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[0:00] A few weeks ago we began a rather brief series relating to the subject of what was called and what is called the Protestant Reformation, and we felt more than justified in doing so since we had reached in humanity the 500th anniversary of that time when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis on the church door in Wittenberg.

[0:24] And that was October 31, 1517. He did so because he was grieved over many of the excesses and abuses that were taking place in the church that he loved, the church of which he was a member, the church of which he was an Augustinian monk.

[0:46] And the church, of course, responded with his efforts to reform with complete rejection and denial because when an organization is operating under the auspices of perfection and infallibility, what could there possibly be that would need reforming?

[1:07] In fact, they were rather incensed and insulted at the mere suggestion that the church could need reforming. But we all know, of course, that it did.

[1:19] That there is no infallibility in humanity anywhere. The only infallibility exists in the creator and sustainer of the universe.

[1:32] All his creatures are very much unlike him. It would not be inaccurate to refer to God as the otherness because that's what he is.

[1:43] He is the otherness of everything else that exists. So in connection with that theme of the Reformation, which we are always in need of, we have developed a few messages.

[1:57] I guess you would say they are post-Reformational. And this one deals with the subject of the Reformation needs reforming. Indeed, it does.

[2:08] Because that which came to be known as the Protestant Reformation, designed to set the Catholic Church aright, is itself in deep need of Reformation.

[2:23] And this ought to be obvious to any 20th century Christian, simply looking around at what has happened in our churches and denominations. To deny that there is a need for serious Reformation there would be, you must be living on some other planet.

[2:41] So, we are going to address the reason for there being a continual need for Reformation.

[2:52] There is just one reason, and it's always the same. It is always in connection with the departure from the authority of the Word of God.

[3:06] It's as simple as that. You don't need anything else in order to create apostasy. Apostasy simply means a departure from or a falling away from what you formerly believed.

[3:24] And we have that today in massive amounts everywhere you look. So, in addressing this subject about the importance of Scripture, which I know is something that is very familiar to grace people, or at least should be, we are still, without apology, going to reinforce that once again.

[3:44] And we are going, I trust, to point out that it is the only panacea for the human condition. And that is an infusion of the truth of God's Word.

[3:56] So, I've asked Gary to read for us two very pertinent passages of Scripture, one from the Old Testament, from Psalm 119. If you will open your Bible, please, to that portion.

[4:06] He'll be reading from that in just a moment. And then you might find Mark's Gospel, Chapter 7, and slip your finger there, if you would, because he will be reading from both portions.

[4:19] Each of these have to do with the importance and the authority of the Word of God. And if you are familiar with Psalm 119, you will recognize it being the longest chapter in all of the Bible, 176 verses.

[4:33] And in addition to that, there are only about three verses, I believe, and memory escapes me as to which three they are, but there are only about three verses out of the whole 176 verses that do not refer to the Word of God as the Word, the testimony, the statutes, the laws, etc., or one of those synonyms for the authority of Scripture.

[5:01] So, Gary, if you will come, please, and read for us. In Psalm 119, we'll be looking at verses 9 through 16.

[5:21] It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

[5:34] All nations surrounded me. In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. Pardon me.

[5:50] A boo-boo. And I sat up here and prepared. Sorry, Marv. All is forgiven.

[6:04] Thank you. Thank you. I was in 118. Psalm 119, verses 9 through 16.

[6:16] How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word. With all my heart I have sought you.

[6:29] Do not let me wander from your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against you.

[6:41] Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of your mouth.

[6:53] I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts, and regard your ways.

[7:09] I shall delight in your statutes. I shall not forget your word. Then, please turn to Mark chapter 7.

[7:22] And here we'll be looking at verses 1 through 13. The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.

[7:52] For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders.

[8:02] And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves. And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.

[8:24] The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?

[8:39] And he said to them, Rightly, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

[8:54] But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.

[9:12] He was also saying to them, You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

[9:23] For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and he who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.

[9:36] But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, Whatever I have that would help you is Corban, that is to say, given to God.

[9:49] You no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down, and you do many things such as that.

[10:10] To be sure, the religious establishment during the earthly ministry of our Lord had succeeded in finding clever ways around what the law of Moses required because it did not fit their desires and their own wishes.

[10:33] And it is amazing what we are capable of rationalizing and justifying if we really want to do so. And this is just one of several such examples that exist. This word Corban that is used here in Mark chapter 7 probably doesn't communicate much to us at all.

[10:50] But in the setting in which Jesus was living and speaking, it was a word of dedication. And the way it worked out simply was like this.

[11:01] And I'll be as brief with this as I can. And the law of Moses made it very clear that children are responsible for the care of their parents. And the roles are reversed.

[11:12] The parents care for the children when they are young. And then when the children become mature and old, the parents have become aged. And the thing is reversed. And the child becomes the parent.

[11:23] And the child is supposed to care for the welfare and the well-being of the parent. In fact, that is the whole meaning that is behind the phrase, honor your father and your mother.

[11:35] It doesn't just mean that you say, yes sir and no ma'am. But it means that you care for them in whatever way they need cared for. And you never outgrow your need for that.

[11:47] But there is a way around that if you have assets that you do not want to use for that. I mean, nursing homes can be expensive.

[11:57] Now, they weren't dealing with that back then, but the principle is the same. So, a neat little ploy was designed whereby you could make a kind of official commitment of your assets to the temple.

[12:17] But it was only an official kind of comment. And it still allowed you to continue on using the funds as you wish.

[12:28] And when mom and dad come up with the need that they have in their old age, you just shake your head in a lamentable kind of way and say, gee, dad, I'm sorry. Mom, I wish I could help you.

[12:40] But all my money's tied up. It's all pledged and promised to the temple. There's nothing I can do about it. And he's off the hook. It's a despicable way to live.

[12:52] But do you know something? People can be despicable. So, what we are talking about this morning in connection with the Reformation and the whole concept that surrounds it, Reformation is needed only because of corruption.

[13:09] And corruption is as automatic as breathing. Why things are the way they are. Why people are the way they are.

[13:19] Why the world is the way it is. It's all answered by this one particular concept. In the very short hundred or so years after the first century called the Apostolic Age, the believers who comprised the early church had moved toward corruption.

[13:45] This was despite the fact that the gospel was being circulated. People were suffering persecution for doing so.

[13:55] First, from the Jews. Early on, it was Jews persecuting Jews with Saul of Tarsus leading the charge. I've often referred to Saul of Tarsus as the first of the Gestapo-like thugs.

[14:12] It's really interesting to note that here is a Jew persecuting his fellow countrymen and in a way he's kind of kind of setting the scene for the kind of persecution that his whole country would receive at least in Europe as a result of the Holocaust in the 1940s and World War II and there it will be Hitler's Gestapo and the Jewish people the persecution the concentration camps everything that went with it.

[14:41] But who in the world would have ever thought that that would have been started by a Jew? None other than Saul of Tarsus and his kind. Ironic, isn't it?

[14:54] Well, let me get back to this now. The reason the reason for doctrinal and moral corruption is always the same in every generation that experiences it.

[15:07] The authority of the Bible is replaced with the authority of man. Authority is the issue. Always has been. Always will be.

[15:19] And we have seen an example of that as far back as the first century in the life of our Lord and the passage we just considered briefly in Mark chapter 7.

[15:30] Spiritual and I just wish that there were some way that I could communicate this concept without just preaching to the choir because I know you folks are pretty much plugged into this and you are on track with it but the world the world at large does not have a clue why it is the way it is.

[15:52] They don't have a clue. the best that some of them can come up with is that it's God's fault. This is no way to run a world.

[16:05] Why doesn't God do something? Why doesn't He change things? Why doesn't He correct all of the injustices that are out there? How does the God of Heaven stand aside and allow the murder of scores of people who say they are in love with Him and they worship Him and He doesn't rescue them?

[16:30] He doesn't save them? He doesn't prevent that? And their conclusion and this by the way is probably one of the greatest reasons for the existence of atheists and it's called the hiddenness the hiddenness of God why He doesn't show Himself at an opportune time and God gets a bad rap for that.

[16:53] Someone said where was God when these murders were taking place? And the only answer is God was in the same place where He was when His Son was being murdered.

[17:06] And the only answer is where was God when His Son was being murdered. The reason for the corruption being automatic is due to each person being born with the moral spiritual fallenness of self-centeredness.

[17:26] That's the nexus of everything. You need to understand that. That's where it all begins. It isn't God's fault. It is our fault.

[17:37] We are imbibed with an enormous dose of self-centeredness. This is what produces hatred and strife and variance and murders and everything else.

[17:55] We are all self-centered. If you don't understand that you are at a distinct disadvantage. One of my favorite cartoon characters and I've mentioned him before I think probably his creator has passed on.

[18:09] I don't know. But he was Pogo. He was a little possum that lived in the Everglades swamps. And he had that classic line that I don't know how many times I've quoted. And little Pogo says, we have met the enemy and they is us.

[18:24] that's the problem. But you know something? That's the problem that fallen man refuses to recognize. You might be the problem but I'm not.

[18:40] And that's where so many of us are coming from. This moral spiritual fallenness of self-centeredness the Bible calls the flesh.

[18:54] And it's called the flesh because flesh is what we are in our humanness. We do not even have the ability to function apart from this self-centeredness except through the infusion that comes from the regeneration which occurs when one is born again and becomes a new person in Christ.

[19:19] But even then walking in the flesh is still available and ready to operate and dominate the new birth while it provides us with immediate salvation and eternal life positionally and this is automatic upon believing it provides us only with the potential for walking in the spirit.

[19:50] Doing so realizing the potential by walking in the spirit or leading a God-honoring life is dependent solely upon our growth and development as believers and this growth and development only occurs as we receive understand and live out the truths found in the Bible God's word and yes we're back to the book again because that's the only place to be that's the only place that has the answer do you realize and I trust that you do do you realize that this book these contents is all we really have when it comes to truth and verifiable information and authority this is it folks this is it this is this is the whole spirit this is the whole thing this book and no no no we are not

[21:01] Bible worshipers we are not interested in worshiping the Bible but we are thoroughly committed to the principle there is no such thing as the intelligent worship of the creator and sustainer of the universe apart from the written revelation that he has provided us in this book failure on the part of truly saved people to do this results in a weak and defeated life that continues in the self centeredness with which we were born this sad to say is where many many Christians even Christians live on a daily basis outwardly their lives reflect little that is different from the lives of unbelievers our creator fully understood this although most people do not neither back in ancient times and certainly not today and it is ironic and I just it's I just can't quite get over the irony of this that the very item divinely provided to counter the inbred corruption of man while it is the most published and provided document known to man and while its precepts at the same time are the most ignored and rejected by man isn't that amazing

[22:39] I mean you would think that we have so many Bibles in so many languages in so many versions in so much accessibility on everybody's coffee table that everybody would almost have to be basically familiar with it but we're not we're not even close and right there right right right here in this book lies the answer to everything that means anything right here can't quite get over that you know something I don't want to get over it the price that man pays for his rejection of this book is the price every rejection has paid and continues to pay via a morally and spiritually corrupt existence as was read earlier in Psalm 119 my word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee guess what your only recourse is if you don't hide his word in your heart well that's where we are that's what we're dealing with that's what is in perpetual need of reformation and every generation that comes along has to be exposed to this truth but they aren't it just isn't being done come back with me for just a moment before I open this for Q&A and I'm going to deliberately try to provide more time than usual for that

[24:35] Deuteronomy if you will please Deuteronomy chapter 6 this is a principle and I've realized of course that this is the old covenant this is the law of Moses and we're not under law we're under grace and we're fully aware of that yet there are principles that are inviolate there are principles that pervade across all dispensations and all ages and all cultures principles are eternal and we need to pick up on them because they are so very important in Deuteronomy chapter 6 now this is the commandment the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you all the days of your life and that and here's the purpose clause this is a result and that your days may be prolonged and let me just inject something here about the fear of

[25:50] God it doesn't mean that you are cowering back in the corner scared of God the fear of God means nothing more than giving God the proper position that he is entitled to in your life if you do that you are a God fearing individual it simply means that you put God first and by the way all of the law that God gave to Israel under this first covenant while on the surface it sounds very demanding yet it was given with the sole intent and purpose motivated by love to enable the children of Israel to function in the way that would be best for them and honoring to God the God of the Bible isn't a deity who just likes throwing his weight around and barking out orders and commands thou shalt this thou shalt not that no no no no all of

[26:58] God's laws all of God's requirements have a built in provision for man's welfare and good God makes these requirements because it is in the best interest of those who are going to carry them out even though they often don't recognize that and when we throw them over for our own point of view or our own attitude we are doing so for our own disservice and our own harm it is nothing more than human arrogance and by the way human arrogance is spawned from this self-centeredness that I was talking about that we all have human arrogance is actually willing to superimpose its will its assessment its estimation on that of God and say this is better my way is better

[28:06] I know what the Bible says but and we all got that but and we actually have the arrogance to be willing to override the wisdom of the Almighty and we do that like I said that's part of our fallenness that is this self-centeredness with which we are all afflicted and the only thing that can counter it is those infusions of God's truth that slowly enables us to grow in more understanding and more appreciation that God really does know what he's doing and he really is in charge and he really does love me and it is really in my best interest to get with the program and I kick over the traces and go my own way to my own hurt boy how many people need to know that verse 3 oh Israel you should listen and be careful to do it that it may be well with you listen

[29:17] I'm not making these demands upon you because I get some kind of kicks out of making you do things don't reduce God to some kind of a basic training drill sergeant everything he requires of us is motivated by his love and his concern and his care for our own best interests and welfare only sometimes we are too stupid and too stubborn to realize it that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey hear oh Israel this is the famous Shema that the Jewish child learns to recite almost as soon as they can say mama and dada this is the Shema hear oh Israel the Lord is our

[30:19] God the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind why why well first of all because it's the right thing to do and secondly because it's the smart thing to do God actually is looking out for you would you let him look out for you these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently that means with deliberation with purpose with intent it doesn't mean that you will teach them accidentally you will teach them deliberately it means you will make this a top priority now there's where we get into trouble for most it is not even close to being a top priority it's if I don't have anything better to do if I don't have anything more interesting to do diligently diligently and these words which I'm commanding you shall be on your heart teach them diligently to your sons talk of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up you kind of get the impression that this is built into the life experience wow that would be different wouldn't it is this something that is doable today

[32:32] I mean after all these people had a whole lot more time on their hands than what we do these people didn't have the tug of television and cell phones and ball games and school activities and all these things and the attitude for a great many today even those who profess faith in Christ is yeah I'll take the Bible seriously I'll work it in when and if I can if I have time but it is not it is not our meat and our drink we we will give it some time when we have time when we feel like it when we're in the mood verse eight you shall bide them as a sign on your hand they shall be as frontals on your forehead you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates this is a little menorah tiny little box with scripture parts scripture inscribed on parchment rolled up and put in a little box it's not not much bigger than your finger and they nailed it on the doorpost of their house and the

[33:57] Jewish men had their phylacteries and they would take scripture and write it very small and put it in a little leather box and tie a strap on that box and mount it on their head and put it around and tie the leather thong and they would wrap these around their arms that was the tephilim and the items that they used that contained scripture and no I'm not suggesting that we reduce ourselves to that or that we mimic that or that we should be doing all I'm saying is that demonstrated the attitude and the priority that these people had regarding the word of God and its importance and our culture today virtually sets aside the Bible as an interesting book of antiquated mythology and ideas and just a bunch of stuff that old men wrote about a long time ago to express their view of life and it isn't regarded as the very word of

[35:09] God at all anymore we've kicked it out of our schools we're trying to take it out of all public venues at all along with the name of God this rejection of God's word results in the kind of society we've got today how do you like it what we are experiencing is a predictable fallout of that kind of abandonment of the word of God and in the very places where you would experience the truth to be held dear and held high it is often abandoned there as well it wasn't very long ago just a couple of decades ago when United Church of Christ and the

[36:11] Methodist churches were meeting in their annual conferences and they were discussing issues like homosexuality and was it possible was it possible to ordain a homosexual to the ministry in their denomination no way and the vote reflected it and then they would meet again in another year or two and you can see the erosion taking place and pretty soon well we should welcome these people into our fellowship because we want to be inclusive we don't want to leave people out we don't want them to think that they are unwelcome now and by the way let me just make a distinction here any homosexual person is more than welcome in this congregation and I would invite them and hope that they come but if one is a practicing homosexual person they will be called upon to repent of their sin and if they refuse to repent they will be turned out this is what church discipline is all about that too is a lost art and as they met later on then the issue became is it possible that we could actually because we want to be compassionate is it possible that we could actually ordain one to the pulpit no they've given up on that but a few years later well yes we can ordain one to the pulpit and what do you attribute that to you attribute that to enlightenment you've got more enlightenment and then the issue became well can we can we ordain one who is a practicing homosexual or lesbian no but give them a few years and they see more light and yes we can and they call that spiritual progress and they see us people like grace bible church as just a bunch of sticks in the mud people who are unloving and homophobic and bigoted and on and on because we do not make room for these people this is why

[39:08] I say protestantism is in dire need of reformation I don't see any signs of it happening but that's what the need is and those who hold to the traditional kind of views are just looked upon as out of date out of touch unloving and all the rest of it it's amazing and do you know what allows people to come to these conclusions it is that same self-centeredness because you see what what the fallenness does what spiritual fallenness does and we're all inflicted with this every one of us I mean every believer myself I'm not exempt from this I've got that self-centered fallenness just like everybody else does and the only thing that will combat it the only thing that is up to it is the truth of the word of God and that creates a conflict a struggle within and the issue is which am I going to accept as my authority is it going to be my own desires my own wishes is it going to be the need to go along with the crowd after all it can get pretty isolating and lonely sometimes so what are you going to do what is your authority this always comes down to this every time never fails always comes down started in

[40:36] Genesis 3 the issue became authority because you see before before the fall Adam and Eve found all of their center and their focus in the creator but when they when they rejected him and fell and they took upon them a different disposition than what God created in them and we call that a sinful disposition then what happened was their focus changed from being on God to being on self and that's why we call it self-centeredness that is a major consequence of the fall the totality of humanity is infected with this and there are no exceptions and out of this self-centeredness we get conflict war murder everything that goes with it it all stems from this one point and the only way back is right there and I know sometimes we may feel like that we're beating a dead horse because the world is not all that interested

[42:03] I want to close with this and then we'll give you a couple of minutes in the 1950s when I was serving in the army in Alaska Fort Louis Washington Fort Richardson in Anchorage and I think I related this to you before there were some nights that we would get together because we didn't have anything else to do and we were broke and couldn't go into town and we would sit around the barracks and try to think up something to do and actually we got so bored sometimes that we went so far as to open our little Gideon New Testaments and we'd sit around the bunk maybe eight or ten of us in the cubicle and we would read passages from it and we didn't understand any of it and of course we'd always end up in Revelation where all the gory stuff was you know and we didn't understand that either and you know what we were we were we were we were some some Jews and some

[43:04] Catholics and some Protestants and I think there might have even been a Mormon or two thrown in and then there were guys like me and I was a nothing you know I just was nothing but when we would talk about the Bible and get those little Gideon New Testaments out that the Gideons gave us when we went the day we were inducted into the army we had that little Gideon New Testament you put in your shirt pocket and we would read from it and you know something there wasn't a single one of us this is 1954 there wasn't a single one of us that even so much as questioned whether that book was the word of God we knew it was and if anyone would have asked us do you really believe that stuff our response would have said well absolutely of course man this is the word of God what do you mean do we believe of course we believe it you won't find that response today and this was just a bunch of dumb soldiers that didn't know straight up spiritually but we accepted without question that that was the word of

[44:19] God no doubt about it my oh my how times have changed and a different world has been created too hasn't it hey I'm not finished but I quit have you something to say here comes our mic man with those young legs anyone with a question or comment in the back thank you we forgot to mention man made religion that's caused a lot of discourse throughout the world yeah and man made religion is nothing more than a rejection of the real thing that's all it is that's all it is it's a rejection of the real thing other comments or questions are welcome Joe up here has one I was going to say that God's statues and things he commanded the people to do were actually a lot of them were sanitary involved and that's why they could multiply and grow like the hogs not the pigs for example pigs get trichinosis and you die from it they didn't know about cooking then and the temperatures and so forth so a lot of his instruction for the people was for their good as you pointed out and what the

[45:44] Bible points out this is for your good absolutely and and now we know why a lot of those instructions were simply good sanitation things yeah to people living absolutely and so we know those things so the others must also the ones we don't understand directly must also be for our good absolutely thank you Joe good comment this is this has played out so many times and you know there are places all over the world all over the world today and hey we're talking about the 21st century where there are places where people live like animals when it comes to sanitation and things like that and when you read through Exodus Leviticus and see what God told people how God even told them to care for human waste you know the human waste is toxic and that if it isn't properly cared for disease will spread out and it can wipe through a whole community this is why we have sewers and why we have sanitation systems and there are places in the world today where there are open sewers it's amazing 21st century and

[46:56] God told his people listen this is what I want you to do I want you to build latrines and I want you to bury human waste and I'm sure there were some wise acres back then that said I didn't know why we had to do this well God just gets his jollies he gets his kicks out of making us dig these things and he says I'm doing it for your own good but you know what he didn't explain it to them and listen that is where the faith element comes in God is saying listen there are all kinds of things that can kill you they're called germs and microbes and they didn't have microscopes they didn't have anything to understand anything like that but God says listen just just trust me will you just take my word for it don't do this or do that and when they did everything was fine and when man in his arrogance says well

[48:06] I know what God said but I don't think it's necessary that that I've got a better idea and boy that's when Katie bar the door that's when things happen pathetic will we ever learn someone has said the only thing that we ever learn from the preceding generations is that we never learn from the preceding generations anybody else Ron up here in front you mentioned the Gideons and giving Bibles to the military but the Gideons started by putting Bibles in hotel rooms every hotel room you could go in pull a drawer out I traveled last weekend I could not find a Bible yeah well that's I rest my case Ron that's precisely what we're talking about and there are places now where Bibles used to be distributed freely and it is not permitted anymore and the reason it is given might offend somebody might offend somebody

[49:11] I call this the tyranny the tyranny of the minority you can hang the majority out the dry all that matters is the minority and don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to minority rights they have to be protected or they will be run over roughshod by the majority but there has to be common sense and a balance too sometimes all you need is one objection from one person to completely deny everything yes yeah I appreciated what you said about Deuteronomy chapter 6 being in the middle of that right now you know as especially dads when I talk to them that parents have the biggest influence in how their adult children turn out but your time is limited and so make the most of it I like what you said in Deuteronomy 6 where it says about when you walk by the way when you rise up when you lie down the idea is that you're weaving

[50:15] God through your life it's not like I have and so that comes just from normal life conversations so it's very common around our table that we'll talk about stuff and then we'll apply the scriptures to that and help our children see how what God says in his word impacts the way we think about things well I appreciate that your family is blessed and I'll tell you something in my opinion but what is far more important in the standard that the Bible sets forth what he's talking about ought to be the norm not the exception and we pay a dear price for not allowing it to be the norm too we'll take one more and then we'll have to dismiss anyone else I imagine the two things that grind me most is when they say where is

[51:26] God and God created us and gave us free will and this is what man mostly does to man it has God's just up there grieving because of what we're doing to each other and the other thing is let me think once I get on something I lose the other one this thing of race there's one race Adam and Eve everything came from them and we got brothers and sisters you know the Arabs and the Israelis fighting each other and where did we lose that concept you know how long ago has that disappeared because we know we got Ken Ham and he's hammering on it all the time but where did that go away yeah well thank you thank you so much I appreciate all of your comments and you can see what we're dealing with I mean this this thing is taking over the western world really and and we are seeing more and more chaos as a predictable result of this it's just it ought not to surprise us that we've created the kind of world that we have and yet we dare not flag we dare not fail we have to stay in there we have to insist that there are standards we must not allow ourselves to see them eroded away and it doesn't make any difference who succumbs and by the way there is scarcely a week that goes by but what you do not read or hear about someone else seeing the light but all it is is another example of apostasy getting on the apostatizing bandwagon and going with the flow because nobody is comfortable being in the minority that's just human nature also would you stand please father we recognize that these are really difficult issues that we've dealt with and we are fully prepared to admit there's much about them that we don't even understand we are not a fully knowing people we are a people who are confessedly ignorant in many areas about many things but the one thing that we really hold dear and don't want to be ignorant about is the veracity and the reliability of the word that you've given and our responsibility to hold it dear to believe it and to propagate it no matter what the cost thank you for this time to share together in

[54:24]  Christ's name Amen