We want to thank you for listening to this week's sermon from Harvest Bible Chapel, Kansas City. We pray that you will be encouraged and challenged by God's Word today. If you would like more information about Harvest, please visit our website at www.harvestkansascity.org. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hands or ushers, they have a couple of Bibles they could pass out. If you don't have one, you can take that home, that's your gift to us. We're gonna be studying from the ESV here this morning, which that is what that translation is in. So this past June, a team of us, myself and Chad, who's on staff, one of our elders, and Sal, one of our elders, and some other folks, Karen and Nick, we got to go to Romania. Because if you don't know, there's a church that was planted there in Harvest Bucharest, and we were going there for the purpose of fanning the flame of passion. That's what we've been studying here, and that's what we were seeking to do there. So we went there for the purpose of putting on a conference for them. And really, Aude did all the work. We just kind of came alongside and got to really be blessed to preach six messages to their people there and just see the Lord do awesome stuff. Just to be a part of something that was so cool, the fellowship that was gained, it was great. And I would say from a spiritual perspective, the flame was fanned, if you will. It was toped, it was built up. And another flame that was fanned was a physical one. Because there was this one day that we were eating inside of our dining hall area, and I look outside and there is like 15 foot high sticks that are being put into a triangle, not all that far from where we were sleeping. And so I was like, either there's a teepee building competition, which sounds really fun, or they're trying to build a bonfire. And that's what they were doing. They were gathering sticks in order to build a bonfire. So later that night, this thing got blazed up, right? Gasoline was poured on it and sticks, and I'm like, Smokey wouldn't be happy. It would be no good for him. But then this fire is raging, right? And it's hot and it's intense. Adi is around, he's playing guitar. looking all cool and stuff. It was great just being able to share in with them with that. You know, guys love fires and explosions. That's just the nature of things. So a big fire is a fun thing for us. So we've been looking at how to fan the flame through our study of 2 Timothy. So that's what we're gonna do here today. We're gonna continue in that. We're gonna throw gasoline on that fire, that's the plan. And so the big idea for our text this morning, you can see it in your bulletin there, is that sticking to the straight path of the word of God will continue to fan the flame of God. So every man who has exposited God's word here so far through this series has done that for you. And isn't it such a blessing that we have men here that can teach God's word to you? So I get to be a part of that, which is really cool. I've gotten to go to the elder meetings and study this. So I'm the plus one, I'm the sixth wheel in that, but I'm glad to be, because it's a blessing. It's a fun thing for me. What we must remember in the midst of this is that we have an enemy that wants nothing more than to see that fan extinguished, or that flame extinguished. Messing my words up. That flame extinguished. He wants to get it to a flicker, to lessen it. He wants to see the changes that are in you through the preaching of God's word, through the application of God's word. He wants to see that disappear in some way. Now, I've worked with students for the last, well, really 15 years, five years here full-time, and then 10 years as a volunteer, and one of the saddest things to me that I see is students who have lost their passion for Christ. They've lost it. It's being diminished. They're losing that passion. They're losing interest. Sometimes they walk away, sometimes they don't. We are all prone to wander, prone to let other things, other teachings, false doctrines, whatever it may be, relationships, to let other things get in the way. And it is this that we seek to avoid here this morning. We are seeking to avoid ways that the flame of God, the passion for God, can be extinguished in our life. We are seeking to avoid the extinguishing of the flame of passion for Christ. So let's jump in. We're gonna be in 2 Timothy 2, looking at verse 14 first. So turn your Bibles over there. Our first point is to remember the promises of God. If we remember the promises of God, it will diminish or stop the extinguishing of the flame of God in our lives. In this section, Paul's reminding Timothy, the young pastor, of his duties as a pastor towards his flock. He's warning against dangers of false teaching as well. In addition, Paul's reminding all people here as well that there's a responsibility. We have a responsibility. Those who share, teach, counsel using God's word also have that same responsibility. So this is a word to Timothy and also to us. And I'll get more into that a little bit later. So he says in verse 14a, five simple words, remind them of these things, remind them of these things. It means to bring to remembrance, to keep on remembering, keep on remembering, don't forget. It's an imperative, there's a command, there's an ongoing action, there's an ongoing aspect to this word. So how many of you are in constant need of reminders in your life? Yes? More of you. Yes, I know you do. I need post-it notes. I need calendar entries. I need Nicole telling me to do things because I forget. We all do, right? Everyone needs a Nicole to tell you. I need a tile on my keys to tell me where they are, because otherwise, this little thing right here is a lifesaver. You should get one, I'm telling you. Because it will tell you where your keys are when you don't know where they are. I have a problem with remembering. My wife can definitely attest to that. You may notice that when I meet you, I will meet you and I will get your name. I'll be like, hey, John, how's it going? And then about 30 seconds later, I'm like, I have no idea what his name is at all. I barely even remember meeting them. I don't know why that is, but I have a tendency to forget names, so I think we should have a name tag policy here for everybody, right? Anybody else for that? We all need reminders at times. Remembrance is an incredibly important concept throughout the whole Bible. We see in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 6.12 and also 8.2, I would encourage you to write those down, Deuteronomy 6.12 and 8.2, that Moses is told to remind the people of Israel of what God has done. That's in Egypt, what did he do in Egypt? What did he say through Moses? What were his works and his power that were put on display? Remember those things. Remembrance is also what we are told to do every time we celebrate what here at church? This is your participation time here. Communion, right? So we are told to remember through communion. We remember the life, the death, the resurrection of Christ. That is what we are to remember. So why remember? I'll give you two reasons and I encourage you to write this down as well. So number one, why remember? Because number one, it increases our faith. It increases our faith. We see what God has done. And we believe, because of what he has done, that he will do it again, or that he can do it again, right? It increases our ability to have faith. And number two, it decreases our forgetfulness. The more that we remember, the less we forget, right? Isn't that how it works? That's a good thing. Timothy is to constantly remind his people of who God is and what he has done through Christ. So what are these things that Timothy is to remind his people about? Let's take a look at that. What are these things? There's several of them. We see them throughout 2 Timothy, for the first few chapters there, and also primarily in verses 1 through 13. So there's a bunch there as well that we're to remember. So here's some of them that we're to guard the deposit of the gospel. This is primary. That we are to fulfill the mission of God. He illustrates it throughout here with images of soldiers and athletes and farmers. He highlights genuine fellowship. He talks about people that have been an encouragement to him in the faith. He also talks about people that have not been an encouragement. People that have been false teachers and He also talks about discipleship, about entrusting to faithful men who can teach, about embracing suffering, about remembering Christ, and about, I love this, the boundless nature of the word of God. Like this book is, this book is why we're gathered, right? We're here to study and teach, because it teaches about our Savior. And overarching all of this is the verses that we see just prior to this, which is the faithfulness of God. When we are faithless, he remains faithful because he can't disown himself. He is faithful to us. That's what we are to remember. We are to always look to Jesus Christ, setting our minds on things above, to our risen and reigning Savior who gives strength to those who are in need. Maybe that's you here today. So before we move on, let me give you four ways, four keys to remembering the promises of God. Number one, memorize his word. Memorize his word. I found this interesting that a human being has the capacity to actually learn 19 languages and be fluent in seven of them. You're like, well, that's not me, right? But that's the capacity of humans. Maybe it's less for you, but you can start with a word or two of scripture and kind of take it from there. Memorizing the Word of God will cause you to remember the promises of God. And number two, we are to meditate on his word, meditate on his word. And I love this, J.I. Packer in his book, Knowing God, which is an awesome book, he calls it this, he says, meditation is, I'm gonna say this slowly, because it's so good, you might wanna write it down, an activity of calling to mind and thinking over and dwelling on and applying to oneself the various things that one knows about the works, ways, purposes, and promises of God. That's gold. An activity of calling to mind and thinking over and dwelling on and applying to oneself the various things that one knows, the various things that one knows about the works, ways, purposes, and promises of God. I love that. Number three, talk about his word. See, the amazing thing is that when we speak forth the promises of God and when we speak forth His word, we are more apt to remember it. It becomes part of our normal conversation as we're encouraging people, as we're sharing with people. We'll remember it more often. And number four is to obey His word. That's how we remember, we obey His word. See, it's very easy to forget the promises of God when we are being disobedient to the promises of God. We must obey his word. So we must remember the promises of God to keep the flame of faith from being extinguished. Next, we must rightly divide the word of God. Rightly divide the word of God. We see this in verse 15. It says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. we'll be camping out here for a little while. And you know, I drew the, I guess, amazing but interesting task of preaching on how to rightly handle the word of truth. And I have to, like, I'm preaching on the verse that says what to do, right? It's like, preaching on the instruction manual or something. That's what it is. So there's this weight that comes along with it. See, this is, it's being written to Timothy, right? He's a young pastor. He needs to be studying the scriptures in order to preach them to his flock. And there's a heavy weight that comes along with this verse. There really is. Anybody who handles, divides, teaches, shares, preaches God's word, it's truly a joyful burden to be carried. It's an awesome and amazing privilege, but it's also difficult. This is a crushing verse. It says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. So let's take a look at that first. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. It means to be zealous to present yourself. to present yourself continually, an intense desire, a keen interest, it means this is the best, make every effort, make every effort, labor intensely. It's a persistent zeal to show yourself approved. The passion, the hard work, the study that is required to preach this book is, it's not for the faint of heart. John MacArthur, when asked what the secret of preaching is, he said, keep your behind in the seat till the hard work is done. That sounds like him, right? Now, Pastor Jeff, he'd be the first to not receive recognition for the work that he puts in, but he is a faithful espouser of God's word. And so I think he honestly is due our applause for doing that so faithfully every week. Not a brown nose. Just depends. So look back at verse 15. It says, do your best to present yourself to who? To God. Do your best to present yourself to God. What a concept this is. The word here is a word called peristemi. It means to stand alongside. So basically, as we are seeking to be an approved worker, it's like we're standing next to God. He's the one that's doing the approving. He's the one that's doing the testing so that we may be found genuine. And there's truly only two grades that a person can receive in this task. They're both A's, which sounds great, except one of them's a bad A, right? We have ashamed and we have approved. Our goal is to be approved. So what is the basis by which a worker or workman is considered approved or ashamed? It's simply this. It's a simple concept. Are they rightly dividing the Word of Truth? Are they rightly taking care and handling God's Word properly? Now at this point, I don't want to lose many of you sitting here because you may be sitting here like, well, this is for people in ministry. This isn't for me. I would disagree with you there. Let me ask you a few questions because there are some applications to us as just a follower of Christ who is living out life as a believer. So let me ask you this, do you teach God's word to your kids at home? Do you do that? Do you teach God's word to children here at church or teenagers here at church? Do you lead a small group? Are you part of a small group? Do you offer biblical counsel to people in any capacity whatsoever? And here's maybe the catch all. Do you offer wisdom of any sort from God's word to encourage either believers or non-believers in your life? Like when somebody's having a hard day, do you come along and you offer them scripture, right? To encourage them. In all of these situations, you are called to rightly divide the word of truth. Warren Weersbe says it this way, he says that the word is a treasure that the steward, us, must guard and invest. It is the soldier's sword and the farmer's seed, but is also the workman's tool for building, measuring, and repairing God's people. Paul sets before Timothy the end goal of presenting the word of God in such a way that he would be approved, he would be accepted. This must be our goal as well. I was reading a story about a young man who was a violin student, and he learned from a world-renowned master of violin. And so, as he went through this time and he went through this study, he was having his recital, because he'd become somewhat of an expert himself. And as he's having this recital, the people would stand up after he would have a song, he would finish the song, and they would clap and they would cheer, and he kind of would just look, and he was grateful, but not that excited about that applause, right? This went on song after song after song until he got to the end of the performance and he was looking in the back and an old man stood up and smiled and started applauding him. So he wasn't trying to get the approval of the people in the crowd. He was trying to receive the approval of his master. And that's what we are to do as well. We are to seek his approval. Second Corinthians 10.18 says, for it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. It comes from him. I do think that John MacArthur may be the most faithful expositor of God's word in this generation, and he says it this way. He says, what is the goal of the teacher? He says it's to make a maximum effort so that he may someday stand alongside the very holy presence of God unashamed because he has proven himself to be worthy. And then he says, boy, what a wonderful, wonderful goal to be able to take your place alongside God as a worthy teacher of his truth approved. It's a wonderful picture. As you can tell, this verse is important. It's the most central aspect of whether a workman for God is either approved or shamed, true or false. So let's look a little bit more closely into what it means to rightly handle the word of truth. That means to dissect correctly the divine message. It means to hold a straight course in the word of truth. It's the idea of a road cut across very, very difficult terrain to arrive at a destination. I was doing some study this week, and I was looking at difficult roads to build, and one that I ran across is the Alaska Highway. It's a road that traversed 1,400 miles from northern Canada to northern Alaska. A very, very difficult road to build. Because the temperature variance was 90 degrees some days to minus 70 in the winter. And it took years to build. It was not for the faint of heart. There were frozen swamps they had to work through. There was deadly mud pits that they had to go around and deal with. And then the bugs. Oh, the bugs. Swarms of mosquitoes, swarms of gnats just buzzing and attacking them. They had to be covered at all times with mosquito nets. There were no shortcuts to building this road. It took every effort, and no shortcut could be had. In the same way, there is no shortcut to correctly handling, correctly dividing the message from this book. This is the goal of exegesis. Exegesis is what we seek to perform here. It's to find the true meaning that the author intended. You can think about it this way, you can think about the word aim, A-I-M, author's intended message. That's what we're seeking to find, the author's intended message. Exegesis is the contrast to something called eisegesis, which is where we seek to put our own meaning into the text. We use the text to support the thing that we think versus the word speaking for itself. That is what we seek not to do here at Harvest. See, too many times I've heard people say things like, you know, my wife needs to submit to me in everything. Is that a true statement? No, that is a twisting of God's word. It's trying to use God's word to take advantage of somebody. Statements like those miss the mark. John Stott says that the word of truth is a target. As he shoots at this target, he will either hit it or miss it. The word of truth is a road. As he cuts this road through the forest, he will make it either straight or crooked. And honestly, I think that Sal does this so well when he preaches. He's got an amazing personality. Just talk to him, okay? He's really smart. Talk to him. But that's not the goal of what he's intending to do when he comes here to preach. He's trying to cut through the forest to give us the intended meaning of God's word and apply it. He's not trying to thrill us in some way. I love that about him. And I love you, right there. We must rightly divide the word of God to not extinguish the flame of passion for Christ. Next, we must refuse false teaching about our God. Refuse false teaching about our God. Remember that the context of this passage is dealing with false teaching that is going on in Timothy's own church. False teaching is truly the fire extinguisher to passion for Christ. And you'll see why. It was a constant issue in the church. And so there are two types of false teaching that Paul tells us about within this section here. He talks about first, quarreling. He wants us to refuse this. We are to refuse to quarrel. So jump back to verse 14. Take a look down at that. It's the second part of verse 14. After he says, remind them of these things, he says, charge them before God, not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. See, Paul uses a really interesting word here. He uses the word charge. This is a word that has a lot of force, a lot of strength to it. There's a severity to it. I was trying to think about words that had a lot of severity, and one that I thought of was the word, what word do you never say when you're in an airport? See, you're afraid to say it, right? Even in a church, you're afraid to say it. Bomb, right? You don't say that in the airport. You can say it here. There's an intensity, there's a caution. Don't yell it, okay? Don't do that. There's an intensity to that word. It's the same thing here. Paul is being deadly serious not to quarrel about words. So what does that mean? What does it mean to not quarrel? It means to fight about the words or the meaning of words. It's to truly have a war of words. To have a war of words. This is a warning for the ashamed that I mentioned before. MacArthur again says it in regards to this section. He says, Paul calls for avoiding the kind of debate and word battle that pits divine truth against human philosophy and makes the Bible answerable to men. Think about that. How many times does the word of God in debates become the lesser of truth, where human philosophy is actually the judge of divine truth, the judge of God's word? That is what we are seeking to avoid. This is a common characteristic of the false teachers that Timothy was dealing with because they're changing the meaning of words. They're trying to twist what the scriptures say to voice their own interest. This is why accuracy with the word is so important. See, it could be a very subtle change. You don't even realize that sometimes that there's a twisting that is going on. If you're one degree off, just think about this for a second. If you are one degree off and you walk 100 yards in one direction, you're gonna be five feet off when you get to the end of that football field. Five feet off. Let's expand that a bit. If you're one degree off and you're flying to the moon, you're going to be 4,169 miles away from the moon. That's not where you want to end up, right? Like, oh, stink. The moon's over there. What am I doing over here? One degree off, right? Crucial accuracy is what we are trying to find because it's so important. See, many of the historic denominations in our country have done this very thing. They've gone a couple degrees off. Subjects like homosexuality, marriage, the way to God, inerrancy of scripture, they're off course. See, it's easy to get caught up in a quarrel. And I was thinking about, in my own life, just what a war of words. Have I been involved in those? And the answer is, yes, I have. I've been involved with wars of words. I've gotten into arguments with people that had no interest, no interest whatsoever in actually hearing what I had to say. They just wanted to make me look foolish in any way that they could. That's what we're seeking to avoid. So next, look at verse 16 for our second type of false teaching. Paul had just talked about rightly handling the word of truth, and this is the contrasting statement here. He says in verse 16, For it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some." This word for avoid is to stay away with a very deliberate intention. It's to kind of circle around somebody. So I was looking for an English equivalent of this word that would kind of make sense, and I found the word circumambulate. Kind of a fun word, right? Just trying to teach you English here. Circumambulate. So I'll give you an example of kind of what happens with circumambulating, if you could say the word actually. So when a child vomits on the ground, what does everybody do? They circumambulate that thing. Want no part of that, right? Except for that poor parent who has to take care of it. In a more serious way, we circumambulate homeless people when we see them, right? Kind of try to avoid them, go around them in some way. Maybe at the office or at school there's somebody that you're like, eh, I'm gonna kind of go around them. I don't really want to deal with them. See, it's the same word used in Titus 3.9. We are to avoid, it says there, foolish controversies. genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless." So we are to avoid irreverent babble. We are to circumambulate irreverent babble. So what is that? Well, that's godless, unholy talk that is against the character of God. It's foolish talk, has no edifying value. It's fruitless discussion. Teachers who speak only what they want to say, not what God's word teaches. We are to refuse the false teaching of irreverent babble, but also we're not to be involved in it ourselves, just in our normal daily lives. So are you a babbler? See, our tongue has a lot of, like, our tongue has the ability to destroy, to divide. We have to be careful with the things that we say. So are you a babbler? You might be a babbler if your conversations only revolve around sports and leisure activities. If that's the thrust of all of your conversations, you may be a babbler. Your conversations only stay at the surface level of life. There's nothing below the surface, right? You're like an iceberg, only showing that top 10%. Or, number three, your conversations avoid matters of faith, accountability, and vulnerability. We are to have relationships and conversations that are far beyond how the royals are doing, which is terrible, pretty much. That's another story. Our conversations should be far beyond that. So what is the result of these types of speech or false teaching? Well, verse 14 says that it does no good to the hearers. There's a word that's used only here in the New Testament, and it's the word catastrophe. The Greek translates a little bit different. It says ruin in English, but it's basically the word catastrophe, which means an event or action that results in destruction, total ruin. That's where quarreling leads. In verses 16 to 18, Reverend Babel leads to more and more ungodliness, it says. What that means is a progress or an advancing of evil. You ever notice that when your conversations are somewhat meaningless, that they kind of tend to go a wrong direction? That's what happens. I was talking to somebody after service, our neighbor actually, who has been starting to come, and he was saying, man, he's like, I was really thinking about my Facebook interactions when you were talking about that. How many times do we babble on Facebook? How many times do we quarrel on Facebook? It's not a valuable thing. I have learned that lesson many, many times. Maybe some of you have as well. Hymenaeus is mentioned here again. along with another false teacher, Philetus. This is the same gentleman, Hymenaeus, who was mentioned before in chapter 1. And they've been talking about the resurrection. They have a false teacher regarding that, saying that's already happened. Warren Wiersbe, in talking about that, he says that the denial of a physical resurrection is a serious thing. For it involves the resurrection of Christ and the completion of God's plan of salvation for his people. No wonder these false teachers were able to overthrow the faith of some. The resurrection is a foundational truth of the gospel. A swerving from the truth, a veering off course. These are men who were once part of Timothy's body that he was leaving. They came out from among them, They were rallying for division. And that's a key point. These are guys that were trying to stir up division, stir up dissension. Our hope is that none of you here are doing that. See, we can get really, really caught up in what our preferences are, what our desires are for church. We can get caught up in doctrines that are a little bit off base, that are maybe very minor, or they're very major. The point here is don't rally division here in the church. Don't stir people up and get them to your side to try to cause division. Many of you have seen the effects of cancer. Paul talks about gangrene. My grandma passed away from cancer. It just kind of hit her, then spread, and then she was gone. She was older. But that's what happens in the body of Christ if not dealt with, is that it'll kill. It'll destroy, it'll spread. Timothy has been entrusted to guard, to guard his church, to deal with these false teachings and truly our elders stand at the same door and they guard that same door. That's what they're there to do. So let's discuss the things that avoiding false teaching doesn't mean. Just two things. Because you might get an assumption about what this all means, avoid false teaching, avoid quarreling. That means I should kind of back off and not say anything. Is that what that means? No, that's not what that means. So number one, avoiding false teaching doesn't mean that you shouldn't correct your opponents, or you shouldn't correct opponents. See, in the next verses in chapter two, verse 25, Sal will be preaching on this next week, Paul exhorts Timothy to correct his opponents with gentleness. There's a love there, there's a humility. It's not so much about not saying something as saying it in the right way. Saying it in a loving way, correcting them lovingly. We need to control our emotions, which is a difficult thing. That's what I struggled with when I was younger. And this is something that you can learn how to do. You could learn how to correct someone in a biblical manner. There are amazing websites out there. I've been taking an apologetics class through Midwestern, and I've been reading works of William Lane Craig, who's an awesome apologist, and a guy named Bobby Conway, he has a YouTube series called The One Minute Apologist. So it's one minute of answering really difficult questions. And it's awesome stuff. I would encourage you to look it up. But we need to be prepared. We need to be ready. or to correct our opponents. But the thing about that verse, though, in 25, it doesn't just end there. It says, correct your opponents with gentleness, but then just after that, it says that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. You know what I love about that? Is there is hope even for the false teacher. There's hope even for the false teacher. A man such as Adam Hamilton, in our area here, who has twisted the scriptures in a lot of ways, leading a very large church, there's hope for him. God may grant him repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. There's hope. So avoiding false teaching means, it doesn't mean you shouldn't correct your opponents, and it doesn't mean that you shouldn't share the gospel with non-believers. See, there's a tension here, because we're like, I don't wanna quarrel, I don't wanna quarrel, so maybe I shouldn't say anything at all, right? No, we need to be faithful to share the gospel. Matthew 7, 6 says that we are not to cast our pearls before swine. Seems like a really harsh verse, right? But this is a reference to sharing, because we treasure the gospel, don't we, right? You guys treasure the gospel? If you treasure the gospel, then you're not gonna share it with somebody whose goal is to speak falsely about Christ or dishonor him or spew hatred towards him. That's what that verse is talking about. We are to look for opportunities for people that are ripe to the gospel. We're to look for red apples or yellow bananas, whatever fruit you prefer or any other ones you can think of. We're gonna have conversations with them when they're ready to receive the word. So now look at verse 19. It says, but God's firm foundation stands, bearing his seal. The Lord knows who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. See, it's very clear to me here that there are obviously wolves in sheep's clothing out there that are looking to divide. But the amazing thing is that we could trust the Lord, that he has it all under control. He knows who are his. He knows who his approved workers are. His firm foundation stands, I love that. God's solid foundation stands firm. It is never in doubt. It is immovable. It reminds me of Matthew 16, 18, which talks about how the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, the true church, the church universal, not just Harvest Bible Chapel, Kansas City, or the, the church that believes and follows and loves Christ, loves his word. The gates of hell will never prevail against that church. Christ is the solid rock by which the church won't move, and his word, that is our strength. When we remember his promises, when we rightly divide his word, and when we refuse false teaching, the flame will be fanned and passion for Christ will burn brightly rather than be extinguished. Will you pray with me? God, we thank you that your word has an intended meaning and that our goal is to find that meaning and to apply it. God, you wanna change us, you wanna work in us, and you use your word to do just that. Lord, I pray that you worked in this place, that you applied where you needed to in this place, wherever the context might be for each person here, Lord, that you were the one that did it, you were the one who, thank you for giving us your word, Lord, so that we can study it. And we thank you that it has everything we need for life and godliness. So God, would you just be with us as we go forward, knowing, knowing, Lord, that you are faithful. Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.