Strive for the Mastery

In the time of the Apostle Paul, of course, if you studied the history of when Paul wrote some of his epistles, some of his letters, it was in the context of the Greek games that took place, which were games that were highly competitive, where in fact a man, in order to participate in these games, had to go into a highly regimented diet and basically a routine to develop himself for participation in these games. And what Paul referred to, in fact, in his writings, as he's talked about, anybody was going to win a prize. And he compared it to the crown of life that the Christians should win. He said that they had to strive for the mastery. They had to really work on themselves and prepare themselves for it. That basically, though, what is, I think, even astounding is that the reward of a winner, the reward of somebody who won a prize in those ancient times of Greece, was basically a wreath that was put upon their heads and was made from groves that were located nearby. That men would do this, that they would apply themselves to prepare themselves to participate in these kinds of games for basically a wreath that was weaved out of the foliage of a tree. You know, that men would do this is astounding. People will subject themselves, it seems, to incredible, incredible regimens of preparation, just to win a crown that is very, really of no value whatsoever. It's not a lasting crown at that. I don't know whether we even have any of those crowns that have survived to this day, because they would have, of course, disintegrated over time. But let's go over to 2 Timothy, if you wouldn't mind. Let's go to 2 Timothy 2 and verse 5.

No, here, the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 2 and verse 5, I'm going to read this from actually the New King James. But he says, and also if anyone competes in athletics, and again, these Olympic games of that time, at least, is what he's referring to. And it says, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules in the King James Version. In fact, I like the King James Version rendering of this better. But it says, if a man also strives for masteries, yet he is not crowned except he strives according to the law, or he strives lawfully. He's got to follow the rules, in other words. He's got to walk the steps, the walk, the walk, and talk, the talk. On down here to verse 7, and what Paul is saying here to Timothy, he says in verse 7, he says, consider what I say.

And that's something we can do right now, brother. We can consider what Paul is writing here, then let the word go out, let people listen and hear and consider what Paul is saying here. It's a very simple concept. And here Paul is having to tell Timothy this. And he says, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

And so, Paul wanted Timothy to have a greater understanding of the importance, in fact, of what it is to be a servant of Almighty God, who is striving for mastery, who is striving for the prize. You know, when the the worldwide church of God began, of course, it wasn't called the worldwide church of God. Then we go back, it was the radio church of God. You know, God began to call people in the church. And there were people called all walks of life.

And, you know, interesting, I'll just tell you the story, the history of it, is that, you know, people were called into the church, and many of them were farmers. And one of the things that happened at Ambassador College, this is something that occurred, is that when people would come to the graduation of Ambassador College, which stood for recapturing true values of setting a high standard in life, some came wearing overalls, you know, to this graduation, this important time.

You know, and by the way, I'm not criticizing people that come from, you know, backgrounds that are, you know, simple. And we there have been tremendous people that God has called over the years. When I first came to the church, the man that was leading songs that day, he all spiffed up, had a wonderful suit on, he looked, his hair was combed properly, he was a very good example.

His hands were huge. And my thought at that time is that this man probably would feel more comfortable behind a tractor. But what had happened, he came into the church and he realized what we were called for, to the higher calling that God was giving us in the kingdom, that we were not called, you know, to be what we were when we were initially called, but God called us to be future kings upon the earth, kings and priests of the future.

And so we have to set our bar higher. We have to set our standards higher. And I want to appeal to all of you here to think about that. And Paul is saying that to Timothy. I hope you gain of understanding what this is about, what this is all about, this thing of your calling and what God has given you. And so here Paul again is saying, the one that receives the prize, that receives the crown of life, is the one who strives for the masteries. It's the title of this sermon today, Strive for Mastery. We're not striving for mediocrity, we're not striving for average, we're striving for mastery. But how can we strive for mastery, brethren?

You know, obviously being a Christian is different, isn't it, than running a race in the Olympics or, you know, the Greek games. What does it mean to strive for the mastery? Anyway, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 over here. Again, let's look into the Bible. The Bible gives us answers to these questions that we have. And brethren, what Paul is saying is very important for us to grasp, to understand. But in verse 25 here, and I will read it, you know, in the new King James first, but here Paul puts it the same way that it's stated over in 2 Timothy.

But he says, in everyone who competes for the prize, if you look in the King James, everyone that strives for the mastery, everyone that strives for the mastery. And so it's translated here, competes for the prize. But notice that they are temperate in all things. They had a 10-month regimen where they control their diet and what they did and what they ate to be participants in the Greek games.

And Paul is saying here that someone who is going to run the race and are being called as that race that God has given to us, you have to be temperate in everything.

Temperate in everything. Temperate in all things, it says. Now that they do it, to obtain a perishable crown made out of, again, leaves and, you know, of a tree, basically. And it says, but we, an imperishable crown. So, brethren, we ought to be striving for the mastery. If we're going to win the prize, if we're going to win the big prize, and the word temperate means this, in the Greek, it means to exercise self-restraint. You've got to restrain yourself. In fact, in the Strongs, it says, in diet and chastity.

What goes in our mouth, even, we restrain ourselves. What comes out of our mouth, we restrain ourselves. Brethren, temperance is necessary for eternal life, and temperance certainly is necessary for winning the crown of life, being able to be rewarded with that. The term temperance, though, if we were to maybe name it in a way that we can more easily put into perspective in our lives, in our daily lives, temperance means to be balanced in life, to be moderate in all things. In fact, the Bible tells us to be moderate in all things, to be temperate in everything that we do. We're in control of ourselves. I wrote to you in a letter, I believe it was not this week, this time, but the last letter I wrote to you, is that when God gives us His Holy Spirit, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but God has given us a spirit of power. We've got the power to us. We just got to believe it, believe it, and begin to put it into practice.

And I'm sure you discovered that when you were called that, you know, if you put your mind to anything, and if it's the right thing to do, and you set your mind to do it with God's help, you will do it. You will accomplish it. I discovered that in 1995 in a very big way. And I'll say it from this perspective to you, and I don't want to get too long in this message, but I remember then when we lost our job, when I lost my job, and as a result of wanting to keep the Sabbath in the Holy Days. Isn't that astounding? That in the Church of God, you lose your job because you're not, you want to keep the Holy Days in the Sabbath? Well, that's what happened. So I asked my wife, I said, what in the world can I do? I've been a pastor for over 20 years. You know, what can I do? That's all I've ever done. Well, you know, the short of it is we started a business, and it was highly successful. And I, you know, we eventually, when, you know, United began, we sold it. But I never thought I could do that. I thought that, you know, I don't have the ability to do that kind of thing. But I discovered this one thing, is if I put my mind to it, and with God's help, it has to be with God's help because we've made a lot of big mistakes with it. With God's help, you can do anything. You could change, you can overcome anything, you know, some people wrestle with smoking. Some thought they could never do it. Come into the church with God's help, people do. They cast it off. They throw it aside. But, brethren, we've got to strive for the mastery. I don't know if any of you, when you were kids, we used to do this game. They call it wrestling. How many of you ever did that, by the way? You know what Indian wrestling is? Where you lay on the ground, and you, but opposite of each other, and you put your legs up, and basically you try to flip the other person over with your leg. And that is a game, really, that is a matter of balance. It has to do with a person's balance, and of course, it has to do with strength. There was another game that the Indians also played. You know, they had very simple things that made them stronger, physically speaking, but was to stand facing one another, take each other's right hand, and you would firmly set your feet. And you remember this particular game? You basically would push and pull until you knocked your opponent over. That they fell off balance. And what is the key to winning a game like that?

The key is you've got to have a firm foundation. In other words, you've got to set your feet. And the other key to it is you have to have good balance. You have to have good balance. And you know, again, temperance and balance is necessary for eternal life. It applies to our lives that way. You've got to have balance in order to be in the kingdom, at least for what God is calling us for right now, and that is to be kings and priests in the future.

Let's go to Matthew 7, Matthew 7, and verse 13 over here, where Jesus said, He said, And so He says, We were given the narrow gate. That word, narrow gate, has to do with difficult gate. When God called you and me, we weren't given the broad way.

We were given the narrow gate that few people ever find. And a narrow gate goes on a path that's not easily trekked either. You know, if you've ever looked at some of the roads down in like the Andes, you know, where the roads go up and you got, you know, you got to be careful because sometimes those roads you might have, it might be a half mile at the bottom of the ravine. So when you're driving a vehicle or something, what do you do? You stay as close to the wall, as close to the mountain as you can, right?

You don't drive on the edge of the mountain, do you? And think about this. If you're walking on a path where you've got a pathway, but it's a high precipice, and you're walking high, you better keep your balance, too. Because you can't afford to lose your balance and fall, you know, obviously it might end up killing you. So again, keeping that firm foundation allows you the weather, allows you to execute that narrow pathway that God has given to us, all of us here.

Let's go to Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter 1 and verse 7. You know, again, Paul was teaching young men, he was teaching them what it was to be an elder, what it was to be a minister of God, to be used of God, a servant of God. Of course, you don't have to be a male in terms of the principles that we put into practice.

We do have, of course, only male elders, you know, within the church. But all of us need these principles and still in us. But here in Titus chapter 1 and verse 7, he says, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, because all of us are stewards, aren't we, of one thing or another. You know, everybody here has a responsibility in their life. And it says not self-willed. You can't be self-willed. In other words, wanting to do your own thing. Not quick tempered. You can't have a, you know, a temper that where you kind of wear your emotions on your cuff. Not given to wine.

Not violent. Not greedy for money. But hospitable. A lover of what is good, sober-minded. Just holy and self-controlled. Got to have control of yourself. In the King James, that word self-control is temperance. Temperance. Got to be balanced, in other words. What is God looking for in a people that are going to be kings and priests in the future? Read this. This is what he's looking for. This is what God wants.

This is what he desires in us. Elders and mature men and women must be temperate and not unbalanced in their life. You know, over in Proverbs 11 and verse 1, you don't need to turn there, but it says God, it says a false balance is an abomination to the Lord.

But a just weight is his delight. You know, basically this proverb was about tipping the scale, but it can apply to a Christian's life as well. You know, do we just appear like we're balanced? You know, in other words, are we really balanced? Are we really moderate in all things? Do we just appear like we're a little round brethren? Is that what we put on a show? We're being ostentatious and we're not that way, truly that way. Of course, that falls in the category of being a hypocrite as well, doesn't it?

But, you know, God does not like a false balance. Balance, as defined by Thorndyke and Bernhardt dictionary, is defined as a condition of not falling over in any direction or steadiness. You know, there's some people that, you know, you talk to them this week and they have the same values, the same beliefs, and if you talk to them 10 years from now, they'll have the same values and they're still striving for the same things. They haven't changed. You know, that is the character of God.

That's God's character. You know, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now, obviously, we've got to change to conform to God's way of life. We've got to conform to God's way and not this world's way. And we need to, again, realize that, you know, that God's law is the basis of it all, basically. It's the basis of it all. You know, we talk about freedom. We talk about independence, you know, as the first message we're talking about. But, you know, really, there is no freedom if everyone is self-willed.

If everyone wants to do their own thing, if everyone wants to to do whatever they feel like doing, that infringes upon the freedom of somebody else.

Now, obviously, you know, we have to realize that in the millennium, it's not going to be, we're not going to be free to do whatever we want to do. We are free to do whatever we desire to do within the law of God. So we all have to keep the law of God. Without the law, brother, there is no freedom. There's anarchy. And, you know, more and more the world society that we look at out there, that's the way the world lives. It is the way it is. And, of course, by the grace of God, it's called us. It opened our minds and shown us the truth. But God wants us to be temperate in all things. If we're going to strive for the mastery, you know, a Christian, again, must be balanced, must be temperate in all things. And, you know, when Mr. Armstrong thought about founding a college, he went up and talked to a university president, I think it was up in San Francisco area, if I'm not mistaken. Been a long time since I've read about the beginning of Ambassador College. But the president told Mr. Armstrong back then—this was back in 1947—he said, Mr. Armstrong, you have a golden opportunity here if you're going to begin a college. And he talked about how that basically the colleges of the world were, you know, built around different principles. So when Mr. Armstrong thought about what Ambassador College should be, he wanted it to be a college where young men and women were trained to be a part of the work of God, but he did not want Ambassador College to be a seminary. You know what they say about the seminary, don't you? That is where they bury the truth. But, you know, God has not—he did not train his ministers at seminaries where, you know, you're just not all you do is study the Bible. But he started Ambassador College as a liberal arts college where you would learn all manner of things. All manner of subjects because he did not want his ministry. He did not want the ministry of the church to be people that were just Bible thumpers. He wanted his ministry to be balanced. He wanted them to be temperate in all things as the Bible talks about. So, balance, brethren, is needed. Now, what are some of the areas, brethren, where we can in our lives be more balanced and more moderate so we don't fall off the track, though we don't fall off the narrow way that God has given us to walk? There are major areas that we need to think about of how we do things in our lives, how we live our lives, how we apply these things that Paul told Timothy, I hope you have a greater understanding of this in your life. So, I've got a few points here I want to give to you. Some of them are very brief, but I want you to think about these things, dwell on these things a bit, and inculcate them in your thinking. Number one thing is what one thing do you do a third of your life? You work. Some of you might have thought sleep. That's probably, I hope you get, you know, that much sleep. But all of us, at least eight hours a day, sometimes eight, ten hours a day, twelve hours a day, that you work.

I think the first thing a person needs to learn in life is that we need to have, we of course need to know we ought to work. You know, that, of course, is very important, but is to have balance and temperance in work in what we do. Let's go to second Timothy chapter three.

Like I say, we need to be balanced to realize that the world doesn't owe us a living. Increasingly, people think that, that the world owes them something.

In second Thessalonians three, there has been a generation of people that did not believe that, did not think that way. You know, people during the depression realized the government couldn't do much for them. Couldn't help them all that much. And if a man didn't take care of himself, you probably weren't going to do too well. But in second Thessalonians three, and let's know this here, in verse 10 it says, for even when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, and obviously understanding here that if they can work, and I'm talking about physical disability here, if they are unable to work, obviously he's not talking about that, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. In other words, it is not a right that other people have to feed us all of our lives. And Paul goes on to say here, for we here, there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busy bodies. You know, they're concerned about everybody else, what they're doing, but they're not working. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread. So Paul is teaching temperance here, brethren. He's teaching balance in people's lives. So we shouldn't rely on other people to take care of us, but we should work to take care of ourselves and our own families. And one of the things I do pray every single day is that God will allow you, all of His people, to have good jobs so you can take care of your own families. That God will bless you mightily in that way, and that God will make it possible for you not only just to make ends meet, but He would give you an abundance of life. Remember, Christ said, I've come that you would have life and have it more abundantly. And you know, God wants us to have that. It's not just a matter of money, but it sure makes it a little bit easier, doesn't it? If you don't have to, you know, scratch for food and that sort of thing.

Another important thing I think I could say in relation to work, you know, I won't turn to it, but in the fourth commandment, we are told six days we are to work, but the seventh day is the seventh. The fourth commandment, brethren, precludes working too much. So we need to work, yes, but we can work too much. People can work too much. You know, up in the Bay Area, we had some fellows up there in the Bay Area. Frankly, they were working 70, 80 hours a week.

And I don't know, how many of you put in 70, 80 hours a week? I don't know. Maybe some of you here do. Makes a tough, tough life, doesn't it? But you know, and I would just, I know sometimes you can't do anything about it. I know they couldn't do anything about it. You know, the reason being is the companies they have were highly competitive. You know, companies like Google and other things, you couldn't even work for them unless you, you basically, they own you.

So it's a tough life. So get a balance, brethren, in terms of that work, yes, you have that responsibility, but don't go overboard. Because you begin to sacrifice some of the more important things, like family and other things that, and maybe sometimes even it puts you close to compromising, you know, your calling, if you're not careful. Because God is the one we serve. It was like Mr. Ott was talking about, you got to serve somebody, you know, that song talk about. I remember that song. In fact, you know, back then, Bob Dylan sang that. Of course, Bob Dylan's voice, obviously, has much to be desired. But I think he's gone down in history because of the balance he wrote.

But again, the Bible talks about six days you should work, but you don't have to work six days. You know, if you're able to support your family, you know, five days a week, or what, some people work four days a week, and they can take care of their responsibilities.

And, you know, if you have that extra time, you can serve God more. You can do more in terms of service to God. So be balanced with work, brethren. You know, don't let your work be your life. Work to be a part of your life. Work should be a part of your life. It should not be your life. Number two thing we should learn temperance about is we need to be balanced when it comes to marriage and parenting. Marriage is a very important part of being happy in life. You know, what do they say? You know, what do they say? Happy wife, happy what? Life. And, you know, and I'm sure the the opposite is true. Happy husband, happy life as well. You often say that just of the ladies. But, you know, a happy child is another important thing in a family. You know, in terms of being balanced in marriage and parenting. You know, the Bible says in Ephesians 6 verse 4, he says, you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath or anger. Oh, sometimes we can be too hard. Again, it's a matter of balance. And I imagine we got some here who had kids when they were growing up, you were a little too hard sometimes. Men tend to have that problem more than women do, you know, in terms of being too hard. But, you know, the Bible tells us to be balanced about it. We need to discipline our children and train our children, but be the type of people, again, that are training them in balance. The Bible says, you know, bring them up in the nurture, in the admonition of the Lord. Again, fathers could be too harsh. You know, sometimes, you know, they can be harsh, in fact, to abate. Paul wrote this, Colossians 3 verse 19, husbands love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Men may have that tendency to be bitter to their own wives. Though, you know, your wife loves you so much, she marries you. She deserves to be treated in a kind manner, in a kind way. And Paul is saying, don't be bitter, you know, toward your wife. Make sure that, again, you're making her happy. You're striving to make her happy. You know, people can fall into two extremes in marriage, and they can fall into extremes when it comes to children as well. I remember back in the 60s, it was very, it was a sort of avant-garde for, or as they claimed it was, for a child to call their parents by their first name. How many of you remember that, back in, am I too old here? Anybody still do that anymore? I don't believe they're doing that now, but maybe they are. But that was an example of how there were extremes in child rearing. You know, some parents have wanted to be friends to their kids like Buddy Buddy, you know, girlfriend, or, you know, guy friend type thing, and not play the role of parent. You know, the Bible tells us that we have a responsibility to discipline our children. And that principle, basically, is found in Proverbs 13, verse 24. It says, He who spares his rod hates his son. Now, that scripture doesn't tell us to beat our kids. The principle here is discipline. And discipline doesn't involve corporate punishment.

You know, sometimes it might in a very kind way. But it says, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly. He disciplines him. Maybe verbal discipline. Maybe grounding a child. You know, that kind of thing. But always doing what you do with love and kindness.

You know, in the years past, some took discipline too far, and they hurt their children. And they could drive them away from God, drive them away from the church. There's no faster way to alienate a child than to be too hard, too harsh. So, brethren, develop. Develop and have discipline in child rearing. Another area of balance I want to talk about as well is treat your friendships in a balanced way. When you develop friendships in your life, you know, have a balanced friendship. The Bible tells us that there is a friend that stick closer than a brother. And in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wrote, two are better than one, because they have good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. So it's good to have friends. People can help you, they can back you up, they will encourage you. But, you know, you need godly friends. People are telling you the right things to do. People are setting the right example of what you should or should not do. Sometimes people have friendships where they have bad friendships that influence them in the wrong way. It's like the devil, you know, when he rebelled, when Lucifer rebelled, he no doubt took a third of the angels because of his closeness to them. And they rebelled against God. So if there were friendships there, even in the spirit realm, those friendships were wrong. Two-thirds of the angels, thankfully, did not go along with it. They were wise, they were balanced in what they did. So friends are a great value, very important, but have a balanced friendship. Don't let your friends, if they are not living God's way, particularly influence you to do wrong things. And you can have friends in the world. Just make sure, again, you don't let them influence you in the wrong way. Although, I think there's a limitation to that. You know, sometimes it begins to influence you, unbeknownst to you. It begins to affect you in a different way. So be very careful, again, about friendships. We need to be very balanced. And another thing, I think, is very important is when you have a friend, and when you are a friend to someone, be careful that you don't smother your friends. You know, sometimes there are those friends that don't want to go to breathing rooms to their friends. I remember one time my wife and I had friends in a particular church area, and they would come over to our home, and they wouldn't leave until about midnight. I was ready to go to bed. I don't know if any of you know Dr. Hay, what Dr. Hay used to do. Dr. Hay, if somebody came over to his house to visit, he would fellowship with them. But when it was time to go to bed, he just disappeared and went to bed. But if you are to somebody, again, get them a breathing room, and expect that from your friends, too.

You know, that you don't smother your friends. So again, be balanced in friendship. Here's another area I'm not going to spend a lot of time on. Finances. Finances are very important. I'm not going to cover this very much. I'll just say that the family budget has been often called a balanced budget. So doesn't that say at all? That it should be temperate. Income must equal outgo. Hopefully, you get more than what's going out.

How we budget is a matter of balance. You know, if you're spending 30% of your income on entertainment, that's not very balanced, is it? But sometimes, I am very amazing. I've talked to some of our members, even. They say, I'm just doing what's happening here. You know, that it seems like I can't make ends meet. And they confide sometimes, and they'll tell me what kind of salary they make. And I'm astounded by it. You know, some of them are making $100,000, $200,000, and they can't make ends meet. And of course, you begin to look at where they spend their money, is they're not balanced. And it takes a while for them to gain an understanding of that. And of course, tithing should be a part of it as well, brethren. And you know, it all comes down to the law of God. Are we practicing the law of God?

Another area is academics and growth in knowledge. We need to broaden our horizons, brethren. Don't be narrow-minded, but broaden your horizons. Read widely. Always have something that you're working on and studying in your life. And growing and expanding your knowledge and your understanding. And pray for wisdom to apply it in your life. Another area is appearance, to have balance, brethren. The Amish ride in turn-of-the-century buggies. And of course, that's what they believe. We used to live in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area, and they wear black clothing, black hats, black shoes, and they drive black buggies. Everybody's black. That's what they think is righteousness. If you notice, the creation, though, is variety. A variety of colors. But God expects us, brethren, to not be excessive in styles. You know, I'm not going to go to it, but in 1 Peter 3 and verses 3 through 4, it talks about not being excessive. Not let it be the outward expression, like it was in Greek times, that they would break gold, women would break gold into their hair. But, you know, Peter talked about how it should be inward beauty. Now, that's not that we don't care what the outside looks like, but that we should take care of it, certainly, but don't go overboard to be balanced. Interestingly, in Ezekiel 44 verse 20, Ezekiel writes, speaking of the priesthood, you might find this very interesting, he says, they shall neither shave their heads nor let their hair grow long, but they shall keep their hair well trimmed. That's what, in fact, it says about the priesthood, what they were to do. And that principle again applies to us. Ezekiel 44 verse 20 is where that verse is, if you want to look it up and read it. Another important area of balance, brethren, is health. You know, being balanced is to, you know, what you're doing with health. A person can disregard their health. You know, they can disregard their diet and exercise, but on the other hand, some people go overboard with regard to health. You could become a health nut. You could become a health nut. Be careful about that. Exercise can be carried to obsession. Some women exercise so much that it alters their menstrual cycle. That's not balanced. It's not what God intended, brethren. In the 60s and the 70s of the Church of God, people went overboard on cod liver, oral wheat germ, honey, and carob. No white sugar or white flour. Now, there's nothing wrong with that.

But again, what I think we find is that people go from one extreme to another. Sometimes they care too much, and then they care too little. We need to think about it, brethren. Some people then also want to throw out theories that you shouldn't do certain things, that in fact go contrary to what the Bible says.

I heard a theory that some thought it was wrong to eat honey.

If you know what the Bible says about that, that's not what the Bible says. It's not wrong to eat honey.

In Proverbs 24, verse 13, it says, My son eat honey because it is good, and the honeycomb as well, which is sweet to your taste. Now, the Bible does not say, go overboard with eating honey. You can go too far. Even a good thing can be done too much. Again, balance is the key. Some say it's wrong to eat and drink at the same time. So, what about what did Abraham feed Melchizedek, who, as we know, was the one who became Jesus Christ?

What did he feed to him? In Genesis 18, verse 8, it says, So he took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and he set it before them, and they ate. You know, and read over in the New Testament, you know, what, in fact, they ate, you know, in the New Testament as well. They ate and drank at the same time. You know, some want to make prohibitions about not drinking dairy products and other things as well. Look at what the Bible says about it. You know, what it says about Christ, it says, And it was, of course, eating the bread and what? The wine. Food and beverage, basically. Not that it's intended as a meal. So it's not wrong to eat and drink at the same time, is what I'm trying to say. What does the Bible say about alcohol? By the way, this was a big bugaboo for me before I came into the church. I wouldn't touch alcohol in a million years. I thought it was the devil's brew, you know, back in those days. And I began to study about wine and the fruit of the church. I started to study about wine and the Greek words for it. And I discovered the word, yayin, can only mean, fermented. In other words, alcohol. And then you read in 1 Timothy 5 verse 23, Take a little wine for your stomach's sake. So Timothy was told by Paul to drink a little bit of wine, not a sin. Now, he didn't say drink a lot of wine. Don't drink gallons of wine. But it's not wrong to drink a little wine. And the key, though, is moderation in all things, brethren. The final thing I want to mention, brethren, pertains to the Bible. It pertains to the Bible in religion. You know, Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 7 verse 16. If you want to write it down, I'm going to read it to you. But it says, Be not righteous over much. Don't be over much righteous. Neither make yourself over wise. And then he says, Why should you destroy yourself? Think about that. This verse here deserves meditation on our part. Don't be over-righteous and don't basically take yourself so seriously. Why should you destroy yourself? Now, it's not saying to be unrighteous or to be stupid. But don't get so big in your eyes that you lose perspective. Prophecy is one of those areas where people can go overboard and be unbalanced. We have to be very careful about it, brethren, in our life. You know, we're to be moderate, the Bible says, in all things in our life. And so, brethren, I hope that you will strive to be moderate in all things. You will be balanced in all things. For he who strives the mastery, he who is going to win the prize, the crown of life, is going to be someone who is temperate in all things and has control of himself. Jesus Christ is coming, brethren, ahead of us here, very shortly, hopefully, for us. Live your life like Jesus Christ was going to come back tomorrow. And strive for the mastery.