Let The Bible Speak

Welcome, and thank you for joining this message by David Entry at Carish Church.! In this season of Great Awakening, may God pour out His Spirit through His Word, refreshing! your heart and awakening you to His will.

! For Paul, people came to him at his lodging in large numbers, and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and from the prophets from morning until evening. Some were being persuaded by the things said by Paul, but others would not believe. And when they disagreed with one another, they began living after Paul said one parting statement.

The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your father, saying, Go to these people and say, You will keep on hearing and will not understand, and you will keep on seeing and will not see. For the hearts of those people have become insensitive. With their ears, they hardly hear, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and return, and I will heal them. Therefore, let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will also listen. Now, Paul stayed two full years in his own rented lodge and welcomed all those who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching them about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness unhindered. Here ends the reading of God's word.

Please, let's pray. Father, thank you for bringing us this morning to hear your word. We pray that as your word is taught, give us illumination. Give us understanding. Give us a revelation of yourself. Help us to embrace the truths of the gospel so we will be true worshipers who worship you in spirit and in truth and in reality. Help us come to terms with your terms of worship.

Help us come to terms with your way of operation, your agenda, and your purpose so we will not impose human opinion, ideology, human expectations on what you intend to do. But help us to rather come to understanding what your eternal purpose and the purpose of our gathering, our existence on earth, and for that matter, our being where we are is. Thank you, Jesus. Heal the sick. Convict the sinning. Save the lost. Empower us to live by your word. Amen. To the power of your word. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. It's always nice to come together around God's word. Now, Christianity is not what we intend it to be.

But we have to understand what it's supposed to be and live in light of what God has made it to be. So, that is why this Latin phrase is important. Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, secundum verbum dei.

Which means that the church reformed means that the church must always reformed. And after it's been reformed, it must keep reforming on only one basis, on the basis of God's word.

Now, why? Why reformation? Why must the church reform? Because we are not yet there. The more we understand this word, the more we get to know what the church is about.

So, when we become Christians, everybody have his own opinion. That's why it's interesting how the world think of what the church should be. As strange as other religions even want to tell us how we should worship.

Isn't it interesting? And everywhere you go around the world, human beings will infiltrate Christianity with their humanism or humanity or human opinion.

Their customs, their culture, their existing religious norms. And so, we always come into Christianity or we come to God with our pre-existing religious norms.

For that matter, their work is to deliver us. So, into alignment with what is God's norms. And that's why reforms must always happen.

But the more we are reformed, the more we are likely to be reformed. Because the more you are reformed, the more you understand the centrality of God's word.

And the more you understand the centrality of God's word, as you go to it, you realize that there still need to be some structural adjustments. Do you understand what I'm saying?

So, what has that got to do with Acts? You look at the book of Acts and it's practically history. Practically history. We are just reading history. I need, I want to pay my bills.

I want to enjoy my life. What is history? Why are we coming to church for history lessons? Because the gospel is history. The gospel is not just behavior.

The gospel is history. So, that's why you can't change it. How many of us can change history? I can't change it. You can't change it. The message that brings salvation is primarily history.

He lived. He died. He resurrected to save us. And it's a done deal. Do you understand that? And so, when you look at the early church, we are being told how church life should actually be.

So, we look at the way they live and we see how we can contextualize it in our days. Of AI. AI is not bad.

It's good. And it can actually enhance different things we do. Even in our worship life. Many years ago, you would not have scriptures on screens.

Now, how many of you prefer that? Scripture on screen or just... Because then, when I say let's turn to Mark, we always have to go. We are waiting to turn. It's taking a lot of our time. So, sometimes it's nice.

You see it. Oh, yeah. He's there. So, technology has not changed our worship. But when we know what our worship is, then wherever we find ourselves, we can adapt without compromising the basic tenets and the purity of the gospel.

Do you understand what I'm saying? That is why much of Christianity or much of godliness has a lot to do with history. Look.

Can you imagine the Bible opens by telling us history? In the beginning, God created. That word created. It is a God who creates.

It's past. The Bible starts with telling us past stories. What has that got to do in my life? So that you can know how to live the current life. So, now, having said that, we saw Paul.

He was preaching and was arrested. So, that tells you being arrested for preaching is not new. He was preaching and the opposition was fierce.

That means preaching and having opposition is not new. It's actually part of how it works. Medical science and law.

Particular medical science do well by history. They study the trend, the pathology or something like that. They just study the trend and then so, then you develop, build on it.

So, if you live your life and disconnect yourself with history, you end up making negative history. You also become a textbook of how not to live.

Like Lot's wife. Jesus. He looked back and became a pillar of soul. So, they say, remember it. So, we saw Paul arrested.

Paul defended himself. He was purely innocent. But unreasonable people determined that will fight him. It happens.

How many of you have experienced that before? Since you became born again. You can realize that people are fighting you with unreasonable grounds. Reasonable grounds. You see why when you're a Christian, it's necessary to have the history of Scripture.

The text of Scripture. When you know the text of Scripture, you don't waste your time on some things. You just know. It's like a snake or a chicken with a cat's head.

Struggling. You know that. Let it straight to just die. The head has been cut already. So, in today's text, we see how when Paul got to Rome. In the text we read, we saw how Paul got to Rome.

And then when he got to Rome, in our last session, he sent for the leaders of the Jew. Because Rome at that time had about 2 million people there. In those days, the biggest cities had about 10,000 people.

So, if you have 10,000, it's a big city. Rome had about 2 million people. And about half of them were not rich. Poor people from different nations.

It was the imperial capital. So, Paul had to be in Rome. And he gets to Rome. And there were a lot of Jews there. So, long as the Gentiles and the Romans were concerned, the Roman authorities particularly, Jews and Christians were not much different.

So, they saw Jews. They thought, these are the, they saw Christians. Because Christianity was initially started by the Jews. So, they thought it's just an offshoot.

And almost many of the Christians were Jews at that time. Paul was Jewish. So, he sent for the Jewish leaders. And then when they came, he told them a story that I'm in chains, not because I have anything against our people, but I explained in the previous session.

And so, from today's reading, it says that they set a day, 23. They set a certain day. So, they appointed a certain day. When they appointed, many came to him at his lodging.

Wow. It's nice to have a lodging. Many came to him at his lodging. Now, this is my key point. To whom, that's the Jews.

Many came to him at his lodging. To whom he explained. Explained. Explained. These are religious leaders.

Jews. Who were very confident and convinced and set in their religion. You can't change them. And he sat with them and explained.

It reminds me of Luke chapter 24, verse 27. Luke at verse 27. And this is Jesus. Beginning. Now, I don't want to be distracted by some of the sweetness of them.

He was explaining the scriptures to them about himself. Do you know where he began? Genesis. Any gospel preaching that excludes Genesis chapter 1 is not pure gospel.

Genesis chapter 1 was just figurative. It's not real. How can God create everything in six days? It's not real. It's not six practical days.

But what is it? It's not real. It's not real. Don't try to help God. He doesn't need your help.

He doesn't need your help. So, okay. Let's leave Genesis chapter 1. Maybe chapter 2. And God formed man. Breathed into him. Put them in the garden. All those things are too mystical.

So where do we start? Chapter 3? Chapter 3 starts with a serpent. Verse 1 starts with a serpent coming in. So then chapter 3.

Adam and Eve were already in the garden talking to a serpent. Where did they come from? Okay. Maybe Genesis is not good now. Let's go to Exodus. We should start from Exodus. So if you stop.

If you leave Genesis chapter 1. Where do we start then? Do we start in Leviticus? Do we start in Joshua? Or maybe you think we should start with Matthew. Where?

How can you understand the things of God by starting from Matthew? Matthew starts by talking about Abraham. Jesus is the son of Abraham.

Who is Abraham? Where did he come from? You cannot leave it. So the Bible says now that the key point is Jesus himself, when he was coming to explain himself, who he was, to the disciples after resurrection, he began at Moses.

Beginning, not with Moses, at Moses. There is a location. He started from there. And no, he didn't stay there. He didn't end there. And all, not some, all the prophets.

Now, this is another way of saying the entirety of the Old Testament. And all the prophets, he expounded to them.

He explained to them. These are disciples. The essence of good preaching is to explain. Watch this. Not what is happening politically.

Unless you're explaining it in the light of what you're explaining from God's word. So the essence of godly Christian preaching is to explain what the scripture is saying.

And how we can apply it in our lives. Explain it to make it understandable and make it applicable to our daily living for his glory.

So the essence of good preaching is explaining the text. That is why preaching shouldn't start from opinions. Preaching should start from the scripture.

Because then there's a scripture to explain in the light of whatever subject we are dealing with. Lectures in universities. In lectures, in theaters, in seminars, in symposia are different.

Yeah. But preaching, preaching, Christian preaching should start from the text. Is it the same as evangelism? Because we also preach.

Evangelism doesn't necessarily have to start from a text. Evangelism starts with a conversation. Yeah. A conversation. Why must it be with a conversation? Because your life.

Your life is a witness. So when your life is a witness, whatever the subject is, you can relate with this. And by the time you realize, it invariably gets to what has made your life what it is.

And what you have got to say about life. Am I communicating? So the Bible says that Jesus himself explained from Moses all that was written concerning himself.

So Paul, when the Jews came, because the Jews, their focus, their constitution is their Torah, is Moses and the prophets. And so Paul, when he gathered with them, Bible says that.

Let's look at the text again. Listen, there's always a lot to talk about.

When I stand here, I don't stand here because I have to say something. I stand here because I have something to say. That's it. Very important.

And when you have something to say and you have spent time in the Word of God, usually a whole day is not enough. And watch this.

Watch this. I'm trying to point your focus to explaining and solemnly expounding, helping people to get it.

That tells you, watch this. That tells you there's a lot of intellectual activity going on as well. Yeah. There's a lot of reasoning going.

Don't say, you don't know God or me. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. When I say things, it comes to pass, you know. You don't know. You don't know. I think. We are not doubting it.

But when preaching is primarily, a chunk of time of preaching is filled with this. Every time. Filled with it. When can this thing stop? So the text says, see why it's good to have history.

So that we can conform to the pattern. Yeah. Ecclesia reformata, simpa reformanda, secundum verbum de. We have to conform to what is written.

Yeah. So he testified. The Bible says that to him he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God. That's also a big one.

Those days when you meet a normal Jew, he's thinking about the restoration of the Davidic kingdom. So even the born again ones who worked with Jesus for three and a half years.

Would you imagine that after resurrection? In Acts chapter one, verse four, they started asking political questions. Yeah. They started asking political, being assembled together, they asked verse six.

Therefore, when they had come together, the disciples asked Jesus after he has resurrected in power. Now death could not overcome him. So now he's the Messiah. They said, are you going to restore?

They came together and said, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They are thinking on the days of David. Yeah. Because the Messiah is going to be like David. So the Jews were always thinking kingdom, kingdom.

And at that time they were under Roman rule. So they are waiting for the Messiah who set them free from the Romans. So they were always kingdom thinking, kingdom.

And their kingdom was like United Kingdom. It's not God's eternal kingdom. But it's talking about physical, geographical, political power.

So on earth. So Paul skillfully uses the word, the kingdom of the Bible. The Bible says kingdom of, oh, Luke, sorry.

Use the word kingdom of God. Because it's not just the natural Israeli kingdom. It's the kingdom of God. Now when you mention the word kingdom, you can actually connect. Because they've been thinking kingdom, kingdom, kingdom.

But it points them to the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not something just geographical. The kingdom of God is eternal. The kingdom of God. Watch this.

Then by so doing, he connects what he's talking about as a thread of a beautiful tapestry into the Old Testament.

Because in the Old Testament, there's something that is prominent there as well about the kingdom of God. God restoring the kingdom. So Paul explains things to them.

And reasoning, the Bible says that, solemnly testifying of the kingdom. But this time it's the kingdom of God. What it really is. What this whole thing is about.

So he was solemnly testifying. He will go to the Old Testament. He will go to Isaiah. And then Bible says that, oh, I like this. I like this. Persuading them. That's an intellectual exercise.

He was doing a persuasive work. Backed by the power of the Holy Ghost. We are not saying it's purely intellectual. It's not purely intellectual.

It's very supernatural. But supernaturally, inter- Intellectual. Supernaturally. You can't come and say, oh, that's what preaching is not necessary.

Let's, ah, I like this. You see, you're bringing yoga into church now. You see what you had to do. Your Christianity, your spirituality is weak in the absence of pure and clear understanding of the text of Scripture.

Until you understand and get to terms and grips with what Scripture is saying, your spirituality or your Christianity. We can manipulate things.

Spirituality is about. It's not got anything to do with spirituality. It's not got anything. It's not got anything. You get what I'm saying? It's not got. When we are praying, you are lying down, rolling on the floor.

Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, shouting, gyrating. All those things are good. They are personal expressions. Personal expressions which we cannot trivialize. But they don't equate spirituality.

Spirituality has a lot to do with biblical sensibility. You understand. You understand. Understand that what the Scripture is saying. That's Christianity.

No wonder modern day Christians don't bother reading their Bibles. They don't bother reading their Bibles. No, it's actually not modern day. It's always been like that. Only serious ones do.

Because the more you want to know God, the only way to really know God is in the Word. And don't let preachers be the only ones who read for you.

Read yourself. And look out for what the preacher said, which is not exactly what the text is saying. Don't agree with the preacher because it's a preacher. Agree with him because you can't disagree with what the text is saying, which is also echoing.

So a preacher is supposed to echo what the text is saying in its context. Am I? In Acts 17, verse 3, it says that he, the same reasoning and persuading.

Can you imagine? He was, let's look at verse 2 to make more sense. Then Paul, as his customers, went into them and for three Saturdays.

Sabbath, that means in the meetings. Sabbath, reasoning with them from the scriptures. Let's not stop the reasoning.

Reasoning with them from the scriptures. Look at what he was doing. Explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead.

Saying that this Jesus whom I preach is not Christ. Isn't it not so sweet? This Jesus who, if your Jesus cannot be defined by scripture, it's a fake Jesus.

It is a fake Jesus. Whether the guru talks about him or the imam talks about him, it's a fake Jesus. Because the Bible talks about another Jesus which other people will be preaching.

Another Jesus. And another gospel. In the book of Corinthians, it's talking about another Jesus. It says that, 2 Corinthians, it says that, for if he who comes preaches, how do you know it's not another Jesus?

Check him. This is the standard. If it doesn't fit the Jesus described from Genesis to Revelation, it's another Jesus. It is not your signs and wonders that give you a credibility as a man of God.

It's the pure Jesus which you have to present. Because as for miracles, people who are not born, I mean some of us when we were not born, we saw things.

So as for supernatural activities, they are always there. When you go to other places, things happen, you know. Supernatural power, things can happen. People can be chanting and suspending.

Now there's many modern pastors who want to do that. So they can have their belief or their leadership. So some pastors, if that's what will make you believe them, they will go and do it. Then they are levitating.

And the more ignorant believer you are, the more you like it. The more that moves you.

The more that becomes the center of your pursuit. I'm aggressively trying to recover us from other things becoming the main ethos of our pursuit to the word of God.

The very boom day. Am I preaching at all? Let's look at the text again. Text-driven preaching.

So persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from Moses. I like that from morning. It feels very attractive to me.

It looks like it's a camp eating. Yeah, it's a camp eating. From morning to evening. From morning to evening. So he was persuading them concerning the kingdom. And I like the word persuasion.

Acts chapter 19 verse 8. You can see some persuasion going on there. Acts chapter 19 verse 8. He says that, and he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months.

Reasoning and persuading concerning. That word persuading. You know what? Someone asked, how many of you have ever been persuaded to buy something you didn't plan to buy?

When you are traveling and you get to the duty free, these people who sell perfumes. Sometimes they will be hunting you and phone. Sometimes you are persuaded.

And the Christian preacher must have a convincing element. Whilst the Holy Spirit is convicting, the Christian preacher must convince people by reasoning from the text.

Do you understand that? So he was persuading them. He says, no, I get where you are coming from. But you push them to a corner by the text that they can't wiggle themselves out. They realize that actually, they haven't noticed what you've been saying.

They just realize that actually what you are saying is true. So they are forced to a corner to be rebellious. To either rebel or submit. Because they don't have a choice. You have proof to them that.

It's like if you said, I didn't go to that place. I was not there. I was not in the office. And then they play the CCTV. They play it. They say, that's us, you. They say, no, that's my twin brother.

Then all those who are even supporting you realize that you are being funny. People who even support you. In the same way, our submission, when we are presenting the message of Christ to people from Scripture, we have to do it in such a way that, I'm not talking argumentatively.

We have to do it in such a way that people think. People begin to think. They ponder it and realize that even though I didn't want to accept the thing, I think, you see, when it comes to Christianity, the strength of Christianity is the message of Christianity.

Yes. The message is the message. All other religions don't have a message. They have forms, norms, systems, rituals, ceremonies.

Christianity might have some rituals. That's why you came out of knowing dog collar. Yeah. Because it's, it's, it's, it's, I can wear shorts. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, yeah, in some places, you people, the pastor is wearing shorts and trainers. I mean, so I know what you're wearing. So why do you keep wearing a tie? So I can put my microphone inside a tie.

But what I'm trying to say is that it's not that great. We may have forms, but the forms and norms are informed and are guided by the truth of Scripture. That's why anything we do that cannot be traced or explained and are guided and supported or endorsed by Scripture is not, it's not, it's not a point.

You don't have to do it if you can't find it in Scripture. So they do persuasion, persuading people, explaining to the people concerning the kingdom from Moses and the prophets.

And let's look at the text again. Verse 24, right? Some were being persuaded by the things said by Paul, but others will not believe. Did you see the way they put the text?

It is the others were not persuaded. That means he didn't say it enough. Say it more, explain it more. Paul has done all the explanation, but they did not believe. The Bible calls it, we say there are some phrases in the Scripture like ignorance.

It's willful. It's willful ignorance. I get what you are saying, but I choose not to accept it. I was preaching, my wife and I were preaching to somebody a while ago.

And the person said, my wife said, so what do you think about heaven? After a conversation, nice person. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't say it's real or it's not real. He said, but what if it's real? I said, I've chosen. I don't want to believe it. He said, I've chosen. It's a choice.

Who created the heavens and the earth is not a big bang. I know that it's not right. It's not wise. It doesn't make sense to say, bam, and everything came. So, but I know that they will say, I know there's something.

I know there's something. So what is that something? I choose not to call it God. So you choose not to. Does it change anything? You choose. Okay. I chose not to call it AI.

M.I. It doesn't change anything. You don't have any truth. I'll explain what I mean. Truth is not internal.

Truth is outside of self. What we always discover, we find out. So I can come as a, so long as I'm concerned, this is a spoon. The Bible is not true because we believe it.

We believe it because it's true. I'm not, that's why, what I started with, that history. You can't change history.

History is just recorded. You come and see it and accept it and it explains to you. So that's what Paul, Paul was explaining all this history, all these norms, the writings, the instructions, the oracles of God that was given to the Jews.

Paul was explaining it to them for them to understand the mind behind it. The mind, the reason behind what God was doing.

And look at the text again as I try to round up. Some were being persuaded by the things said by Paul, but others would not believe. This is interesting.

And when they disagreed with one another, they began living. And after Paul said one pattern statement, Paul would not give quiet. The people were not disagreeing among themselves.

And when you start disagreeing among themselves, sometimes it can get very wild. They start disagreeing among themselves. Based on what Paul was explaining, did you realize that the preaching and explaining of text brought disagreement?

Yeah. The people came as a united people. We can say it doesn't matter. Let's you believe that you believe together. It doesn't matter. Let's all believe.

Belief matters. Belief matters. There are certain Christians I cannot. Maybe they call themselves Christians. I cannot worship together with them.

What does that mean? Because what they believe in their style of worship is almost like idolatry to me. I can't trust it in scripture. So I can't partake in certain worships.

That is forcing me to bow to images. To engage in things that are not founded in scripture.

Even though they might also be under the banner of Christians. The only unifying factor, watch this, for true Christians is the word of God.

The word of God is like the Bible says, Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12. It's sharper than any two-edged. It comes to cats. So it separates. Jesus said, I'll separate the sheep from the good.

When you are genuinely for God, what holds your heart is the word of God. That is why the only way you can disciple a Christian is by the word of God. It's like this morning I came to make a case.

And a submission. It might not be a jumping and screaming preaching. But Paul said, I think let me just add this so that I don't have to come back here again.

You know, when they were not accepting and someone opposite. When Paul, verse 25 says that. And when they disagreed with one another. They began living after Paul has said one parting thing.

The Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers. Can you imagine? Would the Holy Spirit ever wrongly speak? No.

So it seems like Paul was trying to say this time. So no. He's just trying to say what the Spirit of God has said is actually right. No wonder he said it. So then Paul goes to quote Isaiah.

Isaiah chapter 6, verse 9, 10. Quote them because the Holy Spirit spoke by. Paul, that statement is also loaded. Because Paul by that statement is trying to claim the inspiration of the Old Testament.

That the Old Testament inspired. Because Isaiah said it by the Holy Spirit spoke. So Paul was suggesting the inspiration of Scripture.

That it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. So he said the Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers. And then he quoted what the Holy Spirit said. The Holy Spirit said, what did God say to them?

He says that these people. Verse 26. It says that saying, go to these people and say, hearing you will hear and shall not understand. And seeing you will see and not perceive.

That's a serious one. Look at the next verse. For the heart of these people have grown dumb. Their ears are hard of hearing.

And their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes. Hear with their ears. Lest they should understand with their hearts. And turn so that I should heal them.

That's interesting. A very extreme quote. Matthew chapter 13, verse 14 and 15. Easy to remember. 13, 14, 15. Jesus also quoted it and applied to the people. Jesus said, and in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.

Which says, hearing you will hear but shall not understand. And seeing you will see and will not perceive. Now, what does this mean? It says that it's not like God didn't want them to see it. But because of the state of their heart.

Did you notice when Paul quoted this? He quoted after some refused to believe. Their refusal. This is what it means. This is a critical situation.

When the word of God. That's why we have to preach the word of God in its truth. Because when the word of God is preached in its truth. What happens is that people are better off or worse off.

There's no middle line. You either believed and are better off. Or refuse to believe and are worse off. So that means that when the word of God comes to you.

What happens is that God helps you to get what he's saying. Then you choose. To align or not align. But if you align. Then the blessings are for.

If you decide not to align. Then he. He backs off. You are on your own. And when God is not with you. It never gets better with you.

And so. One of the things that make us enjoy. The goodness of God. Is not only the prayer. Which is offered for us.

But it is the word of God. We understand. And obey. Trust and obey. For there's no. Stop letting your emotions lead you.

All of us are emotional beings. So at every point in time. Your emotions can lead you. At every point. Especially those of us who are married. But the point I'm making is.

If you offend me. And I'm really offended. My spirituality demands. That my emotions shouldn't be what leads me. My spirituality demands.

That the word of God. Is what holds me. So if the word of God can't hold me. Then I'm not that spiritual. Your spirituality has everything to do. The dimension.

Extent to which. Of my spirituality. Is the extent to which I'm able. And willing. To submit. Jesus said. I wish this cup comes to pass. Nevertheless. Not as I will.

But as you will. When you are able to bring yourself. Under the control. Of God's word. Then you can talk about. You are being spiritual. It's not the demons.

That are running away. It is the word of God. You are aligning your life to. That is spirituality. Better still.

That is godliness. That is godliness. It's not your suit you are wearing. It's not the offerings you are giving. You can.

Didn't he say. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He said. If I give my body to be bent. Yeah. And I have not love. Yeah. I can. What do I achieve? So sometimes.

You can be heavily engaged. In religious activities. And still not have God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Heavily religious. But godless. Yeah. Yeah.

God. Yes. God. Because. Sir. Yes, sir. There's a way. Yeah. Our behavior. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it makes us better.

Look better than others. Yeah. Especially when it comes to religious activities. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We pat ourselves on the back because we are better off. Like Luke chapter 18 verse 13.

I'm not like that tax collector. We are better off. Many people's spiritual bourgeoisness has a lot to do with what they know they are better than others.

That's why the more people don't know you well, the safer you feel. We throw in words, words, jargons to make us look or buy spiritual credit from others.

Recently I was doing my studies and something jumped to me. I felt God was showing me about the importance of integrity. Integrity is what you say you are.

What people see you are. You are actually that even when no one is around. That's what you are. If they catch you by accident, there's nothing because what you are.

Integrity is you don't need anyone to oversee what you are doing. And it's a reflection of purity of heart with God.

As I said this, if you are hearing, God said that you will hear. Because you didn't want to listen, you didn't want to obey, God then gave you up and he said that you are not here. I think because for sensibility of behaviour, I have to stop so I can continue next week.

Thank you. We're so glad you joined us for this message by David Entry.

We pray the word has inspired and strengthened you. You can connect with David Entry on Instagram, LinkedIn and other social platforms. And you can listen to more messages on all major streaming platforms and the Karish Church app.

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