 So let's pray, Father, we love you and we honor you. I thank you for the wonderful things you're doing here at Radiant. I thank you for the privilege of bringing your word. I ask you to give us ears to hear, give us a heart to respond in Jesus' name, amen. I wanna read a few passages to you, starting with the book of Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40, and you can just jot these verses down, verses six through eight. Isaiah 40 verses six through eight. I'm not gonna give you context or background. I just want you to hear these words. A voice says, cry out. And I said, what shall I cry? All people are like grass and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. Here are these words spoken over 2,500 years ago by a people that easily could have been wiped out from history saying that the words of their God were the words of the true God and these words would endure forever. And here we are 2,500 plus years later in a whole other culture, in a whole other world reading these very words. Jeremiah chapter 15, Jeremiah chapter 15 verse 16. As the prophet is speaking of his own life and his own experience, Jeremiah 15, 16. When your words came, I ate them and they were my joy and my heart's delight for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty. Your words were found and I ate them, I devoured them and they were the joy and delight of my heart. And then lastly, just as we get started, Matthew chapter 24 verse 35, Matthew 24, 35, and here Jesus tells us, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Striking again that Jesus telling us his words will not pass away, those words are still being read today 2,000 years later. How many other words were spoken? How many other people came and went and we don't know their words, we've forgotten their words, but to this day we read these words as God's words. Why? Why is, why have these words endured? Why is the Bible the most translated book on the planet? Why to this day is the Bible the world's best selling book? Why does that continue year in, year out with all the skepticism and all the mocking and all the science telling us that we can't take any of these antiquated stories seriously? I've seen endless memes and comments, it's just some Bronze Age book from some, about some Bronze Age gods and some ignorant shepherds, what do they care? The Bible constantly mocked and the God of the Bible mocked and yet here it is, we're gathering and several billion people around the world consider this to be God's word. Why? When I got saved, 1971, many of you know my story, I was a hero in shooting LSD using hippy rock drummer, 16 years old Jewish kid in rebellion and my friends were sharing the gospel with me. They weren't saved yet but they were going to this little Italian Pentecostal church. They liked two girls who were in the church so they were all going together and because it was Pentecostal, it was fascinating to them. They were raised in Russian Orthodox Methodist homes nominal Christian just like I was nominal Jewish so the Pentecostal stuff was really interesting to them. You know all the speaking tongues and stories about angels and demons, that was interesting and the pastor was teaching a lot about end time prophecy and teaching out of the book of Revelation. So I kid you not, they would come home from a church service, come over to my house and we would do like an acoustic quiet jam session. You know, I'd take out my drum pad and they'd have their instruments and amps really, really low because it was too late for us to be playing our normal volume and we'd be playing and hanging out and getting high because they weren't saved yet and they'd be telling me Bible stories especially from the book of Revelation. I remember it distinctly, my dear is gonna be a beast. Comes out of a bottomless pit. Now remember we're sitting around getting high just goes out of a bottomless pit with seven heads and 10 horns. It's like, that's in the Bible? Man, that's cool. I remember we'd say, what were they smoking back then? Then they get saved and God starts to convict me of my sin and I get saved and those are the first passages I'm reading, they're really interesting passages but then I start reading more. I started getting hungrier for God and hungrier for the word and by the time I was saved a year, I used to spend at least six or seven hours alone with God every day. Remember these are the days before cell phones, before cable TV, before PCs and tablets. So I mean I was undistracted. Six or seven hours alone with God about half the time in prayer, half the time in the Word and I would read the Word two hours every single day without fail, two hours and I would memorize 20 verses every single day. I could do it in an hour. My mind had been so fried from drugs now just focused and I remember the constant wonder of discovering things in Scripture. It's like wow, not just something where I thought somebody was getting high and seeing some vision. No, I couldn't believe how relevant it was. I couldn't believe how whatever I was going through in life the Word seemed to be speaking to me. It seemed to have a message for me. One of the songs that we sang, one of the hymns we sang in our church, some of you are older will remember it. Great is thy faithfulness. I remember reading through the book of Lamentations, one of the darkest, most painful books in the Bible. Jewish people in exile, Jerusalem destroyed. Five pages of agony, but right in the middle of the agony, hope rises and there's that word. Great is your faithfulness. Your mercies are new every morning. I thought, I didn't know that was in the Bible. I thought that was just a hymn. But to find great is your faithfulness in the darkest, most difficult book of the Bible full of pain and agony and suffering. Great is your faithfulness. I remember just jumping at me. And now going to college and the challenges of life and the questions that you have as a young person. I remember the words just jumping off the pages at me sometimes as God would be speaking. And what's remarkable is now 51 years later reading the same book over and over and learning the biblical languages and so on. I keep discovering new amazing things. I don't mean some insight about how the war in Ukraine is prophesied in a verse in the Bible. I'm not talking about that or how the, and by the way, I don't believe it's prophesied. That was a hypothetical. I don't mean just sensationalism. I mean relevance for everyday life. I mean the stuff you're going through. I mean the questions that you have. Okay, porn, terrible problem today. People struggle with it. It's accessible in ways it's never been accessible. What does the Bible have to say about it? The Bible doesn't know anything about distribution of pornography like we know it today. Oh, but you read the Bible about sexual issues and it's incredibly insightful. You read a chapter like Proverbs 5 or Proverbs 7 where it talks about the seduction of sin and how you're drawn in and the appeal of it but the end results of it you think this is incredibly relevant. When our daughters became teenagers, I took them one day to Proverbs 23 and I said, just check this out because some of their friends, they're hung out with kids from different backgrounds. Some believers, some not believers. Some of the kids getting drunk and things. And I said, just take a look at this in Proverbs 23 beginning in verse 29. It says this, who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who linger over wine who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. Do not gaze at wine when it's red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly in the end, it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights in your mind will imagine confusing things. You'd be like one sleeping on the high seas lying on top of the rigging. They hit me, you'll say, but I'm not hurt. They beat me, but I'm gonna feel it. When will I wake up so I can have another drink, find another drink? I just read it to say, you know, God saw this coming. The drunkenness and the behavior of drunkenness is not a surprise, it's talked about in here. Because you often get the impression that the Bible is just a book of religious rules. You can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do that. There's the old story about two farmers who were talking one day. And one farmer said to the other, I hear you're a Christian, is that true? And the other farmer said, yeah, it's true, I'm a Christian. So he said, well, what does it mean to be a Christian? And the farmer said, well, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't run around with the ladies. And then the other farmer stopped for a minute and he said, well, I guess my mule is a Christian. Cause my mule doesn't smoke or drink or run around with the ladies. We get the impression of the Bible. You can't do this, you can't, you can't have fun. If you're smiling, take the smile off your face. Quite the contrary, the Bible is a book of liberation and transformation. And the Bible is God's word saying, I understand human nature, I understand where you live, I understand what you're going through, I understand the struggles and here's the way out. Here's the solution to the problems of human nature. Things in our own lives, we'd be ashamed to tell anybody else God saw us coming already in the word. You say, I don't know about this. Sometimes I just feel like life is meaningless. It feels just like this endless cycle and so meaningless. Why do I want to read the Bible? How about this? The book of Ecclesiastes, chapter one, the words of the teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem, meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher, utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless. That's in the Bible because Ecclesiastes is gonna take you through that journey. You're a skeptic, you're a cynic. There's a book for you, seriously. And you read it through, it's like, that's exactly how I feel and nothing makes any sense. What do people gain from all their labors at which they tile under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. It's the same thing over and over. Nothing new under, there's nothing new under the sun. You know, you just quoted the Bible when you said that. There's nothing new under the sun. That's from the Bible. But you go through the journey with Ecclesiastes and you come out to the conclusion that the only thing that makes sense in life is to fear God and keep His commandments. So go on the journey. You know, it says in the book of Jude, actually Judah, but the book of Jude, you know what it says, have mercy on those who doubt. There's a doubt that's sinful, that's wrong. It's the doubt of being double-minded. It's the doubt of when you know better and you still don't trust God. But there's the kind of doubt which the Bible says have mercy on those who doubt. It's okay to have the questions. It's okay to have the issues. You don't have to have it all together. You're not sitting when you say, God, I don't even know if this is real. We're told to have mercy and to say, hey, come with your doubts and questions. They are welcome, warmly, because we have answers. And if you don't know the answer yourself, we're gonna find that answer together. You say, yeah, it's easy for you to say that and things are going well in your life, but I feel like God's my enemy. Yeah, and the Bible's gonna help me with that. Sure, let Job articulate how you're feeling. One Old Testament scholar said, if you wanna complain, the Bible has forms already filled out for you. Just find the one that fits you. Yeah, how about, let's just see here, Job speaking his heart in the midst of some of his pain. How about this? This is how he feels about God. Job 16, starting in verse 11, God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked. All was well with me, but he shattered me. He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target. His archers surround me without pity. He pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. Again and again, he bursts upon me. He rushes at me like a warrior. This is how he feels about God. And he even makes this plea, earth, earth, do not cover my blood. May my cry never be laid to rest. Even now my witness is in heaven, my advocate is on high. Somehow he's confident that in God's universe, there has to be justice because that's who God is, but he feels like God's his worst enemy. This is in the Bible. God's not afraid to put these difficult things here because this is the world we live in. Now look, maybe you're married and whatever happens in your spouse's life, they just smile and say, praise the Lord, I know you're good. And they just look at you. You just got in the car wreck, right? You're covered in blood and everything's a mess. And you just say, isn't he wonderful? You say, honey, I'm not feeling that myself right now. I'm wondering why did God let this happen? And how did this happen? And our life is messed up right now. Not everybody responds with that beautiful faith. It's okay. It's understandable. It's in the Bible, but then God reveals himself to Job in such a way that by the end of the book, Job's realizing, I spoke in complete ignorance. I had heard of you before, but now I really see you. So I recant. And you know what God says? Job spoke rightly about me. What? He's just rebuked. God's just rebuked Job for accusing him falsely of being this monster. But then he says, but Job spoke rightly about me. The friends, the orthodox believers, the ones who seem to be quoting scripture, they misrepresented God because they said, only good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. So Job, you must be bad. And God said, you misrepresented things. He rebukes the friends. The ones that are quoting the Bible, he rebukes them. Isn't that interesting? And he commends Job because Job knew somehow that there was a God who had to set things right in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the agony. So we get this impression, we have to put on this religious look and this religious outfit and this religious tone and talk and be a certain way and not be real with problems and pains and doubts. And the word of God saying, no, no, God knows that you go through those things, but he's got a solution. You know, it's just like if you've gone through a terrible loss in your own life and now you're talking to other people who've been through a similar loss, you say, I know how much it hurts, but I'm telling you, you can heal and you can come through it. The Bible is filled with relevance like that. And when you come over to the New Testament and begin to look at the life of Jesus, what's so striking is that as he begins his ministry, the biggest problem that he has is with religious people. Now, please hear me. The world tries to create a Jesus in its own image. Whatever particular sin you're into, Jesus is good with that. Whatever particular understanding you have rejecting God, Jesus is good with that. You know, there's a series of ads that were promoted with hundreds of millions of dollars to reach out even during the Super Bowl. And I deeply appreciate anyone seeking to reach out. I deeply appreciate that. That's wonderful. And putting funds into evangelism, I deeply appreciate it. But the whole message was, hey, Jesus gets us, he understands us, but in many cases there were no teeth to the message. There was nothing about us needing to change or us needing to come to him. It was almost affirming us wherever we are which really doesn't go very far. I've told people for years that Jesus did not practice affirmational inclusion, but transformational inclusion. In other words, he didn't reach out to people where they were and affirm them. He reached out to where they were and transformed them. But here's the thing, Jesus hung out with the marginalized. Jesus hung out with the outcast. Jesus hung out with the people that the sophisticated religious people ran from, separated themselves from. Jesus hung out with them and the religious people criticized him. But what did he do? He transformed the lives of the outcasts and the marginalized. He transformed the lives of the prostitutes and the hated tax collectors. If you think the IRS is unpopular today, try being a tax collector in the ancient world. I mean, these people were known for their corruption and extortion. Jesus had meals in their homes? Yeah, and they changed. So he got his hands dirty with sinners without casts. He went to the places that others wouldn't go. See the modernized Jesus, the Jesus of the world hangs out with the sinners to encourage them in their sin. The Jesus of the Bible hangs out with the sinners to get them out of their sin and transform. But his battle was often with religious people. And I often wonder if Jesus walked into some of our services or some of our churches, if he would be saying, well done or if he'd be shaking things up in our own midst. Shaking things up in our own lives. You want a radical revolutionary leader look no further than Jesus. But not revolution as the world does it with hatred and violence and anger, but a revolution that transforms hearts from the inside out, transforms lives from the inside out, overcomes evil with good. Think of the parable of the good Samaritan. You know, those that are concerned about social issues, those that have a conscience of righteousness and want to bring about change. Well, Jesus is the ultimate one to follow. He does not sit in the midst of our religious and political status quo. He doesn't just come to affirm that. Jesus did not come to bring realization to the American dream. He's not a patriot of this country or that country. His kingdom is of a whole other level. And he turns things off and upside down in our world. And this is in the Bible. I'm gonna get to the parable of good Samaritan in a moment. But I remember in the late 1990s when God stirred my heart with the theme of Jesus' revolution. That when you get into the gospels, you see that Jesus is constantly talking about the kingdom of God. And these values that are very different from the values of this world, right? Revolution is out with the old, in with the new. Revolution has overthrown the status quo. Revolution is radical, dramatic, sweeping change. The world does it with hatred and bloodshed and violence or sin and corruption. Jesus comes in a far more radical way to subdue enemies with love, to change the world by dying on a cross. You know, we just think of him as this religious leader, knowing that in the highest form possible, he was a revolutionary leader. Turns things upside down. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Turns things upside down. The first shall be last in the last first. You've been outcast, you've been marginalized, you've been put out. Here's someone that can relate. Here's someone that is rejected by his own people and dies the lowest criminal's death, the most humiliating, horrific death, why so he can save the world? Turns everything upside down. This is all in the word. So I began teaching on the revolutionary nature of the ministry of Jesus. The Lord's prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will. Okay, now if that's how you pray with reverence, if that's your reverent voice, so be it. But this is not just some church prayer. Where it's like, you're a kingdom come. That's a revolutionary prayer. What happens to all the other earthly kingdoms? Out with the kingdoms of the world, out with the kingdom of Satan, in with the kingdom of God. And what does Jesus tell his disciples? Leave everything, follow me. That's revolutionary talk. So I was always teaching on this in our ministry school in Pensacola. And one of the students, we had almost 1200 full-time students then. One of the students said, Dr. Brown, before I was a believer, I didn't pay attention to classes at all in school, except history, except history class. And when I was in history class, we had one class reading about different revolutionary leaders of the past and reading quotes of revolutionary leaders. He said, and I remember the leader whose quotes were the most radical and different from anyone, it was Jesus. It wasn't Marx or this one or that one, it was Jesus. We just put him in such traditional religious garb that we forget the degree that he comes to shake things up. You want the leader of a cause. You want someone worth living for and dying for. There he is. So Jesus is being interrogated, different religious leaders asking him questions. You know, what's the greatest commandment? We'll love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Now think of this for a minute. Would the world be better if it lived by those commandments? Forget your religious background, forget your ideological background. Would the world be better if we truly love God and express that love for God by loving our neighbor as ourselves? Go through the morality of the 10 commandments. That's just dead, that's just old people's religion. Okay, so you think the world would be better if we stole one from another because stealing is prohibited. You think the world would be better if we murdered one another because murder is prohibited. You think the world would be better if we freely committed adultery and broke our marital vows because adultery is prohibited. You think the world would be better if everybody just lied about their neighbor and bore for us wellness. You think the world would be better if we just coveted everything and everybody else else? These are all the things forbidden by the 10 commandments. If the world lived by the 10 commandments, we wouldn't have war. If the world lived by the 10 commandments, we wouldn't need prisons. It's extraordinary. The morality there stands out from all ancient moralities. Even the principle of Sabbath is life-giving in thousands of different ways. So Jesus says, love God, love your neighbor. It's yourself. So the religious leader wanted to be self-justified. Yes, but who is my neighbor? He said, well, what kind of question is that? It's actually a question that's asked in Jewish law where it says, and you love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who actually qualifies as your neighbor? It's a discussion in modern Israel today among religious Jews. Is the Palestinian my neighbor or does it speak only of fellow Jews? So this is actually a legal discussion rather than just doing what's written and living out the spirit of it, you're gonna make it into a technical religious decision. Yeah, well, who actually is my neighbor? What if I was neighbor of a Nazi? What if I was neighbor of this person? And all we're trying to do is get out of the calling. So Jesus now gives this teaching. Again, it's in the Bible. My point is that the Bible is a book that shakes the religious world. That the Bible is a book that speaks with relevance to people that don't know God. That this is not just a religious textbook filled with do's and don'ts, but it is life giving and life transforming. So Jesus gives this parable and you have to understand Samaritans were the hated outsiders. They considered themselves to be the true Israelites. The Jewish community looked at them as half breeds. So they were really despised in the community. And what happens is there's a Jewish man on a journey and he gets beaten by thieves and Jewish religious leader comes walking by a Levite, special tribe, they waited on God in the sanctuary and things like that. He goes walking, I can't get messed up with that. I touch him, I'll get unclean. He walks on, Jewish religious leader. Another Jewish religious leader, priest. To touch him on, it's defiling. So instead of showing love, he's gonna live by religious ritual. He walks on and the half breed, the hated one. This is Jesus talking to other Jews. You have to understand how extreme this is. The half breed, he comes over the hated one and he shows compassion and he shows mercy and cares for the God, brings him to a place and says, hey, just put this on my tab, I'll cover it when I come back. And then he asks the question, okay, which one was the true neighbor? Of course, they have to say the Samaritan. And then Jesus turns it upside down again and says, now you go be a neighbor. Now you go do that. What you find when you read the scripture is it doesn't fit into your preconceived ideas. That the moment you think you've figured it out and mastered things and you've got God in your own nice religious box, he comes and shakes us out of it. And the thing that's amazing is that Jesus says in John six that his words are spirit and they are life. It says in Hebrews 412 that the word of God is living and active and sharp and then he double-edged sword pierced into the very division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It's an amazing thing as you read it that the words are actually alive. It's an amazing thing as you read it that you get built up. Deuteronomy eight, which Jesus quotes in Matthew four, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It's not just relevant. It's life-giving. It's life-transforming. You take it in, you digest it, the words I read earlier from Jeremiah 15. Your words were found and I did eat them. You find as you begin to do this, you don't even understand everything. You don't necessarily remember everything but you begin to get your spirit nourished. It's an amazing thing if you've never done it. And I know I'm speaking to some of you who've been deep in the word for decades and others who've just never had a habit of reading. You don't know where to start. Just starting the simplest way. I mean, there are endless Bible apps that'll take you through the Bible in a year. Read a couple of chapters from here, a couple of chapters from there or just start, okay, I'll read a chapter from the Old Testament, a chapter from the New. Whatever it is just to get through it and just say, God speak to me, God give me insight and you'll be amazed first at how you start to change. It's just like when you change your diet, you start to exercise, you start to lose weight, you start to feel better. You'll start to get nourished in your spirit. You'll start to feel stronger and then you'll have your mind illuminated. You'll begin to have understanding. You'll begin to have more wisdom, difficult life situations. You may not even remember the verse, but the wisdom of that verse is in you. The principle of that truth is in you. You start to see, well, I'm getting built up. I'm getting strengthened, Colossians 3, 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Joshua 1, 8, this book of teaching shall not depart from your life, but you meditate on it. I mean, recite it, repeat it day and night. Then you can obey it and then you'll succeed in what you do. Or Psalm 1, 3, that the person, the godly man or woman that's blessed, they're delighted in the teaching of the Lord. They meditate on it day and night and they're like a tree planted by streams of water that bring forth fruit and seeds and the leaf never withers and whatever they do succeeds. Why? Cause they're in harmony with God. John 15, 7, Jesus says, if you abide in me and my words, abide in you, ask what you will and it'll be given to you. How can that be? Because we're in harmony with God there for what we pray is according to his will. You begin to have these things in your heart and mind. I've been able to memorize and chapter and verse and those kind of things. My wife Nancy knows the word really well, really understands it, knows it really well and will often challenge me. What do you think that passage means? And I'll tell her, she goes, no, it's not what it means. I'll say, I've studied, she goes, no, no, no, check the commentaries. You'll see. And of course, she's almost thought, well, we know that that's a given if you're married, the wife is right, that's a given. But even with scripture, it's like, wow, it's amazing. She knows it well, but she doesn't know chapter and verse like I do. Don't compare yourself to somebody else. It's not the issue. Take it in. You don't have to remember what you had for breakfast, but if you have a healthy breakfast, it'll benefit you. Take it in, digest it, chew on it. Have the bird's eye view of just read through the Bible regularly. It takes your year to get through, read through the Bible regularly, get the bird's eye view and then the worms eye view. Take in, really study something. Maybe there's a subject you're interested in. How do you, there are endless different ways to study. And I'm not here to say it. And of course, your pastor is strong and able to help equip you in study. But just, okay, I'm gonna look up this word and see where else it occurs. I'm just gonna keep going through the same chapter over and over and over or the same theme over and over. My doctoral dissertation was on one Hebrew word, the Hebrew word for heal, restore. Did my whole doctoral dissertation on that in the Hebrew Bible and how the word occurred in the related languages. And you could study a word, you could study a concept for life. So have the bird's eye, take it in, read it through and then the worms eye, take in. So I'm about to go to college. 1973, graduate from high school and about to go to college. And I was only going to college to honor my parents. Even though God had instantly delivered me from drugs, I was instantly set free from whatever addictions I had, instantly delivered and all the sinful ideology and all that I had, that was gone. But I still had kind of a hippie mentality. I didn't even realize of who needs the system, who needs the educational system and all I wanna do is minister. And I came home from a service one Sunday morning. We had a guest speaker. We almost never had a guest in. The pastor was on vacation or away, we had a guest speaker and he spoke on Jesus being a teenager. I remember saying, think of it, Jesus was a teenager. And his message was that Jesus honored his father and mother. And I came home from service that day and my dad said, so Michael, what was the sermon on today? And I tell him, well, Jesus was a teenager, honor your father and mother. And my dad said to me, well, how do you reconcile that with the fact that your mother and I want you to go to college more than anything and you're not going? So I was instantly convicted, those simple words, honor your father and mother, that simple sermon, boom, changed my life, right? I didn't know I didn't get a doctorate and I'd be part of my calling, et cetera. But I went to talk to the pastor starting college and I said to him, what do I do when I graduate? I was four years old, what do I do when I graduate? I had no interest in going to college, I had a good musical background as a drummer and I played organ a little so I knew music more. And so I was just gonna go as a music major. Little did I know I'd end up switching and becoming a Hebrew major. I had no clue about that. I said, brother George, that's how we call our friends. What do I do when I graduate in four years? And he just said to me Psalm 119, 105 because he memorized a lot of scripture and he knew I memorized a lot of scripture. He just said Psalm 119, 105. Your word is a light to my path, a lamp to my feet. He said, you know lamps in those days, he said they only showed you one step at a time. This is simple truth from scripture, opened up in a simple way. And this has been something I've lived with and lived by ever since. God's not gonna show you five or 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years down the line for the most part. And if he did, often it wouldn't make any sense to us. What do you mean that I'll be doing an outreach on Mars? What does that even mean? It's so outlandish, but you don't need that. What you need is the word for today, the message for today, the message for the hour. And you'll find the wisdom, the words are here. I've had at times critical life decisions to make and pray and God will just bring me to the writings of Paul and one verse will jump out at me that has nothing to do with the situation whatsoever that totally transforms everything that gives me insight. It's a living book, it's a living word, it's forever relevant. These words will stand, all of the kingdoms will crash, the mockers will disappear, the false religions will disappear, all of that will disappear, but this word will stand forever. So let's feast on it, let's drink it in a fresh. Let's ask God for a fresh hunger, fresh thirst for the word. And as you take it in, you'll find it's not just relevant for you, it's relevant for those who don't know him. Let us be ambassadors of this word as well, amen? So let's pray, Abba Father, I ask you Lord, as we dig into your word of fresh, give us ears to hear, give us hearts to respond, give us a depth of appreciation for the treasures of your word, may we discover them afresh, and may we marvel at them and grow in them and revel in them for the rest of our lives. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks so much, God bless.