WebSDR – 2026-08-04 05:55

All right, today we'd like to acknowledge Peter, KJ7BA. Good morning, Peter. See you there on the Utah SDR.

That's Peter, KJ7BA. And Peter says good morning to everyone. All right, good contact there, Peter.

See you. Appreciate you being there. All right, any other check-ins this morning?

Please come now. . This is WB7MAX, Net Control for the West Coast Bible Study.

I can't stand to hear my own voice while I talk. I've turned stuff down. Yeah, we are in Psalm 45 today, so those of you who have already checked in, look into Psalm 45, interesting psalm, and we'll be talking about that in a few minutes.

All right, WB7MAX, looking for check-ins. Please come down. Alright, the net would like to acknowledge JR, K6LBP.

JR, see you there on the Half Moon Bay SDR. Appreciate you being there and we got you checked in. Anytime you want to keep chat we are here.

Okay, that's JRK6LBP Is that XIN? Is that XIN? Kevin, please go ahead KB7, is that extent?

I was just curious if there's been any word or updates about Glenn. He's been suffering there, healing from his broken neck there. Didn't know if back or you or anybody had been in touch with him, but just thinking of him.

Yeah, copy that. I know that Carroll KK7TPO is going to try to reach out to him. I need to do that as well.

But no, we haven't heard any news from him and he has not fired up his radio. So I need to just follow up with him by text message or something and see if I can get a hold of him. Thanks for the reminder.

And he still is on the prayer list. We have him on there weekly. We pray for him and for his wife Vicki and their health needs.

So thanks for asking. Thanks for reminding us. And I'll try to reach out to him today.

Back to you there, Kevin. Thanks, brother. Yeah.

KB7, that aches him. Roger, WB7V is at home. I emailed him about four or five days ago and still haven't got a response.

Okay, thank you, Beck, for reaching out and telling us you didn't get a response. Roger, WB7V, you need to get on frequency. I'm going to talk to you for a minute so you can tune your radio.

This is WB7MAX talking so that Roger WB7VZL can get his radio tuned. All right, Roger, go ahead and key up. Let's see how you do this time.

How is this? Is this better, WB7VZL? It is quite a bit better.

It's a lot better, in fact. You're still slightly off, but you're real close there. So anyway, you're sounding good, Roger.

You are readable and appreciate that. Come back to me, Roger. WB7VZL with WB7MAX and the West Coast Bible Study Group.

Yeah, that's plenty good enough. We can hear you just fine. How are you doing, Roger?

Any prayer requests? Well, it's my last full day here before the trip south, and we're at 40 degrees. In fact, I thought it would go into the 30s.

In fact, it might be 39 1/2 right now or so. But, yeah, it's getting cold. All right, so Roger's going to be traveling home from Coville to a college place where he lives there in southern Washington.

We'll pray for a safe trip and for a good, productive day today, Roger. And we appreciate you being with us. All right, that's Roger, WB7VZL.

Any other check-ins, please come now. AL7KG Alright, there is Lee, AL7KG. Good morning Lee, how are you doing?

Good morning, all good. Alright, real good. Glad to hear you're doing good Lee, and we got you checked in.

Appreciate you being there. That's Lee, AL7KG. Alright, any other check-ins please come down.

YSI. YSI, go ahead. I'm going to ask and add a prayer request for our little church here in Challenge.

Some people think there's some real serious issues going on with leadership and that sort Just pray that we will have the wisdom from God and we will proceed as he sees fit. WSYSI. All right, Steve.

Real good. Thank you for that. All right, Al.

KJ7QQA, just a prayer request from Steve. W6YSI for his church, the Challenge Church. He lives in the town of Challenge, okay?

It's actually called Challenge Community Church is the name of the church. And just wisdom for them in dealing with the issues of leadership and direction going forward. Copy there, Al?

Yes. Copy type it again. Yes, I did.

All right, real good. Thank you for that, Al. Appreciate that.

All right, Steve, thank you for that prayer request. All right, any other check-ins or prayer requests, please come now. Alright, we are going to get started with the West Coast Bible Study.

This is WB7MAX, Net Control. My name is Max, and we are looking today at Psalm 45. Psalm 45, but before we get started with our psalm and our study together, we want to ask God's help and blessing and enablement on this study that he would illuminate our minds and guide us into the truth.

So Jeff, AK6OK, if you could open in prayer for us today, sure appreciate that. Go ahead. I'd be happy to, Max.

Thank you very, very much. Good morning, everybody. Lord, thank you so much for assembling all of us this morning to hear your word again.

It's a great blessing every morning. It kind of centers us before we get our day going. Please guide the words everybody hears this morning from everybody in our thoughts.

Thank you so much for Max and the team for putting all this together, and we are blessed, Lord, in your precious name. Amen. Amen, and amen for thanks to the Lord for the team.

I don't do this by myself for sure. Okay, we are going to be looking at Psalm 45 today. This is an interesting psalm.

What we have before us today is a wedding psalm. That is a psalm that describes a wedding between a king and his queen. Now, who the king and queen are is somewhat uncertain.

most likely the king is Solomon and the queen is one of his wives. Now the general character of the psalm, describing as it does the majesty of the king, the splendor of his appearance, the glory of his palace, the hopes which he raised for the future, makes this psalm more applicable to Solomon than to any of the other Jewish kings. But clearly, clearly, a greater than Solomon is spoken of here in this passage.

This psalm describes the royal wedding of a great king, to be sure, but there is much here that clearly transcends any earthly king. This outward glory of Solomon was a type and a shadow of Jesus Christ, and the outward glory of his queen... is a type and a shadow of His glorious church, who is, of course, the Bride of Christ.

So Psalm 45 is one of the great prophetic psalms of Christ, just like Psalm 2 and Psalm 22 are. And what we have in this psalm is a glorious foreshadowing, of the covenant closeness and commitment that exists between Christ and his people. And we see this motif of God being married to his people, Israel, in the Old Testament, and we see this motif of Christ being married to his church in the New Testament.

And you're familiar with the various passages that bring that out on many occasions. So this picture in Psalm 45 is of the king and his bride, and that it is a picture of Christ and his church is really beyond dispute. And what makes it even more clear is that in Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7, those verses are explicitly quoted in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, and directly applied to Christ in that passage.

And so we can say with confidence that the king in view in this passage is clearly Christ, because this passage is quoted of Christ and applied directly to him in Hebrews 1, 8, and 9. And since the king of the passage is Christ, then the bride can only be the church because Christ has no other bride. So...

As we proceed through this psalm, we want to look at the earthly king and his earthly bride and talk about perhaps our marriages and what they need to look like. But we also need to look beyond that and see this as a revelation of Jesus Christ and of his church and see that. meaning also in this passage.

All right, that's a little introduction to Psalm 45. Steve, W6YSI, if you could read us Psalm 45, I'd appreciate that. Go ahead, Steve.

- Okay, looking at Psalm 45, reading from the New American Standard. As we read this, recall that all scripture is inspired, God has given it to us. He's the man that we need today.

Walk in a way that purifies him, helps us in growing in the knowledge and grace of the Lord. Danny in verse 1: "My heart overflows." It's a good scene. I address my verses keen.

My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon thy lips.

Therefore God has blessed thee forever. Guard thy sword on thy thigh, O mighty one, and thy splendor and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride out thy sword, unvictoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness.

At thy right hand, each thee often sing. Thine arrows are sharp, peoples fall under thee. Thine arrows are in the heart of the king's enemies.

Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, thy God, has anointed thee the oil of joy above thy fellows. All thy garments are fragranced with myrrh and aloes in Passia, Out of ivory palaces, strange instruments have made thee glad. King's daughters are among thy noble ladies.

At thy right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir. Listen, O daughter, to attention and incline your ears. forget your people and your father's house.

Then the king will desire your beauty, because he is your Lord. Bow down to him, and the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift, which among the people will entreat her favor. The king's daughter is all-glorious then, and Her clothing is interwoven with gold.

She will be led to the king in embroidered work. The virgins, her companions who follow her, will be brought to thee. They will be led forth with gladness and rejoicings.

they will enter into the king's palace. In place of your father will be your son. You shall make them princes in all the earth, and will cause thy name be remembered in all generations.

Therefore, the peoples give thanks forever and ever, as far as the reading of the house of order. All right, Steve, real good. Thank you for that reading.

So what we see here is the address made to the king and also made to Christ in verses 1 to 9, and then the address made to the queen, also to the church in verses 10 to 17. All right, any comments on this passage? Please come down.

Thank you. AK6 OK. Jeff, AK6 OK.

Go ahead. I think he was reading out of the NASB, and I was reading the NASB in 1995. I noticed that some references were to me and some were to you.

I want to explain that one. Yeah, real good. Okay, so what we've got is the psalmist.

We don't know who is writing this psalm, but in verse 1 he's talking about himself, right? So in verse 1 he says, My heart is indicting a good matter. I speak of things which I have made touching the king.

My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. So he's talking about himself in verse 1. And then in verse 2, he goes, thou art fairer than the children of men.

So now he starts talking about the king, okay? And so he's saying, in thy majesty, right prosperously, verse 4. Verse 5, thine arrows are sharp.

And so he's talking about the king. And then, of course, he talks about the queen. Verse 10, hearken, O daughter, and consider and climb thine ears.

So you've got three people in the passage. You've got the guy who's writing the psalm. You've got the king, and then you've got the king's wife, who is the queen.

Does that help there? Go ahead. Yeah, yeah it does a little bit, but I was, maybe I just misunderstood it.

I was reading along and where he was saying your, mine said mine. And I thought, oh what's going on here? Yeah, I'm not up to speed on...

What translation are you looking at, over? I was on NASB 1995. Maybe I should be looking at something different.

Yeah, no, that's fine. That's a fine translation. Yeah, you know, sometimes, Jeff, when it comes to translation...

words can be taken a couple of different ways, and the translator has to make a decision based on context, based on grammatical considerations, and based on theology. So the fact that there's a variation in the translation just drives us back to the original language and to see what does that say and why do we have this variation and then it's the pastor's job to explain all that, right, if he's preaching on the passage. So anybody else want to comment on this concern that Jeff has regarding this translation?

Please come down to your call sign. KM5S Will, camera mic 5, foxtrot, go ahead Yeah, he was reading it in the NASB and I was also following it along in the NASB95 and there's a little bit of difference in some of the words KM5S Yeah, thank you for that. Okay, so anyway, we've got some variations here.

I'm not prepared to do exegesis at this point in time. I didn't look at the Hebrew last night or anything. So in any event, yeah, sorry I can't help you any more than that, Jeff.

All right, any other comments on the passage? Please come down. Is that a chance?

Kevin, KB7 Zedeksen, go ahead. KB7 Zedeksen, yeah, great introduction, Max. Covered a lot of ground and really, you know, this really is a truly a Messianic psalm.

And you look at it in contrast of the previous psalm that we just read. where the question is asked lord you know how long are you going to sleep while your people are destroyed and in the backdrop of that uh all of a sudden we see a wedding ceremony not a coronation of a king but a wedding ceremony of the king the heart's overjoyed and we kind of still kind of lingering in our minds the previous song but that's in the backdrop of this just impressive beautiful ceremony of not just the king here but really focusing on the eternal king and the eternal bride And all that denotes, as you pointed out, verse 6 and 7 quoted in Hebrews 1, 8 and 9. And it's just, I think, really says so much to us in that our hope is eternal.

No matter the suffering that we go through, and I think as we saw last week, psalm for worshiping our king, worshiping our Lord, that will be swallowed up in our eternal relationship in glory with our king and our Lord and Savior. I think it also here gives hope to Israel, the eternal nature and the covenant he has with them and also with the new covenant. HERE WITH HIS CHURCH, WHICH IS ETERNAL.

BUT YEAH, IT'S A BEAUTIFUL PORTRAIT HERE, A TRUE, TRUE LOVE SONG. AND THE WAY IT BEGINS WITH HIS HEART IS JUST OVERFLOWING WITH THE with the joy and the goodness of this wedding ceremony. And just, you know, you couldn't have found stronger words to express the love and the joy of these words.

And the psalmist's gift is this poem, this song, if you will, to the king. KB7 is that example. Yeah, Kevin, thank you for that.

Yeah, it's amazing here the description that's given of the king and his bride. And in those descriptions, we see a lot about our Lord Jesus. You know, like verse 2, You are fairer than the children of men.

Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore, God has blessed thee forever. Well, Jesus has a moral and spiritual beauty that's greater than any human.

And we see that the Word was made fresh and dwelt among us, and we beheld Him as the glory of the only begotten Son, full of grace and truth. And so Christ has beautiful grace. And then, of course, God has blessed Him forever.

He's His beloved Son in whom He's well pleased. And then verse 3, gird thy sword upon thy thigh. we see Jesus using the sword of the word to bring about conviction and conversion, as well as condemnation on those who reject him and refuse him.

So, you know, as we proceed through this and we see that the language that's applied to the king we also see that in these metaphors, there's a lot here about our Lord Jesus Christ. So thank you for pointing that out. Before I ask for further comments, the net would like to acknowledge Carol, KK7TPO.

Carol, see you there on the Utah SDR. The net would also like to acknowledge Tom at WW7T. Tom checked in by way of text message.

And then there's still K6HSV there on Half Moon Bay. Appreciate seeing you there. Okay, Carol KK7TPO, Tom WW7T and Phil K6HSV, appreciate you all being there.

Alright, getting back to our comments, any more comments on this passage please come now. Mark is in there. Mark, KJ7PVT please go ahead, let's give it a try.

Yeah, go ahead, Mark. He's going to send you a text. Okay, he's going to send me a text.

That would be great. That would be much better. Appreciate that.

Okay, all right. Any other comments, please come now. KM5F.

KM5F, Will, please go ahead. Yeah, I was just looking down here about the queen and all of her garments, and it notes that she's wearing a dress that's interwoven with gold. That must have been a mighty heavy dress, and so it must have been a pretty strong lady to wear that dress, a KM-5S.

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. No telling how much gold is there or how prominent it was, but yeah.

You know, the beauty of the dress of the bride is a picture of the beauty of the robe of righteousness itself. that Jesus has given to us. You know, we're going to have on that wedding garment that Christ is going to supply us with for the wedding supper of the Lamb.

And, of course, that is the robe of righteousness that he gives to us. And, you know, imagine the beauty of a garment that Christ himself supplies for his people. And so while, you know, we have rich clothing today...

and extraordinarily beautiful clothing, it will be looking like rags compared to the wedding garment that Christ supplies to His people. And so even now, we're robed in the righteousness of Christ. He looks upon us as being holy and unreprovable and without blame.

That's a wonderful picture. And the gold, of course, speaks to the value of the bride, right? And so gold is the most valuable metal that there is.

And when you clothe the bride in a garment that is interwoven with gold, it's weighty, it's beautiful, it's beautiful. extraordinary will thank you for pointing out the clothing all right any other comments please come now all right while you're thinking I want to comment a little bit on verse 10 It talks about the queen in verse 9, okay? So I'll just read verse 9.

"The king's daughters are among nine honorable women." These are like the bridesmaids, right? "Upon my right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir." So this is what Will is talking about. The queen is dressed in a golden dress.

A dress interwoven with gold is the idea. And now the psalmist addresses the Queen. He says, "Hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear." Now, here it is.

"Forget also thine own people and thy father's house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy lord, and worship thou him." Well, when we got saved, we turned our back on Satan, his people, and his kingdom, right? And And that's the house we used to be in.

And when we come to Christ, we abandon, you know, our former associates, our former source of authority. And now we have switched allegiances. We switched families.

We switched homes. And so we know that God says in Genesis 2, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. And so there's a leaving and there is a cleaving.

Well, when we got saved, we left Satan, we left his house, his kingdom, his people, and we went over to Christ and his house and his kingdom and his people. And I think it's quite interesting here that the Queen is called upon to leave behind. the old life and the old source of authority and now embrace the new life and the new source of authority Who is Jesus?

Alright any other comments on this passage, please come now Oh Roger, please go ahead Well, I'm particularly quoting from the NIV in verse 7, the very important aspect of our spiritual lives, and I think it probably would be a good prayer for me to pray. You love righteousness and hate wickedness. And that is a part of the theme, I believe.

Yeah, that's one, the author of Hebrews specifically selected that to place as describing the character of the sun. to in Hebrews. So, yeah, if we want to identify with the Son, we'll certainly pick up that characteristic.

You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Back to you, Max. Yeah, well said.

You know, we are to be imitators of Christ. It says in Ephesians 5 and verse 1, be imitators of Christ as dear children. And so when we see this picture of Christ, to some degree and in some ways, this is what we need to be, right?

We need to recognize that we have a sword to gird upon our thigh, verse 3. and that's the scriptures. We use the word of God and we use prayer as our spiritual weapons to do spiritual warfare with.

And we are to be committed to truth and meekness and righteousness, verse 4. And we have enemies, verse 5. And we shoot the word of God at them in order to bring them under conviction.

We slay them with the scriptures, right? show them their spiritual death and call upon them to come to life. And then your verse, verse 7, "Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness." Well, that's certainly true of the Lord Jesus.

It also needs to be true of us. And so there are many respects in which we can imitate here the king. And then, of course, there's many aspects in which we imitate the queen, because we both are imitators of Christ, our king, but we're also the bride of Christ, who is married to him, and in that sense we are followers of him, and he clothes us in his righteousness.

And there's tremendous joy as we focus on him as our Lord and Savior and husband. So thank you, Roger, for pointing out the application that says not only to Solomon, not only to Christ, but also to us. And that's one of the things that Mark, KG7PVT, brought out.

When we look at these Psalms, we need to say, "Okay, how do they apply to the person who wrote it? How does it apply to Christ? How does it apply to us?

And how does it apply to the future?" And so the future application here, of course, is this is a picture of the wedding supper of the Lamb that's going to happen, as described in Revelation chapter 19. Roger, thank you for bringing that dimension out. All right, any other comments please come now.

Xerox, yeah Kevin, KB7 is at extent. Please go ahead. Well, just a couple of things, too, here.

You know, one, just a quick comment on the speech. One of the distinctives of our Lord and this king is his speech of being full of mercy and grace. yet still maintains the sword of righteousness.

And John 7, 46 points out that no one speaks like Jesus. And that is true. He stands above all the others in his speech.

It's interesting, the book of Hebrews, you know, written to the Hebrew believers, and as he's introducing the writing there in chapter 1, and uses verses 6 and 7 as this distinction of Jesus, but also Zechariah 9. We see the same words and description there used in this psalm describing the king here too. of your team that will come so this over you know repeatedly through the Word of God these attributes this this this song it really is speaking of the King Jesus yahoo Joshua if you will it very very prophetic and in that aspect but yeah the qualities that been highlighted by the comments here and in the text are just boy just something else kb7 that example Yeah, real good, Kevin.

And I appreciate you making the connection here between Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7, and Hebrews 1. So let's look at that for a minute. I think it's really useful.

Psalm 45, verse 6 says, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter." Verse 7, "Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. thy God has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows so we see that the king is spoken of as being God thy throne O God is forever and ever and then this king who is God has a God like it says in verse 7 "Therefore God, thy God, is anointed thee with oil." So we've got the king being God, but the king also is being anointed by God.

And so here is a clear indication of the plurality of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit isn't mentioned here in particular, but we get all these hints in the Old Testament. You know, "Let us make man in our image." We have all these indications in the Old Testament that God is a plurality.

And of course we know that He's a Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Well, if you turn over in Hebrews chapter 1, there's a comparison being made here between the angels and the position they have, and Christ and the position He has. So in Hebrews 1.1, it says, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in his last days spoken to us by his Son.

So he's talking about the Son here. Verse 4, Hebrews 1.4, being made so much better than the angels. as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

So he starts to make this comparison between the Son of God, who is Jesus, and the angels. And then in verse 7, it says, And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire, but the Son, he says, and now here's a quote of Psalm 45. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever a scepter of righteousness, is the scepter of thy kingdom.

Verse 9, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. So there is Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7, applied directly to Jesus Christ.

And so verse 8 makes it really clear that Psalm 45 and verse 6 is speaking of Jesus when it says, I've thrown, O God. So Jesus is addressed by God as God, thus making really clear His deity and His equality with the Father. So this is one of the grand proofs in the scriptures of the deity of Christ.

There are those like the Jehovah's Witnesses who deny the deity of Christ. And that is a heresy. The deity of Christ is a cardinal doctrine which defines his identity.

And if we're to believe in the Jesus of the Bible, then we're believing in the Jesus who is himself God and also, of course, is the Son of God at the same time. All right. Kevin, thank you for that comment and that connection.

All right, any other comments on this passage, please come out Okay, Ted KK 70 qq go Yeah. It's strange that you have to be a man who tells God he's gone and he knows exactly what he was doing. He might try to get through today, and he won't be coming for you.

But to us, it is impossible. You know, it is impossible that once you've got your life, you come down and know God. I'm sorry.

yeah ted i think you're done um i i had a hard time hearing you but uh yeah what ted was saying is that uh they crucified jesus because he said i am give them the wisdom, the guidance, and to show them the path, the good path to leave their flaw. We also want to lift up our brother, Roger WB7-DZL, who's preparing to travel back home to College Place from where he is there in Coalville today. and we just ask for safety and protection for him because that today, he's safe passage.

And I hope to pray that we can hear him again tomorrow from his place in college, college place. I also want to lift up our brother here again. uh, AE7ES for his continued healing and prays on good progress for Jerry AE7ER uh, he told us this morning that his HF treatment was not totally successful and if there's a possible ablation in his future, in that future, be with him and give him the strength and the encouragement that he would need to have during this time that he's between treatments.

We join our brother Scott, baby seven, Y2T, and seven semi-vehicle-sized grants to the deferral of fighting fires, and to trade for safety in particular. For Steve, 76Y and 9, we want to continue to lift him up in having wisdom and receiving wisdom for planning his new house to purchase in Tuolumne County. I just want to heal my cellulitis flare-up and praise that the antibiotics are helping with the improvement there.

Praise it. but the healing will continue and be in the full 100% capacity and we'll be lifting around as much as we can do that. Also we want to remember our son John for his cancer treatment and also for our neighbor Lucas who lost his hearing.

and eat early and eat at the treatment plant. That, uh, that is insurable food at the treatment plant for kids too. For days, AI-7, you choose.

I pray for you. Well, first, I also wish you a good trip and blessings to those you teach and blessings from them back to you. My head went down the Paulie want a cracker road and there was nothing there.

Okay, back to you. I got to get to work. Have a blessed day, everyone.

KG6J. All right, Jerry. KG6J73, have a great day at work, and we will chat with you tomorrow.

Well, I won't chat with you tomorrow, but everybody else will chat with you tomorrow, God willing. All right. Any other comments?

Please come down. Just safe travels and happy landing. You too, Ace.

Thank you for that, Al. Appreciate that. No problem, Max.

And you're going to be running Rockland, right? I'll be running Rockland. That's correct.

Awesome. I will be here in case something doesn't work right. Okay.

Appreciate that. All right. Thanks for the backup.

I really appreciate that a lot. Okay. Anybody else want to comment, please come down.

I think we're good, Max. Have a good day. AK6OK.

AK6OK, 73 to you, WB7MX. KD7YQT, Scott, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to get some context to what I was saying earlier about, about our life being a little bit different than most people.

And you know, my wife has been sick for a long time. And so that's all I'm trying to do, just as a contact. We're not attention seeking.

We certainly want prayer, but we're not trying to, you know, as you've seen in the world, where people use illness to try to get a whole bunch of attention and that type of thing. So that's all I'm trying to do. So anyway, thank you.

Scott, completely understand. I completely understand and appreciate your maturity and comprehension of what's going on there. A lot of people like to cast themselves as victims and use victimhood as currency to get attention and resources and special treatment and all that stuff.

As believers we don't do that and I know you are not doing that. You haven't done that. But yeah, you know what's sad is that people will draw all sorts of conclusions about our motives when they can't see into our hearts and when, of course, those things are not true.

And what they wind up turning into is evil surmising and slander. And I'm sorry you've been the victim of that. Welcome to the club.

I think that anyone who serves the Lord is the subject of cruel, uncaring, selfish, and unspiritual people who draw negative conclusions. You know, Scott, one of the principles that I live by, and I know you do too, and that is love thinks no evil. Which means we put the best construction on what other people say, on what other people do, and the choices they make, assuming that they're operating with integrity, they're serving the Lord, and they're doing what they understand to be the right thing.

And you know, it's the nature of human depravity that we want to put a negative construction on what other people are doing. And as Christians, love forbids us to do that. And so understand your concern.

Understand that we comprehend exactly what you're saying and we're right on board with you. We've experienced the same things. And so we extend grace and goodwill and a positive construction to everyone on this net.

And, you know, we expect the same back in return. And what that does is it creates a tone of positive attitude, a thought of goodwill, and reinforces and deepens love. And so as we share our needs, we know we're doing that, number one, with integrity, and number two, because we recognize that the scriptures call upon us to pray for each other.

Well, the only way we can do that intelligently is if we make our prayer request known. And so we see the Apostle Paul doing that, you know, in Colossians and some of the other passages. He says, brethren, pray for us.

You know, we're under persecution here. Everyone doesn't have faith. And so that's how we function here.

So, Scott, thank you for the clarification. Fully understand and really appreciate you, brother, and the position you're in and the attitude you have. Back to you there, Scott.

Well, thanks, Matt. I appreciate it. And I can tell, it's another way to speak to your health care system.

And I appreciate you speaking. Our home church, the Reunion Health Christian Fellowship, they understand. They know we are there because of my wife's health problems and stuff like that.

that they uh like that but uh yeah i appreciate your uh your uh and I really hope I remember she was a big member of the group life. And Alex said he just had her 41-year anniversary. And that's what I told her yesterday.

She was a little bit depressed because she wasn't feeling well. And I said, look, there's a lot of things we have to be thankful for. I said, look, there are people that have, you know, have had to go to war.

and maybe they've only been married a year and a half. and get killed or something like that. And we've been together a long time.

Yeah, we've fought through a lot of adversity. But, hey, we're here. We have a home.

Like you were saying, you know, we have food. We are -- you know, there's a lot to be thankful for. So I appreciate that very much.

Back to you. -All right, Scott, real good. Yep.

And, you know, through all the suffering that, you know, you and Pam have gone through because you're worn flesh, You know, her suffering is yours and yours is hers. You know, there's been a development and a deepening of your spirituality, of your fellowship with God, that would have never been there had not that adversity been brought into your life. And so, you know, it's a stewardship that God has entrusted you with.

It's a tool he's using to shape you into his image. And it's a means of, believe it or not, ministry. You know, the fact that these circumstances have obtained, have opened doors for ministry and understanding of the struggles of others that would have never been there had you not experienced that.

I was reading a book not long ago by Johnny Erickson Tata, you know, who is paralyzed from the neck down, and, you know, Songs of Suffering, and she takes the hymns, the old hymns, which have so much in them about suffering, and then she talks about, And a great opportunity to bring glory to God and witness to the lost and grow yourself. And so soldier on there, brother. You and Pam have a great ministry there.

Back to you, Scott. Yeah, thank you, man. together.

I was, I was taught, my family was healthy growing up, and I was taught that a lot of people thought all the first PR in their head. And so for a long time, you know, I've been put a person in here, and I, you know, I wasn't very nice. I wasn't cool, but I was not like that.

The Lord was useful, and he was there to clean them, and yeah. I guess the neighbors have been married for 28 years. The wife has got cancer.

And the husband looked at that and said, "You know what? I didn't sign up for that." And that's how the story began. And to me, I can't imagine seeing more tools than doing something like that.

That's what occurs to me to the most. And I'm not saying that for myself, right? I'm not saying that for anybody else.

as well. Yeah, amen, well said. You know, when we got married, we said, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, until death do us part.

And you know, in those vows is the recognition that marriage is a part of life.