So we are in Galatians 6, but, you're like, oh, okay. I would be amiss not to speak about the events of things that happened yesterday a little bit. There was an assassination attempt on President Trump, and that's what it was. It was not, he fell. It was not that he heard a loud noise and ducked, as the mainstream media's reporting. Someone was three inches from shooting him in the center of the forehead. That's an assassination attempt. And it's not that they attempted to shoot him, they did shoot him, just by God's providential grace that went through his ear and not cause more damage. Killed at least one behind him and has injured others. And I feel for those people that are there just to show support in a free country to be able to do so and to be shot. and others that were injured. And while the event itself is shocking, because when you hear, Dave first sent me my first contact, and I thought it just said shots fired, and I didn't read far enough to see that he was hit. So that's just shocking enough, the fact that it happened at all. but it's not shocking that it did happen because in the last few weeks, there have been people out calling for his assassination openly. We have free speech in America, we're supposed to, but not for something like that. You can't call for the death of others. You can't, it's not right. We don't do it. That's a misuse of the freedom of how it is. And so I don't know what we are allowing to go on anymore. Not only have they called for his death, they've raided his home to the point where They went through not only his things, but they went through his wife's things, they went through his young son's things. And I pray for Barron a lot because... His older children, they understand, they get it. But he was a young child when his dad was a president. And one of the first things that really broke my heart for him was when, I think it was Kathy Griffin, had an effigy of Trump's head and it was covered in blood and she was holding it like she'd cut his head off. And he saw that and his dad wasn't with him and he thought someone had killed his dad and cut his head off. It's like, should a child have to go through that just because his dad's president? Is that allowed in our country to do those things? And so they went through his room and they did all that when they stormed his house down in Mar-a-Lago. And I feel for him and them because I remember our house being robbed when we were children and how much that upset me because I remember part of what they did as they went through and robbed our home is they took my and my brother's pillowcases and had turned them inside out like that's where we kept all the family. I like sleeping on my dad's gun. They went through all that. They ate our Peeps and they drank our Pepsi. It was the little things. Yeah, they took valuable things that we had, but it was like they violated the trust and the comfort of my home by someone being in there. And I remember that bothered me for a long time. Sure, it's bothered him to have your government come in and do that to you. He's been taken to court. He's been found guilty by rules that have only been applied to one case in the history. This case, they have put false and proven false accusations against him again and again, and they keep floating them. And now a shot so close that it went through his ear. You can't get much closer than a fatal shot there. And one of the most shocking things as you hear this, you're like, how, how an American, why? But on X, the trends from his opponents today were, how do you miss? Really? We don't have enough empathy for our fellow man that your thing is, oh, you missed him? That's sick. That's demented, that's evil. If you look at me to Isaiah five, mark your spot in Galatians, we'll get there. Isaiah 5. We often quote this, but I wanted you to see it today. As we live it. Isaiah 5, verse 20, sorry, Isaiah 5, 20 says, And this is a woe, this is like a, in Revelation there's woes. There's not too many woes in the Bible, but this is like, man, it's bad on you if you have a woe pronounced from God and God's man on you. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. They that put darkness for light and light for darkness and that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that cause confusion, is what he's saying. Those who take what God has set up as good, and then you make it evil, and take what God has said was evil, and you make it good. That describes our day. That describes our times. I can't believe still that in America, one of the main platforms is how we can kill babies. The scariest thing is that we still have four months until the election. I fear that the evil is not over, but it's just beginning. And so I guess part of my call is I love for you to be awake and be aware and be prepared. Look at 2 Timothy. Because God's people always have a heads up and a head start. because we are prepared people for a prepared place. And so we should live a prepared life in the sense that we are ready, that we are not easily shaken, that we are not thrown off course by the things that are going on, that we know who our God is, we know what our God does, and we know how we're to behave. And so I'm just kind of giving us a recalibration here. So 2 Timothy chapter three, verse one says, let's know that in the last days perilous times shall come. It's gonna get dangerous. And if we're in the last days, which I told you on Wednesday night, We were talking about Peter's sermon and he declares from the book of Joel that at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that came upon them like tongues of fire that they verified it by speaking out and people heard in different languages. He says this is the fulfillment of that that shows that we are in the last days. That is the kickoff to the last days. I think we're still in the days of Pentecost. And many do because Pentecost was the day of harvest. We are in the harvest. And there'll be a day when God has it all mapped out on how the harvest is to work. There's the first fruit, that was Jesus Christ. He actually was the first fruit on the day of first fruits. He presents himself as the first fruit and then God says he will then give the harvest. The harvest is the church. He's now bringing us in. Bring the wandering ones to Jesus. We sing about it. Then it ends with an in-gathering that after the main harvest happens, which is the harpazo, or the rapture, or the taking away of the church, there's a seven-year tribulation where it's like the Book of Ruth, where they glean the corners. And there's a time where it says that... As many as the sands of the sea get saved from every tongue, tribe, and nation. And so there's going to be a great soul harvest during the tribulation. But we are in this last days, nearing the last part of the church, which would be the end of that. So we are in some perilous times. I think we see that. Look at verse 13, same chapter. 2 Timothy 3, 13. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. It says that they are going to use deception We live in a day of fake news, cheap fakes, as the White House wants to call them, and others, and then you find out that they're not cheap fakes, that they're real, and so we have all this that's going on, but we have the time of deception where we have to watch and test even what our eyes are seeing. And so we need to walk closer to the Lord, closer to His standard, closer to the truth, so that the lie will be exposed to us. And so we've got to watch what we feed on. We've got to watch what we're taking in. The Bible maps out our times as birth pangs. He's like, hey, this is gonna be a bad time for a while. And then it'll be a time of calm. Think about the end stage of pregnancy, that's how it is, right? It's getting close. This might be the day when it's your first one, you're like, woohoo, here it is, you got it all packed and you're ready, but then it's like, oh, false contraction. You might even go on to the hospital, and they're like, mm, it's gonna be a while yet. Then you wait a little while, and you just get a little bit more comfortable. And then another one comes in, and it's a little bit harder, a little more severe, but then it backs off. That's what Jesus says in the last days will be like, a time of birth pangs. There'll be contractions, it'll be hard, and there'll be a time of calm. And people go back to normal and they'll forget what it was like. But it gets a little worse and a little pause, a little worse, a little pause, a little worse, until the point it brings to tribulation. Here's what we can do, look at verse 14. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom that you have learned them. We are not to be easily shaken. We're to continue in the things that we have learned. We know what we ought to do. We know what we're supposed to be doing. We have a great commission. We're supposed to be doing that. We don't forget. We don't throw it in. Well, it doesn't matter. There must not be a God in heaven. I don't know what's going on. He told us it would be this way. If anything, this should strengthen our resolve to stand all the more firm and to be all the more bold. That's what I think we are to be called for. We're not to give up. We're not to give in. We're not to cater to how they are and how they behave. We're to stand. We're to resist. We're to abhor evil. We just saw that in the book of Romans. That's one of our main things. We resist evil. We stand against it. We call it out. We're to do right. All the time. It's almost like in the fight, we have our hands tied behind our back. It's like we can't fight dirty, we can't fight, we can't cheat, we can't lie, we can't steal. We fight decently, we fight honestly, we fight right, we do it right. We do it in a way where God gets the glory on how we do what we do. That really limits us. but it really praises Him. It really gives Him the glory, because that's what our life is to be about. It's just getting down to rubber meets the road Christianity. That's the time of the days in which we are in. We're supposed to be doing that. We are to defend the innocent. We are to defend children, not kill them, and debate how late can we kill them, or how early can we kill them? Why are we killing our children? This is our future, this is our hope, this is our legacy, and we're taking them out? Shame on us. That's probably why we have the evils that are upon America and where we put ourselves where we are today. We are to watch out and defend the orphans, not lose 85,000 of them. Have you heard that? Out of the 85,000 that we know cross the borders, that we at least have records of, we've lost them. We put them someplace we don't know where. I can tell you where they probably are. Child trafficking somewhere. Something horrible is going on. Because if it's done decently and honorably and upright, you have record and you do it in the light. It says here's who we are and this is what we were doing. You don't hide it and put it away somewhere. Shame on us that we'd have elected officials that allow 85,000. That's the ones we know of. How many do we not know of? Shame on us that we would do that, that we would be the ones. You can read at the end, it talks about human trafficking and slavery and you're thinking, how desperate will we be in those days? We've been in those days. That's who we are and where we are. That's closer than you think, it's around here. We are to watch out for the widows. We're not to take advantage of them. We are to help those that are defenseless. We're to stand up and intervene on their behalf. That's who we are. That's like New Song's mission. That's what they were doing. They're interceding, trying to help those who might not have all the resources of someone else. We are to stand for righteousness. We're to be right, and we're to stand for right. And we're not to let it be, well, maybe in this time. No, we're to stand for it. We're to expose evil and bring it into the light. We're to drag it out and say, this is what it is. This is what you support? This is what you're standing for? And I pray that we have those in the power position to do that more and that we do it on our local level and on our little level and try to call it out in the big grand scheme of things, no matter how we may be. Whether it's having an event where you can have people come in and tell them what the gospel is and show them what evil is and put it in that way or we do it one by one, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, family to family, coworker to coworker. That's how God's usually chosen to do it. Through us, one thing at a time, side by side. We're to do good. We're to do justly. We're to love mercy. We're to walk humbly with our God. Except for the grace of God, there go I. We need to remember that as well. We're not humble or proud of the things we do, but we are children of a king. We are his soldiers, and that's what we talk about on Sunday night. We're going through Christian soldier. I make pseudo armor and we talk about it. And if you've not come to a Sunday night, I invite you to my mother's house tonight. And we're gonna talk about the soldiers. We're gonna talk about our armor. We're gonna talk about the tools that God has given us. And I'm trying to make it practical. I'm trying to make it where it's something that you can use it in your life and it'll be effectual on a daily level. On any encounter that you have, that you would have a ready tool there that you can pull out to be able to defend your faith. I'm going to give you one tonight that I've used before and I've done it here but it's been years ago so most of you probably forgotten it or maybe some of you never seen it. But just trying to emphasize and strengthen things that you already know but put it in a compact way to help inform you in that. And so I come tonight for that. That's part of what we're doing. We want to be soldiers. We're not pacifists who stand on the sidelines. He's called us to be soldiers. We are fighting a war. We're fighting for truth. We're fighting for God. We're trying to expose evil and to get rid of it. We're to proclaim the great and terrible day of the Lord. We're supposed to warn people, a judgment is coming. You're not getting by with this. And if you eat a bullet after an evil thing that you have done, you've not escaped justice. You've just put yourself in the hands of the just God of the universe and you're not getting by with it. You will suffer throughout all eternity. And so we need to remind people that they have to give an account for their life. No matter what evolution teaches them or whatever their agnostics and atheism says, there is a God in heaven. Because there is a creation, there is a creator. It is evident and it is obvious and he's left his fingerprints everywhere. And so we have ready answers for that as well. We are to preach the gospel to all men all the time. That's our greatest tool, it's our greatest resource, it is our greatest weapon. Because if you can make an enemy a friend, if you can convert them to the truth of Christ, now you've just grown the kingdom of God. God is not shocked or surprised. He told us in advance it was gonna be like this. And he has placed you in a country, all of us in this room here today, in a country where if done fairly, you have a voice. Your hand is on the tiller to steer this great country that we have. We, in America, can vote. We are supposed to, and we should. Now, is my faith weakened in our system? It is. And we've had four years to try to tighten it up and make it safer and make it more secure and make it more fair and honest. I mean, they're fighting in our legislature right now over a rule that says whether non-citizens should vote or not. What? We have people that are 198 that voted against this and they don't even know who's gonna get through the next section. It's like, oh, they're saying that non-citizens should have a right to vote in our country? What? Talk about crazy town. That's where we live. And I'm like, who's voting for any of those goofballs? That's the scary thing. But we have a right to do that. When it works, it works best when all of us participate. And the more that participates, the more that they can't fudge the numbers, the more it gets exposed that dead are voting or illegal are voting or people are voting multiple times. That gets exposed if more people participate. And so if you are not registered to vote, get registered to vote. I think it's a Christian duty. He's called us to be into that if you're able. You have any restrictions you should be able to do that get registered and vote and then show up and vote. And you're like, well, I'm busy that day. I'm sure the soldiers that stormed the beaches of Normandy probably had something else they'd rather been doing. We have footage of World War II that you can look at. You can watch Saving Private Ryan, or you can look at Band of Brothers or something like that, watching those guys storming the beaches as the LSTs that were built here in Indiana drop on shore, open the doors, and they pile out to a German machine gun nest, mowing them down, and the next guys get out as well, taking it, knowing that this was going to be the difference in a war, and it was. I'm sure as they were on the beaches clutching for their life or crawling trying to get to the next thing, they're thinking, I wish it wasn't here. I wish it was someplace else. I think we could stand in line for a few hours if it takes that. I think we could go in the rain if it's rainy on the day of election and stand there because people have gone through a lot worse to make sure we had the right to be able to exercise our right to vote. I think we could show up in mass as families. I can't believe it's not a holiday for everybody to be able to take off and go and stand as a family group and be able to vote. But it's not. I know some companies allow that, and I think that's great. But you should make the effort. We now open it up a little bit early. I'm not too much in favor of how all that works to some benefits or other, but we're to do that. But we have the power of the vote that we can do it. But more importantly, we have prayer. We can pray. And that's not a last resort. It should be our first resort. So let's do so now. I prayed you'd be with our country, that you would watch it, that you would protect it, and that you would not give us what we deserve, but you would show kindness on us once again. Lord, I pray that you would prepare us as a people here in this room, or listening, or watching online, that you would prepare us for the days ahead, for the shocking events that many fear are inevitable and are coming. Lord, that we would have answers, that we would not be easily shaken, We should be shocked. We should not be so complacent by watching violent acts like this. A man died. More people were injured and maybe dying inches away from shooting someone in the head in front of everyone. We should be shocked. But Lord, let it not rock who we are in our faith and our trust in you. We pray for protection on our country, Lord, even though we have open borders and we have enemy that we've let in openly running around us, Lord. I pray for safety and the safety of those of us here, Lord, but I pray that you keep us safe, and Lord, that may their evil plots be exposed. I pray that you direct our leaders whether they be the puppets or the puppets that are the ones that are pulling the puppet strings Lord I pray that you would expose evil and their plans just like in the Psalms and it says may they fall in the nets that they have laid may they be trapped in the very schemes that they have plotted out and Lord we pray that they be exposed to be brought into the light and we can see the evil for what it is I pray that you would reward righteousness and that you would have your people stand that we'd be bold whether we'd be the only one or whether we'd be a majority lord but we would stand for what is right and we would not kowtow to the dictates of others around us no matter what they are saying that we would stand for right and we'd be bold in that that we'd be bold in you we pray for the protection of trump and his family lord i pray for comfort to him I pray for comfort to his wife. I pray for comfort to his children for the things that they've watched come upon him time and time again that keeps escalating. Watch and protect them. I pray that you steady their resolve. That you be with the families of the men who died. Shows up to a rally. Lord, it shows us the brevity of life. Lord, I pray that we'd be prepared in case something like that would happen to us. I pray that all of our family members would be prepared, because we never know if this is the day we will die. I pray to be with those that were injured in the attack as well, Lord, that you'd intercede on their behalf, that you would touch and heal and restore them if it be possible, Lord, if it be within your will. I pray that you'd expose any plot, if it was outside and bigger than this young man and his confused and second state in which he was in to do this, Lord, but I pray if it was bigger and there was more players and there was more parts of it, Lord, that it be exposed and be brought to light. And I pray for the Shooter's family as well. I can't imagine the horrors that they are going through. Be with them. I pray you hold the guilty accountable. And Lord, I pray it would be within your will that you would send a revival to our land And I pray that if this fire would catch here, Lord, that it would go, catch fire and go around the world. And God, please, if you find it within your mercy, that God please bless America and make our splendor and make our might and our nation godly again where we would stand forth for you. In your son Jesus' name I pray this, Lord. Amen. Galatians chapter six. Just a reminder, I do have some tracks on the table on the way out here that show Biden and Trump boxing. If you hear people talking about this, if you go to work on Monday and they're talking about this, arm yourself with these and be able to slip it to them like, hey, this is just, that was a day in history, you know, and be able to slip this to them. They'll take it at least for that alone, the historical value of this is a day that'll be remembered for sure. But then you give them the good news of the gospel that's on the back. And as they look into it, you've given it to them. Arm yourself. I had some 600. We passed out 100 or so, but there's more that are there. So take them out. If not, I've got some others we can find. But I think these, I've not given one that's not been taken and taken readily. I mean, it's enough interest of what's going on with the debates and what's going on in the next four months to be able to pass them out. And so those are there. So they're on the table. And also, I just want to say in closing, just to prepare. I think back in 2020 when they locked it all down, right? You go into the grocery store. I remember I bought a box of protein pancake mix. I'd never buy that. It was the only thing that was left. I might be hungry for pancake. So I bought it because it was the only thing there. I still have it. But if things got bad, I don't know how bad, but I don't know. But if things get bad, I guess imagine yourself where that would be. Take yourself back to those two weeks. What did you wish that you would have had on that day? Now's the time to get it. Now's the time to buy it. Now's the time to stock up. Now's the time to prepare. Maybe it's your faith that needs worked on. Come tonight and we'll talk more about that. But get it, get it now. Galatians 6. Well, Beth has wisdom. She texted me this morning, she goes, I have a feeling you're gonna go long today, I only got three songs. And now I'm listening to my message, so I'm gonna go fast, how's that? Galatians six, because I'd like to finish this book up today. The last eight verses of the book, Paul signing off, and he starts at verse 11. You see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. It has a few different things on this. Some people take it like, it's not a very large book. I wonder why he says that. Well, he's not talking about the volume of the book. He's talking about the letters that he are writing in his hand. So this is a very, it's six chapters. It's not a long book in that way. It's not a large book. It's not a large letter. That's what the epistles are, are letters, letters that he wrote. Paul, like many had, he had an amanuensis or basically he had someone to write down what he was saying. Think of it as an early talk to text. You know, he was talking and somebody would write it down, you know, and they'd put it in that way because it's not like us, you know, where it's like I've got all kinds of ways I can write down. I've got an iPad, I've got a remarkable, I've got notepads, I've got, you know, Big sheets, little sheets, I got all kinds, I got ink pens of all kinds. I got ones I like, I got some that are smoother, some that bleed. I got all, they didn't have that. They had paper was a rare commodity, ink was a rare commodity, a pen was a rare commodity, penmanship was a rare, so that guy, that was their job. They would go around and they'd write it all down. And so this guy, he'd been dictating this letter and a professional wrote it down until it gets to the end. And so then Paul takes over and he begins to write. Some say that he wrote it in large letters because of his bad eyesight. And it was interesting as I was looking at all the different versions to see how it presented this verse. In the New Living Translation, it writes this verse in all caps, which I think is a pretty cool little effect there, because he's writing this in large letters. And so I think it was a nice touch. But Paul kinda does this at the end of a lot of his letters, like, hey, in my own hand, or hey, I signed this. He writes it, basically like to authenticate it. You can see it was me, I wrote it. It's like his signature. I think no one, so no one would question it. But here it seems like there's at least two reasons why that we can look at. The first one was that his eyes were bad. I wrote in large letters because, you know, I can't read small tiny type. I'm trusting this guy wrote it right. I'll have somebody else read it before he goes. But I'm writing here at the end and I'm writing, see I'm writing in large letters because I got bad eyes. I can't see. And many think that that's the case, you know, from a lot of different things. And this is just one of the clues that put into it. In first Corinthians, he talks about having a thorn in the flesh, that he's got something that he's prayed from the Lord to take it away. And many think it's his eyesight because of a verse like this. And because of chapter four in Galatians, where he said, he goes, you guys did love me. Remember you, if it were possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given to me. Galatians 4, 15. He says, you would have done that. And it's like, why do you use eyes? Probably because he had bad eyes. They're like, oh, it's so sad. I wish we could give Paul our eyes so that he could write better and see and do things. And they think, many think that this goes back to his conversion where he had the scales on his eyes, you know, that he was blinded for a time, you know, before that he was healed in it. So maybe they're all kind of correlated. Seems like it, we're not quite sure. And I've heard doctors say, it's like, if I can't hardly diagnose somebody today, I can't diagnose somebody who's been dead for a couple thousand years. And that is true. And so we can't really diagnose, but we can have guesses. So that seems, that seems legit. And I think that that's probably true, but there's a deeper, Kind of a hidden thing here and it's kind of a reproach that's hidden in it that he wrote this in big block letters Think elementary school type, you know, I remember my elementary class We always had the alphabet around the top, you know It was all written on the green chalkboard looking like you know I hadn't shown you how to make your letters right there and he's used it like a symbol to kind of sum up his letter and Basically, you know, grace versus law is a whole part of this, you know, about the whole thing that works cannot save you. He's saying it's very basic. It's very fundamental to your faith. It is God's unmerited favor, which is what grace is, and not something that you earn or deserve. Salvation is a gift given to you. It is not a work that you perform that God then says, well, you gotta come into my kingdom. Look how great you are. It's not that. It's like, hey, you're a horrible sinner. My son died for you, and I'll let you come in on that merit. You don't deserve it, but I'll take you in. So Paul has been arguing that. And so Paul kind of schools them by writing an elementary school letter saying, hey, I had to take you back to kindergarten to remind you that your faith is not by works, but it's by grace and by mercy. I kind of like that one. I don't know if it's true or not, but it fits. I think it's kind of neat, kind of like the little subtle way, hey, it's not the law, it's grace. You can't earn it, it's salvation by believing and trusting the finished work of Jesus Christ. Let me take you back to elementary school. Maybe it's multiple fold and I have to say that if you did it that way, ouch. He's a little scathing there as he brings it. Verse 12, it says, as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. Judaism was basically an acknowledged religion by Rome and sort of technically free from persecution and those that were trying to participate in it. We know that they didn't always hold to that, but generally as a rule, okay, we acknowledge that as religion, we don't persecute you. But Christianity, See, you are rebels and rough starts and you are saying you're not under a Caesar, you're under a King Jesus. You know, that we have a new king. And so, it was interrupting cities. We're gonna see as we go through the book of Acts that everywhere it goes, it ends in an uproar. They're trying to kill Paul. They're running him out of town. It's usually the Jews who cause the fight and cause the trouble. Some of them are mad because it takes over their money. People are burning our books and they're melting down our idols and they're stopping the idol market that's going on here. But it caused a big uproar and so, Some of them were getting circumcised for protection. See, I'm kind of Jewish. I'm kind of doing that. And they're trying to mix it together. Because it was a time of persecution. Nero kept his garden lit by burning Christians, right? He'd soak them in tar, put them on like a cross, catch them on fire, and then you'd have a garden party with these screaming, dying Christians around him. He's a nice guy. So if you look Jewish by being circumcised, maybe you can avoid persecution in that way. Because you're not as identified with Christ as a Christian would be. And Paul's saying, that's ridiculous. Because we are not to compromise. You don't mix Christianity with anything else. You don't mix Christianity with Christian yoga. That's Eastern mysticism. You don't have Christian meditation. You can meditate on God's word, you can pray to God, you can do it His way, but you don't do some Eastern thing and bring it to it. Christian tarot cards is a thing. Who would have thought a tarot card, this is using the occult and they have a Christian version of that? Let it not be, but it is. That it is out there. We're not to do that. And Paul's kind of calling, don't mix things to try to be popular, be cool, or to get by and out of persecution. You're not to do that. We're not to compromise. We're not to mix. God makes it a whole big rule. You go back to Leviticus, look at all the laws. A lot of it's not mixing, because it goes back to Genesis six, where the angels mixed with mankind. He's like, you're not to do that. I don't, I like everything after it's kind. We're not to do these things together. If you look at Luke nine, real fast, And I'm eating fast. Luke 9, verse 26. He says, for whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's, and in his father's, and of the holy angels. He says, if you're ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of you. If you're afraid to be fully identified with me and you're trying to mix it a little bit that you can get by with something, you don't want to claim me on the day when I stand before you, you're like, hey Jesus, I don't know you. You didn't know me when people asked you. And so we're to be confident in it. We're not to be trying to compromise and get along. I don't know Jesus. And Jesus will be like, I don't know you. Look at verse 26 again, for whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the son of man be ashamed. And he shall come in his own glory and in his father's and in the holy angels, sorry, verse 27. But I tell you of a truth, there are some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God. Now that was fulfilled in John. John sees the end of everything in his life and we have the book of Revelation because of it in there. But I think it applies to us today because there are some probably standing here that will not taste the death until we see the kingdom of God. I'm thinking about the rapture. And how will we behave? Will we be compromised? Will we be ones who are afraid to stand up and tout Jesus Christ and Christ alone? Are we gonna be faithful? Are we gonna be true? Jesus even says in the last days, will I find faith on the earth? I pray that you resolve that he'll find faith in me. Will he find faith in you? Will you find faith in yourself? Make that line in the sand. I will not compromise. I will not back down. I will not be ashamed. Galatians 6, 13. He says, for neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they might glory in your flesh. He says, they're not even keeping the law, they're just wanting you to be a notch in their belt. They're just trying to get you to follow their rules and say, I've got one on my side, you know, blah, blah, blah. Today it's the same way. How many in your attendance? How many at your church? They're just doing it for numbers. Hey, we got a few more. I don't do that. I just want a committed group of believers that want to follow Christ. I'd rather have a faithful 50 than 50 out of 500. And so that's not where we're after. That's not what we're doing. We're not to do it for show. And he says, these guys are just doing it for show, a notch on their belt. Hey, went on out, we got 35. We're not doing that. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Paul isn't looking for money. Paul isn't looking for fame. He just wants to please God. He wants to glorify in the cross. They were ashamed of the cross. In their culture, the cross, even to speak of the cross, they usually kind of had like a a slang word that they would say because they didn't want to say it because cursed was everyone who hung on a tree. It was a shameful thing to do that and Paul's like, I boast in that. It's because of that cross that I have anything. I have taken the law of Christ and I've counted it but done and I embrace the cross. We are kind of used to that language now. This was shocking to them there and then, how it was being done. So he does not hide from it. Matter of fact, Paul, to show he doesn't hide from it, he writes Romans 1, 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God to salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. He's like, I'm not ashamed. I am not ashamed. I will proclaim it wherever I go. And he does. Is that you? Are we ashamed or will we proclaim it? Do we have this kind of resolve within ourselves to be bold for the cause of Christ, to speak of Him, to give Him the credit where credit is due, to know that He is in charge and that He is the one that everyone will have to give an account to. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We either do it now or we can do it later. If you do it now, you're on His side. If you have to do it later, you're showing that you're a defeated enemy, getting ready to be cast away. Paul says to him, he says, the world to me has been crucified. It's like it's dead, it's killed, it's buried away. It no longer appeals to me, it's crucified, it's a dead thing. And he says, hopefully as the world looks at me, they see I am dead to them, that it has no touch on me, it has no reach on me, that I have been crucified to the world. Hopefully the world looks at me and says, Paul doesn't have anything in him that we want anymore. And he said, that's the way I want it and that's how we should be. We should be dead to the world and the world should be dead to us. That's the struggle, right? That's the struggle of the Christian faith. Are we dying to the world? Are we letting the world have that influence? We are supposed to be in the world, but not of it, is the summary of John 17. We're gonna be here making a change and fighting for him. Verse 15, for in Christ, Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. This is the law. It doesn't work. I can't earn salvation. I'm to be a new creature. I'm not under some old system. I'm a new thing. You are set free. And that brings us to the term religion. I am not religious. I'm not a fan of religion. I know what people mean when they say like, oh, you're into religion. I know what they mean by that, but I would never use that. I don't want that. I don't claim that. I don't like the term. Religion's more a list of do's and don'ts and rules and laws that you have to follow, a works-based righteousness that is there. Grace freed me from that. Grace has set me free. I don't keep rules to become a Christian. I obey Christ just out of gratitude. But grace is an unmarried favor. God gave it to me, though I did not deserve it, God gave it to me. While I was yet sinner, while I was an enemy, Christ died for me. So I have grace. Why would I not go back to a list of rules that I couldn't keep anyway, that I wouldn't do, and it would just beat you up and make you feel guilty and bad all the time? I am guilty. I acknowledge my guilt. I ask Jesus Christ to save me. He says, yes, I will. Ask the Lord and he will forgive you. Taste him and see that he is good. He is good, he forgives sinners. So good people don't go to heaven, forgiven people go to heaven. And so that's who we are as we get together. Christ has saved me, Christ keeps me, Christ will deliver me, Christ has saved me, he is saving me, he will save me. He does it all, I can't do it, I can't hang on, I can't hold on, I can't keep up, I can't do any of that. Christ does it and I trust him and him alone to do it. And so he is working to glorify me. if I wasn't so obstinate. See, Christianity is done. Religion is do. Do this, do that, do the sacraments, pay this, do your time. Christianity is done. Christ did it on the cross. It is finished. Tetelestai, the debt is paid in full. I owe nothing else. Jesus Christ has paid it all on him alone. Religion is doing. Christianity is done. Matter of fact, the very word religion in Latin is ligare, which means to bind, to connect. And so to religare means to be rebound or reconnected or rechained. And Christ, or Paul's been arguing through this book, I've been set free from the law. The chains have been broken. The bands have been bust asunder. Why would I want to go back into a system that rechains me, rebinds me, reties me back to a set of rules and things that I have to keep? That's why I'm not in for a religion. I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what I have with him and I am free in Christ. I'm his son and you're his daughter. And we can live with him and be with him and to serve him. And so religion puts the chains back on, so I don't have that. Christianity sets us free. Verse 16. And as many as walk according to this rule, that is free in Christ and living by grace, peace be on them and mercy and upon Israel of God. From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. And so he's like, I don't have, he's circumcised because he's Jewish, he's like, but that's not the mark that I would boast in. I'd boast in these wounds for Christ's sake. And Paul had wounds. He was stoned often, left for dead outside of town. He was shipwrecked. He's got snakebite wounds. He's got wounds where they threw stuff at him, stuff where they would run him out of a rail, where they would beat him and throw him with rods upon, put him in jail and beat him with enlasting and everything else. He goes, I've got marks to show for Christ. He goes, and I'll boast in those. I'm not going to boast in some religious ritual that I did. I'm not going to boast in that. He says, I'll show you my wounds, I'll show you my, I'm branded for Christ in that way because they have hated him. He goes, no, I am marked like him because they bruised him and they broke him as well. And then verse 18. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and your spirit, amen. Kind of sums it all up in this last verse. He's like, if I could sum up everything about this book, grace, grace. Brethren, the grace of our Lord. I'm not praying a religion on you. I'm not praying you to get back under the law. I'm not praying the works that you would do. Grace. All I can give you, if I could sum it up, I'd say grace. God riches at Christ's expense is the acronym that we use for it, right? It's unmerited favor. We don't deserve it. We don't earn it. It's not something that God has to give us. Like, well, I'm obligated. They did the seven hard things to do. I'll give it to them. No, we don't deserve it at all. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And if you don't know him as Savior, you don't have to do anything but come to him and acknowledge that sin. God, I am a sinner. Please forgive me. And Jesus Christ didn't die on the cross as a good example or show us the way to go. He was paying his sin debt. He was suffering in your place. He was taking the wrath of God upon himself so that when God looks at me, he doesn't see Brian and his sin. He sees Christ's righteousness covering me that my son was good. He was sinless. He paid the price. He rose again victorious over death in the grave, showing that is now available. He looks and sees that. He doesn't see me. I get it on Christ's merit, on Christ's work, on Christ's deserving, not on mine. It's because Christ is good and Christ is kind and Christ has made it available. At 13 years old, I asked Jesus Christ to save me, and he's not let go of me yet. If you don't know him as Christ, as Savior, let him hold on to you. Let him keep you and quit trying to do it yourself, because you can't do it. Give up, give in, give it to Jesus. Just say, Jesus, save me. Doesn't have to be more harder than that. Jesus, save me, and he will.