False Teachers...Their Certain Doom - 2 Peter 2:2-10

1:28And engineers ranked higher than higher higher Ranked higher than pastors. In fact, through the years, there's been a steady drop. Now, I think they still are above lawyers, so that's good. Well, that's what Peter is dealing with here: false teachers and the shame that they bring upon the way of truth. Let me read the passage here, beginning in verse 4. If God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter, and if he rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, for by what he saw and heard that righteous man while living among them felt in his righteous soul torment day after day by their lawless deeds, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. As I was sitting there in the hairstylist. Chair. Now, I was tempted to think, God, why don't you do something about these emporiums of false words? Why don't you step onto the scene and swiftly judge those who malign the truth? They malign your name. They malign your people. Why don't you step on the scene and do something about it? I think that was a question that was going rattling around in some of the minds of Peter's audience. Because if you look back in verse 3, Peter tells them that their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. Now, I look around, no one's asleep yet. You know, that nodding off. Peter's saying, listen, God's judgment upon these peddlers of false words is not dozing off. It's not like God is not very much awake.

3:54And so, what he goes on and what Peter does is he gives three examples. He says, Let me show you, let me tell you something. God's judgment on such as these is not idle. It's in gear. It's running its course through history. And in a classic conditional statement, then, if then, you've seen that before, right? The prodices and the apodices, the condition and the consequence. If this is true, then this is true. And the idea or sense, the Condition is true. In verse 4 through 8, it talks about the condition, since, or for if God did not spare the angels, and verse 7, and if he rescued Lot, and I think I skipped one in there, and did not spare the ancient world, if this, then in verse 9, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. You see that classic if, then, and what Peter is saying is, since the condition is true in verses 4 through 8, then the consequence is also true in verses 9 and 10. So I want you to see three examples of God's judgment and two conclusions that you can draw.

5:17Three examples, two conclusions that you can draw so that your faith will continue to grow even in a world of false teachers. So we're going to go right through the text. Three examples. Three examples of God's judgment. The first is the example of the angels. Look at verse 4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. See that passage? Notice what God didn't do. He did not spare angels when they sinned. He did not relieve the angels the consequences of their actions. When they sinned, they were punished. God provided no means of salvation. Salvation for this category of beings. Look at what God did do. He didn't spare the angels, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. Notice the expression, he cast them into hell. It's one word, it's a verb that's only used here in the New Testament, and it's the word, if we translated it literally, it would be tartarized. They've been tartarized, which comes from the Greek word tartarus, which in Greek mythology was a subterranean abyss where the most wicked and evil spirits were incarcerated. It was the lowest hell. This is where the Titans who rebelled against Zeus were sent. He borrows language to speak about the lowest hell. That's the idea here. He committed them to pits of darkness. He cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness. The idea he committed, he handed over for imprisonment, like Saul used to put Christians in prison. So God put these angels, committed them to prison or to these pits of darkness. Some of y'all have translations that say chains. I think pits is probably the better translation, although chains and pits both speak of the same thing, confinement. They're bound.

7:32The word for pits comes from an English equivalent word, silos. We get the word silos, where we store grains. Well, the Greek equivalent, siros, were the great underground pits in which grain was stored. So they're kind of like underground, subterranean silos, if you will. Great big chasms where, or places, pits where they kept grain. The word later came to refer to pits that trapped animals. So the and this is Peter's language. He's not talking Greek myth here. This is the terms that he uses. The angels that sinned were committed to something like great subterranean pits and confined there, undergoing torment and punishment.

8:23But the bottom line is: whether you go to chains, pits, the idea is the same. God committed these angels to a dark place, place of confinement, bound them. They had a loss of freedom until the time of the final judgment. And our penal system works much the same way. We take criminals out of circulation, and convicted criminals will be incarcerated until their final trial, in which they'll ultimately receive a sentence. Well, God took the angels who sinned out of circulation, and he bound them in. A spirit prison, some sort, reserving them for final judgment. And it's probably these that in 1 Peter 3:19, when Peter had spoken about the place where Jesus went and made a proclamation, I believe a proclamation to the spirits in prison, and that was a proclamation of victory, not the gospel.

9:27But there's two big questions that are frequently asked of this text: Who are these angels and what did they do? Now, Peter isn't answering those, so I'm going to, because it's an interpretive issue, I'm just going to throw it out there so that you understand what's going on. But Peter doesn't really deal with this. He moves right on. He's got a point that he's going to. But this is a big question. Two big questions. Who are these angels? What did they do? One view is that these angels are referring to all of those angels who fell during Satan's rebellion. The problem is clear in Scripture, or the problem with this is that it's clear in Scripture, not all demons are bound. Luke 8:26, there's a man that has a legion of demons, and they came up to him, and they were imploring him not to go, not to send them into the abyss.

10:22So I don't think that view is good. A second view, and the oldest, is that Peter is speaking of the event. That took place in Genesis 6, 1 through 5. Let me just read you that if you're familiar. Genesis chapter 6. Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and the daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he is also flesh. Nevertheless, his days will be 120 years. The Nephilium were on the earth in those days, and afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Now, who is this? Well, one view is that these are speaking of fallen angels that somehow cohabitated with women just prior to the flood. A lustful union between angels and women, and it produced some race of giants. Bizarre.

11:38But what's interesting about this, I don't know how it all worked, they took on the form of human, took on or possessed human males, made this happen. But what's interesting is a lot of, I mean, I spent my time this week in the pseudopigraphal book of Enoch and apocryphal books. They speak about this event. In fact, Enoch speaks a lot about this. Pseudopigraphal, not scripture, but something that was certainly in circulation that affected the thinking of the day. But Enoch was the great, great, great, great-grandson of Seth, and he goes into great detail about this event. He talks about the place where he talks about the number, 200 descending on Mount Hermon. He goes into names and ranks of these fallen angels. And he speaks about the giants that came out of this and what they did.

12:39Apocryphal books such as Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus and Baruch spoke of these ancient giants or Nephilium as well. Josephus speaks about them, saying these giants were arrogant. They were against all that was good, and they trusted in their own strength. And Jude verse 6 seems to reinforce this. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their abode, he has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for judgment of the great day. Kind of a bizarre view, but a very literal one. And a historic one. There's a third view that sees Genesis 6. This came later.

13:30The sons of God in Genesis 6 are the good men in the line of Seth, and the daughters of men were the daughters of Cain, and they corrupted the good men. Therefore, when Peter refers to this, he's not referring to Genesis 6, because that was not, that was clearly referring, or that was referring to the line of Seth and the daughters of Cain. Another view sees Genesis 6 as an allegory. And what's really describing is the fall of the human soul into lustful pleasures. So we're to take that allegorically, what's being communicated. This is just a picture of how the human soul fell into lustful pleasure. And that was held by people like Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, and others, other noted church fathers. And the idea is that whatever Peter is referring to, he's certainly not literally referring to Genesis chapter 6.

14:34So Peter does not go into detail about these fallen angels or what they did. So Peter does not tell us. So neither can I tell you. But you probably want to know where I stand. I believe when all is said and done, I think the better two views are either it's in the line of Seth and Cain, or that angels somehow. Cohabitated with women in some bizarre, strange manner that we can't get our minds around. I think those are the two best views. Of those two, I go with the last one, or I go with the view of angels, that somehow they crossed a boundary, they left their proper abode, and that this is what brought the immediate and quick judgment of God. I don't understand how that would happen. It seems very bizarre, but the plain reading is that seems how it goes. But this much I can say: this is what Peter's audience would have been exposed to. In the pseudopicle and apocryphal books, it's all over it. So I think this probably is very much what was in their mind.

15:47But it's important that Peter isn't going in to explain that mystery right here. His emphasis is upon their status as angels. If God did not spare angelic beings, guess what? He's not going to spare false teachers either or those who follow them. See, fallen angels are lying spirits, self-serving, arrogant beings, and so are false teachers. And just as the doom of these angels who sinned was certain, so will be the doom of false teachers. And that's what Peter is communicating.

16:34But then he gives another example. Look down at verse 5. Not only the angels are an example, but also the ancient world. And God did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. Just as God did not spare rebellious angels, guess what? He will not spare and did not spare rebellious man either. He destroyed the human population by drowning them in the flood, the whole flood, the human population. This was no local event, this was a cataclysmic worldwide. In fact, the very word for flood is cataclysmos in Greek, which would get cataclysm. This wiped out the population of the earth. That was its intention.

17:30The ancient world, if you look back at verse 5, is also referred to as the world of the ungodly. What is an ungodly person? I asked you, what is an ungodly person? Well, an ungodly person is someone who has a complete lack of reverence and fear of God. That's an ungodly person. In a simple way, I could say it like this: an ungodly person who lives their life as if there is no God. That's an ungodly person. And what? What about you? That was how these people lived. They lived as if there were no God, as if his laws, his ways had no bearing upon their lives.

18:16How do you live today? Would you be characterized as godly, living as one who lives as if there is a God or one who does not? Genesis 6:5 gives a real horrifying description of man. Genesis 6:5 says, Then the Lord saw, this is right after the giants were on the land and that whole episode there, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

18:52What a contrast. The culture, what a contrast that Noah was. God preserved Noah. He preserved him from what? From this deluge? Yes, from this flood in an ark. He and seven others, he was a herald of righteousness, and he preserved him. Bringing this back to Peter, preachers, what Peter is saying, preachers of righteousness are going to be spared, but guess what? False teachers are not. Those who follow Peter's teaching and exhortation will. Be preserved from God's judgment. Because ultimately, that's what Noah was preserved from. He was preserved from God's judgment upon an ungodly world.

19:43And that's what we need to be saved from as well. These false teachers introduced destructive heresies. And those who follow Peter's teaching will be preserved. Those who follow the destructive heresies of the false teachers will not. They will be like the generation, the ungodly generation, in Noah's time. And why? Why will those who follow false teachers also experience God's judgment along with them? Why? Well, look back at verse 2. Many will follow their sensuality. Why are people drawn to false teachers in the first place? It's not their wisdom as much as it is the license that is given to them. They follow their sensuality because it allows them to do what their flesh wants to do. And if you surround yourself with the right teachers, you will get the answer that you want so that you can live the way you want. And that's the draw and why there will always be a market for these false word emporiums because they are those who want to live according to the flesh and they want to find teachers who are going to accommodate. That there's a third example. There's the angels, the ancient world, and then there's Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 6, and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter, and if he rescued righteous Lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, for by what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds. Now, the first thing you might want to observe about this Sodom and Gomorrah episode is that there are three times as many verses as he spends on the other two.

21:46He gives a lot more space to the example of Sodom and Gomorrah. Let me just turn there and read so that the issue is fresh on your mind. And in Genesis 19, I'll just read to you a portion, or you're welcome to turn there. But in 18:20, the Lord said these words. He said, The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. So he said, There's an outcry that has come up to me, and I am going to do something about it, going to destroy it. And so he sends the angels down. They come. They end up in Lot's house. And before they Lay down at night, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, verse 4, surrounded the house, both young and old, and all the people from every quarter. It's quite a gathering. And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are these men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them. This is gross sexual immorality. This is their desire, mob desire. But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind them and said, Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. Now, behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with the man. Please let me bring them out to you and do to them whatever you like. Only do nothing to these men insomuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof. Wow, that's bizarre. Some people think that it speaks about the deficiencies of Lot, and I side with those. I think it speaks to the severity of the moment. This is incredible turmoil. This is an incredible situation that has perplexed and exasperated Lot. And in desperation, he says these foolish words. But then listen to what the mob says. But they said, stand aside, get out of our way.

24:00Furthermore, they said, This one came as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge. Now we will treat you worse than them. So anything we wanted to do to them, we're going to do to you and worse, because you dared call our actions wicked. One word, if we describe this whole scene, would be tyranny. Tyranny. Two words, homosexual tyranny. A perverse sexual tyranny that does not respect property rights, does not respect personal rights, and does not respect free speech. They hated Lot. Why? Because he testified that their deeds were evil. And Jesus said in John 7, 7, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify that its deeds are evil. And this is one thing that false teachers will abandon very quickly because they themselves are given over to the lusts of the flesh.

25:18But picking it up in verse 13, you know the story, right? Verse 13, for we are about to destroy this place, so come out of here. He gets them out of there, and in verse 13, 24, then the Lord rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the valley and the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. Great devastation. Great devastation. Now back to Peter. So you got that in your mind. So he's talking about Sodom and Gomorrah. But notice what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 6, he condemned. That is, he made a judgment and pronounced a sentence. God made a determination, a judgment, and he pronounced a judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. And that judgment was destruction. That is, complete and utter ruin.

26:23Who got this judgment? The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. How? Look back at verse 6. How was he the form of this destruction? By reducing them to ashes, verse 6, or literally to cover with ashes. Such it remains till today. And why? Why did God do it? For the purpose of setting them up as an example or a pattern for all the subsequent ages of what will happen to those who live ungodly lives. This is the model. If you are going to grow and Progress in your sinful desire, this is, you're going to mature and you're going to be all that going after the flesh will be. Know that this is going to be your end.

27:14Complete destruction. It's going to be the end of all who choose to follow fleshly appetite over godly restraint according to his word. That will be the end. But look, not only did God condemn these cities, God did something else in here. He rescued Lot. Look at verse 7. And if he rescued Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, just he rescued Lot. God made another judgment in this passage. He decided to rescue Lot. He decided to deliver, to save Lot. Only this time it's not flood waters, it's fire and brimstone, burying them. So who did God rescue? He rescued Lot, Abraham's nephew, who chose to go down to what was then the well-watered plain of the Jordan.

28:17But Peter's point here is that Lot was righteous. In fact, it's stated it three times: righteous. It's in the place of emphasis. He is righteous. Righteous Lot. And after reading the narrative, you might be saying, How is he righteous? He seemed selfish, he seemed worldly, he seemed, he offered his daughters up, he hesitated. Yet the Bible makes it clear that God called him righteous. Like his uncle Abraham, he had an imputed righteousness that came by faith. But there's also some evidences. He welcomed the holy angels, he ultimately obeyed, he ultimately got out, he warned his sons, he didn't look back like his wife. Some evidences that there was righteousness working in him. But it's clear that Peter sees him as righteous. And in the next few verses, in the next couple of verses, you see this: Lot's righteousness was expressed by what troubled him with his culture, what grieved him in his heart. If you look at verse 7, Lot was what troubled him, what oppressed him was the sensual conduct of unprincipled men. The sensual conduct is that way of life that is driven by fleshly indulgence. Unprincipled men refers to those men who are not afraid to cross lines, there are no boundaries, they have no internal restraint. And Lot was oppressed by them. That is, he was troubled in his soul. They were wearing him down. Their life and their conduct wore him down. And that's the.

30:00What happens in the heart of righteous. And verse 8 gives an inside look at Lot's heart and really vicariously the heart of the righteous. Look at verse 8. For by what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt in his righteous soul, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds. He was tormented. Word is literally tortured on the inside. By what? Look back. By what he heard and what he saw. I'm thankful that the scripture doesn't go into the details of what he heard and what he saw. But I don't know if you get on the news sometimes, there's some stories that come across that just should break your heart. You shouldn't even read. Just the title alone is enough to break your heart and to cause you to grieve and say, these things should not be.

30:53Well, I imagine the headlines were very similar in many ways. But what did he hear and see? He saw their lawless deeds. He saw their deeds. He saw what they did. He heard about what they did. And look back. Every day he heard them. Day after day, while he was living among them, he heard about these. This is the righteous living with the ungodly. The righteous living amongst the ungodly. Jesus says it very clearly. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who grieve. In the context, I think he speaks. About sin, who grieve and mourn over sin. But Peter's point in this passage is that God rescued the righteous from Sodom and Gomorrah just as he delivered the righteous from the flood in Noah's time. He's got a consistent thing he's going to here. So, just to summarize what he's said in these verses, look at verse 4: God did not spare the angels. Verse 5, God did not spare the ancient world of mankind. Verse 6, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But God preserved righteous Noah, and God rescued righteous Lot.

32:12Three examples. Three examples. And if these are true, or rather, a better way of saying it, since these are true, that's what Peter is saying, since these are historical facts of history, since this is true, let me tell you what else is true. The conclusion of this, then, see verse 9, then the Lord knows how to rescue the ungodly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. See, first of all, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation.

32:58The word knows is. In the perfect hint, God knows exactly what he's doing. He knows perfectly, he knows comprehensively, he knows what he is doing. And just as Noah and Lot were living among an immorally excessive culture, Peter also knew that his people were living among an excessively corrupt culture as well. And God knows our time as well. And this is the encouraging part: God's in control, he knows, he knows how to rescue his people. It's the same word that he used for Lot's rescue. Noah and Lot were rescued from God's judgment. And just as Noah and Lot were rescued, so will be the godly. So they will be rescued from their corrupt culture and from ultimate judgment as well. God knows how to save his people. And he knows comprehensively how to do it. He uses the word, and I think this is interesting, the word Lord, curious, probably speaking to Christ, he rescues the godly. And who are the godly? Those who live as if there is a God.

34:21And the Lord rescues the godly from temptation. The word is trial or temptations. I like how one commentator defined this. What does he deliver them from? From all those challenges to faith that Christians will experience in this world. All those challenges to faith that Christians will experience in this world. That is what He rescues us from. There are internal inclinations that God's people have to sin, He can rescue those from you, He does rescue us from those. And there are external situations that may cause us or lead us into sin, He rescues us from those as well.

34:59So, however, or so, ultimately, our confidence in the midst of a very corrupt culture, where we may be the minority, and even growing in the minority, and though our message is one that the nations may hate, our ultimate confidence is in God. He knows how to keep us not only from the future judgment, but He also knows how to keep us from apostasy. Because that's when apostasy happens, is when there are pressures from the outside to get you to conform to their ways. That's when apostasy happens. He knows how to deliver us from future judgment, apostasy, and he knows how to deliver his people from conforming to the culture around him. God knows how to save his people. And so we have nothing to fear. He has given us everything for life and godliness. Go and live that life of godliness. That's what Peter's message is.

36:06The second thing: God knows how to bind his enemies, or he knows how to keep the unrighteous for the day of judgment. He knows how to rescue the godly and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. See, even in the midst of our culture, God knows how to keep the unrighteous at bay while protecting his people. So don't worry about being overtaken. Exercise faith, put on godliness, add to that knowledge, moral excellence, brotherly kindness, and love. Run the race. Don't fear. The unrighteous are like prisoners waiting for their final court date. And the thing to know is that God knows how to keep them, He knows how to keep them bound.

37:00So, all this to say, what Peter is saying here is he's not asleep. The Lord knows how to deal with false teachers. Look at verse 10. And especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Peter brings this whole thing back to the nature and character of the false teachers that have crept in and brought in these destructive heresies. He has likened these false teachers to sinning angels. To the ungodly of Noah's time and to the debased culture of Lot's day. But there are two things about them. Think about Peter saying, expose them. Expose them for your own sake and expose them for others' sakes.

37:46Two things. One, you should know them by their fleshly desires. And two, you shall know them because they despise authority. And if you look back, they despise authority. And the authority in view here is Christ's authority. They deny him his rightful place as master, Lord, and sovereign over their life. They despise the one that they should be happy to lay down their life for because of what Christ has done, and because of who he is, and his generosity, and his love for the world, and his love for his people, that should engender one thing from us, and that is a total, delightful submission to him.

38:32Laying down our lives, that's the response. And be very careful of any doctrine that minimizes the lordship of Christ in a person's life. That's the issue here. Well, Peter gives a warning. All time by holding up these examples, you cannot pursue a lifestyle of fleshly indulgence and escape God's judgment. If that is you today, know this: you cannot pursue a lifestyle of fleshly indulgence and also escape God's judgment. It will catch you. But there's also an encouragement, a grand encouragement to all future generations that you who belong to God will be protected from God's final judgment and from the culture you're in now. So exercise faith. Follow Him. Enjoy the days that He has given you and go in faith and know Him more as you walk in obedience.

39:52This is what He's called you to walk in it. See, God's judgment is not asleep. Some were wondering why God wasn't doing something about these false teachers who are shaming the gospel and slandering believers. Some of us may ask the same question: God, why in the world do you let these emporiums of false words go on? Where is that swift judgment? They profane your name, they profane your church. Puts the way of truth at odds with our culture. I believe people really see the trueness of Christianity and see true believers. They will know that we are Christians by our love for one another, and that will have an impact. But when they see so-called Christians exploiting other Christians, there's no love there. Why does God allow this to go on? I think Peter's going to pick this up in the next chapter in verse 9 of chapter 3. He says, The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but all to come to repentance. There's the heart of God in all this implications for us. Don't be a false teacher.

41:28Christ's words say, you know, you remember Christ's word, woe to this world because temptations will come, but woe to that person through whom it comes. Don't be a false teacher. Don't follow false teachers, but rather expose them. And you won't have a hard time finding them. They deny Christ's lordship, and they follow fleshly desires. What I love about Christ, what I love about him is that he holds absolutely. Power, absolute authority, and yet it doesn't corrupt him.

42:08It doesn't corrupt him. He is neither arrogant nor carnal. He is perfect, and he remains perfectly good. You know, there's nothing worse than people of corruption in positions of power, right? Well, God is perfect. Christ is perfect. And I am thankful that Christ does not indulge a fleshly appetite like fallen man. Life would be miserable. He has all the power. And if he had even a hint of fleshly indulgence, life would be one big misery. But Christ is perfect. Absolute power does not corrupt him. His ways are delightful. He is delightful. And he calls us to walk and to follow him. He calls you to be one of his people. His lordship is perfect. His ways are delight. And by God's grace, those of us who have called upon him are growing each day in delightful submission to his Lordship. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your grace. We thank you for your patience.

43:26Father, we thank you that you do not set aside principles. That you judge ungodliness. And we thank you even more, Father, that you made a way that the unrighteous could become righteous. I pray to this day, Father, if any of us here among us who do not know you, that they will call upon you today. And know if they will simply but call, say, God, forgive me, have mercy upon me, that you will answer from heaven swiftly. Father, be with us now and help us to put those things on the table, get rid of those protective, fleshly pets that we hold on to, Father, and help us to delight in following you fully in Christ's name.