The Attraction of Sin: Satan's Playbook Exposed

"But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." (James 1:14-15) 

In this episode

How Sin Always Happens (the roadmap and the off-ramps available)

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Okay, let's get started. Can't wait. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for putting in our laps a book called the Bible. Thank you. That as we get into it, there's no end to the truth and the freedom and the love that pours out of it into our lives. Let it happen this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

I want to put it up. Let me go on and Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

So when we have a day that we miss or we do something else, uh like on on the on the third Friday of every month, I don't teach whatever we're on, and I shift to something else because I want people to be here when we do it. And so when that happens, anytime I send you a worksheet, it's if I have an extra week, I write more, a lot more. So you have to get rid of the one. So even the one I sent you last night, I got up early or earlier today, and I rewrote that again. That's the way it happens. So you have an old one now, and I don't I think it's God working in me to do that. I believe that, and I tr I pray for that, but it it has to be annoying to you, and I'm sorry for that. And on this particular one, Derek, I I write it in such a way because I know there are times that you use it for your group, and I want to have it, I want to have it good for you. So that's why I do it. Okay. So you can still cut it and edit it and chop it up and use whatever you want, but I just want it to be good enough for you to use.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Thank you. They've been blessed by it multiple times.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Oh, wonderful. Okay, let me uh let him just get into it. I just went, I went really down into a rabbit hole this week because I was thinking about, I don't know if you recall, last week in his uh recap of our discussion last week. Uh Jim was talking about. I had made a comment about, hey, it's a Genesis 3. There's a reason why God puts in all this about temptation and how Satan works. He that is really, really, really important to God that he put it in chapter 3 of the whole Bible. He said, Hey, here's about creation. Now let's get into what's real serious. Satan is going to try to murder you. And I want you to know it. And so if we don't have a hunger for chapter three in Genesis, we're missing the intention, the divine providential intention of God for our life. We don't see the seriousness that he sees, we do not see the danger that he sees, we do not see the erosion of our freedom that he sees. That puts chapter three and Genesis very, very high in priority for our study. So I'm staying in chapter three and for this week again, and so I want to go forward. Last week we we talked about uh can Satan read our minds, and Trey uh chimed into that, and I was really nervous about asking him because I don't think he can Satan can read my. I was hoping that Trey felt the same way, and when he said he he said that I felt relief. By the way, I I see all of you as you you are to look at the things that I'm writing and dishing out, and if there like even today, I went in all personal stuff. I mean, really deep and personal stuff. How do I know if it is from God, if it's just one of my ticklings in my own heart? So it's really important that you talk and and catch me because it's collectively together. We're a bunch of beggars deciding where we found some bread and whether it's real bread that we should be eating. So we we handled can Satan read our minds. We also handled can Satan plant thoughts in our mind, and we found out yes, he can and does, and I gave you the scriptures for that. Now, I wondered, do I need to study this? That's the question, and so I'm gonna go that and so please chime in. This is a lot of personal stuff, and when you get into personal stuff, you can become goofed up. So here we go. So track your real so here. I want to read it because this is uh I put a lot of thought into all of this stuff. Majing spiritual progress against temptation requires looking at our internal patterns, our internal reactions and choices over time. Because spiritual growth is often gradual. Do you think spiritual growth is gradual, Trey? Or do you think it's rapid?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Um, I think it's both at various times, but probably more like a journey over time.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Okay. I I think that too. You cannot always measure it by simple win or loss record. And I've been, you know, I was gonna make a the ultimate assessment for this week. I got to thinking I this doesn't lend itself to assessment. So here's some considerations. So I I took a different approach this time. Here's here's some considerations that you can look into whether or not we are defeating temptation and how you can evaluate your progress objectively. So here we go. I'm gonna take them one at a time. Oh, I'd love for each of you to chime in on these as much as you can. If not, uh just go 100 miles an hour. So the first one is track your reaction time. That tells me a lot about me. The pause. I notice how quickly you reject a negative thought, how quickly you bring God into the equation. Do you invite and wait on the Lord actively to participate in managing temptation's defeat? So when you're hit with the temptation, do you follow up with an immediate spiritual pause? If you're not, you're low-hanging fruit for Satan. Then there's a pivot. Once you have a pause, once you catch yourself, oh, that's temptation, then you pivot. Progress means moving from lingering to immediate dismissal. Quickly recognize temptation for what it is and pronounce its ugly end. So tracking your reaction time, how good uh you at identifying and eliminating temptation in your life? That's the first one. Any comments on that? Here's the second one. Again, this is just what what I have experienced in my life. So it doesn't make it right, it makes it discussion worthy. Monitor your desire and attraction, what grabs your attention? Are you monitoring that? What gets your attention? Because as we talked last week and we went through the line by line, word by word, of how Satan got Eve to do her dastardly deed. We have to look at what grabs our attention. So here's the first one: loss of appetite. This is spiritual appetite. The temptation starts losing its emotional appeal. What used to turn you crank no longer turns you crank. Our prayers allow the temptation to show its true colors. The temptation's appeal turns into appulsiveness. When you used to tend it to when you used to keep temptation in your mind because it's got a hold on you, not anymore, man. It just caused you to want to puke.

SPEAKER_05 10:05

So I have a question.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 10:08

So I think mine is slightly different. Um, my loss of I I don't I don't want to puke, but it doesn't have any impact. So am I still yep, the same way.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

You killed it, man. You killed it.

SPEAKER_05 10:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah, that's what you want. You killed the appetite.

SPEAKER_05 10:33

I can I can I can feel it. I can what used to just was my a one of my many temptations.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Under the monitoring, the first one was lost appetite. Here's the second one, recognizing deception. You immediately sense and begin seeing the empty promise behind the urge as the sin's real focus becomes clear. You see it for what it really is: a sin dressed up, ready to go to church. That's what he's doing.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

That's a great line. That's a great line.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Number three, shift in focus. Your mind naturally gravitates towards healthier, positive habits instead. Of all our prayers, catch this temptation prayers enjoy the quickest response times. There is a God-given emergency declared when temptation knocks on our door. I can say with authentic tracking that the fastest answered prayers I ever experienced have to do when I go to God about a temptation that has come my way. Don't be quiet on me. The third one, evaluate recovery speed. Less despair. If you stumble, you experience healthy conviction instead of a prolonged toxic shame. We don't entertain the visitor of temptation, we knock it in the head quickly, and after I knock him in the head, I experience a faster bounce back. You confess, learn, move forward immediately as you feel stronger. You are emotionally propelled to get out of hell. You see it for what it is, man. He's pulling you under. There's a faster bounce back time. And the third one under Evaluate Recovery Speed, no spiring. One mistake no longer leads to weeks of giving up. Satan wants to use any and every weakness to drag us through the mud and destroy as much as possible in temptation's path. You catch it in time to destroy all the negativity that's associated with it. What do you think, Andre? I've gone through three of them.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Oh, I think you're right up.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Number four coming up, man. I've experienced all of this. I am ashamed to have experienced it all. You think when you get 80 years of age that there would be less temptation? That is not true. Observe environmental control. When we confess our temptation weaknesses, we number one set and police proactive boundaries. I didn't used to do that growing up. Now I see a boundary line. Put in a boundary. We actively avoid places and people. There are people that I have stopped associating with because they trigger temptation. We flee temptation's presence. Do you have a set of boundaries? Have you added some new ones? We were talking about one this morning earlier when we were a few of us on, and Kim started talking about his phone.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

Very distracting.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Very set and police proactive boundaries. The third one, replacing habits. We fill empty time with purpose, so boredom and emptiness cannot invite temptation. No boredom in my life anymore. No boredom. No empty spaces. When I sense the empty spaces, I uh uh my own personal way is it's time to write a poem. Dig out a scripture and write a poem. And all of a sudden, boredom goes away, and new thinking happens, and I feel freer. Folks, I hope you take this stuff and talk to your boys about it, talk to your children about it, talk to your people about it. This is the kind of stuff we don't hear enough of in preaching, this personal stuff. Assess internal peace. Number five. Decline in anxiety. We've been there, done that. We've learned from it. I'm not going there again. We feel less internal friction when facing old triggers. Nope, that's dead, man. No life in that one. Subconscious growth. Our default split second spirit-led reactions align more with our God-given values. Ah, I am becoming like Jesus. Gratitude. You feel thankful for freedom rather than deprived of a temptation pleasure. We successfully dodged yet another bullet. It's time for a victory dance. Okay, those were the things I put together. And then I thought, well, I I wrote all of those things, but I didn't put scriptures with them. So I went back and wrote a scripture for all of them. And these are temptation scriptures. There's so let me go through them with you. What are the scriptures that can be used to be a showstopper of temptation? So the first one, scriptures on recognizing your growth. You gotta be looking at your growth. Where are you growing now? Where what are you growing at? If you can't answer that, ah, that's that's that's a warning. The first one is Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. How do you use it? Which of those are you growing in now? Is this a checklist for your life? Yeah. I'm gonna come back because I want to talk deep about this particular one. We're talking about listening to Spirit's talk. We're still in that passage of Ecclesiastes. And I want to go deep into this one. This has really got a call on my heart. So I'm not gonna go deep in it this morning. How to use it, use it as a checklist. Growth is self-control across your life, proves you are winning a larger battle, the fight for our soul.

SPEAKER_05 19:29

I have a question for Derek. Yeah, instead of a checklist, have you ever seen this graph? If you would put all those things like around like that, and then you point where you are, you're at a say tens tens proper. And the graph, the graph is like, so you'd be seven, and then so it goes out like that. What's the name of that? Do you know that even what I'm talking about or not?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

The radar charts.

SPEAKER_05 19:57

Um, I don't think that's what they're called. Doesn't matter, but there's this graph that I've seen in it, and it and it plots multiple instead of a line, instead of a checklist, you can visualize it like so. You'd have all these in around the center, being you trying to get better.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, the center the center is zero, and then it they they go out to whatever your maximum is.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

So it's a really interesting thing. It's not like a star because there's too many points, but they they call it a radar chart. Oh, is that what it's called?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

It's the old type of radar that like sweeps around when you saw the old type of sonar.

SPEAKER_05 20:43

I I can visualize a radar chart instead of a checklist for this, a visual of that. I think you're right.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

I think that needs to happen.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

I'm gonna find a picture of one somewhere so you can see it to make sure I'm communicating properly.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

On that Galatians pass in the fruit of the spirit. Uh John writes it this way: he says, in fact, this is love for God to keep his commands, and his companions are not burdensome. If you're not having a smile on your face as you're doing battle with Satan, you don't get that. This is a beautiful thing, man. Yeah, there it is.

SPEAKER_05 21:40

Jimmy looking at I can't see. Yeah, sort of. I'm gonna yeah, yeah, that's it. It took me a while to see that. Yeah, something like that. And then you color in where you're going. It's just an interesting visual. I really like that. I'm glad you're gonna do this glacier. depth five twenty two can you can you send what you just showed uh Derek to me when you get a chance just of your favorite ones there's a slow i just think it's a really positive checklist can be I just think it's a real positive visual for it number two script send me a list of your favorite radar charts that's something I've never said to Tim Young nor has he said it to me in a in a Bible study or just in general just in general okay don't think I don't have them Trey I have a library of them I'm telling you I knew Derek would have an idea of what I was talking about no offense to the rest of you I I no we all knew Derek was the right source.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Yeah okay good good second scriptures it's a scripture on reaction time and de-escalation of a temptation so here's what the Bible says about that this this is how you handle temptations guys this is the nitty gritty of it all James 4 7 submit yourselves then to God resist the devil and he will flee from you how to use it track the fleeing notice how the intensity of temptation drops faster when you immediately turn to prayer and ask God and others for help and then there's the Ephesian one in addition to all of this take up the shield of faith with which you can distinguish all flaming arrows temptations of the evil one how do you use it evaluate the impact arrows will fly but progress means they are stopped at the point of your shield rather than piercing into and capturing our thoughts reaction time the first one was recognizing growth where are you growing where are you not growing the second one are scriptures that have to do with your reaction time de escalation this is how you defeat temptation number three this is my favorite one I don't know if any of you have ever heard uh there used to be a chant way back in the 19 uh it'd be the 1970s and I was in the pastor of a church and we had a young man uh Elthrot Doug Elsroth and I had him do one scripture chant every Sunday morning and it was usually due with the scripture I was preaching on on that particular day and here's how he did I don't think I can still do it but he put this as one of his chants and because of that this has been a major verse in my life now no temptation overtaking you but it's accept that was common to mankind that God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond that which you can bear but with every temptation also provide a way out so that you can endure it he did that in uh he had like a drumstick and he had a click behind it and I tell you what it was a beautiful way to memorize scripture and that's how that scripture became a part of my life so how do you use it look for the exit measure access by how quickly we look for and take the way out God provides in the moment did you see that in every temptation God always puts on our radar a way to escape always always do you look for the way of escape and then another one on the same pattern from Proverbs for through the righteousness for though the righteous us fall righteous fall seven times they rise again but the wicked are brought down by calamity so we who are christians we fall we stumble and we get back up we fall we stumble and we get back up we fall we stumble we get back up seven times but if you're the wicked well you could add that in another scripture in Matthew and oh which I was going to put here as well but too many scriptures what yeah so there we got it so scriptures on escape and recovery are getting these the I've given you scriptures in different areas where we defeat temptation here's the next one scriptures on mindset and focus this is an interesting one you recognize it immediately it's Romans 12 2 because we spend a lot of time on it do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind how's it going how you how's your renewing process of your mind going are you making progress any testimony you want to share with us today don't break through i just reread that last week oh good that class or that lesson so how do we use this one monitor our default thoughts progress means our automatic reactions look less like our past and more like our faith let me say that again look less at our path and more at our faith are we becoming a new you are people close to us commenting on what they're seeing new in our lives first peter 315 says they will they will stop you and hey what's going on in your life the Bible says that's what will happen so let me just pause because this is what I've been thinking so I like the idea back I'm going backwards the boundary concept I think that I have a shot a better shot let me say it like that a better shot to protect myself against my sin patterns my pet my traditional sin patterns I'm thinking through through how I don't think I do a as well of a job walking through life and measuring the temperature of the room so to speak meaning the sin quotient is just getting higher and am I examining it and I think I mean you're you're kind of addressing some of these things with with like Romans 12 here but how do you guys consciously think about or like uh attack those things in your mind or are you just like constantly processing this is a sinful environment or are you just walking into it I feel like I'm I'm maybe just walking into things naively or or maybe not with enough intentionality outside of my traditional sin but that I know this is areas that I failed in the past.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

That's a terrible question but that's what I was thinking I wonder what you guys do about the environmental kind of temperature in the room escalating and us being the lobster in the pot just swimming through it all that makes sense you have to call a name Tim um I'm I'm trying to understand what you're saying Tim I let me see if I'm I I think the thing that I struggle with is the the sin this I I see my sin patterns changing over time. The question is whether they're getting better or not you know I I seem to be going more from sins of commission to I think sins of omission um in life but it it feels to me like when I get on a sin pattern or or get control over a sin pattern I um you know the devil twists that a little bit um yeah and the the biggest twist that I keep falling back into these days is just exhaustion because I'm fighting those sin patterns myself instead of going to Christ so even though I'm able to overcome a sin pattern I'm it's white knuckle it's not yeah it's not free. Um so it is is that what you mean by temperature in the room or are you talking more about just the overall I I just I guess I'm one of the world it it's part of that I guess like I think that maybe I'm too too nice or too naive um outside of areas that I know of specifically that I struggle with right so should I be like and I think this is probably biblical um more defensive all the time I mean you know that that's kind of what I'm thinking in terms of my posture and the temperature in the room is I think balancing the like the other verse you had in there the joy the burden the burdenless carrying of God's action with I have to I'm on defense right we are all on defense towards Satan all the time because of his uh talents so to speak and so that's kind of the balance that I'm I think we see very clearly our pet sins I think the rest of it is kind of how do I handle that and not you know walk into something naively so are you asking about um the and when when you are you asking about should you be stronger in flipping tables in the temple versus um you know engaging quietly with somebody over a meal or something like that. Yes yes and and I I guess and you guys tell me if I'm wrong here this is something I've engaged quite a bit with in my Tuesday group um and I I've I've drawn several can conclusions out of that one we're not all the same part of the body so they're soldiers and they're medics in the church and sometimes you know you uh what's that movie out uh Hacksaw Ridge the conscientious objector um you know in in in in our world um there's a there's an elevating level of the of the Arnold Schwarzenegger type soldier or whatever and the and the conscientious objector and hacksaw ridge is is downplayed as a as a guy you know and I don't think I don't think in God's kingdom either of those are wrong positions. They both have their positions and I I think what you have to look at in or what I've concluded you have to look at is what is my what is my normal bent and is my normal bent against God and am I pulling back into you know somewhere am I pulling away from somewhere that he's pulling me um because it's just my normal position or am I leaning into the the gifts and and talents that he's given me as a as a soldier or a medic and uh looking at somebody else and saying you know their their gifts are different from mine and that there because their gifts are different from mine you know I'm not doing enough you know saying enough standing up enough whatever whatever that answer is. Yeah and so I think it's the gap between where we're being drawn by God and where we're being drawn by the world that we need to be aware of that helps us define whether the temperature in the room is a problem or not. But if I I go back to Romans 2 and and that you know kind of leans leans towards that judgment. I would look at people that were different from me and say hey you know I would the hairs on the back of my neck would rise up and I'd be like well that's not right and uh it wasn't you know sometime it was them sometime it was me um but but trying to get to that discernment requires a pause and requires uh an understanding of what that feeling is and I feel like the devil uses that to take us from a healthy place to an unhealthy place fairly quickly if we're not careful in judgment and in the Romans 2 thing I'm saying is essentially you'll be judged by the things you judge other people on. And it's funny how many times I've thought oh this person's you know got that problem only to see you know a couple weeks later that I was applying the exact same rules or or yeah or legalism to them that that that I thought they were applying to me. Okay. I don't know if that's helpful or if that even addresses what you're yeah that was good I I guess don't don't feel alone in that I I struggle with that on a daily basis if I'm struggling.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Just one observation on how you worded your question Tim you might find interesting you worded it in such a way that when you walk in the room you do a temperature check I I just want to a lot of temptations walk into your room instead of you walk into a room they walk into your room and that's one of the signs that you can say hmm where did that come from and that's the beginning of a temptation here is the final scripture and this is on mindset and focus and it's the Philippians 4 8 find it brothers and sisters whatsoever is true whatsoever is noble whatsoever is right whatsoever is pure think about these things and what that is saying is that you have mental real estate and if that mental real estate is not being filled with the categories whatsoever is true whatsoever is noble whatsoever is right whatsoever is pure if you haven't assigned that mental real estate to those things then you're replacing that space with temptations and they will linger okay I went through a bunch of scriptures and a bunch of things and personalization I wanted to add that to it when we were together we were talking about all these other things and we were going line by line how Satan used each line each verse each concept to bring Adam and Eve into the fall of all humanity and I don't want to go through all those again I think they're very important but we stopped right here on number three masking the lie with a partial truth when Satan said your eyes will be open and you will be like God that was the partial truth and that's how Satan was moving forward with leading her into the temptation for which all of us and all of humanity are still paying a price for that brings us to number four and that's where we left off right here Satan successfully transferred the battle from an external conversation to Eve's internal desires this is a big step. When temptation is facing us he has to take from external to internal and the Bible tells us exactly what those internal areas are and in the passage that we're in Genesis 3 he uses the word desires but John takes it another thing and I want to get into that so here it is for all this is uh actually from first john 216 this is one of those passages memorize for all that is in the world the desires of the flesh the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father but it's from the world so if we take those three categories and we unearth them this is what we come up with let's take them one at a time the lust of the flesh she saw that the fruit was good for food lust of the flesh appealing to physical appetite appetite appealing to physical appetite passion gluttony sexual immorality or physical comfort this is a big one physical comfort over obedience you're just a lazy bud too tired to get out and do something the lust of the flesh the lust of the flesh that's one of the doors through which temptation always goes through second one according to John according to Genesis three the lust of the eyes she saw that it was pleasing to the eye it caught her attention appealing to the aesthetic desire and possession appealing to materialism already came up in today's conversation when Tim said seven thousand square feet as compared to two thousand square feet appealing to materialism bigger houses covetousness wished I had a car like that the visual desire to Possess things outside of God's boundaries, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the final one the pride of life. She saw that it was desirable for gaining wisdom. Oh, I'll be smart. I'll be like God, appealing to self-exaltation, appearing to the arrogance, self-sufficiency, position, title, reputation, and the carving of personal glory, craving of personal glory to be independent of God. There are the three big doors, man. Which one's got your name on? They all do. Which one is happening with you right now? Oh, there's always one. Always one that's active. This is how sin happens. How temptation happens. Well, we got to one further, and I'm I I want to go on, but can't we can't do it because I want to give Jim time and turn it over to him. I'd like to hear this is a very different kind because I I I went really personal this time. I hope you're comfortable with that. Okay, Jim.

SPEAKER_05 45:42

So I'm not gonna, I'm not uh summarizing yet. I am gonna I think the this document for me, I think for me the power is to have this the part we did last week first, and then you have this reaction time stuff before that now in this document. I think it I think it loses its power. You're explaining all these things you have to do, but you have I if I was seeing this the first time, it wouldn't have been so powerful to me because I don't understand why I need to do all this. Where if you put back in the order where we did last week, and then this either is integrated into that point by point or follows after you've been completely awakened to this um process. Point made. I got it. Point made. Oh, okay. That was too easy.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Just so we're clear, he did not say point accepted. He did say point made.

SPEAKER_05 47:01

Oh that's a that thank you. And I usually parse words, so thank you, Trey, for helping me parse that better.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

You gotta watch the guy. He's he's tricky.

SPEAKER_05 47:12

Is that point made or point accepted, Lavon?

SPEAKER_03 47:18

I have to think about that.

SPEAKER_05 47:22

Very good, Trey. I got a little excited for myself for no good reason.

unknown 47:27

That's dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

No, no, you you have at least opened the door. There is consideration. I would put that under come let us uh consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. That's another good little encouragement for this.

SPEAKER_05 47:45

So everything was very, very, very good today, as usual. But this this Galatians 5, 22 to 23, um is so for me now, this is just for me, is so powerful because whether we call it a radar graph, or but the these points are all the points that um I want to I want to be better at, you know, and and to have this laid out now, so I think that's what helps me is laying it out, then it allows me to have thought about it. I tend to live sometimes in not thinking about what I'm looking at, and then I don't do anything about it. But as soon as I have it on a piece of paper, I I think, and I'm just talking to me, but for my humanness, it's is you know, where is my love? Where is my joy? Where's my peace, my forbearance? And and so to have those as as points to consider in in your life are it is really a strong way to um make sure you're working on them. Because I don't work on things that aren't what is it? If it's not if it's not your uh if it's not in your set of improvements, it's not necessary you're not improving, but you're not working to improve them either. I I think they have to be recognized. That's that's what I got out of today is you gotta get these things in front of you to work on them. It's just not natural to work on them. So would anyone like to add to that today, please? Good. Okay. All right, then I I will uh pray us out. Dear Lord, thank you for this time. It is as much a miracle when we meet on Friday to be with a group of men who believe in you, who want to be, who want to emulate you, but are poor examples of your son. But we are trying and we are working on it, and we are keeping our eye on you. It's the same miracle the sun comes up every day when we get together. Your power and what you show to us and what you provide for us, and the instructiveness of your word is beyond the pale. And Lord, I thank you for that, because without it, we would be lost at sea. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.