Biblical Lessons from Europe

I think this is going to be a very interesting message because we are to learn from everything around us. And I had the honor to be able to travel to Holland and to Germany this past month, along with my wife, Cottie. I didn't have it in mind that there would be so many biblical lessons learned during this trip, but there were. And so I'd like to share with you—and actually there are nine biblical lessons, but I'm only going to be able to cover four because there's so much behind each one of them. Each one of these are like nuggets of truth that relate to the Bible and that have to do with either history or prophecy. And we know God is behind world events. He permits some to be carried out. Sometimes He intervenes when necessary. And so also, of course, I'll give you a little bit of a rundown on the churches in that area. But I'd like to begin here with the first slide. Why is it important to draw biblical lessons from our experiences? We ought to ask this first question. The Apostle Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9, 19 through 22, For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more. And to the Jews, I became as a Jew. Well, he knew how to talk their language. He understood their culture. He was able to meet them at their own mindset and view. To those who are under the law, as under the law that I might win those who are under the law, those, again, that had not been converted through Christ, but were still under the penalty of God's law. Continuing on, it says, to those who are without law, as without law, talking about Gentiles that didn't know anything about the law of God. And it says you're not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ. Because even if they don't know that law, spiritual law exists, it still holds them into account. It says that I might win those who are without law. To the weak, I became as weak. So people that are weak of the faith, you're not to pound down on them. You're supposed to be compassionate and understand their situation. He says that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men that I might, by all means, save some. He knew how to reach different audiences with a message without offending by understanding their own cultures and history.

So it pays off to study, to be cultured, and know a bit about history. It helps us relate to others much better. Paul, for instance, quoted the Athenian poet Aretus while speaking at Mars Hill, saying, For in him, we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own prophets have said, for we are also his offspring.

So Paul, talking to Athenians, who were very educated, had a lot of philosophers, well, he used one of their poets. He knew their culture. This is the way to reach out to people. And then Paul also said that our words should, quote, always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

So that is a skill that requires learning about culture, history, about people's way of interacting with others. So this is why it's important, because we're going to meet people and they're going to get an impression about our faith, our Christianity, by the way we present ourselves to them.

If we're gruff, if we are austere, if we're self-righteous, people are going to be turned off by that. But if you're graceful, you're compassionate, understanding, people are going to be attracted to that type of a spirit. So let's see some of these biblical examples. On our trip to Europe, we started from the Netherlands.

So that's where Amsterdam is, where we flew in. And we were able to go all the way down to where Victor DeYoung's family, their church members, and we stayed with them, and were able to go and keep the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. And then we made our trip to Cologne, Germany, visited the brethren at a place called Dormagen, and then went to the Bonn office, where we have our church office, and then we went by car all the way to Potsdam and then to Berlin. So that was basically the trip that we made and then flew back.

Here we can see what is called Holland or the Netherlands. Nether means low lands, so it means a place that is quite low. And if you notice here, it says in the white, and you can't see it quite as well, but this whole area is actually below sea level. And by a series of dikes and pumps, they were able to reclaim all of this land. Actually, Amsterdam is one of those areas that has been rescued.

The only part that is normally above water is basically this whole area to the east. But all of this is actually underwater, except that the Dutch were able to reclaim that land, which is about a fourth of the land, which has been reclaimed. And of course, people live there, and all the water has been drained away. Here are some of the brethren in Holland at church services.

And I was able to be at the church with the Dutch brethren, and also spoke there and gave a PowerPoint presentation as well on the intelligent design argument. Here we are at the home of the Die Youngs, my son-in-law, and also, of course, the father-in-law and all of Victor's family, the Die Young family. And as you can tell, there's always one little Ethan under the table, a little red-headed Ethan.

So this is my daughter Jackie and Victor, who are married and live in Boston. Okay, this is the first biblical lesson. We were able to visit in springtime when all the tulips are blooming. Just for two months or so, the tulips are in full bloom. And I could not help but just be astounded by the beauty of the tulips at Kukenhof Park in Holland, where they plant seven million of these tulips.

Tulips are a very special flower. You do see roses, which are quite beautiful like the ones here. Yet, tulips have even a greater variety, and they have a brightness to them that gets your attention. Jesus Christ talked about the beautiful flowers that God has created, because at one time the tulip was a wild flower that grew in Central Asia, on the mountains and some of the valleys. And actually it was through the Ottoman Empire back in the 1500s that they introduced the Europeans to the tulip. And eventually the tulip made its way to Holland, where they found that it was able to grow well in that weather.

And so they became experts at cultivating tulips. And of course, Jesus Christ in Matthew 6, verses 28-30, He used the analogy of the flowers, what they can teach us. He says, and why worry about clothes? Notice how the flowers grow in the field. They never work or spend yarn for clothes. But I say that not even Solomon in all his majesty was dressed like one of these flowers. That's the way God clothes the grass in the field. Today it's alive, and tomorrow it's thrown into an incinerator.

So how much more will He clothe you people who have so little faith? What Christ is saying is that, look, trust in God. That doesn't mean you don't do anything on your part. But after you've done your part, trust in God. He knows our needs. We don't have to have that anxious thought and get all depressed and worried when God knows our needs.

And if we do our part, He will do His part. He never fails. He will never abandon us. So just like these tulips, God designed them with this masterly beauty. So He's going to be more concerned about us than some flowers. And yet, look at all the trouble He had designing these tulips. As you can see here, they have a windmill. We're going to talk about that because that's another lesson. But let's continue with the beauty of the tulips. Tulips, at this garden, which we went, it's a park. And it has just thousands and thousands of tulips.

And then they have fields full of tulips, as you see here. To brightness, even roses will not look like that because the tulips can be placed so closely together. Psalm 111, verse 2, says, The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them. So let's not just look at things. Let's study them. Let's appreciate what God has done. And of course, I had to get at least one picture of little Ollie, little Oliver, Vic and Jackie's first child.

And so the in-laws were able to see Ollie for the first time. He's only close to eight months old right now. Some of these tulips really got my attention, especially these here, where they're not cup-like. They open up. They're divided into different little sections. I was amazed at the variety. There are, like I mentioned, 40 different gardeners plant these seven million bulbs every year because they this park, they have new tulips every year to keep them fresh.

And it also reminds me of the tulip mania. How many have ever heard of the tulip mania? Okay, a few. That happened around 1636. A tulip known as the viceroy, which you see here, displayed in this 1637 Dutch catalog. Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,000 guilders, depending on size.

A skilled craft worker at the time earned about 300 guilders a year. So you'd have to pay like 10 years worth of your salary for a tulip. And of course what happened? People went crazy and the price just continued on until it collapsed. And so that was like the first pyramid scheme, the first economic collapse. The prices went down. People got bankrupted because they were just in this fervor mania about it.

And from the 1600 to 1720, the Dutch people had the highest world per capita income. They were the richest people on earth, not because they had great expanses, but because they used their heads, their ingenuity. They were able to develop all kinds of new industrial processes, which we're going to see in a minute.

And so we should study and praise God for His works. In Romans chapter 1, verse 20, we see this happening more and more in the world. People forgetting to thank God for everything He has created. In Romans 1, verse 20, it says, For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Well, in those days, they made all kinds of statues of gods, thinking that those were the ones that made things. Today, we don't have statues, but we have the theory of evolution, which says that we descended from all these animals, and so, in a sense, that's worship of our ancestors, that somehow we have to worship the process that created all of these things.

And it's a type of idolatry as well. So, here's the second biblical lesson, the wonder of windmills. I had no idea windmills were so instrumental to develop the Dutch people into a world empire. The Dutch Industrial Revolution began in 1593 when Cornelis Zun built a windmill with a connecting rod that could move a set of saws up and down and cut the logs into planks.

Ships and other things could be built at a fraction of the time and cost. Other objects could be connected to pump, grind, polish, and stir many things. Thus, the Dutch became great exporters of good. Where we were at was the main area, and they had over a thousand of these windmills at one time, operating just like an industrial base. And guess what? They didn't need gas. They didn't need wood. They didn't need carbon. They were using the wind.

And my wife, Cottie, and I, as you see here, went into one of these windmills. And here you have the wood that is brought down the river.

It's hauled inside the windmill. And then they have these saws that go up and down, and they're cutting through that log in just a matter of half an hour or so. They've already cut through the entire log several pieces. And so what happened was that the Dutch people were able to underprice everybody else, because everybody else had to do it by hand.

Cutting. And that's a lot of work. Here, the wind was doing the hard work. And then with these planks, they built ships, powerful ships. And they were also experts with the wind and with sails, because they would use some of those sails to power these windmills. And what I didn't know was that these windmills, they're angled in this way, but this part, and you can see it here in this one, the top part rotates. So depending on where the wind is, it will actually, they will adjust it to get the full power of the wind.

So you can imagine the gears involved. There's a whole platform that is rotating, as you see in this one here. That whole top part, that way it can get the maximum amount of power out of the wind. It's a pretty windy region. It's pretty flat, with the wind coming off the coast. And so you could see a thousand of these mills just churning out this tremendous production.

And this little country, with just a few million people, became the Dutch Empire. The number one superpower from about 1600, well, into the 1700s until the British took over. But the Dutch Empire, from this little area, they were able to colonize the United States, the part of what is New York, which before was New Amsterdam. And areas that we hear in New York about Harlem, that's a Dutch city.

And so they had their presence there in South America. They have Dutch Guiana, also a tip of Brazil, part of Africa, South Africa as well. And then India, where they had the spice trade, which was one of the richest trades in the world at that time. And also all of this area, which was called the Dutch East Indies.

And up to today, a lot of these countries still use the Dutch language. Aruba is another one. And guess what? I'll bring this up in another message next week. But the Dutch people did not oppress the others like so many other nations that came. And so even today, they have good relationships with their colonies. This was the Israelite culture that they brought to these areas.

They weren't tyrants and just bloodthirsty dictators. No, not at all. They taught them laws, education. They lifted up the different nations. And even today, you have what is a Dutch Commonwealth, where they voluntarily still look to the king or queen of Holland as their kind of a cultural guide.

So gaining their freedom from the Spanish back in the 1500s, the Puritan ethics of the Dutch laid the basis for the free market system, because they didn't come to just take over gold and oppress. No, they tried to really develop those areas. And there was a free market system that started developing that could not do it under the Roman law that had been carried out by the Spanish and others. God had prophesied about Zebulun, and Jacob called his sons and said, Gather together that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days.

Zebulun is identified as that tribe of Israel, one of the ten lost tribes that went up into the Asian steeps for a number of centuries until they finally came to Europe and settled on these coasts. And these people that had not really made a mark once they established themselves in Holland, it was like the burst of blessings came upon them. And so here we have in Genesis 49, prophesying about these twelve tribes of Israel and how God would bless the world through them. It says, And I'd like to just quote from a book.

It's called The Tribes by Jair Davidi, a Jewish historian who tried to refute this idea that he thought that those ten tribes were lost. He went to Jerusalem, studied at Hebrew University under rabbis, and he found that he was wrong. This is what he writes.

Zebulun, in page 319, is identified with Holland. The symbol of Holland was a ship in popular tradition, and a ship was a symbol of the former Dutch Republic. Zebulun, in Talmudic literature, was pictured as a merchant seafarer, which description fits the Dutch. Rotterdam in Holland is the world's busiest port. Moses blessed Zebulun, Deuteronomy 33.19, that he should, Today both South Africa and Holland are on the seashores, and a good portion of the earlier diamond wealth of South Africa was found in the sands.

As you know, the Beers are the ones that are in charge of the diamond industry there in South Africa. He goes on to say, The only nation in the world whose population is known for dwelling extensively on reclaimed sea land, literally, quote, on the shores of the sea, close quote, is Holland. It says, Today, South Africa produces most of the world's diamonds, which, on the whole, are processed and traded in Belgium. South Africa is dominated by the Boers, who mainly descend from Dutch settlers. And so, they still control it. It says, It says, Genesis 49.13 The Dutch people do literally dwell on the shores of the sea, and they are the only people who do. And Dutch ports serve as a haven, a harboring place, for ships more than those of any other country in the world. So here we are, just visiting this country, and yet there's prophecy talking about God would not forget the people of Israel. It's always important to read Amos 9-9. Let's read Amos 9-9.

This is a promise that God made.

Amos. Look it up here.

Yes, it says, God says, So he was going to sift them through the nations until they would be deposited at the place where God had intended. And then the blessings of Abraham that had been withheld because of disobedience for a certain time. Eventually, in the 1800s, this whole area just flourished, among whom are the Dutch people.

Okay, Biblical Lesson 3. Now, in Holland, we see the spiritual element in man. People really took to the Bible. There was a Puritan tradition, a very dedicated people, God-fearing people. And during World War II, we visited the Ten Boom Dutch family home, which actually hid 800 Jews that used their home as a halfway house to freedom. So they were constantly coming in. They had a certain sign on the window sill up at the top. And when they saw that little statue, it was safe, and the Jews would be able to come in. And so the Ten Boom family, during this terrible time, 1944, this was the home. They made watches, and on the upper floor, they had an architect build a false wall right here. It's only about three feet wide, and you had to go through this little cupboard, which opened up, and you could get inside. And it was made out of brick. So even if the police touched it, it would not be hollow. And so this is the Ten Boom family, Cory Ten Boom, who became the most famous of them all, talked about it. Now, they were eventually caught, this family, and they were sent to concentration camps. And yet, their faith was strong. The two sisters were sent to the same concentration camp. Here it says, she lived from 1892 to 1983. She was a Dutch watchmaker who was known for her activity in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees during the 1940s Nazi occupation, arrested and imprisoned with her whole family in 1944. So they had like four years of just having people go through, and the neighbors never denounced them. They were imprisoned. They were released with the end of the war, 1945. She went on to establish rehabilitation centers, preaching worldwide, and authoring an autobiography, The Hiding Place, which is also a movie, which I hardly recommend. It says, her family hid Jews in their house in the Netherlands. The Gestapo found the family out and had them sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. While at a church service in Munich after the war, she came face to face with one of the former Ravensbruck prison guards. Corey had just delivered a message of God's forgiveness, and the former guard, not recognizing her, asked Ten Boom personally for forgiveness for the atrocities that he had committed. Ten Boom struggled within herself and found that she could not forgive him. But she quickly prayed and found the strength to accept his extended hand, and she forgave him all the atrocities.

She and her sister put love, faith, and courage to the ultimate test in World War II and passed with flying colors. They have been a source of encouragement for me. She said, when a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer, talking about God in this case. She also said, forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.

Here she talks about the moment when God made two miracles that were so powerful as they went to the concentration camp. Of course, everybody had to be stripped of all their clothes and then sent to the showers. But Corey's sister, Betsy, had tied a little pouch around her neck, and inside was a little Bible. And so Corey was saying, God, please, we need this Bible. We know they're going to be searched, but we place this in your hands. And guess what happened? When Betsy was going to have her clothes removed, all of a sudden, she just got sick to her stomach and started just getting pale. And the guard said, what's wrong with her? And Corey next to her says, well, she's sick and she had diarrhea. And so they said, well, she can't have diarrhea here. Take her to the bathroom, her to go to the shower room over there. And what did she do? She was able to take the Bible and hide it under a bench where the showers were. So she came back, they took all the clothes, and they went back to the shower place where they were able to get the Bible. The problem was that there was going to be a second search. And so this time, Corey was hiding the Bible in her hands. And here the search came, and she prayed to God. And guess what? She said, God, make me invisible. Make me so that God cannot see me. And you know what? The guard checked the lady in front and the lady behind and didn't see her. And she was able to take that little Bible inside the concentration camp where during that whole year they were able to have prayer services, and they used that little Bible for comfort. And so I thought this was very interesting. I actually got one of the cards as I'm showing here. She liked this quote very much. She says, Take a look at this here.

The dark threads are as needful in the weaver's skillful hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned. He knows, he loves, he cares. Nothing this truth can dim. He gives the very best to those who leave the choice to him. And so you look at the underside, and it's all a mixture of threads. But you turn it over. That's what is made. A crown.

And so after visiting the Dutch brethren, we visited Germany. Here are Paul and Monica Kiefer. He's the pastor over Germany and Holland. Holland does not have a resident pastor, and so they have to have local elders at services.

And also, there's a recent elder here, Heinz Wilsburg, who is there in Germany helping with the German office. He's a treasurer now. And then visiting the new home of Rolfe and Monica Marx, members of the Dormagen Church and parents of Sabrina Schmidt. Sabrina here? No, she's not here today. But we had a very fine time with the Marx family.

And so we come to the fourth and last lesson for today. In Berlin, there's a series of museums, and one of them is called the Pergamum Museum. And this was one of the highlights. Of course, I wanted to visit this place. I'd studied it so long in archeology classes and others. The Ishtar Gate, one of the eight double gates of Babylon, with its processional way built by Nebur Knezer II and behind it, the rebuilt tower of Babel. By him as well. He was Daniel's boss, and Daniel 1 through 4. So you see here is the Ishtar Gate.

And then you have up here what was the tower of Babel, which had been cast down and he rebuilt. At least part of it. And so I'd like to read Daniel, chapter 5. Daniel, chapter 5, verses 17 through 31. And I might just also mention chapter 4, verse 28, talking about Nebur Knezer II, that is being referenced here with Ishtar Gate. He says in verse 28, The king spoke, saying, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power, and for the honor of my majesty? Notice all the i's and me's and my's. And while the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven and humiliated King Nebur Knezer. He'd lose the spirit in man for seven years, become like an animal. And so, of course, he was very proud. But Daniel had warned him, don't boast about this like without recognizing the true God. Well, he got himself in trouble. And now, Daniel, chapter 5, we see the downfall of mighty Babylon. It says in verse 17, This is the grandson of Nebur Knezer, Belchazar.

And it says in verse 17, Yet I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. O king, the Most High God gave Nebur Knezer, your father, and again the term here has to do with the dynasty, a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. And because of the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he executed. Whomever he wished, he kept alive. Whomever he wished, he set up. And whomever he wished, he put down. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. Then he was driven from the sons of men. His heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever he chooses. But you, his son Belchazar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. He knew the history. He knew what had happened. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of his house before you. And you and your Lord, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which did not see, or hear, or know. And the God who holds your breath in his hand, and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. Then the fingers of the hand were sent from him, and this writing was written. And this is the inscription that was written, Mene Menem, Tekel Uparcin. This is the interpretation of each word, Mene. God has numbered your kingdom and finished it. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Paris, your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belchisar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel with purple, because he saw that Daniel had interpreted it correctly, and put a chain of gold around his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. That very night, Belchisar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Medes received the kingdom, being about 62 years old. And so, mighty Babylon fell on one night while they were having that banquet. Notice in Isaiah 41, we're going back in time from the time of Daniel, approximately 150 years before, to the time of the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 45. This is one of the most incredible predictions in history, because he actually named the Persian king, who would conquer Babylon. Darius was under Cyrus, as there were two empires that were joined together, the Persians and the Medes. Notice what it says in Isaiah 45, verse 1.

It says, Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him, and lose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut. The double doors referring to these double doors of Babylon. I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of bronze, and cut the bars of iron.

I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. So God is actually anticipating the raising up of Cyrus. And it is mentioned at least in Babylon, in Jewish history, that when Cyrus conquered Babylon, that the Jewish people came, and the high priest at that time came and showed King Cyrus the scriptures about himself. And that really impressed Cyrus, and he granted even more favor, because he was the one with the decree that they should go back to Jerusalem.

So he didn't want to make the same mistake as Nebuchadnezzar. He knew what had happened too at that time, and he was quite humble about that. Notice in Jeremiah 51, verse 56, to me these are incredible scriptures. Jeremiah, of course, was present when the temple was destroyed. But again, he's talking about about 70 years later, when Babylon would be destroyed. He says in Jeremiah 51, verse 56, because the plunderer comes against Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken, for the Lord is the God of recompense.

He will surely repay, and I will make drunk her princes and wise men, just like we read about Belchazar, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake, because they're going to be killed, says the king, whose name is the Lord of hosts. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the broad walls of Babylon shall utterly be broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire, and the people will labor in vain, and the nations, because of the fire, and they shall be weary.

Well, we were able to come to this Ishtar gate, but Ishtar gate, the only thing that they found, this was Robert Coaldee back in 1894, took him about 25 years or so to bring to Berlin. He was a German archaeologist. It was the thousands and thousands of bricks that he found littering the ground. And so it took him decades to put all of this together, because everything had been destroyed. And the only thing that survived were these glazed bricks, which actually were like ceramic tile.

They were so hard that the fires burnt everything else, but this remained. And so what you see are the bricks assembled. My wife and I, right here in front of the Ishtar gates, most of which are the original bricks. And here we see that it's not only you not only see Ishtar gate, you actually see the procession way with the same crowns made of lapis lazuli that was grounded and then glazed bricks. And by the way, this is only half of the gate because the bigger half, remember, there were double gates. The other part of the gate, this is the first gate, and the double gate is actually all in bricks.

But they don't have a big enough place to put the second gate, which is larger than the first. And so here is the procession way leading to Ishtar gate. And as you see on the top, they even found the bricks for that. And some of the bricks have the seal of Nebuchadnezzar II, so it identifies him as the builder of this.

Jasmina Ayewa was our guide, which helped us enormously, and office manager of the German work. Here we can see the processional street to the Ishtar gate, a wonder of the world on its own. Herodotus, a Greek historian, named the walls of Babylon as one of the seven wonders of the world. Later on, that was displaced by the Alexandrian lighthouse at Alexandria. But this was one of the seven original wonders of the world.

So to me, the Bible said that Babylon was going to be destroyed, and that these gates were all going to end up being dissembled. And here you see how the representation of prophecy taking place. So brethren, here going back are lesson number four, the Ishtar gate and prophecy. Who could have predicted this beforehand? That mighty Babylon was going to be destroyed by this army of Persians, which they looked down on and belittled. They said you'll never be able to take Babylon, and yet they were. So these are the first four lessons. We have five more coming up. But I hope in this whirlwind tour you've been able to see a little bit of why it's important to grow in grace and knowledge, grow in culture and history, and relate the Bible to the things we see, either to the beauty of the tulips or the ingenuity that came with these people, that God gave them just a grace and favor to be able to spread out to the farthest sections of the world. Also, the previous spiritual element. This lady who apparently wasn't very important. She was a watchmaker. But you know what? She won a tremendous honor before God by showing faith, courage, and love. And it created a new person in her, and she's an inspiration to us all. So, brethren, these are the lessons. Stay tuned next week for the next five and last lessons we have to learn.