Good morning to everyone. I guess winter is upon us now, hey? But Michael assures me there will be some warm days yet, so we can look forward to that. 

We're studying 2 Timothy 3 and we've come to a really tremendous passage. We kind of worked to the end of chapter 3 last week. I want to go back to verse 13 and go into chapter 4 and really you could preach a lot of messages on this text about the inspiration of Scripture, the validity of the Bible, the transforming power of the gospel. What I really want to hone in on is a simple message this morning in verse 2 of chapter 4, preach the word. 

This is really Paul's heart in exhortation to Timothy here as to what he is to be doing and how that is the cure, God's plan, God's method for salvation, for regeneration, for fruitful living, for abundant life, for the glory of God. 

You know, it's interesting to observe in our culture the great pursuit, the quest of man to find cures, whether it be the cure for cancer, the cure for heart disease, or any other disease, or the cure for all my aches and pains and my lack of energy. And now, of course, we are super focused on a vaccine, a therapeutic, a cure for a virus. 

Billions of dollars are spent every year seeking after better health, a greater quality of life, the cure for some corruption in our bodies or our state of well-being, and so often there's no desire for what we know that we need, what we really must do in order to be healthy, to live in abundance. 

We know that eating well and exercising and avoiding things that damage our bodies or cause us to be sick is the way to be feeling well, to perform well, to have a general sense, a state of well-being. And yet we rather go after pills and gimmicks and quick fixes. Makes me think of that a lot. 

If you remember back in the 70s, they had that belt and you'd get in that belt and it was supposed to make you healthy, I don't know. But all kinds of gimmicks and quick fixes because we don't want to face up to the truth to do the hard work of searching out and implementing the true cures for the corruptions that plague us. 

And thus we especially in America are very sick people, running after false fixes, marketing gimmicks, and miracle cures and ignoring the truth and the hard work of maintaining health. This physical health situation is a great illustration of the spiritual health situation in our world as well. 

Men are quite willing to go after all kinds of strange and bizarre rituals and ceremonies and quick fixes to their spiritual maladies, but unwilling to face the truth, to go to the source of truth and seek the only cure for corruption. Religious men believe that all of the corruption in their lives can be atoned for in a weekly session of rites and rituals in a church. 

Non-religious men seek after all kinds of crazy cures for the corruption of sin in their lives that they cannot escape from horoscopes and necromancers to pharmaceuticals and self-help programs. Men are seeking a cure for the corruption on the inside, and yet so few are willing to go to the only source, the only cure found in God's Word. 

And unfortunately this worldly wisdom has had an amazing influence on the church as well. Whether it be the corruption of sin and the condemnation of the man and Adam, the cure of salvation, or the corruption of indwelling sin in the life of the believer, the failure to be fruitful, the church very often abandons the only cure in favor of the ways and means of the world, the wisdom and ideas of men. 

And we end up with teachers and preachers like Joel Osteen helping you to live your best life now. The truth is that there's only one answer to the corruption of spiritual death. There's only one answer to corruption of indwelling sin, and there's only one answer to living an abundant spiritual life for the glory of God. And that's really what our text is about this morning. 

A strong exhortation from Paul to Timothy concerning how he ought to conduct himself in the house of God. What is the answer to the spiritual corruption and the spiritual life of the church, and what is the role of the pastor-teacher? That's what we want to explore this morning. 

Let's look at our text in 2nd Timothy 3.13. Paul writes, "And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, in order that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. 

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you, be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." 

I've given you four points on the outline this morning: Corruption, continue, cure, and charge. 

Well, first in our text we see the reality of corruption in the church and false teaching and false teachers. This has been a theme of these pastoral epistles as well as all of the epistles of the New Testament and much of Jesus' warnings throughout the Gospels. 

Error, false teaching, corruption on the inside is the greatest threat to the church. One of the clearest passages on this is 2nd Peter chapter 2. I'd like for you to turn with me to 2nd Peter 2 and follow the words as Peter describes false teachers in the church. 

2nd Peter 2:1. "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 

And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. 

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly, and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. 

For that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment." 

Now listen to how he describes the false teachers, "...and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries. 

Whereas angels who are greater in power and might do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. 

They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you." They're in the church. "...having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are cursed children. 

They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. But he was rebuked for his iniquity. A dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet. 

These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness..." Isn't that a tremendous characterization of the false teachers, the televangelists, those kinds of... "...they speak great swelling words of emptiness." There's nothing to it. 

"...they lure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit and a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire." Not a very pretty picture. 

Peter says some interesting things in this passage about false teachers in the church. He says that they have escaped the pollution in the world by coming into the church, but they are slaves to corruption on the inside. 

You see, pollution is an external thing, corruption is an internal thing. There's corruption in the church in the form of false teachers teaching a false way of salvation, a false way of deliverance from the power of sin on the inside. 

False teaching, false Gospels, the ways the wisdom of this world cannot deliver from inner corruption. Timothy, as well as every preacher and every believer, had to deal with false teachers teaching a false way. And the answer is to preach the gospel, the truth of salvation through faith in Christ. 

The answer to the corruption of false teachers and teaching in the church is the truth, the Word of God preached and taught. And the answer to the problem of man, the inner corruption of sin, is the truth, the Word of God, the gospel. Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. That's a promise from Paul. 

But you must continue, continue in the things you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you've learned them. From childhood you've known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation, which is through faith in Christ Jesus. 

What is the cure for condemnation? What is the cure for corruption in Adam? Paul says it is the scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation. There's no other place to look, my friends. No other source for truth. Only the Bible, only the Word of God, only the holy scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation. 

And that is because they teach us the truth. They reveal to us who Jesus is and what He accomplished on the cross in His death, burial, and resurrection. And they give to us the promises of life eternal through faith in Him. 

Listen to some verses from God's Word. John 5:24, Jesus speaking, said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment but has passed from death unto life." 

Ephesians 1:13, "In Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory." 

Romans 10:17, "So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." The scriptures are clear, a man must hear the truth about Jesus. He must hear the gospel message, the words of God, and then he must believe, he must place his trust, his faith in Jesus alone and what he did on the cross as a substitute for my sin in my place. 

John 1:11 says, "He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in His name." We love John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved." 

Listen to verse 18, this is so clear. "He who believes in Him is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 

In verse 36 of that chapter it says, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. He who does not believe the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him." 

The Bible says that the men of this world, every man born in Adam is corrupt on the inside, dead in trespasses and sins, and that every man deserves the penalty of death, eternal death in the lake of fire. And the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, tell us that the only remedy to this condition of condemnation is to receive Jesus, that is to believe on His saving name. 

And that through faith alone and Jesus alone our sins are imputed to Him on the cross and His righteousness is imputed to us. This is the plan of God for the salvation of the world. The salvation of man. And only the words of God tell us these truths. Only the Scriptures can make us wise for salvation. 

So we see the answer for the corruption of false teaching and the answer for the corruption of sin and death and condemnation is the Word of God, the truth of the gospel, which tells us the truth about Jesus. And by hearing this truth, His words, we can exercise faith and receive salvation as a free gift. 

But as we know, justification is not the end of salvation. We've touched on this already. It's not just a positional righteousness that we receive at the point of salvation in Christ, but we are also made new creations in Christ. We are born again, as Jesus says, regenerated through faith. 

Let me ask you this. How do you know? How do you know that that's true? It doesn't feel true. I don't always experience this truth in my daily life. How do I know that I am a new creation, that I've died to sin, that I've died to the law, that I'm alive to God, that I've been united to Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, raised to a new life in Him? 

How do I know? Only by the words of God. Turn over to Romans 6, because as Sharon says, we should never pass up an opportunity to go to Romans 6, right? 

Romans 6:1, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized, now that word baptized means to be placed into, this is a dry verse, there's no water here, placed into Christ Jesus, were placed into His death. 

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. 

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin. 

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 

Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Paul says we must first know the truth of the Word, the Scriptures, and then Paul says we must reckon them to be so. 

We must count up the facts. What facts? The facts, the truth that God tells us in this book. Where else would you get these ideas? Where else would you find this kind of revelation of who Jesus is, what He has done, and who we are in Him by faith? Only in the Bible. 

Only in the Scriptures. So we must study God's Word, we must find truth here in this book alone, and we must reckon it, choose to believe what God says and take it as true, and then we must yield to Him, presenting our members as members of righteousness and consistency with who we are in Him. 

We were slaves to sin. We were corrupt on the inside. The answer to that dire situation, that corruption, was Jesus. Romans 8:1 says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It says the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, here's the glorious words, God did. God did. How did He do it? He did it by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. On account of sin He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 

Romans 6 tells us we died to the controlling power of indwelling sin. Romans 7 tells us that we died to the law that held us in bondage and now we live by the Spirit. We died to the bondage of fear of death. And Romans 8 tells us that Jesus came in the flesh, He defeated sin where it dwells, releasing us from the law of sin and death which formerly controlled us in Adam. 

The answer to corruption is Jesus, is salvation, full and complete salvation through faith in Him alone. And we only find this message, these words in the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation. 

So we see that there will be corruption in the church, false teachers, false doctrine meant to lead people astray, and that the answer to this is truth, is the Word of God. And we see that there is corruption in man and Adam, every man born in Adam, and that the answer to condemnation is salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as revealed in the words of God. 

Now the exhortation we see to Timothy in this context at the end of chapter 3 is to continue in these things, in these truths. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. 

Evil men will grow worse and worse, deceiving, being deceived. They will come into the church and rise up from within. What must the man of God do? Continue. Continue in the things which he has learned and been assured of, knowing from whom he has learned them, knowing the Holy Scriptures. 

The word continue here is the same Greek word used in John 15 where Jesus says, abide in Me. Abide, remain, stay, continue. We must continue, remain, abide in the truth, in Jesus. 

We looked at this in depth last week, but I just want to make this point here in the context of our study this morning. The answer for Timothy was to combat the error with the truth of God. He had from his childhood been taught the Old Testament. His mother and grandmother had come to Christ, presumably by Paul's missionary journey, and Timothy had been led to Christ and taught the truths of the New Covenant. 

And Timothy had spent so much time with Paul, learning, hearing the truth, seeing his example of life and ministry. Paul encourages Timothy to stay focused on the truth, the words of God, to continue in them, knowing, remembering, remembering his mother, his grandmother, remembering Paul. 

This is the key to beating back the error, preaching the truth consistently, focusing on the Word, the Scriptures, and this is what we will see as we move into chapter 4. 

We see corruption, the truth, the reality of false teaching and teachers in the church, sin, corruption of man. We see continue, the answer for the man of God for every believer, stay in the Scriptures, preach the truth, and then we see the cure for corruption, inside and out, the Holy Scriptures. 

Look at verse 16, please. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. In order that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." 

We've seen already in this epistle a charge to Timothy to study, to agonize over the words so that he might be a worker that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. This is the way that he can be prepared, that he can be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

What more do we need than that? If you're thoroughly equipped for every good work, for God's will in your life, what more do you need than that? And what is it that will thoroughly equip you? The Holy Scriptures. 

The answer for Timothy in every challenge he faces, every battle he fights is being grounded in the truth, thinking the thoughts of God, preaching and teaching the word and building up the believers so that they might be discerning. If it's false teachers, the truth is the answer. 

If it's holy living, as an example, a focus on the words of God, on Jesus, is the answer. If it's evangelism, it is the truth that is the answer, the gospel. If it's problems in the church and the lives of the believers, struggles, heartaches, trials, tribulations, sickness, death, Jesus is the answer. 

And only the Scriptures tell us about Jesus. The way for the man to be equipped for every good work is by the Holy Scriptures, by the words of God, and this is true for all of us. That's why in chapter 4 verse 1 Paul writes, "I charge you therefore. Preach the word." 

Here's Timothy's charge as a pastor preacher. It seems a straightforward command. But I want to just make one observation at this point. This is not what the church at large in our day sees as the way to reach people. It's not their way to accomplish the mission that God has given us. 

Faithful preachers from Paul to Timothy and Titus and many more through the centuries have been there to preach the word, to put their trust in the means that God has prescribed, the preaching of Christ Jesus, the foolishness of the message preached. 

But they have often been the minority, and progressively more so as we see the end of these last days on the horizon. And there's been an increasing push and pressure in the church to abandon the word preached as the method of God. 

We have a new heresy that's taken over our churches today, the church marketing philosophy promoted by men like Peter Drucker. Rick Warren said that he was under Peter Drucker's tutelage for 20 years, and that he learned leadership from him. 

Peter Drucker was Austrian-born, he's a disciple of Kierkegaard, the philosopher, and a practicer of Zen Buddhism, proclaims clearly that he's not a Christian. But he knows about business models, and he knows about marketing, and he knows how to give people what they want. 

George Barnes, a researcher who promotes these kinds of things, finds out what people want. We saw this begin in the 90s with marketing methods applied to how to do church, seeking to satisfy the consumer. But my friends, methods always become theology. Methods become theology. 

Barnes added again, teaching a whole new crop of millennial pastors how to reach the millennial market. Here's a quote from 2015 titled, What Millennials Want When They Visit the Church. And it finds that millennials don't like church because they do not find it to be relevant to them, and they generally find it boring. 

I won't trouble you with all the findings and conclusions from his marketing research, but I just want to point out that this is how most, if not the vast majority of pastors think. And it's not just the cool, young, relatable pastors in evangelical megachurches, but pastors of small congregations of denominational churches in the Midwest. 

I read one pastor in Iowa of a denominational church who said, "I've been reading a lot of Barna because he gives me a fresh way to view church." Is this what we need, my brothers and sisters? Is there a problem with the basic premise of a book titled, What Millennials Want When They Visit a Church? 

Is there a philosophical issue of trying to market the church, attempting to meet the demands of the lost consumers? Or as Bill Hybels called them, unchurched Harry and Mary. What does this necessarily lead to? Where is the scriptural justification? Where's the example in the life and ministry of Paul, of his instructions to Timothy and Titus? 

This is all a bunch of worldly garbage designed to send you down the slippery slope, my friends. The downgrade, as Spurgeon called it. This is not what I or anyone else wants when we come to church. 

The issue is sin and death and hell. The issue is that God has provided a Savior from His wrath, a Savior who died in my place for my sins and has delivered me not only from condemnation, but from the power of indwelling sin. The law, fear of death, has equipped me, has given to me all things that pertain to life and godliness. 

Jesus Christ lives in me and produces fruit through me as I abide in Him. These are the truths of the words of God. He's coming again to take me to be with Him for eternity in heaven. If it were not so, He would have told me. Jesus wins in the end. He will set up His kingdom. He will keep His promises to Israel. His grace and life are sufficient for me for every day of life. 

And my friends, He has a grand and important purpose for me in this world, to live for Him, to serve Him and to lead others to Him. These are the issues that matter. These are the doctrines that bring abundance of life that set everything in this world in perspective that produce fruit in my life for the furtherance of the gospel and the glory of God. 

The message is the method. What a lost person wants when he comes to church is not a consideration. What a lost person needs is what matters. And what he needs is the Word of God. 

Let me tell you something else. What a saved person needs is the Word of God. Notice it says in verse 3 of chapter 4, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine." 

To their own desires because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables." The time is upon us in the church. But what's the answer? 

Is the answer to compromise, to appeal to the flesh, to make church relevant worldly? Find out what they want and give it to them? There's nothing more relevant than eternity. There's nothing more relevant than sin and death and hell. 

There's nothing more relevant than Jesus Christ, His gospel, and His promises. What does Paul tell Timothy to do when they won't listen, when they want teachers who will scratch their ears, who will tell them what they want to hear, in fact, as George Barna suggests, give them what they want? 

Paul says, preach the word. Be watchful in all things and do our afflictions. Makes me think we're studying Daniel now and Gurney on Tuesdays. It makes me think of the prophets before, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. What'd they do? Preach the word. 

The word of the Lord came to me and said, thus saith the Lord. What'd they do with Isaiah? Sought him in half. What'd they do with Jeremiah? Threw him in a quagmire, left him for dead. Those were God's people, Israel. 

Preach the word. Preach the truth. Paul says, preach the word. Be watchful in all things and endure afflictions. Why would a young pastor like Timothy endure afflictions? Because he conforms to the world? 

Starts sliding down the downgrade, gives them what they want? No, because he tells them the truth and warns them that they must reckon with Jesus in the fact of judgment and sin. 

Do not do the work of an evangelist, he says. What does that mean, to do the work of an evangelist? Preach the gospel. Implore men to believe, to be reconciled to God. And he sums it up, fulfill your ministry. 

What was his ministry? To pastor, to preach, to tell the truth, to fight off error, to convict of sin, to correct, rebuke and encourage with the word, with the truth. It's been the consistent command through these pastoral epistles from Paul to preach the word, to give heed to the doctrine. 

And this is the final command he gives here in his final words as he awaits martyrdom in the Mamertine prison in Rome, where Nero will take him and separate his head from his body with the axe. This is the message he wants Timothy to get, to understand. 

It's not his job to be worldly, to be attractive to the world or relevant in a worldly sense. It's his job to preach the word, to give the truth so that men might believe and be saved, so that believers might grow and become discerning. 

I want to just read those last five verses, or first five verses of chapter 4 as we close. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. 

Let's just stop there for a minute. You see, it doesn't really matter what millennials want. It doesn't really matter what anyone wants when he visits a church. Not that we don't want to be welcoming and loving, and we are, but the idea of setting up a church to make lost men happy is not biblical. 

In fact, the local gathering is for the believers. It's for the equipping of the believers. We love to have guests come, lost people come in, but why? Because it gives them an opportunity to hear the gospel, to hear the truth, to meet and interact with true believers in Jesus Christ. 

Verse 1 of chapter 4 is the driving force of my ministry. It's what motivates me. It's what gives me the conviction that what I must do is preach the word because it doesn't matter what I want, or how I feel, or what I think, and it doesn't matter what you think either, or how you feel, or what you want, because here's the salient truth, my friends. 

Paul would stand before Jesus. Timothy would stand before Jesus, and I will stand before Jesus. I believe with all my heart that God's way prescribed in His word for ministry for church is the right way, the way that leads to fruit and to His glory. 

I believe preaching the word is what is best for you and for me and for the lost. But the reason, the main reason I must preach the word verse by verse, book by book and do my level best by His grace to say what He says is because my ministry stands or falls based on what Jesus thinks. 

I will stand before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead it is appearing in His kingdom. I'm accountable to Jesus. And Jesus told me right here in His word that what He wants me to do is preach the word. 

That's the end of the story for me. And it should be for every preacher. Not how do I grow my church, not how do I become more relevant, how do I please people, the question should be how do I please Jesus? How can I be effective for the kingdom of God? 

And Jesus has made His method very clear in His word. And the end of those five verses again, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. 

Be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. 

But you, you be watchful in all things. Endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. Paul's dying words to Timothy could not be more clear. The truth is what matters and the truth is found only in the words of God. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful, thankful for Your Word, thankful for Your Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth, who teaches us, who helps us to understand. Help us just to focus on what You've told us. Help us to know what is true by the words that You've given us. 

Help us to believe, to reckon what You say to be true, to judge all things by this book, Lord. Only You know the truth. Only You have revealed it to us through Your holy Word. Thank You for our salvation in Jesus. Thank You for this place, these people who have, like precious faith, a desire to know the Word, the truth and to be witnesses for You in this world. 

Give us opportunity, give us boldness and clarity in preaching the gospel so that men might be saved as You have commissioned us to do. Thank You, Lord, in Jesus' name.