Are We Convicted of the Truth?

Well, thank you again, Hank, and good morning to everyone again. Always, always wonderful to come up and see you and be able to have Sabbath services up here in Fulton. I wanted to, of course, we are anticipating the Feast of Pentecost next weekend, and there are many, many...actually, the good news has actually covered some very good information regarding preparation for Pentecost and understanding some of the symbolism that is quite evident as you look at how it is that the Holy Spirit is described, how it is that all of us have been empowered, possibly even far more available than we actually realize.

But I want to cover something that, in a sense, does tie together with what we know the Feast of Pentecost is about. It is the anniversary of the New Testament Church, and so we celebrate that. We appreciate what God has done for us and that He has granted us the help, the help that we need to be able to run the race and endure under the end.

That is an important concept to keep in mind. I want us to look at a section here that, again, I know you're familiar with, but one that points out the topic that I want to talk about today, here in John chapter 18.

In John 18, we can see easily that this is right at the end of Jesus' life. He is already been betrayed, or he is, here in the early part of chapter 18. He goes through being turned in, and ultimately he's brought before Pilate. This exchange with Pilate is a, you would have to say, an unusual exchange because here we have a civil ruler, we have an appointee of the Roman Empire, who was in many ways, he made some very ludicrous statements because he had no clue who he was dealing with.

He didn't really know. He asked pretty obvious questions, as we know, as we look at it now.

But what I want to focus on is toward the end of this discussion, and so starting in verse 33, it says, Pilate entered the headquarters again and summoned Jesus, and he asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?

So obviously he didn't know. He had been told certain things, and maybe he knew more than he was saying, but he was going to verify and ask Jesus, Are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus answered and said, Do you ask me this on your own, or did others tell you about me?

And so clearly Jesus knew how he came about that information. That was the accusation. He's claiming to be the king of the Jews. He's rising up against Caesar. He's a rebel rouser. He's trying to start a revolt.

And interestingly Pilate wondered, Are you a king? Are you the king of the Jews? Because again, that's what they would say he had claimed.

And Pilate replied, excuse me, that's in the first part, Do you ask this on your own? Or Pilate replied, Excuse me, I am not a Jew. I'm not a Jew, am I?

Your own nation and the chief priest have handed you over to me, and what have you done? And so this was the exchange between Pilate and Jesus. And what Jesus answered was that my kingdom, the kingdom that I rule over, the kingdom that is my domain, my dominion, my power is involved in the kingdom, my kingdom is not from this world.

If my kingdom were from this world, then my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. He said his kingdom is not authorized by the Roman Empire.

It's certainly not authorized by anything the religious leaders were doing there in Judah, in the Israelite state that Jesus lived in at that point. He said, My kingdom has nothing to do with this world. It has nothing to do with you. You don't know anything about it at all, in essence, is what he was saying. But Pilate asked him, Well, so you are a king. And Jesus, of course, said an amazing thing. He says, You say that I'm a king.

He, of course, continued to put that back on Caesar to get him to think about, you know, who am I dealing with here? So you say I'm a king. And then he says, For this, to be the king of the kingdom, for this, I was born. And for this cause, I came into the world to testify to what? To the truth. He says, I'm here. I was born to be a king. I am testifying to the truth that I am the king of the kingdom of God. But this kingdom is not a kingdom on this earth right now.

It is not a kingdom from this earth world. It's a kingdom that is yet to be. In a sense, he had, throughout his ministry, announced. He had proclaimed the kingdom of God, but he also had shown that, well, it was yet to be, and people are going to enter the kingdom at a time in the future.

And yet I am still the king of that kingdom. And so, amazingly, he said, for this reason, I was born. For this, I came into the world to testify to what is true. And everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. And so again, brethren, that should include all of us. Everyone who is of the truth, everyone who seeks the truth, everyone who wants to know the truth. That includes all of us who would be followers of Jesus and followers and proponents of the coming kingdom. We are wanting the king to be set up. But what I want to point out here in verse 30-37, Jesus says, I testify to the truth.

I was born to testify to the truth. And of course, he says those who belong to the truth are going to listen to me. They're going to listen to my words. They're going to identify with truth. That's the point of what I'm wanting to point out to you today, because Pilate responds with a typical carnal, human, relativistic view. He says, well, what is truth? See, many, many people today are much like Pilate.

They're unable to know what the truth is. They're unable to know if there is absolute truth. You know, all of us believe in absolute truth. I'm going to hopefully show you that. And there are reasons why we do that. And yet Pilate couldn't figure that out. He was operating with his own reasoning. He was operating from a completely natural mind, the natural mind of man that's opposed to God. But as I said, many people today are much like Pilate. We don't really believe that there is absolute truth and that we can base our lives on the truth. Here in 2 Timothy chapter 4, you see a statement that Paul makes about the time of the end.

2 Timothy chapter 4, he says in verse 1, In the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, In view of his appearing and kingdom, I solemnly urge you, Proclaim the message and be persistent whether the time is favorable or not, Convince and rebuke and encourage with the utmost patience and teaching, For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, But having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers, To suit their own desires and to turn away from listening to the truth. You see the word truth used describing what we are teaching, what we are preaching, What you read in your Bible.

He says, the time will come when people will turn away from listening to the truth And wander away to fables, to myths, to where they don't know what's true, What's true and what's not. And certainly, whenever you look into analysis of what do people believe And what do they think, and the Barna group is one who does a lot of polling Of even people who are Christian, and they ask the question, is there absolute truth?

And unfortunately, two-thirds of people don't think there's any such thing. 66% said no such thing as absolute truth, and that this could even be some time ago. They say different people define truth in conflicting ways and still think they're correct. And unfortunately, 75% of those who are in what you would say basically college age, They have no idea that there is absolute foundational truth that we should build our lives on. And even in a series of interviews that was conducted at large universities, almost every one answered. It was actually fewer than 10% could actually say, you know, there is absolute truth.

90% said, you know, there's no absolute truth. Truth is whatever you believe. So if that's the case, anything can be true, because there are varying beliefs, even among the 25 of us seated here. And you go out among the town of Fulton, you've got however many people and however many different beliefs, and all of those are true. Well, that can't be the case.

And these university students say, if there were such a thing as absolute truth, how would you know what it is? You know, they're just completely befuddled. And so a whole relativistic view of truth is, you know, the thing that is where people have turned to fables or to myths or to things that really just depend simply on human reason as the standard for determining what is truth. Now, in a sense, I guess there's a couple of types of things you might think about as far as truth.

If I tell you that my shirt is blue, then you have to decide, and you look at that and you say, now the facts do not bear out that his shirt is blue. It's supposed to be white, by the way. And so you're deciding whether something is true or false just by looking at the facts. And if I tell you I have a red car sitting out here, now you could go out and determine, looking in the parking lot, that's false.

That's not a correct idea. But of course what I'm talking about here is an understanding of spiritual perception. An understanding of the truth as it is described here in the Bible. Our calling in this age involves being convicted of the truth. We have to have a conviction of the truth. It's not simply a matter of, you know, well, I'm doing the right things, I'm in the right church.

We all want to be in our in the right church as far as if we're following God and desiring to believe God. It's more than that. There has to be a conviction of the truth that affects what we think and see. But see, if we're convicted of the truth of God, then it's not simply an emotional desire that we have about God. It's a commitment that's based on God's worth. And truly, if we understand the purpose of life, if we understand how the makeup of humans as we are, then we need to analyze, you know, are we convicted of the truth?

Because that is a stabilizing factor in the entirety of our lives. We are obeying God because, you know, He's the one who is true. Actually, when you see this encounter between Jesus and Pilate, Pilate didn't know who he was dealing with. But Jesus said, I came to testify to the truth. See, truth has to have a source, and that source is God. See, that's what Jesus was in essence saying. I'm here to testify to the truth. What was it that he ran into all the time?

He would tell him who he was, he would tell him what he's going to do, he would tell him what's going to happen. They wouldn't believe him. And he, of course, had a huge discussion with the Pharisees about, you know, you're of your father, the devil, who is the father of lies.

You are not of God, and you are not seeking the truth of God. And so, in a sense, that was pretty telling that he said, I came to testify to the truth. And so, what God, it shows how the truth comes from God, because Jesus, of course, was God. The first of four things that I will try to mention today is simply that faith is required for us to know spiritual truth. The Hebrews 11, verse 6, tells us that it's impossible to please God without faith, and that we have to believe that God exists, and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. You know, that's a very foundational issue for all of us, because if we don't have faith in the existence of God, then we don't really have any basis for our lives.

But as I know you all have that faith, you have an awareness of that. Then we can go to God's Word and to see what it says about truth. Of course, John 17, verse 17, points out, as Jesus was talking about His disciples, He was actually talking to His Father. He was discussing this, and He was wanting them. He was actually praying for His disciples. And He said in verse 17, sanctify them in the truth, because Your Word is truth.

We can base our lives on what is revealed in the Word of God about the existence of God, about what it is that He is doing, about why He's placed men on the earth, and about where He is going to take us in the final outcome, where He is going to take us throughout His purpose and plan. Verse 19 says, And for their sake I sanctify myself so that they also may be sanctified in truth. We're set apart if we believe the truth, spiritual truth from God. If we believe that, then that sets us apart. That sanctifies us. That gives us a credibility that is not just a matter of me making up whatever I happen to think, it's a matter of believing what God says. Here in John 8, this is the encounter that Jesus had with the Pharisees.

In this case, as some of the Jews in verse 31, Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him.

These were the ones who were coming to think, well, He seems to have more credibility than anyone else.

He's able to do miracles. He's able to help people. He is able to say who He is, and we believe.

We're coming to believe that He is the Son of God.

And He says, if you continue in My Word, then you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth.

You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

This is an explanation, again, that I think we are commonly familiar with.

Certainly that statement is made a lot, and yet a lot of times people are arguing, well, what truth is that?

What does that mean? And that should not be the case for us.

We should understand that the truth that comes from God, the truth that comes from the source of truth, is what we base our life on.

And certainly, we can see in the Word of God that that word sets us apart. It sanctifies us.

So, to begin with, the faith is involved in understanding spiritual truth, but simply recognizing that there is a source.

There is an author of that truth, and that author is God.

You also see, secondly, that the Bible defines the way of truth.

Actually, it's amazing to see the verses. You can drop down here to verse 45.

John 8 verse 45, you see things about Jesus that are clearly tied together with truth. He said He came to testify to the truth. Here in John 8 verse 45, verse 44, He says, I'm talking to these Pharisees, you are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth.

And because there is no truth in Him, and when He lies, He speaks according to His own nature, for He is a liar and the father of it.

But in verse 45, because I tell the truth, I tell the truth, you don't believe me.

You hear, Jesus was again making a contrast. He was a source of truth. Of course, He was God in the flesh.

He was the source of spiritual truth, of understanding what we are convicted to.

You can also go, of course, you can go to John 14 verse 6, where Jesus says, when He was asked by His disciples, what is the way? What should we do? Where should we go? Of course, verse 6 says, I'm the way.

Jesus clearly said He was the way. He was God. He was the one who would lead the path to eternal life.

He says, I'm the way. I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

Have we really experienced that drawing from the Father? That drawing to Jesus, and to know that through Him we have the way, and we can say the way of life that God wants us to live. If you look at John 1, John 1 verse 14, it says the Word became flesh. So God became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.

Jesus not only says He's the way and that He's full of truth, but that He spoke the truth.

He is a foundational aspect of our commitment to God. He's the one who forgives us and the one who says He can live in us, if we're going to live the way of truth. The Holy Spirit is called, John 14, 17, the Spirit of truth.

That's the Spirit that He offers us and gives us. And it says there in that same verse, John 14, 17, talking about the Holy Spirit being the Spirit of truth, it says the world does not have.

The world does not have this Holy Spirit. That is true.

And so even though there is a lot of confusion among many people as far as whether or not there are absolute truths, we can know because of God drawing us to the type of truth that He expects us to live by.

Here in Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4, you see actually a discussion, a discussion of following Jesus, following Him in the new way of life that He introduces as Christianity.

He was the one who paved the way for that, and all of the apostles after that were then saying, we're following Him, we're following Him in the way. And even as we've had spoken here in this congregation, we've had sermons about the people of the way, following the way of truth, following Jesus Christ.

Here in Ephesians 4, verse 17, if this I affirm and insist on in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of your mind. So that would be as average, ordinary, natural, minded people all over live.

Don't live in a futility of your mind, not knowing how to base your life on truth.

It says they are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.

They've lost all sensitivity and they've abandoned themselves to licentiousness and greed to practice every kind of impurity.

Many people today don't want to define anything as far as licentious or impure because, of course, they don't want to look to the source, the Word of God, to determine if something is righteous or unrighteous.

He goes on in verse 20 that that is not the way that you learned Christ, for surely you have heard about Him and you were taught in Him as truth is in Jesus Christ.

He's the way, He's the one who is able to show us through His words and through His life what is true.

You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lust, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and to close yourself with a new self created according to likeness of God in righteousness and holiness.

If we want to know what's true, then we have to look at the source of truth and the Bible is going to tell us what it is that we must live as far as a way of truth.

So, not only do we have a recognition of the source of truth, but we also see that the Bible defines what is the way of truth.

The third thing I'll mention, and you see this in 2 Timothy 2, we had escaped the deception in this world.

We can escape the confusion of people not knowing whether something is right or wrong because they don't have a basis to evaluate that.

We escape the deception of this world by knowing the truth. Here in 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy is an instruction that Paul gave to Timothy. He wanted him to know how to conduct himself in the household of God, in the Church of God.

And he says in verse 22, to shun youthful passion and pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart and have nothing to do.

In verse 23, he tells Timothy, Paul, an older minister and someone who knew Timothy well and knew that he would need this information, but that also other ministers of Jesus Christ would need this same information.

He says, don't have anything to do with stupid and senseless controversies. You know that they simply breed quarrels.

See, that's something that is a statement to the ministry, but it's also a statement to all of us. We ought to be able to identify something that is just senseless and doesn't go anywhere. And he says in verse 24, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kindly to everyone, an able teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness, that God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

So this, in a sense, reinforces what I was saying about we escape the deception of the world by knowing the truth.

He's just telling them if people are able to be instructed, if they're able to be taught from the Word of God, well, then they can learn what truth is.

And they can come out of the deception of this world.

And when I mention, are we really convicted of the truth, I think that should tie back together.

And I know I think about this myself personally, and as I look back over the last 45 years of being aware of the Church of God and of the truth of God, I know that began with God drawing me to an understanding of my need for him and of a desire to know what is the purpose of life.

What is God doing? What is the purpose of living?

And of course, if you are able to be shown that, if God starts opening your mind to that, which I know had to be the case for me, well, then he starts showing you, and I know I was a farm kid and somewhat, you know, maybe a little more awkward then than I am now.

Maybe I'm more awkward now. I don't know. I was pretty...

I didn't have it all together, I can certainly say, but I was kind of pleasantly ignorant in many ways, and yet growing up on a farm and being outdoors and like to go to the pond and like to hide under the cedar tree when it hails.

And, you know, I was familiar with being outside and watching the clouds. I feel, you know, I think, you know, I love the clouds. Gorgeous!

You missed it the other day because you weren't a Bible study.

But it was incredible! But see, I didn't say who the you was.

No, I say you missed it, but you may have seen it, even though... I better stop there.

You saw it, I'm sure. Incredible clouds!

I was driving a Bible study in East Kansas City at Wednesday night, and it was gorgeous! A whole hour of gorgeous! Big! Biloey! White! And then moderately tainted, and then dark clouds! And I saw a seahorse and a pufferfish.

And I mean, there were just clouds going everywhere, and then it was raining over here, and it was raining. Then I'm in the sunshine.

And I'm thinking, it's not supposed to be raining on me. I've got beautiful rainbows.

So you got it! You got it! Wherever you were, it was just incredible to see the glory of God.

To see God is a greater artist than any of us, than any man, because he can do stuff with clouds, with formation, with color, with texture, with density, with power.

That's incredible. I didn't know very much, but I knew that God existed.

And I knew that I didn't have a clue about what he needed me to do or wanted me to do.

But when he came to help me understand, and understanding that the Bible does tell us, well, there is a purpose for man.

And there is clearly a connection to Jesus, but that connection is beyond that, because I had a little exposure to Jesus, at least the name of Jesus, beyond that, his entire kingdom and his desire for us to be a part of that kingdom.

And so if we come to see the purpose in life, if we're able to be told by God, what is sin?

A lot of people are clueless about sin. Certainly, my wife and I joke about, you know, what am I going to preach about today?

Sin! That's what I'm going to preach about. Oh, can't get enough about sin.

And yet, you know, that shouldn't always be the sermon. What is sin? Because we can see the Bible defines sin, but see, people choose to ignore what the Word of God says.

And they choose to ignore that this is not God's world, that this is a world that is ruled by a power that is invisible.

And of course, you know, many people simply don't understand human nature as being hostile to God's law. You can even know what they are. You can recite them!

Completely hostile to the authority of God to tell me what to do, to tell me how to live, to tell me how to study the Bible, or to show me more about the Bible, because that's what we all are doing. And we come to see our need to be transformed. We're not like God wishes for us to be, but with the power of God, with the power displayed in so many ways around this physical earth that we enjoy, that power of the invisible God is able to transform us into sons and daughters of God.

He wants that. That's His desire. That's His intention. And of course, we believe in moral absolutes of what's right and what's wrong. That's a basis for our lives. And so we can escape the deception of the world by knowing the truth and being convicted of the truth through a calling from God.

In 1 John 4, you actually find John writing a lot about truth and about the law, but here in 1 John 4, I'll just read one verse. He says, we are from God.

He was making a definitive statement because he knew where He stood. He had walked decades ago with the Son of God.

The one who was writing this had been with Jesus. He had taken care of Mary after his brutal death.

He had been given a mission and a commission that would ultimately lead into the end of the first century when he would ultimately die.

But as John is writing in 1 John and 2 John, you see he's writing after the fact, you know, kind of down the road, kind of 50 years later, 70 years later from the time that he had walked with Jesus on earth.

He was writing and encouraging the church, the people who had embraced the truth, people who had been called to know the purpose of human life.

And he says in verse 6, we are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God doesn't listen to us, and from this we know the Spirit of truth.

And the Spirit of error. See, if it's based on the Word of God, if it has a basis in the purpose and plan of God that's revealed throughout the entirety of the Bible, you know, that's what we base our lives on, and we base our lives on God drawing us to Jesus Christ, then we are going to walk in truth. The last thing I'll mention is that we want to be grounded in the truth of God. That has got to be our foundation, although of course Jesus Christ is said to be the foundation, but we are going to be grounded in the truth.

And it says in Ephesians 6, when you read through the description of the armor of God, and I'm not going to focus on all of those, but here in Ephesians 6, starting in verse...

Ephesians chapter 6, starting in... talks about the armor of God in verse 11 and verse 13. Take up the whole armor of God so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything to stand firm therefore...

Therefore, in verse 14, stand fast, stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist and put on the breastplate of righteousness.

He wants that to be central to our lives. Most of us, if we will, wear a belt, it's around our waist. And if you have a sash, if you had some kind of robe, and you see the description of Jesus in Revelation 1, he's got a white bramit and a band across his chest, which we might think of as, well, the truth of God has got to be the central focus of the armor of God. Not often a bunch of twigs and perhaps insignificant or minor things, but the truth of God being an understanding of the purpose of life and an understanding of where God is going to help us, go beyond this life, because that's what he wants. He wants us to honor him in this life, but he really wants the product for the world to come. He wants the outcome of sons and daughters who have been transformed and who know the truth from God. That's actually what Jesus told Pilate. I'm here to testify to the truth. The truth is I'm the king of the kingdom. The truth is you don't really care I'm the king of the kingdom. You're going to kill me anyway. But that doesn't change the truth because truth comes from God.

So the last thing is just that we want to be grounded in truth. And here in 1 Timothy, actually in 1 and 2 Timothy, you see a couple of verses that support that.

In 1 Timothy chapter 3, actually, this is regarding our study of the Bible.

No, this is the second one I wanted to go to. That's in 2 Timothy, this first one.

It says in verse 14 of 1 Timothy 3, I hope to come to you soon. Paul was saying to Timothy, but I'm writing these instructions to you so that if I'm delayed, you'll know how. You ought to behave in the household of God, in the church of the living God, the pillar in the bulwark of the truth.

That's what the church is to teach, or to teach the truth of God, or to teach the law of God. But we're also to teach the purpose of human life. God reveals in the Bible the purpose of human life, and what he's going to help us do, even beyond this physical life. And in chapter 2 of 2 Timothy, if we turn over a page, he tells us, 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, he says, Do your best, again talking to Timothy, to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing or explaining the word of truth. This is basing our life in the word of God, in the truth of the purpose of life. He says, Avoid, propane, chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene, like Hymenetus, Hymenetus and Phileidus, who have swerved from the truth by believing that the resurrection is already past. They were getting off the mark, because the word of God would not verify that the resurrection is already gone. The resurrection is yet to be. I've thought about this a little lately with several people who have died, and I've gone to funerals, or who tend to think more about life and death and what is God yet going to do. Yet, when you think about what God is going to do, how He's going to resurrect the dead, I want to be resurrected. I want to be resurrected in the first resurrection. And in a sense, I guess my thinking feels like that resurrection is, yes, a resurrection. It's really a transformation, because I want to be resurrected if I'm dead. I want a rise to be a spirit body, a spirit being, the Son of God. That's what He says. That's what He tells us.

But, of course, we've got to be grounded in the truth in order to know that's what Jesus is going to do. That's what God is planning. He will have transformed me at that point. And, of course, I don't just want that for me. I want that for you. I want that for all of us. But we have to be grounded in the truth.

I mentioned John being, actually writing a lot about maintaining the truth, because he was writing decades after Jesus lived and died, and the original apostles were struggling, living and dying in their own lives.

And as John writes about this, here in 2 John, the little 13 verse epistle called 2 John, he writes about this in an elaborate way. He says the elder, talking of himself to the elect lady and her children. It may have been a particular person, or it may have been the church in general, which it seems to be indicating.

And John says, I am absolutely overjoyed. I am thrilled to find some of your children walking in the truth. Just as we have been commanded by the Father, as we're commanded by the Father to walk in the truth, to walk in the way that Jesus leads us in, and to walk in the way of the Word of God that is the belt around our waist, the belt of truth. He says, just as we've been commanded by the Father, but now, dear lady, in verse 5, I ask you not as though I'm writing you a new commandment, but one that you have from the beginning. Let us love one another. And he says, this is love that we walk according to his commandments. And this is commandment just as we have heard it from the beginning. We must walk in this way. And so he tells us that walking in the truth, living according to the truth, spiritual truth, revealed from God, revealed in the Word of God, is the foundation. It's not a matter that I tell you something, and you have to evaluate whether or not it's right or not, because you're not dealing with just men. You're dealing with the Word of God. If it says so in the Word of God, then you can believe it. You can absolutely believe what the Word of God says. And I think it's interesting, even in this, I'll conclude here with this verse in Psalm 51, because as David prayed about wanting to be redeemed, wanting to be forgiven, wanting to be re-justified, he really had messed up. And yet, as he talks about recognizing his sin and realizing the enormity of his need for forgiveness, but in essence, I think he could say Psalm 51 is a psalm of apology, the psalm of apology, because he's apologizing to God. If someone's really repentant, then they see where they're wrong, and they want to apologize and request mercy. But what we find here, David describes this in a elaborate way, the only verse I want to focus on is verse 6. He says, You desire truth in the inward part, in the inward being. Therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart. See, that was something that David had internalized at this point. He was not sinless after this, but he certainly clearly understood the need to internalize the truth of God, the Word of God, the way of God, the life that came from the Spirit of God, because again, he mentioned a little later, don't take your Holy Spirit from him. I need help. I need help to pursue that way of truth. So it's fascinating to see how much God wants us to be grounded in the truth of God and how much he does want us to understand that there are absolutes, because those absolutes come from the One who created us, the One who put us on this earth and gave us the Spirit in man and then later, graciously, was willing to give us the Spirit of God that would empower us to be a part of his kingdom. So I want to encourage all of us to have a very clear understanding that we live with absolute truth that is defined by God in his Word. And as we follow that and as we follow the lead of Jesus Christ, then we can be successful in living the way of life that God wants us to live. Thank you.