That's a good hymn. Did you pay
attention to the words? He said, I know not why, I know
not how, I know not what, I know not when, but I do know who. That's good. That's very good. Romans 5 now, go back there,
Romans chapter 5. I hope this will be, you know,
we're going to have, look at, I gave you five words when I
sent most of the outline, and really there are 12 words here.
But don't panic. It's not going to take that long.
We spend a couple of minutes each word. That's not very long. There's 12 words here and we
cannot leave any of them out. Brother Barnard, as I said Sunday,
he said you only need two books, the Bible and a dictionary. I'm thankful that the Lord gave
us an English Bible. He raised up men who were efficient,
proficient in Hebrew and Greek, and they did all the study, and
we have an English Bible. I'm so thankful. But sometimes
the words, you know, you can look up the words and most of
the time the word is given is good enough, but sometimes it
helps to look the words up. In our English dictionary, like
we did Sunday about, what was the word I looked up? I'd forgotten.
What was it, Steve? Anyway, I remember it being a
blessing. See, even the preacher forgets.
But you only need a Bible and a dictionary,
and you look up these words, and I did that, and it was such
a blessing to me, and I hope it'll be a blessing to you. Now,
first of all, My preacher, my pastor said, to understand God's
Word, you need to consider three things. Who is speaking? To whom
is he speaking? And what's the subject? Who is
speaking? Well, God. This is God's Word.
It's God's Word. To whom? To those called to be
saints, it says in Romans 1. It's to God's people. That's
who this is for. He keeps saying, we know. It's
God's people who believe, believers. It's not to the world, okay?
What's the subject? Justification by faith. The whole
book of Romans. Not works. Not by works of righteousness,
which He has done, according to His mercy He saved us. Through
the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. We're saved by works,
not ours, but His. Do you know how few people know
that? Oh, we do. It begins, verse 1
of chapter 5, being justified by faith. We have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justified. What's that mean? Well, it means innocent. Are you innocent? Well, that's
what the Scripture says. Therefore, being innocent. It
means not just innocent, it doesn't mean just that you've not broken
the law, but it means you've loved God with all your mind,
heart, soul, and strength. You've kept the law perfectly. You've fulfilled the law. Really? Yes, really. That's what it said. Well, how is that? How can that
be? Well, it's just by faith in Christ. That's why Christ
came. He made the law. We broke it. He kept it and imputed it. All of Romans 4 is about that.
All of Romans is about that. And he charged to us what Christ
did. Isn't that good news? Innocent,
righteous. And it says in Romans 8, we may
turn there several times, It says, Romans 8, verse 28 and
29, we know all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are called according to his purpose, for whom he did
foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, he called whom he called, he
justified. He called Abraham, and we just
read, he called Abraham out of idolatry, 75 years old, and Abraham
didn't believe God, didn't know God, but God foreknew Abraham,
chose Abraham, called Abraham. Here's what he said, I've justified
you freely, completely, from all things. I'm giving you this
blessed faith. And I'm imputing to you righteousness
of the coming Christ. You are now righteous before
me in my eyes, just by believing. And there's no law. But Abraham,
there was no law, right? When Abraham was called, no law. No circumcision. None of that justifies anybody
or anything. And it says, Scripture says we're
innocent. And not only that, but righteous.
Most of you have heard this story. Some have not, perhaps. Maybe
someone listening over the internet. My father was a young man, and
he was driving a big old Hudson automobile that weighed
thousands of pounds. And he ran through a stop sign.
And a car was coming at that time. He plowed right inside
of it. demolished that car. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
No one was hurt. And they charged him with reckless
driving and running a stop sign and just everything. It's all
his fault. He was guilty. So they sentenced
him to a day in court where they were going to, you know, whatever
the judge decided to do. And he said, as that time was
approaching the law, you know, he's guilty. I mean, he's guilty. He knows it. Everybody knows
it. He said the closer he got to that stand before the judgment
seat, he was just, he said, I was literally trembling. So my grandfather
went with him, my Pop Mahan went with him, and they were sitting
in the back, you know, you want to get as far from that judge
as you can. They were sitting on the back row. And Dad said
that judge was strict, and he was throwing the book at everybody. And one after another, one after
another, before long, everybody in that courtroom was gone except
my dad and his dad. They're the only ones left in
that courtroom. And the judge had his head down,
looking at his books and all that, and he looked up and said,
what can I do for you all? My dad stood up and said, I'm
stuttering. I'm Henry Mahan, and I'm supposed
to appear in court today. Hmm. Judge looked down. He went
through. He looked. He looked. He said, there's nothing in this
book. Your name's not here. There's nothing in here. He said,
you're free. Go on. There's nothing on the
books. The scripture says that Christ
blotted out the handwriting of ordinances against us. Do you
have any guilt in your past that you cannot get rid of? Yesterday, the Lord says you've been justified,
freed, wiped out, blotted out. Nothing on your record. Nothing. How's that? Christ. Right. Look at the next word in Romans
5. Justified. Justified by faith. Faith. Faith. You know, John read it tonight
in Ephesians 2. By grace you are saved through
faith. That's not yourself. Ephesians 1.19 says you believe
according to the working of His mighty power. There was a day
I didn't believe and before I knew it the next day I did. It was
a day I didn't care anything about God, and I did. It was
clear to me. I didn't decide that God had
given me this precious gift of faith. Peter said, to those who
have obtained like precious faith through the righteousness of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He gave us His faith, whom God
did foreknow. He did predestinate. He called by the gospel and He
justified it. He gave us His faith. We heard about our guilt. We
heard about the law. We heard about a holy and righteous
God. Then we heard the gospel about Christ. He said, Do you
believe? We said, We do. He said, Justify.
By faith? Just by believing? I didn't have
anything to do with it. Yeah, that's right. Faith. Faith is just belief. Faith is
trust. Faith is confidence in whom you
trusted after you believed. Jesus wants it. So faith, what
a precious thing faith is. It's not an act of the human
will. It's not something you decide to do. It's not one day
you were reading all of this and figured it out and said,
OK, this is what I believe. No, no, no, no. It's a miracle of God's grace. All right, look at the next word.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace. And by the way, faith is not
an act. Faith is just trusting a person. Our faith is a person. We don't have faith in our faith.
Do we? We have faith in Christ, His
faith. Over and over, it talks about the faith of Christ, the
faith of Christ. Because He had to live by faith.
And He did it for us. All right? We have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace. I looked up the word,
and you have it there maybe. It means prosperity. When you
think of prosperity, you think everything's going to go well. Everything's well. It is well
with my soul, no matter what it is. My soul's going to prosper. That's right. That's exactly
right. All things work together for
your prosperity, spiritually. For good. Prosperity means rest. Peace. Some of you were in religion,
weren't you? And you were striving and working
and trying to be moral and trying to keep the law and all that.
And you heard that, no, you can't be justified by the law. You
heard the gospel. You heard the truth. And then the law convicted
you. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me? And our Lord through the gospel
said, Christ. And you believe it. And it just rests. And it rests. I had a man start
coming here who was in reformed religion, and that's bondage.
It's bondage. They got the doctrine, but it's
bondage. They say, you know, you're saved by grace, but buts.
Nothing. You've heard of them. Peace means
rest. Rest from working. And peace,
did you notice, at one again. At one again. You were enmity, you read that.
And Colossians says the same thing. You were enemies. You
were separated, estranged from God. But through Christ you're
one with God. God created man for man to walk with him. But man sinned against God. And he ran from it. And man,
all mankind, didn't want anything to do with God. But God. And you, running. But God. You want to be one with God.
You want to walk with God. How did this happen? Christ reconciled
both of them. Of two. At onement. Put that together. At onement. That's atonement. Right? Atonement brought us together.
And I look at the next sign. We have peace through our Lord
Jesus Christ. He made peace by the blood of
his cross, that atonement he made, reconciled us to God. By whom, verse 2, by Christ also
we have access, access to God. Access, the word means admission,
entrance. You can come in. You're granted
free access to God. All through the Old Testament
it talks about God consuming fire. Mount Sinai, don't come
near, don't come close now. Don't even touch the mountain
or I'll kill you. But now in Hebrew it says we
come to God another way, by Christ, the forerunner, within the veil
and offered up His blood on the mercy seat. Remember the veil
was ripped from top to bottom and that tells everybody, His
people, come on in freely. Come on in. Like, you know the
story of Isaac as an old man, and he was going to bless his
sons, and Esau being the oldest son who had the birthright, the
blessing belonged to him. But Jacob's mother said, now
we're going to get you the blessing. And this is the Spirit of God
teaching us how God's going to accept us. Okay? It's not ours
by right. It's Christ's by right. So Rebecca
said to Jacob, you've got to have what the Father loves that
the older son provides, savory meat. Your older brother has
given him savory meat all these years and he just loves it. And
he loves your older brother. You've got to smell like him. You've got to feel like him. Now, here's, she said, here's
his savory meat that he loved. And she put a garment, a hairy
garment all over Jacob to make him feel like Esau. That's a righteous surprise,
a robiness. And then when he came to Isaac,
his father, he was fearful, he was afraid. And the father said
one thing, he said, do you have that savory meat that I like?
He said, yes, I do. Bring it to me. Oh, he said,
I love it. He said, come closer. And he
said, and he touched him. He said, it feels like he saw.
He said, it smells like he saw. And he blessed him. He got the
blessing that belonged to his older brother. That's what we
get through Christ, he said. The Spirit of God teaches us
that. That you only come to God, the Father, through the righteous,
through the savory meat, the sweet-smelling savor of his sacrifice,
Christ. This is faith. Without faith,
it's impossible to please God. He that cometh to God. Let's
believe that he is, that Christ is. And we have this robe of
righteousness. So we have access, we have an
entrance, we have acceptance. Scripture says we can come boldly,
come freely. Come on in. Sinners though we
be. How do we come? By faith in Christ. Come boldly. Boldly. Told you this story once before,
but maybe somebody hadn't heard it. It's a good one. Back during
the Civil War, there was a Union soldier whose
mother was dying, and he wanted to go home and see her, and he
couldn't. And he was sitting, he was stationed in Washington
at the time, and he just sat on the steps of the court outside
the White House there, sitting on the steps, you know, big gate,
He was sitting there, and he was just so sorrowful. He knew there was only one person
that could let him go home, and that's the President of the United
States. He couldn't get in and see him. No way. He's sitting
there, and a little boy came walking by. The young boy saw
him sad. He said, sir, why are you sad? He told him, my mother's dying.
I want to go home and see her. President Lincoln's the only
one that could give me that freedom, but I can't get in and see him.
And the little boy said, follow me. And the little boy walked
to the gate, and there was two guards at the gate, and the gate
just swung open. And he walked through that gate
and he walked up to the front door of the White House, two
guards there, and the gates, the doors just, they just opened
the doors freely. They walked down the hallway
and there was the Oval Office of the President of the United
States of the City. Now the guard at that door, and that guard
just opened that door. And they both came in and the
boy came in first and he said, There's a man here who wants
to go home to see his mother. And he granted it. A free exit through the Son. One
way. You know that, don't you? One
way. He's well pleasing to the Father.
And what pleases Him is for us to trust His Son. We have access
by faith into this grace. Where would you turn to read
about grace? Everywhere. With Ephesians 1,
you know, grace, electing grace, predestinating grace, adopting
grace, redeeming grace, forgiving grace, revealing grace, and on
and on it goes. Sealing grace. Grace means gifts. We have access. Gift means favor. It means benefit. By grace are
you saved. Benefits. We have every benefit,
every favor given to us by God through Jesus Christ. Here it
is. I love it. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Bless all that is
within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the
Lord, O my soul. And forget not all his benefits. Who forgiveth all thy iniquities.
Who healeth all thy diseases. who redeemed my life from the
stress. Christ came to save us from destroying
ourselves. And crown of the with loving
kindness and tender mercy. Why? For Christ's sake. Because He did. We have access,
free access, by grace. Look at the next word. And rejoice
in this grace wherein we stand And rejoice in hope. We have
a good hope through grace. The grace of God is in Christ.
In hope of the glory of God. Glory. The word glory means honor. The word glory means praise. Now listen to Peter. He said
this. The trial of your faith. Faith
that's more precious than gold. It would be the gold that perishes. And this faith, though it be
tried with fire, it's going to be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Christ Jesus. Glory. Glory is not only a thing, it's
a place. It's a person. The person, God
of all glory, Christ, glorious Son, glorious Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. By Christ, we get to be with
God in glory and get to behold Christ's glory. And our Lord
said, I want to have you turn to John 17, but if not, for the
sake of time, I'll turn myself. But our Lord said this, He said,
Father, I will that they Be with me where I am, those who have
given me, that they may behold my glory." Before that, he said,
the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them. Meaning, you've already been
glorified if you see His glory. You're as good as they are. If
you believe Christ, you trust Christ, you see Christ as your,
all your salvation. gloriously given you this faith.
Paul said this, he said, we're bound to give thanks to God for
you brethren, beloved Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the Holy Spirit and belief
of the truth. And this is how he did it. He
called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. See, we had nothing to do with
any of it. And we're going to be standing in glory. And the
word means praise and honor and glory and worship. It means worship
to the glory. We're going to be standing in
glory after that 30 minutes of silence. Our mouths are going
to be open. and they were going to erupt
into praise. Whose praise? His praise. Honor. Whose honor? His honor. Who are we going to be glorifying?
You see, this boast is excluded. All glory is excluded but with
Him. Look at the next word. We rejoice
in hope of the glory of God, but not only so, we glory in
tribulation. Tribulation. The word means pressure. Or something weighing down on
you. A burden. A burden. Have you ever thought about sin,
the guilt of sin, and the burden of sin laying you low as being
a blessing? That's a great blessing. You
know that? The Holy Spirit convicts of sin. Christ came to this world
to save sinners. What kind of sinners? Hell-deserving
sinners. Wretched sinners. That's the
only kind there is, right? Guilty sinners. Rebel sinners. Prodigal son sinners, you know.
And that, you know, that presses you down and weighs you down
and everybody that's down because they're sinned. Like that woman
caught in the act of adultery. Christ is going to lift you up.
He that abases himself, whom God abates, Christ is exalted. That's who. So this pressure,
this burden, and then there's the tribulation, that affliction
and trouble. We have trouble with sin. We
have trouble in the world. There was a time we didn't have
any trouble in the world. No trouble with the world. I
like it just fine. I want to stay here. I love it. You? Not now. But there was a time when I don't
want out of here. I want all this I can get. Not now. Trouble. Pressure. Affliction. Persecution. Persecution. Oh, it's a fight, isn't it? It's
a weight. It's a burden. Sin and the world. Oh, blessed.
Here's what James said. Listen to James. He said, Count
it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. You see, sin's not a temptation
to the world. It's not a temptation. It's something they love. Sin,
how can you rejoice in sin being a temptation, an enduring temptation? Because Satan tempts God's people. He doesn't have to tempt the
world. He's got them. They love it. They're just doing
it, you know, dead in trespassing, but not God's people. So He just
tempts and entices. That's what He did to Adam and
Eve. They were not sinners. That's why He tempted them. Well,
they failed. Tempted. Blessed are they that
count it all joy when you fall into all divers temptations and
trials. Tribulations, things that test
us. Knowing this, the triad of your
faith worketh patient. Patient. Look, that's the next
word. He says, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience. Patience means cheerful endurance. Cheerfully enduring. It means
continuance. Continuing. You know, we wouldn't continue
if we weren't born of God. We wouldn't continue. We wouldn't
endure anything. We wouldn't be able to endure
anything. Listen to David in Psalm 27. Patience. He said,
I would have fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness
of the Lord. in the land of the living, in this world. I would
have fainted. I had so many enemies. He talked
about my enemies, my enemies, my enemies. And he talked about
his own sin. And he called on God and he said,
I would have fainted. I would have quit long before
now if I hadn't seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. What's the goodness of the Lord? And we looked at that suddenly. He
said, I'll make all my goodness best for you. I'll be merciful.
I'll be gracious. That's Christ. That's the gospel.
So David says, wait. Wait on the Lord. Be of good
courage. Wait. That's what patience means.
He'll strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Endure. Endure cheerfully. Don't complain for chasing it. It's what we need. Don't complain
for tribulations and trials and all that. We need it. These things,
as we've said so many times, wean us from the world. Cause us to look to our God.
Patience. Have patience. Wait. Continue. Who are we waiting on? Listen
to Job. I do want you to turn to Job,
okay? Turn to Job 14. Listen to Job. You have it? Job 14, verse 14. You have it? If a man dies, shall
he live again? All the days of my appointed
time will I wait till my change come. Thou shalt call. See, all
whom God called by the gospel, He's going to call again out
of the grave. And I will answer that. And I will have a desire
to the work of dying. He's going to perfect that which
He hath begun. He's going to call His people
out of the grave. And we will endure. We will endure
this thing. All right, go back to the text.
Here's the next word. Now, in tribulation work is patience. Patience, experience. Experience. That means something is tried
and proven through experience. There really is only one teacher.
They say experience is the best teacher. Really, it's the only
teacher. You really don't learn anything until you experience
it. Right? You can believe God's Word, but
until you go through, you're not going to go through it. You're
not going to really believe it. It's experience. It's tried and
proven. Solomon said this, he said, I
gave my heart to seek wisdom, and he said, knowledge and understanding,
he said, went through all these things, went through all these
experiences through the world, and he concluded, vanity, vanity,
it's all vanity. You're going to experience it
all through life. You're going to experience it.
There's nothing to this. You're going to experience what it means
to be a sinner. Nothing to me. You're going to
experience God's mercy. You're not going to just believe
it in your head. You're going to rejoice in it. Experience it. God's going to
be merciful to you. Keep being merciful to you. forgiving
you and being merciful. That's an experience, you see.
It's not just a head doctrine. It's an experience. Salvation
is an experience, not an isolated incident. But the whole of your
life is an experience of God's mercy and grace. He giveth and
giveth. He never quits giving. You experience
that, don't you? In my experience, you know what
my experience is? This is what I've included. I'm
just an old sinner and nothing at all. Let Jesus Christ be our
Lord. That God is great, God is good,
and now I thank Him for my food, my everything. That's a simple
prayer. There was a time I didn't thank Him. It's experience, you
see. Patience, experience. You're
going to wait on the Lord and you're going to see Him provide. You're going to see Him Do what
you need. I promise you. Look at the next
word. Hope. Oh, what a word this is. Hope. Hope. Anybody like that
word in here? Helen. Hope. Hope. Hope means expectation. Expectation. Hope means great anticipation. Listen to David in Psalm 130.
I just turned to hear it for you. This is wonderful. This
is another one of your favorite psalms. David said, he said,
Out of the depths I've cried unto thee, O Lord, hear my voice.
Oh, if you mark iniquities, who shall stand? But there's forgiveness
within. I wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait, in his word
do I hope. His word do I hope. My soul waiteth
for the Lord. More than they that watch for
the morning. I say more than they that watch for the morning.
So let all Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord is mercy. With him is plenteous redemption.
Plenty to go around. And he shall redeem Israel. Who's Israel? Jacob. from all
his iniquities. How? Why? Just hoping. He takes
great pleasure in them that fear him and hope and in mercy. That's all I can do. You know
that? That's all I can do. There's
no hope in myself. All my hope is built on Jesus
Christ. And I anticipate, I greatly expect,
Because God cannot lie to be with him someday. That's my hope. And it says in the next word,
is hope maketh not ashamed. Hope maketh not ashamed. I should have, I wrote down the
word shame, I should have put unashamed. Unashamed. The word shame means disgraced,
means confounded. You know what the scripture said?
Those that hope in the Lord, none of them will be confounded.
None of them will be ashamed. None of them will be put to shame.
I'm ashamed of myself. Aren't you? I'm ashamed of myself. If God gave me what I deserve,
He'd put me to open shame someday before everybody. And here's
what God says, though. He says all those who trust Christ,
all those who Call on Him for mercy. It says, God is not ashamed
to be called their God. And He's prepared for them a
city. And I give you this illustration, Joseph. What all his brothers
do to him? Oh, they despised him. They rejected
him. They sold him. Cared nothing
for him. And then they lived a life of
sin for years. All those years. But God, rich
in mercy, brought them to Joseph. Convicted them of their sin.
What was their sin? What were they convicted of?
What they did to Joseph. What they did to their brother.
He convicted them of that. And to a man, every one of them
were just mourning over what they've done to him. And Joseph
heard it all. He's talking to him through an
interpreter. And then what happened? Joseph said, put everybody out
of the room. And he revealed himself to them.
I'm Joseph. I'm your brother. He said, come here. Come here.
Come on up here. All those sorry brethren that
sold him, hated him. Come here. Fell on their necks. Hugged them all. Kissed them
all. And he called for the ruler of the land. He said, my brethren
are here. Let's have a celebration. Sorry bunch of brothers of Joseph. He didn't put him to shame, did
he? He presented him to the king. Ain't that something? Out of
shame. Not going to be ashamed, uh-uh.
Not going to have any sins, remember. Verse 5, and I close. Hope maketh not ashamed. Not
ashamed of the gospel. Not ashamed of our hope. Not
ashamed of Christ. Christ said, He's ashamed of
me. I'll be ashamed of Him. I'm ashamed
of myself, but I'm not ashamed of Christ. Are you? And He says,
Hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is sure to broaden
our heart. Love. The word love means affection. Now herein is love, not that
we love God, but that He loved us, sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. But we do love Him, don't we?
We love God. We love Him because He first
loved us. And this love that God puts in
the hearts of God's people, now abideth faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is
love. Why? Because love never faileth. Faith's not going to
need faith one day, not going to need hope one day, but love.
And that begins here. If you love God, you love Christ,
you love the gospel, that's the gift of God. When
Simon Peter denied the Lord horribly, and I'm sure he thought, how
can I possibly be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ? Surely
He's done with me. I lived all those years in sin,
and then He called me, and He was so good to me, so merciful,
and revealed Himself to me, and did all those things for me for
three and a half years, and here I just denied, acted like I didn't
even know Him, and just reverted right back to an old sinner,
an old fisherman. No way I could be a child of
God. No way. And when he heard, when John
said, that's the Lord on the shore, and he dove out of that
boat and couldn't get to him faster than that. What's that? Love. Love. That's what that is. And then our Lord sitting around
that fire, our Lord said to Simon Peter, nobody else, to Simon
Peter, Simon Jonas, Simon, son of Jonas, Loveless thou me. Do you love
me? More than all this world. More
than anything, anybody in the world. Do you love me? What do
you say? Yay. Yes, I do. That's not presumption. It's love. It's love. But we've acted like we don't.
Though our love is, you know, so fickle and all that, we do
love you. We do. We do. And I'll close
with this illustration, one of your favorites. That prodigal
son, you know, he didn't care anything about the father. Give
me what's coming to me. Give me, give me, give me, give
me. The Father gave him everything. Freely, freely gave him everything. What did he do? Wasted. Wasted. Riotous living. Okay? God brought
him down, didn't He? Brought him down so far he was
in a hog pen. And Scripture says he came to
himself. That is, he came to see himself.
What he'd done. What have you done to the Father?
That's the first thing. Look what I've done to my Father.
He was so good to me, so merciful, so gracious, so kind. Look what
all I've done. Look what I've done to myself.
Look what I've done to everybody. Look what I've done. All I've
ever done is sin. Look at me. Here's what I'm going
to do. I'm going to go home. I'm going to throw myself on
the mercy of my Father. I'm going to plead with him.
I'm going to repent. I'm going to say, Father, forgive
me. I said, I'm not worthy. And just give me some crumbs
or whatever. And what happened? He hadn't got home yet. He was
far off. And the father saw him far off.
And the father ran. What's that? Love. The father
ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him. The son tried to get his
little saying out, but he couldn't. The father said, Bring the best
of them. Put it on him. Cover his neck. Put a ring on his finger. A token
of my love. Put shoes on his feet. That's the gospel. The Lord's
given you the gospel, that means He loves you. Do you love the
gospel? Because He first loved you. And He said, kill the fatted
calf. That's Christ. Do you love hearing
about the lamb? God loves you. And He says, my
son was dead, and he's alive. He was lost, and now he's back.
Okay, stand with me.