Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Good to be in church today. Sunday's a great day. Lord's Day. And I'm still in the book of Peter, 1 Peter. I'd like to exhort you this morning with the word of God. 1 Peter, it's actually, it's turning into, this is the 28th lesson in just 1 Peter. And I'm enjoying the book of Peter. I listened to some good preaching this week. I asked Jeremiah to send me a list. He did. He sent me a couple of messages. And I think the one man was preaching out of Peter. Man, I'll tell you what, it enlightened my eyes. And the Bible does say there'll be a famine in the last day. There'll be a famine of the word of God. We'll have plenty of everything else, but we won't have the word of God. Uh, you can't replace the word of God with, uh, anything I know of. I don't know of anything you could replace the word of God with. So I'm thankful this morning for the word of God. First Peter chapter four, verse six. I need to pick it up a little bit there. First Peter chapter four, verse six. And, uh, we'd made comment. We'll try not to go backtracking too much, but we'll start in there for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead. Now, if you were in church Wednesday night, pastor preached out of Romans chapter one, verse one, I believe it was his text. And it was had to do with the gospel and, uh, that was applied unto us. And, uh, the, the thought of the message of very powerful servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle and he preached on separated unto. The gospel of God, give us a little English language there. Why says unto, uh, the gospel of God. Uh, now he touched on a number of other things, but the gist of the message was, uh, our, our actual obligation and duty. I, I got that Wednesday night. That was good. And, but here I want you to notice, and I'll kind of build off of what he said. Now I said, I can't say everything he said that I, he says a lot. So, but that was his text. And I remember when I got it all done and I was thinking now, what did he say tonight? And, and being old and senile and Alzheimer's, I fight that I fight dementia and all them other things. I don't know. I come away with, well, I'm separating the gospel, amen. So I just go after and do that, amen. And today our text, it says, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead. Now I'll have to deal with that word dead here in just a moment, but let me finish. Let me read three or four verses he said there, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. Verse seven, but the end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer. Verse eight, and above all things have fervent charity among yourselves for charity shall never, I'm sorry, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Verse nine, use hospitality one to another without grudging. And I know that Peter, is continuing the thought of the sufferings of Christ and what he went through and how we are identifying as saved people with the sufferings of Christ. And we too will enter into some of those sufferings of Christ. So that thought is continued here. So he speaks primarily to Christians, but along with that, he talks about what the Gentiles did, what they believe, what you did before you were saved, and that sort of thing. So verse six, what is the difference between the dead, that word dead, that shows up there, of verse five? And I didn't start with verse five, and I want you to go back and look at that. Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and dead? And then he says in verse six where I started, for for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead. And it's not the same dead. And you have to watch the context. Our English language is great. You can use that word, a word like dead to mean dead flowers, dead people, dead souls, dead in Christ, dead in sin. So whatever the context is of the sentence or the verse, that's the definition of the word there. So that's why I said, what is the difference between the dead of verse five and the dead of verse six? Now, if just the careful Bible student would even ask that question, but that's what this class is about. Teaching the word of God that we might, uh, be edified. We might be exhorted to, to good works and, and the understanding of the word of God. So here. The dead of verse five, the Bible says we'll give account. In other words, future tense. Therefore, these persons are spiritually dead, dead in sin, verse five. And the child of God that studies the word of God has to understand that there are people that are dead in sins. There are people that are dead in Christ. See what I'm saying? And they're not the same. So that's why the lesson, they are eternally out of fellowship with God, verse five, those dead, they're, look, You've heard me say it, you've heard the pastor say it here, the teachers that teach here, that when a person is lost, he's born into this world, he's always born, we call that he's a lost man. You say, well, where do you get that word lost? Well, it's a Bible term and it shows up. In other words, he needs God, he's without God. Now the world will take issue with that. Oh, how do you know I don't have God? We that believe the Word of God and have been born again know that the only people that have God is the people that have been born again. So when you're born into this world, a natural human being, you're born without the Spirit of God. Look, when you're without God, the Bible terms you dead. You're breathing air, you're one year old, but you don't have God. There's no Spirit of God in you. Now you're born into a Christian home, understand the age of accountability, we've been through all that. We're not waiting around in that this morning. God makes exception for little folks. They fall under the umbrella of the faith of the parents and so on and so forth till they come to the age of accountability. But I wanna go back to this dead thing. If you're born into this world, a person that is not saved in a home that's not saved, a family that doesn't know God, and you're just a normal person. Say, well, I'm a normal person. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not once. When you're born into this world, you're born minus something. And what you're minus is the Holy Ghost of God. You don't have it. You've got your spirit. You've got your flesh. And you're eating, you're talking, you're drinking, you're coming, you're going, you're, you're learning, but you're minus something. And until you have received the new birth, when you come to the age of the knowledge of good and evil, or we say that the accountability age. And you know, man, there's something wrong with me. And you know there's something wrong with you because the wages of sin is death. And if you've never read that in the Bible, never heard that from the Bible, you have to come to the conclusion that no human being on the face of the earth has ever cheated death. Now they've tried. They've tried. Ponce de Leon sailed into Florida looking for the fountain of youth. Thought if he could get a drink of that water he could live forever. What? I was going to say, I don't want to say that this morning. I want to be kind. I was going to say, that moron. I didn't want to say that though. He's looking in all the wrong places. He's looking in the physical aspect of things and it's a spiritual aspect. He needed a spiritual drink of spiritual water like John chapter four, the woman at the well. And the Lord gave her a spiritual drink. These words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. So people get things all messed up and they live their life thinking they've been received the new birth and found out they just drank some swamp water someplace and they're dying and going to hell. So not a good deal. So here, the dead, what is the difference between the dead of verse five and verse six? The dead in verse five are people that's never known God. And look, if you live in, and they're gonna be judged one day by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ad lib this. Why didn't you believe in Christ? Well, I never heard before. Look, you had a chance. I did? Yeah. And there's a difference. Then let me go on. Well, let me give you some scripture on it. Look, take your Bible, go to Romans, Romans five, Romans five. And we quote these verses kind of backwards and forwards in our preaching and our witnessing. He says in verse 12, and you'll know the verse, wherefore as by one man sent into the world. Now we know that that one man is Adam. Says here, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men that all have sinned. So the very proof that you're a sinner, the very proof that you're without Christ is you die. You get sick, you get old, and that's the human life. Why, me and Teddy just this morning, we were reminiscing about how we're getting old and we're just getting better looking as the days go by. And one of these days, when I step in the glory, I'm going to really be looking good. Me and Teddy both. Now, if you're not saved, you're not going to look so good, amen? You say, why? Well, the people that die and go to hell, it says, where the worm dieth not. And there's an indication. Well, let me not. I won't teach on hell this morning. Boy, that really gets bad. So wherefore Adam sinned and so death passed upon all men for until the law of sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law, but there is a law. Jesus kept the law. And if you want to go without Christ, sin will be imputed to you at the judgment. And that's why Peter's remedies isn't talking about that. Let me give you another place in Ephesians. I'm sorry, Romans six. Turn the page, I give you Romans 5, 12. Romans 6, verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the wages of sin is death. I was preaching for Vic Wilson last year and he gave me three or four signs. These were scripture signs. And one of those scripture signs is Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death. And then on the other side of the sign, it says, and they stick in the ground out front in the yard. And he says, for the way to sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And you drive by my house. I live down in the woods up a holler down a Creek. You can't, you can't see my house. I'm about like you, Stevie. I'm back down in there by the Creek. You can't see my house, but I wanted people to see the scripture. So I took it up front. I got a little road frontage and I plopped that thing down there. And I, people drive by, my neighbors are Christian, the other neighbors as you say, but they read that and going one way it says, for the wages of sin is death, coming the other way it says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so, and then every once in a while I just mess them all up. I got about three of these signs, they all say something different, different verses. I put that one, back down at the house put another one up there and they read it and the neighbor told me the other day, did you change that side? I said, no, it just changed itself. No, I didn't say that. And then when you come down my driveway, I have a, Sam, you'll see in a little tiny circle drive that you can swing around there in that little clump of trees. We, we watched that. I sat on the porch this morning, listened to my Bible and watched the deer come down there and, you know, do whatever deer do that morning, this morning. And I had a sign there, but it's not there for the deer. It's there for the ups man. The ups man comes to my house three or four times a week and the FedEx man comes, the ups man comes, the mail man comes, different people come. You say, why? My wife shops online, that's why. And I help her, I shop online. price of gasoline. It's easy. Let them pay that. Anyway, they read that sign. They read that sign. They read that sign. And guess what? The ups man says, Hey, I know right where your church is. I said, you do? He says, yeah, I live in Vivi, but my routes out here. So he's a safe man goes to church someplace around here. I don't know his name, but Ain't that something? I mean, the word of God will have an effect no matter where it's found or where it's used or how it's used. God will get the glory and it don't. Anyway, I wanted to give you that verse Romans 5, 12, Romans 6, 23. And we're making a point onto the fact that people are dead. And that means they don't have God. Take your Bible if you would and go to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter two, and we use these passages quite a bit too. And you'll hear our pastors and preachers and teachers quote these verses from memory. And I want you to look though at verse one of Ephesians chapter two, and you have, and he's talking to save Ephesians or anybody that's saved. If you're saved this morning, he's talking to you. He says, and you hath he quickened. What? What's that mean? To make alive. In the scripture in Old English, quicken was to make alive. So he says, and you hath he quickened who were, what? Dead in trespasses and sins. Say, what happened? Well, when you're born in this life, you're referred to as a dead man if you don't have Christ. Say, well, I'm alive. I'm breathing air. My heart's ticking. I know. But there's a spiritual side of you. And that spiritual man in you has been divorced from God because of the sin of Adam and Eve. And God moved out when Adam sinned, when he disobeyed. And so when you come along, hundreds, thousands of years down the road, you're still divorced. You don't have Christ in you. Oh, a preacher, how do I get Christ in me? You get saved. And so we call a person that doesn't have Christ, lost. Say, what's that mean? Well, when you lose something, you're wondering, looking for it, looking around like somebody says, like a goose in a snowstorm, lost as a goose in a snowstorm. Well, that's how a person is until you have Christ. Then when you have Christ, the Holy Ghost of God moves in and you're a new creature in Christ Jesus. Now you still have the old flesh, you still have the spirit of man, your heart's still beaten, but because of sin, your body will get old, get sick and die on you. But now you have the liberty to step into the presence of God because you and God are one. and you step out, that's the new birth. So here, that dead in verse five is dead people that's never been saved, that will have to give an account. And then the dead people of verse six are people that are dead in Christ. So if you were in Christ, in other words, you're saved and you die, you say, what happened to them? Oh, they died, they got old and died. Were they saved? First thing we say, were they saved? Say, yeah, well, he died in Christ. we might say something like this, they just sleep, they went on to glory. And people look at you and scratch your head and say, what's he talking about? I thought everybody died. Everybody does die. Saved people go to Heaven, lost people go to Hell. And that gets, I appreciate the fact that in this church the Gospel gets preached. Pastor Tom will preach the gospel just about every Sunday morning. He will give you say why don't fool yourself There's people that that aren't sure There's people that are here that say you can't know that you're going to heaven when you die. See what is that? That's just a person that's weak don't understand don't have the knowledge and and man, I I Thank God for the Word of God. But it gets preached here. Pastor Jeremiah preaches. He will put something out that covers the gospel. When I teach, I want to put something out that covers the gospel. And you say, well, everybody here is a preacher. We don't need to hear anything. But you might go out of here and run across somebody. Monday morning says, man, I sure with, I knew what you guys had. you Christians had and you say, wow, I just heard Pastor Tom say, you must be born again. You need a new birth. And you'll think it'll register in your mind and you'll use something you heard from one of the pastors, one of the teachers, one of the Christians in the church for the benefit and the glory of God. So we teach a way we teach. So here, um, and then that's Ephesians two one, we were dead in trespasses and sins. That's, that's you and me, but we were quick. And you said we're quickened by what? By the spirit of God. Then Colossians two 13. And Paul's very consistent in his teaching. I like this about the apostle Paul. Uh, and anybody, any of the, any of the word of God is very consistent. Doesn't that counterdict, uh, watch verse 13 of chapter two of the book of Colossians and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses. And so, uh, there's just another clear verse of scripture on, on the new birth and what happens when a person gets saved. And so we're sitting back singing, smiling, you know, almost hilariously. I'll have a new body, praise the Lord, I'll have a new life. People say, what in the world's wrong with you? I'm saved, man. I'm going to heaven. So, that's what it is. So principle, the principle of this lesson, the principle in these few passages, Christians face an altogether different future than lost people. That's the principle of the teaching there. And you need to know that. People say, well, they're going to heaven. I'm just as good as they are. But it ain't about who's good and who's not good. Look, well, I never stole anything. I ain't no thief. I only stole one car in my life, so I didn't go to jail for that. Well, wait a minute. How many cars you got to steal to be a car thief? One. How many sins you got to sin to be a sinner? One. And I already know the answer to that, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So lost people have a different future than saved people. That's the principle of the lesson. The application as we try to apply that to us from the scriptures, is there a gospel of second chance? Now think about that. I've heard this question many times. I'll wait till I stand before God and I'll tell God then, okay, I didn't know you were for real. Now I know you're for real, let me in. No, it don't work like that. I don't want to be arguing with St. Peter up there at the Golden Gate. I'm going to tell him, look, I paid my fire insurance, I want in. Look, if you ain't born again, if you've never trusted Christ in this life, you're not going to heaven. You're not even going to get up there to the pearly gates. And I doubt if St. Peter's standing there waiting on you anyway. Yeah. Is there a gospel of the second chance? Implied answer, no. According to this verse, no. There is no second chance. The only time we can come to Christ is when we are alive on earth. That's it. People say, oh boy, that's awful narrow. I don't know. 72 years old this year seems like a long time to me in one sense. Another sense, where did time go? What happened? So here the Bible says that those without Christ are dead while still physically living. They are dead spiritually. No God in them. No Holy Spirit in them. They're dead and they need to be quickened. They need to be made alive. They need to be born again. Let me move on. Well, the verse that I give you Romans, I give you Romans 5, 12, Romans 6, 23, and Ephesians. I give you all that, I won't read them again. I guess the question under application is, and we probably can all answer this pretty fairly. Are you dead spiritually? Well, brother, I'm not as good a Christian as I could be. I didn't ask you that. Are you dead spiritually? Look, it's not about if you're a good Christian or a bad Christian. The question is, have you ever been saved? And if you've never been saved, you're dead spiritually. All it takes is trusting in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection to give you eternal life. I don't know if I wrote it down, but in John, yeah, I think I did. In John chapter five, verse 24, that's another verse I have on a sign. That's in the flower bed. When they come up on the porch and drop those packages off, they gotta read that sign. them signs everywhere, man. Romans, I mean, I'm sorry, John 5, 24, verily, verily, I say unto you, and that word verily, verily is repetition, and it means truly, truly, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, again, the emphasis on the word of God, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. I went to see my, I went to the nursing home Saturday, I go every Saturday. And I'm people, they know me up there now. And I go in, Hey, you got time to talk a minute? And the more ladies and old men. Yeah. Yeah, I do. And I'll talk, talk to them as I go. And I talked to this one old lady who, um, has, has dementia really, really serious. And she said, I'm a Christian. I said, good. I thought you were. He said, you know what the Bible says? I said, no, I don't know what it says. Now, this is supposed to be a woman that don't know who you are when you come in sometimes. She said, well, I might not know a lot of things, but I know this. I have eternal life. And I may be going to die, and this body may be going to get buried, but I'm going to go live with Jesus. That's pretty good. That's the power of the word of God. Say, well, who is that? That person's my mother. She don't know where her checkbook is. She don't know if she took her medicine or not. But she knows she's saved, amen? And she's going to heaven. And she was looking at me, she had them glasses down like that, looking at me like that. And she said, I'm going to heaven. I said, okay, you're right, you're right, mom, you are. And I said, I'm not far behind you, so. Note that the above passage we just read says that you immediately pass from death, spiritual death, into life eternal at the moment of belief. When you believe, people say, well, okay, I believed when I was six years old. Okay, you went from being a dead man to being a live man, or dead lady being a live lady. Say how spiritually? what? The Holy Spirit moved in. Now, you weren't a Christian rocket scientist at that time. You didn't know there were 66 books in the Bible. You didn't know any of that. But you were saved and you knew that and you could get up with the youth choir and sing, Oh, How I Love Jesus and mean it from the bottom of your heart and it would be a blessing to everybody sitting there because they knew you were saved. Thank God for the people that suffer the little children. Amen. And they get saved. I was one of those kids one time. So here in verse seven, but the end of all things is at hand. That's 1 Peter 4, 7. But the end of all things is at hand. Then he says, be there for sober and watch in the prayer. Now the word sober, and we'll comment on the whole verse, but the word sober there means, uh, uh, with diligence of mind. It can also mean not, not inebriated, not drunk where it is by wine. I've got. I was about to blow my nose in that. That's a shop rag I was cleaning my windshield with. Get old, man. You forget what you did what with. I sprayed Rain-X on my windshield. I don't know if that, I'm gonna snort a snort full of that at some point. What'll happen? Wow. Gotta watch that stuff. People say, yeah, Dad, you're getting old. You about had the lick. My kids inform me. But here, but the end of all things is at hand, be therefore sober. The word sober means like sober-minded, diligence of mind, not foolish things. Yes, the word is also used for someone that's in a drunken state with wine, alcohol, or something like that, but that's not the case here. I remember when I first got into church about 1975, and I'd go out the door, the pastor would shake her hand, And he'd look at me and said, now stay sober. And I told Bonnie, I said, I think he thinks I drink. I was 25 years old and a little, I didn't know anything about the Bible. So I stumbled on that and I figured it out. He wasn't talking about drinking. He was talking about being sober minded. You know, be diligent in your Christian life. So, but the end of all things in the hand, be therefore sober and watch unto prayer. And a diligent man, a sober minded person is praying and watching continually. You get up in the morning and say, well, Lord, you know, I'm here. I know the devil's gonna be a fit today. So get thee behind me, Satan. I wanna serve the Lord. And then you'll get your day started. You'll drink that bone broth. Oh, you probably don't drink bone broth. You'll drink that coffee and then... Hey, I've lost 25 pounds. Leave me alone. I won't need quite as big a coffin when they go to fit me. What? Now, Peter turns to a new subject here, the effectiveness of the believer's life. We need to see that in the lesson, our effectiveness in the Christian life in the middle of suffering for Jesus. Now, that's all the way from 7 down through 11, and I didn't read all that. Do you have stability under any pressure? In other words, if something comes along in your life and you have some pressure put on you, outside pressure, let's say you get sick. Let's say you're in a car accident. Let's say somebody steals your X mark zero turn high end $10,000, $12,000 lawnmower. I don't know. Some kind of pressure. Let's say you get that registered letter in the mail from the IRS that you're being audited for the last time. I don't know. Pressure. How do you operate under pressure? And that's kind of what this is about. And so Peter turns to that new subject, the effectiveness of the believer's life in the middle of suffering. And so when disaster comes, do you know how to cope with it? Or do you lose it? I just lose it, man. Well, don't lose it. You don't have to. Every Christian is gonna live this life and have to suffer some kind of heartache, disappointment, something's gonna happen. Now, I've lived long enough that I'm not gonna take the time to share a lot of them with you or any of them with you, really, but I've had some pretty disappointing moments in my life. You say, what do you do? Well, I know one thing it does do for the child of God It brings you face to face with the God you love. And you're not really saying, Lord, why me? You're saying, God, get me through this. I need your help. And you've always helped me before. And now I've got a pretty good track record going on, because he's been helping me for 940 something years. And so I looked back and I said, God, remember that? You bailed me out. Remember that? You bailed me out. Remember that? You bailed me out. And you bailed me out of every one of them. And we went on. So I've learned how to cope with distress. You still trust in God because the whole gist of the whole overall thought of the lesson is suffering. with the Lord Jesus Christ. You're going to identify with some kind of suffering here. So I've been giving you a practical thought and then the application of the verse. If this verse refers to the rapture, let's go back and read it carefully. But the end of all things is at hand. Now, if it's referring to the rapture, you understand where I get the thought, the end of all things is at hand. So if it's referring to the rapture, God wants us to live in constant expectancy of Christ's return. None of us know whether we will live to see the end. But if we should, we should anticipate The coming of the Lord. Now, I don't know what you were doing this morning at 4.30. Actually, my day started a little before that, probably around 3.30 when the storms rolled through Blooming Grove. And I went out and got me, I started with, I won't say it again, Lonnie, my half a cup of bone broth, And I went out on the front porch because I love storms. I love the clouds when they roll in. I love the lightning when it flashes. I don't love the trees when they come tumbling down. And I sat there in the dark on the front porch sipping that bone broth. And my little cat sat there by me. He was afraid to get off the mat. But we watched that storm roll through, man. I thought. It's Sunday, Lord, I'm getting ready for the day. But if you could come, if you should come, even so come, Lord Jesus. He didn't come, went in and got a cup of coffee and went back out there and listened to four or five chapters of the Bible. Say, what's going on? Well, application here, with the lesson that we're trying to teach. None of us know whether we will live to see the end or not, but we should be anticipating, we should be watching prayerfully, because the verse says, but the end of all things is at hand, be therefore sober. In other words, don't be off doing something else that doesn't glorify God, but watch unto prayer. But since the verse probably refers to coming persecution, yeah. get to go through a little something you'll think the end is near. Be ye therefore sober. The meaning is that Christians will come to the place of the end of calm in their lives. Yeah, every day is not going to be smooth sailing. The pastor has a saying he uses about maritimes and something along the lines of calm seas make for poor sailors or something like that. He may use that later. Each Christian will face maximum disaster situations at least a few times in their life. Say, what are you saying? I'm saying, get ready, man. There's a storm blowing up. There's a storm blowing up. And you can either sit on the front porch and pray to your God that all is well and sing the song in your heart, it is well with my soul, or you can lose it. And I'm telling you, you don't want to lose it. That's the kind of God we serve. So Peter points. Peter's point is preparation. Are you prepared for trial when it comes? If you wait till the trial comes to prepare yourself, it will be too late. We learned this. So a lot of the trials, the men of God went through the word of God from Adam all the way to David. Under major duress, we do not think clearly. Have you ever noticed that? We cannot learn properly when emotionally upset. We're not at our best. We're in the midst of a storm. Therefore, we must prepare our souls before the trial comes. So that's why the lesson, that's why looking at the scriptures and it's recorded and God gives it to us. You say why? To teach us, to prepare us for when the storm comes. So we must prepare our souls before the trial comes. Do you know enough principles of God's word to face the bad times when they come? Are you gonna be one of those Christians? Why me, Lord? Why'd you have to let this happen to me? I just don't understand God. I'm mad at God now. All my life I've dealt with folks like this. Man, it's tough. And a lot of times it's a lack of the knowledge of the principles of the word of God, how God works and what we're going through. That verse eight, charity among yourselves above all else. Look, verse eight in our text, And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves for charity shall cover the multitude of sin. That charity is a helpful love one to another. See 1 Corinthians chapter 13, one down through verse 13. That chapter is, we call it the love chapter. That's the chapter on charity, charitableness. You know, there's a lot of charitable people in this church. I'd say just about everybody here is that way. If you need something, they're going to make it happen. That's like a family ought to work. It ought to work like that. So charity among yourselves, and that's a good quality. That's a good character trait. Above all else, now we won't go to Corinthians. Let me finish out the thought. If we have charity for our brethren, it helps us overlook their sins. Everybody has a sin. And you say, I don't have any sin, I don't have any sin, I don't have any sin. Okay, I'll give you that. Faults, everybody has a fault. And you know what charity does? It helps you overlook, we'll just go with the fault. Say, how do you know that? Well, you're married, aren't you? Sure, I've been married 54 years this year. And you know, when we first got married, Bonnie didn't know what she was getting. A hillbilly introvert. But we learned how to love each other and we stayed with it and we weathered the storms. And you know what now? That kind of love, that charitable type we were giving one to another, that kind of love covers a multitude of sin. Say amen right there if you're married today. Oh brother, my husband, I've heard it all. My husband isn't perfect, I'm gonna leave him. Look, fall in love with him again, whatever it takes. So charity among yourselves, and it helps here in a situation, the church family, that sort of thing, love one another, have charity one to another. If we have charity for our brethren, it helps us overlook their sins. It doesn't save us, it helps us get along. I am sure there's anybody that has to stand behind this pulpit and preach or teach and say as many words as I get to say, Pastor gets to say, Pastor Jeremiah gets to say, and Samuel preaches from time. Anybody that has to say or anybody that gets up here that teaches, leads the singing, does anything and says anything is bound to say something wrong. So I'll thank you all this morning for putting up the likes of me, amen. You say, what is that? It's just charity. He's getting old, he's senile, he says stuff. So verse nine, hospitality one to another without grudging. Hospitality, Romans 12, 13, distributing to the necessity of the saints, given to hospitality. Brother, that's one of the earmarks of the true Christian. He's hospitable. He's hospitable to others. He wants to help out. We're pretty good about that. When we have promotions for helping the school, everybody jumps on board, does a great thing. When we're trying to do something for somebody in community, everybody jumps on board, does something for that. When we take up special offerings, people do things. So hospitable, 1 Timothy 3.2, a bishop then must be blameless, a husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior. I want you to see this part of it. Given the hospitality apt to teach. Hospitable. And then Titus 1.8 again, but a lover of hospitality. The people of God, the men of God especially, ought to be hospitable. So I'm out of time. I'm done with the thought. That's just three or four verses there in Peter, and it's a continuation of the thoughts of the Christian suffering in Christ, and kind of breaking it down, and a little emphasis on the dead in Christ, and the dead that are not even saved yet. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for an opportunity to teach your word. Bless now the name of our service. It's in Jesus' name we pray and ask it. Amen.