Isaiah Lesson 6

Shekinah Glory Departing the Temple and the Exile

Last week, as we were in Isaiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 4, 1 through 5, what's the question? It's on, but thanks for asking. We were talking about the return of the Shekinah Glory to the temple, and so we kind of did a little bit of a rabbit trail, and we talked about how the Shekinah Glory and how the temple, and then there was a question that was asked that I was not really ready to answer.

I had not done enough study on it, so I took an action item, and the question was, wasn't there a time where the Shekinah Glory departed the temple? And I had these little memory things popping off, but not enough to talk to it, so I took the action item.

Here's the deal. The passage that was being talked about is in Ezekiel 10. In Ezekiel 10, it talks about the Shekinah Glory moving from the ark, from the Holy of Holies to the threshold, and then eventually it talks about going out the gate and eventually departing.

It's interesting to note that Ezekiel is a prophet. Does anybody know when Ezekiel prophesied? What was going on when Ezekiel prophesied? That is a very true statement. He is a contemporary of Daniel, so Ezekiel was given the message to prophesy from the Lord while the nation was in exile, and so if you read in the book of Ezekiel, you are going to see visions of things that were, and visions of what God expects, and eventually visions of things that would be to come.

Kind of sounds like revelation to me. Chapter 10 is in the visions of the way things were, so slightly before that in Ezekiel 8, you're going to understand idolatry was actually being practiced in the temple, that the nation's sin had gotten so abhorrent that they were even using the temple for idol worship.

That leads to Isaiah 10, when God responds by removing the Shekinah glory from the temple, and then if you move further on into Ezekiel 12, you start to see the overturn of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple.

So here's the sequence. You have the nation in full fellowship with God, the Shekinah glory in the temple. Now, if you go to Exodus, the tabernacle is completed, and as the priests get ready to do their duties, the Shekinah glory comes on the temple, and then if you move into 2 Samuel, the temple is completed, and as the ark is brought into the holy of holies, the priests are getting ready, the Shekinah glory comes in.

So the nation, with the presence of God and the Shekinah glory in the temple, they start to desecrate the temple with idol worship, the Shekinah glory leaves, and then the temple is destroyed. That's what was really talked about last week.

As in, oh by the way, when you go into Ezra and beyond, it doesn't specifically say it didn't, but it never says that it does return, that the Shekinah glory, it never, it mentioned it in Exodus, it mentioned it in 2 Samuel, and when the temple is rebuilt in the time of Ezra, Zerubbabel, there's no mention of it.

The implication is that it's not there. Now, here's another implication, that taking A plus B, if you would, type logic, with the Shekinah glory in the temple, with God's presence in the temple, the question could be asked, could Babylon have ever overtaken the temple?

He left the temple because of the apostasy of the nation, left the temple unprotected, opening the door for the Babylonians to successfully come in and destroy the temple, and then the rest of the prophecy, the 70 years, all comes to be.

So the long and short, the question last week was, wasn't there a time when the Shekinah glory left the temple? Yes. And that's all part of God's sovereign plan on how the nation was going to be punished for 70 years.

That Shekinah glory could not be there with the temple being destroyed. The people were totally guilty and culpable for what they did, but this is a sovereign God, and how this all came to be is all within his sovereign control.

The Shekinah glory did leave, and that led the way eventually to the exile.

Do you have any other thoughts there? No, that's wonderful. Thank you. All right, let me say a word of prayer, and then we dive into chapter 2, verse 6 and following. So Father, we thank you so much that we can break bread together this morning, that we can open your word and be fed life-giving words that change us from the inside out.

We need that, God. We need to hear your voice, and so we ask that you would speak through your word. Lord, your servants are listening. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So the first chapter, of course, begins with that just brutal indictment of God's people, a comparison to Sodom, their sinfulness.

And then there's a note of hope at the end of chapter 1, where we learn that Zion shall be redeemed, verse 27. And in chapter 2, we see that the mountain of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains.

And last week, John taught about how that's a picture of the millennial reign of Christ, where I think actually the mountain of Zion will be the physical high point of the earth at that point. And you see in the book of Revelation, the lowering of all high places and the fleeing of all islands from their place.

So the world itself has been shook by the tribulation, and Jerusalem has become the high point on earth, I think. But even if figuratively speaking, Jerusalem is the center of all things, and the nations flock to Jerusalem, where the king himself is situated.

But as we get into verse 6, after this call to walk in the light of the Lord, it goes back to judgment. So you're seeing an oscillation here between judgment oracles and the hope of redemption, which will come.

Judgment Against God's People for Idolatry

Now we're back to judgment. So could I get my first reader, somebody to just read aloud chapter 2, verse 6, and then we'll progress through from there. What I'll do is raise your hand if you're willing to read.

Okay, most everybody. So I'll just kind of go around like this as we go. So Sandy, you're first. Okay, so here again we have judgment. Chapter 2, verse 6, he begins with, you have rejected your people, abandoned your people.

Now, your people means these are the chosen ones. This is Israel. And yet they are so sinful, so rejecting of him, that he now has rejected them. So what would this statement say to a culture that says that God is always accepting?

Because we live in the culture of acceptance, right? Diversity, inclusion, equality. God welcomes and accepts everybody, so we should be tolerant of all things because God has no, nothing that's outside of the boundaries in this culture.

What would this verse say to such a sentiment? Yeah, it flies straight in the face of it that God actually does reject at some point. So in Hosea, we understand that that book to be God speaking allegorically through his prophet being told to go and take a wife who is a prostitute.

And do you remember what their child is to be named? Not my people. Some name for a kid, right? But the idea is you're rejected in Hosea 1, 9. And the Lord said, call his name not my people. For you are not my people and I am not your God.

In the New Testament, do we have any such rejection language? On your paper there, would somebody like to read Matthew chapter 7 verse 23? We'll go to you, Barb, when you have a minute. Verse 23, Matthew 7, 23.

And I'll set that up for a minute. In the New Testament, God is the same God as he is in the Old Testament. And one of the most terrifying things that we could ever hear from God is that you're not my people.

And Jesus uses a kind of similar language in the Sermon on the Mount. So Matthew 7 verse 23. A terrifying thought to be told by the Lord of glory that he never knew you. What's even stronger.

On that is the context where that verse is actually set. Who knows the context right around that where he says, I will say I never even knew you. What did the people say? Why? Didn't we prophesy in your name?

Didn't we do it? Depart from me. I never knew you. That's even dangerous too, because the thought of being self-righteous, of being in a righteous, acting righteously, earning as if it's your right, earning the privilege, is basically refuted there.

Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. So now we get to the reason for this rejection, and it's in the second part of verse 6. So Isaiah 2, 6b. Because they are full of things from the East. So all the West Coast rappers out in California like, yeah, that's the problem.

It's the East Coast. That's the problem. No. What does East represent here? The false idolatry of the Eastern people. Now at the time when this was written, China, what was the population there? Bigger or smaller?

Well, compared to today, yeah, a whole lot smaller. Compared to the East. Yes, that's all to the East. But the Eastern influence, there's nothing religiously good coming out of the East. It's basically a lot of idolatry.

I was listening to a heretic, which I sometimes do, intentionally knowing who they are. His name was Richard Rohr. And he masquerades as a Christian, and he wrote a book called The Universal Christ. He was on with another Bible scholar from Eastern University, just across the river from us, St. David's, PA.

And this guy's name is Peter Enns. He also wrote a book about the Bible, which undermines the authority of scripture. And the two of them are talking on a podcast. And Richard Rohr laments, you know, when I was in seminary, we almost never studied the things of the East.

And by that, he meant the Eastern Orthodox Church. All that we ever studied was Protestantism. And in Richard Rohr's worldview, he's like some kind of father in the Catholic Church now, evidently. He lamented that there was not enough taken into account from the East.

Listen, all different traditions are not equal. So you have Eastern Orthodoxy, you have Roman Catholicism, you have all the different Protestant denominations. Then you have the East in terms of Buddhism, and Taoism, and Hinduism, and all of the Eastern pantheistic religious worldview.

All worldviews are not created equal. They do not all inform us equally. What is the standard? God's Word. And so whereas Richard Rohr will say, oh, we don't take enough account to the things of the East.

What does the Bible say in Isaiah 2, 6, Part B? I've rejected you, House of Jacob, because you're full of things from the East. God is not politically correct. In fact, not all cultures in the world are equal.

Not all cultures are equal. And that's, of course, considered xenophobic to say such a thing in today's world. But it's the truth. There are some cultures that are more biblically consistent than others.

Some cultures are built on anti-biblical worldviews, and some are built more so on a biblical worldview. The Western culture that gave birth to the United States of America is more biblical and better than some cultures which the world celebrates.

How many of y 'all celebrated Indigenous People's Day on Monday? Did you know that just five years before Christopher Columbus arrived, just five years before, the Aztecs sacrificed 84 ,000 human beings to the fire, including children.

Human sacrifices five years before Columbus arrived. The Indigenous People culture is not equal to or better than what Christopher Columbus brought, even with his errors, Roman Catholicism, a number of things.

There are differences, and God does not follow the politically correct mantra of the world. He decries that. Morality. Ethics. Yeah, so different. Now, there's nothing saving in morality. You still need Christ, but there is a better morality, and there's things that are immoral.

And the standard, of course, what I'm saying is we go by what the Word says. I just love that the prophet Isaiah is not afraid to decry the things of the East because it's idolatry, and that's what we're going to learn about now.

Here's the problem. It's filled with things from the East. It's not bad because of the direction, right? It's not because it's East versus West. No. The issue is what? Fortune tellers like the Philistines.

So this is sorcery. Striking hands with the children of foreigners. So this is when Israelites are making pledges, agreements, striking hands in commonality with the children of the foreigners. My next reader over here, did somebody raise their hand?

Kimberly, if you don't mind, read verse 7. So at this time, the Assyrian empire, as Ed mentioned, is dominant in the world, and it has far more possessions filled with silver and gold. The majesty of Assyria.

Now, it was declining a little bit at this point, and it will be overthrown by the Babylonians, but the things to the East are more lucrative than what Israel is experiencing. So the treasures of the East.

Sin is appealing precisely because it does bring pleasure and riches in the short term. Look at verse 8. And notice the parallel. Before we read verse 8, Bob, are you going to read for me? Notice the parallel of verse 7.

Their land is filled with. Verse 8 begins with the same expression. Their land is filled with. So it's one and the same. It's a parallelism here. The land is filled with silver and gold and all these good things.

Well, they're really neutral things. It depends on how you use them. But notice in verse 8, Bob. So by their industry, they're able to bring things up from the ground. They're able to create and build the giant wall around Assyria.

They're able to do these wonderful things and make things, but the very things they make, they worship. Now, how can that also be a danger for us? Hmm. You think there's people that love their car? Inordinately?

Yeah. You think he would have? What did you say? I'd like to see you try. Bring it. No. So yeah, people make idols out of anything. What are some things, some other things that people make an idol out of?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, anything. It could be sports. Yeah, we see that in American culture very much so. Yeah. But because they're athletes, they're spokespeople with the highest moral virtue, right?

They're the ones most competent to speak to culture. It seems they think so. Yeah. Right. Hollywood. I don't know what makes people think that because they're proficient in something like sports, that they would be the commentators on culture.

But yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They're pretenders by profession. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In a sense. Yeah. So we move on to verse nine. Rich, why don't you read that for us? We'll come back to you. Yes. And the ESV has it, so man is humbled and each one is brought low.

I think the concept here is both of what you read and what the ESV translates. They're degrading themselves. They're humbling themselves, not in the good sense of how Jesus humbled himself in kenosis to become like us.

No, they're bowing down. They're humbling themselves before made things. And that's degrading to them. That's lowering them. That's bringing them low, submitting to demons. Right. Yeah. Okay. And remind me of your name.

I'm sorry. Karen. Karen. Right. Would you mind reading verse ten for us? Enter into the rock, hide in the dust, it says. From before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty. This would be a threat.

You need to hide yourself. Look in a cave for a hiding place. Get under some ground like a tornado is coming through because judgment is coming. That's where I was going to go. What does it say there?

Read it for us. Yes. Right. Right. And also in Revelation 6, 16, people are hiding in the clefts of the rocks calling fall on us. What are they hiding from? Hide us from the wrath of God and of the lamb.

Yeah. Isn't that an interesting picture? The wrath of the lamb is the question. So does Jesus have wrath as his father does? Yes. Absolutely. Revelation 6, 16. Yep. It is righteous for him to hate evil.

Yes. And to love righteousness.

I love the turn of it, too, because it's it's a picture of being so terrified of what's out there that you just have to be hidden in every possible way. And I and I think it's not too hard to resonate before the terror of the Lord.

But then it also says from the splendor of his majesty. And if I think about the splendor of the majesty of God, that sounds appealing to anybody that has an open eye that everybody whose heart can be tender to be able to to experience the splendor of his majesty.

Now, this is slightly different than Isaiah when he's transported into the very presence of God and he falls on his face and he says, what was me? I'm a man of unclean lips. It's to be able to see the goodness, the holiness, the perfectness of God is so convicting that they have to hide from it.

And it's because they know they don't measure up. Yeah. Yes. So what did what did Adam and Eve say right after the fall? And Jesus is walking in the cool of the day. We were hiding because we thought we told them that God would be angry.

Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. Instinctively, they know. Yes. Yes.

Yep. Romans two talks about how conscience was there even before law was given. Yep. So in Isaiah two eleven, this is kind of culminating this section that God is going to judge the idolatry. He will bring low those who are bowing down to idols.

So it says the haughty looks of man shall be brought low. And the lofty pride of men shall be humbled and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. So what is the great offense of pride? Why is pride so offensive to God?

Yeah. Yeah. You're at it. You're at a position. You're at a place. There's one God in the universe. He needs to be the center of everything in our worldview. And he gets the glory alone. Instead, people love to be the center of their own world.

And this the man centered worldview, everything's about me. It's about meeting my needs. And really, why do people bow down to idols? Yes. They're looking to gain. They're currying some favor from this supposed God for their own self.

It's really not God centered at all. It's using them. And that's what paganism, the essence of paganism is whatever God you have, you devote yourself to some God that will then intercede for you and help you and give you favor and make things work out well for you.

It's also what Catholics do in praying to saints. They have various saints that they approach for their own help. Yeah. But God, sole a day of glory. God deserves the glory. And our lives should be lived oriented to him in our thoughts and our actions, how we treat people.

Everything should be oriented to God. He needs to remain the center of our world. So God's going to judge because they're out of place. They they're living as if they're the center of the universe. They bow down and they're going to be brought love.

The Day of the Lord and the Great Tribulation

OK, now we get into the day of the Lord. There's coming a day. Now, notice for all of this idolatry in Israel to the point where God doesn't even recognize them anymore as his chosen people, he still is bearing with that judgment has not yet come.

Similarly, as you look out at the world and you say, how can God tolerate a world that's filled with murderers who are killing innocent babies in the womb, a world that's filled with with pedophiles that are in high places, this and they seem like they never meet judgment.

In fact, they seem to get wealthy. Who complained that way? Who was who is the prophet that was concerned about how the right, the wicked just seem to prosper? David. Have a back to back something, but to David also.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure in one of the Psalms you'll find find that complaint. But Habakkuk is the one that the book is sort of around that. And the answer is God is storing up judgment. He's not blind to the injustice.

He's not blind to the sin. He will bring judgment, but he stores that up for what's called the day of the Lord. Now, here we're going to see a near term day that's coming. Israel to the north, conquered by a Syria.

Jerusalem and the south will be conquered by Babylon. But there's also a far term picture of the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord. And that, of course, is the Great Tribulation, a seven year period of woe.

So let's look at this passage. It's going to be a bigger section. Let's just see it all together because there's a lot of against, against, against this alliteration of how God will come in opposition to the enemies.

Who wants to read? Give me a hand. Carol's already read. OK, I got John Costello back there. So if you wouldn't mind, brother, verses 12 to 19. Very good. Thank you. So in Isaiah 2, 12 to 19, what do many of these things have in common?

Cedars of Lebanon, oaks of Bashan, lofty mountains, uplifted hills. What's the common thread? What's the theme here? Pride. Good. How can a mountain be proud? Right, absolutely. And then the idea of the beautiful craft, the ships of Tarshish.

These are things in which people glory. Their glory is in these things, whether it be a mountain or the trees. Lebanon is famous in all the world because the trees of Lebanon are so high. Or the places with high mountains, they delight in their mountains.

Do you worship on this mountain or that mountain? What high place do you go to to serve your God? These are the things that are exalting to a people, whether it be their ships or the beauty of their crafts.

Who has the best craftsmen or the greatest maker of purple cloth or whatever it is that distinguishes a people and they find their glory in it? Where do you find your glory? That's the question. For us, it must be in Him.

It's Philippians. It talks about how those who are looking to the things of this earth, their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things, on their stomach, the appetites of their flesh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And God is going to, yeah, created. Yes. Yeah, look back at verse 7. It's the abundance of a land that's filled. That's an abundant kind of idea with silver, gold, treasures, no end to their treasures.

So yeah, I would say that is that is part of it. Yeah, right. And making an idol. Verse 18 says, and the idol shall utterly pass away. So all of these things in which people glory are temporary things, even the created things, Bob, that you mentioned, these mountains that God made, even those will be brought low.

The people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground. And before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. Revelation 6, 16, literally fulfilled in the last seven years of this earth.

So you think of Daniel's 70th week. We don't have time to really go through it at the moment, but Daniel prophesied that there would be 77. And after the first 69 sevens, Messiah is cut off. And we're still waiting on that 70th seven, that seven, that 70th and final seven year period on earth.

And it is the day of the Lord. It's a period of judgment where God pours out judgment. It is the wrath. And that's why us who believe in the rapture of the church before that will be gone because we're not appointed to suffer the wrath of the father and of the lamb because Christ has already born that wrath in his body.

But God will pour out this wrath on the prideful. So this day is coming. We learned from Daniel 9, 27 that there will be one who makes a peace treaty and things look great and things are abundant and Israel's rebuilt their temple and everything is good until the abomination of desolation where he sets up and makes an idol and worships to it or presents himself as God on that altar at that altar.

And that's how the antichrist is fully revealed for who he actually is. And what happens? The great tribulation and all the suffering is poured out on the earth to the extent that people would rather die.

It gets so bad in the book of Revelation that people are gnawing their tongues. There's no more light. They have nothing. They're just like orgs and they're bent on one thing. Getting revenge on God's people.

They just want to go to Jerusalem and kill. That's all they have left. I said like orgs. Oh, morgues? Yeah, the walking dead. Yeah, yeah, like an org. Was that from, um, what movie was the orgs in? I don't know.

Yeah, I was thinking one of those like C .S. Lewis or Tolkien. Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings. Didn't they have orgs? Orcs. Orcs. Oh, they had orcs. Oh, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

Orgs.

Here's another. An orc. Yeah, but here's another insight to this passage because verse 19 sounds so much like verse 11, but it has an extra, an extra indication. All of these things exist and do exist and seem to be the foundation for those who think they are prospering and those who think they have found the answers to life.

In this case, it's called the Cedars of Lebanon or it's the Lofty Mountains or it's the Ships of Tarshish. Things that appear to be validating the false message that really is coming from Satan, that there is no reason to be afraid.

There is no reason to be afraid, but at the end of verse 19, it isn't unless or it isn't if, it's when he rises to terrify the earth. There's a period of time where the evil is going to be given freedom to be evil and people's, our satisfaction is going to be people's satisfaction and like the prophet Habakkuk, he looked around and he goes, why are you letting everybody get away with this?

Well, it's in his design and it's in his timing, but when he rises, all this is going to come to an end. So there's a promise of a future that just because it looks right now like evil is winning, there is a when and it is going to happen and he will rise to.

Take it all back. Okay, John, would you mind reading for us 20 and 21, but hold on first.

Question for Bob, then you go. Okay, got it. In that day, mankind through the caverns of the cliffs for the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty when he rises to terrify.

The earth. Okay, Bob, and then I've got comments. Yeah, you always, one of the rules of hermeneutics is that you look for repetition. That's a theme that's being pushed. So yeah, you're absolutely right and because we have this again in Revelation in 6 and 16, you recognize this is a literal happening and what I think is going on in verse 20 and 21, it says they cast away their idols.

Is that like, yay, they're done with their idols? No, this is like they're hiding in a cave because destruction is falling. Remember at the end of Revelation, there's even hailstones falling from heaven and crushing.

So what your buddy got taken out, but you barely escaped and you're hiding in this cave and you still have some idol. Okay, this is crazy. When I went to Turkey as a missionary, there were some missionaries with us.

We were from a certain Bible college that I won't name and some of the missionaries bought an idol and they thought it was funny. They would take this goofy idol and put it in one another's bags and at the end of the trip, we learned that they had been hiding it in each other's bags and aha, I've got an idol and then they'd hide it in somebody else's bag.

They didn't recognize how evil that abominable thing was. They took it as a joke because in Turkey today, they still sell idols in the open market. So when the leaders found out about that, it was a strong rebuke to them for that because they didn't realize you're playing with demonic spirits when you're passing this around and we need to do some exorcism here, but the point was they took it lightly.

They thought they were just, you know, playing around. In the last day, the only usefulness of that thing is to throw it at a bat because you're in a cave and you have nothing left. You're using it as a tool to get this bat away from you because you're scared.

You're smashing the wall with your idol. It's worthless. You're being judged. This is a dangerous scene. It is not something to be trifled with. This is the wrath of almighty God and people are burying themselves and hiding in caves.

That's the image here. They made these things for themselves to the moles and to the bats. Moles are underground. Bats are in caves. This is a quite a scene. Enter the caverns and the clefts of the cliffs from before the terror of the Lord.

Let that word terror hit you. This is nothing that we want a part of, but such a beautiful reminder that Christ has borne the wrath of God and the terror of God in full. He drank that cup for us. We have a Savior that has rescued us from what we deserve, the wrath of God.

That was the meaning of the cross, right? The central meaning of the cross is propitiation, the satisfying of wrath. In the cross, Jesus absorbed the wrath of the Father and satisfied it in full on behalf of us, his people.

And so we're spared this terror. We have freedom and no expectation of judgment. In God, there is no more condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus. That wrath has been completely vanquished. So we're in Christ.

So we should be compassionate towards men, but should we fear them? Look at the last verse and we'll finish with this. Who hasn't read that would still like to? Over here, Bob. Thanks. Wow. And the ESV says, I like that.

After all, he doesn't count for much. I like that. Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he? It's an interesting turn here to man, because man looks so formidable in all their haughty might.

And in the world, they look impressive, especially in their wealth that they regard and the idols that they worship. Have no fear of man. When you stand and preach this gospel, they will hate you. They will revile you.

And they will use all those resources against you. But the fear of man is a snare. Did I put this in the notes? Yeah. Proverbs 29, 25. The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

I wanted to close with this image of a snare. The fear of man is a snare. If you're going to be worried about what other people think of you, and as a preacher I had to come to this point early on, in 2016.

I am going to preach whatever this says, even if it hurts people's feelings, even if they leave the church. I am going to say the truth. And every Christian, preachers especially, because we have the pulpit, but every Christian needs to be willing to say the truth without fear of man.

The fear of man is a snare. What is a snare? A snare was like a loop, a noose connected to a rope that you would put in a path where animals run. I have a little dog and you can see where my dog runs because she always takes the same path in the grass.

And so it wears out that spot and you can see that's her path. Well, if there was a lion or some dangerous animal terrorizing a village, you would be able to see the path that it often takes. So you would lay a snare, which was a hook, a circle noose, and as the animal ran through it got snared around its neck and as it kept running it tightened.

And the more it struggled, the more it choked itself out. The harder it pulled, the tighter it got. So the snare chokes it to death. And you come back and you find the dead animal in the snare. That was the trick.

So what does that say to us? Fear of man is a snare to us. Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath. For of what account is he? If we worry all the time about what people think about us, trying to impress people, trying to look a certain part, it's a snare to us.

It chokes out our ability to go and be effective like Isaiah in crying out against the idolatry of the world. Don't be afraid of men. Be willing to speak the truth. So in closing, John, would you close us in prayer?

And I'm going to walk back and turn off the video and then we can keep talking.

About it. Lord, we are submitting to you in light of the truths of this word, in light of the reality that Satan has convinced people to turn to things that they can control, to be proud, to look for things that are beyond God as their satisfaction.

It's folly. And in your timing, you will bring it all down and man will be turned into fear because of it. But we have no reason to fear God because we are washed clean by the blood of God. Allow us, Father, to read these passages and to be aware, to be convinced that we need to spread your word to a world that falls into these traps, but to have confidence in you.

Stop regarding man, stop being afraid of man, but to turn to you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.