That is most definitely true. We owe everything to him. Everything. In this life, there's absolutely nothing we can do to find salvation except Jesus Christ. We can't work our way to heaven.

We can't buy our way to heaven. We can't be good enough to get to heaven. There's nothing we as individuals can do in our own strength and our own power to spend an eternity in heaven except through Jesus Christ. And so, you know, this week, we were looking at the the snow, and, honestly, you already know I was pretty excited about the whole event. I enjoy the cooler temperatures.

The snow was so beautiful. I was amazed at how much snow we got. I couldn't believe that that much snow was falling, and it was just continuing to come down. The temperatures did get too cold even for me, but, you know, I was really enjoying all of the beauty and everything that was there. It was so beautiful.

And even if it wasn't anything else, if you didn't like going out in it, you didn't wanna play in it, you didn't wanna do anything, you could look out at it, and it was absolutely beautiful. It was amazing to me to look out at my yard. And as I was talking about, my yard is it's got some ups and downs in some places that don't look so good and some that no grass will grow and other places everything was dead. But, you know, in just a matter of an hour or so, all of that was gone. It was covered with snow.

And the deeper the snow got, the more smooth the yard got. And so as I looked out to this beautiful yard with this beautiful white snow, the front, the back, everything was just gorgeous. And I looked at all of that, and while I was looking at all that snow, the verse came to me about being made whiter than snow. And so incredible to think about all of that that was happening in all of the snow and looking at it. And I said, well, you know what?

I think that God is trying to tell me I gotta preach on whiter than snow. And, so we you know, I spent some time praying and and looking at everything. And, I looked as the snow fell, and the snow covered everything. It covered the ground. It covered, the the deck, the cars.

It covered everything. I looked out while that snow was falling, and all I could think about was that that's just how God cleansed me. You know, I was I was a sinner full of sin, but I gave my life to him and all of that just came down and covered me up. And no longer does God see that ugly, nasty sin in my life. No longer does he see the person that I once was.

Now what he sees is he sees me exactly how he wanted me to be, cleansed and pure and all of those things that he has done. And so the snow, it covered everything. I want you to understand this. It did not skip anything. There wasn't anything that wasn't protected from it that wasn't covered.

It it it felt look. You know, they say, if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? It? If it snows in the forest, it gets covered. Everything is covered.

There's snow everywhere. In fact, yesterday afternoon, there were still places there was snow that hadn't yet melted. It covered everything. It didn't leave anything uncovered. And so when I think about that, that as that snow came down and it covered everything, it was so pretty, it was so, you know, enveloping, and it did all of that.

It reminded me of how God cleanses all our sins, all our shortcomings, everything about us that is not holy at all, God covers it through the blood of Jesus Christ. He gave us that opportunity for it all to be covered, everything. Probably you I know I and probably you sometimes walk into, talk to someone and they say, well, you know, I would like to ask Jesus into my life, but I just got too much baggage. It's just too I've done too many things. Listen, I'm however old and from a very young age, I have done nothing but live my life badly.

I've done things that I I I wouldn't even tell anybody because they were so bad. And I've got all of this that I'm carrying in my life, and I'm trying to be a better person, but I know there's no way that God can forgive all that. There's no way. Just like that snow covered every square inch of my yard, Jesus blood can cover every single sin in your life. Everything you've ever done, ever will do, it can all be covered.

There is nothing that does not get covered because it's too bad. There's nothing that is done that is too bad that God can't cover. We see in scripture where God forgive people who committed murder. We see in scripture where God forgave people who committed adultery. We see in scripture where God forgave people who were thieves.

We look at all of this, and God can forgive every single bit of that. Just like that snow came down and covered everything, Jesus' blood covers every area of your life. Covers everything. There's nothing that cannot be covered. God covers it all.

Look with me to Psalm 517. Actually, I think it's let's see. Yeah. 517, and it says this. It says, purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Purify me with hyssop, I shall be clean, but wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. That's an amazing thought to me, to think about what God can do. To think about the things that he can do and how we can be covered. This whole passage, by the way, was after Nathan, the prophet Nathan, had pointed out David's sin to him.

David sinned, but, you know, he tried to put that behind him. He tried to just act as if it never happened. He did a lot to cover it up, by the way, and I'm talking about the sin with Bathsheba. He did a lot to try to cover that sin up. And, you know, that's what we do too.

We sin, and something happens in our life, and the first thing we do is we try to cover it up. Push it under the rug, you know, pretend it's not there. You know, that lump is there every day. We can see it, but we act as if it's not. I I didn't see that.

That sin's not there. We try to cover it so nobody else can see it. We try to cover it so we don't feel bad about it. We try not to think about it. Do you know that people won't walk into a church because they know they have sin in their life, and they're trying to forget about it?

And they know if they walk in, God's gonna reveal it to them. That's true. He will. God revealed David's sin to him through Nathan. Nathan told him a story about, someone stealing the one lamb that a person had, and David was so angry, and then Nathan said, that that man is you.

And he pointed this sin out to David, and David was heartbroken. David finally admitted and and looked and and and head on faced the sin that he had in his life. And so this whole passage is after Nathan had pointed out David's sin to him. David I mean, he was totally heartbroken from that, and we see the conversation that he is having with God. That's what that psalm is.

It's the conversation that David is having with God after this sin has been pointed out in his life. So David is heartbroken, and he's facing this, and he's praying, and he's asking God, cleanse me. Cleanse me. Wash me whiter than snow. Make me clean completely, because he knew that the sin that was in his life was something he could not do anything about, only God could.

He was truly broken, and we see this conversation. David is asking God, purify me with hyssop, which was used during purification rituals of that day. Right? They took this hyssop and they used it and they covered the person with it, and that was supposed to, purify them. And so during all these rituals and the things that they did, they used it as a purification ritual.

Here's the thing, if man is doing it, it's not gonna last. David said, purify me with that, but he went even further and said, wash me. God, you wash me. You cleanse me. You take care of all of that because he knew that if God washed him, then he would be whiter than snow.

He said, I I'm I'm heartbroken. All of this that I've done, and and I've I've tried to cover it up. I've tried to live as if it didn't happen, but you sent Nathan to tell me that you still knew that it happened, and you still see that sin, that it's still there. I've never repented of that sin. I've never given it to you.

God, now I'm heartbroken. I'm asking you, please forgive me. Wash it. Get rid of it. He said, cleanse me and make me whiter than snow.

I found that interesting. Why whiter than snow? Snow is pretty white. If you walked out this week and looked at the snow, like I said, it's blinding. That sun started coming down on, Wednesday with all that snow on the ground, it was very bright.

Why whiter than snow? Because he wanted it whiter, more cleansed than anything that could ever be seen on earth. He wanted it to be a supernatural cleansing that god would cleanse him and make him so clean. He would wash him and make him so clean that he would even be whiter than snow. He would be greater than anything that could happen in this world because it was god.

Take it all away. Get everything out of my life, and make me whiter than snow. Not just white as snow, but whiter than snow. Cleanse everything. You see, God can do that.

Too many times we limit God. We think, well, God can't he can't do everything. Yes, he can. He can't cleanse all those things that happened. Yes, he can.

God can forgive, he can cleanse, he can take away every thing in your life that is holding you back. He said, make me whiter than snow. The snow is so white it was blinding, but David said, make me even whiter than that. Cleanse me completely with everything. Here's something I want us to think about.

We have sin that happens in our life. As a believer, if you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he says, we are to confess our sins. Many times, we try to hide it. Just like David. I sinned, but I'm the only one that knows it.

Nobody else knows it. I'm just gonna put it out of my mind. I'm not gonna worry about it. I'll leave it there. Well, when you leave it there and it's unconfessed, it stays.

It is not gone, it's still there. God can forgive you and he has forgiven you, but he wants you to say, forgive me of this. He wants you to acknowledge, I sinned against you, god. And as I have, I I'm asking you to forgive it. And it's that sin that's unrepentant in your life that limits you and causes you problems, and it causes heartache and pain and everything in your life when you could be washed whiter than snow if you give it to god.

David saw that. He gave it to god. He said, make me whiter than snow, cleanse everything. Sometimes, even when we think we got something clean, there are germs hiding underneath. Right?

Oh, I I got it. That's beautiful. It's very clean. You can take a cup, put some hot water in it, rinse everything out. It looks beautiful.

I put it under a microscope. You didn't put any soap in there, you just put water. Put it under a microscope, guess what? You're gonna see all those germs still hanging around in there. They didn't get clean.

It looked clean. It looks beautiful. But still, there are all those germs hanging out in there because you only put hot water. You didn't use any soap. You only did part of it.

You didn't finish it. Many times when we do that, all this is hiding underneath. It looks clean on the outside, but it's not really clean on the inside. There are things there that never got cleansed. David said, cleanse everything, even the sin hiding underneath.

Cleanse all of it. Cleanse everything. God, I don't want to just take a bath, and I'm clean, but I'm only clean on the outside. I'm not clean on the inside, because I've never confessed that sin to you. I've never given it to you.

I've never asked you to take it away and wash me. I've never done all of that. He's clean on the outside, but he's not clean on the inside. Jesus used to, with the Pharisees, they did all this ritual hand washing and cleaning and everything he did. He called them hypocrites.

He said, you wash everything, but it's not what goes in the body that defiles it. It's what comes out the body that defiles it. You do all this external cleansing, but you didn't do anything about cleansing your heart on the inside. Listen, as believers, we walk around with that in our life. If we're not cleansed on the inside, then what comes out is not clean.

We can look beautiful, we can put on the best clothes, have our hair fixed just perfectly, we can look great on the outside, our lives to onlookers can be wonderful. But you know, if you have that sin in your life that you have not repented. Only God can make us clean. Only God can do it. You know, just like you had to have soap to get the glass clean, you gotta have God to get your sin cleansed.

He's the only one. You can't buy it at Walmart. God is the only one that can cleanse it. He is the only one that can make us clean, because he cleanses the inner most parts of our heart. Those things that we even hide deeply from our self.

There are times when we hide things in our life so deeply, that we literally walk around not remembering something because we've hidden it away so far. But something's still not right. Something's still not not perfect. You know, it's kinda it'll rock in your shoe, and it kind of moves over out of the way, and you don't feel that rock. Right?

So for right now, that rock is still there. You never got it out, but it's not hurting. So you kinda got it away, and it doesn't bother you. But it's still there, and one day that rock rolls back under your hill and you step down and about fall on the ground because it hurts so much. That sin that you think you've tucked away and hidden away and it's never gonna bother you again, it's still there waiting for the moment when it's gonna cripple you.

Waiting for the moment when it's gonna destroy whatever's going on in your life. Waiting for the moment when it's gonna destroy your witness as you try to talk to somebody else. Waiting for something. That sin is still there. You can try to bury it.

You can try to hide it, but it's still there. It's not gone. And if it's not gone, it's still going to be a problem, because you're hiding it. But wait a minute, preacher. I thought that when you asked Jesus into your heart, he forgave you of all your sins, present and future.

He did. It's not that he can't forgive you of that sin, it's that you're holding on to it in your life because you haven't confessed it. You're the one that's holding you on to it. You're the one that's causing the problems in your life. You're the one that hasn't gotten rid of it because you're holding on.

You're holding on. He's offered to cleanse it. He said he will cleanse it, but you're holding on to it. You've never gotten rid of it. Well, listen.

It starts with confession. It starts with confession. Oh, hold on now. I don't like this confession thing. I I don't I don't wanna do this confession thing, because, you know, confessing that that bringing that forward and and hashing it again, all that.

I don't I don't like that. Well, it starts with confession. I want you to look with me to the verses 1 through 4 of that same passage. Verses 1 through 4 of that same passage. It says this, be gracious to me, oh god, according to your lovingkindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. In order to confess, you've gotta have that broken heart. You've gotta get to that place and understand that you have sinned against 1, against God.

That's who you've really sinned against. Oh, you may have hurt somebody's feelings. You may have done something, against someone. You may have something against somebody else, but the true sin is against God because God's already given us the directives. God's already shown us how we're supposed to live.

So that sin is really against God, and we're holding on to the sin. If we hold on to the sin in our life, then we're the ones that are suffering. One of the hardest things for someone to understand. If someone has done something to you, and you say, I will never forgive them for that, the person you're hurting is you. It's not them.

A lot of times, they don't even know they did anything. You're holding something against them. They don't know why you're mad. You're absolutely holding on to it until you repent of that, and you go to them, and you tell them what they've done, and forgive them for what they've done to you, then you can't move on. You're locked into that.

It's gonna keep dragging you down. When you have that sin in your life that you keep tucking away and you haven't gotten rid of it, it's gonna keep holding you down just as surely as if you're wearing weights. If you're walking around and everything's cool, all of a sudden you put 20 pound weights on both feet, it's much harder to walk. You got a choice, take them off or keep walking. You decide, I'm just gonna pretend they're not there.

Keep walking. Keep trudging along. Suddenly, finally, you take them off. Man, how much lighter it is. How much easier it is to walk.

How much different it is. The sin in your life is just as heavy and weighing you down as those weights on you. You have to confess. That's the first thing. Well, you mean I gotta stand up in front of the church and tell everybody what I did?

Well, if God tells you that I'm talking about confessing it to God. Well, doesn't he already know? Mhmm. But he wants you to take the responsibility for it. And if you don't confess it to him, you can't start the responsibility.

It starts with a confession. You have to take the responsibility and say, okay. I did it. I can't blame it on this person or that person. I can't blame it on my circumstances.

I can't blame it on all these other things, but I did it, God. I sinned. I have this sin in my life. I did it. You gotta start with that confession.

In order to confess, your heart's gotta be broken. What do you mean my heart's gotta be broken? Until that happens, you're not ready to confess. Until you realize what you've done and the sin that you've committed against God, and the fact that it has broken your heart because you have done what you did against God, you're not ready to confess. Otherwise, you might try to do it superficially.

You need that broken heart. Your heart needs to be broken just like god's heart is broken when he sees the sin in your life. God, I've sinned. I've let you down. I've sinned against you.

That broken heart causes the confession to come forth. You've got to examine yourself. You see, that's where we as believers in Christ in the 21st century in the United States of America, fail miserably. We don't examine our own life. We like to point out everybody else's stuff, but we don't do our own.

We don't look at ourself. I'm okay. But let me tell you about you. Scripture says, take a look at your own eye first. We don't like to examine ourself on a daily.

We don't like to check and see, did I make a good decision? And sometimes even when we know that something we did was wrong, we just try to play it off. Well, you know, everybody makes mistakes. It's okay. No.

That's something you need to confess. Look at your walk with God. Are you walking with him? If he was standing beside you as you walk, are you thinking he would be satisfied with how you're living your life? Have you even checked that out?

Have you even thought about it? Many people today do not even consider that I need to check myself out. Do you know the number one cause for heart attacks for both men and women in the United States of America? Failure to go see a doctor. Undiagnosed problems.

They don't go get it checked out. Well, I'm okay. They don't check their self out. Well, I hadn't had any chest pains. Well, if you're having chest pains as you're getting late and getting checked out, You're having problems, that's not that you need to go before then.

Have a physical examination. Have the doctor check everything. See what's going on because you can't see it inside your own body. Go see the doctor before that. If you're walking in in in Christ, and and you're not having a physical examination, a heart examination by God on a daily basis, then there are things there that you have either, a, pushed down to try to forget, or, b, for some reason you've not recognized.

You need to be checking yourself daily. That's the only way we can stay in the good walk with God is daily, take up our cross and follow him. Daily, deny ourselves. Daily, ask him to look in our lives. It starts with confession.

David confessed before God that he is a sinner. For some, this could be the first time that you confess and that Jesus comes into your life. So when I say you have to confess, first of all, when you confess, is it the first time you've ever confessed? Is it the first time you've ever asked God to forgive you of your sin and come into your life? Have you ever done that?

If you've never done that, you can't just simply go and confess your sin now. You've got to confess that you don't know him, that he's not in your life. You gotta ask him to come into your life. To come in and take control. If you have asked him to come into your life and you know that you are saved, that you've given your life to Christ, and you know that he has given you salvation, then it's a time of reflection and understanding that all y'all know my word, all.

It's completely inclusive. No exclusions. All sin needs to be confessed. You mean when the clerk gave me back 50¢ more than I was supposed to get back, I and I didn't give it back to her, I gotta confess that? Stealing.

Well, is it really stealing? Yeah. If you're trying to, justify what you did, it's probably already the fact that you've already sinned. When you start trying to justify why you did something that you know already you shouldn't have done, yeah, it's sin. So you mean when when, you know, I I I took that pen from work because my kid needed one for school, that's a problem.

Yeah. That's stealing. All these things have to be confessed to God. Confess them. Get them out of your life.

I thought about this. What if every time you sinned, there was a rock in your house? Every time you sinned, there's a big rock that just shows up in your house. If you don't confess that the rock stays, then there's another sin and another rock and another sin. Pretty soon you want those rocks out of the house.

Right? You wanna throw them out. You wanna get them out of the way. You don't want them in the house. You don't want them in the way.

Well, if every time you sin, what if a weight shows up on your feet, and you don't confess it? The weights keep getting heavier and heavier and heavier. If you're not confessing that sin and cleansing, getting that cleansing from God, then you are being weighed down on a daily basis. Many of us just live with that. Well, it's just my cross to bear.

No. It's not. Jesus said give it to him. It's not yours. He said, give it to him.

Think about this. Why are we confessing it? Because all sin is against god. Just let that sink in a second. All sin is against God.

The creator, the one who gave you life, the one who gave you salvation, the one who gave you everything, all sin is against him. All of it. In order to confess, you must have a broken heart. You must have remorse for what you've done. You must have that that point that you can do nothing else but confess.

The point that is so heavy that it's driving you to your knees. When a a lost person never sees they're a sinner, they can't be remorseful. They can't have remorse for the sin in their life if they never realized they're a sinner. For a lost person, the confession they have is that I'm lost. That's the confession they have upfront.

I'm lost. And at that point, then God reveals the sin. They have to come and have that heart that's broken for the things that they know they're missing. If God removes the veil from their eyes, then they can see. It takes God doing that.

For a saved person, we have to look deep in our hearts and see what it is that we've been lying about. What do you mean lying? You've been lying to yourself. You've been lying to God. You've been lying to everybody, because there's sin that hasn't been acknowledged.

When our sin is acknowledged and our heart is broken, it causes us to confess it. When we confess it, God cleanses it. God has the power to cleanse even the hardest stains. Even the hardest stains. You ever had a a pot that something burned in?

Man, you scrub with everything you can think of trying to get that stuff out. And sometimes it just seems like you're never gonna get that stain out. Sometimes, it's sin is the same way in our lives. It's a hard stain because it's been there a long time. The longer it sits, the harder it is to clean.

The longer that sin stays in your heart, the harder it is to confess, the harder it is to clean. But God has the power to cleanse even the hardest stains. And for him, it's easy. He can cleanse it like that. But we leave it sit, continuing to fester, continuing to get that way.

Sometimes we give up with whatever it is that we're trying to cleanse, and we just throw it out because, you know, it's not worth it. It's gotten to the point where we can't clean it. It won't come clean. We've tried everything but gasoline, and we can't get it clean. Right?

So we just toss it. Get rid of it. Can I tell you something? God will never throw you out. He will never give up on you.

He will never just stop because that stain is too old and too hard to clean. He will never give up. God is willing. He stands ready to forgive. We just have to confess it to him.

We have to bring it to him, and he can cleanse even the hardest thing. Man will give up, but God will not. Man will give up, but God will not. He can cleanse beyond man's ability, and he can make you whiter than even snow. He can do that.

But this cleansing process, it's a process. What do you mean? You just said he could cleanse it like that. He can, but it's a process. 1st, your heart needs to be broken for that sin.

It needs to be broken. It takes us looking deeply and honestly in our self in order for us to see that sin and to acknowledge that sin. Next, we have to confess it. We have to confess it. It has to be done.

If you don't confess it, then why would God wanna cleanse it for you? It has to be confessed. Our heart should be broken for it. God's heart is broken every time we sin. Our heart should be broken every time we sin.

We need to confess it. Get it out. Here it is. God, take it out. And then when we confess it, God is faithful to cleanse it.

He is faithful to cleanse that sin and get it out of your heart. You confess that sin against God to God himself. Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. It takes a confession for you to be saved. If you know Jesus as lord and savior, you've done that already, then it takes a confession to keep you cleansed.

To keep all of that out, it takes that confession. But we also not only when we confess it, we have to forgive I mean, we have to receive the forgiveness. We have to receive it. The number one reason that people walk around with the sin still in their life, is they don't believe that when God gives them that forgiveness that they can even accept it. I'm not worthy to receive that.

I know God can cleanse me, but I'm not worthy. Look what I did. I'm not worthy to receive the forgiveness that God offers. We put our self in that position and say, I know that you can cleanse me, but I'm not worthy of that, and I don't want to accept it. I don't want to accept it.

Well, what we're doing is we're putting our self above god. We're saying we know better than you, god. We know better than you that we shouldn't be forgiven even though you said we can be. Even though you're giving us the opportunity, we're trying to say we know better than you. No.

We don't. It's a process. God has given us that cleansing. All we have to do is accept it. And listen, when you accept it, it's gone.

All of that sin is cleansed. You'll never see it. It's just like that ground under the snow. I couldn't see that ground under the snow unless I got out there and started digging down in it to try to find it. God said, no.

Don't I've covered it. Leave it alone. Don't don't mess with it. I've covered it up. I've taken care of it.

I've covered it with the blood of Christ. It's gone. It's gone. He said he cast it as far as the east is from the west. It's gone.

This process that God gives us is something we need to do on a daily basis. We need to look into ourselves. We need to examine our walk on a daily basis. We need to be the ones that are ready to confess when we find those things in our life. But if you don't know him, if you've never given your life to him, then my question for you today is this, are you ready to be cleansed wider than snow?

Are you ready for that? Are you ready to have all that weight lifted off of you? Are you ready to walk as a brand new creation? The old you being gone, the new you being a new creation in Christ. Are you ready for that?

Is there things in your life that God has shown you that you need to confess and get rid of? Then do it today. For those of you who know him, listen. How effective can you be telling someone about how wonderful the forgiveness of Christ is if you are not willing to accept it yourself? If you're not willing to accept it yourself, how can you really tell them how wonderful it is?

Be like those paid actors on TV that tells you how wonderful this product is. They've never tried it in their life. You know it's fake, and the person you're talking to and telling them how great god's forgiveness is, they're not gonna believe you because they can see in your life that you're not being you're not accepting that same forgiveness that you're trying to tell them about. It makes us ineffective. We look around this world today, and there are so many people that need to know about the forgiveness of Christ, yet we haven't received it because we haven't just accepted it.

And how can we tell them? This past Saturday, we had a time of visitation. Had brother Tim come and teach us a little bit about how to witness to somebody. It was supposed to have been last weekend, and then it was supposed to rain, and we changed it to this weekend. And we were very low in number.

I'm not saying that to try to hurt people's feelings. What I'm saying is, people need to know about Jesus. And if we don't have that close walk in our own life, it makes it very difficult for us to have a desire to go out and tell other people. So I want to encourage you today. It's time for a spiritual examination.

Just like you go to the doctor for a physical examination, it's time for a spiritual examination in your own life. Are you whiter than snow today? Or are you holding on to those stains that God's trying to cleanse? Have you confessed any of them? Are you ready to let all that weight go that God might use you to reach others?

You know, the only way that our nation will ever be a Christian nation again is if God's people will release all of that sin. I love passage that says, if my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and sin that we hold on to, the sin that we haven't confessed, the sin that we haven't accepted the forgiveness for, is what's holding God's people back today. Examine yourself this week. Are there things you need to confess? Are there things you need to do?

Is there someone you need to go to and forgive? Whatever it is, don't wait. You'd be amazed at how much lighter your walk will be, if you just give all that to God. We don't know when our time will end on this earth. It could be tonight.

It could be a 100 years from now. We don't know. We don't know what God will do. We don't know when he's coming back. We don't know how many breaths we've been given.

Why hold on to something that you could seek forgiveness for today? And be washed whiter than snow.

2 Timothy 4:9-22 NKJV

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.