Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
How can churches respond to pride parades in their town? Is door-to-door evangelism really all that effective anymore? And what is the fourth watch movement? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that God's word may be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Be sure to tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Do you like the strobe light I have installed here in my studio? It's a little distracting, sure. It's not on purpose.
My light is apparently on the fritz. It's kind of blinking in here. Yeah, you know. A little odd. Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.
Somebody's trying to transmit a message to us, but neither one of us speak Morse code. Yeah, you know. That's what's going on. So anyway, we've got questions and comments we're going to be getting to today.
Let's open up the scriptures and come back to Proverbs chapter four. I'm starting here in verse 20. My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight.
Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you.
Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.
Coming back up to that verse 23 there, that was kind of a theme verse for me. I think about my college years. Proverbs 4 .23, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. I think the version that I had written on a post-it note and was kind of posted in places around my apartment, dorm, and wherever I was living then.
It was guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Oh, yeah. Okay. I remember that one. Yeah. That's the, I think that's the NIV. This is the ESV that we were reading here. Yes. So guarding your heart is actually a good thing.
You hear a lot of people say, don't be guarded. Yeah. Open yourself up. Yeah. Be willing to try new things. Yeah, follow your heart. That's it. That is a heart that doesn't have any boundaries around it, apparently.
Yeah. Just go where you want to go. Yeah. But it is good to guard or protect yourself from certain things, to have guidelines, principles, to set guardrails, and not go beyond those things, because once you step beyond that and your heart gets exposed to that, I think it'd be better to kind of provide an example here.
So, you know, sins that I got into when I was in college that I had never known before. Yeah. And now suddenly I'm experienced in that, and my mind is going toward that, where previously I wasn't ever thinking about those kinds of things.
Oh, true. Yeah. And now that I've dabbled in it, it's like I'm more tempted by it than I was before. Right. So if I had protected myself from going into those areas in the first place, then I would not be so tempted by it.
How much more easily are we tempted by sin that we've experienced and want to experience again? Yeah, that's true. So sins from your heart flow the wellsprings of life. You don't want that water to be polluted.
Right. Definitely. It's better for you to keep that clean. That's a good way of wording it. One of the things that I've liked about, you know, how we have kind of helped to protect our kids. They haven't grown up in public school.
Yeah. We've homeschooled them. Is that they are less experienced in certain sins that I was already doing by the time I was their age. Yep. Yeah. I feel that too.
I share occasionally some of my past experiences with our 16 year old and I'm just like after I get done telling my story, I'm like, I'm so glad you don't have to worry about that.
Well, be careful about that too, because I remember my dad talking about his escapades when he was in high school and he would tell it to my brothers, but then they got older and would do those things and they were like, well, dad did it.
Yeah. Yeah. So I even have to be very careful about the way that I talk about past experiences and things like that. Yeah. It was just me being ornery. Sure. Well, some of the other things that are said here, Proverbs 424, the next verse, put away from you all crooked speech and put devious talk far from you.
We know that Jesus says in Matthew chapter 12, that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Yeah. So what the heart loves is going to come out of your mouth. That's true. So verses 26 and 27, ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.
So you think about those things, set your minds on that, that everything that you do be God honoring, will be growing in the spirit, will be, as said in Galatians chapter five, walk in the way of the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
And verse 27, do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Yeah. All right. This being the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.
We have to come back to an email that we ended with last week. Yes. Did not finish answering. So we're back to that here from Chris. Let me read it again to refresh everyone's memory. Hey, Brother Gabe, I was hoping for a bit of insight from you guys.
I live in a very fast growing town in North Carolina. We are traditionally a small farming town with Baptist churches on every corner. Well, now we have a pride event scheduled at a community park coming up.
Folks tried to fight it in the council meetings to no avail. But my question is, what should the churches be doing? How can we intentionally and biblically organize against this stuff? I know standing out there with turn or burn signs isn't the way, but I can't help but feel that standing idly while the darkness just freely creeps in isn't the right way to go about it either.
Would love to hear your feedback on some possible action steps to try to implement to guard against this or at least outreach opportunities. Much appreciated and thanks so much for your ministry. Now that was from Chris.
Since reading that last week, I got another email from another Chris. Okay. And he says, Pastor Gabe, it's great to exchange emails with you. It's the town of Wake Forest, incidentally, the home of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The event is on October 5th. Pray for a lot of rain that day. If you are interested in viewing the public comments where a lot of folks from our church and others have spoken out against it, the recorded sessions are here.
And then he sent me a link. I didn't have time to go and watch any of that in preparation for this, but it doesn't matter anyway. So Chris goes on. The pushback really started in May when we became aware of the event.
The May 21st meeting is where the first public comments against the event are recorded, and then there have been folks attending each monthly meeting since. The event is being organized by a group called Wake Forest Pride.
They claim it's a family-friendly event, but anything associated with the LGBTQ stuff is very not family-friendly. That's putting it mildly. Yeah. No joke. I mean, just consider what you're talking about.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer. And we know this agenda is even trying to mutilate children, turning boys into girls and girls into boys.
Every time they have an event of any kind, of any size and anywhere, it always ends up somehow perverted. Oh, very. Very, very perverted. Like stuff we wouldn't even think about watching on TV, and yet it's there in public.
Now hold that thought because we're going to come back to that and some of the advice I'm going to give here regarding this. So Chris goes on. For clarification, the town is not putting this event on.
They are merely allowing it to happen in accordance with policy. Said policy applied consistently would obligate the town to allow other groups to use public spaces to celebrate their festivals, regardless of how their ideology might be.
I hope this is helpful. Thank you. Well, I didn't check with the first Chris to see if this really was the same thing or if there is yet another town in North Carolina that is doing this. But either way, I think it's something relatable to a lot of people in a lot of towns because this stuff is spreading far and wide.
And it doesn't even matter how conservative your community might be. It's just a matter of time before something like this sneaks in. So I said that I was going to share personal experience regarding this.
This goes back to a little farming town, a true farming Southwest Kansas conservative town called Mead. This was where I graduated high school. It was where I was baptized. It's where I worked in Christian radio for a number of years.
How many kids were in your class? Thirty six, I think. Yeah. It was less than 40. Yeah. So, yeah, small graduating class. One of the articles that I dug up trying to recall some of the details about this story said that Mead had sixteen hundred people in it.
I think that's a little generous.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too.
I think it was about eleven to twelve hundred. So sixteen might have been the whole county. Yeah.
Those in the country, too. Yeah. Anybody with a Mead address. That's right.
Actually, if I remember right, the whole county was like three thousand people. So yeah. So the town of Mead itself was, you know, at peak, probably fifteen hundred. Right. And one stoplight for the whole county.
Yep. So the stoplight that was right there at the intersection of highways twenty three and fifty four, that was the only stoplight in the whole county. But this story goes back to two thousand and six.
There was a California couple that had come into town sometime before that year, and they had bought a very historic building in town, one of the most historic buildings in town called the Lakeway Hotel.
Oh, right. Which is not there anymore. They've since torn it down and replaced it with a Love's gas station. Oh, yeah. So a friend of mine, a deacon from our church, as a matter of fact. Sad. Yeah, it is.
It's really sad. But honestly, I just kind of like was judgment poured out on this place because of this whole saga. True. But anyway, one of the deacons from our church actually drove through the town a couple of months ago and took a picture of it going down Highway fifty four as he was driving through the town.
I missed that. I'll have to show you the pictures. That's awesome. I think I did because I showed you. See, look, there's that Love's gas station right there where the Lakeway used to be. Maybe. I was pretty sure I showed him to you.
You could have. I don't know. I've slept since then. It was a while back. So anyway, the there was this California couple that came in and bought the Lakeway and they wanted to turn it into this big bed and breakfast kind of wanted to make it their nest egg.
This was like their retirement plan, so to speak. I'm speaking presumptuously here somewhat, but that was kind of the intention. Why did somebody come from California out to southwest Kansas and buy a historic hotel?
But business was not going well. I mean, it's a little town, less than 2000 people. So of course, he's having trouble getting people to want to come and stay. Yeah. Filling up those rooms. I knew somebody I knew the family that owned it before him and all the renovations that they did to the place and how hard a time they had trying to get business into it.
So as a bed and breakfast, it just never was going to work. There was a restaurant downstairs. The restaurant was really good, but it just wasn't enough to sustain the business that was needed in order to maintain the Lakeway Hotel.
So sometime in 2006, he decided to fly a pride flag out front. Now, for a lot of us in town, it was kind of, you know, like eye rolling, humorous sort of thing. Sure. Because it's the couple from California and here they're flying a pride flag.
Yeah. And the story was type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're Californians. Yeah, that's true. I mean, we're not treating them as outcasts. It was just like once the pride flag went up, it was like, okay, if anybody in town.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Of course, it was going to be the couple from California. Now, the way this story went was that their 12 year old son had sent them this flag as like a memory of California.
Okay.
So he mailed it. No, he didn't live with them. Oh, I was going to say, where was he? Yeah. Not there.
Not there. Oh, okay. So he gifted this flag to his family. Remember us out here in California. And they flew it out front of their restaurant out front of the hotel. Okay. So they said that it was just bright and colorful.
And that's the reason why they were flying it, which is usually the first excuse. Yeah. They think it's just bright colors and that's why we want to fly it. But I mean, we all knew that wasn't the reason why.
And they were, of course, stirring up controversy in the town. The local paper printed a story about it that started going out to other papers in Southwest Kansas that started saying Meade, Meade of all places, is flying a pride flag.
I don't think you could have driven down a street in Garden City, Dodge City or Liberal and seen a pride flag. No. But here's a pride flag in Meade, Kansas. Yeah. And so this ended up becoming national news.
And of course, that draws the attention of Westboro Baptist Church. I think it had their attention before this and that was what kind of pushed it into the national spotlight. Westboro will post on their website all the places that they're going to go to and protest.
And so they say they're going to come to Meade, Kansas and they're going to protest.
Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with Westboro, they are, I guess they're still are. Yeah, they're still there. Okay. A church in Topeka, Kansas. It's a very small church, but they. A cult. They have like a compound.
Yeah, they do. And it's, they go out and they protest things that they feel that are against the Lord. Pride is one of them, like pride parades and stuff like that. They'll also do military. Funerals.
Yeah, that was one of the biggest ones. Yeah. Probably did more military funerals.
They don't, you know, peacefully protest. Of course. They are very loud and they have visual pictures on their pickets. Like I won't drive by them whenever they were out. I would totally go the long way around.
They have these, yeah, very brightly colored posters that are done up in the rainbow colors. They're done up like pride colors. And so. For the pride protests. Right. For the pride protests. And honestly, driving by them, you would almost think, unless you were stopping and looking at the signs, you would almost think you're part of them.
Right. Yeah. Because of the way they do their colors. Right. It's like you look like you belong in the pride group. It's kind of odd. But anyway, Fred Phelps was the name of the guy that founded the church.
And a lot of the money that they make, the way that they were able to sustain their church and keep them going is because is through lawsuits. So Fred Phelps himself was a lawyer who became a pastor, a lot of lawyers in the family.
And they would sue people, you know, usually over free speech events such as this. And the settlements that they would make is what ends up sustaining the church. So when they said they were going to come and protest in.
Nobody supports their church, by the way. Not in Kansas. That's outside of, yeah, not in Kansas.
If you've ever seen the documentaries about them, a lot of the members that they have come from other places. They're not even. That's true. They're not even from Kansas. Somebody that will be influenced by their message, motivated by what they do.
And they'll decide, oh, I need to move to Westboro and join them. They're the, you know, I can't even say what their slogan is or what their website is because it's got a word that I wouldn't say on this broadcast.
And if I said it, I would get wiped from Facebook. Yeah, that's true. But anyway, yeah, it's God hates a certain group of people. That's who these people are. Yeah. Anyway, I can't remember what I was going to say.
Oh, yeah. So with regard to that church coming to protest, I reached out to them and I said to them, look, this is all a big scam. This couple is losing money on this hotel and they are trying to find a way to make that revenue back so they don't go into a pit.
This whole controversy has been drummed up to stir people to come to Lakewood. It's like free publicity.
Yeah. That's what I was thinking. It's nationwide publicity. Now he's got nationwide publicity.
Yeah. And you guys are feeding it to him by saying that you want to come and protest. This is not a legitimate pride flag flying. He's not even trying to make a statement that he's pro LGBTQ. Right. At least in all of the interviews that he's done.
Right. Yeah. And, you know, the those of us who are in town, we knew better. But all of this was still what he was trying to do to to gain the attention of people so that he doesn't fall into this money pit.
And you guys are giving him the most publicity he's had. Yeah. So I'm asking you not to do this. We can take care of this. We in our town can take care of this. Don't come and protest. And I got an email back from Shirley Phelps Roper, who is Fred Phelps' daughter.
And she ripped into me, said that my name, Gabriel, was a waste of a good Bible name. She had a seven year old, either nephew or grandson whose name was Gabriel, and he had more sense than I did. And, you know, just just one insult after the next.
And and, of course, that didn't stop him at all. They ended up coming and protesting with sometime in August of 2006. I can't remember the exact day, but that was the controversy that happened in our community.
And so all kinds of people from everywhere end up descending on the town on that particular day. And it's going to be the day that Westboro was going to be there. So they really set the date. Yeah. The date for all of this was from somebody outside our town.
And because they said they were going to protest that day, then there were counter protesters. So you had pro LGBTQ people that came in that descended on the town, kind of had an unofficial parade. It wasn't like they, you know, streets got blocked off and they walked down the street where it was just people everywhere.
Yeah. And the owner of the Lakeway went up on top of the hotel and he blasted a stereo with, you know, pro LGBTQ music that was playing. Oh, interesting stuff that would be appeasing to that community.
And people were standing around on the streets dancing in underwear. And there were men in makeup and in dresses. And they were making lewd gestures to this boy George music. And there was there was national media from everywhere.
NPR was there. A lot of the big, you know, cable news networks like CNN and Fox News. And there was representatives from just about all of them who were there. And on that day, it was like everybody who was involved in this was not from Meade, Kansas.
Yeah. There were a bunch of people that were there that were, you know, either celebrating or protesting this thing. And none of them were from Meade. That's interesting. Some of them were. But for the most part, we in the community just kind of abstained from it.
We just pulled away from it. And it was a day that came and went. And after that, there wasn't anything else. Eventually, the owner of the Like tumbleweeds after that. Yeah. Our tumbleweeds returned again.
Even they came back to our little town. And of course, the owner of the Lakeway never made his money back. He ended up having to bottoming out somehow. I don't know that he declared bankruptcy or anything like that, but got out of the hotel.
Yeah. And as I said, it's since been demolished, isn't there anymore, and it's a Love's Gas Station. So that's my experience in a little town that had nothing to do with really any of this. It was people from the outside that were coming in that were doing this.
Fueling it. Yeah. And so I would imagine, though there are some people in your own community there in North Carolina that probably are behind this and going to be involved, I would expect that a great deal of it is from forces outside.
Yeah. And a lot of times that's the way this goes, especially in conservative communities. So the question being asked, what can you as a Christian do about it? It seems like there's more that you can do than just kind of sitting idly by.
Right. First of all, I think that you've been doing the legwork in advance. That would be the first steps that I would tell you to do. Who in official capacity can you address and talk to to try to say, can we keep this out of our community, please?
Yeah. No joke. And it sounds like you're doing that and nothing is preventing that. And so it's going to go forward. It's going to happen. So now what do you do? This piece of advice that I'm going to give you is you got to be really careful with it.
You have to use discernment when practicing it. OK. But nonetheless, I'm going to tell you, go to the pride parade. Don't participate in the pride parade. Don't take your children. Don't take your children.
Don't be there as somebody that is celebrating what is going on. I think it is a good idea for us to be aware of what is in these parades. Now this is a public place. This isn't like going to a gay bar or something like that.
I would not advise you to do such a thing. But with discernment, with a lot of prayer, with accountability on top of that. Don't do it by yourself. Right. But people in your church talk about what you can do to go to that event so you can see it.
Because a lot of this stuff with pride parades tends to be kind of whitewashed. And when it ends up on social media or in the news, I mean, there's some places in social media where you can see exactly what they are.
I wouldn't advise that you go find them. No, don't look for that. But when it hits popular culture, when it hits the news, they've been largely sanitized. And the worst parts of what typically goes on at a pride parade, as you were just describing a minute ago, how gross and disgusting it is, a lot of that gets taken out in any of the publicity that they receive.
So I have to use this terminology loosely. I was going to say it's good for you to see that. It's not good for you to see that. No. But to be aware of it, that you know the level of debauchery that goes on around this kind of thing, and somehow be able to present that back to the city again and say, see, this is what we let into our community.
This is what got in here. Our concern was not about somebody being able to express their views freely. This is public perversity that we as a town, as a city, we just allowed it to happen.
And so... Because what's in writing isn't exactly what happens. Right. So you have to go back to them and show them, this is what occurred. Right. And because our policy wasn't more detailed, I guess, or something about not allowing these things.
Right.
I mean, there are all kinds of public displays that we have laws in place to prevent from happening. And if somebody does such a public display, they can get arrested. Yeah. And they will end up being prosecuted for indecent exposure or something like that.
Right. That happens at a lot of these pride events. Yeah. And so it's good to know what's in it so that it will help you fight this battle. But just being on the backseat, just trying to abstain from it and being totally secluded is probably not going to help arm you in trying to prevent these things in the future.
So that's one thing. Now, your church may decide that you want to go to the pride parade and do evangelism. That's fine. Yeah. That's what I was going to suggest. So you could do it that way as well. But don't feel like you're obligated to have to do something like that if what you're doing in the first place is just for research.
Like I want to know who these people are that we're going to have to minister to or reach out to. And let's just kind of go gather data for right now. Yeah. That's okay. But if your church wants to make it an evangelism event, then do that too.
Yeah. Again, just be planning for it. Don't let it be something that you're just kind of without a strategy, just going right into and doing it because you might end up heading into something that you weren't prepared for.
Right. So these are things that you and your church can be talking about. What can you do? There may not be anything else at this point that you can do to prevent it. Maybe you can. I don't know. I'm not in the community, so I'm not sure.
As a church also, you want to be reminding people of what God says about sexuality. Like if there's going to be Sunday school lessons about this or a sermon about this or something like that, understanding how the Bible defines us as men and women.
And above all, just bathing your congregation in prayer. Yes, definitely. That you would be praying about this. I mean, that is often a thing. It's often a step that people will downplay. It's like, well, that's just being lazy.
We're not doing anything if we're sitting around in prayer. That is one of the most powerful tools that we have at our disposal as Christians is prayer. That's what I was going to suggest.
If you are concerned about it affecting you negatively instead of in a godly way that you don't want to go, is to have people stay at the church, a group, and pray. And pray. Yeah, right.
During that time. Because there may be a group of people that doesn't, I don't want to go there and expose myself to that. Right, that would be me. That's fine. You don't have to see it. But that group can be at church praying while the others are out either evangelizing or observing for themselves what goes on at a pride event such as this.
So there's kind of some immediate counsel for you. I know as far as like the government steps or the, what would you say, the legal steps are a concern to try to stop this kind of a thing. I'm not in the community.
I don't know what you can do regarding that.
Get involved in government and be on that committee. And, isn't that a committee, not.
A board? Well, it depends on how the community itself structures. Or the board. Right. And get involved. I mean, because I lived in a town where the mayor was not elected. We never voted for a mayor. Really?
So we voted for members of the city council and then the mayor was chosen from the city council by the city council.
I don't know if I know how my hometown was elected or conjured up that.
So different towns, different communities may be structured in different ways. All right. Fair enough. Yeah. If you want to get in. But get involved. Right. And pray for them. Another, if you want to get another picture of this, look up the town called Rajneesh Puram that existed in Oregon back in the 80s.
That was a theocracy. So they had their own kind of structure in how the town was run as well.
You have an ornery smile on your face.
You may not want to look up Rajneesh Puram, I don't know. There we go. So we spent this half responding to Chris's question. We've got some others that we're going to get to. We responded to Chris and Chris's question.
If you want to listen to the whole program, go to www .utt .com for those of you listening on Christian radio. God bless. And thanks for joining us.
Is the Holy Spirit still at work today?
Yes, he is. In John 16, Jesus said that he would send the Holy Spirit and he would convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. When God's word is spoken and we see according to the law that we've broken God's law and our hearts are convicted and we realize I am worthy of the judgment of God.
When the gospel is declared, the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins as an atoning sacrifice, that he rose from the dead conquering the grave, that he ascended into heaven and he's seated at the right hand of the father interceding on our behalf.
We come to receive and accept those truths because of the power of the Holy Spirit.
As John 6, 44 says, no man can come to me except the father who sent me draws him. Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. His heart is a heart of stone. God removes that heart of stone and he replaces it with a heart of flesh that is alive.
It is the work of regeneration. God breathes into a dead man and he brings a person to life.
Look for the documentary, Cessationist, available now.
Once again, if you have a question that you would like to send to us, it's when we understand the text at gmail .com or you can send us a voicemail, go to www .utt .com, click on the voicemail tab. And I've got a couple of voicemails we're going to get to here in a moment, but first this email from Andy.
Food afternoon, Pastor Gabe.
Oh no, got to love those typos.
But you know what? Even if that wasn't a typo, I will welcome a food afternoon. Then I'll slip into a food coma and take a long nap. I'm a Baptist. I can roll with this. So food afternoon, Pastor Gabe.
First of all, thank you for all you do. Like many, I found your ministry through Wretched and have listened for many years. Yeah. By the way, speaking of Wretched, so they're launching something brand new on October 1st.
How far away are we from October 1st? That's on Tuesday. Pretty close. Tuesday. Yeah. Tuesday is October 1st. Yes. Man, September went fast. That's around the corner. Yeah. It sure is. So they've got something new coming out that day.
They're doing a brand new app. And I think it's going to be like what we're used to RefNet being, the Reformation Network. Oh, neat. Somebody's finally jumped on that hype. Finally, yes. Way to go, Wretched.
And it's all free from what I understand. Oh, wonderful. So another internet radio sort of a thing. That's awesome. Something to check out. I don't really know all the ins and outs of it. Somebody did kind of show it to me like the prototype a couple of weeks ago.
Looks neat. We'll all find out together what all of this is going to entail. So anyway, he goes on to say, you and your family have truly been a blessing to me. Your teaching has helped me grow in sanctification and I am forever grateful for what you do.
Aw. Thank you. Because I really just talked to a wall. Or me. If it's the Q &A, I've got Becky across from me. Yep. But we've spent more years doing this side by side and not looking at each other. That's true.
And now we can actually see each other when we do this. I like this much better. I know. This is better. Ever since I heard about the wreck, which you were in a car accident about six weeks or so ago, I had planned to send you a donation to help you guys out.
Life got in the way and I just did that this morning through your church website. Aw. Thank you. I did add a note that this was specifically for you and I did create an account under this same email address.
May God continue to bless you, your family, and your ministry in his love, Andy. Aw. Well, I so appreciate that, Andy. Okay, I'm changing the giving page slightly because there's still been a lot of people that have contacted us and said, okay, whenever I click on it, it goes straight to your church, but I just want to give by PayPal or something like that.
Oh, okay. Understandable. So if you still want to give by PayPal, the email address is whenweunderstandthetextatgmail .com. That same email address is attached to the PayPal. Or if you want to give by Venmo, it's Gabeki Hughes.
Yeah, G-A-B-E-K-I Hughes. H-U-G-H-E-S.
I had said Hughes at a restaurant the other day. So who's this under? Who am I calling? And I said, Hughes. Okay, spell that. H-U-G-H-E-S. And she's like, whoa. I said, just say Gabe. Gabe, I'll hear it and I'll go, yeah.
That is true. Also Hughes as in H-U-E-S. So I mean. Who does that? Who is that person? It's the colors, you know, Hughes.
Hughes. The Hughes of the rainbow. Our surname Hughes actually derives from that. It was originally H-U-E. Oh, really? So what was wrong with that?
What was wrong with H-U-E-S? Let's go back to that. They wanted Hugh as the first name. Yeah.
We got the Welsh spelling of it is what that ends up being. The original was French and it was Hugh. And then I could say, cause I'm French, but I can't, I'm Welsh. Welsh by descent. So anyway, if you go to www .utt .com and you click on giving, it'll have the information on there, whether you want to give by PayPal, you want to give by Venmo, or you can go through the church's website and give with a card.
And there's a place on there to give a note or a memo and just say that you want this to go to the Hughes family. I wanted to have the church link on there so that people are comfortable in knowing it doesn't just come to us.
And if you're giving a large amount, you can do it through the church website and it's tax deductible then, that way. And if we don't need it, if we don't utilize it and you're comfortable with it, then we just put it into the general fund of the church because we've got a building project coming up.
Yes. So there are ministry aspects to what I do that will still get funded by that. Yes. And you can be sure that you've gone to help further a ministry with that, not just help us buy a pizza or something.
Although we're okay with that. We're okay with that too. We're big pizza fans here. If you insist. Yes, absolutely. The food afternoon. So PayPal, Venmo, or you can send it through our church and our church takes good care of us.
They do. It has been a blessing to be here and continue the cause of ministry that we're doing out of Casa Grande, Arizona. All right, let's get to one of these voicemails here. This one is from Blake.
You ready?
I think I got this dialed up. Hey guys, this is Blake Rankin from Oregon, writer of 1013ministries .com. I'm a new listener to you guys, but I'm really enjoying the show so far. It's been a huge blessing to me.
I want to encourage you guys to keep up the good work. I do have a question. I've always been a strong supporter of door-to-door evangelism. I've just seen the Lord do many amazing things through it.
However, post-COVID -19, I've noticed that it's gotten pretty bad and I actually haven't gone for months now, and I'm really doubting now if it's the best way, if it's the way that we should be doing things.
So I'm wondering what you guys do and what your church does for evangelism. I just feel like I want to be out there preaching the gospel, but I just don't always get those situations at the grocery store or other things like that.
When I was mapping things out and doing door-to-door, that's when I was getting the most opportunities. But people are just very unresponsive to that now. People do not want you at their door. So I just really would like your thoughts on this.
Thank you for taking my question. I appreciate you guys.
God bless. Thanks for the question, Blake. So 1013 Ministries, I'm curious if that has to do with Romans 10 .13. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So I went to your page, I kind of looked at it a little bit.
So if anybody's interested, 1013ministries .com, 1 -0 -1 -3, 1013. How about door-to-door evangelism? Is it effective or not? It's going to depend on where you live, really. That's what I was thinking, too.
There are some places this works and it's good. And there's other places where it's really not all that effective. Door-to-door actually happens to be a big thing around here. Yes. And not just ministry-wise.
Nope. People are doing door-to-door stuff all the time. Sales. Yeah. Everything. Now, when we went up to Alaska. Yeah. So this was a couple years ago, when this, 22? August of 22. Yes. Is when we went up to Alaska.
We were told that you can't ever do door-to-door anything there. There happens to be a pretty significant population of ex-cons living in Alaska. And so that makes people very on edge. Yes. They don't like when somebody just comes walking onto their property and is walking up to their door.
It makes them very leery. So they either won't answer the door at all.
I mean, they live secludedly. Yeah, everybody's very spread out. Anybody coming up to your door is like, okay, why are they coming? Why didn't they let me know?
Even if it's like Anchorage or Juneau or someplace like that. They're so small. Yeah. They're small towns. Oh, yeah. How big was Juneau? We flew into Juneau. Yeah. Yeah. And wasn't it 30 ,000 or something?
Yeah. Yeah, less than that.
No, not 30. It was less than that? Yes. Juneau? Yeah. Yeah, no. You're going to look it up? I am. Because I just looked this up for our daughter. Because she might do a missions trip there. Yep. How do you spell it?
There it is. Oh, you were right. It is 31 ,000. Yeah. There you go. I was off. I was off by one. Well, 31 and a half if you want to go.
I didn't go over, so I still get the prize money. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. What game was that? Price is Right? Price is Right. Yeah. There you go. You have to get closest to a dollar without going over. Yeah.
So the... Total rabbit trail. Total rabbit trail. Sorry. Anyway, that was as big as the town as we lived in Kansas. Yep. And Juneau is the capital city.
Yes. But Anchorage is larger. Yeah. Anchorage was larger.
But not by much. All of... Well, wasn't it something like 90 of Alaska lived in that southern portion? Yep. Yes. Most of the population. Anyway. So, yeah. It was kind of... It was not very effective to do door-to-door.
People wouldn't answer the door or they would even outright threaten you. Yeah. So one of the guys that we had talked to, he had moved up to Alaska and he had been told this. He said, you can't do door-to-door evangelism here.
Right. People won't welcome you. You might even get shot at. Mm-hmm. And so he thought it was funny. And he was like, I'm gonna go do it anyway. First house he walks up to, he hears a gunshot. Oh, my goodness.
Nobody ever came out the front door, but he heard it. And he was like, I don't know where that came from, but I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that was meant for me. And so he... Oh, no. He turned around and hightailed it off of there.
I would too, man. That's... They don't mess around up there. Yeah, right. So there's some places where that doesn't work. It's just not effective. Now, around here even in the valley, south of Phoenix, it's really, really hot in the summertime.
You can't do much public evangelism in the summer because it's so hot nobody's out. Right. So this is kind of considered, it's jokingly referred to as a hibernation season. Yes, it is. Between June 1st and October 1st.
The temperatures are just finally starting to go down and then we can go out in public and do things. Right. But even over the course... For the rest of the year. Right. Yeah. And then it's just the most beautiful fall and winter.
Yes. To be out and everybody's outside and everybody's doing things. So we'll have some outdoor opportunities where people will be gathered in places we can go around and do evangelism and stuff. But you really can't do it in the summer.
And people come to us. Yes, quite a bit. All those snowbirds. That's right. Yeah. We got a lot of... The size of the town doubles. It does, at least. Once you get past about Labor Day. Now, when it came to growing our church, so before we came here, they did some door-to-door stuff.
They did. Our folks did. And it really wasn't effective. As far as church growth goes, it wasn't effective. Right. And the people that we've had come to our congregation, when I arrived and I asked, so how did people end up coming here?
The answer was, we don't know. People just found us and they started coming here. And so that's great. It's great if your church can be able to do that. But actually getting out with the gospel, again, it's going to change from one place to the next.
Yeah. You kind of get an idea of how people are in that area, what is perhaps the most effective way to engage with them. There are some that the moment you start talking to somebody, they're immediately hostile.
And so you have to come up with a different way. How do I break through this window or whatever, get through this barrier that's between us here and have an effective conversation? And it might change from one people group to the next.
Even when you are a missionary and you're training to go to another place to learn how to effectively minister to those people, they're going to train you. They might even set you up with, say you're going to minister to people in Nepal.
They might find a Nepalese sort of community in the United States and send you there. And so you'll learn from those people a little bit and how to evangelize to them. And then after you spend some time with them, then we'll send you over to Nepal and you'll have experience in knowing how to communicate with those people.
Yeah.
Because we had some African immigrants where I went to college, and they apparently in their culture, it makes them really angry when you look at their children. Oh, yes. Right. And so even though they're absolutely adorable, and I just wanted to smile and play with them, I didn't want to offend them at the same time.
So I'm like, this is difficult for me. So I probably wouldn't be able to go evangelize to them. But yeah, so it's different cultures have different things that they're particular about. And it's the same way in the United States.
It is. Very much. It is amazing how different the culture is from Texas to Oregon. Yeah. It's a different group of people. Oh, man. They talk different ways. They have different shibboleths, stuff that you could say that immediately clues you into the fact that you're not from here.
Yeah. Yes. Definitely. And so, yeah, there is kind of a different sort of engagement that happens. It just kind of depends on where you're from. So it could be that door-to-door evangelism is still effective wherever you live.
Right. But then there's other places where it may not be as well received, and it sounds like, Blake, that's what you're running into. So ever since COVID happened, it's just not. It's kind of changed.
You've noticed. Yeah. You've noticed when you're engaging with people, and you're trying to step into that method of evangelism, and you're recognizing this doesn't have the same feel that it did before.
Yeah. When we were in East Texas, we did have a door-to-door evangelism team that went out every Sunday, Saturday or Sunday is when they would go out. And they had like a section of town that they were trying to canvas.
They had it mapped out. So by this and such and such a date, we're going to have covered all of these houses in this area. We were kind of doing that in Junction City a little bit as well, but we didn't get to every house.
No.
Anyway. But you also have to, if you do go out and evangelize door-to-door or evangelize anywhere, I do recommend going ahead and saying the gospel to those who say that they're saved. Yeah. You still test them on it.
Yeah. Right. Because, I mean, it's good for us to hear it anyway, those of us who are saved. I've ran into quite a few people who have said they're saved, but then there's no fruit coming from their lives.
And so really they are still lost, but they think that they know enough that they're saved. Well, yeah.
Does that make sense? Well, there's people that lived in Texas that just because I'm a Texan, I'm a Christian. Yeah. That's true.
Happens a lot in red states. Yes. In fact. So it's good to share the gospel regardless of how they answer. Still, yeah. Testing you on that.
Yeah. Because you have, like you could have Rick Warren people, folks that come out of that Rick Warren or Andy Stanley style of evangelicalism, which isn't really that. And they really don't have a good solid understanding of sin and what the gospel is because those preachers had never told them about that.
Right. So it's good to even kind of try to engage with, you know, testing them on what do you mean when you're a Christian? Can you tell me what the gospel is? Do you understand what sin is? How do you know you're saved?
If you were to die right now, where would you go? Yeah. So that kind of engagement is good, too, in any kind of evangelism that you do. Yes. Because we ran into that a lot in Junction City. Yes. Talking to people that are already, I'm already a Christian.
They could even quote me Bible verses. Yep. But when you're challenging them on that notion, finding out you don't understand what it means to follow Jesus at all. Yeah. So, yeah, it's in a country in which we live and where there's a lot of cultural Christianity.
It's common to run into that kind of thing. I'm a good person.
Yeah, exactly. The moral Christianity, if you will. Moral therapeutic deism. Yes. Because they're moral. They're saved.
Exactly. I'm a good person. So I'm going to go to heaven. Yes. Thank you for your question, Blake. This next one comes from Aaron. Here we go. Hey, Pastor Gabe.
My name's Aaron. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your segment on Steve Lawson. My wife and I actually listened to it the day it came out and then again the next day because we were really grieved about the news with Steve Lawson.
He's been such a sound teacher for decades. Your words really helped us. Honestly, I don't mind whether or not you air this voicemail. I just personally wanted to say thank you. Many Christian leaders are choosing not to talk about it right now.
When you get hard news like that, you just want comfort and you want understanding. I think all the scriptures you tied in, in regards to what happened, they were so helpful. So anyways, thank you again.
Thank you for your ministry.
You guys take care. We're praying for you. Thank you so much, Aaron. Thank you. I really appreciate that. These kinds of things are difficult to navigate, too, because like I said in the comments that I made last week, I don't typically respond to something this quick.
Yeah, you don't. I wait for all the facts to come out and more facts came out this week. One of the things that I said last week that was disappointing was the statement that was released by the church elders there at Trinity Bible Church in Dallas, Texas, which had some vagueness to it.
Some things that we did not really understand what were going on. Well, since then we found out even the church was kind of left in the dark on some of those things. The questions weren't answered on Sunday.
And now more stuff has come out this week that the members of the church are finding out through the gossip chain on social media. If the church had been clear about those statements in the first place, then this would not be a problem or it wouldn't be as big of a problem.
Now, there are some that have said this is completely a local church matter. You need to leave this up to the discipline of his own church congregation that he was a part of. And these elders that have been entrusted with calling him out, disciplining him over everything that's been happening.
This actually is quite a bit more than a local church matter. Kind of what I was thinking. You're talking about a public preacher who has stood on stages and we've heard him do this and tell you which church you should attend and which church you should not attend.
And when questions will happen on those panels, like at Ligonier or at a G3 conference or the Shepherds Conference, and a question will come up among that panel of speakers and say something to the effect of my church is like this and they're not quite reformed or they're not really expository.
It's more topical preaching. What should I be looking for in a church? And Lawson's there among those preachers. I can pull up clips of this and show them to you. Lawson amongst those preachers will say something like, leave that church, go to another one.
So you're actually listening to a man giving instruction on even where you should go to church and where not to go to church. And this has been public. It's been going on for decades. You can find decades of these videos online and has been influential on people no matter how much you would refer to those conference ministries as parachurch.
G3 would actually identify themselves as subchurch. So not quite parachurch. Okay. Because it's Praise Mill Baptist Church that puts it on. Right. So it's all underneath. Yeah, it's kind of their umbrella.
And they want it to be something that is assisting churches, not something that is apart from churches. Right. You know, they even have a church network that they put together and things like that. So I get that.
I understand some things that would be a little bit more than just parachurch, but actually involved with local churches. But still, you have a man who's had a very, very public platform and has made these kind of judgments regarding what church you should go to and whatnot.
And yet now he's had this sin that only needs to be handled by the local church. It's like, that's not really fair.
Handled as in, like, his discipline or handled as in, like, they should only know about everything or handled as in, like, what are you talking about?
Yeah, that second thing that you mentioned. So this isn't just left to, it's none of our business. It needs to be handled by Trinity Bible Church. No, it is very much our business. Yeah. We have given money to these conferences.
We have attended. We've listened to his counsel. We've loved his preaching. We've supported his ministry. We've attended One Passion. We've bought the magazine, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, on and on down the line.
He has taken millions, literally millions and millions of dollars from people who have funded and supported his ministry for so many years. And now he does this. And he's permanently disqualified. It's even, you know, like I said, more details have come out, which I'm not going to go into here because they're still rolling out.
And the comments that I made last week are still applicable. And I have put that in transcript form, by the way. So more than just, let me mention something about that here in a moment. Remind me about transcripts.
Okay. But I've put it in transcript form, and it's on my blog. So if you go to PastorGabe .com, you'll find even the transcript of the comments that I made last week and a few extra, and I put it in brackets.
If it wasn't in the podcast, if I didn't say it in the episode, then I put it in brackets. So this was in addition to other comments that I made. But it is fine for us to bring this into public discourse and make judgments about it and not just leaving it to the local church level.
There is an aspect that needs to happen at Trinity Bible Church. Yeah, for sure. But for the rest of us, yeah. We absolutely have fair game to make a comment about what's going on with this. And like I said, the other ministries that have ended whatever partnership they had with Steve Lawson, they owe it to their people that have supported their ministry.
They owe it to them to release public statements as well and saying, here's why we're not partnering with Dr. Lawson anymore. And here's what's happened. Here's what we know has happened. Yeah. So I appreciate your comments, Erin.
And it has troubled me. And I have kind of watched the discourse as it's happened on social media. And you're already seeing Christians fighting with each other over this. Oh, yeah, for sure. The ripple effects of this, we're going to be feeling for a long time.
And it's heartbreaking. Isn't that in the Bible, like where one sin affects generations after generations?
Well, yeah. I mean, that's like the Lord saying as he passed in front of Moses, I will be by no means clear the guilty and visit the sins of the father on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
Yeah. So you'll see the effects of this that will go out like that. And it grieves the heart. It should. We mourn over it. But as I said last week, it's okay to be angry about it as well.
Just don't take that out on your brother.
Yeah. Don't take it out on a brother or sister in the Lord. Right. But we can be angry. Just don't let the devil get a foothold on your anger, as said in Ephesians 4. Right. Albert Moeller, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, released some great comments as well.
If you look for the statement that he made to the chapel service at SBTS on Tuesday, you can do a Google search or a YouTube search, and you'll find those comments. And he made some great comments about it as well.
Nice. He also had said, similarly, we can be outraged over this, but it also needs to be something that's very introspective, that makes us realize we can just as easily fall. It's anybody. It can be anybody.
Yeah. Which is why when it comes to disciplining pastors or overseers or elders, as talked about in 1 Timothy 5, Paul says, let them be disciplined in the sight of all so that the rest may stand in fear.
Yeah. All of us realize sins will not be hidden. Everything will come to light. The Lord knows everything, whether or not you are going to receive some sort of public scorn for the sins that you have committed.
Even if nobody else ever finds out, the Lord knows about it. Right. And we will stand in judgment one day. And so it is cause for us to examine ourselves that we would not fall into these same kinds of errors.
Consider 1 Peter 3, 8,. So keep those things in mind, even for yourself. Yeah. Still from 1 Peter 1, this is verse 15. Yes.
Which all of us are capable of doing. Exactly.
And for a long time, even. Yeah. I mean, there are sinful patterns we may continue for years. Yes. But praise God for His mercy to us that He will get a hold of us. He will convict us of our sin, even if it's something like this.
What was hidden being brought into the light. Praise God if that should be what happens for you. You've had a sin that you've kept hidden for so long. Now it's brought into the light so that you could be convicted and cleansed of this.
Yeah. And walk in righteousness as we should in the Lord. All right. All right. Last question that we have here. This comes from Walt in Winnipeg. Many folks have been turning the fourth watch into a ritual.
I know that during most nights I am awakened at 4 a .m., but that's because I'm old and I have to go to the bathroom. Is the fourth watch a thing to be turned into a ritual? If it's the fourth watch where I am, what is it in other time zones?
Does Satan exert more pressure during the fourth watch than he does during the rest of the day? Thank you for your consideration, your brother in Christ. Okay. What is the fourth watch?
What is he talking about? That's a great question to start with.
This is another one of those irreverent silly myths. And, you know, kind of similar to when we had addressed the whole genealogy thing in Genesis 5 a few weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Where if you go through each one of those names, the name and the meaning of that name, actually it lays out the gospel when you go through those names in order, which that's not really true.
Some of those names we don't know the original meaning of those names. So that's an idea that has been infused into Genesis 5, but you don't really find the gospel in that way in Genesis 5. The gospel is in the Bible, but we don't have to go through these genealogies in order to find it.
So anyway, what's the significance of the fourth watch? Well, this is from a website that kind of talks about it. Ignite the night and awaken the dawn. Are you frequently being awakened between 3 and 6 a .m.?
It may be God calling. Now, it may be my bladder that needs to be emptied. Yeah. Our failing bodies. I'm getting older and I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So somebody has taken that.
Like, as you pass 40 and you have to get up in the middle of the night, well, maybe it's God that is awakening you, and there's something that you're supposed to be doing between 3 and 6 a .m. Okay. There is a strategic significance in praying during the early morning hours.
Though many are called at different times of the day or night to pray, prayer slash worship during these hours are highly effectual in harnessing God's transforming power. The fourth watch is defined by the Roman watch as a time spanning from 3 to 6 a .m.
Biblically, strategic events take place particularly during the night and early morning hour slash watches. For example, Jacob wrestled with God and met him face to face just before entering into his destiny as Israel, Genesis 32, 22 to 31.
My friends, you're not Jacob. Yeah. You're not entering into your destiny as Israel. That's not for you, and that's not the way that you read Genesis 32. Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea, Exodus 14, 25 to 26, which says, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily, the Egyptians said, let us flee before Israel for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.
Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back again on the Egyptians upon the chariots and upon their horsemen. What does that have to do with the fourth watch of the night?
When there's high tide and low tide? I didn't think of that, but yeah. I have no idea.
I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't even say what time of the day that happened. No. No, it doesn't.
So that's silly. Well, that's why I was thinking, you know, like high tide is at night. Anyway. Well, that depends, too. Yeah, it really does. It goes back and forth. It doesn't. It's not always a thing.
And so I don't know.
That's what I'm saying. So they just threw a point in there with a scripture reference that would just make you go, oh. Oh, yeah. Then you read it and it doesn't have anything to do with what you just said.
Gideon defeated the Midianites in the middle watch of the night, Judges 7, 19 to 24. Okay. That was at night, but I mean, was that between 3 and 6 a .m.? Well, it says in Judges 7, 19. So Gideon and the hundred men who are with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch when they had just set the watch and they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands.
Is that between 3 and 6 a .m.? My understanding is the middle watch is between about 10 p .m. to 2 a .m. Oh, okay. And then the next watch. This isn't Roman. So their whole middle watch thing is a Roman time between 3 and 6 a .m.
With Gideon and his men, this wasn't during that same watch. The middle watch would have been 10 to 2. And then the morning watch goes from 2 to sunrise. Oh, okay. So this wouldn't have even been during the same time period that they're trying to say, See, this is the peak prayer time that God has for you.
Peter and Jesus walk on water, Matthew 14, 25 to 26. Now, it does say something about what time, what watch of the night that happened. The angels appear at the shepherds or to the shepherds in the field to announce the birth of the Savior, Luke 2, 8 through 14.
But does that say where or like exactly what time of the night that was? In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear just by night.
Yeah. Doesn't say what time of the night that was. Basically, they're just grabbing random passages and throwing that in there. Anything that happened at night. Pretty much. And so this is why the power of prayer.
Or maybe could have happened that night. This is what you need to be doing during the fourth watch. Jesus is resurrected from the dead, Matthew 28, 1. That was at dawn. The bridegroom woes his bride in...
Woes his bride? I think woes his bride is what they mean. Probably. The bridegroom woes his bride. Woe! In the night hours, Song of Solomon and Matthew 25, 1 through 13. It doesn't say a time in Song of Solomon.
It just references the whole book, apparently. So this is a thing where it's... This is completely a myth. That somebody's grabbed a bunch of Bible verses and has tried to say there's a fourth watch that is more powerful than any other time, and God means for you to pray during that time, and there's certain blessings and intentions of God that you will unlock during those hours.
Hold on a second.
Okay. So I was on a website that I scroll through and get a bunch of different ideas from. Okay. One of them, I came across sort of this power moment of you have more energy if you get up at four, and then you should do this list of things.
So I kind of went down that rabbit trail a little bit, that rabbit hole. Rabbit hole. Hole it was. And it started with 4 a .m., say a prayer. I was like, oh, well, that's neat. And I kind of kept scrolling and stuff.
And then come to find out it was what is that religion where you pray first when the sun comes up? Oh, Islam? Yeah. Yeah. And it was like you have to face a certain direction in order to get all of this energy for the day.
And I was like, well, well, well, well, well, well, well. So I wonder if this is kind of connected, but taking a Christian spin.
Yeah, I think it's just something just regarding the fourth watch of the night. So somebody has just kind of grabbed this and thought, oh, you know, maybe there's something powerful about praying at that particular time of the day.
Yeah. Listen, as said to the Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. Right. This is true. Yeah. Whenever it is good to pray, which is any time, then pray. And it's good to start your day with that, certainly.
It doesn't have to be at 4 a .m. Right. But whenever you get up and start, I do know people that start the day that early. They do. And that's totally fine. To each their own, because that's not me. No, it's definitely not you.
Four o 'clock comes once a day for me. It does not come twice. So it's great that we begin the day that way, because even as Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6, give us this day our daily bread. Amen.
Yes. The very request itself indicates you're beginning the day that way. So feed me in what I'm going to receive as far as spiritual food. Give me that physical food that I need, the work that I'm going to do to help make this money, that it supplies my bread and cares for my family.
Give me those things that I need during the day. And as Jesus said also in that chapter, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the things that you need will be added to you as well.
Yes. It's good for us to do all the time, not just during the fourth watch of the night. When I click on the About Us section on this website, it shows a bunch of people standing along a wall blowing shofars.
Blowing what? Those horns. Oh, those really long ones? That are trumpets, yeah. The twisty horns. That's funny. Kind of gives you an idea where this concept is derived out of.
Is that like in reference to their alarm clocks? Yeah, right. Probably so. At least it used to be. Anymore, everybody has their phones as their alarm clocks, and it's usually music or something.
Well, I tell you, if my neighbor was waking up and blowing a shofar in the morning. Oh, my goodness. That reminds me of Proverbs 27, 14. Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice rising early in the morning will be counted as cursing.
Yes. Yes. Keep your prayers in the third watch. Fourth. Fourth watch, right. Quiet enough that I can still sleep. All right, let's finish with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to open your word and be sanctified.
And I pray that we would continue to seek your word in all things, for all guidance, for sanctification, for our hope and our peace, looking to our Savior Jesus, who died for us, who rose again, so that all who believe in him, our sins are forgiven.
We've been reconciled to God. We have the promise of everlasting life and looking forward to that day of his return. And when we will be forever with our King in glory. Lord, may that be the fixation of our hearts.
As said in Colossians 3, we are seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And when things like what we've heard about recently regarding Steve Lawson, or if we know of any pastor on a personal level that has fallen into grave sin and become disqualified, these things will grieve our hearts.
But may it be, as we said earlier, something that causes us to reflect. That we recognize our own weaknesses in our own lives. We might see sin that exists in our lives that we've been trying to keep secret and needs to be dealt with.
And so convict us by your spirit that we may walk in holiness and uprightness before you, not cherishing sin. For as David prayed, if I had cherished sin in my heart, you would not have heard my prayer.
And we read in 1 Peter 3 that even when there's strife in a marriage between a husband and a wife, it hinders prayer. We desire in all things that we would pursue holiness, that we would be cleansed of our uncleannesses, and be made right before you, O God.
And so convict our hearts, lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. May we look out for one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord, not letting one another fall into grave sin, but calling out where needed and restoring back to the path of righteousness that we may present one another spotless and blameless before you as you have made us so by your Holy Spirit.
As said in Ephesians 4, all of the parts of the body working together, knit together in love. And may that be what we may say about our brothers and sisters in Christ that we worship with in our respective churches.
May your gospel continue to be proclaimed even in these dark and turbulent times, in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation. May we shine as lights in the world, as said in Philippians 2 .14. Thank you God for your patience with us, and may we look to Christ in all things.
It's in his precious name that we pray. Amen. Amen. But anything associated with the LGBTQ stuff is very not family-friendly. No joke. Yes, it's inherently not family-friendly. Yeah. When you understand what you're talking about, LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.
Transgender and blah! Can you get it out? That's the way I feel about it. There you go. Anyway. Okay, let me try that again. Try that again with my tongue. Detangled from my teeth.