2026-03-11 Trying To Grasp God

0:00couldn't be here and other than he just didn't want to come. But for those long-distance people, we love the time out of you as well. Mary Jo, welcome back, man. Glad you are too, man, the bronchitis, the pneumonia, or whatever else. So you had 15 antibiotics. So we know you're good now, but welcome back. And John, thank you for cleaning the side of the church today. He got rid of some of the mold and mildew. Appreciate that very much. And then Mr. Keith went ahead and this last Sunday he was doing all kinds of little details where this thing's getting a little bit loose. So we're having a cleanup day. I mentioned all that for these helpers, but we're having a cleanup day. Is it the fourth, Brett? Or four? That's Saturday. OK. So if you can, we'd love to have you come out. Just to clean up inside, outside, whatever. Just be ready. We're praying. You can be praying in the meantime just for a good crowd of people, because not that we're out to just rock attendance records, but rather instead, just that we're prepared

1:01that we look like we're having guests in. And then just be your normal self. We don't make everybody dress up in your Easter attire, although some do, and it's fine, I will not. So I'll just be doing my jeans boots, and we'll just go that route there. Seems like there was something else that I wanted to mention here. But I guess not. So thank you, other than Bailey, is there anything special you're here for? We just get your blessing, the blessing of your presence tonight. Oh, you are on break. So you back to doing the bagels? I don't know. That's what her part-time job has been, which is usually off school, what she's doing, the bagels. So what? Saturday is the bridal shower. So how where are you going to get? I just never did understand this shower thing. I mean, that's just really kind of weird to me. But OK, yes. Hey, we're going to dump back in, as Henry said, try to finish up, not all of it. But most of the rest of Job tonight. And I hope that you're not in board mode already,

2:03because there's really some very, very cool stuff in what we're going to cover tonight. Cool from a standpoint, in my opinion, of just the way that we as human beings have a tendency to try to reason out God. And I mean, for us today, you've got everything from those things that your parents, grandparents, may have done, may not have done. You've got mixed religions of various kinds. You've got the world saying everybody's getting there and then making a difference what you believe. You've got Google, and you can go find out any number of things. And if you ask any of the AI stuff, they will give you opinions. And you need to be pretty specific. And then there's the overall general kind of idea in America, it seems anymore. And I'm not sure how much of the rest of the world. But it's just that it doesn't make any difference just so you believe in God. And I'm here to say, I'm sorry. But I think it makes a difference. And I'm not here to say, because I'm the wisest. I'm the brightest. I'm the best, and I know what's going on. But rather instead, I love this book we've got called The Bible. Because it presents man searching, and that's a great thing to do.

3:05I mean, it's a bad thing to ever quit searching for God. Seeking him is what he asks us to do. And the seeking part of it is, I want to get to know you. And it's everything from the little child that would sit on mom or dad's lap, and they would outline your face with their little fingers, touching your nose, and wanting to do the ear and eyes and nose, and all that stuff, you know, that kids do. But that's a way that they got to know you. And it's a way that without trying, we learned our parents' voice. And we learned, probably, or possibly, at least if your parents were like mine, you learned the difference between normal voice versus the abnormal voice that was very commanding, or the other voice that was very soothing. And I share that, and you know, what's this got to do with me tonight, me and here? Because give me something new, Steve. And I don't know if I've got anything new for you or not, other than, I think that tonight has a very, very strong possibility or likeness of helping us to feel very ignorant. And the reason I say that is, is because we all tend to feel like, well, yeah, I know what God's like. And I mentioned last week a challenge everybody that was here

4:08to consider and start writing down those passages that are principles of God. And by that, what I mean, or some of his absolutes, it's important to have that not only in our mind, so that we are thinking of God in his way of describing himself, but also, if somebody asks this, what are we going to tell them, what we think, what we feel, or we're going to tell them what we know the Bible says? And we're talking about a group of guys here with Job and his three friends, and now then the fourth guy that joined them. And we're talking about these four or five guys here, and their concepts of God, because they didn't have a Bible to go to, and they certainly didn't have chat G-P-T, or Google AI, or whatever, or the cred you might use. I mean, they just didn't have that stuff. So what they did have was each other, and they reasoned together. But their reasoning wasn't like, OK, anything everybody says is fine. It was instead truly reasoning. And it was putting together and being able to share back and forth. It's what seldom happens today. But it's really what church was made up of for a long,

5:10long time about. You bring together what you think and what you feel, or what you've experienced. But then as we got the Bible, you could compare it to it to determine whether what you were experiencing was really of God or maybe not. And there's a lot of things praise the Lord that the Bible just doesn't address. And that's one of the principles that I learned early on, and before ministry even was just where the Bible speaks, we got to take a stand on that. That's what God has said, where the Bible doesn't speak. You can look at it and say, we've got freedom, and you do. But you also still have those principles that you apply your freedoms to. And by that, what I mean is it's just like, there are things the Bible doesn't even mention. It doesn't say anything about you can watch TV or you can't watch TV, right? So is it a sin to watch TV? Well, no, not in general. Can it be a sin watching TV? That's depending what you're watching, right? And that's how the principles of God work. And I'm not trying to be elementary here trying to dumb anything down for you all. I'm just trying to get you into this investigative

6:11seeking mode and mindset so that you begin to instead of just assuming or presuming what you believe about God, what do we really know about God? And how do we describe Him to other people? And how do we tell Him about not only Jesus, and God's love, but God's love that cuts both ways? That He not only loves us enough to do everything He could to bring forgiveness into our lives, but He also loves us enough to say, but if you're not going to do right, I don't want you to misunderstand. And so He works at trying to get our attention and our correction through events that take place. And our understanding or our interpretation of those events is what really these friends of Job were all about. They were trying to decipher what Job had experienced. He was sharing from what his side was. I haven't done anything wrong. This didn't happen because I didn't anything wrong. This just happened. And he got defensive to the extent that he became self-righteous. On the other hand, the friends were there to comfort,

7:11but at the same time, come on, Job, you had to have done something because this just didn't happen for nothing. They didn't know that God sometimes allows things to happen. And we've talked about that, but I think each of us have experienced times in our lives where we didn't know that we were doing anything wrong, but some event or a succession of events, the dominoes began to fall in all in the wrong direction. I think it's very important that during that time, we ask God and say, God, if you're trying to get my attention, you've got it. We humble ourselves before Lord says, is there something you're trying to tell me here? I think it's an important time where you have other Christian brothers and sisters. You can say, would you pray for me, too? Because I don't know what's going on here, but this is different than what I'm used to experiencing. But really, where I fall, and it is, is number one, if something bad happens to me, it's even though I may not have been doing anything at the time that I think would cause God to discipline me, I can look back and help me to take suffering and stride is by going, but this doesn't compare at all

8:11to what I deserve, you know, I deserve hell. And so, man, if this is going on, God, I don't believe you're making me pay for my sins, Jesus did that, but I know there are consequences to sin, and that's what that is, but God, if there's something that I'm doing now actively involved in or sin that I haven't repented of, would you please show me? Because that's what He wants to do, is to show us. Then the other part of it is, we live in a fallen world, right? I know I've touched on that before, but we're in a fallen world. So some things happen just because this isn't God's world yet, Jesus hadn't taken complete control. He will, and he is the Lord of Lords, he just hasn't stretched out to say on this earth, all right, new boss in town, new sheriff, Satan, you're out, I'm in, and I'm here for all of those of you that believe, not only believed in me, but believed me, and I'm here to go ahead and give you every promise that I ever made, and He will show it. And that's really cool. And then I think there are some things that do happen

9:12because we brought it on ourselves, and that we participated in things that gots us say, hey, time to step up, grow up, and step out of that. Fly right, you know, you know what I've said. And so these things and these interpretations, and I'm sharing all this, not because I've got these absolute that I can give you. I mean, there are principles that I've learned to apply to my life that I've basically shared with you, but I want you to have your principles that you share. I want you to be able, because if you're not going through suffering, and I think we all have, but you're gonna have some friend that is, and, or you can take the other route that most people say, and it's like, either you are about to suffer, or you're just getting done suffering, or you're suffering right now, but it's one way or another, because it just kind of has that cycle. And it doesn't necessarily mean every time it's, because you're wrong, it just means this fallen world, let me tell you, it's not working in harmony yet, right? And so as it happens, I just don't want you to get knocked off your rocker.

10:13And I don't want you to blame God, nor do I want you to get super self-righteous, and say, I didn't do anything to deserve this. I just want you to be able to go ahead and say, God, give me the strength. And here's who you are. And that's why I believe that when Jesus gave us the model prayer, I know it's known as the Lord's Prayer, but really my favorite one of the Lord's prayers back there in John 17. I mean, that's a prayer. I actually, my favorite one is in Gethsemane, not my will, but yours be done, you know? Sharing with God that way. But the model prayer was his answer to the disciples, and it just started out our father, so that we remember that's what God wants to be in relationship with us as a father. Number two, our means that we're not the only one, and that there are others with us. And sometimes we forget that, and it's what happens when we don't get to know our church. I was really encouraged, even as I still finishing up and praying and stuff in there before coming out tonight, that very, very encouraged us to hear the camaraderie,

11:13the talking, the laughing, the, you know, hellos and all that stuff that went on. I thought we had 100 people out here, you know? Because it was noisy loud, but it was great. I was just like, man, this is so cool. God, listen to the family, God. But where it's our father, we're not the lone rangers here. And then, where is he in heaven? And who is he, holy? And so, going through those principles, help us to begin to, in the midst of suffering, remember that God is sovereign, he can do anything, and he is so holy, and he wants us to be holy like him, that he wants us to come to him, and as a gentle father, he wants to restore us. And I don't know where you're at in life, but that's good any time, right? Restoration, it really is. So with that, let's go ahead before we start reading. If you will, hopefully you've already prayed, but let's pray again. God, I'm thankful that prayer doesn't have to become this thing that is poetic, or total philosophy, or something written down that we had the internet make up for us.

12:16Right, instead, it's just us to you. Because you know everything that we've said and thought today, and you know what? Those that came that overcame to be here today, you know the things that still are trying to grapple with their mind and pull them into that. And yet, God, we have a chance to be in your sanctuary, not this church building in the auditorium, but no sanctuary, a place of comfort, protection, and rest. Lord, that we could go ahead and be in your presence more clear than what often happens when we're so low out there in the world. I'm thankful that you know us inside and out, and you know our thoughts before we put words to them. But God, I pray tonight that you would put words to my mouth that aren't even my thoughts, but are yours. And yet, I thank you, Lord, that you're so gentle leading us as a shepherd, that you are a rescuing shepherd as well. So just tonight, I pray, Lord, that I'd be out of the way so that they can see you are the way to truth and life.

13:20I pray that you could speak through me, but it would be your spirit and your word or going into the hearts and souls where your spirit, Lord, with believers is also going ahead and grabbing those things and saying, yeah, let's look at this. And I pray that in that God that we draw closer to you, but also we would gain in just our awareness and understanding, not so that we can pass Bible trivia, no, but so that we can know you as you want to be known. And so, bless these that are here tonight. Lord, bless those that are listening in and thank you for their encouragement and their prayers for me and for this church. And God, I thank you for those like Mary Jo that you've given healing to and for Mike and for Carol May. And just ask for others as well, God, for Bonnie, even as she was not able here for a couple of weeks to be. God, just thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for giving us bodies that are designed by you to heal. And that even as we go through tough times that we're not, we don't have to be alone.

14:22That you're there if we slow down and sense and become aware of your presence. So tonight, let us be aware of the great capital P presence of you, dear God, in Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to pick up kind of in that area where I left off last week, which was in chapter 36. And I want to start here with, I don't remember what I told Julie, I was going to do, but what did I tell you, Jules? 14, all right, because I mean, they're just, I look at this, so chapter 36, verse 14, this is a lie who, and he's continuing on his thing, trying to rebuke the three friends of Job that never did go ahead and call him out. And he's calling out Job. And like I said, what we've seen him go through is from beginning very sensible and everything that way. But now he's almost getting into this self-righteous mode and judgmental to the end degree or whatever. But it doesn't mean that there's nothing that he's saying that's any good. And so I wanted to begin here where he says, they talking about the wicked. Because that's one of the things that Job kept saying was, well, the wicked seemed to be getting away with everything.

15:22And so he lie who is kind of opening up and addressing that. So he said, they die in their youth among the male prostitutes of the shrine. But those who suffer, he delivers from their suffering, or delivers in their suffering. He speaks to them in their affliction. And just share this with you, because I mean, I think there's some truth to this, that if we are still, that we will hear him speaking to us, even when we're suffering, OK? And that we can trust that he can deliver. Verse 16, he is, and I love this, that it's, I mean, I, it's weird to say, I love it. It's just endearing to me, I guess I could say. He is wooing you from the jaws of distress, wooing. You know, when is the last time you talk about it, by wooing you? You know, there's some people, if you said that, they would go, what? You know, it's like sounds offensive. But no, it's him beckoning, him calling, him seeking us, or offering of himself.

16:24It reminds me of another phrase. It's a little bit weird that come hither. But that's what he's doing. He's saying, come close to me here, you know? And so in the midst of suffering, God doesn't want us to turn her back and rail at him. It's kind of what Job did, but he does woo us. And I just think that's a very, very cool thing, even though it doesn't sound very manly. But he's wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place, free from restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food. But now you are laden with judgment due to the wicked. Judgment and justice have taken a hold of you. Be careful that no one entices you by riches. Don't let, do not let, excuse me, a large bribe turn you aside. In other words, we've got to guard that. And he goes, would your wealth or even all your mighty efforts sustain you so that you would not be in distress? In other words, you have the ability, if you had money, can you always buy your way out of your problem? And the answer is what? Nope, nope. That's one thing about it. It won't pay for everything, will it? Do not long for the night to drag people away from their homes.

17:24And this is, again, more to do with the wicked and the direction that they go. They wait for the night and then they can go out and have a great time. Beware of turning to evil, which you seem to prefer to affliction. In other words, sometimes we'd rather do that, right? God has exalted in this power who is a teacher like him, who has prescribed his ways for him, or said to him, you have done wrong. In other words, God does everything right. And that we can't complain against that. And he's all knowing, but we're not all knowing. And so sometimes we misunderstand. Remember to extol his work, which men have praised in song. All mankind has seen it. Men gaze on it from afar. How great is our God beyond our understanding? Number of his years has passed finding out. He draws up the drops of water. And this is where this guy gets to me very insightful and shows me that these weren't stupid ignorant people. But they searched this out and somehow or another had words that we can understand to this day. And we'd think we'll be more for the modern age.

18:26But now, man, I mean, look at what he's going to say here. He said, how great is our God beyond understanding? He draws up drops of water, which distilled as rain into the stream. What's he mean by it? He takes the ocean salt water and brings it inland. And through this process of distillery, he brings it back down to where it fills the streams and we can drink it. The clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads out the cloud? How he thunders from his pavilion? In other words, he's getting back to this thing. But isn't God amazing? And see how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea? This is the way he governs the nation and provides food and abundance. Now, what do you say governs the nation? Man, I mean, right now there's this thing going on all the oil. Just imagine if there's a thing with water. And then states there is. But I mean, God can either throw too much water your way or withhold it altogether, quickly thinking, you know,

19:28they're in the book of kings with Elijah. What did he face? He was told God said, speak and say, until I say so, there will be no more rain. And there wasn't rain for three and a half years. It didn't come until Elijah said so. And so it created this. And that's what this is saying. This guy has this insight. So he's not altogether wrong. And it's just pretty amazing without books and scholarly deal and everything like that that he's able to have compiled or sensed these things through his, I don't know. Basically, they taught each other with conversation as how it would work out. And then they would truly debate where they would go, no, that can't be because of this. But nonetheless, they weren't ignorant people. Anyway, back verse 31 again. This is the way he governs the nation. It provides food and abundance. He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark. His thunder announces the coming storm and even cattle make known its approach. And growing up with cattle on our farm, cattle are pretty sharp. They would always turn their backside to the storm.

20:31They knew it was coming. And you would see that. They would turn all the same direction. At this, my heart pounds and leaps from his place. Listen, listen to the roar of his voice. And so Eli who's kind of getting swept up into God and just how mighty he is and the storms and everything. Listen to the roar of his voice, the rumbling that comes from his mouth. He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth. After that comes the sound of his roar. He thunders with his majestic voice. And he puts them in order, didn't he? What comes first? Lightning or thunder? Lightning comes first. But we always hear about thunder and lightning. But it's lightning comes first. And that's what he just said. He throws these lightning bolts and then here comes the thunder. After that comes the sound of his roar. He thunders with his majestic voice when his voice resounds. He holds nothing back. God's voice thunders in marvelous ways. He does great things beyond our understanding. And this is an encouraging thing to each of you. I mean, we can't go wrong speaking about God that way.

21:32And I'm not saying, call up your best friends and say, hey, let me tell you about my God. I mean, it might not be a bad thing to do, but we can be refreshed just stopping and thinking about how great is God, especially when we're what? Afflicted. When we're suffering. When things aren't going the direction we thought. When our plans seem to have been all screwed up. When we lose a loved one and they were young. Or we lose an older person and we weren't ready to let go. We can strengthen ourselves by thinking about God and his majesty and his powerful nature. And that he can do what he wants to do. But he doesn't just do it randomly. Everything has a purpose. So verse seven, or excuse me, verse six. So he says to the snow, fall on the earth and to the rain shower, be a mighty downpour so that all men have made, he has made, excuse me, so that all men he has made may know his work. He stops every man from his labor. And so what did he just talk about but snow? And isn't amazing. What a few of these crazy little, unique snowflakes can do

22:34if sent at the right time. They can stop all of creation the biggest of vehicles in their tracks, right? Because of a snow and especially snow and ice. And I love the fact that Joe mentions that. They didn't have cars like we've got or trucks or anything else like that. But he said he stops every man from his labor. God can do it in the snap of his fingers. The animals take cover, they remain in their den. The tempest comes out from its chamber. It's cold from the driving winds. The breath of God produces ice and the broad waters become frozen. So even the rivers, you know, and the big lakes. He loads the clouds with moisture and he scatters as lightning through them. At his direction, they swirl around over the face of the whole earth. And man, that's what's cool about modern weather. You can see those storms forming and they're getting a little bit better about knowing. Look what's coming next, right? So at his directions, they swirl around and over the face of the whole earth to do whatever he commands them. And he brings the clouds to punish men or to water it to his or his or his show as love.

23:37Listen to this joke. Stop and consider God's wonders. Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash? Do you know how the clouds hang poise those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge? You who swelter in your clothes when the land lies hushed. You know, when it's just still out and so hot it's can be under the South Wind, moisture coming in, you know, for us. Can you join him in spreading out the skies? Heart is a mirror of cast-bron. No, we can't. Tell us what we should say to him. We cannot drop our case because of our darkness. And that was one of the jokes things. I just wish God would come here so I could speak to him, build my case to him. He said, we can't drop our case because of him. It's our darkness and our best, we're still dark. Should he be told that I want to speak would any man ask to be swallowed up? Now no man can look at the sun. Bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean. Pretty poetic, isn't it? You understand why it's put here with the Psalms and stuff? But as the wind has swept them clean out of the North, he comes in golden splendor.

24:38God comes in awesome majesty. The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power. In His justice and great righteousness He does not oppress. Therefore men revere Him. For does He not have regard for all the wise in heart? And that's it is wise. Its wisdom is the fear of the Lord. It's recognizing, wow, He would consume me if He didn't love me so much. And then goes on from there and I'm just going back forth. I think I will go with this other passage in the New Testament I want to hit on. Do the fact He brought up back there in the first chapter. He brought up about the creation, all right? Let me find it. It was over there in verse 24, 25 of chapter 37, 36, excuse me. It says, all mankind has seen it. Men gaze on it from afar how great is God beyond our understanding. And so what I would like to do is to link together

25:38the Old Testament, the New and to see how Paul's wisdom connected, not necessarily the reference Job or anything like that. But something I think we forget. I mentioned last Sunday I know as about creation just in utter groaning. And so I want to look at a couple of chapters here in the book of Romans that deal with creation. But not only creation, but us as the created ultimate being. And not because we're better than the animals, so to speak, but because God put us above the animals, all right? So if you will, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 1 and I'm going to pick up with verse 18. And I want to share this with you because I think it applies to the overall book of Job from the standpoint of that even in our goodness, we're still not that good. Not good enough to get there on our own. We need God. But it's also so that we can understand what's going on around us and why there's evil in this world. And maybe not understand it, but at least be aware,

26:38more aware of it, that God understands it. So verse 18, Romans 1, verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven. What is wrath? God's disdain is the bad taste it's putting his mouth, that he's tolerated or waited patiently, but it's over, being overcome. Wrath of God is being, it's in the process of being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and the wickedness of men who suppress the truth by what? Their wickedness. So anything that is wicked about you or me, even if it's just our thoughts, it begins to suppress truth. And since what may be known about God is playing to them because God has made it playing to them, for since the creation, and this is the word that's gonna keep coming up not only here, but later on, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, what are those qualities?

27:41His eternal power, his divine nature, his godliness, his holiness, have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so it's mental without excuse. So God has displayed himself in a way that speaks to every human being from the earth that he created. And not only from that, but I would have to say, even from the animal life that we see that is both at times good and at times bad, right? Because the big ones eat the little ones that eat the other little ones, and all that stuff. So I mean, the cycle of life type of deal here is really kind of brutal. I mean, those of you that raised children, I'm sure that there were times that you had to explain, why are they doing that? I mean, they could even be procreating, and I remember the kid goes, what is going on here? And if you ever had a cat, like we had farm cats on, and there were nights you couldn't sleep. Anybody experience that? Yeah, man, it's wicked, it's blood curdling,

28:42what's going on? And I remember the stages as Dad taught me what was happening, but it was like, what are they doing? I could tell they don't like that. But God, he's displaying himself. His invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, clearly seen being understood from what he has made. So men are without excuse. Nobody can say there is no God. And the sad thing is we go from saying, there is no God to where we worship nature. And God goes, nah, that's just my handiwork, that's not me. And so I think it's vital that we get this, and this is one of the biggest things that to me, you can put in your arsenal, and by that I'm not talking about an arsenal to blow people up, I'm talking about your arsenal, so that you can stay grounded when people make stupid assessments about God that don't fit in with his word. God displays himself through what's been created. Now you know that with Jesus, the ultimate thing that he wanted to do was to transform us so that what? We could display God in his recreation of us

29:46that people would go, wow, that is astounding for what you were to what you are, what did that? It had to be God. And that's what we forget, because we think we're pretty good the way we are and all we need is forgiven. And God goes, no man, you need a complete makeover. You need to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, which happens here in this book. And so what Paul's trying to do here is to display or what I feel like we're privileged to do is to gain this insight. For although they knew God, or God has been understood from what's been made so the men are without excuse, for although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him. This is the part that I'm most concerned about for any of us that claim to be we're Christians. We claim we know God. Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus, but do you glorify Him? Do you, in other words, like the base versus the face? Do we display God greatly through our lives,

30:47through our language, our mouth, and our actions? Do we glorify Him? Do we even just admire God anymore or is it only occasionally, or we really, like I've often said, or we those are saying, well, what have you done for me lately, God? And then not only do you neither glorify Him, and I'm not saying you, but what the scripture's saying here, nor do we give thanks to Him. I mean, anybody guilty here of thanking God too much? Anybody here ever discovered that there is something that is healthy and cleansing almost with giving God thanks? Man, it's so cool when you begin to just be aware and you think, I'm not lucky, and I'm not wise or smart, I wouldn't do stupid sin. But man, God, you know, thank you, you still provide for me. Anybody here glad that God doesn't go ahead and give you food according to how holy you are? Amen.

31:48But we see, we've got the other side of it, we're so abundant with our food that we never think about those that don't have food because they're in a desert type situation or do we believe that everybody's got food? If you don't have food, it's because, well, you just weren't as smart as me and you didn't work hard, you know? No, it's from God. So I'm gonna continue on for all though, they knew God, because this is very, very important, I think, in so today, so March the 11th, 2026, for all though they knew God, they neither glorified Him or God, nor gave thanks to Him. And when you don't do those positive things about knowing God and doing something of that knowledge and glorifying Him and giving Him thanks, guess what you do, you become futile or futile as some people say it, futile, what's that mean? Stupid, you do dumb stuff, you, instead of growing and gaining, you lose, you take what you know and you waste it, it became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened, what's that mean?

32:52That means then you go from really not understanding God but taking advantage of God but thinking you are God and the next thing you're doing is you're even cursing God more or less, you get to the point, you don't need God and that's where people scoff at Him and all this in their foolish hearts or foolish hearts were darkened although they claim to be wise, they become fools because what? Hey, I've got a deal for you, okay, I will. Let's exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, birds, animals and reptiles. You know, I never thought that much about that till I remember, I think it was Chuck Sondald that said, isn't it ironic, some of the names we give to our vehicle? My first car was a mercury cougar. Well, with the modern day cougars you'll like, it was a car, okay, but it was a cougar, you know? And then we had the Chrysler's that had the what? That snake, right? And there's all kinds of the road runner, you know?

33:54They got coyote motors and the mustangs now but the mustang even. And so the reason I mentioned that is is that those were things that animals that people worshiped. We talked the other night in Guy's group about even the gods of the people in Egypt and that they worship frogs, flies, had gods of the flies, you know? We've had a movie named that, it was so stupid too, but nonetheless, I mean, as you look at this, this is what happens when we, instead of being at least like Job and his friends where we're seeking God and we don't know exactly how to explain, but there are things that we can become absolute about, we all agree with and talking about that and learning even more and seeking God and saying, God, why this and why that? But not complaining, but rather instead trying to have insight from him, what we become as futile and then the next thing you know is we're worshiping what God made. And he goes, don't do that. Don't worship a stone and Isaiah really goes into the idols and stuff like that,

34:56but we think we don't have idols because we don't have any great big statues we're out here bowing down to on Sunday mornings, right? Now, we bow down to a cross and there could be a good side of that, but I've known people that I think border on the idea that they actually idolize the cross. You know, we can have people that love, this is the word of God, this God's holy word, never read it. You see, it's easy to begin worshiping things. Idolatry is a natural thing, but the ultimate thing that becomes us where we start worshiping ourselves. But he goes from the fact that we worship things and the next thing then, because they did this, God gave them over to what, sinful desires? The desires are there, Satan just pops them open. The farther we get away from thanking God and thinking about God, the more than we're susceptible to this. He gave them sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another, which is what? Another switch from idolatry of things

35:58to idolatry of people. And I don't care what's a music star or some celebrity or whether it's the latest and greatest whoever's across the street or whoever it is that you feel hooked up with right now, they exchange the glory of the mortal God now and then to go on as God said, all right, your will be done. Gave them away to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchange the truth of God for a lie. Still possible though, isn't it? Yeah, the truth of God for a lie. I don't know how many of you've heard and I'm always careful about this, but there's a guy that's running for a Senate seat that claims to be a preacher. And he's been using the story of Mary with the angel approaching her and saying that Gabriel came and asked her permission for her to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit.

36:58I don't remember that. He just said, he told her, this is what God's going to do. And her response was, I'm God servant, I mean, God be God, I'll do what my master wants, you know. But this guy's using it to justify abortion. The Bible doesn't say a place that you can't get an abortion. He's pretty right about that using that phrase, but what's murder? God's pretty straight about that, isn't he? Murder is the taking of life and worst murder is the taking of innocent life. And you see how far we've gotten because we started worshiping created things and then we went to people and then we went into, well, I just want to have sex and if that gets pregnant, it's inconvenient. Let's just get rid of it, right? That's what's happened. And we forget then what God designed sex for being. God's not against sex. It's just there's a difference between sexual immorality and sexual morality and it all has to do with,

38:01are you married in the eyes of God and have we given ourselves in commitment to one another? But I mean, I don't enjoy preaching this. I know Tom can tell me that needs to be done on Sunday morning when he goes out, but they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve created things rather than the creator who has forever praised him in. Because of this, then God gave them over. What's that mean? He let them go further. I think that it's a picture of God's grace. I believe, and this is my opinion, I'm not saying I can go to the Bible and absolutely prove this, but I sense with my heart and with the spirit that we are born with an amount of God's grace around us or we would be consumed by the devil the moment we came out of the world. I believe that most children definitely and babies especially, but as they represent themselves is very what? Innocent. That's why Jesus said unless you become like a child, part of what he was saying. But the older they get depending on who's influencing them,

39:04they start losing that innocence as each of us did, right? And then we get on into the other years and we see what other people are doing and go, oh, I want to try that. Or everybody that's cool is doing this, so I'm going to do this. And what we're doing then is we're doing exactly this. We're removing ourself from the center of God's grace. And again, this is my farm dirt kid growing up, but this is my way of explaining it. But I believe that we really are removing ourself from the center of God where God is everything to us to where we begin to believe, no, now we're God. And you are, you can do what you want to do. But you aren't a capital, G-O-D God. You can worship yourself, but you're going to find out one day, I didn't take you very far. And so what this is saying is God giving over and what I think it means is he is not. And this is why I have trouble with that, once saved, always saved thing. No, God won't let go of me,

40:05but he will not prevent me from discarding him. And I believe that that's a principle that Scripture do show. His God doesn't force himself on a way. He will not make you love him. He waits for us to love him. But in that regard, if we don't begin to turn toward God, what we do is we turn, you're not turning toward him, which way are you going? Away. And what we're doing is we're beginning to worship ourselves. And we have our idols to go along with it, the things that make us feel good, the things that people go, oh, wow, that's cool. And the next thing you know, we're so cool, you can feel the breeze and you don't need God. That's our nature. And Satan's sitting there the whole time spinning these little lies in our head and telling us more, more, more. And how many stories do we have to hear about more? And whether it's, you know, how much is enough money? Just some more to how much more can I drink? Just some more. You know, we've got an insatiable appetite,

41:07don't we, that we create? And I just think that to me, the part that's important is for us as believers to realize that about ourselves. And it's not so shame on you, type of deal. It's rather instead to a man, let's draw near to God, as it says, with a sincere heart in faith. Let's not go farther away. Let's recognize, wait a minute, the devil's still trying to work on my life even though I claimed I gave it to Christ. Can he work on our life even after we become a Christian? Oh, I got a, he, from my experience? Yes. Because he won't pull me and make me. But he'll do things to try to set up and then he'll do stuff to make me fall and stumble because he eventually wants to get my attention so I don't get too far away. But even then we can become callous and hardhearted and go, forget you, God, I'm going to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I'll change it someday if I want. That's assuming you've got a day to change it, right? Folks, this is the gospel. You go, no, it's not. The gospel, Jesus died from my, yeah.

42:08Not just the sins of the day you accept him but the sins after, but you've got to stay in touch with him. Why did Jesus give them communion? Do this in what? And why do we need to remember? Because we forget. Does that make sense? We forget. We forget. And we begin to believe we're pretty good. And we've got so many people going to look at it. I go, I'm so much better than that. I'm not like them. But the truth is, man, it's real easy to give ourselves over until you say, God saved me. That's what happened with the prodigal son, right? He got to the point. He spent all that he had. And he had all these friends until he was out of money. And then where are the friends? No where to be found. And so now, just to exist, he's got to go ahead and do something that goes to work for this guy on a pig farm, which is totally anti-Jewish. And he goes to work for that. And he's sitting there hungering for what the pigs are eating because they seem to be well fed and he's not.

43:10And he goes, dang, I didn't know how good I had it. And folks, that's what I hope we come to every week if not every day. God, I'm sorry. I didn't know how good I had it. Because we think we're not blessed. And we need another blessing. And it's like, be thankful for what you've got. Be thankful, God's not treated us like our sins deserve. Because I mean, that's where it's at, folks. And then it's in that that we go ahead and we're drawn to God and we realize we want to glorify Him because you'll still pick me up when I'm out of the pig pin. Yeah, He will. That's the good news. That's the gospel. But He's not going to snatch you out of that pin against your will. You want to keep swimming with the pigs, He'll let you. But it's our choice. You want to keep having thoughts that He says, nah, I wouldn't go there. That's your choice. But I don't know when that choice becomes that thing that takes you so far away from God that you don't even hear the Holy Spirit back in and of you to repentance.

44:12And my leaning is that's what the blasphemy the Holy Spirit is. Number one, it's absolutely saying something the Holy Spirit did that it wasn't God. It was a devil that the other part of it is is when the Holy Spirit's trying to bring you into conviction that what you're doing sin and you're going, no, not this is fine. God said, I can do whatever I want to do. And you can find a passage that will say that. But I just think that this is a scary thing. I don't like reading this for myself alone reading to you. So picking up again with verse 26 because of this, God gave them over to shameful lust. Even the women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. So the men and the women, how's America doing there? How's our scorecard? We're doing pretty good on the given over part, aren't we? God gave them over. They exchanged natural relations once He designed us for for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relationship with women were inflamed with lust for one another.

45:13Men committed in decent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. But we don't think anything perverted anymore. Furthermore, since they didn't think it worthwhile to retain, and I just really want to encourage to highlight underlying this, the knowledge of God, the awareness of God, the fairness of God, the grace of God. Since they didn't think it was worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to depraved minds. So it gets worse. Goes from immoral immorality, sexually, into other things. I don't know about y'all, but man, I'm scared to death that this child trafficking is as bad as they say it is. Now, I don't know who you are, but you don't have any conscience if you think that's okay. And that's how far a depraved mind can take you.

46:15I don't like talking about this, but God called me to preach His word. This guy back here is saying, in creation, God speaks, and I'm saying, he does both ways with what he made that is glorious, and then also how the glorious thing that he made can turn into evil, but men came up with ways. They didn't stop. They got depraved minds to do what ought not to be done. They become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity. Well, he didn't think greed was that bad. God, look how far down the list that is. They're full of envy and murder and strife. Deceit, whoa. Ever lied just a little bit? Ever pretended, malice. And then of all things, look it down here at the bottom of the list. Gossip, that's not that bad.

47:16Is it compared to these other things? I don't know, that's Paul. It seems to me that it's right there. That is a part of a depraved mind is gossip. You are cutting away somebody's life that God said you're worth dying for, and we're tracing it. Slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful, and this one is, man, so, 2026, they invent ways of doing evil. And AI is right there with them, and I'm not saying AI by itself, I'm just saying it is sure, gonna help make it even easier yet, because you can create whatever you wanna create with it and never know that it's really changing you. Anyway, invent ways of doing evil, and disobey their parents, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless, and then this is the part, deep down in, although they know God's righteous decree,

48:17deep down in, we are created by God, and that's what gave us a conscience. But depending on the family we're raised in, the environment we're in, sometimes that conscience isn't very strong, but God, we still know there is a God, and that's why he tries to display himself through creation, and says, but don't worship what I created worship me. Although they know God's righteous decree, those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but they approve of those that practice them. Man, that's the part that scares me about America day, is how many things we applaud. Acceptance, oh yeah, what you can't say things wrong, I mean, that's them, this is me. I think we really, really need to be careful, even when it comes into this thing of the law. And what do I mean by that? Romans goes on, Paul later on, says that he established the authorities,

49:19every one of them, we should submit to them, until submitting to them means we don't submit to God, and that we should obey the laws of land, that we should support those that are placed, he said, they don't bear the sword for nothing. In other words, we should respect the police officers and all, but man, we are in a day and age where people suddenly have a conscience and go, that's not right, and they interfere. And I'm just saying, I mean, I'm not picking anybody, I'm not picking at them, but I'm just telling you folks, if I get in the middle and help out a guy that's robbing a bank, are you gonna come and bail me out? But we're supposed to go ahead and allow people to get in the way of law enforcement doing with it. Do you know that a country without laws, a country without God? But you see, we've been brainwashed to believe that we're being sympathetic and we're being, you know, helping, we're accepting.

50:21Man, there's just some stuff there folks, that that's what you're really doing is, instead of honoring God, you're dishonoring Him. And this is the part that concerns me is we've gotten to the point we applaud lawlessness. And Jesus said in Matthew 24, that in the end times, what? That people would be haters and that they would go ahead and be wicked, in other word, for lawless. We've gotta be careful with ourselves, that we don't get so far out there that we don't have a conscience ourselves. And that is, if you believe God's word. Now, if you don't believe God's word, you're free and easy to do whatever you want. But you have a rude awakening to the judgment day because God says, there's one thing that's not gonna disappear in my word. Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law on the prophets, I came to what? Well, Phil, but you see, if we begin to get this lawless attitude, the pride that says,

51:22I can do whatever I want to do and nobody can tell me what else to do. Now does that mean there's never a point for rebellion? I can't say that. I'm just saying there's a different between righteous indignation and just indignation. But I think we've gotta be really careful. Most of you know I carry and I've got at least two guns. But I don't go around wanting to be Rambo, I don't pray every day, God give me somebody to shoot. I go around saying, God, please, give me the wisdom to know if it's for, I'm not even so concerned about defending myself as I am protecting somebody else. But we're in a weird world right now and I have no idea what all's come in through the borders and everything else like that. I have a pretty strong feeling that it's not a big deal to believe that what's happening in the Middle East right now is coming to rest here. Not because, no, it's already been here and they're just looking for an excuse. And when I say, they, I'm saying the ones that hate,

52:24or the hate that we're call us Satan for loving God. And so what do we do? Man, that's where we keep our head on straight. We just do what God wants us to do. We pray and we worship and we remember and remind ourselves, there's worse things in dying. Lot worse. And I'd rather God take me while I'm good than me boiling my life at the end, you know. Hold this and you go, wow, man, this is so dark. Why are you going here, Steve? Come on, man, I mean, I don't come here for Wednesday night for this stuff because it's true. That's why it's important that we realize how insensitive we can become, how desensitized we can become. It's important that we remember what God says is this is according to him instead of being according to what we think feel or have experienced. And we all have friends that we see doing these things and I'm not saying that they're bad.

53:24People I'm not saying that I want to put them under the ground. Anything like, no, I just want to Christ or them to experience renewal in Christ. If it's ever going to happen, it's going to be because I'm continually renewed in Christ. I don't get the point and I'm like, well, if everybody else catches up with me, we'll have a very good world. No, I remind myself of these things because I start clear back to the beginning. Do I give God the glory and do I give Him thanks? Because I claim to know God. That's what Paul said, although they claim to know God, they need a glorified Him or gave Him thanks. How you doing on that report card? I'm telling you, I need to study a little bit harder because it's easy to take for granted. Well, I'm a believer, so I'm out of time. Aren't you glad? Wow, that God uncomfortable, didn't it? Did I finish that chapter there? Oh, no, I didn't.

54:25I said, they not only continue to do these things, but they approve, yeah, I did say that. Now, next week, word willing, in Job's job, we're going to look at, I mean, and it is exciting, and it goes along with what I just shared because what is so cool about these, and don't read ahead, this is one time I'm going to tell you, please, don't read ahead, it is so good. Because this is where God shows up and he begins to speak. Now, first of all, just in your mind in anticipation for next week, go, what would that be like? It would be like me preaching and all of a sudden God speaks, and suddenly I go, I got nothing to say, I'm sick now. And what I'm telling you though, is the cool part is if you seek God, He will speak to you one way or another. You won't hear Him if you're not seeking Him, but if you're seeking Him, He will. And John was sharing a couple of things that he'd heard about, just some amazing things taking place over in Iran, with people

55:28that are coming to Christ, and that even in the midst of being killed for their faith, they're believing in Jesus. And the one story I just got to share with you, okay, but it was about this guy that was, an Iranian here in the States would go over there, and he met this other guy, and they started going back for eating dinner together, and one thing like that, when he was in town, the guy said, next time you're in town, I want you to come to my house, and he came to the guy's house, and showed up there, knocked on the door. Well, the guy wasn't home, and the wife answered the door, and she didn't shut it in his face, but she just ran. I'm like, thinking, oh, wow, what's going on? Is she afraid that the Gestapo's coming or whatever it was over there? And John said that husband got home a little bit later, and the guy's, God, man, I gotta apologize. Well, you apologize to your wife, I don't know. If I said something, did something, just look, whatever, and so he went on the house, and brought her down, and he said, no, don't like that. So this morning, God gave her a vision of a man

56:28that looked just like this guy, and said he's coming to share Jesus with me, and she was so blown away that God would speak to her that she was fearful. And so the guy shared Christ with him more than ever. Is that cool? So these people say the Holy Spirit can't do that. No, man, be careful. I stand on the fact, number one, God's God, he could do whatever he wants to do, but I don't have to have an apostolic miracle or whatever like that to believe in him, but I don't believe that God still can't do that. We just need to know him well enough that we're free flowing tools that he can use, right? And that happens when he passes his power through you and it doesn't stick or go to your head. You just really, truly have that awe of God. Go on, wow, my God can do anything. So that's next week.

57:29Love you, let's pray. Oh God, I mean, it's hard to be cleaned or cleansed, reading this stuff, but it really is. It's almost like steel wall that takes away the calluses and the dirt that we've kind of gotten used to because of our world. And Lord, it helps us to go and say, whoa, how do you see things, God, and you just showed us that you still are compassionate, you're still loving, you're still gracious. You want like crazy for people to come to you, but you know they're not gonna do it just because you made some commandments up, obviously. So you want to do it through us. So I go back to that change that God that we would never stop letting you have access to our entire being from our minds, through our hearts, through our emotions, so that God that you can use

58:30our bodies and everything to appeal to the people around us that they would say there is a living God. I thank you, God, that you know that we forget. And I thank you, Jesus, that you gave then a crazy example of something that was on every table during the time you on earth with the bread and the wine or the juice that was just there at every meal so that we could, whenever we did it, as often as we did it, we do it in remembrance of you. So we wouldn't forget, but we would recall again what you did that price that you paid just to be able to cleanse us from our sin and to save us from hell, but also to empower us then to live new lives in you and with you in us. The Lord denied as we take communion may it not be a ritual, may it rather instead be us reaching out to you. As we bring your body, your blood to our lips,

59:30may it be a kiss of both affection, of apology and sincerity and of love in Jesus' name and man. So please feel free to come.