Episode Transcript
2 Kings chapter 17 and verse 16 was our stopping point last week.
So today it will be our starting point.
Some of you who tune in on Facebook, as well as some of you who have recently begun attending our church or visiting our church,
may wonder why Brother Fulton and I teach verse by verse.
And we don't want to assume that you already know why. Some of you do.
There was a time when I taught in a topical style that is I would take a Bible topic like anger and teach on it
and find as many verses as I could in the Bible that spoke about anger.
And then when I was done with it, I'd go to the next topic.
Well the problem was I'd run out of topics after a while because there are only so many of them on which you can teach.
And I never did justice to any of those topics because I moved on too quickly.
And what happens to the person who is in the Sunday school class who is under topical teaching
is that they get a mishmash of all these different scriptures
and they often are unable to put the Bible together like we do in here.
You say, well how does this...how do I learn about this particular thing when this particular thing over here seems to say something else?
And that's what happens when you don't do verse by verse teaching.
I ran out of topics. I ran out of catchy sermon titles.
I'm not as gifted as Brother Fulton. He can put a title on a message and do it every week and I'm impressed by that.
But the greater problem that I faced teaching topically was that I taught things on occasion that were doctrinally unsound.
I didn't mean to. But that's what happened.
And much of that teaching that I used to do was a copycat version of what I would hear other pastors teach on the topic.
And I didn't understand it and I thought, well brother, so and so, he's been a pastor a long time.
I'll just say what I've heard him say before and he's got to be right about it.
And that just made it worse. Or I'd read their books or their articles to try to get victory over something that was confusing to me.
But I don't know when the day was but God led me to start teaching verse by verse.
It just seemed like a much more logical thing to do. To teach an entire chapter of the Bible from chapter 1 verse 1 until I was done with it.
And then to do it again on the next book. And to do that until I was finished and to not skip any verses.
I wasn't very good at it. And I found that it required a lot more study than I was used to.
Just being honest with you here, I figured the church I was in at the time I knew more about the Bible than most of them, not all of them.
And I got comfortable with that. That's not a good place to be as a teacher or pastor.
But once I started teaching verse by verse, I found that many churchgoers weren't nearly as excited about it as they were about the topical messages that had a bunch of one-liners and a bunch of hooting and hollering.
Alliterated points, catchy sayings. And several things began to happen as a result of my adopting verse by verse teaching.
And I bet you Brother Filton can testify it was the same way with him. Because he would also teach topically way back in the day.
And boy, he and I have learned that verse by verse teaching is the way to go.
But several things began happening as a result of that verse by verse teaching.
One, I began to really learn the Bible like I'd never learned it before.
I was both ashamed and humble at the same time. I was ashamed at how much time I had wasted.
And I was humbled when I realized how much of the Bible I did not know. And I'm still humbled today about that very thing.
But I know more than I did back then.
Two, I began to question many of the things that I had been taught.
Because I was reading passages that were very rarely, if ever taught on, when I began verse by verse teaching.
Three, I found that most people who go to church aren't really that interested in learning and discussing God's Word.
They're not. I'm glad the ones here are. And if you're not, you won't stay long.
We've had people come and go over the years, the 10 or so years I've been here, who weren't really interested in learning the Bible.
They had a lot of other expectations about church and the leadership and activities here.
And it's sad. It's always been sad. At first I was shocked. I'm not anymore. But at first I was shocked.
I had a precious brother in Christ at the church I went to about 25 years ago.
And he was an oddball for that church. He wanted to talk about God's Word. And that's about all he wanted to talk about.
And I found a yoke fella right there. I found somebody I could relate to. I thought, surely, I'm not the only one in this little church,
the one that I used to attend, who wants to talk about the Bible before church and after church.
Most folks wanted to talk about the Cowboys and what time they start and all of that.
Listen, if you want to deflate my balloon after I teach, come up and ask me something silly like that.
Come up with a sincere look on your face like you're about to fellowship with me over something you learned from the teaching today and say,
Brother Andy, you going to get home in time for the Cowboys?
I'll make sure I don't just because you just said that.
But you know, that brother, that oddball, I said he was an oddball and I mean that in a good way.
He rarely engaged in discussions about anything but the Bible.
He didn't talk much about worldly affairs.
And for I felt a little bit like an oddball myself among my fellow teachers and pastors, not just among the churchgoers,
because only a few of them ever taught verse by verse.
But when I began to fellowship with Brother Fulton, and I've told you all before, he's been my pastor long before he was ever my pastor,
I've entered into the yoke of ministry with him years ago and I found in him another teacher who was not satisfied with dancing around in the Bible,
skipping the hard stuff or the controversial parts, but one who wanted to know everything he could about God's word,
even if it meant completely starting over on certain doctrines he had held precious.
And you may notice that Brother Fulton and I almost always visit right after he's through preaching.
I'm telling you this, we're not talking about the football games that were played. We're not talking about fishing.
We're not talking about what's for lunch. When we meet up here, we are fellowshiping about something in the message that stirred our hearts.
And so I hope if you're new to this verse by verse style of teaching that you will patiently continue with us,
keep coming or keep tuning in if you're not able to be here, and I promise you, you will learn the Bible better than you ever have and it will be rewarding to you.
Now to our text. If you've just tuned in, we're in 2 Kings 17 verse 16,
and I'll read the verse, and they left all the commandments of the Lord their God and made them molten images, even two calves,
and made a grove and worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served Baal. Would it surprise you if I told you we're not going to get out of verse 16 today?
No, it wouldn't, would it? You've been with me long enough? There's a gold mine in here.
In fact, there's a gold mine in every verse, even if I don't see it. It said, and made them molten images.
Now we're talking about the children of Israel, specifically the ones in Samaria, but it dealt with the entire nation of Israel.
It says, and made them molten images. For them to make molten images, the children of Israel, as we discussed last week, had to leave God's commandments.
They left them. They departed from them. They forsook them. And you can go back and listen to that message on Facebook if you like to catch yourself up.
Listen to Exodus chapter 20, verse 4, and put the little letter A. I don't remember if I had you do that last week.
The little letter A means that we're not reading the whole verse, just the first part of it.
Where God tells the children of Israel, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Now the words molten image in our text are from the Hebrew word that means a pouring, which is what you would do with hot metal to pour it into a mold.
So when you melt a metal or an alloy, generally it takes a liquid form. I know there's some gases and things that probably come off of it.
But it's poured into a mold and cooled down, and at a certain temperature it begins to harden.
And so when the mold is pulled away, the thing you pour in there, in this case the metal, takes on the form of that mold.
That's how it cools.
And Brother Doug asked me a great question after Sunday school last week. Guess what it wasn't?
Yeah, right. No. He came marching up here, and I'm going to tell you all something.
If Brother Doug ever steps on every step coming up here, I'm taking him to the hospital because something's wrong with him.
I've never seen him touch that middle step. He goes from the floor right up here in one bound, and it's time for scripture memory, so you better be ready.
Well he came up and asked me if the word graven and the word molten were the same.
And so I gave him the best answer I could, but you know what that makes the Bible teacher do?
It makes us go study. And that's exactly what I did. I didn't want to just leave him with what I told him.
I wanted to answer that question. Thank you, Brother, because others may have had the same question.
The word graven, which came from the Exodus chapter 20, verse 4 text, the word graven means carved.
So you might think of a piece of carved wood like a totem pole.
But in Judges chapter 17, there's a story told about a man named Micah who had returned some silver, some shekels of silver, to his mother.
And I'm not going to teach you that whole story. I want just to go to verse 4 in that chapter,
so we can learn a little bit about the use of the word molten and the word graven and see that they're not far apart at all.
So write down Judges 17, verse 4 if you're taking notes, otherwise you can just listen.
It said, yet he restored the money unto his mother, and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to the founder.
That doesn't mean the one who discovered silver. That means the one who melts it and does those things with it.
Who made thereof a graven image and a molten image, and they were in the house of Micah.
So both the graven image and the molten image in that text began with melted silver.
They were poured, or the silver was poured into the mold. And at least one of the images here, maybe both,
but at least one of the images was carved afterward.
So although the word graven and the word molten are different Hebrew words, they can both be used to describe images made of melted metal.
So a carved or a graven image doesn't have to be a piece of wood, although it certainly could be.
I hope that helps you a little bit, and that simply comes from looking at the original language.
I don't read Hebrew, but I read English fairly well, and seeing what the translation of the original language was into the English language used in the 17th century.
And now, I know we've covered the topic of images before, not the ones you form in your mind,
but the molten or the graven images, idols, those things that were used as idols.
But I'm going to explain it from another angle, because many people still serve these images.
When a molten or graven image is worshipped, it's being worshipped by something or someone who is superior to the image.
Now just let that sink in. Think about it from a logical point of view.
And that ought to show you how silly and foolish it is to worship something you made.
These molten and graven images were made by mankind.
Now the worshippers of the molten images don't want the image to be upset with them,
so they offer sacrifices to it, sometimes human sacrifices.
They want the image to bless them, so they bring the image food and water, which seems like such a waste to me.
And the worshippers return to find the image and the food and the water, either in a decaying state or gone because the animals ate it.
And what these unbelievers don't understand is that they are actually sovereign over the images they've made.
They're higher than the images they have made.
Now there are some intelligent people with high degrees of education who are deceived
and who don't realize that they are sovereign over these images that they've made.
In fact, even the mold into which the image is poured is superior to the image itself.
What happens if you don't have a mold and you just pour that hot metal on the ground?
Well it just runs everywhere and it dries in some form or fashion, a flat place on the ground
with an irregular shape.
So without the mold, the image wouldn't be an image, would it?
So the image is actually taken from the mold and the mold is formed by the man.
The molten image is often carved or graven by the man.
So we're just going to let those two run together because the purpose,
once we understand the difference between molten and graven and that they are just used to describe
certain stages of the image that are made, the image is what our main subject is here.
What are these Israelites doing with the images?
Now let's compare what I just said about the man making the mold and the mold making the image.
Let's compare that to what we see in the creation of man in Genesis chapter 1.
And I'm going to read from verses 26 through 27.
And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness,
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created him.
Now what do you notice in that verse?
When God, and just in case you're not familiar with the use of the term our,
let us make man in our image, and just give you a real basic understanding of it.
A lot of our people know about it because they've gone through the creation of Christ class.
But if you're unfamiliar, if you say, wait a minute, why did God say let us make man in our image?
God is one God in three persons.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Not three gods, not three parts of God, like one-third God, one-third God, one-third God.
Jesus was fully God. He was the express image of God.
The Bible says in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead, that's what we call the Trinity, bodily.
So that's the reason for the use of the our.
In fact, the words there for God, their different names given to God,
or by which God is called in the Hebrew language, Elohim would be one of those.
And so just a very basic, very quick hit on that.
And I encourage you if you've not gone through the Genesis to Jesus class,
you pull it up on our Facebook page, it's free.
And all you need to do is dedicate time.
It's one lesson builds upon the other, builds upon the other.
It doesn't skip around, and it will lead you to a greater understanding of the Bible, beginning with the creation.
But now let's look at or write down Genesis chapter 2, verses 21 through 22.
So we've read that God created man.
Now Genesis 2, verses 21 through 22 says,
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.
That's the man he made.
And he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man.
So God made man in his image, and he took the woman from man.
Now the children of Israel made a mold in their image,
and they took a molten image out of that mold.
Rather than the molten image being under the authority of the mold,
and the mold being under the authority of the man who made it,
Israel reversed all that.
The children of Israel handed that authority,
the authority they had over the mold and the image,
they handed that authority to the thing that was taken from the mold.
In fact, the mediator between the man and the image was the mold.
Now the Bible tells us there is one God,
and there is one mediator between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus. That's it.
So Israel's got this completely backward, and what this is,
this does not mean that Israel was confused.
They were rebellious. They absolutely rejected from the creation,
the lines of authority God established over his creation,
and the authority they had. Remember there in the Genesis text I read you,
let me go back and just read it again,
where in chapter 1 verses 26 through 27, he said,
and let them, that is the man, have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth.
Now what comes out of the earth? The metals and the alloys, and all the things
used to make molds, and in fact everything that we use to build anything
comes from the earth. God put it there. And God gave man dominion over that.
And what did man do? He said, no, I want to give that dominion to the thing
that I had dominion over before.
That's a rejection of God's plan and God's way.
Now that dominion included all the metals and the alloys from which
man would make all sorts of things, and that dominion also included
the woman whom God would soon take from Adam's sight.
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 23 says, for the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body.
So once again there is a clear line of authority,
a chain of command as I'll refer to it in a few moments,
that Christ is the head of the church, and in the church there are husbands and
wives, of course there are children, but the husband is the head of the wife,
and they are over their children, and that's the way it's supposed to be if
it's scriptural. Now what man has done, and men and women
have both joined in on this by the way, is to say, whoa, whoa, hang on a minute,
and we're good with Jesus being over the church, but
we feel like in some cases that the woman should run the household over the
man, and sometimes the children's needs should be
put first, man they get it all messed up, and that's
why we're in the shape we're in today, is a rejection of the way God laid it out
for us, and if there's an abuse at any stage
along the way it messes it up too, so Christ who
there will be no abuse with him because he is perfect,
Christ perfectly governs his church, he gives us his word and tells us
what to do, we don't have to try to guess what we're supposed to do when we come
to church, because we know that preaching God's word
is scriptural, he said preach the word be instant, in season, out of season, or
approve, or if beuke, absorb, with all long suffering and doctrine, that's what
we're doing today, and we are taught to pray, so we pray,
we are taught to sing, so we sing, we're not taught to have all these other
things going on around here that sometimes churches add at first, and
then those things take the place of the important stuff, so Jesus Christ
over his church is the perfect head, the perfect governor, the problem
comes when sinful man is not the perfect head or governor
over his wife, and there are too many cases of abuse over the
centuries, over the millennia, however when things are done right, Christ
over his church, the husband, the head of the wife,
the parents over the children, the children in subjection to the parents
authority, the wife gladly following her husband,
who is gladly following Christ, it works perfectly.
Sin entered into the world and messed all of that up,
and so we have what we have here in the case of the children of Israel,
totally upsetting the righteous chain of command that God
had put in place.
What happened when Adam sinned in the garden? He took the authority that God
gave him and he gave it to the one who was taken
from his side. He gave it to the one over whom God
had made him the head, and I know that authority became
Satan's as well, that both Adam and Eve had listened
to Satan's authority because, and we'll talk about that, but he was
the one who through that serpent in the garden
influenced both Adam and Eve. He influenced Adam to yield his authority
to his wife, and he led Eve to sin, to ignore what
she knew God's revealed will was.
But there's yet another truth contained in this scene.
I'm going to move down to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 12, and yes we are learning
about molten engraving images right here.
Genesis chapter 3 verse 12. Now this was after
Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, and it says in Genesis 3.12,
now he's talking to God, God's interrogating
Adam, Eve, and the serpent. And the man said, the woman, I can just see
his finger pointing at her, but the woman whom thou gave us to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
Adam let Eve make a decision for him about whether he would obey God's
commandments.
And had he maintained the authority that God gave him,
number one, he would have rejected Eve's offer, he just said,
no, God said not to eat of this fruit, I'm not eating of it,
and don't you do it either. Adam would have stood in the gap,
but he didn't. He was hearkening to the voice of his wife.
He gave his authority to her, and she told him what to do.
Rather than exercising his authority over her,
by quoting back God's Word to her and saying,
woman, this is what God said, this is what we're going to do.
Did you catch that? I'm going to read this again.
In fact, this is found in Genesis 3.17. I want you to listen for the word voice.
Genesis 3.17, listen to what God said to Adam.
And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,
and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying,
thou shalt not eat of it. Curse it is the ground for thy sake.
In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days
of thy life. Adam hearkening to the voice of his wife
was him giving her the authority to tell him what to do.
Did you catch that? Adam hearkened to her voice.
He hearkened to her voice. There was some sort of conversation that took place
between those two that we're not told about.
We don't know exactly what was said,
but for Eve to know not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
Adam had to have told her.
Because if you look back in Genesis chapter 2,
God gave this commandment to Adam not to eat of that tree
in verse 16 before he made Eve. In verse 22, he gave the commandment to the man.
And we know Eve knew the commandment because she quoted it back to the
serpent in chapter 3 and verse 3, and then she added a little bit to it.
Neither shall thou touch it, which is a good idea by the way.
But God said to Adam, thou shalt not eat of it.
Now if somebody picks up a piece of fruit and puts it right here, what
do you assume they're doing? They're probably going to take a bite out of it,
right? So yes, it was a good idea Eve not to touch it, but we know
she knew the commandment. And again, we don't know exactly what
words were said between Adam and Eve, but whatever she said won Adam over.
Perhaps he told her woman, God said not to eat of the tree or
will die, and maybe I believe she convinced him by saying what was said
in chapter 3 verse 6, little a, chapter 3 verse 6, little a,
chapter 3 verse 6, it said, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food
and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make
one wise.
She saw those three things in the fruit of that tree,
and there's no doubt in my mind that's how she communicated to Adam,
hey, this looks good, and it's pleasant to look at. I mean,
it's not something that tastes good that looks gross.
You know, there are some foods we eat, and if you just look at it and you didn't
know how good it tasted, you might think that looks pretty gross,
but this didn't look gross, it looked good,
and it was a tree to be desired to make one wise.
What does that also tell you? She had listened to the serpent,
and had the lines of authority been enforced that day,
Adam would have said, God is my head and I am your head. Obey me as I obey God,
and let's not eat from this tree,
but it didn't happen. To use the military or law enforcement
term, the chain of command was originally
God the creator, then man the created one, then the woman who was taken from the man.
That is very clear in God's Word, and boy, that ruffles the feathers of
most people, especially in the liberal walks of this
country and probably around the world. Do you notice Satan was not in the
picture as far as the chain of command goes here,
because sin had not yet entered into the world.
And I'm not sure that it's crystal clear when Lucifer was cast out of heaven with
his angels. A lot of opinions have been formed about
exactly when it happened, I don't know, but Satan was not in this chain of
command here. It was God, Adam, Eve, perfect,
harmony, fellowship, sin had not entered into the world.
But upon eating that forbidden fruit, as it's been called, that chain of command
went like this, the serpent, which is Satan, the woman,
the man, and then God. Now that's messed up, isn't it?
The man listened to the voice of his wife who had listened to the voice of the
serpent, and neither the man, the woman, nor the
serpent yielded to God's authority. None of them put God first.
In their hearts, God went from first to last,
just like that. See, there was a time when Lucifer had put God first in heaven,
but when he said, I will be like the Most High God,
that went away, and he was cast out of heaven when he rebelled.
So he was the first one to try to upset the chain of command,
and he influenced Adam and Eve to do the same.
And I think it's also instructive that he didn't go to Adam.
Although his words and his works were an influence on him, he went to Eve.
And now,
applying this teaching to our text about these images,
the chain of command in Israel should have been like this.
God, the men of Israel, the wives of those men,
the children of those parents, and then everything else, such as the metals and
the alloys they formed. And when the chain of command was right,
then the molten and the graven images that were made from the metals and the alloys
would be those that were pleasing to God.
Those images would not be idols, but they would be the brazen altar,
the mercy seat, the snuffers that put out the
flames, the spoons and candlesticks, and all of the furnishings and instruments
that we've studied about in the tabernacle.
They would never be worshipped, and they would never have authority over
anyone or anything.
Now look back in your text in verse 16, and you'll see after molten images,
you'll see the words, even two calves. That means the molten images were two calves.
That's what the word even means. Now the word even is italicized,
meaning it was not in the original text, but in translating from Hebrew to
English, it was necessary for us to have a proper
understanding of its use. Now what might be the significance of
the children of Israel, these wicked Israelites,
making calves, making these molten calves? This is really telling, so stay
tuned here. Write down Genesis chapter 35 verses 1
through 4, and I'll read it, Genesis chapter 35 verses 1
through 4.
We're going to put some scriptures together here.
And God said unto Jacob, Arise go up to Bethel and dwell there,
and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest
from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to
all that were with him, put away the strange gods that are
among you, and be clean and change your garments.
And let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God,
who answered me in the day of my distress,
and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the
strange gods which were in their hand, and listen to this, and all their earrings
which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which
was by Shacom. Now don't stop in your mind and say, oh
boy, brother, and he's going to preach against earrings. No, I'm not.
Not doing it. But why would Jacob's household give him
their earrings when all he had told them to do was to put away their strange gods?
All right, from that point we're going to fast forward to
Exodus chapter 3 verse 22. Exodus 3 verse 22.
And this is where God was preparing to lead the children of Israel
out of Egypt, where they had been in bondage. And he told them this,
but every woman, he's talking to the children of Israel, every woman shall
borrow of her neighbor and of her that sojourneth in her house,
jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment,
that's clothing, and you shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters,
and you shall spoil the Egyptians. In other words, you're going to take their
precious metals and their clothes from them.
These people, these Israelites who had been slaves for over 400 years,
had nothing like that in their possession. They didn't get to wear
jewelry and fancy clothes. They were in bondage.
They were poor. And now God has given them the authority, in fact the command,
to take those things from the Egyptians, including jewels of silver
and gold, among which were earrings.
As we will see when we fast forward again to Exodus 32
verses 1 through 4. Exodus 32 verses 1 through 4.
And the events in this passage take place
after the exodus from Egypt while Israel was at the foot of Mount Sinai.
And importantly, this was when Moses was in the mount
with God, receiving the law from God. And the people are at the foot of the
mount waiting with Aaron the high priest, Moses brother.
And the passage said, and when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out
of the mount, the people gathered themselves together
unto Aaron and said unto him, up, make us gods which shall go before us.
For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we want not or know not what has become of him.
And Aaron said unto them, break off the golden earrings
which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and
bring them unto me. And all the people break off the golden
earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron.
And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a
graving tool, brother Doug, after he had made the molten calf, made it a molten
calf, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt. The golden, now get this, the golden
earrings God gave to his people were to be worn,
not to be worshipped. They were to be worn, not to be worshipped.
Man calls gold and silver precious metals,
and much ado is made about them today. A lot of it, in fact. Gold and silver and
platinum are often worshipped as status symbols.
The more you have, the better you are according to those who think that way.
Rather than just ornaments that are worn and then put up in the jewelry drawer at
the end of the day and put on again the next day
to go with the clothing or the hair or the glasses or the shoes or whatever
they're supposed to match.
Marilyn Monroe was quoted as saying diamonds are a girl's best friend.
Then there's the so-called golden rule, not the one you're familiar with,
but the one that says he who has the gold makes the rules.
It's always been in the heart of sinful man to worship
precious metals and jewels. Jacob in his household
must have known it was not enough for them to just put away their strange gods.
No, for had they just put away the strange gods and kept the
earrings of gold and silver, then they would have made more strange
gods when they got to Bethel. These molten images of the calves
Israel made in our text are once again the result of taking
gold and silver, which are gifts from God. God put those
metals on this earth and making their own molten
graven images which God said you shall not make unto yourself. We are going to look at unto yourself next week.
Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful for everyone who came and for all those who
tuned in. Lord, we pray today that they've learned
from God's word that nothing said by the teacher was
distracting or confusing. As we leave here today,
Lord, we'll meditate upon the truths that we've learned and submit ourselves to
them rather than rebelling as the flesh is
want to do. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
