January 5, 2025, Evening Service

What I what I would ideally like to do what I think would be Helpful is to sort of structure this.

I'd like to keep it in an hour have roughly 10 minutes of worship somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes of teaching and then 10 minutes for questions or discussion or something like that because again like the goal is not to be

Exactly the same thing that we do on Sunday, but I do want it to be like a worthwhile Teaching where we actually take something away from it.

So we're not gonna walk through Verse by verse books of the Bible, but we're gonna hit up just different topics

So let's go to the Lord in prayer real quick, and then I'll talk about what we're gonna do this evening Father I want to thank you

Again, just for this this building and this opportunity that we have to gather We thank you for the provision that you've so mercifully and so graciously provided us through Through good hope and through Mountain View Chapel and through the work of the people here at Mount Zion who?

Tracked it down and made it happen God we pray that Every minute that we spend in here would do nothing

But bring you glory that we would focus on you and who you are and how we can better Know you how we can become more sanctified and how we can better serve you with our lives

So Lord, we thank you again for this opportunity and we pray that it would be pleasing to you

Lord We love you and pray all this in Jesus name. Amen so that said what

I wanted to do was I really wanted to get into the topic of Discernment and I Probably just gave this away, but if I hadn't said anything about that and I asked you this question

What did? Solomon ask God for What would you say you're saying discernment because I already gave it away but but most people say

Solomon asked God for wisdom now, obviously, that's a loaded question and I'm asking you that specifically because of what we're talking about and I believe it's in first Kings 3 6 through 9

Then Solomon said you have shown great love and kindness to your slave David my father according to how he walked before you in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart towards you and you have kept for him this great love and kindness that you had given him a son to sit

On his throne as it is this day. So now Oh Yahweh my God You have made your slave king in place of my father

David yet. I am but a little child I do not know how to go out or come in and your slave is in the midst of your people

Which you have chosen a numerous people who are too many to be numbered or counted and here it is in verse 9

He says so give your slave a listening heart to judge your people to discern between good and evil

For who is able to judge this glorious people of yours? So Solomon known as as one of the wisest

Kings before obviously the sin in his life sort of Made him slip up and made him change

Actually asked for discernment now, this is not to say that we don't consider that wisdom and discernment

It's kind of hard to differentiate between the two So they're very they're very closely related while they may not be exactly the same in some ways.

They're almost interchangeable, but Why is this something that I think that we need to talk about?

This is me personally and a lot of the places I've been and the the things that I've seen not just in churches, but in the the

Christian world anyway, and that is that the vast majority of Christians and in indeed the vast majority of churches lack discernment tremendously and We'll get into a little bit of why why

I say that But when we talk about discernment, I think we probably need to open up with a definition

Now there's a quote from Charles Spurgeon that I really I really like he says discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong

But the difference between right and almost right so Discernment is more than just knowing

You know again the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do or what sin is or what sin is not

It's much more nuanced than that and that's where everybody gets into so much trouble That's where churches get into so much trouble and individual

Christians now. I have a slightly more Detailed definition that's gonna set the stage for this whole idea and this whole thing that we talked about in this

This is from an author named Tim Chalice who wrote a book on discernment, and he says discernment is

The skill of understanding and applying God's Word with the purpose of separating truth from error and right from wrong

Discernment is the skill of understanding and applying God's Word with the purpose of Separating truth from error and right from wrong.

So I think that's a a great definition of discernment to guide us now but again why

Why start a whole new series of services? You know why prepare a different message?

Why ask you to come out on a Sunday night when we're not accustomed to doing this as a church? And it's because this is important and we all need to understand it now

There's some reasons that I say this and one of the first reasons is that not Everything that's called Christian is actually

Christian people put this label of Christian on a lot of different stuff That doesn't meet any any biblical definition of Christianity and this is true for Christian music

I'll say Christian. This is true for Christian books. This is true for Christian television Christian film

We see that It's called Christian or we see that it talks about Jesus and that that gets our guard down but a lot of these things if we exercise true discernment, we'll see that they're not they're not as good as we think they are and my purpose tonight is not to Not to name things specifically necessarily

Because there are ministries out there that do that and some of them are very helpful, but I Don't want to one call out churches because in a lot of cases

People are well -meaning and they're trying to do the right thing now that doesn't excuse a lack of discernment.

That doesn't excuse Accidental unbiblical teaching but I don't want to call anybody out necessarily because again they have good intentions and And It's not my goal to just insult a bunch of people but But to give you the tools to kind of recognize this now

The second reason is is more significant and I think that it's that false teachers

Know enough about scripture to come off as credible and then they take their teaching and then they weave in What they want you to hear they weave in the false teaching the unbiblical teaching in with language

That sounds familiar because it sounds biblical and because they are saying things that are in the

Bible But also adding to it now What would be the basis for me making a statement like that?

Well, it is that scripture is just chock -full of warnings about false teachers.

In fact Most people don't necessarily recognize this but the vast majority of the

New Testament is either When it's not talking about Jesus's ministry, but even he does this

It's both warning about false teachers and it's reinforcing true doctrine Like why do you think

Paul wrote all these letters to all these different churches because they were all messing up in some way because People that were teaching wrong had come in and started to bring ideas that were different from what

Paul had given and remember Paul Was an apostle of Jesus. He was giving teaching directly from Jesus Which is a claim that no one beyond Paul can ever make

Now getting back to the idea that scripture is full of this. I'm gonna read you a few verses

Matthew 7 15, this is Jesus speaking He says beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves

We have Colossians 2 8 see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception

According to the tradition of men according to the elementary principles of the world and not according to Christ Then we have the first half of Hebrews 13 9 do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings

First John 4 1 says beloved do not believe every spirit But test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world

Believe it or not. We're not done yet Ephesians 5 6 let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of Disobedience Jude 1 4 that letter of Jude is one chapter, but it's entirely about false teaching

It says for certain persons have crept in Unnoticed those who were long beforehand marked out for their condom for this condemnation ungodly persons who turn the grace of our

God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ and then

We have 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verses 3 through 4 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and Will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths

So we have to ask ourselves then we read all these verses and again, that's that's a small sample

That's that's a representative sample, but there's so much more that we could read we could spend the whole time

Reading warnings about false teachings and a false gospel So why is so much of the

New Testament dedicated to this? Like why do we see this over and over? Why do we see them calling out false teachers?

And why do we see them especially Paul? specifically laying out doctrine and the answer is

This the answer is and this is hard for some people to understand true biblical Christianity is

Not just some set of vague principles. It's not something that's open to different interpretations

But the truth is Christianity is a very specific set of doctrines it's a very specific set of concepts and for some of them

There can be absolutely no compromise on those doctrines or you no longer have Christianity Christianity is not subject to our feelings.

It's not subject to our opinions It's not subject to different theories about what might be and you can't claim

That you're a follower of Christ and not hold a hundred percent to what God's Word says in our canon of Scripture So I talked to the the students earlier

We're starting to just again talk about the Bible and the 66 books that make up God's Revelation to us and This is very prevalent in our our

Christian world today You can't say that you believe the Bible except for a few parts that you don't like you can't take out

Ideas that are here that you disagree with Because you can't change

God's Word So what this means is that there's no way that you can be kind of Christian.

You can't be a little Christian That's like being a little pregnant right you're either completely pregnant or you're completely not pregnant there

There's no in -between there are phases But there's no there's no way that you're just kind of pregnant and you can't do that with Christianity either

There's no middle ground And I know that this is is probably a hard truth as well

But with Christianity, it's true. You're either all the way in or you're all the way out You can't just stick your toe in because that will not get you salvation

You can you can learn about it. You can be learning you can be growing you can be experimenting, but just because you believe that Jesus was the

Son of God, but you don't believe something else about Jesus You have the same fate as somebody who does not believe in the

Bible at all and again I know that's challenging for people, but if we look at Matthew 12 30

Jesus says this He says he who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters

But the idea that we can take what we want the idea that there's some kind of you know

Subjective truth that we can sort of take this part of the Bible, but not that part It's it's really a product of our day and age.

It's a product a product of our culture It's a product of our educational system It's a product of the way that we view our own lives where we believe that we're entitled to whatever we want whenever we want it

However, we want it no matter what other people want and that is not how the Bible operates but unfortunately

Even a lot of churches Operate that way and the reason they do it is this

They say well if we said stuff like what I'm saying right now if we said stuff like that to people

Well people that aren't Christians wouldn't want to show up They don't like hearing stuff like that. And if they don't show up then they're not gonna hear the gospel

But I would tell you that if you kept the difficult stuff

From Scripture back from those people They still won't hear the gospel even if they do come to your church because the gospel in and of itself is offensive the gospel in and of itself if you don't accept it as insulting because the gospel in and of itself is that you are a sinner and Other than you know aside from the work of Christ There's no hope for you and again

That flies in the face of what we want to believe about ourselves and what we want to be told about ourselves because we want

Our self -esteem built up. We don't want to be told that there's anything bad about us

But I want to clarify that None of this is done in a hateful way. None of this is done in a vindictive way an

Accusatory way because that would be wrong, too But all the same we're not at liberty to change what the

Word of God says but despite Despite the best of intentions that a lot of churches have this is still exactly what is happening

People are afraid to Tell the straight -up truth to people about their condition

Because they don't want to offend people or they don't want them to stop coming to their church

So over time these messages get compromised now I brought this book because JC Ryle is one of my my favorite pastors and authors, but this is how this looks

This is how false doctrine sort of creeps into the church and sometimes it takes over He says false doctrine does not meet men face -to -face and proclaim that it is false

It does not blow a trumpet before it and endeavor openly to turn us away from the truth as it is in Jesus It does not come before men in broad day and summon them to surrender it approaches us secretly quietly insidiously

Plausibly and in such a way as to disarm man's suspicion and throw him off his guard

It is the wolf in sheep's clothing and Satan in the guard of an angel of light who have always proved the most dangerous foes of the

Church of Christ and I'll also tell you so that's how it kind of sneaks in some people do have the idea that as long as Your intentions are good.

It's okay if you accidentally teach something wrong But I would tell you that I can't find a biblical justification for that I can't find examples in Scripture where your good intentions override your false teaching even if it was accidental

If you if you turn back, I believe it's in Deuteronomy We have a couple of priests who offered up strange fire, right?

Do you remember that they sort of? Went about worship in their own way not in the way that God had very specifically ordained as we see in some of those earlier

Books and God killed them now when David and his Moving the the oh my gosh.

I lost my words here when they were moving the altar. It was on a cart It hit a bump in the road and it was about to fall and a guy put his hands on it to steady it

Best of intentions, right? He didn't want this thing to fall. This is a holy thing He didn't want it to hit the ground and he touched it

But because he wasn't one of the people that could touch it God killed him. So I would submit to you that Your intentions

Don't override false teaching and that may not that may not be important for all of you

But it's important for pastors to know it's important for churches to know because teachers are judged more harshly so you can't just say you don't know you got to learn and You know if a pastor can't discern then we have even bigger problems there.

I want to read Matthew chapter 7 Verses 21 through 23

Matthew 7 21 through 23 Because this is this is the result of a lack of discernment and teaching this is the result of teaching a

Halfway gospel. This is also the result of thinking the simple fact that you go to church or the simple fact that you serve is enough

And I know I've read this before but this is important So Matthew 7 21 not everyone who says to me

Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven But he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter

Many will say to me on that day Lord Lord in your name Did we not prophesy and in your name cast out demons and in your name do many miracles?

And then I will declare to them. I never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness So it's not enough just to look

Christian. It's not enough to just look religious So let's go back to that definition of discernment because now we're getting into why this is such an important thing

Discernment is the skill of understanding and applying God's Word with the purpose of separating truth from error and right from wrong and This is what's going to prevent you from Going wrong in your

Christian walk. It's what's gonna prevent you from wasting time on resources that aren't worth it It's what's going to prevent you from attending churches that are

Twisting or perverting the Word of God whether they're doing it intentionally or not and We also have to understand this principle like don't make this mistake

You are expected to grow in your discernment every one of you as individual Christians are expected to learn

You're expected to grow you're expected to become more spiritually mature and The Bible tells us this as well

I'm not just making these things up. So I have something to say Proverbs 4 5 says acquire wisdom acquire understanding

Again, we can use wisdom for discernment James 1 5 says this But if any of you lack wisdom

Let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach and it will be given to him

And James is telling us here that you should pray for wisdom You should ask for it If you don't have it you need to get it and God will give it to you

God answers prayers that are according to his will and a prayer for wisdom is an example of that Finally, we look at what the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 5 where he chapter 5 verses 11 through 14

Where he's scolding a number of people Hebrews 5 11 through 14 he says

Concerning him we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing

For though by this time you ought to be teachers you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God and You have come to need milk and not solid food

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness for he is an infant

But solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil

And what that means what that means is you're expected to grow and If your church is not giving you what you need to grow you either go somewhere else or you find it yourself

But it's not an excuse to say that I wasn't taught as I mean He's telling these people you should be teachers at this point as long as this church has been around But you still need the

Sunday school lesson so We want to grow spiritually we spiritually we want to learn this all sounds easy, right?

Because I think we all want to be discerning Christians. I think we all want to be able to do this so then we ask what could possibly go wrong with this desire and To see that we look at John 6 60 through 66 and this is something that I did read recently

I think it was last week when we were talking about the suffering servant John 6 60 through 66

Therefore many of his disciples when they heard this which it can just be referring to the teachings when they heard this said

This is a difficult statement who can listen to it But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling at this said to them does this cause you to stumble?

What then if you see the Son of Man? Ascending to where he was before the Spirit is the one who gives life the flesh profits

Nothing the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and our life But there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who?

It was that would betray him and he was saying for this reason I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him by the

Father verse 66 as a result of this Many of his disciples went away, and we're not walking with him anymore

So what can we what can we take away from this when it comes to the idea of being? Discerning and the idea of growing in your knowledge of Christ it shows us that this is not what everybody wants and When this is something that you pursue or when this is something that a church pursues people will walk away

Because it's not easy. It's not comfortable. It's often

Confrontational to your feelings and And if people aren't fully committed to the

Word of God, then they're gonna leave It's it's mind -boggling to look at this in Scripture to see people who were walking with Jesus now again

There's a lot of people that didn't know who he was they didn't actually think he was the Messiah So they didn't believe it, but they heard this teaching and they took off But his disciples knew who he was they believed and that's why they stayed but even

Jesus is teaching Repelled people even Jesus is teaching push people out of the church so We shouldn't be afraid to at least say the truth again

I don't ever I don't ever want to offend people just for the sake of offending people And I don't want to offend people with my words or my opinions or my thoughts

But if I offend someone with what the Bible says then so be it and That's that's how we have to operate.

We can't be concerned about things like that So the point of this is Realistically, what will happen is that you will start earnestly searching the

Scriptures and you? Will start to through the power of the Holy Spirit. You'll start to understand what's going on in Scripture and when you do that You're gonna start seeing things that are wrong

You're gonna see it now I'm talking to all you and you go to my church, so You you you will start seeing things in the church that maybe aren't the way they should be according to Scripture and If you've been to other churches, you might know this is the case, too

But if you even so much as question the wrong things that you see you may just face a backlash

From the people that are benefiting from the things that are wrong And again, I stand up here saying this

Knowing that you know, I'm I'm telling you that you need to be equipped to call me out if I'm doing something wrong, right?

So hopefully I'm not gonna give you a backlash if you're properly correcting me But I've been in situations where that has happened, you know

Well -meaning people did not like even a question asked about what they were doing So you'll face a backlash from people that are less discerning

Second Timothy 3 12 says this indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted and Why is this?

Well, we go back to that verse from 2nd Timothy 4 3 Which is not that far 2nd

Timothy 4 3 for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine But wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires

So then when you start to exercise discernment and you say Or somebody asks you have you heard the song?

Have you watched this show? Have you read this book? You might say something like well,

I read it, but I didn't think that it was right Well somebody who loves that book or loves that song or loves that show

They'll be upset because they'll feel like you are judging them Personally for not going along with their opinion because you have exercised some discernment

So you can expect That if you start to do this, you will get pushback and people will push back hard and they'll do things like Call you a

Pharisee. They'll call you a legalist all for Trying to respect scripture.

So let's let's think briefly about how practically We can avoid

Being a legalist or being a Pharisee because that is a very real danger of this too Because we don't want to acquire some knowledge

We don't want to acquire some understanding and then think it's our job to go around to everybody out there You know without being asked and tell them the things that they're doing that are wrong and tell them the things they're listening to the things

They're watching the things they're reading are wrong Because if they don't ask you then you're really not gonna You're really not gonna be received well, and and that's maybe not the best way to go about it

So let's let's look at a couple of ways that we can do this. And the first one is simply don't be obnoxious

Don't be a jerk to people, right? there are people out there

I See stuff from churches The books they're reading in their

Bible studies. I see it on Facebook and I'm like, oh My gosh, like that is not something they should be spending their time with But you don't want to just fire off a comment or go, you know insult somebody that's not the way to do it

In fact, if it's not your business, maybe maybe you have to stay out of it. But if somebody asks you you can certainly share now

The second thing you have to be sure of is that you truly understand what scripture says

Like you need to know that you're reading this properly. You need to know that you understand you don't want to just go

Read a passage think you know what it means and then go out and start blasting people

Make sure that you understand this and and believe me we're gonna get to that not tonight, but as we move forward the other the next thing you need to do is

Desire that the Holy Spirit shows them the truth, but also shows you the truth, right? This is this is what you should want.

We don't want to Judge people we don't want to criticize people so that they'll know we're right so that they'll know we're holy or they'll know

We're smart right that is being a Pharisee We want people to truly know the real

Word of God and to be changed by the Holy Spirit and to truly receive salvation That should be your desire not to prove yourself, right?

and the fourth thing is that we need to understand what issues are truly important and that is going to be

The focus of what we do going forward from here so we have to understand what doctrines are the most important and What doctrines are ones that it's okay to hold?

Differing views on because there are some things that scripture doesn't speak clearly about there are some things

It does speak very clearly about and those particularly salvation would be an example of this

The way you receive salvation and what you have to do is very clear, but Maybe something like the mode of baptism is not quite as clear and people can be good

Christians and disagree on that So you have to understand the doctrines now This gets down to something else that I think is important It You don't want to spend a whole lot of time looking for what's false

Some people do that some people say well How can I talk to a Mormon or how can I talk to a Catholic or how can

I talk to Jehovah's Witness? And they spend so much time studying these things that they don't actually study

Christian scripture to understand When banks are training people to handle money, you know counterfeiting is a big issue, right?

Well, how do you think they train people to detect counterfeit money? You teach them to handle the real thing

You don't give people a whole bunch of different counterfeit bills in order to learn how to spot counterfeit money

You get so used to training or so used to handling real money that it's obvious when a counterfeit comes in and the same

Principle applies to us with scripture. You don't need to go out and study false doctrine You don't need to listen to all that stuff and figure out how to fight it

You need to get into your Bible and make sure that you know what this says

So that you can truly discern what's real from error. And again, I want to say this

Very clearly. This is not about looking out into the world and seeing all the things that the world is doing wrong

This is not about judging people that aren't Christians because That should be obvious and if you can't do that, then then you don't need to talk to anybody about discernment

You do need to spend time in scripture, right? if you can't look at a TV show and see all the ways that they're

Just corrupting a marriage relationship or corrupting sexual relationships between people then then yes

You need to spend more time in the Bible This is about being able to discern when somebody on the internet who claims to be a prophet is saying something

And why it's not true This is listening to somebody who claims to be a pastor preaching something like the prosperity gospel and Using real scripture to do it and knowing why that's not right so What we're gonna do going forward is

We're gonna look at Different Christian doctrines so that we understand them. We understand what it means what the

Bible has to say about it So again what I'm laying out now for you is like the path forward from tonight what we're gonna be going to do

So again in order to discern you have to understand and you have to know what the real

Truth is what the absolute truth of God's Word is and that is how we're gonna discern real from counterfeit

That's how we're gonna be able to tell right from almost right now

Does anybody have any Questions about that I told when we had the the students earlier

I said, okay now I'm gonna do the riskiest thing in the world and I'm gonna open it up to questions And it's not risky because you might ask me a question.

I don't know the answer to it's risky because you won't ask any questions And we'll just stand here awkwardly silent for the next 10 minutes

But yeah, does anybody have questions about this topic or about anything related to it because Again, this is where we'll be for You know, we'll be here for a little while for the next few weeks as we talk about this

So it's almost like a foundations of the faith kind of thing that we're gonna do going forward No, I don't know exactly when the snow is gonna start or how much we're gonna get

So you can get that question Yeah, I'm gonna put these up like I do Well, thank you for coming tonight.

Yeah, I'm gonna put the recordings up just like we do on the Sunday morning services yep, and I encourage you to to bring people and You can you can email them in You can text me during the service and that's right

I'll keep this up here and it'll light up in front of me Okay, so that that's where we are if nobody has any questions that that's fine.

We'll Yeah, please Yeah So The purpose -driven life what what ultimately winds up being the problem with that book is that the author

He really plays kind of fast and loose with Scripture So when I when

I talk on Sunday mornings about having to take verses in their context, right? You have to you have to understand everything that's going on around it.

You can't just pull out a verse and Give it its own meaning and that's that's a lot of what he does.

So not only does he do that That's called proof texting. He'll pull out a verse and use it You know this and that book obviously is very focused on on your individual growth, which is good and there is good stuff about it but this is a great question because it's a great example, so Not only do we have kind of a flawed premise that God uses 40 -day periods to change people's lives

Right. That's the premise of the book Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, you know, we had 40 days of flooding so God changes the world in 40 days

Well, that's not inherently harmful It is a misuse of Scripture because think about how

God changes other people God changed Paul instantly So there's that but like I said, probably the biggest issue is taking

Scripture verses out of context specifically to prove a point now I have Other issues, you know and it's like who am

I but other issues with With Rick Warren and the way he he does his church, you know, it's kind of a

Felt needs sort of model like they went out and did surveys of the community to see what people wanted in a church and then they built up a church that way and that's why it turned into a massive church because you know, you're taking a consumeristic approach to it, but the

The book doesn't handle Scripture faithfully and there's better books for your own spiritual development than that So yes,

I would I would not recommend it And there's there's plenty more that we could go into for that book if if you knew had if you had specific questions later

But yeah, no, that's a good one He'll So, I'm are you gonna did you want to contribute to that The MacArthur study

Bible, okay, so I think that my affinity for John MacArthur is well known at this point

But the reason that I like him the reason that I I go to his work so much is because From everything that I can see from his ministry

The only priority that he has is to interpret the scripture as faithfully as he can.

He's not perfect I'm not perfect. None of us are perfect But yes, so one example would be the

MacArthur study Bible because it has notes on all of the verses You know, I have that big commentary set in my office.

It's kind of a condensed version of that So a study Bible like that, there's other good ones to Reformation study

Bible ESV study Bible But that's probably a place to start because the study Bible is gonna give you resources to go along with what you're reading

You know, it'll be it'll be an explanation of what the verses mean So, you know without having to spend thousands of dollars on other books

Yeah a reliable study Bible, like I said MacArthur is not the only one it's my favorite one, but it's not the only one

It is yeah now you have to take what I say with a grain of salt because You should ask

Amy how many books we have at home and how many books I have in my office and I look like a hoarder because there are just stacks of books everywhere, but MacArthur I like him.

He's he's He's contemporary like you can listen to him now. He's currently still alive, but if you trace his roots back

The probably the first person you'll find is Martin Lloyd -Jones Who I think he died in the 80s

I could I could totally have that wrong and be completely embarrassed about that He was a pastor in England in the 80s. Martin Lloyd -Jones is amazing.

But if you go back His roots now you have to go back hundreds of years now. You'll start to find

English Puritans so now we're looking in the 16 and 1700s, right?

Those guys Wrote some of the best stuff that I've ever read.

I mean they they seem to Have been granted a tremendous understanding of Scripture by the

Holy Spirit and again, nobody's perfect right but if you look at people like John Owen or Thomas Watson and I could

Richard Sibbes I Could just go on naming Stephen Charnock And look at some of the stuff that they've written about, you know, whatever it is that you're looking at you'll find just gold

Gold absolute gold, so Yeah, yeah, you know

I think part of that is like if I'm being transparent part of it is like this imposter syndrome thing

I'm like, well, who am I to stand up here and talk about this stuff, right? You know, I know who I am and what I've done and I'm not that impressive frankly

So, you know, I I don't trust myself Always to give you the best that's out there, but I love read like this is this is truly my passion

So I love reading about all that stuff So yeah, I've done I've done a lot of legwork and I have tons of books in my office and then at home that yeah

I can recommend on stuff like this. Yes, junior Yeah, I Will tell you to the the reason that I started the library and the reason that I told people

Don't put books in it If you want to if you want to donate something donate money so we can buy more books It's because I don't want the purpose -driven life showing up there.

The library that I have up by my office is Stuff that I recommend, you know, and I have

I have some sermons from Charles Spurgeon. I have Martin Lloyd -Jones is Biography, that's really good.

I have some books by John MacArthur. I have some other books by Spurgeon It's just I'm working on putting that kind of thing in there.

But yes, I can I can make a list of you know specific people That I think are interesting to look into you have to you have to realize that Puritans since they were writing in the 1600 1700s 1800s the

English is a little bit different So some there are modernized versions of their works which are really helpful

But sometimes you'll get into stuff. That's kind of hard to follow Because the other thing about those guys is they were smart like they were geniuses, you know

We've got the internet and Bible software and all this other kind of stuff they had it all on their heads So yes, but I can certainly

I can certainly compile a list of resources that I recommend. Those are good questions

Anybody else Robin? Um Yeah, I mean that was that was a very legitimate translation.

That was you I mean, I think that's from like the 1500s I believe I could be wrong about that, but it's

It is one that they used Yes a valid translation certainly now.

I will I will put in another pitch for the LSB though because You know, it's modern.

I think it's easy to read It's one of the most faithful translations of Scripture in a lot of different ways and that's why

I use it That's why we sort of move the pew Bibles to that and I know I don't require anybody to use it

But I do recommend it so is if there's nothing else.

Oh, that's perfect. It's seven o 'clock right now We'll go ahead and I'll pray and we'll we'll call it an evening.

All right Father I want to thank you so much for this opportunity. I want to thank you for people who

Truly have a heart for discernment because when it all gets down to the most important thing

We know that it's your word. We know that it's the things that you've revealed to us You've given us this entire library of 66 books to tell us

Everything that it is that we need to know we know that your word is sufficient for salvation

Which means while other outside resources can be helpful There's nothing else.

We need to know there's nothing else that we need that's not in your word So we thank you for that and our prayer tonight is that you through the power of the

Holy Spirit Would help us to discern right from almost right help illuminate the mirror of what's going on in our lives

So we thank you for that and we pray that we would just faithfully interpret it faithfully follow your guidance

God Thank you once again for Jesus Thank you for what he's done and thank you for all that you've revealed in your word

Lord And we love you, and we pray all these things in your son's holy and precious name Jesus Christ.