Alright. Good evening. Good evening. Happy New Year. Welcome back.

It's been a few weeks, since I've seen some of you and, especially if you've joined us online tonight. It's been a been a few weeks since we got together. I hope that your Christmas and New Year's celebration went well. Everybody had a good time. We enjoyed celebrating together, the birth of our savior, and then a brand new year getting started.

So looking forward to that. We have a little unfinished business from last year. We didn't quite finish 2nd Timothy. And, so we're gonna try to finish that up tonight, and then we will be starting next week all the way back to the beginning. We'll be heading back to Genesis and, beginning in Genesis starting next week.

So I'm looking forward to that study. Just so you know, just so you'll be prepared. We'll be in the book of Genesis probably all year. It's, it's gonna take a long time to get through the book of Genesis. So we'll we'll be in the book of Genesis for a very long time.

So just be prepared for that. I hope that it's not that you have to get prepared, but that you're excited about it because it really is a good, a wonderful study and to go back to the very beginning and remind yourself how all this began and how incredible the God that we serve is and, you know, it's just an amazing time. But for tonight, let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer, and then we're gonna kick off with the last part of 2nd Timothy chapter 4. We'll begin with verse 9. Let's pray.

Father, we do come to you tonight, and we are, again, excited to be in your house. God, the fact that we can gather together in your name in the middle of the week, encourage each other. Father, we're very thankful for that. Father, we pray that you would watch over us tonight, that you would guide us and direct us in the paths that you would have us to go. Father, we pray that you would be with our nation as we, mourn the loss of a former president, and tomorrow is that national day of mourning.

Father, we thank you for living in a system, where democracy is still in control. And so, father, we pray that you would help us to lead people to you, father, that they would understand that you are the one that's actually in control. Father, tonight as we go through this time together, I ask that you open our hearts and our minds and then, god, you would just show us exactly what you want us to see, and you would use us always for your glory. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Alright. So, before I start, I know I referenced this a moment ago, but, you know, tomorrow is a national day of mourning, for president Carter. Now I know a lot of people have a lot of different political ideas and and thoughts and and feelings about him as a president. But I do want to say that he did a lot of wonderful things in the name of our savior, both in office and out of office. And so, therefore, you know, it's a it was an incredible thing that someone could have that kind of faith and have a stage like that.

So, you know, there's a lot of people that, didn't have a home until Habitat for Humanity came along and helped them. So, you know, he did a lot of wonderful things. So, hopefully, it'll take a moment and just remember him and and pray for his family, as we go through the day tomorrow. Alright. So second Timothy chapter 4 beginning in verse 9.

2nd Timothy chapter 4. We're gonna read 9 through 13, then we're gonna talk about that for a little while. 2nd Timothy chapter 49 through 13. It says this says, be diligent to come to me quickly, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica, Crescens for Galatia, and Titus for Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.

Get Mark and bring him with you for he is useful to me for ministry. And I have sent to Ephesus. Bring the cloak that I left with Karpus at Troas when you come, and the books, especially the parchment. Alright. So several things.

Paul was certainly a man of god, and we know that he wrote, the majority of the new testament. He wrote a awful lot of that, but here's a news flash that you might not realize. Paul was not superhuman. Paul was not deity. Paul was not Christ.

Paul was a person. He was a human being, and he had been through going through a lot of things. He was somebody who had needs and wants, and at this point, he needed some companionship. He was pretty lonely. This is after his second arrest.

He's, basically, he's heading towards death. He's heading that way right now, and he's not going to be released. He's heading that way, and he's kind of alone. And so he's writing this letter to Timothy, and he says, come to me quickly. He said, Demas has forsaken me.

Well, he said Demas left him for the love of this present world. Basically, what he's talking about, Demas is that, he literally left the ministry. He he went away. He used to be a fellow worker, and now he has, decided the things of the world were better than the things of god. And so he's walked away from the ministry.

He's walked away from following Christ. He's fallen out of relationship. And so it's just a a bad thing. And so Demus is now gone. He is no longer there with him.

And then, others left out of necessity, Creason's and Titus. They left because they had things that had to be done at different locations. And so they went to take care of those things, and then Paul sent away. He told him to go go and and do some things. So he sent him away.

So all the ones that had been around him, Paul either sent away, they left out of necessity, or they, fell away. Okay? And so a lot of things that that had happened in that situation. So he says, hey. I need you to come.

He said only Luke is still with him. Only Luke is still with him. Luke had traveled with Paul on a lot of his missionary journeys. Luke had been with him through the first, imprisonment. Everybody else was gone, but, there he was.

In the in the first imprisonment, he had visitors coming and going. He had, like, you know, people could come and see him and hang out and all this kind of stuff. And and it was more like he was just under house arrest, but everything was kinda somewhat normal, but this time it's not. And so he says, listen. Only Luke is with me.

I I need you to come. I need you to come. I need you to come as quick as you can. I don't don't hang out. Don't wait.

And, oh, yeah, bring Mark with you. Now that's something to think about there because, Mark was somebody that, you know, Paul didn't want anything to do with him to start with. You know, Paul Paul wanted to send him away. He didn't want anything to do with Mark. And now he's saying, hey.

Bring Mark with you. Bring Mark with you. He's he's come back to a point that he's, realizing that Mark is working for the lord, and he wants to him to come as well. So he says, bring Mark with you. This kind of a restoration of trust in in Mark.

You know? So that's a good thing. You know, think about that with with your own people around you. Anybody ever get crossways with somebody? Anybody?

We get crossways with people. Right? Sometimes when we get crossways with people, we get crossways with them over silly stuff. Things that have no real reason, but some reason we get upset about it. I don't wanna I don't wanna be around you anymore.

I don't want us to do things together. I don't whatever. You know, when that happens, really, reconciliation is needed. It's needed because the things that have happened and caused us to separate and be apart from one another, more than likely were things that were worldly, and we need to be reconciled because of God. And in this case, he's recognized that he needs to be back together with Mark.

And so he's he said, hey. You know, I want you to bring him when you come. And then he says something kinda strange to me when I first read it. Bring the cloak that I left. Bring the cloak.

Well, why would he want him to bring the cloak? Why would he why would that be so important? Bring that cloak. I mean, he's he's in prison. Why is he so wanting to bring the cloak?

And, I started doing a little bit of research and found out where Paul was being held at this point. He didn't have it wasn't insulated. He didn't have a lot of it wasn't a lot of heat, wasn't a lot of thing. He was cold, and they didn't take care of him. They didn't provide those things for him.

In the first arrest that Paul had, he was taken well care of. But this time, he was literally like a jail cell, and there wasn't a lot of things being taken care of for him. So he's cold. He says, hey. Bring the cloak.

Well, here's the important thing to to know about this if you didn't know. This is something that's important is that when he says I left the cloak with carpus at Troas, it's likely that somehow he knew he was gonna be arrested. He was probably told he was gonna be arrested and so he took the cloak and some books and things like that and he gave it to Karpus to hold for him because in the time period if somebody arrested you, they confiscated all your stuff. They took everything and especially if it was nice clothes or cloak, things like that. They would take it.

The soldiers would just take it. And so he had left that and said, hey. Stop by and get that. Stop and get my cloak, but not just my cloak. He said, I I need you to get do y'all know what a cloak is?

Everybody knows what a cloak is. Right? It's kinda like a cape, but it's it's it's really a big round thing with a head hole and arms hole. Right? And it just goes over you.

And that's the way this was. And, so it comes over the top of you. It helps them stay warm. He said, bring that. But he also said, look.

Bring the books, especially the parchment. So he had left the cloak. He had left books. He had left parts. Why do you think he wanted the books so badly?

So he could study. So he could read and he could study and he could continue to grow. Listen. Sometimes I think that people feel once they come to know Jesus as lord and savior that, well, they just know whatever they need to know. Well, the first book that we need to be studying all the time as a believer in Christ is this one.

Come on. That's the primary book. Yeah. That's the primary book. Well, when he said especially the parchments, that's what he was talking about was the scripture.

Okay? But also the books. Reading books that biblical scholarly people have written is a wonderful thing to go hand in hand with the Bible. Not a substitute. It's not a substitute for the Bible, but it is a wonderful thing to go hand in hand and help build you up as you study.

When Jesus was alive and he would speak in parables, His disciples didn't understand what he meant. So oftentimes he'd speak in a parable and then he'd have to turn around and break it down for him. Understand that when you read the scriptures, sometimes it's hard to understand and a commentary or another scholarly writing that you can read and kinda help you break down some of these things that you're struggling to understand is a very positive thing. Paul had books. He had things that were scholarly books that were written that he wanted, and he wanted those parchments so he could look at God's word.

He wanted those things because he was in a place where that was his comfort. He was just talking to God. He was spending time with God, but he needed stuff to even get closer to God. He wanted people to come and be around him. Probably not just to have companionship, but also so he could talk to them about what God had been showing him and all of the time that he'd been there and things, messages that they needed to pass on as he left this world.

Things that still needed to be done. And he was called. Bring the cloak. Bring these things. Bring them with you.

And when you come, I I I need you to to bring these things so that I can continue the fight that I'm in right now. Don't know how long it will be. So we look at all this and we think about it. It's important for us to to realize that Paul, even in this weakened state, even in this terrible way he was being held and all of the things that was going on, he still found that it was very important. He wanted Timothy to know things.

He wanted to write all those things to Timothy. Now he's saying, Timothy, come here. I need you to come. I need you to come. I need you to bring these others with you.

I need to pass on this other information. I want the books. I want the parchments. It's possible that he wanted to take those books and parchment and show Timothy what was important about them and give them to him at the end. We don't know that, but it could be that.

So he wanted all of that and he was calling them in. Most of the people that are members in this church are older than 40 years old. We're not, as they say, spring chickens anymore. Right? Right.

We're getting older. We had 8 funerals last year. Yeah. 8 funerals. We lost 8 people in our church that were hard workers, that serve the Lord, that did so much and taught people on all the things that they did.

Now they're receiving their reward and they're, you know, where they always wanted to be. But there's still so much that needs to be passed on, and there's so much that we need to do to help raise up another generation. There's so many things that we have to do that we need to do to make sure that people know the things they need to know about the Lord. Paul, even in his imprisonment, was still trying to pass all that on. He knew where he was going.

He knew what was gonna happen, and he knew that probably his time was growing short. And even in that, he wanted to continue to make sure that people knew what they needed to know. He wants to continue to groom them and prepare them for what was to come. And so he was continuing to do just that. Then he gives a warning.

Right? 14 to 15, he says this. Says, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the lord repay him according to his works. You also must beware of him for he has greatly resisted our words.

So if you just read that on, at face value, perhaps you think Paul's just being petty. He's just being petty. Right? This guy was mean to me. I hope God repays him.

You know? Sounds like he's being petty, maybe. Well, here's the thing. The Alexander, was mentioned as someone whose faith had suffered during the shipwreck that Paul was on. He's been mentioned in the past in first Timothy, 120.

Paul mentioned him. He said his faith had suffered, and and he was a a coppersmith. Well, a coppersmith back then didn't mean that they just did copper. It was any metal worker. If they any kind of metal work, they were a coppersmith.

And so, all of this that happened, Paul simply wrote that Alexander did me much harm. He didn't say let me tell you what he did. You know what he did? He did he didn't post it on Facebook. Alright.

Tell the whole world. He didn't go through all that. He just said he did me much harm. That is simple. He wronged me in some way.

So he said that. Right? So the implication here is that, perhaps, he informed the Romans own things about Paul. He was a traitor. So he had turned from the faith.

He'd suffered in his faith, and now he had turned against Paul by giving, evidence against him to the Romans. Right? So that's kinda what, what we see there. And so perhaps that's what he did. He said he's done me much harm.

But then he said, may God may the Lord repay him. So Alexander's judgment was just simple. May he be judged according to his works. Here's a question. How many of you would like to be judged according to your works?

None of us want to be judged according to our works. We don't want to be judged that way. We we want to be judged with mercy and grace. Right? We don't want to be judged according to our works.

He said he did me much harm. May he be judged according to his works, what he did. And he would be judged for that. If we were judged for the things that we do that are negative. Now listen, we do have to answer for those things.

They will be brought up even those who us who are believers in Christ. Every part of that will be brought up and we will have to answer for it, but we're not judged for it. We're not judged for it because Christ took our judgment. Christ paid the price for everything. So all of those things that we've done that are in our life, we don't pay the penalty for it.

Yes. We will have to answer for it. Yes. It will be brought up. And, yes, there will be, it will be hashed out.

But we don't receive the punishment for what we did because Christ already received the punishment. You got the judgment seat of Christ when all this is gonna take place. Right. And he looks at me without the delivery for money. That's right.

And so all these things will be told, but the price has already been paid. Right. Okay? So that's the most wonderful part of knowing this is that Christ paid for all of our sins. For every single one of them.

So he did me much harm, probably. He turned him in. He brought charges against him. And a lot of times when they brought charges against him, they accused him of a lot of things. They accused him of atheism, of cannibalism, hatred of the human race.

They accused them of, being sinful. All of these things that were being leveled against those who were Christians. They were accused of atheism because, certainly, the Christianity that they was not the belief in God that others thought it should be. So it's atheism. They charged them against cannibalism because they spoke of eating the body of Christ.

So cannibals. Right? They they spoke of that. So all these things they were brought, and they brought them up on charges for these things. He said, look.

May god just judge him according to what he's done. That's what he's really saying. Like you said, that's that's the end result. My god just judge him according to what he's done. As we we look at all of this, he also goes on to say, that nobody nobody stood with him.

He says, let's see. 1515 through 19. You must also be aware he has greatly resisted our words. At my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them?

But the lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. So in these closing, part that he's talking about here and all of this, he's he's saying several things.

First of all, he says, no one stood with me. So no one stood with me, but the lord stood with me. He was all alone. We knew that Jesus stood with him. Right?

He didn't have anybody standing up there receiving the charges. He was the only one. Nobody stood with him. Nobody stood with him. Jesus stood with him, and Paul served him very faithfully, and God was faithful to Paul in his first defense.

He says, may it not be charged against them? This is saying, hey, Paul is not bitter that nobody came and stood with him. He understood what the situation was. He wasn't bitter that anybody didn't come and stand with him. He said, listen.

May it not be charged against them. That's spiritual maturity. That's spiritual maturity. In a movie that I recently watched, a man Christian, things going good in his life. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a drunk driver slams into the passenger side of the car that he was driving, and his 17 year old son was a pastor.

He killed his son. Of course, the man's arrested. He goes to jail, but you can't get his son back. The man turned very bitter, very angry towards the one who was driving the car. Said he actually hated him.

But then God started working on him. And God started showing him that if he forgave him for his sin, he could forgive this man for his sin. And it took a lot. A lot. He kept resisting it.

He kept fighting it. Finally, he broke down. He gave it to God. He said, God, if this is what I have to do, I will forgive this man. But it wasn't just, okay, I forgave him.

No. No. No. He had to go tell him he forgave him. He had to go see the man face to face and let the man know that because of God he forgave him for the actions that killed his son.

And and which was incredible to this man that was in prison. But then not only did he forgive him, when the man got out of prison, he mentored him. And they got together and he mentored him and helped him in his walk until the 2 of them became great mentors for other people. The whole point is that God said I forgave you. You've gotta forgive them.

We look at this. Paul saying, listen. Don't hold it against them. I forgive them. Whatever reason they didn't come, I forgive them for that.

We say that and and this is what we usually say with that. That's easy to say. Hard to do. It is hard to do. I think it was pretty hard for Jesus to go to the cross too.

Don't you? I think that there are many things in our life that is very hard to do, but it's worth it when we do it. Sometimes the things that are easier not that worth it. God even said, it's easy to love your brother, but love your enemy. Can you love your enemy?

It's easy to love your brother. Can you love your enemy? Can you love that person who is not your brother? You see, Paul said don't charge it against them. Don't charge it against them.

Then he goes on to say, look, I know that God's gonna take care of me. He I was delivered out of the mouth of a lion. God had delivered Paul out of the mouth of a lion. He kept him from being eaten. Right?

He stopped that. And because of that, he was saved. He said I know that God will deliver me. Now he doesn't know if God's gonna deliver his life this time. We like to think of it like this.

Oh, well, of course, I'll be fine. There's no way that something bad would happen to me because god's gonna take care of me. Right? And he does. But here's the point.

Just because God's taking care of you doesn't mean he's gonna let you live another day. He's gonna take care of you, but it might not be on this side of heaven. It might be by bringing you home. That doesn't mean that you don't still do what he's called you to do. It just means that, you know what, even if something happens, you'll be okay.

You'll be okay. When the viper bit him on the hand he shook the viper off into the fire. Oh, my goodness. You know, he's supposed to die, but he didn't die. All of the ones and they would talk about in Old Testament, they were being bitten by all of the vipers, but they looked up at the one on the pole that was being held up.

They lived. Right? It says nothing will come to you. None of these things will be a problem for you in that moment and what God had for them at that point. That doesn't mean that never ever would it ever happen.

People ask me, well, you know, God's gonna take care of you. You can walk right out in front of that car and nothing will happen. Right? I say, let's see. No.

I don't say that. No. The whole point is, God's not saying that. God doesn't say that he's gonna take care of you and you will never ever be hurt. He doesn't say that he's gonna take care of you and you will never die.

He there are many in scripture that are martyrs. They were serving God and they were killed and because of their death, more people were saved. Because of what they did in death was greater than what they did in life. And so even Paul knows that God saved him from the lion's den. He doesn't know if he's going to save him physically or not, but he's gonna save him.

He's gonna take care of him. And he said, look, I know I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. God delivered him. He just didn't know what his fate was gonna be this time. But he knew he was either gonna be preserved for this world or preserved in the kingdom of heaven.

1 or the other. He knew all of that. And then he says to him be the glory forever and ever. Listen. It's not about me, Paul said.

It's not about me. I don't want you worshiping me. I don't want you talking about how great Paul is. I don't want you talking about all these great things for Paul. What I want you to see is how god did these things, and I just happen to be the one who used for it.

God did these things, and I was the one that that it happened to in order for god to be glorified. I had all of these things happen, but god is the one. Don't look at me. Don't don't say Paul. It's not Paul.

It's god. I guarantee you if you, can talk to Billy Graham today and you say, Billy, look at all those great things you did in your life. He would have said that wasn't me. That was God. That's right.

That was God. The reality is that we don't know what God's gonna do in using us. Will he use us in life? Will he use us in death? Will he use us somewhere in between?

How's he gonna use us? We don't know. We gotta be willing. He said to God be the glory forever and ever. To God be the glory, and no matter what happens here, to God be the glory.

I don't know what's gonna happen. Whatever it is, God gets the glory. Not me. And Timothy, listen. It's not about me.

Therefore, Timothy understands it's not about him either. Right? Timothy is looking at this example. He's looking at this example. We we all all the time, we wanna talk about, well, don't do things like I do.

Do it better than I do. Well, actually, we need to be doing things in a way that we can say, follow me. See what I'm doing? I'm following God and you follow me as I follow God. Don't don't say don't don't follow me.

If you're following God, they should be following you. So Paul did. He followed God, and as he followed God, he showed Timothy, and he showed, Luke, and he showed, Mark, and he showed Barnabas, and he showed all these different ones. He showed them what it means to follow God and how to walk in that way. And to God be the glory all the way to the point that he died.

So at the end, 19 through 21, Paul is basically closing out his greetings to his friends. He says, greet, Priscilla, and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus, Erastus, stayed in Corinth, but, Trophimus, I have left in Melitus, sick. Do your utmost to come before winter. Eubelus greets you as well as Putins, Linus, Claudia, and all the brethren. Now he's telling all of them, look.

My heart goes out to these people that I've I've worked with. My heart is still thinking about these who are still in the fight, who are still out there, who are still serving. I'm thinking about you. Greetings to all of you. He says, I'm thinking about all that.

He wasn't centered on himself. He was centered on them. And he even said, I've left sick. I've left sick. Paul was a man he was he was used by God to perform many miracles, but yet, he wasn't able to heal.

You understand? Jesus did many miracles, but he had even some of his disciples that he did not heal. He left them with things in their life. Infirmities that he could have healed, but for whatever reason he didn't. He told Paul, my grace is sufficient for you.

My grace is sufficient. Even the things he had going on. So we look at that and sometimes we wonder, well, if God's so good, how come there's so many sick people? If God's so great, how come cancer is still a thing? If God's so great, how come I prayed that he would save the life of this person, but he didn't do it?

That's right. If God's so great, why not? Paul says, look. God is the one to receive all the glory. He's telling all these that he's thinking about.

He's talking about them, and he even says, I even left one that was sick. Paul did not have miraculous healing powers of his own, but he trusted God in all of it. He trusted God in all of it. God used Paul to heal people, but he didn't use him to heal that person. So he didn't heal all of it.

We have to understand that it is the will of God. It's hard to say. It is the will of God that some people should remain sick. What? I don't even sound right.

It don't even sound right. I've told you this example before. My mother has multiple sclerosis. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was, I think, 17 years old. It's been a battle all of her life.

She's still struggling. There are days that she can't hardly get out of bed. There are days that she can't hardly move. There are things that are going on. She doesn't know what's gonna happen next.

She spent time in her life when she went blind in one eye. Thank God, he gave her the sight back. She went deaf in one ear, never regained that. There's been all kind of things that happened in her life and and years ago, we were talking and she said, you know, if God said we can take you back and I can take this away where you would never have it. She said I would not do that because I have been able to witness to people that I would never have been able to witness to without having this illness.

I have been able to show people the love of God through this that I never would have been able to do had it not been for this. God used me throughout this disease and everything that I've had in ways that I never would have been able to be used without it. If God asked me, we go back to that time and you could have your mom without this mortal sclerosis, what would I have said? Yes, please. Yes, please.

But I won't see it through the eyes that she has because she's the one who's experienced all of that. The whole thing that we see here is as he is saying goodbye to everyone, and he's talking about those who have served him so well, the ones who have continued to be around him. He's encouraging them to continue to do the things that they need to do. And then all of this, at one point he says, do your utmost to come before winter. And some believe he's talking about an actual winter.

Some believe he's talking about the winter of his life, which would be the end of it. Do your best to come before winter. Paul's elderly at this point, and he did want to see Timothy before his life came to an end. We don't know if he ever did. Scripture doesn't tell us if he saw Timothy before he died or not.

We don't know. But the reality is we have 2 books of Timothy, first and second here, where we know Paul poured everything into Timothy. This is after he was doing it in person. He did it in person first. Now he's been doing it through the writings that he's been sending him.

He continued to pour all of that in because it was important for him to continue to empower Timothy that Timothy might be a servant of God and and lead people to Christ the way that he needed to do. Paul's imprisonment, was in a a bleak building in Rome. It was a 100 years before Paul was ever in prison, it was built. It wasn't a beautiful place. It wasn't somewhere that anyone would desire to be, but Paul was there.

It was built for the political enemies of Rome. So, of course, you know it wasn't a good place, and it lasted it lasted, for a very long time until the point that, Paul was beheaded under Nero outside of Rome's, gate at a place called 3 fountains. Know why they call it 3 fountains now? There's a legend. It's an absurd legend, but it's a legend.

There's a legend. The legend says that when Paul was beheaded, his head bounced 3 times. And where it bounced the first place it bounced, a fountain sprung up. The first one was hot, the second was warm, and the third one was cold. And it says 3 fountains.

It's a that's just a legend. But that's what they call that, 3 fountains. But Paul was beheaded. You know why he was beheaded? It was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen.

It was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen so they be had to be had him. There's some tradition that says he was beheaded on the same day that Peter was crucified upside down. I don't know if that's true. They say there's some in some tradition, it says that, but he was a Roman citizen. He could not be crucified.

Otherwise, he probably would have been crucified. That was the normal way to put people to death during that day. The last words from the pen of Paul. The lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

Amen. The last words, a man who loved Jesus, he had received his grace, and he let everybody know that this is being affirmed. The lord Jesus be with you. I'm gonna be gone, but Jesus be with you. He's talking to us today and all What's that?

He's talking to us today. Exactly. And so that's the great thing about scripture is that even though it was written so long ago and oftentimes written to a specific audience, it was also something that we can glean from even in today's world. So we look at all this and we gotta understand that You know what? It's not about a man.

There are great preachers. There are great evangelists. There are great people that have done many many great things for God in this world, and it's good that we recognize that. But if those people are no longer here, then they're together with Christ. It's not them.

It's Christ. Right. And the thing is we learn from what they've done, but it's God that gives the glory. It's God that we have to continue to keep our eyes focused on. Yeah.

We can learn things from those people, but that's not the one that we need to walk close with. Paul was a incredible man. Paul was an incredible disciple of Christ, and he was an incredible writer. He wrote all this down. Perhaps the reason he was imprisoned is so he had time to write all this down.

I don't know. But the reality is that because of what he wrote down, we today can study and learn from it. The congregation in that day was hearing and learning from it. And so there's so much going on with that. I hope you enjoyed the study of Timothy, first and second.

I learned a lot in in these two books. Just a a good deep study, and I'm glad that we had the opportunity to do that. Look forward to starting in Genesis next week. So for those of you who joined us online tonight, thank you so much for being here. God bless, and good night.