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[0:00] All right, Matthew, we're in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter number 14. Matthew 14.

[0:20] And we're very close to the end of this chapter. We ended last week with Peter walking on the water. Something that I've never done, something that no one of you have ever done.

[0:34] And so we're not going to get too hard on him for his little bit of faith there and for his fear in verse 30 when he saw the wind boisterous.

[0:45] But Christ got on him, didn't he? He rebuked him. He rebuked him. Now, remember, we just came off of this feeding of the 5,000 in this chapter, midpoint. And Christ, in verse 16, when they came and said they need to buy bread, Christ says, They need not depart. Give ye them to eat.

[1:05] And I believe he fully expected his disciples to step up to the plate there and handle what they should have handled. And, however, they were lacking faith. They, as I tried to describe last week, they had the ability that Christ had given them to raise the dead, to cast out devils, to heal the sick.

[1:25] And they've already done that back in chapter 10. But their minds are so hard to reprogram their mind to seeing things through the eyes of faith and through the power that he had enabled them in this kingdom-related material and setting that Christ is trying to train them in.

[1:45] So, Peter starts walking on water. And, again, Christ rebukes him. Like I said, not going to get too hard on him, but Christ did.

[1:58] Because he expected him to start exercising faith and start getting in your mind that I've given you ability and you just need to believe in what I'm showing you and allowing you to do and just start doing it.

[2:14] And it's a hard thing to do is to come out of the boat. Spiritually speaking, it's hard to do that. All right, so let's pick it back up.

[2:24] I'll start in verse number 30. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

[2:40] And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? Now, maybe it was just little faith.

[2:51] That's all it took. But I guess it took a little bit more than little faith to get out of the boat and to go to Jesus. And then it was a display of fear and of just a little faith.

[3:03] This isn't the first time Christ rebukes his disciples for their lack of faith. So fear quickly returns to Peter when he sees something. When he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid.

[3:18] You could say that he got his eyes off of Jesus Christ. He's walking on the water in verse 29 to go to Jesus. But something caught his attention, brought up fear.

[3:29] Down he goes, and he has to cry out for the Lord to save him or deliver him from this peril that he found himself in. And I don't want to take the time to run scriptures here, but there's plenty of them, plenty of examples in this book where men get their eyes off of Christ.

[3:44] Or they get their eyes on something else, and it distracts them from either doing their duty or from just trusting in God and trusting in what he's leading them to do and calling them to do.

[3:56] I've got a ton of references here, but we're going to move on from it. Notice that short little prayer. Lord, save me. Lord, save me. That's all it takes is those three little words.

[4:07] Lord, save me. Now, Peter's asking for deliverance from the waters and from the peril of the wind and the waves, the storm. He's not asking God to save his soul, but to apply that spiritually speaking, it's a pretty short prayer.

[4:23] The Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. What else was Peter doing? He was calling on the name. He was calling on God, on Christ. Save me.

[4:34] Fix this. Help me. And that's all he had to do. That's all there is to it. He was believing in Christ, wasn't he? As far as now, again, I'm not talking about his soul at this time, but he was fully believing, Lord, I can't fix this.

[4:49] I can't stand on this water alone. I need you. I'm going down. Save me. But there's truth to that statement. It's just that quick. It's not a process, salvation.

[5:01] It can be a quick prayer from the heart. Notice it says, immediately. Immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him. And that's the kind of prayer that gets Christ's attention, is a prayer out of desperation, a prayer to him alone.

[5:15] No eloquent words. No fluff. No religion. Just save me. And if you're saved today, that's pretty much all it was. It was you realizing that you needed something.

[5:27] You needed to be delivered from the peril that you were in or headed toward. When you came to realize that, you called on the person that could save you. And so, thank God, it's an easy thing.

[5:39] Salvation is simple. And Peter found out that day, that's all he had to say, was, Lord, save me. And it's a pretty short one. It's a good one. Immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, Know thou of little faith, wherefore, getst thou doubt?

[5:54] Now, to apply this and make some application here to you and I, we are called to walk by faith. And granted, I don't expect anybody to try to go out onto the lake, Pyramid Lake or Castaic or anywhere around here, out here on the ocean, and start walking, saying, if I just believe, if I just believe.

[6:15] If you do, you're going to find out you're going to sink every single time. God has not called you to walk on water. And even if you say, Lord, bid me come unto thee on the water, you won't hear anything back.

[6:27] You won't hear a reply because God's not calling you to walk on water. However, he does call you to walk by faith. And so, we're trying to draw a little comparison, a similitude here of what Peter's doing is walking by faith.

[6:39] We're called in Romans chapter 12 to be renewed from our carnal mind and our carnal reasoning and then exercise faith. He calls it in Romans 12 verse 3, according to the measure of faith that God has given to you and I, to every man.

[6:54] And we are called to read this book and obey this book and realize that there's more than meets the eye. And the carnal man just is what meets the eye.

[7:05] What he sees and hears and senses and feels, he reacts to. But the spiritual man realizes there's so much more and so much greater than what meets the eye. And he walks according to the truth of the word of God.

[7:17] A truth that tells him to set your affections on things above and to not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Whereas the carnal man just sees things and goes after them.

[7:29] The spiritual man sees those things, realizes they're just things. And I can't take them with me. And they can't give me pleasure because I learned that from this book. And he changes how he thinks.

[7:42] And he walks by faith. And there's so much more we could say on that, but let's keep moving here. Verse 32, When they were coming to the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth, thou art the Son of God.

[8:01] And when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret. Now let me take you to John 6. Keep your place, but flip over to John 6. And notice John says something just a little bit differently about the way these events transpired.

[8:14] And before we read there, let me back you up into this chapter, something I pointed out last Sunday in Matthew 15.

[8:25] I'm sorry, Matthew 14. Remember that time earlier in this story before Christ, or before Peter got out of the boat there in the ship.

[8:36] And I showed you that it's in verse 22 of Matthew 14 through 25. It's kind of a picture of the church going through the church age. In that boat they call the old ship of Zion.

[8:49] And so I'll just read that passage again, Matthew 14, 22. Straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before him unto the other side while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray.

[9:02] So Christ has ascended the mountain, and he's a part, and he's commuting with the Father. And the picture there is Christ is in heaven. Seated at the right hand. And when evening was come, he was there alone, the ship now being in the midst of the sea.

[9:17] So down below, down far below is this storm raging. Christ is above it. It's not affecting him. He's in commuting with the Father. But down below, there's the storm. There's the boat getting tossed around from life, from the world, the flesh, and the devil, just getting beat up a little bit here.

[9:36] And in the fourth watch, just before day, the Lord Jesus shows up in verse 25, a picture there of that rapture. So now, having that in mind, come over to John chapter 6.

[9:49] And John doesn't give the account of Peter walking on the water, but he gives the rest of it here in verse 15. Notice verse 18.

[10:00] The sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh into the ship. And they were afraid.

[10:12] But he saith unto them, Now, when Jesus Christ comes to them, notice verse 21, what happens. Then they willingly received him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land where they went.

[10:26] That's a nice little tie-in to the picture there of it being a rapture. When Jesus Christ comes back in the fourth watch of the night, boom, they're at land. They're at their destination.

[10:38] And he gets them there. They've been toiling. Mark says they've been toiling. And they've been working. And they're not getting anywhere. They're just getting beat up by the elements around them. Sounds like a church.

[10:50] And then all of a sudden, Christ shows up, and they're there. So that's just a neat little connection, way to wrap up that picture. Come back to Matthew 15. We'll finish the chapter here. In verse 34.

[11:01] And when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret. So that's up by Galilee, up in the north. And when the men of that place had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased, and besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment.

[11:18] And as many as touched were made perfectly whole. Now, this has already happened back in chapter 9 with that woman with the issue of blood. She reached out and touched, and the virtue went out of him.

[11:30] He perceived it and so forth. And so this is going on again. And it's going on in quite a much larger quantity here. People touching him, and people coming to him to be healed.

[11:41] And there's some wild stuff going on around the Lord Jesus Christ. Around his ministry. I mean, supernatural things are happening literally in front of their eyes.

[11:53] Physically, they're feeling this cleansing and purifying of the flesh. And it's something that has never been seen, never been heard of. And they are receiving it and experiencing it.

[12:05] And some of them are believing on him. Others, not so much, which we're going to see right away in chapter 15. There's a religious group that has no interest in him. But these are getting a taste of the kingdom.

[12:17] These healings, as we mentioned Wednesday night, as we've been looking in Isaiah about the future, and seeing how the kingdom, that these curses are going to be lifted off of the earth. There's going to be health and longevity restored.

[12:31] And that's going to be going on. And this is a preview of it. And he's proving to them he is their Messiah by doing his healings. He's not just showing up like, I'm God, so I'm going to fix all your problems.

[12:42] That's not his message. It's, I'm the Messiah. And let me prove it to you by healing your diseases and raising the dead and casting out devils, because that's what the scriptures foretold that I would do.

[12:56] And so all this is kingdom-related, his healings to these people. So now we move into chapter 15. Then came to Jesus, scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

[13:13] For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Now this, I believe, they're trying to find fault with his disciples here, but I believe this is an honest question to them, because they've been raised this way.

[13:28] They've been raised under these traditions of the elders that you don't defile yourself with dirt. You wash your hands. You wash the plates and the bowls and things he mentions in another chapter.

[13:41] We are clean. We are separated. We're not these heathen dogs. And they took this outward appearance and outward cleansing to be their righteousness.

[13:54] They elevated themselves. It's a tradition of the elders. It's not a bad thing to wash your hands, but it's not the word of God that says you better wash your hands before you eat your food.

[14:07] They're accusing as if these disciples were just rebellious punks, because their disciples were raised under those same traditions.

[14:18] And they're not keeping them. They're walking with Jesus and not keeping them. They seem like rebels. They seem like they're disrespecting our religion, the way they were raised, what the elders have taught.

[14:29] And what does Christ reply with? It's incredible. He answered in verse 3 and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

[14:41] So the question is, which one is more important? The commandment of God or the tradition of the elders? And he's going to point out to them that they are guilty of elevating the tradition of the elders and trying to change and even make their own society a little bit more like they think it ought to be, a little cleaner, bring in the kingdom is the kind of language of today, of showing God their righteousness when they're not even keeping the commandment of God.

[15:13] This is a religious tendency, is to exalt traditions. Today it's ashes or it's holy water or it's beads or it's bells or it's candles or robes or handling snakes or who knows what else.

[15:33] You know that's not a godly thing, is it? Ladies, picking up a snake. You have better sense than that. Some of these Baptist preachers in the foothills of the Appalachians.

[15:46] Religion is just deeds and it's works and it's outward things. And sometimes there's nothing wrong with certain traditions. I mean, there's traditions we have here, whether you even realize it or not.

[15:58] If I just change the order of service, half of you would be like, what is going on? Are we going contemporary? What's happening here? You wouldn't know what to do.

[16:09] It would throw you off. And surely, I mean, to tell you the truth, it's against my nature to be stuck in a rut. It really is. I like to switch things up, but I thought, not a good idea to switch things up too early, too soon.

[16:25] So just let it ride. And I'm not against, I'm not trying to start a new tradition or start something. I don't have plans. But there's things that you just do without even thinking about it.

[16:39] You just do it because that's the way you've done it. And if you grew up in a different church or even a different city or different nation, you'd have a whole other list of things that you do without thinking about it.

[16:50] That's just the way you've been taught, the way you've been raised. And it's not the Word of God. It's just the traditions of your upbringing, your life. There's nothing that you can say, why don't you do that?

[17:03] If Jesus Christ walked into the church and they say, well, why didn't you do it the way we do it? You'd be like, why do you reject the commandment of God? Why does your traditions, in this case, they're guilty of elevating.

[17:16] He's going to give them a case in point where they've elevated a tradition that they've established in their culture and in doing so, made the Word of God of none effect.

[17:28] And so he's going to attack them for this. And traditions are what they are. They can be cultural, as I'm mentioning, but some folks can hold them sacred. And some folks can hold them as if this is church.

[17:40] This is how church is or this is holy before God. And some of them can be okay, but Christ needs to shake them up on it. Because they're guilty of doing something wrong here with it. So take a look at what he says.

[17:51] Verse number 4. For God commanded, saying, quote, honor thy father and mother. And, second quote, he that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

[18:07] So here's the commandment. One is from the Ten Commandments, from Exodus 20, to honor thy father and thy mother. Everybody knows that. Another one is when somebody gets out of line or out from under their father and mother and respecting and revere, cursing them, then they're to be put to death.

[18:23] And the Jews have, as Christ is going to show, you've allowed somebody to violate these commandments and said it's okay. If you have a good excuse.

[18:34] And here's their reasoning. Verse 5. But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or mother, it is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me.

[18:45] And honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. What he's saying then, and I'll tell you what, go to Mark 7. Mark has it a little bit worded differently. So let's catch it from there so we can see it clearer perhaps.

[18:59] What they're saying is, father and mother, in their older age, I'm supposed to take care of you. I'm supposed to provide for you. But this money is a gift to God.

[19:13] The money that you'd be profited by me, it's a gift to God. I can't give it to you. I can't take care of you. I have to give it to the temple. And without a doubt, there is some kind of backhanded thing going on to where they're profiting by it.

[19:30] Or the priest is some kind of, I mean, nobody's just going to give money to the priest so they don't have to take care of their parents. They're getting something out of it. But this is their tradition that they've established that it's okay if you're giving to God, you don't have to use that money to take care of them.

[19:47] And where Christ says, no, the word of God is you honor your father and mother, take care of them. All right, so in chapter 7 of Mark, look how he says it here. Verse 7, Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

[20:03] For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition.

[20:16] For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother. And whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say a gift, By whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, He shall be free, or off the hook.

[20:32] Verse 12, And ye suffer him no more, To do aught for his father or his mother. So you're allowing him not to take care of his parents By receiving his gift.

[20:45] These Pharisees and scribes that come from Jerusalem. Verse 13, Making the word of God of none effect, Through your tradition, Which ye have delivered, And many, many such like things do ye.

[20:57] So that's the case and point here that he makes against them. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, It's your biblical duty to care for your parents.

[21:09] In their old age, The Bible uses the word requite them. To pay them back. And I've taught you, And even have a lesson on this, Showing that the very exact things that they did for you as a child, In the process of life, The cycle of life, Comes right back to be, That you will need done to you.

[21:29] You will need someone to, In the very end, Change you. You will need somebody to feed you. Or to pay your bills. To take care of you financially.

[21:40] To assist you in all those things that in one day, They'll just become too much for you to handle mentally. In your old age. As often is the case. And there's many more examples of that, If you really wanted to lay it out.

[21:51] You can look at a child as they come up, And just see you go down, In almost the same fashion. You grow so quickly in the beginning, And you go downhill so quickly at the end, And you need somebody to care for you.

[22:04] You're helpless on your own. I remember making the point there, That when you're, When a child comes, You're bringing a child into the home, You get a room ready for them. You get some furniture for them.

[22:16] A crib. A bassinet. There's certain things you put together, And get that, Why? Because you're preparing for them. You know what's going to happen in the end? You're going to have to take care of somebody else. Make a room for them.

[22:28] Possibly. Get some furniture there. Get them a bed. Get them the things that they're going to need, To make their life comfortable. To honor them, In their old age. Not say, Oh, I gave all that money to the church this week.

[22:40] I can't help you. You know, I'd love to help you mom and dad, But I just can't afford it. And Christ says, That's the tradition these Jews have come into, In making the commandment of God, And not a fact.

[22:53] So moving on, Chapter, Back to Matthew chapter 15. Take a look at verse 7.

[23:07] He says, Ye hypocrites. I don't know about you, But you read through your Bible, You can't just overlook the language Jesus Christ uses, When he speaks to, The Pharisees, And to the Sadducees.

[23:22] In chapter 16, It's verse 1, The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, Tempting him. And in verse 3, Look right in the middle of verse 3, Oh ye hypocrites. This is the language of the lovely Savior, The righteous Son of God.

[23:36] I don't walk around calling people hypocrites to their face. And sometimes you might feel like, You catch them. You hear them say one thing, And then they say another, And you think, Really?

[23:48] But I'm not going to be that guy. I'm not the Lord Jesus Christ. But he sure had the boldness to say that, Didn't he? And he sure, I mean, They were deserving of it. They need to be put in their place.

[23:58] Because they were going to kill him. They were plotting to murder him. They are hypocrites. Saying one thing and doing another. And so don't, Don't read through your Bible, And just picture this painting of the shepherd, With his long hair and long beard, And white garments, And holding a lamb in his lap.

[24:18] I don't know where that came from, But it makes sense with today's culture, That they would want Jesus to be that. He has a tender side, A side of compassion, But don't cross him.

[24:30] Because he was a man that took a stand for righteousness and truth, And didn't have any trouble standing against, The hypocrites and liars, That posed to be following God. All right, Ye hypocrites, And then he quotes Isaiah, Saying that Isaiah prophesied about you.

[24:46] Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, Saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, And honoreth me with their lips, And there's the hypocrisy, But their heart is far from me, But in vain do they worship me, Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

[25:03] That can summarize pretty much most, If not all religions of this world today. Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Anytime somebody puts something on you, On a people, To obey and to follow and submit to, And it's not in the word of God, They're teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

[25:26] And the list is long. The list is very, very long. Each religion has their own different tweaking of these, Or their doctrines, But they're not scriptural.

[25:36] Verse 10, And he called the multitude, And said unto them, Hear and understand, Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, But that which cometh out of the mouth, This defileth a man.

[25:50] Then came his disciples, And said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, After they heard this saying? Really? Yeah. Yeah. They were offended by him saying something like that?

[26:02] That they're not getting it. They think that putting dirt in defiles him. That he's about to teach them, The dirt doesn't go in your body, And defile your body at all.

[26:17] It's something far different than that. It's something that comes out of your body, Out of the mouth, That shows what's inside. So verse number 11, Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, But that which cometh out of the mouth, This defileth a man.

[26:33] So there's sin inside the heart, As he's about to show, That you can keep it in there, And not let it come out, And be semi, You can be undefiled.

[26:45] We're sinners at nature, And in the heart. It's in us. It is absolutely in us. And it's not going to be out of us fully, Until we're out of this body of flesh, Until Christ changes us. And for the Jews, Until he gives them a new heart, In the second coming, And a new spirit within them.

[27:02] But you can keep your mouth shut, And not be defiled. Not that which goeth into the mouth, Defileth a man, But that which cometh out of the mouth, This defileth a man. So they're offended.

[27:12] The Pharisees are offended. Didn't you know that you upset them? What? They're offended by a man, A man younger than them, Calling them out.

[27:23] For what? For elevating their traditions, Above the commandments of God. He quoted the scripture to them. He showed them where they're hypocrites. He quoted Moses twice, And Isaiah once.

[27:35] Did you see them quoting scripture to him? What are they quoting to him? The traditions of the elders. Washing their hands. That's what they're worried about.

[27:47] The outward stuff. And he gives them the scriptures, The scriptures, The scriptures. It's hard to fight against the scriptures. And so what do they do? They just get mad.

[27:58] They get in a huff. And so he gives them an answer. Verse 13, But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly father Hath not planted Shall be rooted up. Let them alone.

[28:10] They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, Both shall fall into the ditch. Notice his speech toward these religious, These hypocrites, These fakers.

[28:22] He's not joining with them to win them. As people have come up with that As some kind of soul winning tactic. You need to join them to win them. Be like them. Show them that we're just like them.

[28:33] Jesus Christ didn't bother with that here. He said, Let them alone. Just let them go. They're blind leaders of the blind. And they're heading for a ditch. And the Bible says in Proverbs that, Well, You have to make the connection to Revelation first.

[28:50] That this religious whore of Revelation, That Proverbs says, A whore is a deep ditch. And religion, You can make the application, Connect a few verses together.

[29:02] Religion sends them into a ditch. Or as Revelation might call it, A pit. And they're going to go to a pit. And they're going to lead them right into the ditch. That they're not going to get out of.

[29:12] Blinded by the God of this world. And the scriptures are prevalent there, To wrap that thought together. But notice that Christ is not joining them. He's not bending the truth in any way to accept them.

[29:25] He's not willing to set aside doctrine or the word of God, So that he can have a calmer, more friendly discourse, Where they can sit down and just talk about this.

[29:36] That's not the nature of God. The scriptures are the priority. And the book is there. And it's already been put out and established. The truth is established. He leads and teaches us, You stand on the truth.

[29:49] You take a stand for what you know is right in the Bible. And if somebody's going to fight that, As these guys are fighting it, Then you let them alone. It's not about, Well, then I need to find another way.

[30:01] These intellectual arguments, That's not God's way. He doesn't bother with that. He just gives them the truth. And if you want the truth, You'll receive it. You'll look for it. You'll swallow it. You'll thank God for it.

[30:13] But if you don't want the truth, You'll fight it. And then your job, Just let them alone. Let them alone. It might sound like it's not the way to do things, But maybe it's because we're thinking against the scriptures.

[30:26] And feeling like we have to have, And we have to find a way. You pray for them. That's what you do. You pray for them and let God soften or deal with their heart. In any way he needs to.

[30:38] Let them alone, he said. Let they be blind leaders of the blind. They were offended. Should we go, you know, mend this up? No, we shouldn't. We should take a stand on what we know is true.

[30:49] And if they're wrong, then they're going to be wrong. Verse 15, Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us the parable. And look at Christ's response. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?

[31:01] I told you in verse 10, Hear and understand. What they're talking about is eating and getting some dirt in them and that defiles them.

[31:12] Or being dirty hands and getting dirt on you that you're defiled or unclean. And that's not the case. It's not what goes in. It's what comes out from the heart. That's what defiles a man.

[31:23] So hear and understand this. And then Peter's like, I don't get it. Okay, Lord, just tell me again. And I think Christ, you hear him say it.

[31:34] He didn't have to say that unless there was a reason. Are ye also yet without understanding? Also, like the Pharisees are without understanding. Are ye also? You like them? You don't get these things?

[31:46] Do ye not, verse 17, Do not ye yet understand? And now he's going to say it a little slower. That whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out into the draught.

[32:01] It goes through your system. Digest. You eliminate it from your body. Do you not understand this? He's talking down to them a little like they're children. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and they defile the man.

[32:19] For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man but to eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man.

[32:34] That doesn't do a thing to you. And you know what he's got to do? He's got to undo, unravel what they've been trained, how they've been taught for them to understand the truth of the word of God.

[32:50] A Bible truth. It's something that you may have to do yourself too in witnessing and in training. You may have to undo some things. I'm thinking of a guy, this is my best example of this, did some door knocking one time and came upon a man who was obviously lost and concerned though.

[33:12] And as I began to just speak with him about scriptural things, he came out with some questions and he kind of told me a little bit of his background. And you typically kind of go in with a little bit of a, you know, Romans Road-ish kind of thought to take them through the gospel, show them their sin and need a savior.

[33:32] And this guy comes up with some stuff about abstaining from pork. And why is that? And I'm like, what? I'm trying to show you from the Bible that you can't earn your way to heaven and that you're a sinner and that you fall short of the glory of God and you want to know why you can't eat pork?

[33:52] And so I thought, and I just perceived, okay, this guy's, I mean, where did he get that? He's got something that he needs answered. He's got some question.

[34:03] It wasn't just throw him this way and throw him that way. It was a genuine question. And so as we talked, in just a short time, I realized this guy, he'd been in jail. He had been influenced by Muslims and he had heard it from here and from there and from every religion that comes in there and he's completely confused to the truth and the way to heaven and he wants to know, why are they so adamant?

[34:28] They showed me from the Bible kind of thing. You know, I saw it from the Bible that you're not supposed to do this. He's like, why? And so I showed him the commands. We looked at it quickly and he's like, yeah, see, what's up with that?

[34:38] But then I showed him the New Testament and showed him how God told Peter, rise, kill, and eat and showed him how God had done some change from the Jew to the Gentile and how what he had cleansed, to call not that common and it ended up getting him past that hurdle to where he would then listen to the rest of it.

[34:58] And I was able to take him all the way up through Calvary in a short 15 minute time to where he was just in agreeance and thankful and he wouldn't get saved there.

[35:09] And I went back a couple weeks later, probably two weeks later, went back and again, I was able to just go through the scriptures with him and he was right up to that edge and just didn't want to commit. But he came to church on Sunday and he and his wife and the pastor that morning preached about the tribulation and preached about the the terrors on this planet and it was what they needed to get scared and to hear about hell and they both were crying tears.

[35:36] They were crying tears walk the aisle. It's like, this still happens. It was a wonderful thing. They got saved. But I look back at it and realize that guy had to have something unraveled first.

[35:50] He had some false doctrine and some false teaching and he wasn't just going to believe me because I showed up with a Bible. He needed to know the truth. And so the disciples are even in the same boat not looking for salvation here but they're in the same boat where they've been trained a certain way that their mind was formed that way that this is we're Jews we're God's holy people and there's certain things we don't do and we don't have any connection to these Gentiles or Samaritans or any of them and which is the way it was but there was other traditions that got in there and Christ just when he was confronted with it he kicked it and he kicked it right out of the ballpark and gave them those scriptures and then even kind of talked a little bit down to his disciples don't you get this stuff yet and explained it to him plainly and so Peter had to have that unraveled because he didn't understand it he didn't understand it and it's true you'll run into people you can't just throw the gospel at them and expect them to take it in some cases in some cases you'll have to find out their history their background find out what it is they're trusting in right where they sit find out why they're not saved where do they go to church if ever what do they think people out here and there's so many different

[37:08]  I don't want to say religions but there's so many different just even atheists just lack of people aren't churched you're dealing with somebody who's got maybe you have to have some have to see some real truth before you can take them down the so called Romans road so we'll stop there we're going to get into next week seeing this how the Lord treated this woman of Canaan and see that he he wasn't very nice to her he was not nice at all as a matter of fact and I'm not just going to say he was just a meanie he was rude but he proves that he showed up for Israel and he showed up as their Messiah and their King and to fix their problems the children of the kingdom and as he calls her a dog this Gentile woman he ends up fulfilling her request but I want to show you that it took a while for her to get through to him so we'll do that next week let's take a 10 minute break and we'll let that next week and we'll let that second week to so