[0:00] Good song choice there, John. Glad you were able to play that. All right, so we are going to continue with a message started last Wednesday night, and I'll give you a brief reminder introduction and catch you up to where we stopped and then go forward. I'm going to try to finish it tonight. I asked Brother Rich Pfeffer to preach next Wednesday night, and so I'll try to get done with this. But what we started with was a study, a message about the vessels in the house of God. And I showed you that the Lord uses, in the Old Testament, he uses vessels as an illustration of nations. And we showed you that in Jeremiah 18. And God, in the Old Testament, is just an account of the way God deals with nations. And there's a primarily with the nation of Israel, of course, but many others. And I'm not going to recap all of that. And the New Testament, then God gets down to the individual. And the Lord
[1:02] Jesus Christ is calling all the time men and individuals to come unto him. And the point of the illustration of the word vessel is, we'll see it again tonight in 2 Timothy chapter 2, is that he says that a man is likened to a vessel. And so in the Old Testament, nations are illustrated by a vessel. And in the New Testament, it's an individual. And so being in this time of the New Testament, the Lord likens us to vessels. And that thought was just one thought that we coupled with the second thought from 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And I'll tell you what, go to 1 Peter. We'll go to 1 Peter chapter 2 to start tonight. I gave you two places last week in 1 Corinthians 3 and in Ephesians 2 where the church, the body of Christ, those born-again believers, make up a body that is likened to a temple, likened to a building. I want you in 1 Peter chapter 2. This is a reference I didn't have us turn to last week. But in review, we'll just catch another reference. Hebrews, James, 1 Peter chapter 2.
[2:19] While you're grabbing that, I'll also read from Ephesians 2, something we read last week where God tells us that we're no more strangers and foreigners. He says, So the body of Christ in this age is likened to a temple that you know the tabernacle, you know the temple set up of the Old Testament. Today, he likens the church to that dwelling place of God.
[3:02] All right, 1 Peter chapter 2. Because what we read in, what I just read in Ephesians about being framed together, groweth unto a holy temple of the Lord. Verse 5 says, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So this day, we don't offer up physical sacrifices.
[3:32] We don't bring our first fruits of our crops and offer them. And we don't wave them before the Lord. And we don't bring animals to atone for our sins. But rather, we offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And we're not going to take the time to study what those are.
[3:50] However, you did notice in the verse that you're lively stones. You're stones. You're individually built together as a building, as if you could look at this wall and you'd see all these individual blocks. The church of Jesus Christ is made up of individuals. They're built together, but they're not dead stones. They're lively stones. They're living stones. And they're built together as a spiritual house. And so now, we're coupling the two thoughts of the vessels and then of the individuals and then the church being likened to a temple. And these are both just kind of illustrative pictures. And we're going to put those two pictures together, as we did last week, to say that we have vessels. We have a temple that is individuals inside the body of Christ or the church today. And then we went back to the Old Testament and started a study about the vessels that were in the house of God. And what we uncovered from that study last week was that those vessels, there was multiple vessels. Some were for the altar of showbread, the table of showbread. Some were for the candlestick. There were snuffers. There was dishes. There was things with oil. There was a candlestick. There was an altar of burnt offering. And there was individual vessels for each of these stations, if you want to call it that. Then there was vessels where they would bring in their tithes into the house of God. And they would fill these vessels up. And they would be for store. And they'd be for the Levites. And it would be their due, according to the law of Moses. Now, what we learned was, when all of the tabernacle was built, and everything was made and fashioned and put in there, and much of this was covered in pure gold, it was sanctified and holy to God, what we noticed was that the priest, as it says in Leviticus, sanctified them. And from that moment on, these things were not to be touched by the common man. Nobody from the tribe of Dan, nobody from the tribe of Judah, nobody from the tribe of Simeon would come into the temple and say, I need to borrow that. Or let me see that. Show me how that worked. No, they didn't come near that stuff. It was made holy. It was separated. The word sanctified means it was set apart. The idea, you see it in parking lots. You see handicapped spots. Sometimes you see employee of the month. Sometimes you see expecting mothers, or you see those kind of signs. You know, those are set apart for that individual. And
[6:26] I don't do that. I don't take those spots. But sometimes, I know Vons over here has that drive up and go thing. And I see people pulling into there, and they're not punching in their number for them to bring their groceries out. They're just going into the store and shop, taking that close spot. People violate that stuff all the time. But you know, those spots are set apart. Now, these vessels, far more than a parking spot. These are holy vessels for the use of God's service within his designed and prescribed tabernacle setup. So the first thing we learned last week was that the vessels of God's temple were made holy and were sanctified for the service of God. Those vessels were set apart from the world, set apart from the common man, set apart from anything that's unclean, and is only to be used, reserved only for God. And the study yielded something about you as a vessel that God made and created in Christ Jesus, that when God saves your soul, he sanctifies you in Jesus
[7:34] Christ, and he sets you apart for now his service. Remember the study in Ephesians. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
[7:50] We saw this in 2 Timothy, that a man should purge himself from some things, and he could be a vessel that is sanctified and prepared unto every good work. He's, he's, um, the word is, no, fit for the master's use. And that's the idea. When God saves somebody, he didn't say, okay, I fixed your life. Now you go on and do your thing. But no, he takes them and creates a new man inside them, places his spirit inside of that body of flesh. The Bible says we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the power, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. And so God doesn't call many mighty, doesn't call many noble. He calls, uh, the base thing so that he gets the glory. Let him that glory of glory in the Lord. So God sets apart these vessels for his use. They're not to be used for any other purpose. And we studied this, uh, we ran some scripture on this, and I just don't have the time to remember all of those things with you right now, but I will recall this part.
[8:52] Your vessel, church, Christian, your vessel is to be consecrated and dedicated to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one that washed you in his own blood, the one that set you apart and sanctified you and justified you from all your sins. You are not to be engaged in sinful activities. You are not to be engaged in worldly pleasures. Your, your flesh, your body, your vessel is now the property of God.
[9:25] It is the possession of God. It is separated unto him. Now, when I say worldly pleasures, please don't think it don't mean you can't go swimming or that you can't go hiking like that.
[9:36] Of course, that doesn't mean that at all. It means worldly things, carnal things, things of this world, things that don't bring glory to God. You're to set yourself apart from that. He said in 2 Corinthians 6, to come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.
[9:55] So the same way those vessels were set apart in the tabernacle for God's service, so the Christian is to live as if he belongs to God and God alone. And the unclean things don't touch you and you don't touch them. You're to be meat for the master's use. Okay, so that was the first thing we learned about those vessels in the house of God. The second thing we saw was these vessels were, there was, there was added vessels from the original ones. There was more added to it. We saw this, I pointed out in Numbers chapter 7, that real long chapter about all the tribes and their princes bringing the chargers and bringing the bowls and bringing the spoons and bringing all these items, as an offering to God, that they were adding new vessels to the inventory. New things that weren't made of gold, weren't made for the use that was the original giving of the law to Moses, you might say. But then I also showed you other places when they went in and conquered Jericho, and that they took all the gold and the silver and the vessels and they dedicated them unto the Lord God.
[11:04] And somebody named Achan took some things that he wasn't supposed to touch. You'd have to read Joshua chapter 7 and you'll see how that turned out. He was told not to touch the accursed thing.
[11:17] The point was though that they were vessels being added to the temple, to the service of God, more that were accumulated over time. I didn't, I don't know that I turned you to this, but in 2 Samuel chapter 8, David was a king and David received presents from certain other nations and kings that he had fought battles against one nation and that worked out in one guy's favor.
[11:38] So he said, you know what? I want to present David with a present. And so David took the vessels, it says, and he dedicated them unto the house of God. He didn't keep them or put them in his own treasure. He said, nope, that's for the Lord. That's, I didn't do anything to earn them.
[11:53] They're going to God. Then Sam, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, who is it? Solomon. Solomon builds an incredible temple. There's no longer this tent that God dwells in, but a tabernacle.
[12:07] I'm sorry, a, a temple. And in that building, he makes all these new vessels. And we read it last week that after they made the temple, had everything ready to go, they also brought up the original vessels from the tabernacle and put them in there because all of that was going to stay in now the new house of God. And so what we see is an accumulation of vessels being continually added to the service of the Lord. And if you see where I'm going with this church, you are those vessels. And there's a pretty, it's a beautiful picture, a blessed thought that, that God would, in some cases, take some vessels from the filthy heathen of this world that were being used for God knows what and we don't need to know. And they were taken and dedicated and consecrated to the Lord God himself. And now those vessels are in the house of God, just like those ones that were beaten of a rotten work of gold. And now these, these heathen like myself, these unclean dogs are brought in to the blessed communion and service of almighty holy God. And that's a work of God. It's a blessing. There was another thought in, in thinking of
[13:26] Solomon's new vessels and then bringing the old ones in that, that generations of vessels can be brought into the house of God and serve him together. And so there's some good stuff in this study here. We need to move on.
[13:41] So I want to take you back to second, I don't know, first Chronicles chapter nine, first Chronicles back there in the old Testament. And right after going through, literally right after going through all of these genealogies, we're going to catch something about the Levites and the vessels.
[14:05] So find in your Bible, first Chronicles nine. And I want to point out some things starting in verse 26. Okay. Verse 26 through 29. Let's follow along. The Bible says for these Levites, the four chief porters were in their set office and were over the chambers and treasuries of the house of God. And they lodged round about the house of God because the charge was upon them and the opening thereof every morning pertained to them. And certain of them had the charge of the ministering vessels that they should bring them in and out by tail. That's by, by their number. In verse 29, some of them also were appointed to oversee the vessels and all the instruments of the sanctuary and the fine flour and wine and oil and frankincense and spices. And he goes on from there.
[14:58] And what I see here is that the vessels of the house of God have overseers. In verse 29, some of them were also, also were appointed to oversee the vessels. They weren't to go in or out, except that somebody had charge of those things and they, they had them numbered. They had them figured out how many were and how many had to go. And there was some kind of system set up.
[15:23] Now, back in Numbers chapter three, there were certain Levites that were set up to handle the vessels, the things inside of somewhere to bear the, the walls of it, the doors, all of that are the curtains somewhere to the priest to carry the ark when they travel through the wilderness. But there were certain ones that had to handle the vessels. Now, up into this day, moving forward, there's certain ones as they're kind of set up inside the tabernacle or later the temple of Solomon, these Levites that had to account for each vessel. And God designated men to be responsible for those vessels, for his holy sanctified vessels. They were stored in chambers. They were stored in treasuries. And these Levites that we're reading about here had to be conferred with before any priest could just come and help himself before anybody could take it and use it or do something with it. So they were set, they were charged in charge of it. You see that now this brings up an interesting thought. God set that up and it says it in the book that they, they were appointed to oversee the vessels. And the word oversee, it shows up in two ways in the New Testament. I'll just read, we'll read these together. You can lose your place here in 1 Chronicles. And so go with me to Acts chapter 20. We're going to get two places, Acts 20, and we're going to get 1 Peter chapter 5.
[16:52] God sets it up for an overseer or has a man designated responsible for the vessels.
[17:11] And he, and even the word tail there is accounting. It kind of goes in line with giving an account. But in, in Acts chapter 20, notice the first time this word shows up in the New Testament, verse 28. Paul is talking to the elders at Ephesus all the way back in verse 17. He called the elders of the church and he's, and as he's speaking to them all the way down to verse 28, he commands them this, take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed you overseers to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. They're his. He purchased them and he's charging these men, take heed, number one, unto yourselves.
[18:06] Number two, take heed to all the flock to feed the church of God. Now I'm pointing out that the overseer is commanded to feed the church, to feed them, to feed them. We're going to see that again.
[18:20] If you have first Peter chapter five, you can get there. They're to take heed to themselves first and to the flock, all the flock. And what are they to do? They're to take heed to feed them because God purchased them and he wants them to be fed. The picture of the shepherd and the sheep being brought in. Verse number of first Peter five now, the second time this thought of overseeing, the word oversight shows up. I'll start in verse one. The elders which are among you, I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Verse two, feed the flock of God, which is among you taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. So again, the overseer is to feed.
[19:21] And in this case, he's also in verse three to be an ensample to the flock. So you feed and to lead. Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this thing, but the vessels of God have overseers and an overseer has responsibilities. And I showed you the only time it shows up in the New Testament, both times is to feed the flock, to feed, to feed, to feed. Now, some churches, I'm not attacking anything here. I don't, it's to each his own. It's one of the things about us, a church, independent church is that we make up the rules for how we want to govern ourselves, making sure it's by the word of God. So some churches have assigned specific duties to the pastor. And like the deacons will meet, they'll come up with a list of things and the pastor gets hired to do all of these things. And some of them, they're not even, there's no verse of scripture for it. It has nothing to do with the
[20:24] Bible. It's just what they want him to be doing. And, and if he signs onto it, so be it. That's on, that's between him and them. And he can't take that job and then say, forget that. It's not in the Bible. But I know a guy, I even talked to him just recently that was complaining because he had to coach a, a basketball team. And it, it just required right now a lot of hours after school, after class, you know, after all those things ministry-wise that he's involved in at a church.
[20:56] And he just does, he's tired of it. He wants to, he doesn't like driving the buses and being away from his wife and two little kids for, you know, two or three nights a week sometimes. And he's trying to get out of it. But right now that's his duty in his local church is to be part of the school, to be part of the basketball program. My dad, when he got out of Bible school, he went to work at a church and immediately the pastor said, I want you to start a choir and you're going to be the choir director. And then he said, I want you to start a youth group. So you're going to be in charge of the teenagers. And on top of that, he was given a bus route to run on Sundays. And he was also, he told me that he found himself coaching soccer, which he knew nothing about, but he had a whistle and he had a clipboard and went out there and blew the whistle and yelled at the kids and made them run. I don't know what he knew about soccer. I don't think he knows anything still today about soccer, but nevertheless, he found himself with these duties and his role granted was to assist the pastor. So he was an assistant and the other fellow I'm telling you about is an assistant, just the same.
[22:00] And there's busyness and there's things that are just part of it. If they want to sign on to it and they want to do it, that's between them and the Lord, them and the pastor and the church and so forth. But there absolutely are non-biblical roles that have been asserted upon certain pastors and things that are over and above their duties. I want you to just understand your, the primary, the one that showed up, I pointed it out is to feed, is to feed them. I'm not saying that visitation's not part of it, which I can show you that in Jeremiah about pastors that need to visit the flock and know the state of the flock. And we could take a, this is a total different study to talk about that kind of thing.
[22:45] But there, but it's important that the vessels have an overseer and it's important that the overseer is able to do his biblical duty to oversee according to the scripture. I remember when I flew out here one of the time or the first time, matter of fact, and believe it or not, this is the first time that Carla and I flew out here was almost to the day four years ago. And we came out here and she flew back, I don't remember the timing exactly, I feel like it was the Wednesday night that I was, stayed through and she flew back Monday morning. And I met with some of the men back in the office and we were talking some things out about what the position was demanded of and what, all of that. And I said, I have a question about my wife. I said, what would be required of her if we were to come here and take this church? And everybody just kind of looked at each other. Nobody really said anything. And then, and then Brother Pfeffer, I don't know if he remembers this or not, but he, he said, brother. And he pointed at his Bible. He's like, she's not even in here. And I thought, I knew what he meant. I thought, okay, amen. That's a, that's a great answer. Nobody else said anything. Everybody just kind of looked around and said, and that was what he said. And I took that to mean, okay, because I don't want her to have to have the pressure that she needs to feed the ladies. That's not her job to feed the ladies of the church. You know whose job it is to feed the ladies of the church? It's mine. Come on, Mark. Stay with me,
[24:23] Mark. It's mine. It's the overseer. You know whose job it is to feed the teens of the church? That's whose. Right here. Now, if churches want to have youth groups, I want, you know, I'm not complaining or condoning or condemning. Nothing. Don't, don't take it wrong. Don't take it out of order. I like a lot of that stuff when, if the Lord allows and leads it. But no, for sure, vessels of the house of God, God installed and instituted overseers, and they have a duty and a job.
[24:55] Come back to Nehemiah 13. We are going to run out of time to get through all of this, but I'd like to show this part to you. Nehemiah, you got Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. So find Nehemiah 13, the very end of the book. Sometimes things can get out of order in the temple of God, and sometimes the overseer is being negligent or could, is being a derelict in his duties. And that's the case here in Nehemiah 13. And I want to look at a guy named Eliashib. And I'll start in verse number one.
[25:47] On that day, they read in the book of Moses, which is, they haven't been doing for a long time.
[25:58] They're just now getting back in the land, getting established and trying to get some form of stability after this long captivity in Babylon. On that day, they read in the book of Moses and the audience of the people. And therein was found written that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God forever. We read that in Sunday school a little bit back with the book of Ruth, with them leaving Bethlehem Judah to go to Moab. Verse number two, because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them that he should curse them, howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing. Now it came to pass when they had heard the law that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude, which tells me the mixed multitude was mixed with Israel. And they should never have been. So the word of God wasn't being followed at all until it was brought to light. Now notice verse four, and before this, Eliashib the priest, having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God, was allied unto Tobiah. Now earlier in Nehemiah, Tobiah, despite his pretty cool name,
[27:08] Tobiah is an Ammonite. He's not good. He's caused some problems. You could read about it back in chapter two and four and six. Tobiah, verse five, he had, and he, Eliashib, he had prepared for him a great chamber. This is in the house of God, where aforetime they laid the meat offerings and the frankincense and the vessels and the tithes of the corn and new wine and the oil was commanded to be given to the Levites and the singers and the porters and the offerings of the priests. So that, that great room had all kinds of stuff stored into it that they had given as offerings to God. It was for the Levites, but he cleared all of that out and said, here guy, here Ammonite, you unclean man, you can have this whole thing for your, for your room. You can live here. And in verse six, uh, and all this was I not in Jerusalem. Verse seven, Nehemiah speaking. I came to Jerusalem and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.
[28:07] And it grieved me sore. Therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded and they cleansed the chambers and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God with the meat offering and the frankincense. So the case here is the vessels that had overseers.
[28:25] The overseer wasn't doing his job and he was to be blamed. He was removing the holy sanctified vessels that were set apart unto God, that God had been, they were used for the service of God alone. He got them all out of there so that he could make room for some worldliness to come on in, to bring in this Ammonite who is not supposed to be in there forever. Never was one of those guys supposed to be coming into this place. And now he's allowing, we'd say he's making room for the heathen to take up residence in the temple of God. And that's an interesting thought.
[29:02] It's an interesting picture. He's negligent of his duty. He's in violation of the law, the word of God. And Nehemiah sees this, learns of this, gets fired up and takes care of business and fixes it.
[29:19] It's an interesting thought though that this overseer had removed vessels that were sanctified unto God and had brought in something unclean that doesn't belong anywhere near the house of God.
[29:35] And it sounds an awful lot like some churches today that are bringing the world in right through the front doors and just running out the ones that are looking for the truth and changing this whole thing. It's getting, it's getting bad. A little bit later in that chapter, Nehemiah brings the vessels back in and he fills them. He commands them to bring the tithe in and he puts new people over it. We don't have time for it. Faithful man, it says in verse 13. And I thought, well, that's a good overseer there. He brings them in and does his job. Remember there's jobs to feed them.
[30:15] And he brings them in and he fills them back up like they're supposed to be the whole time. All right. So let's move on. This is an interesting thought here is Eliashib was allowing vessels.
[30:29] Boy, this is like, this is hard for me to concentrate with that horn. I can see you guys looking around. It's in the back of my head pretty good too right now. In Eliashib's case, the vessels were removed from their place and they were replaced with something unclean. And I want to see that these vessels can be removed in a different way as well. And so, look at 2 Kings 14.
[30:55] I'm probably going to cut it off here and not finish what I wanted to tonight. 2 Kings 14. And we'll probably stop here. It's not like the horns have anything to do with this, but 2 Kings.
[31:27] I promise you, we don't have horns blown every Wednesday night. So, for those of you that are visiting tonight, this is weird. It is distracting. Okay. So, I'm showing you that in some cases, the vessels are removed from the house of God where they should be. And sometimes, in that case, Eliashib was to be blamed. It was evil what Nehemiah said he was doing. In this case, there was judgment of God going on. So, look at 2 Kings 14. And this is where Amaziah, the king over Judah, goes and kind of, he gets really battling with Jehoash, the king of Israel, during that split kingdom. And what happens is, Amaziah loses. Let me find where I want. Let's see. Verse 12 says, And Judah was put to the worst before Israel, and they fled every man to their tents. And Jehoash, king of Israel, took Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, the son of Azariah, of Beth Shemesh, and came to Jerusalem and break down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate, 400 cubits. Just knock that wall down. And in verse 14, and he took all the gold and silver and all the vessels that were found in the house of the Lord and in the treasure of the king's house and so forth. So, he comes in and takes a bunch of vessels that belong to the house of God. These did not leave because of the dereliction of the priest. These left, I might say, because of the dereliction of the king, because of the king's foolishness going to battle where he shouldn't have battled.
[33:12] Was that the priest's fault this time, that all the vessels were taken out of the house of God? No. No. He's just the overseer. He can't control what's being done on a national level. He can't control any decisions of anybody outside of his hands, can he? And so, that kind of brings a thought back that was coming back to that overseer thing that if you have a supervisor at a job and somebody doesn't show up to work, it's not the supervisor's fault that they didn't show up to work, is it? But you know what happens? Is he gets the grief for it. And then the rest of the employees have to do more work and now they're frustrated. And somebody drives by and says, what kind of show is this supposed to be? What kind of operation are they running? And the supervisor gets trashed and his boss wants to know what's going on and he says, people aren't showing up to work.
[34:06] But is it his fault? It's not actually his fault and it's not fair to make it his fault. And now, he's under stress of dealing with the void of nobody being there and is trying to fix it as he can. That's just a thought that we understand in the job site. Now, thinking of these vessels being taken out of the house of God, this isn't the priest's fault. This isn't the overseer's fault. This is the king's fault, if anybody, for something stupid, for doing things he shouldn't. And the idea is, kind of plainly, when vessels that ought to be in the house of God are no longer in the house of God in their place where they should be as service or offering their service to the Lord, you can't always blame the overseer. You can't, you know, talk, just bringing it down to where we are as persons.
[34:57] It's going to be the fault of the person. The people that want to be in the church are in the church. The people that want to be here are here. The people that are in any church anywhere, they're there. I told you earlier about Eric and Doreen being in Jacksonville. You know why they're there? Because they wanted to be there really badly. They went and paid the money, flew there, and they wanted to be there. And that's why they're there. And I can't control who comes in these doors and who leaves these doors, and you can't either. And sometimes you feel like you want to, and sometimes you feel like you can. But the truth is, and the point that I'm getting after is, is in this case, a fourth thought comes out, is that God's holy vessels can be removed from his holy place of service. In this case, it's the temple or the tabernacle. His holy vessels that he sanctified for himself, they can be removed one way or another. In some cases, it would be the individual's choice. In some cases, it would be the overseer's negligence, as we saw in Nehemiah. In some cases, it could be even the king's or somebody higher up, and there's reasons you could try to nail down. What we're going to do, I'll probably carry this into next week and maybe push Rich a week so that we can finish. I want to show you that God's holy vessels can be removed. I want to show you that while being removed, they can be used for some unclean things and can be even defiled and profaned, whereas they were set apart for God. And yet those very vessels that were once in the house of God, used for God's service only, and nobody touched, they were set apart and holy, they can be profaned and defiled. But then I'm also going to show you before we finish that they're still God's vessels. And he knows, the Bible says, the Lord knoweth them that are his. And I'll show you before we finish this study that the vessels get back to the house of God. They get back one way or another, whether it's by their own choice or whether it's by his calling away. They get back to the church.
[37:03] And so that's a blessed thought that we'll close with, but we'll do that probably next Wednesday night. So we'll close it down. I hear the horn's done. So either the battery's dead or somebody wised up to that one. What a blessed distraction tonight.
[37:21] All right, well, we'll close down. Thank you for being here. And again, let's pray for our efforts last night. Pray for a good turnout this weekend, that the Lord would use our efforts, as I said earlier, as an offering unto him, and that he'd be pleased with it, and that something good would happen of it.
[37:37] And we're going to be prepared for one or 10 or 20 or maybe all 200 of them. Maybe, who knows? So let's be ready for that. Let's be in prayer for that for this weekend. Let's close in a word of prayer and then make sure you say hi to everybody before you leave. Father, we love you. We are grateful for the doors being opened on Wednesday night. Thank you for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the gift of God, which is eternal life. We thank you that we didn't have to pay for our sins, that you paid for them on Calvary. We thank you, Lord, that this study of these vessels, how you did the work of sanctifying and setting them apart for your service. So, Lord, allow us to understand this. Let us understand it doctrinally, but let us understand it practically in a way that we can live our lives daily set apart unto you for your service alone. God, help us to resist the lust of the flesh.
[38:30] Help us to put up a fight. Help us to stay clean and help us to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Thank you for a good night tonight. Please bless as we leave. Please keep us safe. We pray that you bring each one back Sunday morning with a smile. We pray this in Jesus' name.
[38:45] Amen. Amen. You are dismissed. Amen. Amen.
[39:23] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[39:35] Amen. Amen.