Ragland, Ross: Lawrence Bible Chapel Conference-2006-05 ~ Psalm 139

We- we've been talking about the God of the universe and the God of creation, and it dawned on me that there might be maybe, just maybe one person here who is an evolutionist, and I didn't want to leave you out. So if there, if you're here, I, I bring you greetings from your Uncle Fred. Okay. Has this been good? We, uh, I've enjoyed it here, uh, had a good time. Uh, by the way, Mary Lynn, uh, did you bring your bag with you? Anybody that makes pies like you is going home with me, okay? My wife said it's okay. She, she liked it too. Oh, will you? Okay, good. Yeah. Has it, yeah, how about the food, huh? Has that been good? I'd be happier about it, but my wife told me when we go home, we're on a three-day starvation diet now. Uh, yesterday, uh, Phil Schoenberg, now if I misquote you, you tell me, but uh, he said what would be of help to him would be perhaps if I could, uh, we're talking about, uh, the closeness of God, and and maybe if I could give an example of somehow, sometime when he, when I felt him close to me. Is that, is that what you were saying? I'll give you an example. I love a good story. Well, this is a real story. It's a true story. Um, Nineteen eighty eight, fall of nineteen eighty eight, I was, uh, working over here in Topeka, and I was working on a project for the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- uh, Institute of Technology, a high temperature biohazard waste incinerator for, uh, one of their, for their biology department, and it was very special, uh, twenty— twenty seven hundred degree operation, and we were test firing this thing in the plant, and the electrician was having trouble, so he said, could you come out in the plant and, and see if you can find out what's wrong? So I did, went out there, and I was piddling around in the electrical cabinet, and he was playing around in the electrical cabinet. I went over to look at the incinerator, and uh, we hadn't put the site port in it yet, so it was just a big hole there. I was looking in it, uh, when it exploded, and uh, I uh, I spent five hours in surgery. Uh, they took three hundred and some pieces out of this eye and a hundred and some out of this eye. Uh, I had no skin from here up. It was all gone, burned off. I had no skin on my eyelids. They were growing together after four days. Uh, the le- top layers on my eyes were burnt off, and um, they weren't sure if I'd ever see again. So I was in the hospital. Uh, I never did see my doctors. I never saw my nurses. I, uh, couldn't see the brightest light that they could shine in my eye. And so the consensus was that it was very likely that I'd be blind for the rest of my life. And I'll tell you what, the truth of that scripture, that he has beset us before and behind and laid his hand on us, that came very real. I was told that there were a lot of people praying for me, and I said, you don't have to tell me that, I know it. I can feel it. I remember being in the emergency room, and they were trying to get the, the particles out of, wash the particles out of my eye, and a guy had gone with me from the plant. I didn't realize it, but he rode with me in the ambulance and went in the emergency room, and all that time I had never turned loose of his hand. And finally, about after we'd been there for a half an hour or so, he said, could I have my hand back? I can't feel it anymore. But the guy that was working on my eyes, um, I couldn't see it, but he could tell how bad it was, and turned out he was a Christian, because he said to me, I've noticed that through all of this, you never have said one swear word. You know, we were talking about being observed, and there was a man who observed something. So I laid there in the dark, um, I took inventory of everything I owned, because I was at perfect peace with this. I- I never would have thought it, but I was convinced I was going to be blind, and I wasn't upset about it at all. I thought, well, I can't, uh, I better sell the motorcycle, get it right anyway. Um, power tools were on my list. Uh, blind man with a power saw is not a lot of fun to have around. Uh, I thought I'd keep my fishing stuff because, uh, Ned Vornick would always be happy to show me where to drop my lure. Not to worry. But through the whole thing, I obviously had a lot of support from people, but it was, it was the Lord that was closest because I couldn't see anybody. It's just me in the dark and the Lord. And so you wanted an example, there it is. And I can tell you he's very real, very real. And he was also very gracious. I can see you. Of course, with some of the faces here today, I'm not sure. Yeah, you were one of the faces. Oh, you're raising your hand. Yesterday you said the Lord didn't give you new faces. In your case, he did. Well, that's true, he did. Yeah. I'm older than I look. This, this is, this is all new, you see. Yeah, we, we, this part started from scratch. I don't know what about the rest of it. Now, we used to have a farmhouse that we heated with wood, and I remember that, that the chore of going out and sawing and hacking and splitting and stacking and hauling and then unloading, and, and I remember my son-in-law, when we got down to the last piece of wood, he said, this is the one I've been looking for. And that's kind of like the message we're going to have now. It's the last one, and I know you've been looking for it. We're going to go back to Psalm one hundred and thirty nine. We're going to finish the Psalm, Lord willing. We're going to begin reading here at the verse seventeen. David said, how precious also are the, are thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I'm still with thee. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God. Depart from me, therefore, ye bloody men, for they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those who rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. After contemplating the omniscience and the omnipresence of God, David now turns his thoughts to those puny men that dare to turn against this almighty God that he's been writing about. And he reaches the conclusion that the overthrow of the powers of wickedness is the sure thing that's going to happen. You know, as we look at what goes on in the world around us today, it's, it's, it's kind of hard sometimes to imagine where we're going, unless you read the end of the book, you know? I keep telling you, we win. It's there. We know how it's going to end, but how God does this sometimes is confusing. We see things like certain men being elected to certain offices, and we think, can this really be the will of God? But Daniel said, you know, God sets up those that he would, and he puts down those that he would. And sometimes even the basest of men are put into places of authority. But never fear, God is still on the throne, isn't he? God is still in charge. So we may feel like we're at sea and confused about things, but you can take my word for this, God is not confused. And God is not mocked. And David looks about him, and he sees these men who ignore God, who deny God, who shake their fists in the face of Almighty God, and we're surrounded with people like that today. You know, there was a time when it was, it was not a crime to speak about the Lord in public places or in schools, or to have a commencement address begin with prayer, or to have a preacher give some word there, or to... I- I said this before, maybe I told you about, but I had a fourth grade teacher, and we started every day, every class, we said the Ten Commandments. And that wasn't good enough, we had to say the Beatitudes as well. And then we had to say the Lord's Prayer. And then we said the Pledge of Allegiance. Every day. And nobody came in and sued the school. Nobody said that we were, uh, violating the Constitution, and I don't think many of us had warped psyches from that. Uh, John's looking at me like, well, I know one. No, he don't. You see, but man in his infinite wisdom keeps pushing God out. We live in a world today, a cosmos, a system that is designed by the devil to ex- exclude God. He has his own music, his own religion, his own politics, his own entertainment. He has everything. He mimics and he mocks. He's the great substituter, the great counterfeiter, and he would have you believe that you don't need God to have all these things. And the world is buying it. And David said, I'm surrounded by men like that. They're bloody men. They're, they're men who hate God. And he says, I know your thoughts are on me, and they're more thoughts than I can even number. The sum of them is just unbelievable. Someone has said that if God doesn't punish the United States, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, I don't know that God would ever do that, but it just gives you an idea of how bad it really is in this country. God is being excluded. And David said, there are men who hate you. God is going to punish them. You know, there are those who preach that God is love. Scripture says God is love. And, and a God who loves like that, there could not really be a place like hell. And, and a God who, who is love would not punish people like you say they're going to. And that, uh, David's writings here are very judgmental, and that what he is saying is, uh, incompatible with divine love. I like what Bill McDonald said. He said, for my own part, I feel that the love of God has been emphasized all out of proportion to his holiness and righteousness. Well, Brother Don Schoenberg was saying that he appreciates studying and hearing the attributes of God, and love is one of the attributes of God. But understand that God never sacrifices any other attribute for one or the other, because he's still holy, and he's still righteous. He can do this. He can apply mercy and do it righteously where we can't do that. So it's not incompatible. You know, some of you know this, another personal experience here. I have a police complaint filed against me in Topeka, Shawnee County. Did you know that? Good, I'm glad you didn't know that. Nobody else knows it. Are you recording this? No. There's a, there's a guy over there that likes to stand on street corners with signs. You know who I'm talking about, I'm sure. And, uh, I thought it was funny at first. I, I used to drive down the street, and I'd see all these people standing there with these signs. I, I can't even tell you what some of them said, they're so bad. If you've ever seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Until one day I was driving down the street, and standing on the corner was this mob, and they had their signs. And here stands a little boy, he couldn't have been more than ten or twelve at the tops, had a sign bigger than he was, and it said, God hates sinners. I said, that's it, that did it. So I went and wrote a letter to the editor of the Topeka newspaper. And I said, these people have made a joke of your city. They, you know, it's a mockery from coast to coast. Everywhere I traveled, I heard people talking about this thing. And I said, when I saw this sign, I had to, had to respond because I said, this man's supposed to know the scriptures, but the, the Bible tells me that God loves sinners so much that he gave his only son to die for them. He hates their sin. He hates their sin, but he loves the sinner. But I made one mistake when I wrote that letter. I referred to them as a cult. What did I know? I get a letter from the Shawnee County Sheriff's Department saying that I have had a complaint filed against me at the sheriff's office by this group because I used that word in that article, in that letter. I said, what am I going to do about that? I thought to hell they're going to put me in jail, you know, bread and water, I can just see it now. Big number over here, picture on the post office wall, the whole thing. I said, what do I do? He says, I'll just ignore it. He said they file complaints against everybody. And then he said, but just for your information, he said, I went on the internet, that I didn't know what a cult was myself, he said, so I went on the internet and I looked up cults. He said, I found a website that gave me ten uh, markers, ten identifiers that you could use to determine whether a group was a cult or not, and he said they met every one of them. It's all in your outlook, isn't it? God doesn't hate sinners. He loves sinners. Aren't you glad? But he hates sin. And David looks about him, and he sees these men who hate God, who shake their fists in the face of God, who sin and say God doesn't know, God doesn't see, God doesn't care. And he says, I hate them too. You say, well, boy, hate's a strong word. Well, Nahum, the prophet said in chapter one, verse six, who can stand before his indignation, and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? I mentioned it before, I'll say it again, you don't want to know this much of the wrath of God. One day. Let me read you a quotation from a man named Jonathan Edwards. He said, the wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed up for the present. They increase more and more and rise higher and higher until an outlet is given. The longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it's let loose. As one of the men that, uh, maybe you know, uh, you know, uh, Ken Miller. Some of you know Ken Miller. Ken, Ken likes to talk about God being long suffering, long suffering. I'll tell you what, I'm glad he's long suffering. But that doesn't mean that the wrath of God is not piling up. It seems to me that a few years ago, Ron, you would know about this, a few years ago, west of here, there was a dam that broke from a reservoir somewhere. I can't remember the name of the lake, but it, it, it wa- in just a few minutes, it washed out a miniature Grand Canyon. I remember I saw the pictures of it. Um, that's kind of like the wrath of God. It's, it's being held. He's holding it back. We're living in a day of grace, and God is very gracious and very long suffering. But the day is coming when the dam is going to break. And I'm so glad I'm not going to be here. How about you? I'm so glad. We talked about that this morning. We're going to hear this trumpet. We're going to hear a voice. Actually, the shout that's, that's spoken about there in that portion in First Thessalonians, that the shout in the Greek indicates a battle cry of victory. Isn't that neat? You think about that? He won. This is it. We're gone. I hope you're not going to be here when it happens, because when the judgment of God falls, when the wrath of God falls, read the book of Revelation. Why is it that every new believer, the first thing they want to do is read the book of Revelation? Have you noticed that? Out of the whole Bible, the first thing they want to do is go to the book of Revelation, and then they come to me and they say, can you explain this? Read John. Go there. We'll talk about Revelation in a couple years. But if you want to know, read the book. It'll tell you what's going to happen. And I d- I don't think it can be written in such a way that you can fully understand how bad it's going to be. You cannot understand it. The time of Jacob's trouble, the time that's so bad that there's never been anything like it before, there never will be anything like it. We have no concept of how bad it's going to be. And when you look at history and you study bad things that have happened, and you think, that is horrible. I'm sure it was, but nothing like what's going to happen. God doesn't lie. It's like nothing ever before. I don't want to be here. I don't know about you, but I'm glad I'm not. We mentioned before that, that with God, judgment has to fall. He's not like a human, uh, a human jury, a hum- a human judge that can suspend the sentence. The sentence has to be carried out. The judgment has to be done. You know, if we ran this country's judicial system the way God works, you wouldn't have room for anything but prisons anywhere, because there'd be no suspended sentences, there'd be no paroles, no early releases. There wouldn't be any appeal for the death sentence. It would be carried out immediately, you see? But the prisons would be just packed with people. We turn them loose and say, well, you be good now, but we need your cell, and we turn them loose. Not with God. We don't understand the way God's mind works. We can't. He says, my thoughts are higher than yours, my ways are beyond yours. You don't understand. But I can tell you this, the scripture is very clear that judgment will be executed always with God. And that's where the Lord Jesus came in. We mentioned that, you know, he, he bore that judgment. The righteous judgment of God has been satisfied. Why do you want to go through it again? Why do you want to stand at God's pay window and say, give me what's coming to me? You don't want to do that. David said, these men, they hate you, and surely you will slay the wicked. No question about it. Depart from me, you bloody men. They speak against you. Your enemies take your name in vain. You ever hear that? It's got to be so pleasing to the ear of God to hear the name of Christ taken as the Savior in praise, in worship, in blessing, because he hears it so much taken in vain. All around us. Unless you live on a different planet than I do, maybe they don't do that here in Lawrence. But where I come from, you hear it all the time. He says they take your name in vain. He says, you hate them, and I hate them. But you know what? They hate you too. They hate you too. If you name the name of Jesus, you will not be liked. You will be hated. He sees, he tells us that if the world hates me, it will hate you. When men speak against God, they're going to speak against us. He says, marvel not, my brethren, in First John chapter three. John says, marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. That's strong language. We ought not to be surprised when we're slandered, when we're derided. Have you ever noticed that when it comes to, to Christians in the world, there are a lot of people that just simply outright hate you. They can't stand you. But the thing that's most insidious, have you ever noticed how the media portrays Christians? They're always idiots. I- if there's a TV program and they want to put a religious person on there, well, he's, he he'll always have his collar on backwards, and he'll be simple-minded, or he'll be a covert pervert or something. They never portray anybody that is supposed to be a Christian, and I put that in quotations, as being a real normal person. And, and the term born again is a term of derision, you know. If you listen to these news broadcasters say, well, he's one of those born again, you could just see the quotation marks around it. Born again Christian. Uh, the question I'd have for you, Larry, what other kind is there? There's no, that's it, you know. So you may, you may be called in derision born again, but if you're a true believer, are you not born again? This, this is yes, this is no, this, and amen is okay. We're born again. We've been changed. We've been born into the family of God. We're the children of God. We've received the adoption of sons. That's where we are with God. God loves us, long suffering, but he hates sin. And one day the judgment of God is going to fall, and David says, I understand that, and so I count them as my enemies that are your enemies. You know, the, one of the things that they teach the kids in school today is, is tolerance. You get that? Have you been getting in that? You need to be tolerant of this and tolerant of that. That's not really a deviant thing, it's just a, an alternate lifestyle, that sort of thing. We need to be tolerant. I'll tell you what, God isn't. God is long suffering, God is gracious, but he's not tolerant. And one day they're going to find that out, aren't they? They stand before the throne. Wiersbe said that God's thoughts are vast and inexhaustible. How great is the sum of them? This is what he's quoting David. The Hebrew word for sum is plural. Thus, his thoughts just keep growing. People who don't want to do the will of God live their lives in a little bucket of water, he said. But when we accept his will for our lives, we launch out on an ocean of possibility. David said, your thoughts are just more than the sand of the sea. How great is the sum of them? I can't even talk about it because God is infinite, and his thoughts are infinite, and you're on his mind. God can think about every one of you all at the same time. We were talking earlier, I think it was this morning, maybe it was yesterday, about when the Lord Jesus was, was standing there, and the Roman soldiers were beating him and mocking him, and they blindfolded him, they smote him, and they said, prophesy, who struck thee? I said, he could have told them who they were, and their parents, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents, and all the way back to people they didn't even know. He could have told them. He knows every one of us, every one of you, you're on his mind. And he's sustaining all things right now by the word of his power. God is gracious, God is merciful, but God is... has an end. One day the dam is going to break. And David said, your enemies are my enemies. And then he says, and this is a prayer, this is David's prayer. It's a prayer that is, that is good for all of us, except it's one you want to be careful if you pray it. He said, search me. Search me. Know my heart. Try me. Know my thoughts. Do you really want to pray that? No, I don't blame you. You need to think about that one. David is, is praying for conformity to the will of God, I think. And so he prays for God's examination of his spiritual condition. He asks God to lead him and to, to guide him, literally, is what it means. He prayed a similar prayer back in Psalm five. He said, Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Make thy way straight before my face. He stresses the need for God to lead him in the right way, because his enemies were watching what he did. Remember the story about Abraham and Lot? I'll wait. Yes, okay. I would hope you did, otherwise I would have to have a talk with the elders around here. Yes, Abraham and Lot. You remember Lot's wife? There was a Sunday school kid one time, they asked something about Lot. He says Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night. Um, really? He wrote that down. I don't make these up, I just, I read them. There's some interesting firsts in the story of Abraham, the first mention of worship, the first mention of a lamb, unfortunately also the first mention of strife. Isn't that sad that the first mention of strife in the Bible is between brethren? Hm. Vernon McGee, old J. Vernon McGee, one time he was, he said that he believed that those who call themselves Plymouth brethren were the closest to the truth of scripture. Oh yeah, really. He said the only problem with them is they can't get along with each other. Isn't that sad? How sad is that? We are recognized as disciples of Christ because we're supposed to be different, and it's different for people to love one another with agape love. It just isn't natural. But that's how we're to be recognized, and when we can't get along with each other, the world just looks at us, and we're like everybody else. We're no different, because that's the way it is. And so, David says, your thoughts are precious to me, and I want you to lead me, and I want you to guide me because of my enemies. We, we, we read that in Genesis thirteen and verse seven that there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle, and then this, this little addition to the end of that sentence, and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt in the land. You see, that was the, that was the problem. It wasn't just that there was a disagreement here between these brethren and between the herdsmen of their cattle, but they were being observed by others in the land. People watch what you do as a Christian. You tell them you're a Christian, they're going to eyeball you more than anybody else. And they, they do watch you. You know, I don't know, I noticed we left, uh, Ned Bornick's to drive over here this morning. They have the same problem in their neighborhood that we have in ours, that the traffic is just terrible. You can close your eyes and back out of the driveway and not have to worry about hitting anybody. We're the only house in our whole neighborhood that, that goes anywhere on Sunday morning. And we laugh about it, we joke about it, we don't have to worry about the traffic. One day my doorbell rang, and it was Sunday morning, and we're getting ready to go, and then go to the door, and it's my neighbor. And he said, I know you're going to church. That's the first word out of his mouth, I know you're going to church. Really. But he said, would you come over to my house when you get home and pray with me? Would I? Oh my. I hadn't really said anything, shame on me, I hadn't said anything to him, but, but he watched it, he watched us. He knew. You see? People watch you. They hear what you say, and what you say and what you do had better agree, or you bring shame on the name of the Lord Jesus. And so he said, I see these men about me, and I see how they hate you, and I see what they do, and I count them my enemies because they're your enemies. And so, Lord, I pray this prayer. I want you to search me. I'm being watched. The Canaanites and the Perizzites are still in the land, folks. They're still out there. He said, I want you to, to watch, to search me, and to know my heart and to know my thoughts. That's a very, a very hard word to search. You know, he started his psalm by saying, you have searched me, and now he's telling him again, search me again and try me, test me to make sure that I'm still walking the way I should walk. How great is the sum of your thoughts? Hmm. God thinks about me. Boy, that's that that's enough right there, isn't it, to go home and know that God thinks about you. There was a guy that was stranded on an island, shipwreck, something. He was on this island for ten years, all by himself, nobody else. And one day, uh, he was spotted. He had a signal fire or something, a ship spotted him. They sent a rescue, uh, uh, rescue ship in there, a boat to pick him up, and when they got there, they were surprised to find there were, there were three huts built there. He's the only guy there, there were 3 huts. And I asked him, I said, what, what's the three huts? He said, well, he said that one, he said that's the one I live in. And he said that, that one there, he said that's my church. Really? What's the other one? He said, well, that's my old church. I didn't care for the preaching, so I... And you know, there, a lot of us are like the guy on the island. We prefer to make external changes to circumstances instead of engaging in personal evaluation. Personal evaluation is not easy. And David says, search me, try me, know my thoughts, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me. Can we, do you want to pray that prayer? Personal evaluation is bad enough, but to have God evaluate you? You know, we, we heard read this morning from First Corinthians chapter eleven. Let a man examine himself. I think that's something that each of us should do every Lord's Day before we partake of the emblems. I think we got to do it before we get here. Examine ourselves. And it's not talking about if you're a believer. It was written to believers. It, it, it's to examine, are you worthy right now? Is your life in such a way, such a manner that you can really worthily take part in that solemn occasion of remembering the Lord Jesus. Examination, self-examination. We should all be doing that all the time. And David said, I find that hard to do, so you search me. That's a tough prayer to pray. How long has it been since you've been to your doctor and said, I want you to check me out. I want you to X-ray me and poke me and do it. You know, I was, I managed to escape colonoscopy for twenty five years. They tell you you're supposed to do this every five years, and he, my doctor had been after me and after me. You know, and I told him, I said, you'd make, you'd make a great inquisitor back in the Middle Ages with this thing. I have no more secrets. None whatsoever, inside or out. It's a humbling experience. But it's good. I didn't have anything. They wanted me to come back in five years. I said, if I've managed to go twenty five, I'll go another twenty five. You ain't gonna do that to me. But when's the last time you just walked into the doctor and said, I want a complete physical exam, inside, outside. I want you to check me thoroughly and see if there's anything wrong with me. This is what David is saying to God. I want you to do that spiritually. I want you to, to check me out. Even the thoughts of my mind, I want you to search me and see if there's a wicked way in me. I see these men around me who are wicked and who hate God, and I say that they're my enemies because they're God's enemies. But God, is there anything in me that needs to be changed? It's easy for us to point the finger at the world today and say, look at that, look at that, they're doing the wrong thing. How about this? Have you done that lately? Have you prayed David's prayer? Search me, try me, check my thoughts, see if there be anything wicked in me. Be careful what you pray for. You might get it. But I think we should all ask ourselves this question. If I have been so fearfully and wonderfully made, and I'm constantly under his surveillance, which is what we've been talking about here this weekend. What should my life be from now on? What should my life be? Paul said in Romans twelve, we quoted it before, verse one, he said, I beseech you therefore, brethren, I, I beg of you, I beseech you earnestly, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. He, he died for you, is it not reasonable you should live for him? Someone once said the only problem with a living sacrifice is they keep crawling off the altar. A living sacrifice. He also goes on to say that we should be transformed, that we, that our, uh, we should, our mind should be transformed, not conformed to the world, but transformed, being a slow process. We, it's something that is like a metamorphosis, something that, that we can do day in and day out, and day in and day out over a period of time, devoting ourselves to what Paul told Timothy to do, to study to show himself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. You want to know how you can protect your thoughts and you can pass the test? Read the book. It's hard to be in the book every day and to be out there with the enemy, taking his side, because this will show you. This is the mirror. This is the thing you look into that tells you what you really are. Don't be like the guy that looked into the mirror, beholding his natural face, and went his way and immediately forgot what he saw. A lot of people are like that. They look in the Bible and they don't like what they see, so they say, well, I'll close the book and it won't bother me anymore. But if you stay in the book every day, the book's like a two-edged sword. It pierces, like a mirror, it shows you. Be in the book, study to show yourself approved to God. And I can assure you that if you do that, and you keep at it, and you keep asking the Lord to guide you and try to find his will, you don't have to worry about him searching your heart. You don't have to worry about him searching your mind, checking your thoughts, because they'll be the kind of things that he wants to find when he looks into your mind. It takes time, someone said, to make an oak tree. And just as it takes time to make an oak tree, it takes a while to make a saint. Christian growth is a lifelong process. We are to be transformed to the image of the Son of God. Now, this is a lifelong process. Some in this room will be much closer to that transformation when they go to be with the Lord than others. Some of us are going to require a lot of makeover. But in the end, in the finality, we are going to be transformed into that image. Isn't that... am I the only one that finds that good? How about an amen there? Hallelujah, praise the Lord. I don't get too excited, I don't jump up and down, but it's... well, that's neat. We're going to be, be like his son. How much does God love us? He loves us enough to fill heaven with replicas. How about that? You and I. I look at some of these guys here that I know intimately, and I think God loves them. I guess I should. It may be hard, but I'll do my best. But one day we're all going to be alike. Now, if it's a good thing or a bad thing, Ron, I'm... I'm not even going to talk to you, brother. I love these guys. You know, I wouldn't pick on them if I didn't love them. They pick on me, and I'm not sure the reason for that, but, but I love them. And one day we're, we're all, if you're a Christian here today, if you're one of those born again type of people, you're here today. One day we're all going to be the image of God, so we're going to be like him. We're going to have a body like, I don't know what this means. I have no idea. I just know that, that in a locked room he showed up one day. Don't be afraid. I don't know about you, but I'd have been a little bit... where'd he come from? But we're going to be like him. I don't know all the ins and outs of that, but I know it's a good thing because God is going to do it. And I'm going to be happy about it, and it's going to be good to see you there too. And we're all going to be alike. So, make sure of this, that your lifelong goal is to know the Lord Jesus Christ, know him, whom to know is life eternal, and rejoice in the promise of his coming. He could come today. And David said, lead me in the way everlasting. He, he prayed something similar over in, in Psalm five. He said, lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. You see, he's saying they're out there and they're looking at me, and I make mistakes. I don't make good decisions all the time. You know, somebody said that, that, uh, experience, we use experience to avoid making bad decisions. The only problem is that we gain most of our experience from making bad decisions. We're going to make bad decisions, and so we have to look to the Lord and say, you lead me. You help me make the right decisions because the Canaanite and the Perizzite are still out there in the land. Lead me in the way of righteousness because of my enemies, that they might see God in us. I want to thank you for inviting us to come to your conference. Uh, you're probably very thankful that we're leaving, uh, and we're gonna, we won't be eating your food anymore, but I loved every minute of it, enjoyed it. Thank you. You're a majority of one. I appreciate that. And I just, uh, want to say that, uh, we- we've enjoyed the fellowship, and we've enjoyed being here. I hope that, uh, uh, that you've enjoyed hearing the word, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it somehow in each one of your lives and be a blessing to you. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your mercy and your grace and your goodness to us, for saving our souls. And Father, we just pray with David that your enemies might be our enemies, that compromise that is not there, but that we're willing to pray the prayer to search me, try me, know my thoughts, lead me in the right way because of my enemies. And we wait, Father, for that shout and the time when the Lord comes. We'll be with him and like him forever and ever. We pray, Father, you'd be with those that are traveling now, and all that will be on the road, and there are now too, that give them safe journey and and protect them. And we do commit this time and and the word that's gone forth, uh, to you and to your Holy Spirit. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.