Attaining Knowledge

The title of the sermon today is Attaining Knowledge. Attaining Knowledge. If you've got the bulletin, you would have seen the title. What about the smartest person you've ever known? Do they come right to mind? I'm sure you're going to say your husband makes him feel good, right? And she and he says, you, oh, beautiful marriage. Yes, matter of fact, I did have the marriage sermon scheduled for today, but I've moved it to two weeks from today. So any of you thinking about getting a divorce, getting married, or just getting along with someone a lot better, or marrying Jesus Christ, the sermon is going to be for you in two weeks. So I had to change why I was on this thought. Smartest person in the world, who do you think it is? I Googled it, and they came up with a whole bunch of different people. Every website had a different person. Well, some of them had three or four of the same ones, but as I went to 10 to 12 different websites, one actually called the smartest person in the world was a guy by the name of Ken Jennings. Do you know who Ken Jennings is? He was a guy 10 years ago that won Jeopardy for how many? 75 weeks in a row, won two and a half million dollars, and he was able to answer that. I like Jeopardy. I very seldom see it, but if I do, I like to see it. It makes me feel either pretty smart or pretty dumb, because if there's a category I know, I'm going, hmm, got two of those. These other ones, I just have to go, boy, how did they ever know that? Today, one of the considerations for the most intelligent or smartest man alive is Stephen Hawking. Everybody, a lot of people, most people know Stephen Hawking. He wrote a book, The Brief History of Time, but I actually found that people are considered smart, are knowledgeable by their IQs. So I went in and studied about IQs. Well, then I found out there's like not one test to see how intelligent you are. There are multiple tests. Did know there's seven or eight different tests you can take that determines your IQ, and anything 130 to 140 is considered pretty smart. 150 or above, you're considered a genius. Well, I never had to worry about that in my life. If you do not believe me, ask my wife. She can tell you. But it was interesting when I saw today the people who are living, actually I have this, I wrote it down, the highest IQs considered in the world today from various sites, I pulled this together, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, I guess you call him, of Israel, he has an IQ of 180, which is pretty impressive. John Sununu, who was previously a government official, has an IQ of also of 180. Gary Kasparov, for any of you smart enough to play chess, I was always a checker, man, it was a lot easier. Gary Kasparov, 190. I guess that's why he's reigning champion, and so good at it, because it's a very mental game. A guy by the name of Christopher Langdon, 195. Kim Eun-Yong, anybody know Kim? Well, he has 210 IQ, he's like a mathematician. Then there's a Christopher Hirata, who is at 225, and there's a Terrence Tao at 230. But the one I found most intriguing, as before I move on to this, is a young man by the name of Aynan Cowley. Aynan Cowley. And Aynan is from Britain, and he's 14 years of age. And he has an IQ, because he's been tested four or five times, between 263 and 340. Aynan, at the age of nine, could recite pi to 518 decibels, which means I know pi is 3.14.159 from when I grew up, and that's five, so that means he's a hundred times smarter than I am, just in that aspect. But he was nine years old when he was able to do this.

Do you enjoy attaining knowledge? Because many of these people do. Today we have smartphones, tablets, and of course computers. They're all at our fingertips. Are we really any smarter? We have a lot of knowledge, don't we? We can retrieve a lot of knowledge. It's funny because Daniel, in the book of Daniel, way back in the last chapter, he said at the end time, men will run to and fro, and knowledge will increase. And I think we can look and see how much knowledge has increased in almost every field. So I want to look at today how we attain knowledge, since it is very important, not only to us, but I think it is very important to God that we attain the right knowledge. One manner in which we obtain knowledge is empirical. Empirical. If you want to write this down, I didn't write my banners today. E-M-P-I-R-I-C-A-L. It's one manner. And you regain knowledge through information, verification, and observation. That's one way to attain knowledge. You may have books you like to read. You may read stuff off the computer. That's one way. Another manner is experience. Which, it is actually, we gain knowledge through experience. Which I have, and most of you have, if you've aged any, you've gained a lot of knowledge from experience. And that comes learning through doing. That's what basically experience is. And another one is rationale. Another way of increasing your knowledge is rationale, which is knowledge through human reasoning. That's why we men typically do not ask directions. We would rather figure it out. And then we find out that we should have stopped and asked directions 10 miles later. But then the last manner, in which I really want to spend time on today, is through revelation. Revelation. Where we gain knowledge through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We gain knowledge through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. And I put them together because in Scripture they go together, as I hope we will see. Well, how important is knowledge? I have a book at home. And I think it's just volume one. There's other volumes. And it's called the Book of Useless Knowledge. And I found myself reading it. Now, I don't know whether you consider it useless or not. Somebody did when they gave the title of the book. Some of the pieces of useless knowledge that they have in the book is the most common last name in the world. Anybody know? Smith? No, I thought it was too. Chen thought it was too. Anybody else? Jones? No. No?

According to this book of useless knowledge, the most common last name in the world is Patel. P-A-T-E-L. India. There are a lot. As a matter of fact, where we lived in our back in Tennessee, the Patels owned a lot of stuff. The most common first name in the world today? Joshua? Mohammed. Yes, Mohammed is. Someone's it. Which kind of tells us where the world is going? Right? Do you know our skin weighs twice as much as our brain? You're going to retain that the rest of your life? I doubt it. But then they had one piece of knowledge that I just can't really put my head around and I have to doubt it, but it's in this book. And it says that when you sneeze, the air that comes out of your nose goes faster than that of a hurricane.

I don't know. I don't know how you would try it. I test that.

And it said the average person falls asleep in how many minutes? This is the average. You might think about yourself. Five? Two? 20 seconds. Boy, oh, one second. Actually, the average, they say, is seven minutes from a time that you put your head down to the time you go to sleep. That's average. I don't know. I want to start timing myself now. And finally, the last one. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. And no, slurple is not a word.

Useless knowledge? How valuable is it? You know, Proverbs 10 verse 14 said, Why is people store up knowledge? It's good. So maybe we need to know that next time I sneeze, there's a hurricane in my head. I don't think so. I don't think that's what God is talking about. Because I do know, he mentions later in the New Testament, that knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. But it was Peter who actually said that we are to grow in grace. And what? Knowledge. Grow in grace and knowledge. I like to read. I like to learn through doing things. Most of you do too, I would think. I like to think.

I think it was my Star Trek friend over here. What would Mr. Spock would always say it's logical? I think that was one of his... Did Mr. Spock ever have a first name like Ebenezer? No, no name. No, okay. But logic. We all like to use a little logic. And we feel good when I'm able to figure something out and I don't have to run back and get the instruction manual. I feel really good. Feel pretty smart. But for me, the most important knowledge I need or will ever use is from Revelation. From the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. And that's what I want to cover today. I'd like you to go to John. John 6, if you will. So we look at the Scripture. John 6, verse 63. Jesus Christ said, The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are... What? Life. They are life. So it's pretty important these words that were spoken of by Christ. Because four or five verses later, Peter actually makes a proclamation that came from God. That told Christ, you have the words of eternal life. You have the words of eternal life. Is it any wonder why we recommend that people read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John when they first come into the church? So they can really understand what Jesus Christ was all about. And those powerful words that he gave. This book, this Bible, and I hope I make the case for it today, is the most important book ever, ever made, ever read. Now, if you do not care about an abundant life, as Christ said, I came that you may have life and live it more abundantly. If you do not really care about eternal life and just see what all you can accumulate, what joy you can have in your three score and ten, then you will just probably disagree with me on that book. But the words of this book, and I didn't understand it when I was younger, why it was so important, until I started actually reading and reading and reading every day and started living by them. And even when Peter said in 1 Peter 1, 25, that the words of the Lord endure or last forever, forever and ever and ever. That means the words of this book are going to last forever. Eternity.

Wish I had the copyrights on that. I could make money forever. But it's bigger than that. Power is in the Word of God. That's what Scripture is telling us. Power is in the Word of God. And as Paul wrote to the Romans, Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the, what? Word. Words of God. Pretty big stuff. But it's amazing. Millions read this. Millions. And millions are sold. It's still, as I said last week, that's why it's basically this continuation of last week's sermon. But in a different manner. It's still the biggest seller that no one reads every year. We may have it, and we may read it, but do we truly understand it? Few do. Why? Why is that? I want to read something to you. I will read it from a New Living Translation. Anybody have New Living Translation on them? You do. A few others. I want to read this because I can read it from the New King James or the NIV or various ones, but when they translated the Greek here, they did a very good job of, in the New Living Translation. Not the Living Bible. I want to make sure that's on tape because I won't get lost in that one. But the New Living Translation is the way they translated the Greek. And so if you write this down, it's 1 Corinthians 1, verse 19 through 29. And not to throw you off, but I would like to read it from the New Living Translation and just have you listen to it. Because I think Paul puts it very well here. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 19 from the New Living Translation. And as the Scriptures say, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent. So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world's brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in His wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. You may say, wow, that's foolish. He's calling it foolish preaching. No, He's actually using the words that were in the Greek because of the way Paul had written this to the Corinthians who were very much into knowledge and being smarter than everyone else. And so everything that people looked at about preaching Christ and God's Word was foolish. And that Paul was foolish. That's what they would say to him.

He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews who ask for signs from heaven. Do you remember when Jesus Christ... They said, well, show us. Give us a sign that you're who you say you are. And he says, and it is foolish to the Greek who seek human wisdom. Let me figure this out, they would say. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews were offended, and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense. Because they had so many gods, they were anxious to say, wait a minute. You could take a god and put him on a stick. A piece of wood and kill him? That's no god. And the Jews were like, wait a minute, we know God. He's up there. He's not coming down here. And so you can see in Paul's world, this was foolish talking. And if you talk to many people today who do not really believe in religion, it is foolishness for you to be here today. It is foolishness for you to read this book, to have one, and then it's even more foolish to believe it and act upon it. You poor simpletons. That's what they say. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest plan of man. So he's saying, if it is foolish, even his foolish plan is wiser than all of yours. And God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are really wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God. That's why Bill Gates is not sitting here. Warren Buffett. Gary Kasparov.

As a matter of fact, it was interesting that when I was thinking about Gary Kasparov, one of the genies, I think his IQ was 195, was the guy who's passed away now.

Great chess player named Bobby Fischer. Anybody remember the name Bobby Fischer? Well, it's interesting because Bobby Fischer's mother believed this, and she was actually a part of God's church. He didn't. But she did. It's interesting. When I read that, and I see the... and it tells us that basically over 2,000 years since this book was... since those words were written, it's not a lot that's changed. The world still considers Christians simpletons. They believe this incredible myth about a God being up there, and that a God actually came down and died for all of us.

If we only knew the value of our calling, because a lot of us don't, and I don't know that I grasp it totally, but I see there is an amazing value of this book and the power of its words. I have seen it down through the years time and time again. Paul was trying to get this across to people that it wasn't just about him. He was nothing, but it's the power of these words that change lives. And it is a living word! That's why I've said time and time again, it's amazing how we'll read something and go back six months later and read it again, and wow! I just really understand that. That's God's Spirit with His Word working in your lives and my life. I'd like you to turn to 1 Thessalonians, if you will. 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 1, 5.

Paul writes this letter to the church of Thessalonica, and he says, For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in as much assurance as you know what kind of men we were among you for your own sake. He said, there wasn't anything special in us, we're just vessels. But we have His Word and the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why you are changed people. I'd like to make that other statement, 1 Corinthians. He does the same thing. Turn back 1 Corinthians with me, if you will. 1 Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2. He's telling the church of Corinth here. They had some issues, but at first He was trying to tell them that He was nothing, because they're the same church. They said, Oh, wait, look at me! I was baptized by Paul. I was baptized by Apollos. Well, look at me, I was baptized by it was a type of vanity through experience and knowledge. But He says in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 1, And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness. Get it? He's saying, guess what? You were weak. I was weak. I'm just a human being. I was with you in weakness. I was with you in fear. We feared for our lives, too. And in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of the power. That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. In the power of God. And I guess that's why the Scripture He wrote to Timothy, 2 Timothy, quoted many times. He did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.

Like you go with me to Luke. Turn back to the book of Luke. I found this very interesting as I was reading. I never read it many times, but until I read it this time, I really can't say I truly got the point. It's at the end of Luke. It's one of the last few verses of Luke in Luke 24.

Luke 24 and verse 49. This is after Christ had died and came back and met with the disciples for the 40 days off and on. And He was telling them that the Holy Spirit was going to be given en masse at the Feast of Pentecost in about 10 days. And He told them in verse 49, Behold, I send the promise, promise was the Holy Spirit, of my Father upon you. But tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued. Everybody have that in some new King James. Endued with power from on high. Everybody have that endued. Somebody have another word. That's what you got endued. Anybody have something else? Because I was like, endued. I didn't... Okay, I thought I got it, but... So I went to my faithful interlenial, greens, which I advocate because they translate the newer translation. They translate it very... The Greek translates it really, really close. Even if it sometimes does not make sense to scholars, they translate it and then you can figure it out because you'll understand it better than they did. But He actually put here, as He translated from the original Greek, He said, And behold, I send forth the promise of my Father on you. But you sit in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed. Until you are clothed with power from on high. Thought it was interesting. So I went, of course, and looked up the word, endued, and I found that in the Greek, it's actually pretty close. And it's pronounced endu-u. Endu-u. Endu-u. And it's actually spelled n-d-u-o in the Greek. And it actually meant to be a raid. To be a raid in a sense of sinking into a garment. Now, it may sound a little peculiar way we would, but it literally means to sink into a piece of clothing. Now, you have to remember, one of their key, when it was a nice piece of clothing, they had all nice robes. And the robes were of fine value. They were well made. And a lot of times they had servants, as you pictured this, they would take this nice robe, and then you would stand there, and they would put it on you. And then it would wrap around you.

So it literally means sink into. Sink into. So Christ was telling, the Spirit's coming, and I want you to sink into it. Because I'm giving it to you. Just like baptism, we have full immersion. And you literally sink into the water, and it covers you. Here we're talking about this robe we're putting on Christ. When the Holy Spirit is given to us, we are putting on Christ.

And He is no longer with us, but He's in us. And Christ, as the Scriptures say, received the power of the Holy Spirit from His Father, and He gives it to us. The very power, the energy, the very essence of God, He's giving to us. And it's going to be in us. And we are to use it. We are to use it, and something amazing happens when we read His Word with the Holy Spirit. All of a sudden, we can understand things that, as the Scripture even says, kings and great men desire to see these things.

But they're given to you. There was a man who lived at the time of Hezekiah, King Jerome. And he lived in this little poor country town or village outside of Jerusalem, a few miles, called Morsheth. And this man grew up. He didn't have any money. He didn't have any prestige or power at all. And yet God made him a prophet. Now, you know, I looked at it, I couldn't figure this out, because God didn't need a prophet during that time. He had Isaiah, which had to make this individual seem like, like, wow, you've got Superman, why do you need Jimmy Olsen?

But the young man's name was Micah. And Micah was the very first prophet to tell of the destruction of Jerusalem that would be coming. In about 120 years. But while he was there, he was also called upon to talk about the destruction of Israel, the northern kingdom, the capital city of Samaria. And so he had to pronounce these things because God told him to. But I'm sure when you study Micah, there's hardly anything said about him, because nobody really knew. He was a nobody. So how and why did he do it? He actually says in Micah 3 and verse 8, he says, I tell this because I'm full of power by the Spirit. So he knew, he's nobody. But God used him in a powerful way. And now, 2500 years later, we can read his words that were given to him by God.

And then you think of the story of Paul, almost the exact opposite. Think about Paul. Saul, as he was called. He was taught from a youth. The scrolls, what we would consider the scriptures at that time. He was taught from a youth. He was reared in Tarsus, which was a great learning center with libraries set up by the Greeks.

And the amazing part was, not only after he grew up, became an adult, he actually made the statement that he learned at the feet of Gomeliah.

Gomeliah was considered the greatest rabbi or teacher that had ever come out of that country, Sabei Hillel and Shema, who came 400 years before. So, Paul had everything you could want to know, knowledge-wise. He could speak five languages we know. He knew the scriptures. But is that the reason God called him? He was actually called Himself. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had the knowledge, but was it the knowledge that God could use him with? Like you turn Philippians 3. Philippians 3. Go through this, since my wife just finished the book of Philippians this week in her studies. And I'll read from the New King James just five verses. Just three verses. Philippians 3, verse 5 through 8. And I'll read from the New King James. Philippians 3, 5 through 8. As Paul makes the case of who he is because people were coming into church saying, well, maybe you're not teaching people right. And he says, let me tell you my credentials. I was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. You know the Benjamin? The one, Jacob's favorite wife's second son. That was me. A Hebrew of Hebrews concerning the law. A Pharisee, which means a high was strict. They were the strictest sect. Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless as yes. And then he says, verse 7, But what things were gained to me? These I have counted loss for Christ. All this pedigree that I had, all this knowledge that I had before, didn't mean a thing when I learned about the grace, the love of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation. Verse 8, But indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. He says, all I said was one worth a thing, because this is the most important. Is the understanding of Jesus Christ. The understanding. Did He do away with the law and say, oh no, no, because Paul said many times, do away with the law, God forbid. No. But this gave a complete understanding. He only had partial understanding before. And so many of the Jews thought, if I just keep the commandments, I'll be saved. Not true. Who better to teach a world that thought that than one that came from that? He says, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. You see, you can study really Paul. He was on the fast track. He's a Roman citizen. He studied at the feet of Gomeliah. And the first thing you find out in the book of Acts, the first six, seven chapters, Paul was right there. Kind of in charge. He said, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I count them as rubbish. Is that what yours says? The actual Greek word is dung. Excrement. If you want to be gross about it, I'm sure you can put your own words in there. So it didn't mean anything. That I may gain Christ. That I may gain Christ.

If you are here today, God has gotten your attention. If you're sitting here today, God has gotten your attention. Just like Paul. Except that I know of none of you he had to blind. Paul, he had to humble. And make him blind. And then have him receive his sight. And work with a man that he would have put to death three days earlier.

God has revealed through his word and his spirit his truth. If you are sitting in this room today.

Do you believe that? Because that's what this is about. So I asked the question, are you all in? If you believe that, are you all in? I don't know whether many of you ever played poker. They have poker tournaments on television. It's on ESPN, some channel I'll go by. And these guys are sitting there for hours playing for millions of dollars. And you can see their hands. And so forth. And you get to a point where they have these cards. And they believe they have the winning hand. And then they have to make this decision to take all those chips. And push it forward and say, I'm all in.

They're betting it all. Oh, brethren, I'm betting it all. And if you believe in God, you need to be all in. See, I feel like God has dealt me a hand with five aces. I'm not going to wait around and see if I can get a better hand. Let me just see if I can go somewhere and find a better hand. God has given it to us. It's incredible. And why does He give us this through His Word so that we have understanding that other people in the world, they don't have? Because this world is a mess. No matter who you are, you can see this world is a mess. The gay agenda that's going across this country, LGBT, is everywhere. It wasn't just a gay agenda. Now it's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. And now they're having a fight in amongst that group because they're wanting to add something else called an I on the end. And they're saying, no, no, no, we've worked so hard to get everybody to understand what LGBT stands for. We don't want to go I because I means up. They have a word for it, which it's for people that don't know what they are yet. And that's true. You'll see the big fight. So it's been put through so they can have I because I don't know whether I'm that or not, but I want my name up there because I want to be a part of this movement. And so they had a fuss two years ago because one group of men wanted to put Q on the end because they wanted to associate themselves with the word queer. Why? That's exactly what LGBT ask. This country is messed up. It is headed down a terrible road. You know, in 2013, there was actually a dip in abortions. Pretty good dip. Now, it's just up a little bit, but it's still down, but it's still over a million in the United States. You know, abortion worldwide last year was between 40 and 50 million babies aborted. And not even one tenth, they believe one tenth or even one hundredth percent, had to do with the decision of whether it was the mother's life or the baby's. Violence. Every day, I don't turn on the TV and watch the news anymore. I just don't do it. I get mine off Google and I read and scroll down, read what I want. But every day, there's some violence that just, it's shocked you more than the day before. If you remember our Good News magazine, America's War on God. That's what's happening in this country. Christians have no say so. They have no rights. But everybody else does. The witches and warlocks, they have their rights. Why, there's even a religion called zombies. And zombies have more rights. They don't even exist than Christians. They're Christians! Amazing! It's simply amazing. I'd like to go to our last verse as I wrap this up today. Further expression of why we're here. I'd like you to turn to the book of Ezekiel.

I want to read the book of Ezekiel. It ended up just like Micah, except a few hundred years later. And he was pointing out the same thing about a country that Israel went through, that Judah went through, and now, guess what?

America is going through. One that professed one nation under God. And that we are a godly nation. Here's what happened. And here's why it involves you. Ezekiel 22. Ezekiel 22 and verse 24. He said, Son of man, say to her, say to her, say to this nation, and I'm going to put America in here, because that's what we're looking at. Son of man, Ezekiel 22 verse 24. Son of man, say to America, you are a land that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation.

The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey that they have devoured people. They have taken treasures and precious things. They have made many widows in her midst talking about the religious leaders of today.

It's amazing. When I actually was in the gym the other day, and I was on treadmill, or I was on elliptical, and I was swapping channels as I was watching something there, as I was working out. And this same channel comes on every time. I don't know where it's at. It's in the 70s on this little thing. But here it is, no matter if I'm in there an hour late or an hour early, but it's 5 36 o'clock. These preachers are on there the whole time, 30 minutes, begging for money. Everything you can imagine.

I had to sit and listen to them and say, what are they going to come up with next? And they're begging. Just saying, oh, you're going to get this. And you, oh, if you've lost a loved one and you want to know that they're going to be okay, send us. Send us an offering and we'll make sure that we pray for that one to make sure that they are okay. It didn't even make sense.

Oh, and if you get one guy got on there saying, I know you're wondering, how am I going to pay my rent this month? You've got two weeks. Send in that money to us and see if it doesn't come back. Double fault. Four-fold. I'm embarrassing. That's what this is talking about. And it's not just one show. It was many shows, many preachers doing that. It's a shame. That's why I've said many times when I go to the Caribbean, they know these preachers who are on TV, these evangelists who come in town because they have these big things and they pass around plates to take money from people in the Caribbean who are barely getting by.

But they promise they're going to get all this stuff. Verse 25, her priest, America's religious leaders have violated my law and profaned my holy things. They have not distinguished between the holy and the unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the clean and the unclean. Remember, eat anything you want. It's all cleansed by somebody hanging there on that piece of tree there. And they have hidden their eyes from my Sabbath.

How many people you see professing the Sabbath today? I hate to digress and I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I have to. I get a call from this woman. As a matter of fact, she's called me once a week for the last three weeks. She gets our Good News magazine. She is a minister in some church in this area. One of three or four ministers for this church. It's a big church. And she read this literature and she's been reading it and she's been comparing it to the Bible. And she called me and she said, I brought your stuff to these other ministers, but they won't accept it.

They said no. And she said, tell me what to do. Should I just forget what I've learned? I said, did you read it from the Bible, from the Scripture? She said, yes. I said, then why are you asking that? That's why if you're called to be a spiritual leader, what are you doing? You do not have any choice. You are to follow this book. She said, I told them we're not going to do it. Halloween this past year, and they wanted to kick me out of church, saying I was taking this away from all the kids.

And she said, I didn't have the heart to tell them Christmas is wrong. She said, how am I going to tell me what to do? Help me.

I said, then you really need to think about something that the Scripture says. You follow God no matter what. And I said, because you've got a harder one coming on the Sabbath.

So I told her, she called me anytime. I'll help you any way I can. Because she'll read a Scripture, I'll read something back to her, say, must be in the Bible. It's 26. So that I am profaned among them. Her princes, America's leaders, America's politicians in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey and shed blood to destroy people and to get dishonest gain. Her prophets, her ministers, plastered them with untempered mortar. The Chinese are not giving them any meat from here. They're not giving them anything that will hold up. Seeing false visions and divining lies to them. Thus says the Lord God, when the Lord is not spoken. The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robberies, mistreated the poor and the needy, and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. So, here's your point. Here's what it comes down to. This is about you, and this is about me. So I sought for a person in America among them who would make a wall, who could actually stand for something, and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found no one. Not one person did God find. Can he find one in Kendall? Can he find one in Miramar? If you're sitting here, he had better. Whatever town you live in, you need to be the person that stands in that gap. And this is what guides you. This is your guidebook. This is your text. As I said before, our church here is a hospital for the spiritually sick. But it's also a school, a school to learn how not to become spiritually sick. And this is your textbook. I'd like you to take it and attain the knowledge, the important knowledge from it every single day to be able to stand in the gap. Be the ones, oh God says, no, I've got one there, who will follow me, who will stand. So how important is knowledge?

How much knowledge do you have? You have enough. You have answers that so many people in the world are looking for.

We have a booklet called, What is Your Destiny? One of the best booklets we have. What makes it crystal clear? What is your destiny? Why you're here? Who is God? What this life is all about. And I found one individual, he's called the smartest man in the world today, that wants to know that answer. So I read from you, from Stephen Hawking, in his book, The Brief History of Time. He writes at the end of the book, as he was talking about all these questions. He said, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable and broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reasoning. For then we would know the mind of God.

Attain knowledge. Attain knowledge. This knowledge from our God. And have a wonderful week.