 All right, we'll get started. So we stopped with the attribute, the grace of God last time. So just to continue that thought, the grace of God is covered in the New Testament in four different ways. The first is the divine favor of God, where salvation is being granted to us generously, freely, even though we did not earn it in any way. And the worst for that was Titus 211, where it says, the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. The second way that the grace of God is dealt with in the New Testament is the divine enabling or the empowering that God provides, so that we will be able to achieve all that God has called us to, not because we are strong, not because we are highly talented, but because the grace of God, the enabling power of God is resting upon us. So grace also can be seen in the sense of divine enabling, divine equipping, divine empowering. The third way that the grace of God is mentioned in the New Testament is with reference to the grace gifts, the spiritual gifts. And the fourth sense in which that word is used in the New Testament is where it talks about the divine character of God. It says, grow into the grace of God. It says, I don't have that reference with me right now, but in one of the Scriptures in the New Testament, it says, we are called to grow into the grace of God. And over there, that word grace is referring to the character of the Lord. And we are meant to become like Him. We are meant to grow into that likeness, into that character. So these are the different ways the term grace is used in the New Testament. Here for this particular context in which we are studying this, it is enough for us to know that the divine favor of God is resting upon us. So our salvation is assured. We have been brought into union with the Lord simply because of His grace, not because of any good deeds that we did to earn this favor. And the other aspect which would apply to us very usefully in all our trials is that we have the divine enabling of God. His grace, His divine enabling is sufficient for any situation that we may face. So He is gracious. Another term that is generally attached to this term grace in many Scriptures would be mercy, because generally the grace and mercy of God are spoken about together. So what exactly is mercy? Mercy would actually be the concern that a person feels for someone who is suffering or who has, who is either weak or disadvantaged in some way and the concern that you feel for them, the compassion, the kindness that you feel towards that person. So the Lord is gracious in the sense even though we don't deserve any kind of goodness from Him, He freely grants us favor. And it's not just that He gives us this grace because of that mercy which is there in Him, which is part of His character. He has deep concern and compassion towards us when He looks at us in our helplessness, in our sinfulness. So He cares about us. So one verse that we can look at, one passage that we can look at regarding the mercy of God, which shows what our response should be towards God's mercy would be Luke chapter 6 verses 33 to 36. Luke 6, 33 to 36 if someone could read out for us. Luke chapter 6 verse 36, therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful. Yeah, if we could maybe read from verse 33, Luke 6, 33 to 36. Luke chapter 6 verse 33 and if you do good to those who do good to you, what credits it is that to you? For even sinners do the same, verse 34 and if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credits is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back, 35 but love your enemies, do good and lend hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high for He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Verse 36, therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful. So we see aspects of grace and mercy in this passage. People who don't deserve kindness are being granted kindness. People who don't deserve any kind of generosity are being lavishly gifted with the things which they require for their life. So we see in this passage, this aspect coming out in a very clear manner. God is not only being nice to those who deserve it, He is also showing kindness to those who do not deserve it. And because He is that kind of a gracious and merciful God, He therefore says, because the Father is merciful in this manner, we also should be willing to show mercy in the same manner. So we will not be extending help and kindness to only those who are good to us. We would be expected to show kindness and goodness to even people who are not reciprocating in any way. So because our Father is merciful and gracious, we are also expected to be merciful and gracious. So in the Old Testament, you have many scriptures where you have the mercy and grace of God being mentioned together. In fact, when God describes Himself to Moses, this is the description that He uses about Himself. In Exodus 34-6, He says, this is how He describes Himself. He says, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. So the mercy and grace of God, they go together and because He shows kindness to those who do not deserve it, we also are fully expected to conduct ourselves in the same manner, show the same kind of generosity, even to those who are not deserving, even to those who are not willing. One very lovely thing that we see about the grace and mercy of God, because of His grace and mercy, He does not repay us with what we deserve. I mean, even after having received salvation, sometimes we fall into sin. We don't always honor Him and obey Him. In spite of that, He does not repay us in full what we deserve. I mean, there is a warning which is given in Galatians chapter 6 verses 7 and 8, but then we see that God curtail the amount of consequences which we face on many occasions. Maybe of course, sometimes He would make us pay for what we have done. But on many, many occasions, we don't really reap as much as we have sown. So even if we could actually read that, Galatians chapter 6 verses 7 and 8. Yeah, if we could even have someone online as well read out because our students here can't seem to... Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. So it's very clearly told here that you can't mock God. God who is watching our actions will cause us to reap whatever we have sown. So if we have sown disobedience and dishonor towards the Lord, yes, we would reap the consequences of that. But this being a truth and a fact, in spite of this, we still see that on many occasions because of the grace and mercy of God, we don't reap in full all that we have sown. Many times we have spared some of the consequences of the wrong that we have done simply due to the mercy and grace of God. Which takes us back to that passage which we have touched upon many times. Lamentations chapter 3, those verses 16 to 33, where Jeremiah acknowledges that they as a nation have sinned against the Lord because of which the Lord has now caused Jerusalem to fall and now the people have been taken away into captivity. So in Lamentations 3 verse 16, this is what he says. Jeremiah talking about his people, his nation. He's representing himself as the main representative of his nation. And he says, he has broken my teeth with gravel. He has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace. I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say my splendor is gone and all that I had hoped for from the Lord. You know, he's basically saying all my hope, all that God had given me, it's all gone now. It is all lost. And then in verse 21, he says, yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope because of the Lord's great love. We are not consumed for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. So in these verses, it's talking about the grace and mercy of God as a nation after what they had done. Yes, they deserve for their face to be crushed into the gravel. They deserve for their teeth to be broken. That is what they deserved. And that's what came upon them. But then after punishing them and taking them to Babylon, what did the same God do? The one who had crushed them in the gravel. There in a foreign land, he caused them to prosper so wonderfully that many of them were not even willing to come back home after that because they were doing so well in captivity, in slavery. They were having such a wonderful and generous life. So that is the grace and mercy of God. He doesn't always allow us to reap the consequences in full. In his mercy, he forgives and he spares us some of the consequences. So because of his mercy and grace, maybe it would be good for us to keep Galatians 6, 7 to 8 in mind. We know because do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked is what it says. So having understood the grace and mercy of God, let us not be people who will take advantage of that mercy. If we are foolish enough to do that, God is not going to be mocked. He will repay. So when we experience grace and mercy at the hands of God, it should cause us to be deeply grateful and it should cause us to make a new commitment to honor him more, to not disobey him in the future. So that was regarding the grace and mercy of God. Moving on to another aspect of God's nature and his attributes. The whole aspect of God and time. We've said again and again that God is outside time. And because of which in Exodus 3, 14, he says, I am is how he describes himself because he's never I was and it's not that he will only be I will be in the future. He always is in the present because he's outside of time. And one way to understand that is to it's very difficult to remember what I have covered in which class, but I'm not sure if I've talked about this in the first year batch about the time being like a timeline. It progresses in one direction. You have the time beginning and it moves on and on and on. And one day will come when God will wrap up the heavens and the earth which we are familiar with. And the time as such as we know it will come to an end. So time began when God started his act of creation and brought the universe into existence. So from that moment on time began. It came into existence, but before that God was still there and God was in the present because God was never in the past or in the future. He's always in the present. So one way to think of it is to picture time literally like a line. So if you know if you would say if I were to say there's a line over here and this is the dot which is beginning it. So this is the dot at which point of time God has started the creation process. The universe has started at this particular point and then time starts to move. And so as time starts to move you have Adam and Eve coming into the picture. As time moves on and on you have Moses coming into the picture. And so the you know the centuries go by. They go on and on and you come into New Testament times and time is still advancing and moving and going forward. So time is progressing like a timeline. But where is God? God is outside the timeline. The timeline is in front of him. He sees the timeline progressing from point A right up to point B which will be at the very end. So the timeline is progressing and progressing and progressing. But you know like me who's standing right now outside this line. God is on the outside of time. He's not trapped inside the timeline. He's outside of it. So he sees the past as I am standing in the present. He's looking at the past standing in the present. He's looking at the current moment which we are occupying right now. Standing in the present as I am. He's also looking at the end of time when everything will be fulfilled. So he's completely outside of time. He's always in the present. He's always the I am and standing outside of time. He can see the whole timeline as just a line in front of him. He sees the past happening. He sees the present happening and he sees the future happening. So we have scientists still grappling with this whole idea of dealing with time and all of that and they've come up with all kinds of complex calculations and formulas and all of that. And they find it difficult to grasp this whole idea of time. But this is basically what we see in the scriptures. He was there before the world was created. So even before time existed, he was already there. And later he says one day after he wraps up the heavens and the earth, he will still be there after that and we will be there with him. So we will enjoy eternity where there is no time. Time does not count anymore because you have infinite, infinity ahead. So you'll no longer think in terms of, okay, now I have completed 1000 years. Okay, now I'm moving towards the 2000th year. Time will have no meaning anymore once you enter into eternity. So that is the kind of timeless God that we are dealing with. So which is what makes it so amazing that a God who is I am, who is outside the timeline, chose to humble himself enough to come and be part of the thin line of time. He chooses to enter into the timeline, be born as a human, live along with us, represent us, accomplish the victory which we could never have accomplished on our own and come out of Satan's grip and out of sin's grip. He did that for us to set us free. And then he stepped out of the timeline and he went back to his, he assumed his earlier position as the infinite one. I mean, we're talking about Jesus, the one person of the Trinity. We're not talking about God the Father or God the Spirit. They continued to be timeless. They were not within the timeline restricted by it, but Jesus allowed himself to come into the timeline and be limited for a certain period of time to accomplish this great act of deliverance, this act of redemption for all of us. So therefore, when we are considering our little futures, on this timeline which is starting with creation and Adam and Eve and which is moving towards the end, how much time span do you think you and I occupy on this line? I mean, we are not even a dot. We're smaller than a dot. It's like for a moment, for a brief moment in that timeline, we appear and we disappear. We are that insignificant, but we are so significant that the one who is I am chose to step into this timeline to save me specifically, to save you specifically. So yes, if you look at us at our lives in the view of time span, we are just too significant, which is why in the Psalms it says, we're like grass. In the morning, it's there. In the evening, the flowers which grow in the grass. In the morning, the flower comes up. And then by evening, it's dead after the heat of the entire day. So we are that brief, that limited, but we are so significant that God entered into the timeline for us. It shows his love towards us. So we don't have to worry about our future. The one who is standing outside the timeline knows exactly what's going to happen to you tomorrow. He knows what's going to happen three years from now. In case you're worried about 70 years from now, he's already taken care of what is going to happen 70 years from now. So as long as we hold on to him and abide in him, we are safe. Our future is secure. It's only those who walk away from God and abandon him who have to, you know, maybe worry about their future. So because he's outside of time, he can already see in the timeline what's going to be happening to you 30 years from now, 50 years from now. And however, impossible your situations may seem to you. The one who is standing outside time already knows how it can be taken care of. He already knows how it can be dealt with from our side. All we need to do is continue to trust him and obey him. And if we hold on to him, he will take care of all of the other details because this is a God who knows the end from the beginning. Even before the beginning began, he already knew what would be there at the end of the timeline and he knows what is there for each of us, what he has destined and planned for us. So if we cooperate with him, what he wants for our future will take place. It will not be, you know, displaced in any way. So which is why Satan spends most of his 24 hours trying to get us away from God. Because only if we go away from the Lord's protection and covering, only then he can disrupt our future. He cannot touch our future as long as we stay under the covering of God's wings. So that's the safest place for us to be. So having talked about God and time, let's also look at another aspect which is generally mentioned when we are talking about doctrine of God, something called imminence and something called transcendence. Now transcendence is basically talking about how God is outside of creation. I mean, he brought the creation into existence. If you look at most of the, you know, religions which started back then in those ancient times, all of their gods are either a part of creation or at least they live inside creation. For instance, in most religions, you know, you have the tree, the tree is some kind of a God. The animals are some kind of gods. The sun and moon are some kind of gods. So different parts of creation become gods in their mythology or they may have gods who are living inside those heavens and earth which are part of their mythology. So in most of the religions we see that these gods that humans have created for themselves, they are placed inside of creation. But the living God is completely outside of creation, is independent of it. He's not dependent on creation in any way. I mean, for instance, you know, if you were to, if tomorrow, if God were to make the sun go away, then all the religions which talk about a sun god in a second lose their sun god because the sun would no longer be in existence. So the thing about the religions which humans have created, they have placed their, you know, created, invented gods inside creation because that's the only thing which they know. They cannot even think of anything outside of this universe which is created. They, you know, human thinking is limited. It cannot even go to that extent to be able to invent a God who goes beyond that. So the living God on the other hand, he's transcendent, he's completely outside of creation. So nothing in the natural world, nothing in the created world can affect his existence. Even if the heavens and the earth get rolled up, it doesn't affect him in any way. He's still sovereign. He's still the I am and he's still, you know, self-sufficient. So that is the transcendence of God and there are some, you know, the Greek philosophers. They like to picture their, you know, some of their Greek gods in that way, a God who is kind of, you know, cut off from creation. He's just sitting over there. He's watching creation. He's not involved in it in any way. So their idea of transcendence is, it's not exactly the biblical God that we have in the Bible. Our God is definitely transcendent. He's outside creation and not dependent on creation in any way. But, you know, coming to the other term, he is also imminent. He's transcendent. He's outside creation, but he's also imminent. He's involved in creation. I mean, he got involved in creation to the extent where he actually chose to become part of his creation, come down to the earth, live with us. So we see a God who cares so deeply that he chose to come and become part of us. You know, if we could just look at two references, maybe John 1.14. Yeah, would be one good reference to talk about the imminence of God. John 1.14, if someone could read out. John 1.14 John 1.14 John 1.14 John 1.14 John 1.14 And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. So God in his entire glory chose to put on the human flesh and dwell among us. So the God of the Bible is not just transcendent. He's also imminent in the sense he actively gets involved in creation to the extent where he comes and lives among us. And then of course you have Act 17, 26 to 28 which talks about another aspect of his imminence. Act 17, 26 to 28 please. Act 17 was 26 and he has made from one blood every nation of man to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their pre-pointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling was 27 so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grow for him and find him through he is not far from each one of us. Verse 26 I know I'm in verse 28. Verse 28 for in him we live and move and have our being as also some of your own poets have said for we are also his offspring. Now this is the passage in which Paul is giving a sermon, a speech to the people of Athens. So these are not Christians. These are Greek people and so he talks to them in a way which they would be able to understand regarding God and he uses quotations from their philosophers, from Greek philosophers. So you have a couple of quotations mentioned over here which are not from the Jewish background but these quotations basically come from their Greek culture. So this is basically what Paul is saying in this passage. He says God is someone very real, very involved in our lives. He took one man and from that man he created all the nations. So over here Paul is talking about Adam. So from Adam and Eve all the nations were created and then he says God is so involved in the lives of these nations that he marks out the appointed times in history for each nation what they are going to be doing and he has also laid down the boundaries of their lands. So this is a God who is fully involved in the lives of his created beings because the Greek philosophers they believed in this transcendent God who is just sitting back on his throne and watching. He couldn't care less what happens to this creation. He is in no way interested in supporting it or sustaining it and so Paul is trying to help them understand that the God, the living God is someone who is very active and involved in people's lives. So he says he has marked out the appointed times in history for each nation. He has appointed the boundaries of their lands and why has God done all this? In verse 27 he says God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. So God is showing his active involvement in the hope that people will reach out to him and say, Lord, if you're that involved in this world and in this life, then maybe you'll take an active interest in my little life and I want to know you. I want to reach out to you and I want to have a relationship with you because if you're the God who sets the boundaries for nations, if you're the God who prefixes appointed times for them, events for them, then if I come to a God like you and choose to abide in you, then there will be hope for my little life. There'll be a future for me. So with that hope, God wants people to reach out to him. So it says in verse 27, God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him though he is not far away from any one of us. So God is in fact very, very near. He's involved in creation, is involved in the nations and he also wants to be involved in your specific individual life, not just in the lives of the other believers or in the life of the pastor. No, he wants to get fully involved in your specific life. He's that imminent, is that involved and then Paul goes on to quote one of their Greek philosophers, a Cretan philosopher from a place named Crete, C-R-E-T-E, that's the place. So a person from Crete, a Cretan philosopher named Epimene, oh gosh, E-P-I-M-E-N-I-D-E-S, that's the name of the man. So he's the one who actually said these words, in him we live and move and have our being. So Paul draws upon that particular quotation and he says, see your own philosophers also say that, right? They talk about how in God we live and move and have our being and then he goes on to give another quotation from their culture. He says, as some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. So this quotation, we are his offspring. That's supposed to be the quotation from a Cilician Stoic philosopher named Asetus. So Paul points out certain philosophers from their culture who are also acknowledging the fact that God is so actively involved in our lives that we must reach out to him. In fact, God is hoping that we will reach out to him and allow him to start putting things together in our lives. So rather than trying to run our lives on our own, we are opening ourselves up and saying, yes, Lord, I'm inviting you to come and have an active involvement in my personal life and in my personal decisions so that he will be able to appoint your timings, the events for your life. He will be able to set your boundaries, very broad, lavish boundaries where your life will not be restricted and crushed into one tiny space, but where you will have much so that you will be able to do much for him. So God wants us to reach out to him because he is an imminent God. So in this passage, in fact, Paul is calling out to the people and saying, you know what? He's not just a transcendent God who's sitting somewhere out there uninterested, uncaring. He's very much an imminent God in whom we live and move and have our being. We are his offspring. He considers us his children. So if we reach out to him and invite him into our lives, then he can do so much for us because of his all-powerful nature. So Paul, you know, urges the Athenians to place their trust in this living God by putting their faith in Jesus Christ. So these are all some of the things that we looked at regarding the nature of God. And this is other one aspect that I wanted to touch upon, you know, before we conclude. And that is regarding the criticism that a lot of people make regarding the God of the Bible, saying that he is a very violent God, that he ordered the murder of many nations, that he is heartless and that he only cares about some people and does not care about others. So all of these criticisms are raised, you know, because of the Bible passages which we find in the Book of Joshua. So they say, oh, you talk about a loving God, you people talk about a compassionate God, but go to the Book of Joshua and read what God did in the Book of Joshua. He told the Israelites to go and kill entire people groups. So how can you call this God compassionate? How can you call such a God loving is what they say. Now, whatever argument we offer, I doubt will really satisfy them, you know, the critics. But those of us who have chosen to follow this living God, we need to at least know why God did what he did. So we don't see any kind of bias or prejudice in God's actions. He was being completely fair and just. So we at least need to have an understanding of why God did these things. So if we were to look at Deuteronomy chapter 9 verses 4 to 6, this is what God says about, you know, the action that he's asking these Israelites to take against the Canaanite people. So we'll begin by looking at that. Deuteronomy chapter 9 verses 4 to 6, if someone could read out. Deuteronomy chapter 9 verses 4. Do not think in your heart after the Lord, your God has cast them out before you saying, because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me into poses this land. But it is because of the weakness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. Verse 5, it is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go into poses their land. But because of the weakness of these nations that the Lord, your God drives them out from before you and that he may fulfill the word which the Lord sold to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Verse 6, therefore understand that the Lord, your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness for you are a stiff-naked people. Okay, God makes his intentions and motives very clear regarding the Canaanite people about why he's asking the Israelites to go and fight them and wipe them out. He makes it very plain in the very beginning. He says it's not because you people are extra righteous or extra holy that I'm choosing you as a nation to go and fight the Canaanites. You people are a stiff-naked people. He repeats it at least 3-4 times in this passage where he makes it very plain to them. It's not because of their righteousness that he's choosing them. So God is not showing favoritism. He's not saying, you know, I have chosen one particular nation for myself and I'm going to treat them in a different way from the others because in other passages he very openly says, if you people sin, you'll also suffer the same consequences which the other nations have suffered. So regarding the criticism that is made about God being unfair, that is not true. God is very, very plain throughout the Old Testament that he's going to treat the Israelites in the same way that he has treated the other nations. He will punish them too if they go away from him. He tells them that very clearly. So it's not because God chose this nation because he had some special, you know, attachment towards them the way people do. You know, because in some families the parents may have a greater love for one child than the other child. There is favoritism. They just seem to prefer one kid more than the other kid. God is not like that. In God's eyes, he loves all the nations equally. He chose one particular nation simply as an instrument to be used against other nations which are living in sin, you know, to bring judgment. But he makes it very, very plain to the nation that he has chosen saying, you people are not special in any way. If you break the rules and if you go away from me, you too will suffer the same consequences as the rest of the nations. So the criticism that is raised against the living God saying that he, you know, shows partiality. No, that is a wrong argument. So God says to them in verse, you know, chapter nine verse seven, it is not on account. He says it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. And he says in verse five, he says the Lord your God will drive them out before you to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So if you remember in Genesis, I present chapter 15, I think, where God very plainly tells Abraham, you know, this about more than 400 years are still left for me to judge these nations which are there in Canaan. So until that time I'll wait. I'll continue to wait for another 430 years or so. And after that, if they have still not changed their ways, then I will send your descendants over there to punish them. So from the beginning, it was always God's intention that he would be completely fair towards all nations. No partiality is being shown towards any one nation. So this term which is used by people to criticize the living God, they say, the Old Testament God, he did genocide. That word genocide, it talks about how you prefer one nation. And so you go around killing all the other nations so that you can show partiality towards this one particular nation. Genocide is most commonly understood with regard to what Hitler believed that his Aryan race of people are superior to all the other races. So he showed favoritism towards one particular race. And so because he felt his race is better than all the other races, he chose to start massacring all the others. So the Jews were attacked, the Jews were killed in thousands. I mean, thousands upon thousands were just killed simply because this Hitler, he believed his race is better and he showed partiality towards his race. And so they say that God of the Old Testament did that. No, we cannot use that comparison because God did not show favoritism to any one nation. All the nations which sinned were equally punished. Hitler on the other hand refused to look at the defects of his Aryan people. Even though the Aryan people were living in sin the same way all the other races of the world were living in sin, he regarded his Aryan people as superior and he wanted to kill the Jewish people specifically and of course the other nations. I mean, if he had been left to his mad ways, he started off with the Jewish people. He would have next chosen all the colored people which would unfortunately include even us because we are not white-skinned. So genocide was done by Hitler. Genocide was most definitely not done by the Lord of the Old Testament. He goes to great pains to explain in so many Bible passages that the reason he is punishing those Canaanite nations is because he has waited more than 400 years for them to change their ways and then after having waited 400, I think it was 430 if I remember exactly, after having waited that long, then the time for their judgment comes and God chooses to use the Israelite nation as his instrument to implement his judgment. So this is most definitely not a case of genocide. So in Genesis 15, 16, this is what the Lord says to Abraham. He tells him, in the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here or the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure and over there the term Amorites is basically being used for all the people living in Canaan. When you look at the land of Canaan, it was occupied by many different people groups. The Canaanites were one of the major people groups so that the entire land is named after them. But in the land of Canaan, you don't have only Canaanites living. You have many otherites also living. You would have the Jebusites and you have the Amorites. The Amorites were another important major group in that land. So sometimes all the people living in the land would be generally called Canaanites. Sometimes all the people occupying the land would be called Amorites because these are the two main groups living in that land. But actually there are many other people groups as well and God says he promises that he will bring judgment against seven of those people groups only. Not all the other people groups living in that land. Because the time for judgment has now come for these seven people groups. Not for all the other people groups. For the other people groups, he would have continued to wait until that appointed time came. So here we see in Deuteronomy 7 verses 1 to 4 where God says that his judgment is going to come upon seven specific people groups and the Israelites have permission to kill and wipe out only those seven specific groups. Not everyone in general. So if you could maybe read out Deuteronomy 7 verse 1 where you will find the identity of all the seven mentioned. Deuteronomy 7 verse 1. Deuteronomy 7 verse 1 when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you the Hittis and the Girgah sheds and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Parasites and the Hewites and the Jebusites. Seven nations greater and mightier than you. So these are the seven people groups that they are permitted to destroy. They do not have permission to attack other people groups who are there in the land and regarding these seven groups this is what God says in verse 2. Deuteronomy 7 verse 2 the Lord says then you must destroy them totally make no treaty with them and show them no mercy do not intermarry with them. So there's a very clear reason why he's asking them to wipe out these seven specific nations because they are going to be living in the cities of these specific nations. So they need to go into the cities of this particular people groups occupy those places and start living there and if they don't kill the people then they start intermarrying with them and then they'll go back into their idolatry. So the reason that God says to wipe them out is so that they will not start intermingling with them. You know you can't intermingle with people who are dead you can only intermingle with those who are still alive so the Lord says please wipe them out because otherwise you'll end up making treaties with them, you'll end up marrying them and then you will go into idolatry is what he says in verse 4. So there's a reason why God did what he did it was not genocide it was not what Hitler did. So let's come back from the break and then we'll look at a few more details about this particular issue. Thank you.