McNeil, William: Ministry From Peter and Phile 19 ~ 2 Peter 1;5

And what he was saying to Santa Claus was being recorded. Paul was not a hypocrite, he was just himself, but the old fella dressed up, you know, with that red thing on and the white cotton, he was an old hypocrite pretending to be somebody that he wasn't. And that night on the children's hour, I think it was five o'clock, that came over the air and he heard himself on the air speaking to Santa Claus and telling Santa Claus his name. He's learned between then and now that that was only a fake. By the way, have you ever noticed at this time of the year, starting the weekend there? All those of you who have children and grandchildren now, you'll be very careful. This is the time when that old fellow with that stuff sticking down his chin, he's responsible for spreading more disease than anybody else. And nobody says a word against him. It's about time somebody was speaking out, it was a doctor who told me this. Whenever this whole thing starts, children have sneezes and coughs, mumps and measles and all the things that children take, that's the fellow that spreads them. You understand that? One little fella goes and sits on his knee, and his nose is all running with cold, and he sneezes into that cotton. The next one goes up and sneezes it out, you know, draws it up. And all the things that children have, it it it it all catches in here. The next one goes up and leaning against it. The doctor says, from the time that old fella starts to come around, that's when children take all their coughs and colds and sneezes and whatnot. You be careful. Tell them the truth. Keep them away from that old hypocrite as much as you can. Just view them from a distance. You'll do fine. I want you to open your Bibles tonight at the second letter written by Peter, Peter's second epistle. Our message really has to do with verses five through 8, and we'll read them first. Second Peter chapter one verse five: and beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience. To patience, godliness. To godliness, brotherly kindness. To brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sure the Lord will bless to us the reading of the verses. But now, if you were starting to read this letter, I'm quite sure you wouldn't start at verse five, you would start at verse one. You'd want to know who is writing this, why he's writing it, and to whom it is sent. That's a good way when you come to study the Bible, you ask yourself, um, when was this written, to whom was it sent, and for what purpose? And it's no use me going into a detail tonight to tell you who the writer was. He introduces himself. You and I write a letter and we put our name at the bottom. That's why when you get a letter, you don't start reading at the top, you usually go to the bottom to see who it's from, or you look on the envelope to see who sent it. You want to know who it's from. Now, these people were more advanced than we were. When they started around, they put their name at the top first, so that everybody knew who it was from. Now, I like what he calls himself here. He says, Simon Peter. Simon Peter. Now, he could just have started off by saying, I am Peter, you know, but he didn't do that. He said, Simon Peter. Well, you know that Simon was his name before the Lord called him, you remember, when he used to go fishing on the Sea of Galilee, he was Simon. Simon had a boat. He was Simon the fisherman. Let me go a little further. He was Simon the sinner. This is Simon the old man. Well, he was by nature, but he says, no, I'm Simon Peter. And the Lord said to him, now you'll have a new name. He becomes Simon Peter. Now, it's a good thing at times to, for us to, to remember and call to remembrance what we were. Not that you, not that you exploit it. Some people like to tell, you know, of all the past and tell the, give the black picture of what they were and so on, but that's not the idea. It's not a idea of raising up all your sins and painting a picture of yourself to other people. That- that's not what it's for. He's simply saying I was Simon, but I'm Simon Peter. But he doesn't claim to be the Pope. He doesn't claim to be the head of the church because he wasn't. He simply says Simon Peter, a servant. And that word servant there is not just the ordinary word for a servant. He says here, I'm a bond servant. It's a strong word, bond servant. You see, he's taking a very humble place here. He's a bond servant, and he says that before ever he says he's an apostle. Now, when you and I think of an apostle, we think of somebody who occupies some great position. But, but get the real meaning of the word. An apostle is a sent one. Now, here's a man who was a sinner. He was just Simon, the old blaspheming fisherman. But he's been saved. He's a saved man. He's Peter. The Lord has given him a new name. But he says, I'm still a servant, and I'm a bond servant. I'm a bond servant in the sense I have joined myself in service to Jesus Christ. Is there any greater service than that, to serve the Lord? And he says, I- I'm an apostle. Simply means I'm a sent one. Now, suppose some of you were in business where you have somebody working for you, or some of you mothers, you, you send your children on an errand. You don't do that so much now. You've got to get the car and go for yourself. My mother put a basket over her arm and said, now here's your line. Get away up to the store and, and uh, get these things, and you had to walk, and you got them in your basket, and you had to carry them home over your arms. Many a time in our home we say, well, I- I- I went the last time, shouldn't he go? She said, if I said you to go, you go. Now you get going as quick as you can. If she said you were to go, it was your turn to go, you had to go. And we were sent up, and you were a servant, and you were sent. She sent you, and you obeyed the message. That's what he said. An apostle is a sent one, and these who were apostles of Jesus Christ were sent by him, commissioned by him to go. Now, that's how Peter introduces himself here. He says, I'm Simon Peter, I'm a bondservant, apostle of Jesus Christ, and I'm writing to them that have obtained a like precious faith with us. Now, it's interesting to notice how Peter uses those descriptive terms, very flowery. He doesn't say simply, I'm writing to those of you who have obtained like faith with me. No, he says you have obtained a light, precious faith. And by the way, I- I- I want to emphasize for a moment or two just this word, obtained. You have obtained. I find it very difficult these days to get some people to acknowledge this. They're not prepared to admit it. They seem to have an idea that faith is something that you, that you work up in here. It's something that you stimulate. It's something that you manufacture for yourself. That's not how the Bible presents it, as we'll see in a moment or two, and this is very important by the time we come down to verse five. He's writing to those Christians, and he says, I'm writing to them who have obtained a light, precious faith. You know, us men folks, we don't think of things as being precious in the same sense as ladies do. You know, uh, ladies usually have their little treasure boxes, and they keep all their precious things there. In fact, some folks in the family don't know they have them until they die, and then they go in the little box and they see all the things they've got. Then home one day, I've never forgot this lady. She was a, a doctor, and in fact she was a surgeon, and her brother Robert, he was the, the medical man, really, but she was the surgeon, and they ran the practice. Their brother, he was the pharmacist, he dispensed the stuff that they prescribed him, and uh, she never dressed up like others. In fact, at times when you looked at her, you thought she'd have walked out of Noah's Ark. You know what I mean. She never was up to date with her fashion. And, uh, she showed me some pictures one day in the home. I should say this, they never got married. They had a kind of agreement amongst them as a family, for certain reasons none of them were going to marry. But she showed me pictures of herself when she was a young woman, especially when she graduated, and she had the cloak on, you know, and all the different colors down here with those scarves to put over to tell me what each one signified, what a, what a degree was for this and a degree for this, and she had them all on. And I also noticed she had all sorts of things on her fingers and her bangles and around her neck. When I knew her, she never wore any jewelry at all, never wore. But she showed me a box. She had a box in the house, and oh, the things, oh, you ladies would just have been in your element looking at all the jewelry she had. That'd been left to her from some of it had belonged to her grandmother and some of it to her mother, handed down to her, and she had some of her own. But after she got converted, she wouldn't wear any of it. That was her conviction. But she had it. It was a treasure. Precious things. Precious things. Ladies like to think of precious things. Beloved, have you ever just sat down to think of precious faith? Faith. Faith is a valuable thing, isn't it? Faith is a precious thing, and it's not something you buy, not something you manufacture, it's something you obtain. At least that is what the Bible says. To them that have obtained a light precious faith. How did you obtain it? You've obtained that light precious faith with us. See, Peter's light, Peter's precious faith was no different from your precious faith. The precious faith that Peter had is the same precious faith as you have and I have. That's what he says. It's a light precious faith, and here's how we obtained it. Through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Oh my, if only we could take time just to sit down quietly, close our eyes, and meditate on that. Lord, I've obtained the light, precious faith with Peter and with Paul and with John. My faith is the same as theirs, a light, precious faith. But how did I obtain it? Oh, through the righteousness of God. That's not something I've done. Oh no. And it's through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. See, the moment you come to that point, you say, oh Lord, thank you. This faith I've got, it's not something I, I manufactured. It's not something I deserved. I have obtained. It takes me back to the righteousness of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then he says, that being so, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Grace and peace. If you were to go over to Jerusalem, some of you have been there and know, and you could, they can verify what I'm about to say. If you went into a shop in Jerusalem today and it was a Jew that had the shop, because it's not all Jews, you have, you have Arabs there who have shops, and you have Jews there who have shops, and you have others there who have shops, who have come from other countries, and you know, that's a strange thing. You don't know what day is Sunday over there at all, because it's difficult to tell even here now what Sunday is. It seems to be just the same as all the other days, but over there, some of the shops shut on a Friday. If they're Muslims and have a shop, no business on a Friday. If they're Jews, Orthodox Jews, no business on a Saturday. If they're Christians, no business on a Sunday. So you've got the three days over there. Some take Friday, some take Saturday, some take Sunday. But you go into a shop where it's a Jew, and he'll not say good morning to you or good afternoon, and he'll say shalom. The Jews meet you with peace. Shalom, peace. And when you're leaving, shalom, peace, and they give you a little bar, peace, peace. But you know, I understand that the Greeks didn't use that word. The Greeks didn't say peace to you. Grace. But here in the Christian vocabulary that joined together, it's grace and peace. You see, the Greeks would have grace. The Jews would have peace. But you and I as Christians, we've got both grace and peace. Grace and peace be unto you through the knowledge of God, and that's the true knowledge, and of Jesus our Lord. Now, having introduced himself that way to the readers of his letter, he deals now with a very important matter after his salutation. He deals with the question of regeneration. You find that verses three and four. Just let us read them. According as his divine power. Now, he doesn't simply say according to his power. I said that you take note of Peter's descriptive work. According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and Godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us, now watch this statement, exceeding great and precious promises. Now, has anybody ever made you a promise? I'm sure if you're married, you, you had, you got a promise once, and uh, although I often say that young couples, when they get married, they never remember a thing the preacher says to them when he's taking them through the service, you know. They say I do, I will, but they don't remember a thing that was said unless it's recorded. I, I know one couple I married, and they say every year when the anniversary comes, they put the tape on again, and they listen to the service, and they renew their vows to each other every year. I said, that's very good. That's a good idea, although it's better if you can renew them every day and, uh, keep them going every day. But, uh, promises, promises. If a person makes you a promise, I suppose you expect them to keep that promise, don't you? You expect them to keep. If they don't keep that promise, you're disappointed. God has made promises to us. The Lord Jesus Christ made promises. One of his outstanding promises you've never forgot. He says, I will come again. I hope you never forget that promise. But watch what he says about the promises. He says they are precious promises. Oh, he's already spoke about precious faith. Here's another treasure you keep. Precious promises. Now, if you think of your faith as being a very precious thing, and you're going to watch it that nobody can ever take that precious faith from you, and what about the precious promises? Don't let anyone take away from you those precious promises. But see, it's not just sufficient for him to say precious promises. He says they are great, great and precious promises. You know, if I may use this illustration again, you notice some of those little girls, they see their mom with a, a box with all her fancy things in it, and you see their box, they may have a few little broken beads in their box, eh? Or a brooch that once was worn by their great grandmother or something, and there's only half of it left, but it's there, and and they keep that, and they've all sorts of little broken things in their little treasure box, but you try and take it away from them. Now they want it. It's there. But you see, over on this other side, oh, these are costly things, great things. Well, he says, now these promises that we've got, they're precious promises, and they're great promises. But that's not enough. He says they're exceeding great. Precious promises, great and precious promises, exceeding great. He seems to be getting right through Webster's Dictionary here to try and get words to describe these promises that we've got. That these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Now that just leads you right on to the verses I read to begin with. Now I want you to take note now of some of the things that are in our verses. Besides this, besides these things that he's been mentioning, the precious faith and these exceeding great and precious promises, partakers of the divine nature, all these things that are ours in Christ. He gives us now an exhortation. That's only the beginning. There's more to follow. And besides this, giving all diligence add to. Now, the thought of adding, you know, when children go to school, they they at least they used to be, I don't know what it is now, I don't know what they're teaching them at school now, but it used to be you had to learn how to read, you had to learn how to write, and you had to learn how to count. These were the basics in education. You learn to count one up to ten, and then on you went from there. You had to learn the letters of the alphabet and how to put them into words and how words went into sentences and so. You had to learn how to write them and be able to read them. Now, counting. A child learns how to count one and one and add them together, makes two, and and two and 2 makes four. Now, that is not the thought that's in here about adding. That's the, the way we think of adding. But the idea here is this, and besides this, giving all diligence, add to. It's super add. Now, get the thought. It's not count. It's a matter of the foundation has been laid. The foundation has been laid in this precious faith and the precious promises. It has laid that solid foundation for your Christian life. And on that foundation, you've got to build, add it. It's the building up of one thing upon another, and you build up and up, reaching towards maturity. So that's the thought you carry with you here. Now watch how these things add up or build up. He starts off by saying now, giving all diligence. You would think if we only had that precious faith and those exceeding great and precious promises, and we're partakers of the divine nature, and we've escaped the corruptions of this world, fine, we've made it, we've graduated. No, you haven't. That's only the start. That's the foundation that's laid. Now, giving all diligence, add to your faith. Now, I want you to notice the number of things that are mentioned now in these verses five through eight. First of all, there is faith. Add to that virtue. Then on to virtue, from virtue on to knowledge. From knowledge there is temperance. From temperance there is patience. From patience there is godliness. From godliness there's brotherly kindness. And the top stone is added, charity or love. You see then how there's the adding on, the building up of these things in Christian experience. But notice it all starts with faith. Now, for the time left us tonight, I'm not going to try and give you some kind of exposition of the meaning of these words. What I want to do now, so that you'll remember these things, I want to illustrate them. And I believe illustration will emphasize these things to us better than trying to give an exposition of the meaning, if I can illustrate it. First of all, he says, add to your faith. That's where it started. We've obtained the like precious faith. Now, suppose we illustrate all these things by some Bible characters. We'll take a Bible character to illustrate each of these virtues. First of all, then, faith. Suppose you were asked, you were in a class now, and your teacher says to you, now, first of all then, we're going to start with faith. We want a Bible character that's going to illustrate faith. Well, your mind immediately goes to Hebrews chapter eleven, the great chapter where we are presented with the heroes of faith. Now, out of all those who are mentioned in Hebrews eleven, we know that before the flood there was Abel, there was, uh, Enos, and there was Noah. And these are all mentioned in Hebrews eleven as having done something in faith. But, uh, after you get beyond the flood, then you come to the one we have chosen tonight, just for a moment or two, Abraham. Do you know any other character in the Bible you'd like to place alongside him for faith? Abraham. There seems to be more said about him in Hebrews eleven than any of the others. There were times when he exercised faith, and there were outstanding times in his life when his faith was tested and proved to the limit. Think of where his faith commenced. He was living away down in Ur of the Chaldees. He was an idolater. I remember one night preaching when a number of Jews were in the audience, and there was a fellow there in the audience who was wanting to ask questions, or a lot of them, but this fellow persisted. He said, hey, hey. He said, yeah, what is it, sir? Can you ask an intelligent question? Yeah. What do you think of a man who changes his religion? And I looked at him. Well, I said, if he was nothing before he changed and he was nothing after he changed, that's what I think of him, nothing. But I said, I'll tell you this, one of the most outstanding people in the Bible was a man who changed his religion, and his name was Abram, and even his name was changed to Abraham. I saw this Jew, and he got angry, you see. I said, oh yes, Abraham changed his religion. Abraham was an idolater, worshiping idols down in Ur of the Chaldees. But the God of glory broke into his life, said, Abraham, I want you to leave this country. I want you to leave your kindred. I want you to leave your home, and I want you to come with me. I want you to come to another country that I'll tell you about. And Abraham exercised faith in the call of God, and he left his country. He left out of the Chaldees, and he believed God, not knowing where God was going to take him. He didn't know. He was prepared to put his hand, as it were, in God's hand and go with God wherever God would lead him. That's faith. There comes another time when you come to chapter fifteen, the book of Genesis. God promised that he was going to give him, make him a great nation. Great nation will come from you, Abraham. I'll bless you and I'll bless your name. I'll make your name great. I'll bless all nations of the earth and you. And Abraham said, now, how can you do this? I haven't got any family. I haven't got a son even to carry on my name. And God says, Abraham, I'm going to give you a son, and from you there will be a seed like the stars of the heaven above, the multitude like the sand of the seashore. And here's what it says in the word of God, and Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness when he didn't know how. First of all, he believed God and he obeyed God when he didn't know where. Then he believed God when he didn't know how. How could God do that? I haven't even got a child. How could I have seed and more seed? I was just reading a bit there about an hour ago. Perhaps you saw it too. They've been making up a kind of table of genealogy from that great Queen Victoria. She died in nineteen o one. That's not so very long ago. And they've traced out that today, I think she has over six hundred descendants. Traced over six hundred descendants scattered all over the world, descendants of Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert. In that short time. Abraham says, I, I haven't got any seed. God says, I'll give you a son. All right? And he believed God. He didn't know how it could be because of his age and because of Sarah's age, but if God says there's going to be that, it'll be that. That's faith. He believed God when he didn't know how it could take place. But then you know the outstanding thing, when God said to him one day, I want you to take that boy, that son of yours, Isaac, and I want you to take him to a place I'm going to tell you about, and I want you to offer him up on the altar to me. Oh dear. But but I've turned Ishmael out, and Isaac's the only one I've got left. He's my only son. God says, that's the one I want. Offer him up. I've often tried to picture him saying to Sarah, we're going away for a day or two. Where are you going? I have to go up to a place that God has told me, go up to Mount Moriah, going up there. What are you going to do? We're going to worship. I often wonder if he told her all the facts, or was she suspicious? I wonder if she knew. I wonder what she was doing when Abraham and Isaac were away. Poor Abraham had to take Isaac. He said, well, if God wants him, he'll get him. That's what God says, it must be right. Where's the lamb for an offer? God shall provide himself a lamb. And he gets there and he says, Isaac used to be the offer. And Isaac had to submit, and Isaac's on the earth, and God says, that's enough, Abraham. That's enough. And God stayed his hand. But he believed God, and he obeyed God when he didn't know why. He didn't know why God was doing that. You see, God didn't want Isaac's life. God wanted Abraham's heart. Perfect submission. The man of faith. You see, add to your faith. What is faith? Here is believing God. He believed God. He believed God when he didn't know where, but if God's leading, that's enough. He believed God when he didn't know how, but if God says it'll be it, it'll be there. He believed God when he didn't know why, but he knew if God said it's to be like that, then it must be right. That's trust, believing God. But you can add to your faith. Now that's where it starts. Now let me say this very quietly. Any person who has never exercised faith in God or faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not even a Christian. Some of them may be trying to live like Christians, but if they've never exercised faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they're not even saved. See, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. That's where it comes. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. By grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Some people want to live as Christians. They want to pretend they're Christians. They'll dress up like Christians. They'll talk like Christians. They're not Christians. I don't know if you've ever heard of Gypsy Smith or not, the great preacher. Now, Gypsy Smith was a little gypsy boy, and in these days the gypsies used to go around, you know, with their old caravans from village to village and sell things to people. Clothes pins and hair pins and safety pins and all these kind of things, book laces, shoelaces, and they used to go around selling them. The little gypsy boy got saved, and uh, he would go up to those ladies and be selling them, and he said, hey, do you want me to sing to you? And they got to know him as the little singing gypsy, and he used to sing to them. Then he became a preacher. And one day he was having meetings in the place, and the preacher that was with him said, hey, gypsy, I want to take you out to a gypsy encampment a couple of miles out from the village. Crowd of gypsies there. He says, perhaps you're the very man to go and speak to him. He said, let's go. So out they went. And when they left, those caravans to come away, he looked at his friend and says, they're not gypsies. Oh yes, they are. No, he says they're not. How'd you know? He says they look like gypsies, and they're living like gypsies, but they're not gypsies. Well, how'd you know? He says they don't know the language. They don't know the language. He knew it, and he tested them, and he says they're not gypsies. Oh, I feel there's a lot of people like that. They they may attend church services. In fact, they may have a position in the church, may be deacons, may even be the treasurer. They may give their pens, or they may even sing in the choir, do all those sorts of things for the sake of a little prestige. But if they've never trusted Christ, if they've never exercised faith, they're not even saved. But even if we've exercised faith, we've trusted Christ, he says, add to your faith virtue. Virtue. Oh, where is it today? It's something it's forgotten about. If I may use that dear old lady's name again, talk about virtue. Oh, you're living back in, in the Victorian age to talk about virtue. Hm? Who in the Bible would you think of as illustrating virtue? Think what now? I give you his name. Joseph. A young fellow, seventeen years of age and away from home, down in a country where nobody knew him, out of sight of his father's eye, away from home. That's when temptation comes. See, I know. I left home when I was eighteen, had to go up into the big city to work, and I know when you're away from home and you're in the midst of the crowd, the devil knows how to throw the temptations around. And Joseph was away from home when it's easy to sin and think it's covered up. And Joseph was faced with a temptation, and the old devil knew how to throw the temptations in front of Joseph. And here's what he said. No. How can I do, how can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? They don't call it great wickedness today. Why, they're marching the street with their banners and telling you how they live. They're proud of it. The Bible tells you this, they're glorying in their shame, but they'll pay the price for it. Joseph says, no, this is great wickedness, and I'm not going to do it, no matter the cost. More than that, he says, it's sin against God. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Joseph was a virtuous young man. Kept his integrity. He kept his moral purity, even when he was away from home. I feel we're living in days when moral purity needs to be stressed. So far as Christians are concerned, we need to appeal to a young, I used to say to a young fellow, I remember, keep yourself clean. It was years later he told me, he said, I used to wonder what you meant. He said, I know now. I know now. Keep yourself clean. God uses clean men and clean women. He needs clean vessels. He's not going to use dirty vessels. God will not use soiled vessels. Went into a restaurant one day with a man in New York. The lady was standing at the table, put cups down. He just looked at her and says, oi. He was a little Englishman. Oi. I want another cup. I won't use that cup. He says, what's wrong with it? He says, dirty. The clean cup. He wasn't going to use it. He wanted a clean vessel. So do you. You like to leave. Oh, you ladies, if you have visitors, you know, you make sure that everything's so shiny and bright. Oh, I won't do that. You lay down the clean vessels, clean cutlery, and so on. Do you think our God is any less particular? God is looking for clean vessels. Add to your faith virtue. We're running out of time now. Virtue, what comes next? Knowledge. Who do you think in the Bible illustrates knowledge? Shall we use the other word there, wisdom? Oh, you've heard of the wisdom of Solomon, haven't you? Now, where did Solomon get his wisdom? Where did he get it? He asked God for it, and he got it. Let me remind you what I've said to you before, and I've said to others. If you want a certain kind of knowledge today, you can get it by paying for it. You can go to the universities or colleges, and you can pay for your education, and pay for the education of your children, and they may gain an awful lot of knowledge of a certain kind. But you can get wisdom for nothing. It's free. Knowledge isn't free. You gotta study for that. Probably pay for it. But wisdom, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, he'll give it liberally. Solomon asked for wisdom, he needed wisdom. He got it. God gave him his wisdom. Add to your virtue knowledge. Who do you put in there? Quickly. Daniel. Daniel's another young man away from home, a teenager, and he's in the palace. Different from Joseph. Joseph was a servant in the house, slave. Daniel's a prince. In the king's house, king's palace. The king says, now see to it that these young fellows, these young princes from Judah, that they're given the very best. Feed them with the dainties that on my table. Let them have the best of the wine out of my wine cellar. Feed them well with the dainties from the king's table. Daniel said to the man that was supervisor over him, he says, we don't want them. Keep them. I want some simple food. I don't want wine from the king's wine. Not gonna drink it, not for me. But why won't you take that meat, Daniel? Why? It's the best cut you'll get. It's for the king's table, yes, but he said it was offered to idols. That's the thought. He's a young prince of Judah, and he knew that the food that was down there in Babylon was first of all offered to idols and then brought into the table, and he wanted nothing to do with that which had to do with idolatry. He said no. He kept himself pure. He was a man who was given to tamper, nothing excessive in his life. Said, give us this plain food. And you remember the outcome, you look better and finer than all the rest. Temperance. Now, temperance, sometimes we, we think of temperance just in re- in, in relation to alcoholic beverages, but temperance is more than that. Temperance has to do with all areas of life. Be temperate in all things. No exceptions. And then unto temperance, patience. Well, we don't need to go into details there. We talked about him this morning. You've heard of the patience of Job. Oh, what that man passed through, but he trusted God, and the time came, and the turning point came, and when the turning point came, eh, God says he'll pray for you. Those of you that criticize him, he'll pray for you now. And the latter end of that man was better than the first. God doubled up to him everything he had lost. Even his family. You say, what? He had seven sons and three daughters? You mean he gave him fourteen sons and six daughters? No, no, no, no. He got another seven sons and three daughters. He doubled them up because the others had gone on to be with the Lord. That's all. They were already there. How do I know? Because he had made sacrifice for them, you remember?