Skip Heitzig - A Sermon on Six Legs
So there was a little boy who was so lazy that he couldn't wake up early in the morning, and his mom was trying to fix that. So one day, mom sat on the edge of his bed and said, son, and he kind of opened his eyes barely. She said, I'm going to tell you a story. And I want you to tell me what you learn. And so he said, OK. And so she said, there were two birds, and one bird got up really early every morning. And the little bird that got up early every morning found plenty of bugs to eat. And with those bugs, this early bird was able to feed herself and her family.
But the other bird would never get up in the morning, slept in every day. And when he finally got up, there was no food for him to eat. So, she said, son, what is the moral of the story? What have you learned? The little boy said, well, the story tells me that bugs that wake up early get eaten by birds. This is a highly unmotivated young man. We're in a series we've called the Hustle and Grind. It's essentially a theology on work. And if you remember, we started with the concept that work is something that is honorable, that God Himself worked.
He created the heavens and the Earth in six days, and on the seventh day, He rested. But first, He worked. First, He built. He exerted energy, we would say, from a human standpoint. And then, the first thing that He did, or one of the first things God did with the man and woman that He created, was put them to work in the garden to tend to it. So He gave him a job. But then we looked at the concept of working too much. How you can take something that is honorable and good and take it to an extreme. And we talked about the danger of overworking and being too committed to one's status in life and one's job.
Then, we looked at rest, the concept of the Sabbath Day. We did two whole weeks on the Sabbath. What it means to take a break, what it means to revitalize your body, rejuvenate your mind. And so we looked at rest. Today, I want to talk about the danger of over rest. See, we're sort of following the gamut. We're looking at what is good, but something taken to an extreme. And then, now, rest, something that is good but taken to an extreme. The danger of over rest, we would call this laziness. The old term for laziness is the word sloth or slothfulness. You probably have never heard a sermon on sloth, unless you have come here for any length of time. You would have heard a sermon on sloth if you lived a century ago.
You would have heard lots of sermons on it. It was very common in churches for preachers from pulpits to address the concept of laziness or slothfulness. In fact, it was under a list that had been known for a long time as the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins comes from medieval times from around 600 AD, that's when it first showed up. It really originated from the Catholic Church. It was a list of what they called capital vises or cardinal sins. They were excessive versions of natural desires. And the list was as follows. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
That list was first compiled by one of the Catholic popes, Pope Gregory I in 600 AD. And the church taught that people who commit those sins could never be forgiven, could never be forgiven. Of course, that is not true. You can be forgiven for any sin, the Bible says, except one, which is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. But every manner of sin, the Bible says, you can be forgiven for. So that's not true. It is true, however, that laziness is a real issue. And largely, it is an overlooked issue. In fact, I would venture to say that laziness or slothfullness would rank right around the top of the most underrated sins. Nobody really thinks much about that as being problematic.
Well, the word that Solomon uses to describe a person who is lazy, you will see in our text in Proverbs chapter 6 is the word sluggard. Sluggard. that's the biblical term. It shows up 17 times in the Book of Proverbs. 17 times, Solomon the author speaks about or to sluggard. Even the name sounds bad. You sluggard. It means a loafer, an idler, a slug, a slouch, a couch potato, a lazy bones, a hater of work, could go under many different monikers. I do think it is a message that is needed today. There is something, I don't know if you've read about it lately, but it's in virtually every news source the last several months.
It's called the Great Resignation. Have you heard about that? The great resignation. If you follow news cycles, you'll see it. It'll pop up. The Great Resignation is simply this phenomena that people everywhere in this country are quitting their jobs. They're leaving the workforce. Now, there's a number of reasons for the great resignation. Everything from people who are scared of a virus, to just not wanting to get out anymore because they're used to being locked up, to they don't want the 9:00 to 5:00 job they had, and they want an entrepreneur their own life, and kind of call their own shots, and do start up businesses. There's a number of reasons.
But according to the US Bureau of Statistics, in August alone, a single month, 4.3 million people quit their jobs, left the workforce. And there's even a movement. And it's called the anti work movement. The anti work movement. It's a group of people in love with the idea of a work-free life. Anti work movement. The slogan for the anti work movement is unemployment for all, not just the rich. Unemployment for all. Nobody should work. Now, you might think, what, a couple of wingnuts are a part of this, maybe 20, 30, maybe 100. Over one million today are part of the anti work movement. I'm going to throw out my opinion.
I'm a Bible teacher, but can I just speak to our culture, our American Society for just a moment? I believe that we as a society made a grave mistake back in the 1960s. Back in the 1960s under the Johnson Administration, the idea of a war on poverty came up. Maybe you've heard that term, the war on poverty. It sounds so noble. It sounds so good. Who wouldn't be against poverty? We all should be. It's a biblical mandate to be helping those who are in need, those who are poor.
But as an American culture, we came up with the war on poverty, which basically disincentivized people from working. And there it is. We're going to give you whatever you need, wherever you want, and you will eventually see this as your God-given right. You don't have to work for it, but you can still want whatever it is that people who work for it get. That was all a part of the war on poverty. It produced millions of people who would not work but still wanted all the stuff that you get.
Now again, this is my opinion. But I think the best thing governments can do with wealth is to give that wealth to people who generate more wealth. Actually, who create jobs. I think the stupidest thing you can do is to give your money to governments who will dole it out to people who will not work. So I'm sorry, that's first Skip 101, but now back to the Bible. I'm calling this message, this little message on Proverbs 6 a sermon on six legs, because the star of the sermon itself is an ant.
Solomon, the author of the Book of Proverbs takes us to the anthill to learn a lesson from the ants. Ants, what the American Pest Society, and yes, there is one, says is the number one nuisance in America. The number one nuisance. Now, I can think of other nuisances far worse. I won't name them. But they say ants are.
Now, when I was a teenager, I made it a point to step on every ant I could find. When I was a young kid, I would take magnifying glass and burn ants in the yard. Today, we spray them with Raid when they come in our kitchen. I've had a lot in my kitchen lately, and bedroom. They sort of follow me around the house.
But today, we're going to learn from them. They're going to become our teachers. So in Proverbs 6 verse 6, we begin. "Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Which having no captain, overseer, or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man." That's the text, and it's very simple. We're going to look at this in two slices.
We're going to look at ants and then the sluggard. We're going to consider the ants pattern that Solomon gives, and then the sluggard's plight. Now, we begin by noting that Solomon gives a direct challenge to a lazy person in this text. And it's sort of humorous because in verse 6 he says, "Go to the ant, you sluggard", and we don't know exactly who he's writing to or if he has somebody in mind. But I'm going to give you just a thought. If you go back to verse 1, what is the first two words say? "My son."
Now, we do know that Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs to his son. The first part of the whole book is front loaded with, I'm writing to you, my son, listen, my son, listen to the words of your father, and watch your mother and your father's example. And he writes repeatedly to his son. I don't know if he's writing to Rehoboam or he has another son in mind. But again, in chapter 6, "My son, if you become surety for your friend." So it could be that he had a messy son, he had a son who was a slob when he was young, who wouldn't clean up his room in the palace, and he got frustrated because, you know what? Just, there's plenty of ants in your room.
Go watch them. Go look at them. Nobody has to tell them to clean their stuff up. They just do it on their own. It could be that he had that in mind for his own son. We don't know.
But we do know this. Ants are some of the most successful of all creatures. When I say successful, I mean, of all of the insects, these people are, or these people, these creatures are survivalists. There are over, first of all, there are over 12,000 different species of ants.
There are approximately one quadrillion ants on Earth. And I know that doesn't mean anything, but it's 10 with 15 zeros after it. That's how many ants are in the world.
To give you perspective, that's just a little over one million ants for every single human being on Earth right now. Again for perspective, if you took every human on the planet and put them on one side of a giant balancing scale and every ant in the world on the other side of that balancing scale, the ants would weigh more than the humans. They're very, very successful.
They're everywhere. Ants have conquered the world. They're on virtually every continent except one, Antarctica. Antarctica. It's interesting, isn't it? You'd think they'd be there, but they're not.
Ants are even in space. You go, space? How'd they get there? Well, in 2014, eight groups of ants were sent to the International Space Station.
You think, why on Earth would we export that? Well, they just wanted to see if they'd survive. I mean, they survive everywhere else just about. Let's put them in space.
Let's see if they survive. Let's study them and see how they adapt and change to different conditions. So there are ants in space. But as to our text, Solomon notes three things about these ants.
They produce, they provide, and they prepare. They produce, they provide, and they prepare. First of all, they produce.
Verse 6, "Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Which having no captain, overseer, or ruler." Now, you've got to know this about ants. They're very organized. Highly organized.
They organize themselves into colonies called formicarries. And they're sort of like modern cities. If you study them, and those who do study them have found out that they organize their food and their shelter. In these colonies, there are streets, and supply rooms, and hatcheries, and barracks.
And these colonies can go from just a few ants to 20 million ants in one colony. 20 million. That's like Tokyo plus. And in fact, there are some colonies called super colonies in certain continents that have over 300 million ants.
There are colonies connected to other colonies and they are organized and they communicate. And in the ant world, it's all volunteer. Everything is a volunteer army. There's no guide, there's no leader, there's no president, there's no governor, there's no prime minister, but they all work.
Nobody has to tell them to clean their room, nobody has to tell them to take the trash out. They just do the work. They do the work. In fact, there are even, among some ants, things called soldier ants that kill the ants that refuse to work. So they produce.
And they divide up the workforce among the different types of ants. So queens have only one job. Lay eggs. That's their job. And they are protected their whole life because they lay the eggs.
All the other female ants are the worker ants. They're the ones that feed the larvae, they take out the colony's trash, they forage for food, they defend the nest. The male ant's only job is to mate with the queen. It's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it, I guess. I know some guys who think that's their only job in life.
But the ants work continually. They keep, get this, they keep regular shifts. Regular shifts for working, for eating, and for sleeping. And they're sort of regimented in keeping those shifts every day. If you destroy an anthill, like, you walk up to it and you say, I'm just going to mess that up and you kick it around, the ants immediately start to rebuild it.
They're persistent and they work continually. And they do it all without pay, they do it without any promotion, they do it without any word of thanks. No pat on the back. Not that they have a back that you could pat.
But they don't quit. They don't get mad. They don't go to the HR department and file a complaint. They don't go on strike. They work.
Which is exactly how we are to work and serve the Lord as believers. Did you know that? Ephesians chapter 6, verse 6 and 7, "Work hard, but not just to please your masters when they are watching. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart. Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people."
So that's the first thing about ants. They produce hard workers. The second thing that Solomon makes a note of, not only do they produce, but they provide. At least that's the word he uses in verse 8. Says, "Provides her supplies in the summer. Provides her supplies in the summer."
Ants work hard to provide for themselves and for others in the colony. Now, you can experiment to find out if this is true or not. Just leave something on the counter tonight. Just leave a little bit of sugar, a candy, a little bit of food. Just leave it out on the counter.
And what's going to happen is the ants are going to come cruising along, check it out. And then, she's going to go back and tell all of her friends that there's free shopping on your counter. And they'll all be back in a nice little line. They'll all come back because they provide. They provide for each other.
Something interesting about the ant world. I didn't know this until just this week. Ants are farmers. They're ranchers.
They actually, besides humans, are the only creatures that will farm other creatures. Just like we raise cows, and we raise chickens, or pigs, or fish, or whatever it might be for a food source, so do ants. And they do this principally with aphids. That's the most common creature they farm.
So what they will do, ants will protect aphids from natural predators. They'll do their best to protect the aphids. They'll shelter them in their nests from heavy rainfall Because. The ants want the constant supply of the secretions that come from the aphids. It's sweet and apparently they love it, so they'll just farm these little creatures to take advantage of it. So they're ranchers. They're farmers.
Then, there's a particular kind of an ant called the honeypot ant. And the honeypot ant is a special worker ant that gorges herself full of nectar so that her abdomen swells enormously, several times her own size. And then she takes that and she feeds herself and the rest of the nest. So she is a blessing to everyone in the nest.
Which, again, is what the Bible says we are to do. We are to work so that we might bless others. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 28. He says, "Thieves should no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." Just like the honeypot ant.
And again in Hebrews 13 verse 16, "Do not neglect to do good and share what you have." So ants produce and ants provide. Third thing that ants do is they prepare. Go back to verse 8.
"Provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest." Did you know that ants prepare for the winter? They actually store up food and make preparations for even long winters. Other insects don't necessarily do this.
For example, grasshoppers don't prepare for the winter. You know what grasshoppers do in the winter? They die. That's what they do. It's like, OK, it's wintertime. Time to die.
Adults will lay their eggs in the late summer, and having no preparations made for the winter, their job is done. They die. Life is over for them. But not the ant.
The ant will seek out warmer places. The ant will go down under the ground, will go down under rocks or under bark, and then they will gather together, they will cluster together more tightly in the winter to give off body heat to each other. You don't think of an ant having much body heat. But apparently it works.
And then they also will cluster more tightly around the queen during the winter time to protect her. Now, I know that they do this. I know that they plan for the winter because they show up in my kitchen in the winter. I've had them recently show up. Just say, hi, I just want you to know we're still around. And so they're prepared.
A few other things to show you how prepared they are. When they go out hunting for food, when they go foraging, they leave behind them a little invisible marking of pheromones, pheromone trail, so that they can follow it back or that others in the colony can follow along that trail to the food source. So the communication chain, the communication line is unbroken. That's being prepared.
Then, when they are marching and they come to a river, now if you're a little and you come to a big river, you might say, OK, this is impossible. Not going to happen. We're just going to have to live the rest of our lives right here.
But what they do is the whole colony will cluster together, roll itself into a giant ball, and get on the river and float across the river to the other shore and continue their journey. Amazing. They are prepared.
The Bible talks about us being prepared. Proverbs says so much about foreseeing evil and staying away from it, thinking about things in advance and getting prepared for life, even saving up, but always, always in the will of the Lord. Proverbs 16 says, "Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts or your plans will be established."
In the New Testament, James says you should never say I'm going to do this and that, and go to this city, and sell this and buy that. But we should always say, if the Lord wills, I'm going to go to the city and do this and that. We plan, but we always plan under the caveat of, what is the will of God?
So they produce, they provide, and they prepare. Now, I just want to ask you this. Christian, are you prepared and are you preparing for your future by serving the Lord now?
How do you prepare for the future? By serving the Lord now. Jesus said, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth cannot destroy, where thieves cannot break in and steal." And He said that we are to work now while it is still day, for the night is coming when no one can work. So if you're going to do anything at all for Christ, do it now.
Now is the time to do it. If you're going to share with people, if you're going to pray with people, if you're going to preach to people, if you're going to witness to people, if you're going to visit someone, if you're going to reconcile broken relationships, don't wait. Do it today. Do it now. Prepare for the future by serving the Lord now.
And then I want to ask those of you who are not in Christ, lost people, people who have not received Christ, why aren't you preparing for your future? The best thing for you to do is to be in Christ, to give your life to Christ, to invite Him to be your Savior. You might scoff at that, you might neglect that, but I want you to judgment will do neither.
It's coming. He's coming. And all people will give a reckoning. So make preparations no matter who you are. So that's the ant's pattern.
But now, beginning in verse 9, he pivots and he addresses directly the sluggard. We look at the sluggard's plight. Four he says, "How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When were you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. And so your poverty will come on you like a prowler and your need like an armed man." So the slugger is like the very opposite of the industrious little ant. You might say he's the antithesis of... You had to expect that at some point. And he is indeed the antithesis. He is the opposite. The sluggard is, first of all, unmotivated. In verse 10 the question comes up or the statement is made, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep."
Incidentally, this is how I sleep. My wife tells me that when I lay down and sleep, I look like a corpse. She goes, you look like a dead person. You sort of put your hands like this, and lay on your back, and you fall asleep. And I say, well good, I'm ready. If I die just, drop me in. That's how I sleep.
Now, if you read this in verse 10 and you think, what? So I'm supposed to feel bad if I lay down, and fold my arms, and take a little nap? No, you're not. Leisure is not the same as laziness.
Leisure is not laziness. Time to spare is a good thing. In fact, time to spare is what spares you. It'll spare you an enormous amount of heartache and hardship in the future. We've already discussed for two weeks the need to take a break and to take a Shabbat, a Sabbath.
The idea here is this. A lazy person, not a person who just takes, a nap a lazy person is by and large a person who will not focus on things, and therefore he will not finish things. You see, when you ask the sluggard the question that Solomon asked, how long are you going to sleep?
How long are you going to take to finish that project? When are you going to get up and get to that thing? You're being far too definite for the sluggard in that question, because he doesn't know. You're like, how long? I don't know. He can't commit.
By the way, there is one type of ant that I discovered in my little antology study that I did this week. There's one little ant that does remind us of a lazy person. In the ant world, there's a particular aren't known as the slave maker. In particular, the shining slave maker.
And what the slave maker ant will do is steal the young or the pupae from another and colony and bring that undeveloped creature back to its own colony. So when that little ant gets hatched or those ants get hatched in the colony, they think it's their own colonies and they go about serving their new masters, if it is their own parents, their own colony.
And what happens is the one who steals them, the slave maker, becomes accustomed to a life of ease. Because all he's done is stolen from somewhere else and brought them into the colony for them to do the work. Typically, slave makers are very adept at fighting.
But because they get lazy, they become accustomed to a life of ease, they degenerate in their capacity to the point that they can't even feed themselves any longer. And they've done experiments where they've taken these shining slave makers, put them in little containers, dropped food in for them and they've starved to death. Give them food, but they starve to death. But I guarantee you put one black ant in there, and that black ant will feed everybody in there.
Now in chapter 26 of Proverbs, verse 14, listen to this very incredible description. "As a door turns on its hinges, so does the lazy man on his bed." Very descriptive. It's like, the only motion he makes is to turn over on the other side. There's a lot of motion, but no progress.
And it continues. "The lazy man buries his hand in the bowl. It wearies him to bring it to his mouth." And this is a lazy dude. He puts a cereal spoon in there and he's like... Can't even lift it up. He has no motivation whatsoever.
Basically, all these descriptions speak of the person who always has an excuse. Always has a reason why it can't be done. See, sluggards are always and ever procrastinators. They have so many projects that are left undone, they never get to.
Proverbs 22 verse 13, "The slothful man says, there's a lion outside. I shall be slain in the streets." So it's a picture of somebody who refuses to get out of their home, they're homebound, they're locked down, they're scared of the boogeyman, they won't go outside. There might be a lion outside. A monster is going to get me. And so they have an excuse. That's the sluggard's plight. They're unmotivated. The second thing he makes a note of is they're unproductive. Very different from the ant who was very, very productive and prepared. They're unproductive.
Verse 11, "So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler and your need like an armed man." You maintain that state of inactivity for too long, one day it'll be too late. It'll all come crashing down. The idea here is an unfulfilled and frustrated life. Not just physical poverty, but it will leave that person emotionally restless, unsatisfied, and discouraged. Listen to some of the other verses in Proverbs that help fill out the meaning.
Proverbs 21, verse 25, "The desire of the lazy man kills him for his hands refuse to labor. They may want, but they don't get, because they won't work." So all they have is want, all they have is desire. And it's like this vicious cycle. I want this, I need this, but they never get it. So it's just completely unfulfilling. Proverbs 13 verse 4, "The soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing." it. Is a very unfulfilling life to be driven by the love of ease. It's one of the most unfulfilled ways to live, to be driven by the love of ease.
And what's the solution? Solution is go to the ant. That's what he cautions, and warns, and instructs, presumably his son or anybody who would read this to do. Go check out the natural world and see how productive they are, see how prepared they are, see how they provide. Go to the ant and be wise. Learn from them.
The antidote to a lazy life is a good shot of diligence. Diligence is the opposite of laziness. Diligence is a word that shows up six times in the Book of Proverbs and a number of times in the Scripture.
Ants have diligence. That's why they are prepared, and they provide, et cetera. Something else about ants. Did you know that when ants wake up after their shift of sleeping, they actually stretch and yawn like we do? But then they get up and they get to work.
And then they go back to sleep after they eat. And they do this every day. And ants can lift between 20 times to 50 times their own weight. You may be seeing an aunt carrying like an enormous object. How does that ant do that?
It's amazing. If you were to put this in human terms, it'd be like your second grader taking an 18-wheel semi-truck and just kind of throwing it around the house. Enormous amount of strength.
And they can cover the ground quickly. They can run fast. An ant covers the ground, if we could run as fast as an ant, we could run 35 miles an hour. Some of you would get a ticket running through some neighborhoods.
Having said that , the Bible is not encouraging you to be Superman or Wonder Woman. Just to be a diligent man and a diligent woman. That's it. Just be diligent. Just work, serve enthusiastically.
Romans chapter 12 he says, "Not lagging in diligence, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Fervent in spirit means enthusiastic in spirit. And the only way you can be enthusiastic, I will grant you this, in some of your occupations you go, you don't know my job. You couldn't drum up enthusiasm if you tried to.
You could if you were doing it for the Lord. See, once you bring God into any situation, that situation changes. If I'm doing this to honor God, I can do it. Because now I'm not doing it to collect a paycheck, now I'm not doing it to get a promotion, now I'm not doing it to get on their insurance ledger, I'm doing it because I'm serving the Lord. And because I'm serving the Lord, I can do it enthusiastically from my heart, because he's my boss.
Now, I want to close with what is my favorite ant story. So there was a girl named Brenda. And Brenda was a fearful girl by nature, but she wanted to learn how to rock climb. So she knew that she couldn't just do it on her own.
She joined a group of people who teach rock climbing. And there was a small group going up. And so she learned the basics.
And it was her first climb. And she's going up the side of a cliff. She's roped in, she's in her harness, and they're blinger up the side. And she gets up pretty high, and she gets up to a ledge, and she rests and takes a breather.
And just then, the person on the lead rope, the lead climber up ahead up on top, accidentally snaps the rope against Brenda's eye, and out of her eye popped her contact lens. And she's on a ledge and the contact lens goes down this cliff, down into the valley.
So now, you have a girl suspended 100 feet in the air, she's far from home, she's scared, and she has blurry vision. Immediately she begins to pray. The verse that happens to come to her mind is the verse in the Old Testament where it says, "The eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the entire Earth."
And so she said, Lord, you know exactly where that lens is. You see all of this valley. You know every rock, you know every leaf. And she prayed for her contact lens. Well, they got her up to the top, blurry vision and all, scared and all, but they start making their way back down around to where they started and there was another group of climbers that were coming up.
And that group of climbers coming up, one of them shouted, hey, did any one of you lose a contact lens? If that wasn't weird enough, the guy went on to describe how he found the contact lens. He said, he saw an ant moving across the face of the rock carrying a contact lens.
You say, well that's a coincidence. Maybe. I see it as providence. I see it as God caring enough to build the faith of one little girl by having an ant carry her contact lens.
Now, here's the moral of this story. If God can use an ant to carry a contact lens for one of His children, God wants to use you to carry the burden of one of his children. God wants you to carry the gospel to someone who isn't yet His child God wants you to help carry the load of people around you. Work while it is still day, for the night is coming when no man can work.
Father, we want to pray that we would learn this little lesson from the ant profoundly in our own life, and live a life of balance, honoring what you honor, which is productivity and work, but never to the extent that we work so hard that we neglect people around us, that we ruin relationships, or our own peace of mind. I pray that we would balance out our workweek with good, solid, intentional, rejuvenating rest. A Sabbath.
That we might live a life that pleases you and that is a service to others. that we might have stuff stored up to give to people who are in need. That we, like the ant, might produce, and provide, and prepare. So motivate us, Lord, to carry the lens, as it were. The load for someone else.
To be not slothful but thankful for what you've given us. To be not slothful, but hopeful. And to be helpful. We asked these things, Lord, in Jesus's name. Amen.
Let's all stand, and I'm going to give you one final word of exhortation as you stand up. If you're not prepared to meet Jesus, if you're not prepared for eternity. Before this service is over, that is before you go home, if you would just see one of our decision team members. They're going to be up front.
And just say, I don't know that if I were to die I'd go to heaven, just if you could be that honest, it would be really appreciated. These are the kind of things we should be honest about. Just say, would you just pray with me or will you share with me? We'd like to give you the opportunity to see that you are prepared for the inevitable journey we all take.