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Any other check-in, please come out. Good morning, TB7, ZXN. And good morning, Kevin. KB7 Zedekson. How are you guys doing? Well, feeling very blessed. We're doing okay. Like Dave says, it's been windy this week, but praise God for providing some good shelter for us. And anyway, I pray everyone's doing well. I've been noting some of the prayer requests and praises along the way there. KB7 Zedekson. Yeah, real good, Kevin. How's the Luzon doing with her ear these days? Well, her ear seems to be doing pretty good. No additional problems there. Her overall health, she has very limited diet because her body seems to react to several foods, and she goes through periods of experiencing quite a bit of discomfort because of that. So, you know, if you think about it, I know she appreciates the prayers there. She'll have been able to identify the kind of the source of the constraints there And KB7 Zedekson. Alright, real good. So we will pray for Kevin KB7 Zedekson. His wife is Boze. That's a, let's see, it's Bravo Oscar Sierra Echo. Bravo Oscar Sierra Echo Boze. And anyway, let's just pray that she gets her diet figured out so that her tummy is happy. You know, sometimes you've got some food allergies or something and you're trying to think, well, what is causing that? We eat so many different things, sometimes it's hard to know. Alright, we're going to pray for Kevin's wife, Lose, and that's B-O-S-E, and for her to be able to sort out her diet. I spelled her name right, is that correct, Kevin? That is correct, just like the Bose speaker, as she says. Okay, real good, just like the Bose speaker. Alright, any other check-ins this morning? Please come down. Thank you. Alright, we've got about two minutes to go before we get started here. Mike, W7TWR, I'm going to be asking you to open in prayer when the time comes, so if you could be ready for that, that would be great. And Steve, W6YS5, I'd like to ask you to read when the time comes, that's 2 Corinthians 8:1-9. So I'd appreciate it if you guys could get ready for that. 2 Corinthians 8:1-9. Alright, so this is WB7MAX, looking for any last minute check-ins, please come down. KM5F: KM5F: And there's Will, KM5F, good morning Will, how are you doing? Hello, just looking for a cup of coffee, and I noticed that Scott and I are at the bottom of the SDR. We've got no news for you, class, KM5F. Alright, no new prayer requests and good to have you with us. Alright, any other check-ins please come down. WB7VZL There's Roger, good morning Roger, how are you doing? Quite good, better than I deserve, Roman's three. Copy that, and satellite Dailene's doing well with her recovery? Yeah, she was out with her good friend last night, so that's a good sign. Right. Does she still have her drainage tubes in or have they been removed? You know, they didn't have to. That was another blessing. No drainage tubes. Well, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm glad to hear that. So it sounds like she's just growing everything back together and sounds like she's doing pretty well. So anyway, glad to hear that, Roger. All right. Any other check-ins, please come now. Right at 6 o'clock we are going to get started well. We are in kind of a new section in 2 Corinthians. We have seen Paul defending his ministerial conduct and character. in chapters 1 to 7. He had to explain his change in travel plans back in chapter 1 and 2. He had to explain his motives for writing 1 Corinthians in chapter 2. He explained his integrity in preaching the Word of God in chapter 3. He explained his attitude under suffering in chapter 4. Through chapter 5, he explained his self-denial in chapter 5. And then his integrity in 6 and 7. So he's saying in these first seven chapters, here's how I behave. Here's why I did the things I did. Here's what I was thinking. And of course, it was because his ministerial conduct and character were assault by a vicious faction of false teachers that had showed up at the Corinthian church, who were trying to drive a wedge between the Corinthians and Paul, caused him to doubt his character and thus distrust his message and his preaching. However, in chapters 8 and 9, we have kind of an interlude here. And what we have here is a declaration regarding the principles of giving. And all of chapter 8 and all of chapter 9 deal with this issue of giving money to people outside the church who are suffering and struggling. That is, other churches, other Christians. in a foreign land. So this would be like us sending money to Kenya or us sending money to Colombia and South America or somewhere. Here we had some poor saints in Jerusalem. The tremendous drought had occurred there. They, of course, were being persecuted. And as a result of those things, they hardly had food. And so what Paul is doing is all the churches in northern and southern Greece, that would be Philippi and Colossae and Corinth and the various churches there, he's collecting money from them to send over to what is modern-day Israel, where Jerusalem is. And so that's what the topic of the chapter is. And he's giving guidance here about here are the principles of giving, right? Here's the example of giving. Here's what happens when you give. Here's how much you should give. Not too much, not too little. The goal is not to impoverish the people in Greece so the people in Jerusalem can be rich, but rather a sharing of what you have so their needs can be met and your needs continue to be met as well. So anyway, that's the general drift of what we're going to be talking about for quite a little while here as we go through Chapter 8 and Chapter 9. and a great passage and kind of a relief from all of the difficulties that Paul has been talking about and sharing about that he feels emotionally and spiritually. All right, so that is our passage. We want to open our time together in prayer today. And so, Mike, W7TWO, if you could open a prayer for us today, that would be great. Thank you. I'd be glad to do that as being on it. And Father, we come to you this morning and we praise you for who you are. We praise you for what you've done for us. And we praise you for... these words that you have given Paul so that we can study them today. Thank you for another opportunity to go out into the world with your your word and spread it and to the hearts and minds of other people. And we ask that you open our hearts and minds this morning to the words here of Paul in the scripture and we I ask that you take this word and establish it in our hearts and minds so that we have the opportunity to take it and spread it through the world as we go through our day, and I to reveal those opportunities to us. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen. - Amen, Mike, thank you so much for that. Really appreciate you opening prayer for us. All right, that brings us into Steve, W6YSI. Steve, if you could read for us then 2 Corinthians 8:1-9. - Okay, 2 Corinthians 8. Okay, hang on, verse one. My brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God, which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For it testified that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. And this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God." Consequently, we urge Titus that, as he had previously made a beginning, so he would also complete in you this gracious work as well. But just as you abound in everything, in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also. I'm not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you, through his poverty... might become rich. And I stopped there at verse 10. All right, Steve, real good. Great reading. Thank you for that. All right, any comments on this section of 2 Corinthians 8, 1 to 9? Please come out your call sign. KDI? David, KK7 PDI. Please go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, that's...this area is...oh, there goes my throat. Anyway, this area is very pointed that we've got to be careful. I just want to put that out there. As, you know, pastors in the church that oversee the church treasury, it's a very... important thing with the Lord's money and how that money is spent. There's a great responsibility. And what I find happens many times is you get many people that can show up or even call a local congregation and they want money and they need help. But there's individual giving that you can do that does not require the church treasury to be used. There's a distinction that needs to be made there as well. But when people come, I deal with it every week because I take all the calls for the church, and people are constantly asking for money. I need help. I need help. And they're not brethren. They're not members of the church. They're in the world, but they're accustomed to people just giving. and there's no accountability. And so it's an interesting area, but we need to follow the Word of God. Now, I like what Paul talks about here because he shows very clearly, like those in the Macedonia and those churches there, they gave and they gave above their ability, beyond their ability. They were willing to give, even out of their poverty. And that's a great attitude, and that's what we should do. And giving is very important. The free will offering of a saint is important to help other brethren as well. And that happens on missionary journeys all the time. And I support that. We have people in the Philippines, preachers that our congregation supports, You know, David, you make a really good point, and I think all of us pastors have struggled with that. I just have a couple things to say in response to that. One is that we need to understand as we read this passage, this is about people giving to their church... What you have here in this context is church members giving to their church, the church collecting the money, conveying it to another church, and that church is distributing the money. And that's what David is talking about here. And in that environment, there is not only accountability. and your willingness to give as God gave to you. We just have to exercise wisdom that in our giving, we're not hurting the people we're giving to by subsidizing a sin that is in their life and facilitating the purchase of that sinful activity or that sinful substance that actually drags them further down. So we want to give in such a way that, number one, it actually blesses the person, This is living out our faith. And I love how he begins it with a wonderful testimony from Macedonia. He begins with grace. And multiple times you see through the text here God's grace because that is... what we're operating under here. And the testimony of God's grace from the Church of Macedonia is quite remarkable. Here's a church that was not just riding the high wave, if you will. They were under great affliction from the... those around them, they were in extreme poverty. The Greek word it uses is poverty unto death. I mean, they were just desperate povers themselves. And yet, by God's grace, out of their poverty, they gave for this mission to other brothers. And God provided that. Through God's grace, He provided a way for them to give and to other brethren in desperate need as well. And, you know, it's hard to imagine the desperation, the trials that so many of the believers went through in this period of time, and especially areas like Macedonia, areas like Jerusalem. And here we know that really this effort to get to the church of those struggling in Jerusalem really began in many ways with the Corinthian church, but that's kind of been set aside because of dealing with these issues. But now that they've been reconciled, he's revisiting that. And again, what an opportunity we have by the grace of God. This is the Spirit of God working in us. I know there's times I've been... I've known others that have just struggled themselves. But then I know, you know, when you hear of a family, a Christian family, a single mother with five girls that has no food, how can you not find a way? to give. When you hear of a Christian senior, you know, that, uh, struggling, has no food, barely has shelter. How can you not have heart? And the case here, these are all part of, like say the church that, uh, in Jerusalem and, uh, you know, um, And on missions, just briefly, there's a mission, and I used to talk to him every Sunday afternoon. His name was Michael God, if you will, G-A-U-D. And he was a missionary pastor of a church in Nicaragua and kind of a pretty... You notice verse 1, And then in verse 6, Verse 7, Verse 8, And so grace is God's unmerited favor bestowed upon undeserving sinners. We've been renting a B3 for months because our original one finally came in. And we were just trying to find $10,500 to buy one. And you're going to give us one? And I said, yes, I'm going to send it to you on two pallets. And we were both just totally shocked because this happened. when they were trying to get the money approved two days ago. And then I called them, and I look at this and go, God is so good. We're on opposite ends of the country, and God orchestrates this thing, and the timing was in a day or two. Just amazing. Over and out. Well, praise the Lord for that, Jeff. That's an amazing providence, isn't it? And, you know, when God allows a need to occur, He also creates a resource to meet that need. all in his providence, and those two parties don't know anything about all those prearrangements. And, yes, I can relate to that. I've had just amazing providences where, you know, I've been in a need. Somebody has received some resources. And they said, you know, God laid it on my heart to meet the need there that I think that you have. Do you need this? And it's like, yes. And so I'm so grateful that God causes some to have an abundance. And so that's exactly what we did. I contacted a pastor down there, and I said, I've got a guy in my congregation who wants to help you guys out, and we need to know where we can send this check to. And that's how it was. It happened. So he gave to the church, the church gave to another church, and then that church distributed the funds to those hurricane victims. And, you know, it sounds like that's what your wife is doing. It's going to... the churches and then the churches are distributing. And I think that helps prevent a lot of fraud. You know, I've had people, you know, the famous Nigerian scam, right, where people from Nigeria will email me and say, oh, I need Bibles, I need clothes, I need this and that, right? Well, shipping costs are prohibitive. And so it's like, well, just send money. I'll buy the things locally and whatnot. And I never give to those things because it's not through a known, reliable local church that has a good reputation of faithfulness to God and integrity in dealing. So, you know, I think it's really important for us to beware. of scams, and I think the way we can beware of that is, as David said, work through local churches in our giving to an area, as opposed to just sending money directly to people who have a good story. All right, other comments, please come now. KM5F. KM5F, go ahead. Yeah, one of the things that everybody's kind of expressed, I've really never stated, but in verse 7 and 8, it talks about giving out of love. KM5F. Yeah, so Will is emphasizing in verse 7 and 8 that love is an important factor here. And, you know, I think you're right. Twice it mentions love. In verse 7, it says, Therefore, as you abound in everything, in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all diligence, and here it is, in your love to us. see that you abound in this grace also. Verse 8, I speak not by commandment, and that's what Brian KJ7PWM was talking about, but by occasion of the affordedness of others and to prove the sincerity of your love. So one of the ways we love, Will, is by giving. You know, John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world that He gave." And when you love, you have to give. And so if the love of God is in us and we're manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, then that's going to move us to meet needs around us. And sometimes those needs are financial. Sometimes there are other kinds of needs. But love is going to be a great motivator. And, of course, verse 9, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might be rich. So Jesus loved us. That's why he laid down his life for us. No greater love has a man than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. You're not laying down your life, but giving. Right? Okay? And so, as we see the love Jesus had to us, and what He gave to us, that we love other people, we turn around and we copy that, we imitate that, we reflect that, we echo that in the way in which we give to others. And that's why we give out of grace, out of love, in order to meet the need. Will, thank you for bringing that point out. Alright, other comments? Come out. Is that X-TEN? Is that X-TEN? Go ahead. Well, and I think you can see in verse 5 the key that unlocks that door of grace and of love, and that is the first they gave themselves. The money came second. The first was the giving of themselves to the Lord. And, you know, getting things in the right order makes all the difference here. And so the, you know, we devote ourselves to our Lord you know not only is he our Savior but he should be our Lord as well and they gave themselves to him and then the money came second so I think that's important and worth noting. And I would say, too, the grace that comes from that. You know, as a pastor, too, I mean, we were a small congregation, and we did try to help members of our church, and even outside our church in different ways. We volunteered in the community a lot of ways. We gave to different... community needs as we could. But, you know, our church, our phone rang all the time, people passing through. As we know, there are people that make a living going from town to town, going right down the phone book or I guess down the Google list now to every church to see how much they can squeeze out and get. But there are amongst that some real legitimate needs sometimes of believers. And... here and how they so many of them give out of their poverty to help other believers to help families um levels you would not believe and um there are some extremely devoted i well i've got many stories that way but um and in fact you mentioned bibles i'm to find a way to get, whether through the Gideons or someone else, or we could get some Bibles back into those schools. Because there are so many youths that are hungry for the Word of God there. And they are able to teach from a Christian perspective there in the schools. They're not near as restrictive as we are in the United States. They openly have a curriculum focused on Western civilization based on Christianity and other studies. Anyway, pray for those there, if you would, when you think about it. KB 7, is that acceptable? Yeah, Kevin, you know, you make an important point there in verse 5. And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God. So here are people who are genuine Christians. They gave their whole life to the Lord. They have given their attention and their loyalty to the true minister of the gospel, who is Paul. And then out of that, they gave their resources to others. And, you know, a lot of wealthy people try to buy God off by giving to charity, right? It's like, oh, I'll give $10 million to this hospital. And that will buy my way into Heaven. You know, I read a comment by a billionaire who shall remain nameless. But this billionaire set up a trust and he gave several billion dollars into the trust and he says, "That's as good a way as any of getting into Heaven." And, of course, this guy was profane, and he was not a Christian at all. But it's like, I'm not going to give myself to the Lord. I'll give money to the Lord and buy him off and put him in my debt. But I'm going to go ahead and live my life the way I want to live it. And so that doesn't work. And so it's important that we make sure that we are reconciled to God. And then we pray for Anna. We pray for a new place for her to live and for her mental stability, development, her social skills and deliverance from false and theological beliefs and for her salvation. We know about it without salvation. It is all for naught. And so we pray for that on her behalf as well. And then also with Mike, W7TWO, his brother-in-law, Randy, needs to find housing. And then Doug Ashman, his wife, Deidre, died on July 6th. And so we pray that the loss of life, again, is so painful in many cases. But when we're in Christ, Father, we know. When we're in your Son, that death is a victory. So we pray, Father, that when it comes to knowledge, of you that they might have victory in death rather than suffering. We pray for Carol, KK7TPO, her son-in-law, Chris, KLS5FC, a believer and angioplasty. Pray for her healing and for future extensive back surgery to be successful. We pray also for the protection of Alice, Carol's seven-year-old great-granddaughter, for my godly influences in her home and for her salvation as well. Finally, Father, we just thank you so much and that's all we can say is thank you because you are God Almighty and for your goodness, for your mercy for your grace on each and every one of us we have all sinned and all shown in your glory and when we look at what you did for us in the past for all of our sins you blotted them out of your book of remembrance through the blood of your son Jesus Christ and you cleansed us Father so that we can move forward rather than digressing backwards we thank you for the gift of your son Jesus Christ and it is in his name that we pray. Amen. Back to you, Max. David, KK7PDI, thank you so much for that prayer. This is WB7MX, Net Control of the West Coast Bible Study. I want to thank all the stations who checked in this morning, and also those who stood by to give us a clear operating frequency. We meet here seven days a week at 6 a.m. in order to read the scriptures, understand their meaning, message, and application, Correct. This has two Leslie's, two 251 Leslie's and that organ is the only stereo organ Hammond ever made. All the rest are mineral. You can plug two Leslie's into this thing. Just imagine up on a stage 50 feet apart, you've got two Leslie's and the organ in the middle. Yeah, Roger, that would be awesome. Flat awesome. Oh, talking about how much things are, what you paid for it, and what it's worth now. My wife, on our first anniversary, bought me a gift from ES-335, and she paid $759 for it. And I was talking to Glenn earlier and I said, yeah, I don't think I saw anything less than $2,500, $3,500. And he's telling me that's too cheap. I should be asking $7,000 or $8,000 for it. Isn't that amazing? You know. And I thought $3,500 for this thing was a lot of money. I don't think so, if you look at that. God is just great. And, you know, this was no financial burden for us at all. This was just something God asked me to do. I have an A100 Hammond organ here also. I have two of them. And that's not what people normally like to play in a turn. It's usually the B3. So I've still got the A100 here, which I'll continue to play around with. But I love repairing them. Yeah, well, praise the Lord for that. You know, Paul says, you know, we're delivered to death that the life of Christ might be manifested in us. And it's like Paul was always on the brink of getting killed, and yet he was always sustained. And you know, your work wasn't done. And you know, one of the things I've said to people is that you're immortal until God is done using you here on this earth. to make me into who I am today. And you realize, what do you have that you have not received? And everything we have has been a gift. And he's been molding us as a potter, molds that clay pot on the wheel. And here we are today. And to God be the glory, great things he has done. So, yeah, you realize how little you're in control.