Return with me to the book of First Corinthians. First Corinthians. Second chapter. First Corinthians chapter two. We're going to talk about the blessing of believing. It is a blessing to believe. Right? Don't ever take that for granted. It is a blessing to believe. Okay, are you in 1 Corinthians yet? Okay, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. We're going to pick up at verse 12. The Spirit searches all things. By the way, I need to make a disclaimer first before I preach. Last week I said something about angry women. And there were two ladies who tried to beat me up in the parking lot. So I want to make this disclaimer. There are no snarling angry women who live at my house or in this church. Okay. I think the reference was to the view. So I just want to make that disclaimer. Because it's awful for a guy to get beat up by a woman. I tell you. Beginning of verse 10. But God is revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now look at this verse. This is really significant. We have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has really freely given us. Don't ever forget that. You believe because of the Spirit's work in you. You've not received the Spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that you can freely understand all things. That's why you believe. That's why I believe. That's a work of God. Verse 12. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths with spiritual words. The man without the Spirit, get this. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot, cannot, cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. That explains a lot right there, doesn't it? Again, don't take for granted that the Spirit is at work in you. That is why you believe. It was one of my favorite churches. I saw a lot of great things happen there. But about every Sunday night, I was in the inmate service at the Brown County Jail. One Sunday night, a young kid came in. He was just a young kid, early teens. And when I saw him, I was kind of shocked because he was so young, and yet he'd been involved in some violent crime, and he was he was incarcerated in our jail. I went back to greet him, introduced myself. He said his name was Billy. Just from talking to Billy, I could tell he had never spent much time in church, you know. And I thought, well, he's just here to get out of the cell block and see some other guys in the other cell blocks, and probably not very serious about this at all. And but the next week he was back, and there was something different about Billy. And he said, Can I talk to you after the service? I said, Sure. So after the service, we sat down to talk, and he told me, he said, You know, I've never been to church. I don't I didn't know anything about this. He said, But uh last Sunday night after you spoke, I went back to my cell, and when I got locked down, lights out, I just lie on, I lay there on my bunk and and I thought about my life, and I thought about things you said. And I knew that I'd done a lot of bad things in my life, so I just started telling God all the bad things I'd done in my life and asking him to forgive me. He said, then I just asked Jesus to come into my heart. He said, is that kind of like being saved? I said, Billy, that's exactly like being saved, you know. And I gave him an opportunity to confess Jesus' name and prayed with him, and that was pretty cool. And all by himself, lying on his buck in the Brown County jail, he came to believe. Don't ever take for granted that you believe. It's just miraculous. It really is. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Lee Strobel. You like Lee Strobel? Lee Strobel was uh he was raised in a secular home. He didn't hear about Jesus or the Bible when he was growing up. And he said he was in a college football game in his book, by the way, that if you want to read a really good book, it's called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. But in that book, he talks about going to this football game, and he said after someone would score a touchdown, they would drop down this big sheet that said John 3, 1, 6, and he didn't have a clue what that meant. You say, wait a minute, in America? You don't know what John 3.16 is in America? Are there actually people like that? Yeah, there are. There are people who are raising secular settings and they just don't know what that means. And he didn't, he had no clue what that meant. And that was one of the things that drew him to Christ. If you want to read a really good book that's kind of all about apologetics, reasons we believe, it's called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. But just kind of amazing to think that here's a guy raised in America, and yet he didn't believe because he'd never been exposed to that. Don't take for granted the fact that you believe. That's a pretty amazing thing. Not everyone believes. Right? Not everyone believes. They don't have to. If you want to be a believer, unbeliever, you can. God's not going to force it on you. But a lot of people just do not believe. Let's look at some scriptures. You're in 1 Corinthians, the second chapter. Turn left. Go to the first chapter. Look at verse 18. This is left. This is right. Okay. 118. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Have you ever talked to people about your faith and watch them roll their eyes? They put up immediately put that force feel that keeps that what you're saying from getting through to their brain. They just lock you out immediately. Don't want to hear about that. Kind of rolling their eyes at you, and you know what they're thinking. Who dropped you off here? You actually believe this stuff? You know, there are people who just think it's foolishness to believe, right? And that's what the scripture said. It's foolishness to some people to believe. You're in uh 1 Corinthians uh 1. Go back to 2 and look at verse 14 again. Verse 14. We'll read it again. This is right. Go right to verse 14 of chapter 2. The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit, for they are foolishness to him. And get this, and he cannot, cannot, doesn't say he won't, it says he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. There are some things you can only know by spiritually discerning them, and that's the Holy Spirit. And there are some people who just don't believe because they don't spiritually discern, because they're not partakers of the Holy Spirit. Is that their fault? No, not really. Do we have a responsibility there? I think so. You're in 1 Corinthians. Let's jump a few books and go to 2nd or one book and go to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians. Fourth chapter. And verse 4. Second Corinthians 4, verse 4. The rustle has stopped. It's time to read. Who would that be? That's a devil. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot, there's that word again see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Some people don't believe. They cannot believe. Because they cannot spiritually discern the things of God. That's what the scripture says. Why don't people believe? Well, we kind of touched on it a little bit, but let's touch on it a little more, okay? Why don't people believe? Some people just don't believe because they've never heard the gospel. Not just in other countries of the world, but right here in the United States. There are a lot of people who've never heard the gospel. They have no idea what it's all about. So some people just don't believe because they've never heard the gospel. Turn with me to Romans. Left, turn left, and go back to the 10th chapter of Romans. Oh, wait till the pages quit rustling. Romans 10, let's begin in verse 8. But what does it say? The word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith we are proclaiming. That if we you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You can do that lying on your bunk in the Brown County jail. Okay. Believe in the heart that God has raised him from the dead. You will be saved. As the scripture says, anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. For there's no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord over all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You mean it's that simple? Yeah, pretty much. Jesus already did the tough stuff, you know. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But then he goes on to say in verse 14, how then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? So we have a responsibility, don't we? To take this word to people, to share it with people. So some people just don't believe just because they've never heard the gospel. And that's not just true of this country there or of the world, but even in this country, there are people who've never heard the gospel. I have a friend, his name's Billy, and he's a native missionary in India. I don't use his name a lot, I don't talk about him a lot because he is very persecuted by the radical Hindus. And he his newsletter he always says, do not share this with people. So any communication I get with him, he always warns you, do not share a lot of this with people. So I won't tell you where he lives and stuff like that. But he's a native missionary in India. And one of the things they do, they find they find villages who've never received the gospel. And then they go to those villages and they preach the gospel to them. Billy said that uh one time he was staying with me and telling me the story. He said uh we knew there was this village up on top of this mountain, so uh my team and I went there to share the gospel with them. He said it was 130 degrees at the base of the mountain. And he said they packed a projector, a screen, and a generator up that mountain to the top of the mountain to share with this village. He said he took a gallon of water, and by the time he got to the top, he drank every pit of it. So they get to the top of the mountain, they call this village together, they set up their movie screen, set up the generator and set up the projector. Now, these people had never seen a motion picture before, you know, and they begin to show the movie. So everybody is just fascinated. He said, when they got to the place and they showed the Jesus movie in their in their language, he said, when they got to the part where they were whipping Jesus, the people were on their feet shouting back at the screen. They were really into it. He said, Finally, a lady who was over a hundred years old said, Stop the movie! Stop the movie right now. I want to be saved. And she said, I'm so old I might not live till it's done. I want to be saved right now. So they stopped the movie and they put and Billy prayed with this lady to be saved, and then they've continued the movie. That's amazing. First time they'd ever heard the gospel. Whole village got saved. You know, Tony Coppola said it years ago. I was at a at a pastor's conference, heard him say this. He said, in America, we're always trying to come up with clever ways of preaching the same message that a lot of people have rejected. He said, in many countries, the first time they hear it, they will accept it. And that is so true. So a lot of people have never received the gospel, never believed just because they've never heard it. Back during my traveling ministry, uh, I was friends with a guy named Al Hamilton. Al Hamilton was the president of Pioneer Bible Translation Recruiting Service. It's hard to remember. That's why they shortened it to Pioneer Bible Translators. But he asked me if if in my travels and churches and camps and with young people especially, if I would take this video and show it to kids and encourage them to become Bible translators. So for a while I helped translate or helped promote Pioneer Bible translators. And my claim to fame is that there was one kid named Randy who became a Bible translator and went to Papua New Guinea. But I learned a lot about Bible translators. What a job. They go to a place where the people have never heard the gospel, never heard the name of Jesus many times, never seen any scripture at all. Their languages lots of times aren't even written down. So the first thing the translator has to do, he has to convert somebody in the village to become his friend and ally. And then he sits down with this person, and this person explains the language to the translator. He writes it down in some form if they can read it. And then he translates the book of Mark because it's short, it has the gospel in it. He translates the book of Mark into their language, but he has to teach them to read their own language before they can read the book of Mark. It's about a three-year process just to get to that point. Man, that's dedication. The average Bible translator in his lifetime will lead about 45,000 people to Jesus. That's amazing. Hard work. But oh, how fruitful. And there are a lot of people all over the world that never even heard the gospel. Do not take for granted that you're a believer and that you carry a Bible around. That's a pretty miraculous thing. Some people aren't Christians, they're not believers because they don't want to be, they resist it. I had a good friend. He drew up, he grew up down a street, two blocks down the street, Mike Perry. Where's Arlen? You remember Mike Perry? No, he wasn't related to Bob. Arlen, you remember Mike Perry? No, I don't remember. He was a knucklehead. I figured you'd know him. That's why I hung around with him. We hung around with some of the same knuckleheads, didn't we? But that's all classified. We can't talk about that. But Mike Perry was one of my best friends. Uh I loved that guy. Jenny Sue and I doubled to the prom with him on his date one time. Remember that? Yep. But Mike was just not a believer. He always respected me. And he'd tell a joke and say, hey, here's a good joke. Preacher, you can use this in your service. I think he respected me. He knew where I stood. And you know, through the years I tried to share with Mike, but Mike just wasn't interested. He was a Vietnam vet. And because of that, he was poisoned from Agent Orange, and that's what took his life. But when in his dying years, when he was, he knew he was going to leave this planet pretty soon. He invited Jenny Sue and I to come up to Indianapolis and have lunch with them. I'll never forget that. I thought, oh boy. Finally, Mike's going to open up and talk about Jesus. Well, when I mentioned the name Jesus in our conversation, boom, he just shut it down. You saw it too. He said, Jesus in the Bible just muddy the water. I believe in the creator of all. And that was it. Close the door. You know, some people don't believe because they just refuse to believe. And many people, like Lee Strobel, are just raised in an environment where there is no faith. This country was founded on Christian principles. It really was. You can't read the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or the framers and not see that. This country was dedicated to God. Here's a question. How did this country lose its faith? Because there are a lot of people who don't have faith. They've drifted far from God. How does a country lose its faith? Well, there's a long scripture. I'm not going to read it, but if you want to read it when you get home, it explains exactly how cultures lose their faith. It's found in the book of Romans. In the book of Romans, the first chapter from about 18 to 32, read that when you get home. It tells you exactly how nations drift from God. It's believed, scholars believe, that this passage is talking about the pre-flood people, how they went from the garden to that place where God says, Man, I've had enough of this. I'm going to drown them. How did they get from there to here? Well, it explains in the book of Romans exactly how they did that. They believed in the Creator because that was manifest. They just looked around and said, Man, somebody had to make this. And God asked them to give them Him glory and thanks, but they didn't do that. That's creationism. They began to worship themselves and things that look like men. That's humanism. Humanism defines itself as a non-theistic religion, no God. Then it says that they became hedonistic. Suddenly they were into all kinds of sexual immorality. That's hedonism. And finally they ended up in nihilism, which is hopeless despair. They couldn't tell right from wrong, and they actually approved the things that were wrong and didn't think like things that were right. Does that sound a bit like America? How did we get here? Well, it started out with creation, it led to humanism, it led to hedonism, and now a lot of people are stuck in dealism. Hopeless despair. Can that be reversed? Sure. Go back to the beginning. Duh. Go back to the beginning. It can be reversed. It is being reversed. We're seeing revival happen in there. There's some good things happening for sure. People are coming to faith. People are believing. Almost every week I hear about some person, some very well-known person who says, I have become a believer. I am reading the Bible. I believe in Jesus. That is that's amazing. We've been praying about that for years. Yeah, nations can turn back to God, and we pray that ours does. So can faith be restored? Yes, we just said that. Not going to turn to this passage and read all of it, but you can read it when you get home. It's in 2 Corinthians, the third chapter. It's a passage called, a section called the New Covenant. I love this stuff. But in that passage, it it begins with talking about Moses who came down from the mountain. His face was a glow just from being in the presence of God for 40 days. The glory, the Shekinah glory of God, was all over Moses. So his face was just bright and shiny. He put a veil over his face. Now in the Old Testament, it sounds like he did that to protect the people from the glory. When we get to the New Testament, Paul clues us into something. He put the mask on his face so the people would not see the glory fade away. Because it represented something that was never intended to last, and that was people would be put right with God through law keeping. But he goes on in this discussion of the mask, and he says that there are people who have veiled minds and veiled hearts. Their hearts and their minds are veiled. So that when they read the scripture, they don't see Jesus in it. He's especially talking about the Jewish people. Remember, Isaiah said because of their unbelief, God would give them a spirit of stupor or slumber. So seeing they couldn't see, hearing they couldn't hear, and they wouldn't turn and be converted. And Romans says, but at the time, after the times of the Gentiles, that God's going to remove that blindness, and many of them are going to come into the kingdom. I have friends that minister in Israel. There's some stuff going on there. One lady tells me that many of the people she talks to in Israel quietly believe that Jesus is the Messiah. So maybe we're living in that time. So that blindness can be removed. But it says that there's a veil that covers their hearts and covers their minds when they read the scriptures, so they can't see Jesus in it. But here's something else it says in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 14. Only in Christ is it taken away. Did you know there's some things you can't do? You can't make a person believe. Good luck. But you can't make a person believe. You can't open the heart. You can share the gospel with them. But it's up to Christ. It's up to Christ to really move somebody's heart. If I could change people, I'd start with me. Okay. Then I'd move on to you. You know, we don't change people, but God does. Jesus can. He says, only in Christ is that veil taken away so that people understand. 16th verse says, when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. You remember when you first got saved and started to read in the scripture and you had that aha? You had a lot of aha moments. You went, whoa! Wow. I didn't know this. I have a friend named Brad Breed. He's a he's he's a biker and about one size smaller than a grizzly bear. Rough guy with a real rough voice. And when Brad first got saved at our kitchen table, uh, he started reading the Bible and he'd say, Man, I was reading in the Bible. Whoa, I didn't know that was a sin. I gotta quit doing that. You know, so aha moments, you know. You know, God opens your heart, you begin to understand the veil is taken away. Only in Christ does that happen. I mentioned Papua New Guinea back when I was recruiting with Pioneer Bible translation recruiting service. Uh that was an unreached nation of the world. In 2025, Papua New Guinea rewrote their constitution and dedicated their nation to God and Jesus Christ. Whoa. That's pretty amazing, huh? In the year 2000, the newly elected president of Uganda called for a solemn assembly, and people came to huge crowds, came together for a solemn assembly where they repented of their sin of witchcraft and rededicated their country to God and Jesus Christ. Revival broke out in Uganda. I'll never forget a video I saw of a pastor at that time in Uganda. His church went from seven people to seven thousand people in two weeks. That's church growth. Wow. God can do that? Oh yeah, you bet he can. You bet he can. So when the veil is removed and people begin to understand, stuff happens. Something happened in America last week. Now, there are a lot of people who don't want to talk about it because they don't like President Trump. Okay. I understand why they don't like him. Because he's a Queens-born and raised New Yorker. There's a reason people don't like New Yorkers, okay? But he did something last week that was pretty historical. They had a solemn assembly too and rededicated this country to Jesus Christ. Now, whatever you think about Donald Trump, that's a pretty big deal. I watched some of that. It was just pretty amazing to even hear this and hear some of the representatives of our country saying the things they were saying about Jesus. Whoa! That's amazing. And we're beginning to see revival in America, aren't we? We really are. We've been praying about it for a long time. It is a blessing to believe. Don't ever take that for granted. But there are a lot of people who don't believe, and we need to share this story with them. So, how can I help people believe? Well, obviously, I can share and model the message of Jesus. And you need to model it too, because people can smell a phony a mile away. If they don't think you're authentic, they won't listen to you. One of the best ways you can share the gospel with people is share your story. They don't want to hear your theology, but they'll listen to your story. Tell people your story. Tell them how you found Jesus. You know, share the message with people. There was a time back in my traveling ministry where I would go over to Penn State and spend a week with a with a campus minister there. About every year I'd go there and spend a week, and we would minister to people on campus. But I'll never forget this street preacher who showed up every day in this outside in this courtyard area, right in the middle of a campus. Every day at noon, he was there, street preacher. He was kind of like Charlie Kirk. He was very, very sharp, very smart guy. Every day, rain or shine, he was there in that courtyard at noon preaching and sharing with the students. Well, Buzz and I stood there one day and listened to him, and after he was finished, I said, Hey, can we take you to lunch? I wanted to know this guy. So we went out to talk with him and eat with him. And he told us that he was a very well-educated guy. He said he had a wife and kids, but he worked at a job that was kind of simple because it gave him the freedom to be there in that courtyard every day at noon. This was it. This was his ministry. And I just think how many kids that guy impacted through the years doing that. He found a way to share the message. We love to sing on the street in Nashville because we're meeting people we've never met before. And all our music is faith-based, and so they stop by, they listen for a while, and they ask us questions, and we get to talk to them and sometimes pray for people. Some people came and prayed for us a couple times. Pretty neat. Yeah. You know, we all just need to find a way to share this message with people because there are a lot of people who don't believe because they don't understand that message. Pray for them too. If you really care about people and talk to people, they open up to you. Sometimes I think I must wear a badge or something. Because people just open up and start telling me their whole story, you know. But if you if you care about people, they'll tell you about what's going on in their lives. And I'd just like to say, hey, can I pray for you? Very seldom have I ever had anybody say no. Pray for them. Get your hands on them. Pray for them. And then let them know. I'm going to be praying for you. If you see them again, I've been praying for you. How are you doing? That makes a difference. Pray for people and be patient. Be patient. I love that scripture in Corinthians where it says, Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So he who plants and he who waters are nothing compared to what God does. Don't think you can do God's stuff, okay? Don't be so arrogant to think you can do God's stuff. Just do your part. Plant, water, be patient for God to give the increase. I told you a story about a guy that I met in Indianapolis in 1967, lived across the street from me. We were good buddies. We did a lot of stuff together. He was just an unbeliever. He didn't want to be a believer. Fifty years later, when he was dying, I was able to pray with him to receive Christ. Fifty years of waiting, being patient. Be patient. Plant, water, be patient. And you can make a difference in people's lives. And we must make a difference in people's lives. That's our mission. I have a good friend named Bill Roberts. He's a pastor. He's also a singer-songwriter and a musician, much better than me. And we used to do a lot of stuff together back in the day. But he's planted churches and been at it a long time. He planted a church over near Greenfields. And he said after he'd been there a long time, he was just lying in bed one morning thinking about his life. And he said he couldn't think of one unsaved person with whom he was close friends. And that troubled him. He spent all his time with church people, preachers, church people. He said he couldn't think of one person, one unsaved person he was close to. And he went to his elders and he said, I got to get a part-time job so I can meet people. And he did. He got a job at a golf course. Got to play free, too. Pretty good job. But through this, he got to meet people and share with people. Talk about Jesus. We all need to do that. That may look a lot different for you than it does for me, but we all need to find a way. Get this message to people. Because there are people literally dying without it. Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much that you put your spirit in us, that your spirit connected with our spirit and drew us to you so that we could spiritually discern what you've given to us. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you. It's through your spirit that we believe. And we never, never want to take that for granted. And we pray in Jesus' name. If you've never received Jesus as your Savior, here's a prayer I often pray when I first wake up. It goes like this. You can just repeat it after me if you want to do that. And even if you are a Christian, just reaffirm our faith in Jesus. Father, I believe with all my heart that Jesus is the Christ and that he is your Son. And I acknowledge Him as my Lord and Savior. Come, Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus, fill me. I need all you have for me today. In Jesus' name. If you prayed that prayer for the first time in your life, never prayed a prayer like that, and you were serious about it, we'd like to talk to you, okay? And thank you for listening. Oh, number 53. Number 53. We'll sing the first and the last verses. And you have a really wonderful day today.