 Amen. Keep your place in Jonah chapter 3. We're going to be talking about that in just a few minutes. So this morning and actually Next Sunday morning, we're going to be talking about I don't really think I'm going to call it a sermon series We're going to be talking about the same subject and the subject is this subject of free will And we're going to be talking about how free will applies to us and our lives and how free will actually applies to how God acts as well and I don't want to give too much away You know on this morning sermon, but basically what I want to focus on this morning is in the in the context of free will That we have I want to talk about this idea this morning of God repenting God repenting and Jonah chapter 3 We see kind of the conclusion of a lot of things that have played come up to this point Jonah is actually a very unique story in the Bible not because Jonah was swallowed By a great fish, but because of the fact that the people of Nineveh actually listened to the prophet That's actually what makes the story of Jonah so unique. Look at Jonah chapter 3 So Jonah in the chapter that we just read this is already after Jonah has run away and he's tried to Escape and he was swallowed and he was in you know the fish's belly for you know Three days and three nights and the Bible says in Jonah chapter 3 that Jonah finally gets right and he goes to Nineveh And he preaches to these people and look at verse number 3 of Jonah chapter 3 The Bible says so Jonah arose and went under Nineveh according to the word of the Lord now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey and Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey And he cried and said yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown now This is what makes this story so unique in verse number 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed to fast and put on sackcloth and from the greatest of them Even to the least of them now if you've read the Bible enough you know that you look at that verse and you're like whoa They did what you know they actually believed what the prophet said here and then of course in Jonah 3 10 This is a verse that especially if you're a soul winner You know you should understand this verse But in Jonah 3 10 the Bible says and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God Repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them and he did it not so first of all You know let's just cut this verse up for a second if you're a soul winner You need to understand this verse because this verse does explain a couple of different things and three things specifically first of all it says that turning from evil or You know turning from your sin, you know, they turned from their evil God saw their works Turning from sin is work is what this verse proves So if you think that you have to repent of your sins to be saved That means you believe that you have to do works to be saved So that's the first thing you need to understand about this verse and why this verse is so valuable as a soul winner because what's everybody hung up on today everybody's hung up on works today and Whether that takes the form of being a good person Repenting from sin Stopping certain sins whatever the Bible says that that is works and Jonah 3 10 is a great proof of that You know then of course you can show that you know Ephesians 2 8 9 not of works, you know the Bible says that salvation It's easy to prove that salvation is not of works Okay, and then the third thing that this shows is that God actually repented so it shows the true meaning of The word repent meaning you know everybody thinks that repent just means turn from your sins turn from your sins Well, God obviously does not have sin So God can't turn from something that he doesn't have to repent simply means that God changed his mind And that's what we're going to talk about this morning So we're going to talk about this idea of God repenting God changing his mind And it's kind of a strange concept. You think why would God need to change his mind, right? I mean, I've changed my mind several times in my life. I think I've changed my mind already this morning about something So we do it all the time, but God in Jonah chapter 3 God simply changed his mind So let's look at why God would need to change his mind and how that applies to us God has done this before he's done it many times in the Bible Let's look at another example go to Exodus chapter 32 Exodus chapter 32 So here we see that people turn from their evil way people turn from their sin They stop doing their evil things and God changed his mind. He repented of the evil. He repented of the hurt That's what that that word means. He repented of the damage He was going to do to them that Jonah was talking about in 40 days He changed his mind about that but look at Exodus chapter 32 Look at verse number nine look at verse number nine There's another interesting time that God has changed his mind And the Bible says in Exodus 32 9 and the Lord said unto Moses I have seen this people and behold it is a stiff necked people God's upset at the people look at verse 10 now They're therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them and then I may consume them And I will make of thee a great nation God's basically saying I'm just going to destroy all these people I'll start over with you Moses and Then look at what verse number 11 says and Moses be soft the Lord his God and said Lord Why does my wrath wax hot against thy people why is that brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a Mighty hand now look first of all there's an interesting application here for this verse because it's interesting to point out that in Exodus chapter 32 The people had done wickedly and they had you know God's anger had waxed hot against them the people have not Confessed at this point the people have not said we're sorry here You just have Moses be sought he besought the Lord the Bible says the Bible says that means he asked in a in a Urgent manner he's he's praying to God He's begging God to you know not destroy these people to not start over You know and and wipe these people out and just start over with him and his family So I mean first of all that's the power of prayer right there Is an interesting little side note on this is here you have just a simple a righteous man a man when I mean righteous I mean a man that's right with God Just seeking the Lord and look at what the results are look at Exodus 32 and verse number 12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say for mischief did he bring them out Moses is still Beseeching the Lord here to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people meaning change your mind about this hurt that you want to do To the people look at verse 13 Remember Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants to whom thou swears by thine own self and sets unto them I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have spoken of why give unto your seed They shall inherit it forever in verse 14. Look at the results and the Lord repented of the evil Which he sought to do unto his people Moses asked and God simply said here okay It had nothing to do with the people the people didn't get right now again in Nineveh God Changed his mind because the people turned from their evil ways But in this case God simply changed his mind because one righteous man asked asked if he would One righteous man stood in front of them turned to Luke chapter 11 like this gives you an example in your life of Maybe you should be praying more Maybe you should be praying where you say oh, I do all these things to me make sure that I'm right with God Look if you do all these things and making sure that you're right with God You know you're serving and and you're living a spiritual life and you're living your life for the Lord and you're not praying You're missing out on a huge opportunity Look at verse number 11 or Luke number 11 and verse number 11 the Bible says if a son asked of any Shall ask bread of any of you that is his father will he give him a stone or if he asked a fish Will he give a fish give him a serpent or if he shall ask an egg We offer him a scorpion if he then if you then being evil know how to get good gifts under your children How much more show your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him look if you're right with God And you do not pray I mean you you have not you have not because he asked not Is what's going on? I mean so many people are going to get to heaven and they're gonna you're God's just gonna be like Why didn't you ask me for more stuff? Why didn't you ask more? Why didn't you pray more? Because look back to God repenting God changed his mind Against destroying the people not because the people got right in Exodus chapter 32. It's simply because Moses asked So think about that next time you think about how much time you spend praying and talking to the Lord in your life Let's go back to God repenting. That was just a side note Look God so here we see two instances where God changed his mind about doing harm or passing judgment and destroying man He was gonna go and he was gonna destroy Nineveh. He was gonna destroy the children of Israel, but look God He also repents from seemingly good things as well turn to Genesis chapter 6 Turn to Genesis chapter 6 Turn to Genesis chapter 6 and look at verse number 6 Genesis 6 6 here the Bible says that God actually repented of you know Making man part of the creation at all Look at Genesis 6 6 and the Bible says this it says and it repented the Lord That means he regretted it Like he changed his mind that that was a good idea and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and It grieved him at his heart. So are you know first of all? I don't want to give away the answer, but are you noticing the common denominator here in God repenting? You know how so you say how can God repent? I mean, how can God change his mind look go to Malachi chapter 3 How can these two things these two things that I'm about to show you be true? God is changing his mind here Did he make a mistake making man? Look at what Malachi chapter 3 in verse number 6 says Malachi chapter 3 in verse number 6 Malachi chapter 3 in verse number 6 the Bible says here it says for I am the Lord I change not Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed turn to Psalm chapter 145. So We see I've shown you several times I could show you several more times where God simply changed his mind on what he was going to do and he decided not to do it and In Malachi chapter 3, it's you know God says I don't change So how can these two things both be true? Look at Psalm chapter 145. Does God make mistakes? Does God make mistakes? Psalm 145, but I mean so if God doesn't make mistakes, how can he change his mind? Usually when you change your mind you realize, you know the error of your ways, right? I mean I was gonna I was gonna go left that was my decision And then I went left and I realized that that road led to like a cliff So I changed my mind. I don't want to drive over the cliff and I went right instead I went back to the fork in the road and I went right because left was clearly the wrong decision or I should say left My left so I mean the point is does God make mistakes? Look at Psalm 145 and verse number 17 The Bible says God doesn't make mistakes I'll get one 145 verse number 17 of Psalm the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his Works, but here's the thing folks Not every change in direction is due to you making a wrong decision Let's say I went left and everything was fine when I went left on the road But somebody else did damage to the road Somebody came at night and did damage to the road or put an obstacle in the road and then you know those Circumstances that I thought that they were yesterday those circumstances changed so I needed to change Look situations, especially in this life are dynamic Especially with us and the reason that God has to repent and that God can change his mind and Also not change and those two things can be true turn to Romans chapter 5 Is because God gives us free will That is why so first of all Let's look at Romans chapter 5 the first thing that we need to understand as far as our free will goes is this We're gonna kind of you know, we're gonna do some thinking about free will this morning God our salvation. Thankfully is based on and many people have this backwards today our Salvation is based on God loving us It is not based on us loving God. That's what so many people have backwards You go out and you ask people how you know, you think you're gonna go to heaven people many people think they are It's because I am good. I do good things. I'm a nice person. Whatever. I have a relationship with the Lord It's I I I they are proving that they love the Lord and that's how they think that they are going to heaven But look at Romans 5a, but God commanded his love toward us That while we were yet sinners Christ died for us So our salvation is based only on God's love for us in that direction Okay, that's why look that's why God said in John 14 15 if you love me Keep my commandments. That's not about salvation. It's about proving to God that we love him So us, you know showing that you know, we do good works and want to follow God's commandments That's us showing our love towards God. We're saved because God loved us Not the other way around that's why Paul said so many times turn to Romans chapter 6 This is why Paul said so many times this one word Roman 6 look at verse number 6 and this word keeps popping up again and again Especially in the New Testament in the letters of Paul says knowing this that your old man is crucified with him That the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth. We should not serve sin should is the key word there We should not serve sin But we still look we still have free will Even after salvation we have Free will I mean this pretty much this idea of man having free will look got the idea of God repenting Which we can see from the Bible Numerous times pretty much disproves Calvinism by itself Because God look God repenting destroys the idea that it pretty much destroys the idea That God chooses certain people and doesn't choose others otherwise If God chose some for salvation think about this and he chose to operate that way like I choose these people for salvation And then these people I choose not for salvation. There would be no need for him to send profits There would be no need for him to warn people about his wrath You know as far as salvation goes he would just predestined some to get right and Others not to that that's it So look he could also have predestinated decisions of judgment and mercy that would not have to change But the way God actually operates is every single situation in your life You have complete and absolute free will Before it looked here's another thing before you were saved I had this this this neighbor of mine this this this old rancher of that was my neighbor He used to always say this over and over and he has no idea how right he was But he used to say this statement that said life is the sum of your choices meaning Meaning how your life ends up is Is the addition of all the choices that you've made along the way But look that's very true and that's very biblical actually because every single decision that you have made in your life is Compounded upon itself and the sum of those things determined the sum of those things determined whether or not you would even accept the gospel Think about that Many people many people that you come up to that you come up to at their door And they just they just will not accept the gospel. They have no interest in in hearing anything from the Bible. They're more busy Cooking something or watching something or anything. What that's just that didn't just happen in that moment That was the sum of the choices that they have made so far in their life That have put them in that state because what you are seeing is you are seeing a hard-hearted person Towards the gospel. You're seeing somebody who has a heart that is that's hardened towards the gospel that doesn't happen overnight The sum of the decisions that they have made in their lives have gotten them to that point I think about when I was thinking about this sermon. I was thinking about a lot of things that you hear about today like artificial intelligence and and Self-driving cars and all this kind of stuff and like machine learning every all the young engineers want to talk about machine Learning and they think it's such a it's such a wild thing. You know the machines are going to take over the world You know and I'm like no they're not You know if you think the machines are going to take over the world you haven't built enough machines That's the problem. That's why you see these kids that never built anything. They're like, oh Machines are going to take over everything. No, they're not. It's a simple computer program is all it is It's a computer program where a robot it has a goal the robots goal is to get through that doorway and The robot is driving towards the doorway and it moves this way and and it and it makes a mistake And it and it doesn't hit the goal so it adjusts itself And then it sees if it gets closer and it tries again And then it sees how close I got that time and say it got further away than the time before that then it adjusts in The other direction look it's a simple control system. We've been building these things for 80 years It's a control system with a feedback loop. That's all it is but look our lives are the most dynamic Machine learning that you can think of our lives Look these things are just simple computer programs with humans think about the goals Think about the goals like the goals are defined by your upbringing The goals that you're heading towards in your life are defined by you know, hopefully by your parents Your goals in your life or or you know or lack of guidance that's what parents should be doing is defining those goals for their kids, but People still have goals if they don't have guidance those goals, you know might just be Bad things like you know video games. My goal is to see how many video games I can play today My goal is to do drugs and alcohol This is where nobody is guiding those goals There will still be goals that people are are trying to reach see what I'm saying I mean even the the the bums out here their goal every day is to just get more drugs get more drugs Get more drugs. That's their goal. They have goals You know goals could end up being sin. My goal is to just I'm into this sin and I just want to do this in what That's how random our goals can be in our lives and it's it's dependent on the guidance that we've we've received. It's You say you say it's too random. Nobody has a chance Nobody has a chance to get it right, but here's the thing God helps us It's not just random. God doesn't choose, but God helps us God helps us because he gives us this thing that Romans 2 15 Talks about he gives us this law written in our hearts Whether I had good parents or bad parents whether I had good guidance or bad guidance. I still have the law written in my heart and Look, I have to go against that To get bad goals. I have to go against it. I have to choose to steer away from that in my life It's something that God has given us so everybody can he can funnel everybody to at least having a chance at this thing But look the further you get away From those goals, especially as an unsaved person the further you get away from that conscience that law God has given you in your heart That's when you start getting scars in your conscience That's when you start getting those scars and then those scars heal over and you start getting that your heart gets a little bit hard and then it gets a little bit more hard and At some point people's conscience can get so scarred That when they hear the gospel because guess what guess what and you want to talk about why it's so important that We keep our kids from sin and that you're in a good church and that you raise You're and you live separated lives as a family as a man as a woman And as we as we keep these like this idea that oh you you have to let these kids experience things That is a lie from the pit of hell Why would you want to go and have your children's conscience scarred? Because guess what will happen as soon as they hear the gospel with a scarred Conscience that perfect key that will fit a unscarred heart of the gospel. It won't fit That's what's happening folks. That's what's gonna happen to you at two o'clock today when you go out and knock on doors You're gonna see people with scarred hearts and you have this perfect key that matches Romans 2 15 It it perfectly matches that law that was given to everybody that they had at one time But your key is no longer gonna fit that lock with many people And it's because of the sum of the choices that they've made in their life up to that point Now look I mean so It's it's a terrible thing it look it's a great reminder for us all on how important it is to live separated lives To raise our children properly to keep our kids out of the garbage that this world would teach them Because it will literally ruin what God put in them That's why And thank God forbid our own children could end up not wanting to be saved Yes, yeah, it's just about belief But you got to want to believe it Guess what guess what is the freest thing that I have The freest thing that I have that nobody can can force upon me is what I believe And that's why God Headed this way we have total free will Turn to Ephesians chapter 4. You know what once you're saved you also have total free will Look at Ephesians chapter 4. However Not only does God give you the law Enrollment chapter 2 he gives you the law in your heart before you're saved to hopefully get you saved once you're saved He still gives you even more support at that point Look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse number 30 God gives you he seals you. What does he use to seal you in Ephesians chapter 1? He uses the literal holy spirit himself To seal you as a saved believer and that holy spirit is in you and helping you You say, how do I know it's helping you? Well, how do here's another proof of free will that I could do anything that I want I could fall into just You could not even come to church ever again and still be saved And proof that that holy spirit is in you trying to help you is Ephesians 4 30 the bible says and grieve not the holy spirit of god Whereby he or sealed under the day of redemption god use that holy spirit to seal you it's in you and look you can grieve it If you're just not listening and you're not doing what you're supposed to do You still have free will And you'll be grieving that holy spirit So this idea that that you're going to get saved and all of a sudden you will have the works You know like I'm now on that robot that will hit the doorway every single time it What does it mean that you could grieve the holy spirit of god then? I mean look there's a lot of safe people you're going to meet out there They're just grieving the holy spirit of god every single day of their life Their life is a grievance to the holy spirit So let's go back to god repenting. So you have free will before you're saved You have free will after you're saved. I mean god helps you God god, I mean it's god's will that all men would be saved. It's just not going to happen Folks so god repenting Look, it is the because of the nature of man having the choice to follow god or not to accept the gospel or not Even saved man That god must be willing to change His mind Otherwise none of us would have a chance. I mean it's really what we're doing here is we're talking about god's judgment and his mercy I mean if if We're judgment and sin intersect there's there's only destruction Thank god that we have god's mercy in there as well I mean his Repenting if you look through the bible and see all the points that god repented It's always because there's a common denominator in there and the common denominator Is us Is man It's always because of the free will Of man when I was in a lutheran church. They always talked about Law and gospel, you know the lutheran pastor would would talk about every sermon should have law and gospel in it Which is ironic because they don't even have the right gospel But it just confuses people because they're teaching a works-based Salvation and they're saying two things out of the you know both sides of their mouth But look really what it is Really what this whole thing is that we're talking about god repenting. It's about judgment and mercy Is what it is those are the two things and it applies look it applies to the saved and to the unsaved It's about god's judgment and god's mercy And that's why god repented so look anytime god repents anytime god repents man is always involved He is the variable man is the variable and not god. That's how god can not change And man you know is always in there look god didn't make the earth go back to genesis chapter six god didn't make the earth And change his mind and say you'll never see something where god made something Where god made an object or god did something on his own and he's just like oh, yeah, you know I shouldn't have done that that way. That was a mistake. You'll never see that It's always or he said he made creation. He's just like no, you know, that wasn't good enough You know, I didn't really design that right? No, you'll never see that in the bible It's always man man is always the variable as a matter of fact back in genesis Chapter six when god was lamenting that he made man in the first place. Let's look at why it was look at genesis six and verse 11 genesis six In verse number 11 the bible says the earth was also corrupt before god. Why was the earth corrupt? It wasn't because creation was wrong or something was designed incorrectly. It says the earth was filled with violence And god looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth all men Had done evil and god said to noah the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth Is filled with violence through them and behold i will destroy them with the earth it was because of man God created something that was perfect and man ruined it I mean man ruined the whole Thing man took what god had made and filled it with sin and with violence So in this case, you know He actually regretted making man in the first place It's kind of like, you know, you build something great and you know somebody some you know You build a lego tower or something and some other kid comes in and just kicks the whole thing over You know, I mean you kids ever felt like that I mean it's it was ruined. It was something that was beautiful and it was perfect. It was ruined by us Here's another example turn to Deuteronomy chapter four It's all these situations look this this idea and we're going through the book of joshela and we're talking about You know this this promise that god gave the children of israel It's finally being fulfilled. You know, they're finally coming in and they're finally, you know Taking over the land and they're taking possession of this promise that god has made for hundreds of years Hundreds of years think about it. It's finally being realized think of the privilege that those people had to You know possess that land, but here's the thing about the land It's the same thing. It's it's one of those things where god said if you do this I will do this Look at Deuteronomy chapter four. Look at verse 23 Deuteronomy chapter four in verse number 23 the bible says Take heed unto yourselves lest you forget the covenant of the lord your god, which he had made with you Look, he made a deal with you Is what the bible is saying here and make you a graven image or the likeness of anything Which the lord thy god hath forbidden me for the lord thy god is a consuming fire Even a jealous god. Look, it's not even that he just gives them these rules It's not even that god Look, it's not that god just gives us these ultimatums He didn't just tell the children of israel like look just don't do these things. He gave them all these pragmatic steps To take so these things wouldn't happen. He told him. Hey, you got to wipe these people out He's like don't live amongst these people Don't live amongst these people. Don't marry these people. Don't don't mix your families with these people Instead, what do they do? They go in there and like the third battle They start, you know, hey these people can work for us. This is a pretty good idea Then come in here and then I don't like cutting wood If I can get somebody to cut my wood for free. That's great I can tax this person. They can pay me a bunch of money sounds like a good deal But then what happens everything that god said right here So god made all these rules to protect them from themselves. Look at verse 25 When thou shalt beget children the children's children You shall have remain long in the land and shall corrupt yourselves And make a graven image or the likeness of anything and shall do evil in the sight of the lord Thy god to provoke him to anger I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land Wherein you go over Jerusalem to possess it you shall not prolong your days upon it upon the land he says But you shall utterly be destroyed and the lord shall scatter you amongst the nations You should be left few and number among the heathen whether the lord shall lead you So, I mean look there's a reason everybody's like oh, you know This is terrible. I mean this is pretty brutal Like what happened and all the rules that god put against these wicked nations First of all these wicked nations they were like they god waited hundreds of years until his wrath was full upon these nations I mean he gave them chance after chance for hundreds of years And then he told he gave all these warnings and he said look When you go into this land if you do these things and if you mix with these people you're going to end up worshiping their gods You're going to end up becoming heathen like them. He said and then I'm going to kick you out of the land And you're going to be utterly you are going to be utterly destroyed Is what he says But there's so many warnings. You're just like What in the world were they thinking? I mean but right away they start compromising So there's so many examples of this in the bible But the problem the point I'm trying to make is that god is the same the problem is us In short in short we We human beings I look at the things that are happening today in this country with all the perversion And all the the same wicked roads that we're going down that everybody else has gone down for thousands of years Look, we are a management nightmare We are a management nightmare. I mean god you god must be patient God's repenting in the bible shows how complete our free will actually is Because I mean god just allows it and then he just brings judgment and then when people repent He brings mercy So I mean thank god thank god that god does repent in the bible So not only do we see the reason that god does repent we should be extremely thankful for it Of god changing his mind because it's where It's where when god repents that's where we receive mercy Otherwise like I said, it's just it's just our sin Just it would just be our sin intersecting perfect judgment. That would be it That would be it But god repenting shows his mercy Next week we're going to talk a little bit about this idea Because look gods, I know that there's there's many there's many times in our christian lives Especially when you you know when we look at our lives at somebody else because we're pretty judgmental about other people You know many times and we don't look at ourselves nearly enough But next week we're going to look at this idea because look we do have free will and the point That was trying to get at this morning is we have free will as we're unsaved. We still have free will as we're saved And I think sometimes we forget that That we still have free will as we're saved next week. We're going to look at this idea Of how christian people can do terrible things I mean how many times have you looked at somebody who did something terrible and you're just like how could a saved person do that? I mean Look it happens it happens all the time and i'm sure just me saying that you you've thought of some examples You're just like how could a saved person do these things? But I want to remind you that just because you're saved doesn't mean that we don't have free will And some people just get really good at grieving the holy spirit of god But there's some things in the bible that the bible shows us that the bible teaches us That we can watch for and i'm talking about in context of ourselves Because look you look at somebody who's done a terrible thing You look at some christian some saved person who's done a terrible thing and you're just like oh man that person saved how could that have happened? How could that person have done such a terrible thing? But look what we need to do is we need to learn from those situations We need to learn from those situations and we need to apply them to ourselves Right Because look there's a reason folks there's a reason that you're either moving forward or backwards in this christian life Is because there's a crazy battle going on And if you're not growing stronger You're getting pushed back And look we can look at things we can look and look you think that there's not saved people in the bible That have done terrible things sometimes. I wonder like are people not reading the bible I mean I look I have the same I have the same attitude. I see things and I'm just like I'm like wow that person saved How could that have happened? And then I catch myself. I'm like, oh, yeah, but the bible Oh, yeah, but look at this guy in the bible Look people save people in the bible did horrible things the most horrible things that you could think of So what can we learn From that I want to get across the point that you have free will this morning You have the decisions to make in your life every single day and guess what what you do with your life Before you got saved. Look before you got saved. Here's what I know about your life I know that the sum of your choices that you had made in your life were at least not bad enough to where you couldn't believe the gospel I know that I don't know and I don't care and I don't want to know of all the sins that everybody did in their past But I know that the sum of your choices were at least not wicked enough to scar your conscience And make it so you can't believe the gospel. I know that You said what could people do how bad could people be? Before like, you know, they're just reprobates or whatever. Well, here's what I know if you believe the gospel It's you know, it wasn't that bad That's the question. Were you able to believe or not? A lot of people did a lot of people have done really terrible things in their past But they always knew that those things were bad when they were doing it. They were just grieve. They were just they were just Going against that law that god gave and thank goodness They got saved before their conscience got scarred But then even after that folks after that You have the holy spirit But you know, especially For people especially and I don't want to give away next week, but especially for people That were really good or they're that were just in a bad lifestyle before and all these different things They get saved. Look, they might be pretty good at grieving the holy spirit They're going to have to teach themselves to not grieve the holy spirit Because you can't make yourself unsafe, but you can grieve the holy spirit and you can bring god's judgment down on yourself for your whole life So we'll talk about that Next week, but we have complete free will saved and unsaved And that's why god has to change his mind and i'm thankful for it I'm thankful that god changes his mind. Otherwise, there's just judgment It's just as a safe person if god doesn't change his mind. There's just judgment coming to me There's just judgment coming to you even as as safe people god's just going to beat me unmercifully So i'm glad that you know, I can ask god things and I can you know Live a righteous life to the best of my ability and live my life that is pleasing to the lord And that he'll change his mind About you know, how maybe I need to be treated because you know We all know what we deserve So thank god that that that allows us to have god's mercy. So next week. We'll finish this off. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer