I'm just going to read to you verse 1 of that chapter. You can find it on the back of your order of worship, although we are going to look at the whole chapter today. So I say, you hear the word of God. And Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, and to all his servants that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David. Let us pray. Father, I pray that this morning, as we consider your word that you would make it clear, you teach us what you would have us to learn from it, namely, what is the gospel of Jesus Christ? How does this point to there? I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death. I pray also that you would be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart, in my understanding and in my mouth, in my speaking, in Christ, and we pray these things, amen, amen. We've been looking at the first Samuel for the past several years, at least in the fall we have. And as we look at it, people often ask me, you know, they'll see me on Saturday at a work party or something, and they'll say, so use your sermon done. And the answer I give, the standard answer I always give them is, the sermon is never done, ever. In between services, the decision is never done. And today was no different. I was in my office early this morning, and I've worked all weekend. I was just staring at this thing. I literally had written out on butcher block, and I just wasn't clicking, and then all of a sudden it came to me, halo school. That makes sense of the whole chapter 19 of the first Samuel. You could probably see right immediately when I said that, what I was talking about, you even know what halo school is. You see, oftentimes when I'm out in the community, I'm almost never mistaken for being a pastor. Almost never. In fact, people are often surprised. However, when they find out I'm in the army, they're almost never surprised, and I haven't figured that out yet. One is in the army, I had the opportunity to do several things, and attend several schools, Ranger School, Jungle Warfare School, all these things. And the one that was the most interesting, and the one that seemed to apply most today was halo school. If you're not familiar with halo school, it's basically freefall parachuting. Freefall parachuting. High altitude, low opening is what that stands for. And in halo school, it's interesting because unlike the rest of the army, halo school is very precise because you're jumping out of airplanes from 16,000, 17,000 feet. They don't want to put a lot of pressure on you. The only pressure that you have is to pass the course, but that's where it becomes interesting. You see in halo school, it's broken down into different sections, and the first week you spend literally just laying on picnic tables, and they'll say left turn, and you put your left hand down. It's very boring, but they're trying to brainwash you literally, and to something goes wrong, you'll know what to do. The second week you go into a wind tunnel, and then the third week is where everything happens, and basically there's just three things that you have to do to pass the class. You have to be able to fall stable. You have to be able to fall stable with your equipment. I'm going to call it baggage this morning. You think you're baggage, and then you have to be able to land. You think that would be obvious, but that's part of the course, landing. What's the point to that? You see in halo school, the interesting thing is once you pass a certain stage, if you ever fail it again, you're dropped from the course. In other words, the first thing you have to do is you have to learn to fall stable, and so you jump, the first five jumps you fall, and instructor flies with you in front of you and he watches. Once you have flown stable, if you ever pull your parachute in an unstable fashion, anywhere in the rest of the course, you're gone. When you jump with equipment, and so on, so in other words, you can't just leave behind one step, just because you've fallen stable one time, doesn't mean you don't have to do it every time, and what's that have to do with the gospel? What has to do with this is we tend to think that the gospel and our Christian walk is linear, in other words, we trust Jesus, and then we learn theology, and then we learn the book of John, and then we learn the book of Matthew and Mark, and so on, and once we've learned those things, we go on to bigger and better things, and what you learn in the Christian faith is you always have to go back to the very first thing, and if you forget about it, you're out. You can't win. I remember about my sixth or seventh jump and halo school way to jump with equipment, and that's about 40 or 50 pounds between your legs and a rifle on your side, and some reason when I jumped out, something came loose, and it threw off the whole physics of the jump, and so for 9,000 feet, I was tumbling head over heels and around in circles. You know how the old saying, your life flashes before your eyes, and it didn't happen to me. The only thing I was thinking is, I got to be stable by the time I pulled this thing, or I'm out of here, and so eventually, I remember, I'll never forget, I was sort of in this kind of configuration, trying to balance things out, and I pulled stable right before I hit 3,000 feet, which was a deadline, and the instructor gave me thumbs up, and he flew away. It's amazing. The question is, when we start going through hard times, and things become difficult, what comes to your mind? Does your life last where? Is that over? Life's gone. Or do you immediately think I've got a false stable? Where is my stability? Where is the rock? Where is the place where I need to go? The very beginning. That's what we're going to look at today, in a way. We're going to look at three things from today's text, but they all tie together, it'd be wrong to say one of them comes first and second and third. They all tie together, but we're going to look at three things, and the first thing is basically the means of God's deliverance. The means of God's deliverance, the second thing we're going to look at is the irony of God's deliverance, and the third thing we're going to look at is the certainty of God's deliverance. The means of God's deliverance, the way He saves us, is the baseline. It's the stable place where you have to be falling, otherwise everything else doesn't make sense. We're going to look at it in the life of Jonathan and David here. Let me read to you a few verses here. In chapter 19, verse 1, it says, Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, into his servants, that they should kill David, but Jonathan's soul son delighted much in David. Jonathan told David, Saul, my father seeks to kill you, therefore be on guard in the morning. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself, and I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you, and if I learn anything I will tell you. Okay, what are we seeing up to this point? If you remember up to this point in the book of Samuel, basically Israel asked for a king like the other nations, God gave them a king like the other nations, in other words, a bogus king who was very spiritually dull in the person of Saul, and then Saul, we came on the scene with great fanfare in chapter 10, and by chapter 15, the Lord has rejected Saul as king of Israel, because he has rejected the word of the Lord, and chapter 16, David is anointed and secret, 17 David defeats Goliath, and once David defeats Goliath, and everyone starts lauding David and praising David, that's a little too much for Saul to take. And as Saul basically deals with David, he, once again, are we getting feedback something I am? Is that better? It's better for me, as long as I keep talking. Basically Saul and David end up in conflict, but if you remember last week Saul starts his conflict with David, or his anger with David, he begins to work it out in a way of basically a covert fashion, because he tried to, well, the first wasn't covert, growing, trying to pin him to a wall with spirit twice, but the second where he tried to give his older daughter a marriage, and he said, just fight for me, he wanted the Philistines to kill David, and then when his younger daughter Michael wanted to marry David, he thought, great, now it was a great time for the Philistines to kill David, and he said the bribe price is 100 Philistines for skins, and David was successful, and every turn, David is successful, and then when you get to chapter 19, Saul is tired of playing around with things. He's finally decided I'm not going to do this covert, I'm not going to do this in any way, but just right out in the open, and so he calls everyone together and tells them, kill David. It says he told Israel and Jonathan to kill David, and what is Jonathan's response? Remember the whole purpose of the book is to make the case that Israel needs a king like David, and so Israel needs a king like David. But you hear, first of all, Saul wants to kill David, and then the very next words you hear are but Jonathan. Remember whenever you hear the word but, you delete everything that came before it, so Saul wants to kill Jonathan or David, but Jonathan wants to save David. So if you're making a case that David ought to be the king right up front, you see that one of Saul's sons, his oldest son, I'm still getting feedback by the way, his oldest son actually loves David and he's going to advocate for David. And as he talks to David, he goes and says, my father wants to kill you. Jonathan utilizes a very familiar, if you've ever been in sales, a sales technique. He basically under-promises and over-delivers. I don't know if he caught that when I was reading it. He under-promises and over-delivers. He hears that Saul wants to kill David, and so he goes to David and he says, here's the deal, my father wants to kill you, and I'm going to go talk to him. You hide until I talk to him, and I will talk to him and I'll come back and tell you what he says. So David has no idea that Jonathan is actually going to intercede for him. David just figures, he's, Jonathan will tell him what's going on with Saul. And so what does Jonathan do? Let's read that. And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul, his father, and said to him, let not the king sin against his servant, David, because he is not sinned against you. And because his deeds brought good to you, for he took his life and his hand and he struck down the Philistine and the Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced, why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause? So what does he say, what case does he make before Saul? Basically, Jonathan goes before Saul, and he lays out a very rational case before him. He says a couple things. He says first thing, the reason, the first reason you should not kill David is that he's innocent. That's pretty simple. And not only should you not kill him because he's innocent, but you shouldn't kill him because not only did he not done anything wrong, he's only done everything right. In other words, he's not done anything wrong, but in fact, he is delivered Israel from Goliath. And not only did he deliver Israel from Goliath, but Saul, you praised him for that. So he hasn't done anything, he's innocent, he hasn't done anything wrong. He's only done that, which is right. And the last thing Jonathan threw in would have been the Zinger. Why would it have been the Zinger? It's because of the language he uses. The book of first Samuel was written to people who had been exiled. In other words, they've been exiled from Jerusalem. They've been carried off into Babylon, and they're probably now on their way back, and the authors making the case that when you get back to Jerusalem, you need a king like David. Now the question is why were they in exile in the first place? And the reason they were in exile in first place was because of a wicked king, Manasseh. I believe that's in second kings. In other words, Manasseh was guilty of shedding innocent blood, and it was the shedding of innocent blood that pushed God over the edge, and he said, that's it. You guys are going into exile. I'm not going to tolerate your sin anymore. And so the people who had originally heard this would have heard Jonathan being incredibly bold. In a sense saying, if you kill David, you will be just like Manasseh. You'll be just like the wicked king that for them it would be in the future, but who had the original audience taken into exile. You don't want to do that, do you? And what Saul's response? Saul's response is pretty simple. He says in verse 6, Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan and swore, as the Lord lives he shall not be put to death, and Jonathan called David, and Jonathan reported to him all these things, and Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before. So Saul basically says, OK, I won't kill him, but he makes a more strong statement than that, doesn't he? He says, as the Lord lives, he swears by the Lord that he will not kill David. And on one hand, that would seem like it would be very encouraging if you were David. On the other hand, if you think about Saul's life, does he have a very good track record of keeping the oaths and vows that he makes? He really doesn't. And so on one hand, we don't know if he's just lying in order to get David into the house, or if he really thinks that he's going to do it, but ultimately, we know he's not going to honor this vow. So what's the point? What's the means of God's deliverance here? On one hand, it's common to the means of God's deliverance here for David. It's simple. It's a friend who is willing to intercede for him, but it's more than that. It's not only a friend who's willing to intercede for him, but it is a son, a prince who has every right to the throne who is risking his life to intercede for his friend. He's giving up his rights as the king. He's giving up his rights as the future king of Israel. He's giving up everything he has in order to intercede and save his friend's life. And in that sense, when you fast forward into the New Testament, you see that that is the exact mission that Jesus came to fulfill. Right? Remember the Bible says, there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. What does the David's means of deliverance is no different than ours? What does our means of deliverance? Well, first, our enemy isn't Saul. It's this thing called sin. And we have someone, a king, who comes and gives up his rights, and we're Jonathan would risk his life on behalf of his friend? Jesus would give his life on behalf of his friends. In fact, it's so powerful. I remember shortly before I became a Christian. I was 17 years old. I was a senior in high school. It was sometime in the fall. I think it was around October. And I was cleaning out a closet for some reason at our house. And from one of the top shelves fell a very beat up white King James Bible. It had been my mother's that someone had given to her from a communications class or something. And I'd never read the Bible. And I flipped it open. And the first thing that I saw was John 1513, which says, greater love has no man than this than to give his life for a friend. And I remember sitting there thinking, would that be true? Wouldn't it be great if that were true? And I shut the Bible, tossed it in the pie with the rest of the stuff. And a couple months later, I learned that there was, in fact, a person who was willing to give his life for a friend. In fact, he did give his life for a friend. He gave his life for an enemy in order to make him a friend. And his name is Jesus. That's the baseline of our faith. That's it. Every time when you're in free fall or you feel like you're in free fall and you feel like things are spinning out of control when all of your baggage is making you just go crazy, what is the place you need to go to in order to pass, if you will? It's this gospel of Jesus. That's the stable point. The stable point is the fact in the knowledge that Jesus has died for your sins. And knowing that Jesus has died for your sins, then you can enable to, you're unable to fall stable. And if you forget about that, you're never going to fall stable. You're never going to be able to rest. And so that's why in the Christian faith, it isn't linear. You're always going back to the very first lesson. And the very first lesson is this, that you are a sinner and that Jesus died to take away your sins. Do you believe that? If you're Christian, do you believe that? You need to believe it all the time. And once you're at that stable place, then you can begin to contemplate the bigger things. And what I mean by that is sort of the irony of the gospel. You see, the means of God's deliverance is through the person and work of Jesus. Now, what's the irony of the gospel? We see that next. Actually, there's a transition passage here because David comes into Saul's household. And what you see is that David has more great success and Saul apparently wigs out. He can't take it anymore. And he tries to pin David to the wall again. And three times, and David finally says, you know, the two times with the spear thing, I can live with that. But the third time with the spear and the wall on out of here. And so it says he flees in the night. And that's the next, the next place that we see where we see the irony of God's deliverance. Look at verse 11. It says, Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him that he might kill him in the morning. But Michael, David's wife told him, if you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed. So Michael let David down through the window and he fled away and escaped. Michael took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats hair at his head and covered it with the clothes. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said he is sick. Then Saul sent the messengers to see David saying, bring him up to me in the bed that I may kill him. And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed with the pillow of goats hair at his head. And Saul said, the Michael, why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go so that he is escaped? And Michael answered, Saul, he said to me, let me go. Why should I kill you? In other words, another way to translate that or read that is she's basically blaming it on David. He said he would kill me if I didn't. What am I supposed to do? Now, you not only see irony here, but you also see God's sense of humor here. That the original honestly probably would have been laughing at Saul at this point, which of course would have made Saul even more angry. But if you notice the beginning, Saul wants to kill David at the very beginning. But Jonathan interceded here, Saul wants to kill David, but Michael interceded. But Jonathan, but Michael, Saul wants to kill David, but basically Saul's whole household wants David to be king. And so how does the story go? She basically, Michael, on one hand, there's positive stuff about her. On the other hand, there's negative stuff. On one hand, there's the positive side where she's basically compared to Rahab. In the book of Joshua, remember in the book of Joshua when the spies came and how did she save them? She let them out through the window. I think the imagery there is on purpose. And maybe there's a comparison here to Rachel. Remember when Lavin came in to seek out Jacob and she put her, she stole in his household gods and she sat on the word for that is terrifying. That's the word here. But either way, it's a practical joke and the practical joke is on Saul. And there's a lot of irony here as well because what is God used to deliver David here besides using the daughter of David's worst enemy? God uses a worthless idol in order to save David. That's probably the bad thing about Michael, by the way, is that Michael actually thought it was the idol who would deliver David. You see, the spies are outside and Michael says David go outside and the story basically she puts a huge idol in the bed with goat's hair on it. And they come in and say, Saul wants to see David and you can imagine, she being a princess, she would have a little bit of pull. She'd say, you can't come in, but you could see right back there, he's in bed. And the messengers will go back to Saul and say, you know, hey, she wouldn't let us in the house, but we saw him in bed with the goat's hair and Saul furious as bring him to me here in the bed. And you imagine these guys carrying, imagine it was heavier than a person going, man, he just gained some weight and they're carrying this idol in the bed to Saul and Saul lifting up his sword and just bringing it down in the bed on this idol and it just going thud. And he pulls back the sheets and sees that he has been had. The irony of that is that God is using this worthless idol in order to achieve David's deliverance. I mean, think of all the things that God says in the Old Testament about idols. I mean, you could be stoned for being an idolater. It's one of the big 10. You don't deal with idols and yet God takes an idol and he uses it to deliver David. And when you think about the gospel, you fast forward into the New Testament. The whole thing is one big picture of irony. Why is that? Because what is it that Jesus that God used to accomplish our salvation? God used the thing he accomplished our salvation from our sins by using our very sins themselves. You know, at night, he's been looking at several chapters of Acts, but in Acts chapter two, he talked about a while back and in Acts chapter two, remember Peter preaches a sermon and he says by basically by the predetermined plan of God, you crucified the Lord of glory. Who's guilty of crucifying Jesus? You are, Peter says. Well, how guilty am I? Well, here's the good news. You crucified the Lord of glory, but it is through his crucifixion that you find deliverance. It's through his death that you find life. It's through him being mocked that you find assurance. It's through all of these ironic things that God has used. Remember, first Corinthians, what it says there, that God used the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. And the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. And what you see here is a great example of Old Testament foolishness. What kind of idiot would fall for the old idol and goat's hair in the bed trick? Saul would, apparently, and it just makes him more mad. So God's got a sense of humor. So on one hand, we see the means of God's deliverance is through a friend who's willing to risk or give everything for you. The irony is that God uses things you wouldn't normally think of. And the certainty of God's deliverance is where we'll look at next quickly. We're not going to read the whole thing for the sake of time. But I'll tell you the story quicker. Basically, Saul has been foiled twice now. And he now is going to pursue David. What does David do when David flees from Michael's house as he flees to Samuel? And it would be interesting to see how that went as well because remember Samuel at one point felt endangered by Saul. And so I can imagine Samuel sitting there and David coming up and Samuel saying, I was wondering when you were going to show up here. And that's only David flees to Samuel. It's only about two or three miles, I think it's north. It might be west of where he was to begin with. So he goes to Samuel's, Saul finds this out and Saul immediately dispatches a group of messengers. And as this group of messengers go to find David, they find Saul, they're Samuel with his prophets, and immediately the messengers that were sent to kill David begin to prophesy. Now one of the big debates in all of the Bible is what's going on here, or what does prophecy mean or when someone prophesies? We talked about it last year, in the Old Testament, it could mean a number of things. It could either mean that someone is speaking on behalf of the Lord through God's Spirit, and they're bringing a message from God. In other words, it's the places where you hear, thus saith the Lord. It could mean that. It could mean an ecstatic experience of worship where you're not sure what they're saying, and they're sort of dancing around, and sort of like out of control, could mean that, or it could mean some kind of worship where they're just singing and using musical instruments. So when you read, and they prophesied, it could mean any one of these things, but what they all have in common is just this, is that God's Spirit is completely in control of what is happening in that person's life at this minute. So in other words, if they're speaking on behalf of God, or they're dancing on behalf of God, or they're ecstatic, God is the one who is controlling them at that point. God is the one who's operating in their heart and in their lives, and the reason that that's important, because these men came to kill David, and God himself has intervened and caused them to prophesy. He is in control, whether they were preaching, or whether they were singing and dancing, we don't know what we do know, is that God was in control. So what does Saul do? He sends another group of messengers. The other group of messengers comes, and before you know it, they also are beginning to prophesy. He's solved, boiled again. He sends another group of messengers three times, and each time the messengers arrive, and they begin to prophesy. And so Saul basically says, you know, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. So Saul takes off and heads out on his own, and let me read that to you starting in verse 23. And he went there tonight off in Rama, and the Spirit of God came upon him also, and as he went, he prophesied until he came to Nehoth and Rama, and he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel, and lay naked all that day and all that night, thus it is said, is Saul also among the prophets. You see, God usually normally utilizes means to deliver people. The means that He normally uses in our lives is someone tells you about Jesus. Sometimes He actually intervenes personally. And that's what God has done here, and as much as Saul said, you know, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. You can imagine God saying, you know, I'll match that and up you one. In other words, God intervenes personally now. And where before when Saul became king, God's Spirit came upon him in order to empower him to fulfill his job as the king, now God's Spirit has come upon Saul specifically in order to undo that. One of the worst, I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, in my office, I laugh, because you know, you're reading commentaries, and it makes these statements where it says, it was very uncouth and embarrassing for someone to lay around naked in the ancient Near East. And I think, you know, in the 20th century, Seattle would be pretty uncouth as well. I mean, what's the point there, you know, but either way, did you notice what happened here? Remember how important clothes are? We talked about that. That Saul stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night. That in other words, Saul, it was forced in the presence of God to take off these kingly garments, because Saul, you have been rejected. And another bit of irony here is the very one who was rejected for rejecting the word of the Lord, is now, in some sense, either preaching it, praying it, singing it, or dancing it, naked in front of everybody. God is in control here. And that is the certainty of your deliverance. The God is not only the one who saves by providing the means, but God is also the one who makes certain that it happens. You know, when we read this story, most of us, when we read this story, we read it from David's perspective, at least I do. And you just think, man, how crazy is that? You know, first he has to hide in the field and Saul might kill him, and David, Jonathan intercedes, and Saul tries to throw the spear, and then he escapes, you know, by the hair of his chin, chin, chin, and then the whole idol thing, and he goes out the window. And from David's perspective, he is constantly in danger. When you step back and you look at it from God's perspective, was David ever in danger for a second here? One time, ever? In other words, in our lives, how often do you feel like your things are just out of control? And I'm in danger of my finances are bad, my marriage is bad, everything is just going crazy. From your perspective, that is how it feels. But from God's perspective, if you have trusted him, if you're one of his, nothing can separate you from his love. In fact, not only can nothing separate you from his love, but nothing can harm you until it is your time to go. In other words, I think one of the questions I have on your study questions, you know, basically someone said that the Christian is immortal until they've finished with the mission that God has given them to do. There's nothing that can harm you until you have accomplished what God wants you to accomplish in this life. Until that point, you were bulletproof, you were immune. And the person I learned this from most of all with an exclamation point was a man named Jack Arnold. Some of you have heard me tell stories about Jack Arnold. His wife, Carol, spoke at the women's conference here a couple of years ago. And Jack was just a big guy. He played basketball for Wooden at UCLA years ago. And he was a kind of guy, he was fun to pick on as well. And what I mean by that is oftentimes I go to Baltimore and I meet my friend Paul Warren and his sons. And we'd sit around and we would tell stories about Jack. Because Jack among other things, he'd always say, maybe I just believe Bible more in most people. He meant that when he said that. In fact, six months after I got into ministry, I called him up and I said, Jack, you know, that whole thing but you believe in the Bible more than most people? I think you do. If ministry sort of opened my eyes to that. And so the reason I tell you that is because we would all sit around and tell stories and he would always say, oh you guys, you just embellished things, you're just making that stuff up about me. And I wanted to, I downloaded the story of his passing. Because I don't want to be accused by Jack when I finally go to heaven for having embellished it. This is written by his assistant pastor and it was put in the newspaper, January 9th, 2005. Jack was preaching at Covenant Presbyterian Church on the cost of discipleship. As he neared the end of the sermon, he spoke his favorite verse for me to live as Christ and to die as gain. He quoted Wesley saying, until my work on earth is done, I'm immortal. But when my work for Christ is done and he slapped his hands together towards the sky, saying, I'm out of here. I don't know about you, but when my work is done, I go to be with Jesus and that will be gained. And when I go to heaven, at this point, Jack paused briefly, looked up, swayed slightly, grabbed the podium before falling back to the floor, and he was gone. When he said he believed something, he believed it. And the interesting thing is that, you know, he spent a good bit of his life depressed because he was the tutor for people like Charles Swindall and how Lindsay and a lot of these guys, and he never had a church that was bigger than 300, I think. He felt like a lot of it had been a waste. And yet in his death, he got more fame and more acclaim to more people than those guys can ever dream of having. Right, until the very end, God wanted a mission to be accomplished and God protected him until the very end. And when the end was there, God took him. Now the question is, is what his God called you to do and why aren't you doing it? If you know that God is going to protect you and that you were immortal until the mission that he has given you is accomplished, why then aren't you doing it? And now that a lot of you are sitting there going, I don't know what my mission is. And the problem in most churches is most of, most people don't have one. Most people in most churches are just sort of sitting there, they'll say, yeah, when it's my time to go, it's my time to go. And I'm just going to sit here in this pew and wait. I'll just wait until it's my time to go. You know what? That's a horrible way to go. You know how you find your mission out? What'd you do? You just do something. Do anything. But just do it. Begin doing ministry. Start taking some risks. I was thinking about it this morning and I thought about all these things and I thought, man, how offensive would that be to people? It was true stuff, but I couldn't say them all. You know, I thought of things like, if you're retired, why are you still here? In other words, why aren't you on the mission field somewhere? Why aren't you leading short-term missions? Why aren't you, all these kinds of things, people often complain to me about missions, for example. Why don't we do more? Why don't we do this? Why don't we do that? And we have so many people that could just be going. Why aren't we? That might not be your particular call. I realize that, but it has to be somebody's call because someone needs to go. And the fact is, as we are immortal, we nothing can touch us until God is finished with us. And so the challenge I'll leave you with today is just this. First, do you understand the means of God's deliverance that it is through Jesus and Him only? And secondly, that God uses crazy circumstances often to accomplish what He wants to do. And the third thing is what is your purpose in life? What is your mission? What is God called you to do that nothing can thwart until it is done? You know, I'm going to give you a hint. You probably, you can't know that until after the fact, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue it. Think about that. Let's pray. Father, I pray this morning that you would give us great vision for what you can do in us and through us, and not just give us vision, but give us confidence that nothing can touch us, that we, in fact, are immortal until our work is done here. And I pray that you just have us to be busy at the work of Jesus, busy at the work of believing the gospel and having faith. In Christ's name, we pray. Oh, man, and I'm in.