85 miles an hour. The policeman came out and he turned the lights on and he finally caught me about three counties away, dragged me out of the car, broke my wrist, broke my nose on the pavement, got about $1,000 in fines and spent a night in jail. And oh, the Lord, I tell you, the testings of the Lord. No, you dope, you broke a law and you got what you deserve, right? That wasn't God, that was you. Now, watch this. The consequences of the lust of our flesh do not require faith to press through them like the trials of God do, like the testings of God. They require repentance to turn away from them. and to change course. So we have to know what isn't of God. The consequences of our flesh bring upon spiritual death. Look at verses 16 and 17. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The Bible says God gives good gifts and no sorrow with them. You have sorrow in where you're at, in what's coming to you. The sorrow of the consequences of sin, not God. God didn't do that. God doesn't do that. God sends good gifts. And so we need to know what isn't from God. Fourthly, we need to know why God allows trials in our life. Why would God do that? It doesn't seem cruel. Well, didn't your children think you were cruel for some of the things you put in their life? profitable to society someday and not just a leech, right? What did you do? You put parameters around your life, their life. You beat the fire out of them sometimes. You taught them and you paid for education and you did all sorts of things that they didn't like at the time. And when they got older and they were successful in society, they would turn around and thank you for it. Yeah. Absolutely. When I wanted to start piano lessons, my mother, you can ask her Sunday, my mother said, well, if you start, you're not stopping. And of course you're fine. Five. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. She was a, she was a slave driver folks. She'd go, well, you're going to sit there for 30 minutes. You might as well play. I'm sobbing. You know, I want to be outside, you know, You're beating something up or you know, something, you know, no, you're going to sit there for 30 minutes. So I'd play begrudgingly. She just, man, she's relentless. You know, I'm glad for that today. I enjoy sitting down at the piano. It's wonderful. Yeah. So God, we have to know that God allows these trials in our life for a reason. One pastor has said this, I love this. He says, God was so pleased with his son that he wanted many more just like him. No, this is the purpose of God's trials and testings in our life. To be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is in the process of making us like Jesus. That's what He's doing. And know what this requires? Testing. Why? To get the junk out of our life that isn't like Christ. And sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it's hot, and sometimes it's no fun. But there's a goal in the end of it. If you remember Job in Job chapter 23, Job is saying he's looking for God. He says, I go forward and I can't find Him. I look behind me, I can't find Him. I can't find Him on my right hand. I can't find Him on my left hand. He said, I'm just looking everywhere for God. And then he comes to this conclusion. But He knoweth the way that I take. In the midst of Job's wondering where God was in the trial of his life, he says, God knows me though. God knows where I am. And listen to what he says at the end of it. When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. You know what Job understood in the midst of the pain of his life? It was a testing of God. He had done nothing wrong. It wasn't the consequence of his sin. It was a testing of God, and he knew he was going to come out at the end of it better. Ten children dead and buried in a grave? He still understood, no, God, I know my Redeemer liveth and He'll stand on the earth someday. No, Job understood where God was. And he understood it was a testing of God and He had a purpose in it that He'd come out purified. So why does God want us purified? Why does God want us purified? Look at verse 18. of His own will begot He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures." Firstfruits. You know, firstfruits are the first of any crop. They are the first of any herd of animal that was set aside and presented to God as an offering. So this is God's goal, this is the goal of the Lord for us, this is the goal of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are set aside as the first fruits, we are set aside as an offering to God. What are you talking about? Well, think about this. God devised the plan of redemption. Jesus died to make it possible. The very least we could do is to present our body as an offering to God. You know what Romans 12.1 says, don't you? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. What, which is your reasonable service? Not a big deal. You know what I get tired of among believers today? They're just whining crybabies. Just crybabies. Oh, the Christian life is so hard. Really? You know anybody who's been quartered by horses? You know anybody crucified upside down? You know anybody boiled in oil because they wouldn't recant and change their mind in their relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you ever experienced anything like that? Oh, we're so soft. We're so soft. The tortures that our brothers and sisters went through in years past. does not even pale in comparison to the ease of life that we have today. And we say, oh, dress like a Christian, talk like a Christian, act like a Christian, look like Christ, act like, oh, it's so hard. Wine bags. A living sacrifice. I love what Clarence Sexton said about this text here in Romans 12.1. He said, the problem with a living sacrifice is that it always wants to crawl off the altar. No, we don't like staying on the altar, do we? That's why I said, present yourself. This is an act of the will. We have to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy, holy, holy, acceptable unto God, which is reasonable service. So to become a child of God, eligible for the status of firstfruits, yeah, there's gotta be a testing process. And do you know This testing process requires our response and action as well. We respond. We respond to God's testing, and there's a way that we respond to it. There's a way we should not respond to it, and there's a way we should respond to it. After all, think about this. We are dealing with a real relationship with the living God. Of course there's going to be responses to God. Can you tell me of any other type of relationship on the planet that is totally one-sided? I'm talking in the human realm. I'm not talking about cats. Cats are one-sided. It's all about them. I'm talking about in the human realm. If you have a one-sided relationship with another human being, you don't have a relationship. You don't. It's got to be reciprocal. Now, you might be a weird stalker, but that's not a relationship. No, that's creepy. Relationships are reciprocal. And here's what I want to look at tonight, the rest of this chapter here. I want to deal with this subject. We've been looking at a faith that outlives the trials, a faith that outlives the trials, outlasts the trials. The rest of this chapter, I want to look at a faith that outworks the trials, outworks the trials. Talking about a work salvation? Oh, you guys are students of the Bible, you know what this means here. This is a reminder, I understand that. I'm thankful I don't have to reteach a lot of stuff. But we're gonna look at a faith that outworks the trials. Chaol of chapter one is dealing with God's testing process. And the end of the chapter is where we see where our responsibility is lived out in this testing process. So the first response that we should have when testing comes, number one is this. Stop talking and listen. Just zip the lip and listen for a little while. Look at verse 19. Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear. slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls." So we need to stop talking And we need to listen. I remember I was, oh, about 20, 21 years old. I had this beautiful 1970 model Dodge three-quarter ton pickup. Those of you who know what that truck is, it wasn't beautiful. It was a beast of a machine that was just awful. And we had this wonderful, exciting thing we used to do was down South Aurora, there's these creeks you'd have to drive through to get to some friend's house. And sometimes we'd just see how fast we'd get through the creek. And I was, man, I was rolling right along too. And I hit the water, it was a little bit deep, and man, it just like ripped all of the exhaust out. I come out of the water, it's... I was like, oh, there goes the exhaust. And the church the next week, this kid who lived down there, he said, I think your exhaust is in my yard. I'm like, all right, I'll come get it later. And this is what rednecks do for fun. And lost my tailgate. It was awful. Well, I got driving and got into town and the thing died on me. And a buddy of mine, his folks owned a garage there, they still do, well his mom does, there in Aurora, and we pushed it into the bay, and we were looking over it, and it's late, about 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night, something like that, and his dad comes over, and he begins helping us on this thing, and it was actually just me and his dad. And so we're looking at stuff, and his dad starts explaining things to me in the motor. Well, here's this, and here's that. It's an old 318 Chrysler, just a great motor. And I couldn't figure out why it wasn't running. We took the cap off and see if there was water in it, all sorts of stuff. And he's explaining something to me, and he's talking along, and I'm kind of nodding, and I'm nodding, and he stops. And he was half Cherokee Indian. He was a real skinny man, but he had this big, deep, growly voice. And he said, you're nodding your head, but you're not listening to a word I say. And I'm, oh, OK. That scared me, you know? He was right. I didn't hear a word he said. I thought I already knew it. I was already thinking about something else while he was trying to show me something. And here we have here in James, you know what he's saying? Same thing. Zip the lip and just listen. Quit nodding your head and listen to what God has to say. Alright? Listen first. Here's what he says. Swift to hear. Listen first and listen fast. Be quick to listen. Going through a trial tonight? Quit talking and start listening. One has said this, you've heard this many times, we have two ears and one mouth. Maybe we should listen twice as much as we talk. Yeah, I know, I know who's just said, I know I just said that, okay, I understand that. So, I need to listen more. But what are we to listen to? Oprah? Can't be Oprah. She has her own problems. She doesn't have truth. Can't be Dave Ramsey. Oh, he has some good stuff, but he's become an idol among believers sometimes. I'll tell you about it later if you don't know what I mean. Can't be the media. Bunch of liars. Can't be them. You know what it is, don't you? We're listening to the Word of God. Romans 10, 17, "...so then faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God." Do you remember when Elijah, he had just wiped out 850 prophets, I think it was 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of Jezebel, brought them up to Carmel, wiped them all out, killed them all, and Jezebel was mad and she said, you're going to be just like them here by tomorrow. And so Elijah got all upset, he got scared, he started running away. And I still remember Lester Olaf said one day, he said, I've got enough flesh in me. At 67 years old, I wish Elijah had turned around and grabbed Jezebel by the heels and popped her head off. That's what he said. Yep. He didn't though, he ran. He was afraid. And he got under the juniper tree. God told him to go up to Horeb. He goes up to Horeb. He goes up into the cave, up into Horeb. And then God says, come to the mouth of the cave. You remember this, comes to the mouth of the cave. And the Bible says that God passed by Elijah. And the Bible says there was a great wind that the rocks were broken and broken apart. And then the Bible says a great earthquake came. And then the Bible says a fire came. And after each one of those events that Elijah was standing there for, the Bible says, and after the... He said, there is a great wind, but then it says, but God was not in the wind. And after the earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. And after the fire, but God was not in the fire. And in 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 12, the Bible says that, and after the fire, He said, a still small voice. And then God spoke to Elijah. Elijah was up there complaining, I'm the only one left, I'm the only one around, I'm the only one doing right, there's nobody else doing right. And God told Elijah, Elijah, there's 7,000 that haven't bowed their knee to Baal. You're not the last one left. Just be a man, go back to work. And he did. But don't miss this. You know, listen, one of the worst things that we can do When we are in the trials of life, one of the worst things that we can ever do is to look at our circumstances for the answer instead of the voice of God. You see, the circumstances in Elijah's life were only there for Elijah to stop so he would stop what he was doing and hear the voice of God. The circumstance was not the answer. It never is the answer. It never is. It's the voice of God that's the answer. And so here we are in James, he says, be quiet, be quick, listen, here he is, be swift to hear, slow to speak. Quit talking and listen. This is the first thing we're told to do. Our ears should be quick to listen for the word of God, for the voice of God. Where's the voice of God? In your Bible. He said, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. Well, if He didn't speak to you Scripture, it wasn't the Holy Spirit. He said, well, He told me to do this. If it's not the Word of God, it wasn't Him. Try the spirits, see whether they be of God. Remember, I think it was Eliphaz who told Job all these great swelling words of God, and when he comes to the end, and we're going to get to Job again here, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but he was dealing with Eliphaz. And you know what God said about Eliphaz? I didn't say that. You know, there's many people that say they're speaking the Word of God, and they're not. They're not. What are we listening to? We're listening to the Word of God. How do you know it's the Word of God? Well, you gotta read it! and memorize it, and meditate upon it. I think we've lost that art of meditating on the Word of God. Day and night, day and night. Oh, I went up to a preacher's meeting here just Monday and Tuesday, up to Hannibal, Missouri, and a new church plant there, a great little place, and I got to hear a man preach by the name of Greg, anyway, starts with a G, last name of Yoder. You know what he was, don't you? That's right, he was Amish. Got saved back in 1984, he told us about his testimony, what a wonderful testimony. And he said the guy that came into our community was a driver, and all he would do is put his Bible up on the dashboard, and he might ask a question about the Amish, and I'd tell him something, or he said I'd ask him a question, and all he'd say was this, grab that Bible up there on my dash, and turn to Romans, You know, turn to Titus. He said, I come back next week. Oh, no, it's got to be works, works, works. Would you grab my Bible? Turn to Titus. Read that for me, would you? Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. He got saved. He got saved and over nine families came out of that Amish community in northern Indiana. And they're still shunned to this day. One of the men, Brother Schrock, his son was here. His son and his wife have come here a couple of times to visit on vacation. And Brother Schrock's parents, I got to meet them this weekend. And his father is a very, very wealthy man. He'll never see a dime of it. They left that community and still shunned. But you know what? When Brother Yoder preached, you know what I was taken by? The memory of Scripture. The guy never looked down at a thing. Passages you don't memorize, okay? John 3... No, they weren't John 3, 16. These were the middle of Isaiah. These were the end of Ezekiel. I mean, this was like... My goodness, I was taken back by this indictment really. He knew the Word of God. He had memorized the Word of God. We need to be in the Word of God. We hear the voice of the God in the Word of God. We hear Him in the preaching of the Word of God, if it is the preaching of the Word of God. So we need to listen first, and we need to listen fast. Secondly, we need to be slow to speak. And the hardest thing to do in the midst of a trial is to keep our mouth shut. No, this is the first thing I do. Call this one, call that one, ask this one, talk to this one. What do you do about that? This is just what we do, isn't it? We just run our mouth constantly, hoping to get something that we like that we hear from somebody else in the midst of our trial. I talked about Job and his three friends, and remember they talked and they pontificated for hours and days and months, I think it was, and at the end of it they finally ran out of stuff to say, and it was Elihu who piped up the younger man, he says, Do you mind if I say a word or two? Now that you guys are all... What did he do for all this time? He listened to them. He heard everything they said. But he shut his mouth and he listened. And at the end of it, he defended God. And you know what? At the end of it, Elihu was never mentioned by God except that God... This is great. God almost said verbatim what Elihu had told Job. Yeah. He just, what did he do? He just kept his mouth shut and he listened. He listened and he came back with the truth of the word of God. Many times, the multiplicity of words, listen closely please, the multiplicity of words many times is the evidence of a lack of faith. Sometimes it's a lack of faith. Why are we running the mouth so much? Because we're not trusting God. Psalm 46.10, what did David say? Be still, and know that I am God. The mark of faith, the mark of trust, the mark of reliance upon God is stillness. Stillness. So be quick to listen, be slow to speak, and thirdly, be slow to wrath. Wrath is a violent anger. Wrath is indignation. Wrath is a anger that boils up quickly and then subsides quickly. It's what happens when I drive through Springfield. Lots of wrath. Yeah. Anybody agree? Am I the only one? Certainly some of you. She gave you away, Miss Healy. Yeah, it's rough, isn't it, brother? It is tough driving around these people sometimes. But you know what Proverbs 14, 29 says? Sorry, I've had to take this in too. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is of a hasty spirit, exalt of folly, lifts up and makes preeminent folly and foolishness. Proverbs 21, 24, it gets worse. Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath. Wrath. Galatians chapter 5, the works of the flesh are listed there in verses 19 through 21. And in verse 20, we have a list here in Galatians, a list in the midst of a list of the works of the flesh, the evidence of the flesh. Listen to these. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath. Here it is. Wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. See, wrath is a work of the flesh. It's not a work of the spirit. This is why it says here in verse 20, For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. That word worketh means to bring about. Fleshly, proud wrath cannot bring about righteousness. It's not possible. Some of you that, or one of you that has, some of you that have little kids, or older kids, and grandkids, I've always had trouble with the verse that's flung out there, you know, fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but raise them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. And it gets preached many times, oh, don't make them mad, don't make them mad. So what do you do, just stop giving rules? That makes no sense. No, what does the word provoke mean? It just means to prod along into. What is he saying? It's not the provoking of, oh, I push somebody in the corner and provoke them. No, it's don't aid your children in living in the flesh. That's what wrath is. It's an outworking of the flesh. And fathers are told, don't push your children to live in the flesh. Push them to live in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, to walk in the Spirit. Yeah. Wrath is an outworking of the flesh and it cannot produce righteousness. You know, when trials come into our life and we get angry and lash out in our selfish wrath, you know, nobody looks into our life and goes, wow, they must know God. What a wonderful working of grace in their life. What an example of Christ-likeness. I can't believe they're going through this right now. And look how they're responding. No, that doesn't come about. That doesn't come about when we respond to the trials that God puts in our life, when we respond to them in wrath. As it is explained here in verse 21, look at this. "...Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity..." That just means an overflowingness, superfluity. "...of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word..." The engrafted Word. I almost said of God, but it didn't say that. The engrafted Word. So here's what we do in the trials of life, in the testings of God. We set aside our responses of the flesh, wrath and anger. We set that aside. We receive with meekness. You know what that word meek means? We remember this, right? It means power under control. No, we have the power to get angry. We have the ability to get mad. But what meekness does, it says, no, I'm not going to take advantage of that what I have. and I'm going to live in a way of submission, in meekness, okay? So we put aside the flesh, we receive the Word of God, we accept it in meekness, the engrafted Word. That word engrafted means implanted, it means inborn, it means implanted by others' instruction. So it is Jesus Himself, the Word of God, who by the Spirit of God indwells our bodies." So what do we do? We put away the wrath, we put away the response to the trial and anger, and with meekness we just receive what God's doing in our life. We get in the Word of God, and we listen to Him, and do what He tells us to do. This is how we respond to the trials that God brings into our life that are for our refining and for His purpose. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Why? Because the world's watching. The world's watching. You know, up at the preacher's meeting, we've been praying in the past, we've prayed for the Hastings family up in Columbia, pastors in Columbia, Jeff Hastings, pastors in Columbia. And we've been praying for that family, and he was scheduled to preach at the meeting, and I was kind of surprised he was there. And he came, and I got to talk to him, and just a tough time in their life. Talk about trials of life. He's going through the trials of life right now. And he preached. He preached a wonderful message on the grace of God, and on God's enablement, and how God prepares us, and what a wonderful message that was. And he said in that message, He said, I buried my wife three weeks ago. 45 years old. They've known each other since high school, been together for 30 years, married for a little less than that. Five kids still at home. One married, five still at home. And he told me, he says, I'm just in a fog. I'm in a fog right now. I just still can't grasp what's happened. And it happened pretty quickly. But you know what is astonishing to me, what is wonderful to me, is the testimony that came out of his wife's life in a hospital room. So this is a trial of God, this is life, this is death. And in her last days, all she was known for was her attitude. was the grace in her life, was her kindness, was her gentleness with people. The nurses would come and see her constantly, they just loved being around her. I was talking to the Sturwalt's and they were actually across the hall, because Brother Sturwalt has the same problem, the colon cancer. And Mrs. Sterwalt said, I just cried, I just cried and cried and cried, watching the little kids come out of that room day in and day out, waiting for their mom to go. And it was just tough, it was hard. But in the midst of that trial, her response, the only thing people knew about her response was, wow, what grace. Attempted to share Christ with the nurses. I mean, just who she was. She didn't have to build this up. This is who she was in Christ. She's a mature believer. And what a testimony. What a testimony at the end of life to have. I pray to God that I'm in a spiritual condition that I would have the same testimony. I think you do as well. But, you know, on the opposite of that, I have a family member who's gone through some great trials. I've got to be careful here. Gone through great trials. Much older in life. Past the 70 years that God has promised, okay, or that says is kind of normal. So they have done nothing really to put their life in alignment with the obedience to God. Haven't been in church in probably 40 years. And you know what the response is? Anger at God. And I'm sorry, I'm just like, seriously? You haven't given God the time of day and you're mad at Him? When just the natural course of life is happening and actually you're living much longer than this one who has found a way to glorify God, knowing that they're leaving this life, never seeing their children married, never seeing their children grow up, never being a part of their life. Come on, knowing what she's leaving, and she can respond to her situation and glorify God, and one over here on the other side, who hasn't given God the time of day, gets angry at God. Makes me sick. No, they're relatives, and I would never tell them that. But no, that's the opposite of what we should do in the trials that God brings into our life. It's God's desire to make us like Christ, and the trials are going to come. And they're for our good. And ultimately, they're for His glory. Absolutely. We don't have time to finish the chapter. I'm going to stop here tonight. Let me just ask you this. How do you respond to God's purifying in your life? How do you respond to God's purifying in your life? You know, if you want a faith that outlasts the trials, you're going to need a faith that outworks the trials. It's going to have to be an operation. And it begins with our initial response to keep quiet, lay aside the wrath, and get into the Word of God. You know what you'll find out? God will be glorified. And I'm going to tell you what, you're going to have a lot nicer life. And we're going to see this later, how the blessings come to those who are doers of the Word of God. We'll look at that, Lord willing, next week. Why don't we stand and we'll have a word of prayer tonight.