 Ah, good morning. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, that you are on the throne. We can put our hope and our trust in you. Even if things may not be turning out right or perhaps we're challenged. Father, you're with us. You go before us, you're behind us, you're beside us. Father, let us keep our eyes on you this morning and not be distracted. Father, pray for you to let your word speak to us, open our hearts to be humbled and available to what your Holy Spirit wants to show us. And just thank you for being on your throne that we can put our trust in you. In Jesus' name, amen. So how many have you had at times in life where everything finally was smooth? You know, you're finally on cruise control. You know what I'm talking about? How many of you, you know what I'm talking about? Everything's just finally working out and there you are on cruise control. And then what happens? Suddenly a big cow gets to the middle of the road and you have to go left or right or have lots of hamburger meat. And that line works much better in Texas, but anyway. So that's what happened to me. I was the Western coordinator for an organization in back east called Rutherford and I was coordinate litigation here on the West Coast and they said, Brad, we're scaling back. We're shutting down all our regional offices. But don't worry, we have a promotion for you. Why don't you head up our public affairs office in Washington, D.C. And you'll have a higher salary, larger staff, larger office and you'll be the face of the organization with all radio and television for the organization. I thought, well, I don't have to pray about this because obviously God's closing one door opening another door, you have to pray about those things, right? Yeah, I see you get your answer. And then I had insomnia the next night, insomnia, next night, insomnia. And then I realized, oh, shoot, I got to pray. Yeah, why did I not want to pray? I'll tell you why. Because in my life when I have this fork on the road and there's the easy way and then there's this other way requiring faith, guess where I'm convicted usually when I pray? The hard way, so I had no choice, so I prayed. And when I did the Lord put this on my mind which was a question, Brad, what desires have I put on your heart? And the answer was to make sure people got the help where it was needed most here in California. Next question, what am I gonna follow? The desires God's put on my heart or something else like my obsession with security. And my dad was an entrepreneur and that's all I'm saying, okay, some of you people, ladies in particular are going, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so with boldness and courage, I said, yes, Lord, I will go where you're calling me to go. I will follow you where you want me to go. I will do what you want me to do on several conditions. It's just what happened. And I was scared, right? Because this was totally outside my ball game to start something. And so I just put it all on the table. By the way, does God want us to put it on the table? Does he ever want us to hold anything back? No, let me ask you this. Where do you go in the Bible when you want to be encouraged? When you're discouraged, you want to be lifted up? Where do you go? Book of Numbers, no, no, Psalms. That's more to sleep, no, I'm teasing. But Psalms, right? And what, and you go to Psalms, you go, let's see, oh yeah. Ooh, ooh, not this one. Oh, ooh, ooh, not this one, not this one. Oh, oh, this one, this one right here. We're all guilty of being Psalm flippers, okay? We're all Psalm flippers. Why are we all Psalm flippers? Because David was a man of God's own heart. David put it all on the table through the Holy Spirit. It all was out there when he was excited, when he felt victorious, when he felt abandoned, discouraged, he just put it all on the table. And that's what God wants us to do. No matter what we're going through, we have a God that is intimate enough with us and loves us enough and knows us more than we know our own children, right? This is our Heavenly Father. He wants us to be open and honest with us. And when we are, God uses that and blesses us. Like he even changed our perspective at times. So anyway, I put it all on the table. I says, God, I just have a few minor requirements. I wanna make sure, absolutely, this is from you. So I need free office space and definitely donated in Sacramento. Free computer system, donated. You gotta keep me on the radio stations for free. There were two at the time to interview me weekly. We have to be in the Black God in just three months and I'm not gonna charge anyone at any time for any work I ever do. I thought it was very reasonable with my business plan. So God came through on all of it and by His grace and mercy, He raised it up. Now I'll tell you, He taught me one thing in front of the beginning. I used to think this was gonna be my ministry, serving the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what God taught me from day one? This is God's ministry. And by His grace and mercy, presently as Brad Dick has participating at this time. And it's so true, so true. If I knew how many times He was gonna need to part the waters, I don't think I could have gone forward. I'm just glad He didn't tell me how many, all the things He was gonna have to have happen. But it was exciting and one by one, it was just neat to see how my faith was stretched, how He continued to do His work. Today, fast forward, I was like 25 years ago, we now have offices all across the country in 16 states, 20 offices in 16 states. And you know, from Miami to Boston, South of Seattle, the Orange County, I mean, in many places in between. In fact, our first office, I didn't wanna open another office. I just thought, well, let's keep in California. I have no desire to grow. Why? I mean, we have plenty of stuff here. And then we start having more cases and more and more cases out of state, particularly in Oregon. We had seven cases in litigation. My chief counsel attorney, Kevin Snyder, who's brilliant, by the way, he told me, he said, I said, look, it's cheaper if we just hire an attorney for Oregon. Is this costing us so much to fly and hotel and everything in time? And I said, okay, well, we only have one person really qualified. And that's Ray Hackey. He's in the San Francisco Bay Area office. Needless to say, his nickname, I gave him his Bulldog. Because the whole world could be screaming in his face and he'd still do his oral argument just fine in court. I mean, he's just really good. But I said, but he's not gonna wanna move because his family's in the Bay Area. And his wife teaches at a private Christian school and they're so established, they're not gonna wanna go to Oregon. I said, well, there's not a Friday. I said, well, let's pray about it. Over the weekend and I'll call him on Monday morning. See what he says. Monday morning comes and before I call him, he calls me. And he says, Brad, I don't have to say this. I'm just gonna say it. I can't stay here. My wife and I, we wanna have a house and with your salary, I understand how PGI pays. I totally get that, but we can't even buy a shack here on your salary. So we wanna work for PGI, just let me, no, no, no. Anyway, so he says, so we've decided we're gonna move and we're going to move out of state to Oregon. And I said, did Kevin already talk to you? No, did anyone talk to you at all about Oregon from the office? Anyone? He goes, no, why? We decided on Friday that we were gonna have you move to Oregon and open an office for us. He goes, you're kidding. I said, no, serious. Just how God works. Over and over again in Washington state, we were looking for an attorney up there, partly to defend a pastor minister being prosecuted, criminally prosecuted for preaching the gospel. And so here he is pending prosecution. And he says, and he's out there preaching the gospel in front of a courthouse. I mean, he's just going right for the jugular. He's just preaching the gospel. And this man, this attorney's going up the steps here in the sky preaching, you know? And then stops, turns, listens, and the Holy Spirit convicted his heart. And he walked up and he surrendered his life to Jesus. And that man became open the office to defend the pastor who just led him to Jesus. Anyway, praise God over that. It's how God works. You know, about 30% of our cases are criminal defense cases and everyone we defend has something in common. They're all in ministry. They're all being prosecuted for preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel in public places protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. And it's all over the country. We have these cases now. And the good news is God gives us lots of grace and we usually win. So, which is really nice. But there's a lot of challenges that we're facing. And God comes through and takes care of our radio program. He's heard on 720 stations, more than no, more than 720 stations across the country, more than seven and 30 stations across the country. And it's a really awesome, awesome radio program. I mean, it's my favorite. Okay, it's my show, but it's a good show. I'm a little biased, all right, anyway. But God raises it up and it's really exciting to recognize it's not that it's when it's his baby and just what he's gonna do. And that's the way it is for all of our lives. When we surrender to the Lord and we release it to the Lord, God will surprise us. And we're surrendered to him in his own way and how he works through our lives in different ways. So, did the apostle Paul have challenges stretching his faith? Oh, yes. And he was such a model for rising up to challenges. And in his last letter, 2 Timothy, he's about to die. And he talks about his last letter, he's about to die, he knows he's about to die. And in chapter three, he addresses, I believe, us. And so, turn, if you will, to 2 Timothy, chapter three. Or you know what, don't bother. I'm a lawyer, just trust me. Yeah, I knew that would get you. I once did that to a church. It was an older church, you know, and they didn't laugh at all. They just were flipping real fast. You guys got the joke, that was good. So, 2 Timothy, chapter three. And how do we know it's to us? Well, verse one, it says, but know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come. Notice how I say uncomfortable times might come. No, perilous times will come. It's a promise. And if you're not sure what he means, let's take a look at verse two. For men will be lovers of themselves. Lovers of themselves, by the way. What do they use this for, as far as pictures? They take UIs, theys. No, it's selfies. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, okay. Lovers of money. That is so common. Now, it's okay to save. I love IRAs. I was a finance undergrad. IRA is great. You know, it's 401K. Good, save for the future. But oftentimes it consumes our life, doesn't it? Money, wealth, things like that. And I want you, I felt so convicted by this. I went and sold one of my three yachts. No, I'm just teasing. That was good, you guys got that. Okay, I don't have a yacht. But if any of you do have a yacht, I'd love to go on it with you sometime. I'm just telling you, they're fun, okay. Lovers of money, boasters, proud. What's pride? We're proud, basically what we're saying is, I'm gonna put myself over God, basically, right? I know what's best. Blasphemers openly defying God, attacking that which God says is good. Disobedient to parents. Some of you have teenagers. I'm sorry, no, no, no. No, actually it's the exciting time in life because teenagers are sort of becoming their own in person and they're transferring from childhood to adulthood. They're not adulthood yet. They're no longer children in that transition, right? They're sort of finding their own will and all and it can be an experience. But what we're talking about here is actually children turning away from the teachings that they have learned from their parents into something else. You know what the fastest growing religion in America today is? Nuns. Now I'm not talking about Sally Fields, the flying nun, you know, the convent. I just aged myself, didn't I? Just Dave, okay. What we're talking about here is people who say they're nothing. Say you're an atheist? No. Be this, no, that, no. I'm just nothing. That's the fastest growing religion. It's moving very quickly, particularly in the younger generations. Very, very quickly. People who say basically they don't need God, they don't need faith, they don't need anything. They just think they've got it all together. I will tell you, that's not a good place to be because it's very easy to discover the reality of life that we don't have it all together and we all need the Lord. But that's reality, that's where we're at. Our children, unthankful is the next one. Unthankful, what's the synonym for unthankful? Entitlement, right? If you're entitled to it, do you have to be thankful? And once I was buying something and the person, the salesman says, well, after all, you deserve this. And I said, no, actually I deserve hell. And I shouldn't have been quite so, you know, blunt. Not most effective. After all, that was probably a little much for him, you know, it's like, the reality, we don't deserve anything. It's all God's grace, right? The wages of sin is death. What we deserve is death because of our sin. We don't deserve anything. But our society wants us, oh, you're entitled to it. I just hope they don't change Thanksgiving to entitlement day, you know? It's like, just anyway, just I think it'll ruin the whole thing. I don't think it'll happen. But unthankful, unholy, unholy is being separate from God, who is holy and righteous. Unloving, unloving, unforgiving, unforgiving, you know? I remember this on the news broadcast and there was a politician who was attacked and he asked for forgiveness and the people in the audience, they all forgave him and they all came to, oh, wait a minute, no, I woke up. That was a dream, that's right. It can be pretty nasty, right? We have a society that doesn't uphold grace and forgiveness. Instead it's like, we gotcha. And giving no room for that. Slanders, slanders, that is so bad. In fact, let me tell you about this guy. He was the worst slanderer. His name is, okay, nevermind. All right, put on bumps, you got that one, okay. So slanderers, without self-control, we are so brainwashed to think opposite of this. When I was a child, self-control was good. I really want to eat that ice cream now. No, wait till after you're done with your dinner, then you have your dessert. Now as an adult, I eat it now, okay? But no, but self-control is a good thing. Now if you advocate self-control, involving things that involve temptation, what are you called? I hate monger. You're called all kinds of things if you advocate self-control. The great deceiver, Satan has indoctrinated our whole society to think this way. In fact, you're gonna know it. You're already programmed. Every one of you has been brainwashed. I'm gonna start it and then you're gonna be able to finish it. If it feels good, do it. We're all programmed. Every single person here knew what the answer, the final words were, do it. No, that's giving in to temptation is sin, right? But our society's saying, but if you have a desire for it, that's who you are, just do it. No, that's the deceiver because we all have a desire to sin. You don't have to teach a child, now let me tell you how to sin. You don't have to tell a two and a half year old to say mine, say mine, mine. No, they do it anyway. I've never met a two and a half year old that says you. So it's a part of our nature. And yet our society wants to say if it feels good, do it without self-control. Brutal, despisers of good. Not recognizers of good, despisers of good. You know, it's interesting when I was a kid growing up, there were two kinds of people pretty much in society. And there were those that went to church and those be knowing that they should be going to church. And they say, you know, pastor, I'm sorry to get to church Sunday morning. I just had one brisky too many last night, you know, but I'll be coming on Christmas when it comes. That was sort of my kind of cultural background growing up. And now you've got those who are followers of Jesus and you have those who hate followers of Jesus. And our nation as a society, as a culture has a big rift division and it's very deep and it didn't exist like anything like this when I was younger. And yet it's very, very real today. And it's something we're experiencing from the local level all the way up to the United States Supreme Court in Washington. It's very real. It's a spiritual warfare of great intensity. We need to realize the day and the hour of the times that we're in. And that's one reason I'm so glad that the apostle Paul gave this to us to understand where we are. It says, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. This came to the surface in the Supreme Court decision dealing with same-sex marriage. It was interesting to see it was five to four. Didn't know which way it was gonna go, but if they went, you know, the way that's a biblical way, I thought it's gonna be based on the Equal Protection Clause. Based on gender-based discrimination, you're engaging in discrimination on gender. If you can't choose which gender you wanna marry. That was the logic. That didn't surprise me. What surprised me is I continued to read the opinion from the majority, the five-judge majority. And they went on to create a whole new fundamental right. And they said there's a fundamental right for individual sexual fulfillment, end quote. And I'm reading this. And I'm going, this is nowhere in the Constitution. And then I started thinking, what does this mean? What could it mean? And then I was getting blown away thinking, how could they do this? Because the judges, they read each other's opinions back and forth before they release them. So the dissent clearly objected. They said, no, this is what we want. I mean, the majority was very hardcore. And unfortunately, by God's grace, we have three new justices since then, which has shifted the court to a court that's the most pro-religious freedom, pro-paranormal rights, pro-life Supreme Court in my lifetime. Praise God. But what the court was effectively doing was taking their fist, shaking it at God, and said, we'd rather it be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of you. And it was so clear and it was so blatant. Never before manifest in any court case in my, in history, in that case, what the court did. Choosing to be lovers of pleasure rather than, pleasure rather than lovers of God. Verse five, having a form of godliness, but denying its power. I remember reading this when I was young, I thought, what does that mean? How can you have a form of godliness doing good, you know, right things? And yet denying its power, the power of God, what are they talking about? Now we see it real clearly. I was on an airplane once. And by the way, you know those people who just talk and talk, right? You know, on an airplane, really annoying, right? Okay, that's me, right here, all right? It's me. So I'm sitting next to this guy and I said, you know, faith just always often comes up in my conversations on airplanes, especially when there's a storm and the wings are going like this. And you don't have to say admit it, but it's true. We're all afraid it's gonna snap off. I know, I'm just saying. So I started talking to this guy about his faith. I said, so tell him if you don't mind me asking, do you have any kind of religious background or religious beliefs? And he says, well, I'm not religious, but I am very spiritual. We've heard it so much that Satan is just so massive with his one liner. I mean, he's just, and so I thought, I'm not gonna let him off. I'm gonna cross examining. So I said, really? So what do you mean by spiritual? And then he says, I just really feel at one and peace with the universe. I mean, once again, you've heard this over and over. And then I looked at him and he says, okay, well, well, what else? He goes, that's it. It's like a cloud. It's a vapor. There's nothing to this. Nothing, evidentiary, substantive. And yet as Christians, we sometimes take it for granted what God's given us. We have the holy word of God. More than two thirds of the prophecy of this book has already come to pass. It's reliable. You can count on it. As far as Jesus risen from the dead, 12, I wouldn't expect more than just 12. There was hundreds, right? And from an evidentiary perspective that we know of 12, including the Apostle Paul who gave his life and died for one thing, that Jesus was risen from the dead. Not one, not two. We had a dozen in Roman records validating this. Eyewitnesses, do you know how valuable it is if you have a case as a lawyer and you have 12 witnesses who are all willing to die for their testimony that X, Y, and Z happened? It'd be like a dream case. I haven't had a case like that. I haven't had, we've won lots of cases. I haven't had one. That'd be just such an easy dream. In fact, they'd settle before it went to court easily. So we have the evidence and then we have our personal testimonies. I mean, how many of you have seen either yourself or in someone else a transformation of God when they came to Christ? Raise your hand. I mean, this is our testimonies. It's how God works. And God's, and what's also awesome is he's still working on us. I mean, this earlier this morning, I was a little stressed, right? I was trying to get, where's the handouts? God's still working on us. Isn't that great? I mean, we can put our trust in him at all times and then really make a difference. By the way, does everyone, as I mentioned, does everyone have one of these? Do you guys want any signup sheets? Raise your hand if you don't have one. Okay, a number of you don't. So in the gazebo in the back, if you want to keep up with our cases, feel free to fill this out and we'd love to keep you updated. There's a little box you can check if you want to be a monthly part of our team and support us. But the point is, is that in the end of the day, we can have our trust in the Lord because he's given us that evidence and we don't have to believe in clouds in the sky that are not supported, unsubstituted. And that's a real nice assurance. So, and then it goes on in verse five to say, and from such people, turn away. Now, wait a minute, we're Christians. We want people to come to Jesus, right? Why don't we, you turn away? You don't want to turn away. You want to, well, what we're talking about here are people who invade the church to deceive the church, right? That's what we're talking about. And that's revealed from verse six through nine. There's an example in that scripture given for a second time. I'm going to just skim down to verse 10. But that's sort of the valid answer to that question. Verse 10 is where we now get the blueprint for the end times to have victory. We just heard how everything's going to go, you know, all those problems and stuff. Verse 10, the apostle Paul says, now I'm going to give you the blueprint on how the game plan, you can be victorious for the Lord amidst these perilous times. It says, but you have carefully followed my doctrine. Doctrine is important, right? It's truth, right? Manor of life, ooh, that's a good one. Purpose, we all love purpose, right? Solid purpose, who we are in Christ, living for Christ. Faith, oh yeah, faith, awesome, strength. Long suffering, okay, this is where I have a problem. Cause you know what long suffering means? Long suffering. I mean, okay. Then it says, love followed by perseverance, persecutions, afflictions. Okay, well, how do you even stick love right after long suffering, persecution, afflictions, perseverance? How can we love in that situation? I'll tell you, we can't. Humanly speaking, we can't. But when we're in Christ and we have the Holy Spirit and we have the love of Christ, we can love those who hate us. We can love those who persecute us, those who cause us long suffering. And that love, the more we're persecuted, the stronger our testimony and the more evident the love of Christ is. And the world doesn't understand it. The love of Jesus is not in their toolbox. And they've been perplexed. Even people I've meant to have just been totally perplexed because of how I respond sometimes. And they're like, where does that come from? And it comes from the Lord. It's powerful and God allows us to love. I remember someone once wronged me big time and I was gonna dice and slice him in. I even had Bible verses I was gonna use. I'm telling you, I was just gonna, shh, shh, shh, shh, you know? And I thought, yeah, I'll pray about it too. For God to really give me the sword to just, you know. So I start praying for him. Boy, was that a mistake. No. Then the Holy Spirit starts to convict me of how much God loves him. And I start seeing him as God sees him as someone who's hurting and in pain and suffering. Because then I come in, I talk to him. I says, you know, how's it going? You know, how you doing? What's going on? And he starts, his eyes water. He says, Brad, why do you care about me? I wronged you worse than anyone. And you're concerned about me? And I said, well, actually, you're really not seeing Brad. You see, I prayed for you before I came in. So really what you're seeing is the love of Christ that God convicted and how much he loves you and how much he cares for you. And that's what God wants us to do. I challenge you. When people are probably giving you a problem and they come to your mind and they're just causing you torture, pray for them. It's powerful and Satan hates it. Just hates it. And we all have people like that. That's come into our life, right? They just sort of get you. You start praying and you'll start seeing them and loving them the way God does. And it's powerful. Perseverance, persecution of afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconum, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured and out of them all, the Lord delivered me. Now, we're gonna go through persecutions, but you know what, God's gonna keep bringing you through it bit by bit until it's time for us to go, right? He's gonna deliver us. Now, who am I talking about? Well, just probably only about 1% of us really do this. No, no, no, no. Verse 12 answers that question. It says, yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Yay. Let's join the Jesus team. Yay, give me a P, give me an E, give me an R. No, but it's reality. If you're living for the Lord and they know you're living for, they see Christ, there's gonna be people who just hate you and despise you, right? And it's often because they see Jesus and it's like a light shining on their darkness and the light exposes the darkness. And oftentimes if they're not ready to repent, they feel convicted and they just feel annoyed. You know what I'm talking about? There's some people who just, and it's not because you're mean and rude and stole their apple pie during lunchtime, okay? We're talking about, she's a different analogy, but we're talking about they just don't like you for no reason at all. And it's often because they see Jesus and it shouldn't take us by surprise. Verse 13, but evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Once again, we're talking about people trying to invade the church. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of knowing from whom you learned them. Who did they learn this from? Eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection and the instructions of Jesus. Pretty credible, huh? And we're getting this in scripture. This is actually written to us. And this is verse 15. And that from childhood, you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. In other words, these scriptures are powerful and they direct us to Christ. The word of God all throughout it, Genesis to revelations, it points to Jesus. And it's powerful. So when we study the word, we're in the word, we're directed to Jesus. We're directed to Jesus. Now how important is actually is the scripture? Verse 16 answers that. It says all scripture. If you don't like absolutes, you're gonna hate the rest of this verse. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. For what reason? Verse 17. That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So would you say this is pretty important? Yeah. Now Satan will distract us to not read the word. He doesn't want us to be in the word because of what I just said. He doesn't like that, the outcome. The word gives an outcome Satan doesn't like. The transformation Satan doesn't like. But you know what else also? Sometimes we as believers can be religious about reading the word. Okay, for example, in my life, I became real religious about it. So I'm like, oh shoot, I gotta quickly hurry because I gotta get to work. But I haven't read my Bible. But I do my chapter every day. So here we go. I've been noticed in the last days Parallelism has been overcome. Remember we love, love, love, love, love, love. And you say, what did you read? I says, I don't know. I was too busy reading it. Right? I think most of us have done this before, right? It's the ritual. It's the phariseutical thing. It's like, and God says, no, I don't want you to do ritual. I want you to have relationship. I want you to listen to me. And so you know what I say? If you don't have time to read the whole chapter because of for whatever reason, okay, you're safe. Okay, don't beat yourself. It's not the issue. It's spending time with God. So you don't read two verses, maybe three verses, whatever, maybe one verse. And with the heart of God speak to me. Meditate on that. Talk to God. You know, my pastor, my church, I'll be honest with you. I was, you're saying, well, was everything you said not honest? Okay. You're like, that's a lawyer saying so. But I remember I was talking to my pastor once and I said, so pastor, do you listen to, what Christian radio station or do you listen to? He goes, you know, I really don't have, I really don't. I don't listen to Christian radio. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna just, you know, the legalistic part of me was gonna come after him, you know? And before I could say anything, he says, yeah, you know, actually, you know, when I'm driving, I just, I just really spend my time, you know, talking to God and just really communing with the Lord. Boy, I felt like this high. Because the end of the day, the end of the day, it's, it's what? It's communing with God. And that's what the word's about. That's what prayer is about. It's communing with God. And who loves us so much. Sometimes we feel like we have to be real fancy. God takes us where we are. You know, when you're, how do you feel when your little toddler says for the first time, dad, dad? Do you say, is that all you have to say? I mean, really? I mean, I've gone, how many times I change your diaper and that's all you have to do is say, dad, dad? No, what do you say? You go, call the relatives. He just acknowledged us. He said my name, right? How much more do you think the Heavenly Father delights when we say Abba and we just acknowledge him, right? We have that kind of a loving relationship if we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Chapter four, verse one. Now this is pretty heavy duty because he says, I charge you therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. Would you say the next verse is pretty important? Yeah, real important. Verse two. Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. In season when you're sharing the gospel and you're seeing God work and people will come to Jesus and you're like, oh, awesome. And then out of season when you're sharing the gospel and boom, you get a black eye and there's like no response, no results. Does that happen? Yeah, it happened to Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 22 in other parts of scripture. He said, I'm preaching. They just don't want to tear off their cloaks and throw dust in the air and they want the guys scourged and maybe killed. I mean, that's sometimes the response but it doesn't matter the response. It's about obedience. Whether we see the Lord moving or we don't see the Lord moving and we're planning seed, be faithful. Preach the word in season and out of season even when it's not popular. Even when you lose your job because of it. Even when you're mocked at school or you're booted out of a college. Be faithful with what God's given you. Convince, rebuke, exhort. With all, oh, here it comes again. Long suffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but according to their own desires because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Well, I'm so glad we don't have that today. No. It's everywhere. You have entire denominations in the last just a few decades. Historic proportions splitting down the middle between those that believe that the Bible is God's word and that Jesus is the way of the truth and life and that no one comes a father but through faith in Jesus and those who are teaching other things that tickle the ear and make people feel good. And it's massive. And this is a war, spiritual war that's taking place that was prophesied to take place and we're experiencing it as we speak. Verse five, that you be watchful in all things. Be watchful in all things. Oftentimes we as Christians can be, there's two extremes. One is where we can be so heavily minded we're no worldly good, earthly good. Have you heard that phrase before? Where we're just like, oh, and we're just like, no, I don't want to know what's going on. I'm just going to think about Jesus. You know, I'm not going to be aware of it. God wants us to be watchful in all things. So we can pray, we can intercede, right? We can be aware of the times that we're in. The other example is that we can be so consumed with news that we get stressed and worried because our eyes are off Jesus. And we've forget, no, I don't need to be stressed and worried. I'm going to pray that I know God is God and he's going to work. He's going to do his work. Right now, I believe the body of Christ, we need to be praying for people in the Ukraine and even Russian soldiers who may be believers. What I think is going to, a parent is going to be coming down the next few days. It could be horrific, but we don't let that consume us. But yet we also are not just turning off the world. We're still, we're engaging and we're watchful. And that's one reason why I really love it if we're to keep people updated because we need intercession. We have 65 cases right now where they speak in active litigation. And we need to be interceding and we need to be engaging. Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry. Now, when we hear this, we're probably thinking, well, that's actually for the pastor and way to go pastor. We're going to encourage you way to go. We're behind you pastor. No, he's talking to you. And there's two questions you can answer. And this will tell you, say whether he's talking to you. Number one, do you have a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ? Are you a believer? That's the first. Second, is your heart beating? What's the third? There is no third question because if you know Jesus and you're alive, then he has you here for a purpose. He creates for his pleasure and for his glory. We're here for his purpose. And he's a compassionate God. And if we have no purpose for us here at all for his pleasure, for his glory, no purpose at all, he should take us home. It's much better to be with the Lord than to have to be down here. But Paul understood his purpose. We're followers of Jesus. He has a purpose for us here. And it's to live for him and to put him and to follow him. Some people may be hearing this saying, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Doctrine, okay, right, right. But practically speaking, Brad, I don't have anything in the way of this ministry kind of thing, all right? I just, I don't pray for people. I'm not a prayer word. I just, I can't share my faith. Okay, for those of you who are still in denial that God can work through you. There's a little story about a 16-year-old boy. He'd given his life to Jesus and he was driving to school one day in his little opal GT. Like a Corvette only smaller and cheaper, okay? So he's driving up this hill on Texas Highway and this motorcyclist is passing cars. As he's approaching up the hill, the motorcycle hits him head on. The motorcycle goes smashing right through his windshield and smashes through his skull, all right? It's a very gruesome accident. He's rushed to the ICU at a hospital, Parkland General Hospital and the doctor tells his parents your son has had major brain damage. Even if he lives, he still could be a vegetable. You may still have to pull the cord, end quote. As far as the world was concerned, this boy and his future was in the trash, only be pitied for what could have been. And yet Californians, our God is a great recycler and he loves to take that which the world throws away and do something new. And he did that with this young boy because of his grace and mercy. This young boy had a tremendous miraculous healing. Using that left frontal lobe that was smashed in which deals with logic, reasoning, analytical thinking, speech communications. This young boy got his degree in business finance, a 3.86 in his major, put himself through undergrad, worked two years, then went to one of the top 20 law schools in the country, graduated the top half of his class. And I know this kid really well because it's me. And the reason I'm sharing this, praise God. And the reason I'm sharing this, in fact my whole left side here has been all reconstructed. I've got hip bone grafting where the cheek is. I really messed up that song, you know, the, anyway. So then they, you know, silicon, silicon, silicon, wires, reattachment, reattached the job. This has all been redone. But the reason I'm sharing this is not so you'll say, oh, that's the Lord's special warrior. The Lord has anointed him for a verily, verily, okay, stop the verilys. Talked to my wife. She'll tell you after 20 years of marriage my halo is still really crooked. Okay. But is that the way it is for all of us so? None of us have it all together. But that's where God's grace and forgiveness and mercy. That's where the Holy Spirit, he's working on us. And God wants to work through us right where we are. Not because of who we are, but because of whose we are. If we've given our lives to Jesus Christ. Life becomes exciting with purpose and meaning and dimension and adventure. When we walk with the Lord we've surrendered all our lives to Jesus Christ. And what he's going to do, it's all about him. Verse six, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering and the time my departure is at hand. He's being a little eloquent. What he's saying is I'm about to die. Okay, I'm about to die for Jesus. Verse seven, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I've kept the faith. You know what I like about this? He didn't say, I saw at least 100 people come to Jesus. I founded several churches. I did, it's not about results. Cause that's God. God's the one who does results. He just calls us to be obedient. And that's what this verse is about. Is run the race and be followers of Jesus and not give up, not give up. He never gives up on us and we should not give up on what he wants to do through us. And verse eight, this is the final verse. And I'm also getting hungry. So I did that intermittent fasting thing and your metabolism just really cause you to get hungry. Sometimes I'm just telling you, although I cheated before this service. So I'm moving on. Verse eight, finally, and he means finally. Okay, cause he's about to go. This is finally there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give me on that day. No, whoa, whoa, whoa. Paul, I'm sorry. I know what your name used to be, Saul. You were the Azama bin Laden of the early church. There's a reason no invited you to Wednesday night Bible studies or scriptures because you would take them men and women and put them in prison. And you helped the first martyr become a martyr. You held the robes of those who threw this to stone, Steven. So you're gonna get the crown of righteousness. How do you figure that one? And it's simple because Paul knew that his righteousness was not from Paul, but through faith in Jesus Christ dying on the cross for all of his sin. He put his trust in Jesus. And cause Jesus separates all the sin in our life from this East is from the West is he bore it on the cross completely, unequivocally. Now, does that apply to us? Let's continue with that verse. And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. I like this word loved as appearing because it's a heart question, right? I mean, we may have maybe went through confirmation at some time in our life. Maybe went to confession and did communion and went to church camp. Maybe we set a prayer sometime, but this goes to the heart, whether or not we're real in our faith, whether we really have put our faith and hope in Jesus. And so let me just give you a hypothetical. Let's say that tomorrow at exactly 130, this is hypothetical. No one knows the day of the hour. I get that, okay, all right. I'm always often corrected when I use this hypo. But let's just say tomorrow at 130 exactly, we know for some reason, we know that Jesus is coming back tomorrow at 130. What would you be thinking? Most believers would be awesome. Oh, I gotta call out Myrtle. I don't know if she knows the Lord. I gotta call, you know, it's like, it'd be better than Disneyland on steroids. I mean, it's just like, whoa, so awesome. However, there's gonna be some people probably here who are gonna be saying, oh shoot, I don't know if I'm gonna be going. I don't know if he's gonna take me. And one of the reasons may be you're saying to yourself, and no one around may know this, but you're saying to yourself, I've got this dark closet. And it's so bad, by the way, everyone has a dark closet just for the record, okay? We all have shame. We all have shame. But you say, no, no, no. I have a really dark closet and it's so shameful. How could God forgive me for this? Because I can't even forgive myself. You know what we're doing? It's like walking up to Jesus Christ on the cross and just picture Him on the cross right there. Dying on the cross, bleeding in it, pain and agony. And we walk up to Him and we say, nice try, Jesus. But you see, for me, that's just not good enough. And I believe that lie was answered to when He said on the cross, it is finished. And all we have to do in humility is to believe it, to believe that He died on the cross for our sins and surrender our lives for Him. And He will separate our sin as far as the east is from the west and we will become a child of living God with an eternity and salvation with God and a whole new life. And it's right here right now. And all you need to do is to respond. And if you felt the Holy Spirit, when I just shared that hitting your heart, that wasn't me, that's the Holy Spirit. And giving you an opportunity right now to receive Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father.