Episode Transcript
We are in 2 Kings 17 and verse 15.
2 Kings 17 and verse 15.
Last Sunday after Sunday school, my wife asked me what verse we left off studying.
And I said, "We never got out of verse 15, and we may not today."
That happens from time to time.
In fact, I get kind of excited whenever I see the text from which Brother Fulton is preaching,
and it'll just be one verse.
And I'll think, "Boy, he must have found a goldmine in there
if we're going to be in that one verse the whole message."
I get excited if it's three verses, but I know how he feels being unable to get out of a verse.
And we were studying the word vanity as it was used in that verse.
And the Bible has so much to say about vanity.
I think in seminary that would probably be worthy of a full semester of study.
the word vanity all by itself.
And the world embraces vanity.
Have you noticed that?
It really does.
And the church has slowly and progressively
allowed vain things to become its priority.
Now the Lord's church should never do that.
And one of the marks of the Lord's church
when we are obedient
is that we don't let vain things enter,
and we certainly don't let them stay and substitute
for the spiritual things that ought to be our priorities.
But unfortunately, preachers often preach vanity.
You know, the Bible said they would.
In fact, it said that such teachers would heap to themselves.
They'd pile them up, heaped to themselves those people who have itching ears.
They want their ears tickled.
That's what it is.
They don't want to hear things that are deep and spiritual.
And preachers will preach vanity, but they certainly wouldn't admit to it.
If you ask the average preacher this morning before he takes the pulpit, or in some cases
she or in some cases we don't know, are you going to preach vanity today?
Well, I doubt you could get any of them to say, "I certainly am."
They'd say, "Oh no, we're giving the people what they want or what they feel like they
need."
Well, Israel followed vanity and they paid a heavy price for it and God helped this church
never to do that and we'll only do it by staying true to His word, not by exalting
ourselves, not by looking down our nose at others, but by humbly submitting
ourselves to the study of His word and realizing that's all we need and that's
what we need. Now in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the Apostle Paul was writing
to the church about the subject of the resurrection of the dead and the hope that we have because
of it.
And he presented a hypothetical situation in verses 13 through 19, and I'd like to read
that to you.
He said, "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen?
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain?
And your faith is also vain.
Yea and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God, that He
raised up Christ, whom He raised not up."
Now see, this is a hypothetical situation.
If so be that the dead rise not, for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain, ye are yet in your sins.
Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
might say our life is in vain. And there are at least two things we might learn
from that passage. One, vain preaching leads to vain faith. Vain preaching
leads to vain faith. And two, vain faith leads to condemnation. Vain faith leads
to condemnation. If a person believes in something or in someone that cannot save,
specifically that cannot save him from his sins, then his belief, his faith in
that thing or in that person is vain. And so is the person or the thing in which
he believes. So if a preacher gets up here and uses this precious time that he
has in the pulpit and he preaches something that cannot save a person from
their sins, then his preaching is vanity. He's preaching vain. Everything we
preach and everything we believe as Christians must be true. That doesn't
mean that everything we believe is true, but it must be. In other words, you don't
need to believe anything that's not true. And how will you know? The test of truth
is whether it's what the Bible says. Now there are other things that are true
outside the Bible. There are things that are true. We know they are true by
experience. We know that every time we touch our finger to a hot stove it's
going to burn our skin and the Bible doesn't tell us that it will, but it's
true. However, there are other things that we're told by scientists, by
philosophers, by religious professors and so forth, or things that are called old
wives' tales, guess what their old husband's tales to, their thing men say, that aren't so.
And in those situations, if we can't track them down in the Bible, then we may well have doubts
about whether they're true. But whatever we track down in the Bible, whatever we read, we already
know is true, and when we believe in those things, our faith is not in vain, even though
the world will try to tell you it is.
They'll say, "Oh, you believe in a bunch of fairy tales."
Listen, Mr. Unbeliever, these so-called fairy tales are actually contained, written down
in many of the history books that you say are true.
that we need that to validate our faith, but it sure doesn't hurt for people to say, "Hey,
there's a writing over here.
There's a historical writing," and it says the same thing as the Bible does about what
happened back in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah and so forth.
Well, hallelujah for that.
But we don't believe about Sodom and Gomorrah because of what some historian wrote.
We believe it because that's what the Bible declares.
And in the matter of salvation, the truth is what the Bible says about Jesus.
It's very narrow, isn't it?
It excludes all other things that are said about how to be accepted by God.
And you know Paul talked about what would be vain preaching if they testified of God
who didn't raise the dead, and if they testified that the dead can be raised back to life and
it weren't true, there would be vain preaching.
Well did you know there are people who preach about Jesus?
They use the name of Jesus and they are also preaching vanity.
The Jesus who is preached in many religions is just a good man to that religion.
They'll admit that.
The Hindus will accept Jesus and put Him right up next to their other idols, their other
300 gods, or however many they have.
They must not be very powerful if they need that much help to make this world run.
But the Bible says there's only one God, so even though a Hindu may say, "Oh, we love
your Jesus. We accept your Jesus. Even Gandhi said that he loved our Christ, it
was our Christians who were the problem. But Gandhi and any other who believed
like he did would say there's more than one way, and that's vanity. The Muslim
Quran says Jesus was righteous. They say that He was a prophet. They said He was a humble
servant but they denied that He was God in the flesh. But the Bible says Jesus is the
express image of God and that in Him, in Jesus, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
There's not anything missing from Jesus, from the person of Jesus Christ.
The unbelieving Jews in Jesus' day could not convict Him of sin.
He said, "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?"
That means to convict.
They couldn't convince Him of sin or convict Him of sin.
In other words, they had to agree that these things He did were righteous.
the healing he did, but they would not believe he was God.
So their belief about Jesus being a good man
and being righteous in his acts was in vain
because they denied he was God.
And most people, most people on this earth,
regardless of their religious affiliation
or their lack thereof,
would acknowledge that Jesus was a good man.
And they would acknowledge that he set a worthy example for others to follow
in the way that he loved everyone.
But those people have hope in him only in this life.
If he is nothing more than their example
than their role model,
but he's not their savior, then they have no hope in him
after this life is done.
They don't trust Him to resurrect them from the dead, only to be an earthly example.
They don't believe He's God the Son.
They don't believe He rose again from the dead and gave eternal life to as many as put
their faith in Him.
So as Paul told the Corinthians, "Those people are of all men most miserable, and their faith
is in vain."
Now look back in our text in verse 15, 2 Kings 17 verse 15 if you just joined us on the internet.
It says this about the children of Israel in the middle of the verse, "And they followed
vanity which we looked at and now and became vain."
When you follow vanity, then you act vainly.
Everything you do is without a divine purpose.
It's self-serving.
It's earthy, just like the man Esau who swapped his birthright for a bowl of pottage that
his brother Jacob made him.
These are people, these who become vain as the children of Israel and Samaria.
These people who gain much wealth and power and influence and standing in the community
only to covet more and more and more have become vain.
They followed vanity and now they have become vain.
They accepted vanity.
They followed vanity.
They became vain.
In Ecclesiastes chapter 12, now if you want to see the word vanity used over and over
in the Bible, read the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes is to everyone, but specifically I believe to the person who is prideful, to
that one who thinks, "Man, I've got it made.
I've got my health.
I've got my wealth.
I am powerful, well-known, influential, people love me.
That's who that book is for, it's for everyone.
But to the one who doesn't realize how vain his life is,
Solomon said all his vanity.
And at the end of Ecclesiastes in chapter 12, verse 13,
he sums it up this way.
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
"Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man."
He didn't mention anything in there about riches and power and wealth and
all the wives and the concubines he had, his trophies.
He said, "Fear God and do his commandments."
That crosses all economic classes, racial barriers, gender. It crosses everything.
It's the whole duty of man, all mankind, to fear God and to keep His commandments.
So the whole duty of man is not to get rich, it's not to be strong and powerful and famous.
You mean it's not to see who has the most expensive purse, or who's the toughest fighter,
or who's the most intelligent scholar?
No, it's to fear God and to keep his commandments.
Yes, God blessed Abraham with great riches.
So don't walk away thinking,
well, I better get rid of some of my money.
I'm in trouble with God.
No, you're not.
He gave Abraham great riches.
And you read about that in several places
in the Old Testament, how God blessed Abraham.
But Abraham did not trust in those riches to be accepted by God.
And he knew that doing so would be following vanity and becoming vain,
just like the unbelieving children of Israel.
Galatians chapter 3 verses 6 through 7
give us a great insight into what it was that motivated Abraham.
Abraham, the one whom God blessed with great riches.
Abraham is, we get a good view of what was in his heart.
In Galatians chapter three, verses six through seven,
and yes, I know he'd been dead
for several thousand years by then.
It said, "Even as Abraham believed God,
"and it was accounted to him for righteousness,
"know ye therefore that they which are of faith,
the same or the children of Abraham.
And that means spiritually speaking,
if you study that passage out.
Now I want you to listen to how Abraham,
with his own voice,
testified years after he was dead.
This is a wonderful passage.
And you find it in Matthew chapter 16.
And you've probably been in church long enough
to remember what was in that passage and that was a rich man who fared sumptuously and he
was king of the hill when he was alive and then a poor beggar named Lazarus.
The dogs licked his sores and he was a beggar.
He was not rich by any means, at least not in the eyes of this world.
And that man Lazarus, that beggar, died and went to be with the Lord.
In fact, that passage tells us he was an Abraham's bosom.
And the rich man died and went to hell.
Well, that's pretty clear cut, isn't it?
Didn't say anything about either one of them going to purgatory because there's no such
thing except in the minds of the Catholics.
But I'm going to pick up in verse 23, so if you want to write Matthew 16, 23 in your notes.
It says this about the rich man, "And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom."
Now get this, one rich man who's in hell lifted up his eyes and looked at another rich man,
Abraham, who was in the presence of the Lord.
Isn't that great?
So this was a rich man who went to hell. Now was he in hell because he was rich?
No, he wasn't. Abraham was rich. Solomon was rich.
And so was his father David. Riches didn't condemn anyone to hell.
Trusting in uncertain riches and not trusting in
the Lord Jesus Christ is what sent them to hell.
And in Matthew 16,
I'm still there. I'm going to read verses 24 through 25.
"And it said this about this rich man, and he cried and said,
'Father Abraham, have mercy on me,
and send Lazarus,'" notice he didn't say, "Lend me some money," did he?
He said, "and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool
my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame."
"But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receiveth thy good things,
and likewise Lazarus evil things.
But now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.'
Those good things the rich man received were the vain things after which he followed."
Both the rich man and Abraham received good things.
Both of them did.
But one of them followed good things, and one of them did not.
And listen to what this rich man realizes.
Although it's too late for him, he begged Abraham, another rich man who didn't trust
in uncertain riches.
He begged Abraham to send Lazarus the beggar who never had riches and never trusted in
riches.
From the dead, he said, "Send him from the dead to tell my family about this awful place
I'm in."
I don't want him to come here.
And in verses 29 through 31, Abraham answers this man.
It says, "Abraham saith unto him, they," that's this rich man's family still living,
"they have Moses and the prophets."
Now what he meant by that wasn't that Moses was still alive walking around because Moses
died before the children of Israel went into the Promised Land.
When he says they have Moses, what he's saying is they have the writings of Moses.
They don't have the prophets in person.
Isaiah and Jeremiah and Haggai and Hosea about whom we are reading, all of them have been
dead for years and years, but they have their writings.
So when he said they have Moses and the prophets, what he's telling them is they have all the
first five books of the Old Testament.
They have the Psalms, the parts of the Psalms that Moses wrote.
They have all that the prophets wrote.
Let them hear them.
And he said, now this is, imagine this, you've got a man who's in heaven.
He's in the presence of the Lord.
This is Abraham.
And this rich man is in hell and he is in no position to bargain with anyone.
What he needs to do is listen, doesn't he?
And he says, when Abraham says, "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them."
This rich man doesn't say, "Oh, please make sure they hear them.
Please make sure they hear them."
He said, "No."
He's arguing with Abraham, "Who's in hell and who's in heaven right now?"
And the one in hell is the rich one in hell still has his pride intact, still believes
in vain things.
He said, "Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent."
Now let me, before I read the rest of that, let me ask you this.
Did ever Jesus say, did ever the Old Testament say that one will rise from the dead and go
to them and that's when they'll begin to believe him?
No.
Jesus did rise from the dead.
The disciples did encounter him on the road to Emmaus.
He was seen in the upper room, but these were among people who had already believed on him.
In fact, they believed what the Old Testament prophet said about this virgin who would bring
forth a son and they should call his name Emmanuel, meaning God with us, and that he
would die for the sins of the world and would be buried in and be resurrected again.
They had already believed that.
And so this rich man comes up with his own religion again.
He followed vanity while he lived and now he's following vanity in hell.
And he said send somebody from the dead.
They'll repent on his word.
And Abraham said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they
be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
I mean after all, these same unbelievers such as this rich man had Jesus walking physically
on the earth in their presence.
They had God in the flesh.
What more could you have in front of you than God in the flesh to make you believe?
And yet most people in that day still did not believe.
They crucified him.
rich man who followed vanity and riches confessed one thing and that it was
necessary for his family to repent. That's what he confessed. Even though he
didn't believe they would repent at the hearing of Moses and the prophets, he
still agreed with God about that one thing and that was his family, his
his unbelieving family on this earth needed to repent.
While he lived, I'm sure this rich man and his friends
couldn't talk enough about the stock market.
Now I'm not much of an economic expert
and conversations with me about the stock market
won't last very long unless you know a whole lot more
than I do and you probably do.
And that's not all I talk about.
Go to something else after that and go to something else.
I'd rather talk about this right here in front of me, the Bible.
But I imagine those, that rich man and his friends couldn't get enough of the price of
gold and how much wealth they had.
Well, I've got two of these cars.
Well, I've got four of them.
As far as I know, you can only drive one at a time.
And I know people in my county, and they've got 15 cars in a great big old barn, and they're
scared to death somebody's going to touch one of those cars and scratch it.
And they don't want to take it out and drive it anywhere.
Now I don't want anybody scratching my pickup, but that's what I drive.
Well it can get excessive, can it?
And that's probably, they've talked about their chariots and their horses back then,
carriages, but in the torment of hell, this rich man here never tried to defend
his riches, did he? He never did bring them up. He has been justly condemned for
his unbelief, not for his riches. And both he and Abraham agree that this rich
man's family needs to repent. But the rich man wants them to hear a new
revelation from somebody who comes from the dead, Lazarus. And Abraham wants them
just to believe the revelation that's already been given to them through
Moses and the prophets. Speaking of following vanity, we also see that God
blessed Solomon, not only with riches, but with unrivaled wisdom. We're getting a
good dose of that on Wednesday nights, aren't we? And while Solomon followed that
wisdom, that is the wisdom of God, he did not follow vanity at that time. But as we
sadly read in his life story that we've studied already, he began to try to
to please the many wives and concubines that he had. If they wanted an idol or a
grove or an altar built, why he'd just have it built for him instead of saying
no. Now if he just said no to the second woman who wanted him, he'd have been in a
lot better shape. He didn't realize, Brother Billy, the limit on crappie is 25
in your possession at one time. You better not have more net on your stringer,
but I'm gonna tell you what the limit on wives is one.
That's all you need, that's all you can handle.
He had, between the wives and concubines,
he had a thousand women.
That's 999 too many, and some days it might have been a thousand too many.
But listen to what 1 Kings 11 verse 4 says.
This was so sad when we read it, it's sad to read it again.
1 Kings 11 verse 4, "For it came to pass when Solomon was old,
that his wives turned away his heart after other gods.
And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father."
Listen, men, whether you're here or listening on the internet, stop making it a priority
to please your wife.
Boy, I'd get all kind of stuff thrown at me.
You might be holding back even now.
Some would say that's misogynistic.
Well, I'm not as concerned about what it sounds like to the world as I am whether it's biblical.
should be at the top of your very short list is pleasing God. If what pleases God
doesn't please your wife, then your wife needs to repent. And if what you do
pleases your wife rather than pleasing God, then you need to repent. A godly wife,
I remember Brother Rolloff many years ago talking about one of the hallmarks of a godly wife
and I guess he knew a little bit of information about some of the men and women in this church where he was preaching and
Knew that some of those men had been hen-packed
when it came to well to just about anything but to do and work for the Lord and
He said you women
Who complain and gripe about your husband going out and serving the Lord and going witnessing?
He said you'd do a whole lot better if you'd pray for him while he's gone instead of griping at him when he leaves
And I said amen to that right through the radio and I bet he could have heard me if he'd have been alive at
The time he was that I was listening to it
But you know a godly wife will pray for her godly husband to please God first
That'll be your prayer as a godly wife. You'll say, "Lord, help my husband to please you first."
And such a woman will be satisfied because her husband will then love her as Christ loved the church.
Now, a man has more than one way he may think about expressing his love to his wife.
One of them comes from his head or someone else's head, or some book that a psychologist wrote about,
Here's how you ought to treat your wife.
And then another one comes from the Bible.
And can you imagine married women and you young ladies
who aren't married yet, what it would be like,
if you know the character of God, what it would be like
if your husband loved you the same way Christ loved
the church and gave himself for it.
You can't be loved any more than that.
There's not a better way to do it than that.
And so by praying that your husband,
we haven't left our topic yet,
we're talking about following vanity.
By praying for your husband,
that he would first please God,
you're actually praying that he would love you
as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.
You're praying that he would love you like God loves you.
And that's the highest kind of love there is.
Think about that, and that's not vanity, that's virtuous.
God gave Samson supernatural strength, but he forfeited it when he followed vanity, didn't
he?
He gave it up for 1,100 pieces of silver.
That wicked harlot from Giza named Delilah agreed with the Philistines, who were the
enemies of the Jews, agreed with the Philistines to find out the secrets of
Samson's strength. And Samson finally gave in. You know why? Because he wanted
to please his wife or his woman more than he wanted to please God. Listen to
Samson's confession to Delilah about where he got his strength. She finally
broke him down. In Judges 16 and verse 17, Judges 16 verse 17, "that he told her all
his heart and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head, for I
have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb. If I be shaven, then my
strength will go from me and I shall become weak and be like any other man."
There was absolutely no good reason for Samson to tell Delilah that, none at all.
God had given him not only strength, sometimes we think of Samson as the
strong one and he was, but he was also wise. You may remember the riddle he put
forth the riddles he put forth for people to solve and you look at those riddles and
say what does that mean?
Yeah he was pretty sharp and he also was given great authority to rule over Israel.
I believe 20 years is how long he ruled over Israel.
But for the vanity of pleasing this woman over God, Samson lost his strength, his throne,
his sight, his dignity, and then finally his life.
And as Solomon wrote at the end of Ecclesiastes, the whole duty of Samson, the whole duty of
Solomon and of David and of you and of me
is
to fear God and to keep His commandments.
It's not
by throwing your...
well we'll get to that in just a minute.
If you don't
do what it was that Solomon said at the end of Ecclesiastes, "Fear God and keep
His commandments."
Guess what your life is?
It's vain.
you have lived a life in vanity.
And you may say,
"Man, Brother Andy, that describes most,
"maybe even all of my life."
It doesn't have to stay that way.
You're still breathing air.
You're still listening to God's word being taught.
If repenting today and living the rest of your life
in fear of the Lord, observing His commandments,
and of course we know the first and great commandment
is to love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength,
You can't do that without loving his son Jesus.
You can't love his son without believing
that he died for your sins.
That's where the starting place is for you.
And all of those other things will come after it
as God's spirit dwells and works in you.
We could go on with examples of gifts,
talents that God gave men,
some of which were used to honor God and some of which were used in vanity.
I could tell you about Christian singers.
And I say that, I don't know if they're Christians or not,
but they said they were, who went from singing for the Lord to singing for the devil.
And I mean it just like happened with a drop of a hat and I imagine money had a lot to do with it.
And it's sad because those people were given a talent
and they were given an audience
and they were allowed to testify of the Lord's goodness
through their songs.
And some of them sought fame and fortune
rather than just trusting God to meet their needs
as they continued to serve him.
Rather than saying, no, I'm not singing that,
that is not honor, God, it disgraces him.
and given up that fat paycheck, some of them went that way.
So what is the answer when it comes to avoiding following vanity?
It's not by throwing your money away so you don't have riches.
It's not to quit learning so you don't become wise.
It's not by being a coward in order
to keep from being courageous.
and it's not by becoming weak so you don't have strength.
No, riches and courage and wisdom, strength, those are all gifts from God.
And when those gifts are used for God as He works through you to obey His commandments,
then your life is not in vain.
You won't accept vanity.
you'll not follow vanity
and you won't become vain. That'd be the worst thing that could be said at my
funeral is if somebody says
list all these things that old Andy's done here on this earth
and not anything in there about
that he was a servant of the Lord
that's really all that needs to be in there anyway. All that other stuff you
know what it is?
It's vanity.
How many years I worked here and what I did and the
awards I got in the positions I held, all that's vanity.
All that really matters in the sight of the Lord is what did I do for Him?
What did He do through me?
That's what matters and that's not vain.
Now what specifically might we expect out of these children of Israel who followed vanity?
Who became vain?
Well let's learn our answer from Romans chapter one.
Write down Romans chapter 1, verses 21 through 25.
21 through 25.
Speaking about these vain people, Paul wrote,
because that when they knew God,
they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful,
listen to this, but became vain in their imaginations.
And their foolish heart was darkened,
professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools
and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like
to corruptible man.
That's exactly what
Samaria was doing.
They went to Assyria,
they loved the idols, they loved the great altar.
They changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image like it to
corruptible man
and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.
Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lusts of their own hearts
to dishonor their own bodies between themselves
who changed the truth of God into a lie
and worshiped and served the creature
more than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.
The people who had become vain did not glorify God.
They were not thankful to God when they knew Him.
And the word "but" in that verse that I just read
tells us that their rejection of God
was their acceptance of vanity.
That's how that works.
You reject God, you don't go to the neutral corner.
You reject God, you accept vanity.
The so-called "whys" are now fools.
They had wisdom and in the eyes of man they were wise,
but in the eyes of God they were foolish.
And they should be in our eyes too.
Don't ever get too impressed with somebody.
You'll find yourself following them more than you should.
You'll find yourself believing things they say
because you have believed something they said before.
Be very careful about idolizing people.
I'll raise your hand if you've ever done this, but I've never been an autograph seeker of
any kind.
I don't care who's signing the autographs.
I don't disdain the people, but I don't need for somebody to write in my book their autographs
so I can go around and say, "Oh, look, I got so-and-so this great athlete's autograph
or this famous person.
Look, I have his autograph framed up.
I don't have that."
You know the most precious autographs I have and any of the books I have are the ones that
my mom and dad got me when I was a little boy.
Or the hymnal that my granny gave me before she passed away.
It was a Baptist hymnal.
I said, "Granny, I want one of those old Baptist hymnals for birthday or Christmas or whatever
it was."
And she gave me one and signed it.
Or the things my wife signs are the books, Brother Fulton.
I haven't asked him to autograph that.
Those are precious autographs to me.
Those are people who I love.
But you know you get to following people because of who they are and what they've done.
You're following vanity.
And so the people that Paul wrote about, just like Israel, God said, "All right, you want
to follow vanity?
You want to become vain?
I'm going to give you over to your uncleanness.
So I'm going to show you what the end of that is, what that looks like.
And back in our text, I'll read this verse, or this part of the verse, and then we'll
close back in verse 15.
It says, "And became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them."
And that's where we will pick up next week as we continue.
We're still in verse 15.
Let's pray.
Father, thank You for the depth of Your Word.
Thank You for how You reveal Your truth to us and the more we read a passage, the more
we study a truth, the more we learn, such that we sometimes have a hard time going to
the next verse.
But Lord, we're not in any hurry and we thank You for guiding us into all truth, for teaching
us and now I pray You'd help us to remember it and to meditate upon it and apply it in
our daily lives. In Jesus' name, Amen.
