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Well, it's me again. Take your 
Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 9. And I realize I have a couple 
of jobs to do. The first one, obviously, is 
to preach the Word of God to you. That is, I should make it 
understood, and my target is everyone. Even the kids here, 
I have you in mind when I preach, so it might make sense to you 
as well as to all of us. And it should be able to make 
sense. So that's my job. I see that 
as my job. It should be compelling as well. 
I'm not reading from a phone book. And then the other thing 
is, I understand that it's the latter part of the day. Most 
of us, I'm sure, have had a very good meal, and you might be actually 
tired. That's okay. It's on me to keep 
you awake. If you fall asleep, that's my 
fault, not yours. Remember Eutychus? He did fall 
from the second floor, I think, when Paul was preaching too long. 
Paul didn't reprove him. He raised him from the dead. 
So. Luke chapter 9, I'm going to 
read a very short section in your hearing. In verse 51, I'm 
sorry, verse 51 through 56. Now it came to pass, and the 
time had come for him to be received up, that he steadfastly set his 
face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face. 
And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to 
prepare for him. but they did not receive him 
because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. When 
his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do 
you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume 
them just as Elijah did? But he turned to rebuke them 
and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of, 
for the son of man Do not come to destroy men's lives, but to 
save lives. And they went to another village. 
Now, I want you to do some work tonight. Metaphorically speaking, if you 
could have a backpack, and I'm going to give you three things 
to hang on to. And then as I'm preaching through this passage, 
I want you to pull those things out of the backpack, because 
it will help make sense of the passes that we're looking at. 
The first thing is something I mentioned this morning. The 
Bible principally teaches two things. If any of you know anything 
at all about the Westminster Catechism, what is the scriptures 
primarily teach? They primarily teach what duty, 
what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires 
of man. So I want you to put that in 
your backpack and pull it out when we need it. In other words, 
what is it that we are to believe? What is it that we are to do? 
It should be expressed in God's word, especially what it is that 
we are to do. Second thing I want you to keep in mind is that there 
was a great prejudice between the Jews and the Samaritans. A great difference, a great controversy, 
a great prejudice between them. So much so that you had the Samaritans, 
which were in the northern part of Israel, and they were called 
half-breeds, and they adopted many of the false religions of 
their land. And then you have the Jews that 
were down in Judah, they worshiped at Jerusalem. And so you have 
this great prejudice. It got to a point where they 
didn't even talk to each other. And the third thing, which is 
closely related in light of this, is that there were two places 
of worship. One was Mount Gerizim, which 
is where Israel worshiped in Samaria. And then, of course, 
Jerusalem, which was in Judah. That's where the Jews went to 
worship. So take those things, stick them in your backpack. 
When I tell you to pull them out like an energy bar, we'll 
pull it out and hopefully it will be of help to us. Now, I 
think it's important for us to look at this in its context. And the context is that our Lord 
has had a goodly amount of miracles. He's also healed many people 
of their sicknesses. And so he has become well known 
as a prophet, but he's also been opposed by the religious leaders 
in this particular chapter. James and John and Peter go up 
to the mount and our Lord is transfigured there. Okay. When 
he comes down in Mark's account, he sees the scribes, arguing 
with the disciples because they couldn't cast out a demon from 
a boy. So there we already have fussing 
and fighting going on right there. Our Lord heals the boy and then 
our Lord also predicts of his death and then you have the disciples 
getting into an argument about who was going to be the greatest. So they're fussing and fighting 
about who's going to be the greatest. Then You have John coming to 
our Lord saying, we saw someone who's casting out a demon. He 
doesn't follow us. Should we forbid him to do that? 
Again, he wants to get into a little fight with this guy because the 
fact that he's casting out demons in Jesus name and he doesn't 
follow him. And our Lord forbids him to do that. That's the arena 
that we're in. The atmosphere of the day is 
that there was just a lot of bickering and complaining and 
fighting going on. And it would appear, that James 
and John have been affected by that. And we will see later on 
about that. But that's the atmosphere. That's the only word I can think 
of right now. It's just one of contentions. People were always 
at each other verbally as well as physically. Now, verse 51, our Lord is on a mission 
as he has an appointment to keep. And that is the will of his father And that was his suffering and 
his death, which is found in verse 44 of the same chapter. It says, let these words sink 
down into your ears for the son of man is about to be betrayed 
into the hands of the men. But they did not understand this 
saying. It was hidden from them. So our 
Lord knows that he has a mission. He is going to have to suffer 
the wrath of almighty God. And in order to help him with 
that, he has two blessings in his mind. The first one, we can 
see that from other scriptures because of the fact that he was 
going to bring many sons to glory. That was a blessing to our Savior. 
That's one of the reasons why he went to the cross. There's 
many other reasons as well, but there's a second reason too, 
the reason why he was going to the cross, and that is he was 
going to ascend. He was going to ascend. Now it 
came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up. Mr. Hendrickson, I like him a 
lot for commentaries, he writes that this can be translated, 
instead of being risen up, he ascended. He is going to ascend. And so it came to pass when the 
time had come for him to ascend. Now, we know what that is. That's 
after his death, after his resurrection, when he's received up into glory. 
Our Lord has this in his mind to be a help to him, to be a 
blessing to him, to strengthen him. Remember, our Lord, while 
he is fully God, he's also fully man. Same weaknesses as us. I mean, think about our death. 
I'm sure we're not exactly rejoiced in that, except for the fact 
that in the death of the Christian, we have a refuge. But still, 
there's that human factor that we have to die. There's suffering 
and death. There's just no way of getting around it. Our Lord 
takes it a step further because all of the sins of God's elect 
are gonna be on our Savior. That's quite a burden to bear. 
Tough enough for us when we come under conviction of sin to bear 
that sin, but now to bear the sins of the elect, our Lord does 
it though. But He knows He has a mission 
as He sets out for Jerusalem. If you want some references in 
regards to ascension, which verify, I think this is his ascension 
that he's speaking of. Mark chapter 16 talks about him 
being received up into heaven. 16, 19, Acts 1, 2, he was taken 
up into heaven. And of course, 1 Timothy 3, 16, 
when you're looking at the attributes of our Lord, one of them was 
that he was received up into glory. So now we're going to 
verse, 52 is my pattern is I like to explain a text and that's 
what we're going to do. We're going to go verse by verse here. Verse 
52 is even though the final destination was Jerusalem, our Lord sends 
messengers to find lodging in a Samaritan place. OK, I'm going 
to want you to give me a little bit of liberty here. I think 
it'll make sense as we get to the latter part of this verse. 
But I think that when they went there, it appears that the messengers 
were successful in securing a place of refreshment, a place they 
could spend the night, get some food, and continue on to Jerusalem. 
I think they got permission to do that. It was our Lord's custom 
to send men ahead of a village that they're going to. Obviously, 
the one that comes to mind is when our Lord goes to celebrate 
his last Passover with his disciples, he sent two disciples to make 
the room ready. I think he does the same thing, 
and I'm pretty certain it's James and John that go ahead and get 
permission from the leaders of that village. They could stay 
there and get refreshment. Okay. But something happens in 
verse 53. The Samaritans change their mind. They are not going to allow Peter, 
James, John, the other disciples, as well as our Lord, to stay 
there. And I think it's because of the 
temple issue. I think that's the reason why. First of all, 
in John 4, 20, you can turn there or just listen. Remember, our 
Lord meets a Samaritan woman at the well. And they get into 
a discussion about worship. And in verse 20, the Samaritan 
woman says this, our fathers worship on this mountain, that's 
Mount Gerizim. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem 
is the place where we ought to worship. So the controversy of 
where to worship was still alive and well. However, our Lord's 
face was set for Jerusalem. He was going to go to Jerusalem. 
If Jesus and his disciples would have worshiped at Mount Gerizim, 
it would have given validity to Mount Gerizim's place of worship. because Jesus is a prominent 
teacher. He's a prominent healer, a prophet. And if he and his disciples would 
have stayed there and worshiped at that particular temple, it 
would have brought controversy to his ministry, which our Lord 
is approaching a time where that is eventually not going to be 
very important. Where to worship? Because he says to the Samaritan 
woman, John chapter four, there's going to come a time It's not 
going to matter where you worship because God is seeking those 
who worship Him in spirit and in truth. Obviously, what I'm 
saying here is that you're not supposed to go look for other 
places of worship. Your members here, you should be here worshiping 
God. If you're away, you're away. But I'm saying all that to say 
that there was definite controversy and if our Lord and His disciples 
had decided to stay there, There's no need to get involved in secondary 
issues, which our Lord did not want to. So, as a result, verse 
54, James and John are upset. When they saw this, they said, 
Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven 
and consume this village? That's why I think it's, I'm 
pretty certain it's James and John. They probably went, they 
got permission, They find out that is Jesus coming. Oh, maybe 
we can get him to go to Mount Gerizim and worship there and 
then we can gain some more validity. Our Lord doesn't get involved 
that because he has his face set for Jerusalem. James and 
John get upset with these Samaritan leaders and in the spirit of 
their day, they ask our Lord, You want us to command fire to 
come down from heaven and consume this village? Now, where did 
they get that? We all see it from Elijah. I'm 
curious. Do you know where that's at by 
any chance? If not, that's no great sin. But it's in 2 Kings 
1. And it's during the time of the 
kings of Israel continuing to fall away from the Lord. And 
his name is King Ahaziah. He happens to be the son of Ahab 
and Jezebel. Ahab's already died. Ahaziah 
has adopted the religion of Jezebel. He is an idolater following the 
god of Ekron, Beelzebub. He's on his roof. He falls and 
he's injured seriously. So he calls his messengers to 
say, can you go and find out if I'm going to recover from 
this injury? So the messengers, they are going 
to go to the prophets of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron. And Elijah 
is on a hill somewhere and an angel of the Lord comes to him 
and says, this has happened to Ahaziah. We want you to intercept, 
I want you to intercept the messengers and ask them, is the reason that 
there's no God in Israel, that's why you're going to inquire of 
Beelzebub and tell them, thus sayeth the Lord, the king will 
not recover from his fall. So, Elijah intercepts the messengers, 
does exactly what I've just brought out. The messengers turn heel, 
and they go right back to their king. King said, what are you 
doing here so quickly? It's taking you so long. I mean, what took you so long 
to get back here, so to speak? I'm using sarcasm there. They 
said, well, there's a man that told us The reason are we going 
to the God of Ekron is because there's no God of Israel here. 
And this man also told us that you will not recover. Ahaziah just says, OK, I'm going 
to get a captain, 50 men, go get him. He says, by the way, 
what does this guy look like? He says, a hairy man with a belt. 
He says, that's Elijah. He sends his captain with 50 
men. And normally, when a king sends a captain and 50 men, it 
wasn't to invite you to dinner. It was, he's going to harm Elijah. So the captain and 50 men, they 
arrive there at the hill. Elijah's up on the hill, and 
he calls out. The captain says, man of God, 
come down. The king commands you to come 
down. Elijah says, if I'm a man of God, may fire come down from 
heaven and consume you, which it does. Ahaziah doesn't even 
get phased by it. He sends another captain with 
50 men. They do the same thing, the same thing happens. Again, 
Ahasuerus, he does it again. It's like he's going to keep 
sending people until there's no one left in the land of Samaria. But he 
sends a third captain. This third captain humbled himself 
before the king, before Elijah. And he said, spare my life. We come peaceably. Please come 
down. God tells Elijah, he's not going 
to harm you. Go down and tell that king he's 
not going to recover. Elijah does that, the man dies. 
The issue is, is that Elijah did indeed call fire down from 
heaven to consume that 50. James and John were very much 
aware of that story. And they thought, like many people 
think today, hey, if it's in the Bible, I can do it. Hey, 
if Elijah called fire down from heaven, I can do it. A lot of 
people say that these days. Hey, if it's in the Bible, I 
can do it. You know, I can, if I can speak in tongues and it 
happened in the New Testament, I can do it. Great. Peter walked 
on water. Go walk on the Pacific Ocean. 
God hasn't commanded it. Now let's pull that thing out 
of our backpack. Has God commanded us in any time to command fire 
to come down from heaven? Did he ever command James and 
John to do that? No. However, let's not be too 
strict on James and John. At least they asked permission, 
even though I think their intention was definitely sinful. So, Now 
our Lord is going to rebuke them. He's going to correct them by 
advising them that they do not understand the ministry of salvation 
and life as opposed to judgment and death. Salvation for lives 
and souls. That was the ministry of our 
Lord. Look at the amount of people 
that He healed. Look at those who were relieved 
from demon possession. Look at how our Lord forgives 
sins. His ministry was not one of destruction 
of men's lives, but to preserve their lives. He fed 4,000. He 
fed 5,000. Our Lord's ministry was so different than the Pharisees and the Sadducees 
and the religious leaders. When our Lord raised Luke from 
the dead. What did those religious leaders 
do? Not only were they plotting how to kill our Lord, they were 
plotting how to kill Lazarus. This was the atmosphere of the 
day. And you can see in our context, 
they come down from the mount that our Lord was transfigured 
on. Sadducees are arguing with the disciples. Later on, The 
disciples are arguing about who's going to be the greatest. Later 
on, John is upset because someone is casting out demons. It's just, 
they've adopted part of the ministry of the Sadducees. Our Lord is 
saying, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of. As a result, our Lord is very 
long-suffering and he teaches them. This is not my ministry 
of destruction. My ministry is one of salvation. And the greatest blessing is 
that he has authority at this time on earth to forgive sins. 
And he has authority in heaven to forgive sins through his shed 
blood, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension. This 
is the blessing of our Lord's ministry. He came during a time 
of great violence. and He is the Prince of Peace. 
What a difference, what a difference our Lord was, and He shows it 
right here. Now, getting back to James and 
John, I'm not gonna lift them off that easy. They had pride, 
they had revenge, they did not have a holy, humble, gracious 
spirit, but they were sinful. And though they may have called 
it zeal for the Lord, They were not imitating our Lord's ministry. 
They had been with our Lord for a few years. They had not learned 
that part of our Lord's ministry. And I've got to ask the question, 
can it be that that Samaritan village later on hears the word 
of God from Philip and is converted? I'm only asking the question. 
If you go to your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter eight, And I think I'm kind of a positive 
guy. What I mean is I'm not living 
in a fool's paradise where everything is roses, but I want to believe 
that at times when people rejected the gospel, God had mercy on 
them later on. In Acts 8 5-6, Then Philip went down to the 
city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes, 
with one accord, heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and 
seeing the miracles which he did." I'm simply asking the question, 
can it be that some of those here, maybe all of them here, 
that had rejected our Lord did not allow he and his disciples 
to stay, that they heard that word from Philip and were converted? 
It just doesn't hurt to ask that question. Can it be that they 
were converted? Could be, could be. But I like the way that this, 
our story ends here. No fire fell from heaven. Look 
at that. It says, and they went to another 
village. Now my Bible, right or wrong, all of our Lord's words 
are in red, okay? So you have all this fire, so 
to speak, from his disciples. You want us to call fire down 
from heaven? Our Lord, you know, He gives them command. And then 
there's a contrast there and it says, and they went to another 
village. I love that. They went to another village. 
Our Lord doesn't consume them. He doesn't rebuke the Samaritans. 
Hey, you said that we could stay here. He doesn't do any of that. 
He goes to another village. You see the, I say this with 
all reverence, you see the courtesy of our Lord, the kindness of 
our Lord. He doesn't bend to the opinion 
of James and John, but they just simply go to another village. Our Lord is not argumentative. 
He's not contentious. He has good manners, if you will. There's a time when our Lord 
would dig his heels in with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and 
the Herodians. But here he shows mercy. to an 
ignorant village. An ignorant village. And what 
did they do? They simply went to another village. Crisis averted, 
if you will. Well, there's some points of 
application. And the first thing is, the blessing 
before our Lord of His ascension helped Him to go forward to the 
cross. The blessing of heaven of our 
sins forgiven, our future, the blessedness of being in Christ, 
of having the righteousness of Jesus Christ will help all of 
us in our daily walk. It will give us that shot in 
the arm. We were talking with brethren, I think it was on Friday 
night, one of the blessings of the Lord's Day is that for six 
days, it's difficult. That's why it's good for us to 
read our Bibles, to pray, to have those family devotions. 
But the Lord's Day was meant for God's people because we are 
affected by unbelief. It does indeed have an effect 
upon us. And when we come into this place, 
The blessing of being in Christ, of having our sins forgiven, 
of God being for us and not against us, Him loving us with an everlasting 
love, helps us in our day-to-day struggle with temptation and 
sin, our sickness and our death. Seven years ago, I had cancer. I did not do very well. I wish 
I could say, oh yeah, it was great. I was victorious and came 
out of it. I crumbled to a piece of bread 
is what I did. It was not easy. It was just 
simply not easy. But the thing that helped me 
get back on my feet, get back in the pulpit after years of 
struggling with it was the blessing of Jesus Christ. I have loved 
you with an everlasting love. I have saved you from your past 
sins. Again, going back to where I 
was, and I'm sure some of you have that same story, is we were 
headed for destruction. And yet, He had mercy on us. And for us to receive up into 
glory, to see our Lord face to face, helps us in our day-to-day 
walk. Remember this, brethren, when 
the Lord Jesus comes back, these old bodies that we have that 
will eventually go into the ground, we get resurrected bodies. No more sin, no more remembrance 
of sin, and no more consequence of sin. And as you get older, 
some of you young guys don't understand this yet, us older 
guys do, everything hurts. That's just the bottom line. 
It's part of the curse of Adam. But we now, as we've gotten older, 
realize that these bodies that we lay down, we will get glorified 
bodies when the Lord Jesus comes back. If we happen to die before 
he comes back, we get to go and be with our Lord, absent from 
the body, present with the Lord. See his face. We will see his 
face. And so that's the thing to encourage 
us and to help us in our daily walk as our redemption draws 
near. When you get up in the morning, 
if you can do this, try to remember this. Kids, you need to do this 
too when you get up in the morning. Say, one day closer. You're one day closer to eternity. 
We all got up one day closer to eternity. Now for the Christian, 
we say with a smile on our face. The unbeliever, he doesn't. Because 
he thinks this is all that he has is this life. So he's got 
to take life and suck everything out of it that he can, because 
this is all he has is this life. That's why they say after their 
friends die, well, you know, we got to make the most of the 
day. Most everything that we can of this day, let's take it 
and grab it and hang on. That's all they have is this 
life. But we say calmly, with a smile upon our soul, knowing 
that God is for us, Another day closer. Another day closer to 
glory. Another day closer to eternity. 
Thankfully, another day closer of leaving our remaining sin 
behind us, that dead body of ours behind us. That doesn't 
mean we shouldn't try to take care of our bodies. We should. 
Our bodies are a stewardship that God's given to us. We should 
do what we can to be in, you know, reasonable shape, a better 
quality of life. You will enjoy things more that 
way, but we want to glorify God in our bodies. Secondly, We are 
not, in this life, to desire the destruction and judgment 
of the ungodly, but we are to desire their salvation. Christians are not to be persecutors. Let the governing authorities 
bear the sword of wrongs done in society, but let not the church 
Let not the Christian practice vengeance. May Christ's ministry of reconciliation 
by His death, His resurrection, His ascension, Him being King 
of kings and Lord of lords, may that be our message. We have 
been saved from so much. And think about how gracious 
God has been to us And as a result, think about 
the one before you came to Christ, about how kind they showed, the 
kindness they showed to you. My brother Jim came to me and 
I was probably the last person on earth that someone would think, 
this guy is going to be a Christian one day. He's going to be a pastor 
one day. You would not recognize me 44 years ago, but my brother 
showed kindness to me and witnessed to me And he just had to say 
a couple of words, God use it, and I was off to the races after 
that. I had to flee from my sin and flee to Jesus Christ. Many 
of you, I'm sure, have stories like that about how kind people 
were to you, even just to invite you to church, give you a Bible, 
give you a track, even preach to you Jesus Christ. We've been 
saved from much. And as a result, Christians should 
not be persecutors. We don't win them with a sword, 
we win them with love. Love goes a long way, and if 
they don't hear you, go to another village, move on to the other 
person, or be ready to give that answer for the hope that lies 
within you with meekness and with fear. So take your time. Even if they may not hear you, 
you keep going to them if there's a door that's open. You're not 
to be contentious, and you're not supposed to get into fistfights 
with people. My youngest brother, Mike, fell 
away. He made a profession of faith. 
He fell away. Every time I talked to him, he just said, back off. His wife dies tragically. He 
contacts my brother, Jim, and I, and he talks to us every night, 
and he wants to talk about the Lord. And the only advice I could 
give him when he made his confession, he was confessing his sins, I 
said, Mike, it's great you're confessing your sins, but go 
to the Lord for that. You've sinned against Him. And 
he just said, I just don't know what to do. I said, start reading 
your Bible. And if you start reading your 
Bible, and I was thinking, I know he will be reading his Bible 
because he'll have questions. I mean, you read your Bible, 
you've got questions. And he did, and he started calling 
my brother and I all the time with all these questions, and 
the Lord saved him. We don't give up. We pray for 
their good, regardless of how contentious they may be, how 
angry they may be. Be careful. There's no need for 
you to cast pearls before a swine, and you don't tell them that. 
You don't cash your pearls before swine, but if need be, just simply 
go to another village, go to another person and see if maybe 
an axe ate happens to them where they hear that word gladly. Sometimes 
they simply will not hear us. Maybe they will hear another 
person. That's okay. That's fine. We desire for their 
good, but we are not to be persecuted. There has been so much destruction 
done by those who make a profession of the Christian religion, and 
they murder people, imprison them. Just look at the history 
of those who claim to be, you know, God's people. And they're 
persecutors. When you take a look at the Protestant 
Reformation, what Mr. Luther had to escape, I should 
tell you something. The Roman Catholic institution 
as an institution of blood. They've been like that for years. 
They've changed now. They're a chameleon. They will 
continue to change. My dear brethren, let's pull 
out that backpack. What has God commanded us? What has he commanded us to believe? 
What has he commanded us to do? We are to be kind. gracious, compassionate, just 
as God was kind and compassionate towards us. So hopefully, if 
we ever burned a bridge, let's try to go back and repair it, 
if you will. I was a black sheep of my family. My family threw a party when 
I left home, but I was an ungodly man. Things did not go well with 
my parents and I. When I became a Christian, things 
changed. I went to them, told them I was wrong. I should have 
obeyed them. They were the authority that 
God had given to me. And I asked them to forgive me, and they 
did. And we patched up. Sad thing is, is that because 
of the fact we were no longer Roman Catholic, they eventually 
kicked us out of the family. It happens. But that doesn't 
mean I closed the door on them. The door's open. And then my 
dad saw that I was not the man that I used to be. I had my wife. I loved her. We have kids. We 
were raising them. They couldn't argue with the 
results that was going on in our family. And so he opened 
the door. We gladly came in, even though 
I think I rejected that. My wife said, we should go back. 
I was real upset with my parents because they had kicked me out 
of the family because of my religious convictions. And then I just 
said, well, I don't want to go back there again. And my wife said, 
no, you should go back. I disagreed with her. She said, let's go 
talk to our pastor. I know what he's going to say. 
So we met with him. He said, you should go back and be reconciled 
to your parents. And I did. And I'm thankful that I was. 
But God's word teaches us about being winsome. He who wins souls 
is wise. So we want to have wisdom and 
being of help to one another. Our interaction with others is 
not to be physically harmful, not to be calling names. I do 
not go on social media. I just, every now and then I 
pirate Karen's account. But what I see that goes on is 
an embarrassment. Guys fussing and fighting over 
things in a public arena. Oh, shouldn't do that. They're 
obnoxious and contentious. is you just go to another village. 
Stop the fighting, stop the bickering, especially among brethren. Or 
sometimes books are published and it's because one teacher 
has a vendetta against another one. I think we do a lot better 
when we're united. And even though we may have differences, 
if those differences aren't enough to lose a flee over, let them 
go. Let them go then. You'll find that with family. 
You'll find that with friends. And we want to be gracious to 
them. We want to be that one that they 
come to, if need be, because we've been kind to them. We've 
been gracious to them. We should make the main truth 
be the main truth. And don't get involved into debates. I am against debates. I'm against 
any public arena where you allow your opponent to spew his filth 
out of his mouth and then you come in afterwards and try to 
disprove it. I just don't see debates being 
commanded from God's Word. I just don't see it. I think 
there's a lot of harm doing it. Granted, some may be converted 
by it, or some that do believe may fall away from it. But I 
don't want to give a false religionist the platform to spew out his 
filth. His mouth should be closed. We 
should preach. We should teach. We should be 
ready to give that answer that's within us. I think our Lord's 
example here is phenomenal. There is that prejudice. We pull 
that thing out of our backpack again. The prejudice between 
the Jews and the Samaritans. In my country, the prejudice 
is against the Democrats and the Republicans. It's amazing 
what goes on there. Those prejudices should be put 
asunder. It's not an issue of the gospel. 
At times it is, but we need to be very, very careful of fighting. Fight for the right 
things, but make the main truth the main things. Especially the ministry of our 
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So he turned to them and rebuked 
them and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are 
of. Here's the blessing. The Son 
of Man did not come to destroy man's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. 
Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank 
you for how you have changed our heart. You've given us a 
new nature and you've granted unto us the righteousness of 
Jesus Christ in heaven. Our account is blessed. We are blessed. We thank you 
for the righteousness. We thank you for his wonderful 
work of regeneration within us. Oh Father, we at times fall over 
our words out of thankfulness for how kind, merciful, and gracious 
you have been to us day in and day out. Even when we sin, oh 
Father, we sin against great light. We acknowledge our sin 
before you and trust you will forgive us and grant unto us 
a new spirit. Hear our prayers. Grant unto 
us a blessed week. Preserve your people from temptation 
and sin. Save our young, our children. Have mercy upon their souls. 
And we pray, O Father, that the word that we have heard this 
day, morning and evening, would remain within us, that we might 
grow in your grace and knowledge to begin to form more and more 
to your Son's image. hear our prayers, answer our 
requests for your glory, and for the good of our souls, for 
we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.