Ah, this is a big crowd, isn't
it? Good-looking bunch of people. It's good to be here. I appreciate
you, dear pastor. I appreciate you. And without
any further to do, I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter 11. I have one verse of scripture
to read here, then I have a passage over in Genesis 4. But let's
look at this one verse in Hebrews chapter 11. In verse 4. Hebrews 11 and 4. By faith able,
offered unto God, a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which
he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh." Now I want
you to turn over to Genesis chapter 4 and beginning in verse 1, Genesis
chapter 4 verse 1. And Adam knew Eve, his wife,
and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man
from the Lord. And she again bare his brother
Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller
of the ground. And in process of time it came
to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
unto the Lord, And Abel he also brought of the firstlands of
his flock, and the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto
Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering
he had not respect, and Cain was very angry, he was wroth,
and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door, and to thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his
brother, and it came to pass, when they were in the field,
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And
the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said,
I know not, am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast
thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood
crieth unto me from the ground, and now art thou cursed from
the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's
blood from thy hand. When thou killest the ground,
it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive
and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto
the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. I want to look at the history
of Cain and Abel, study some, concerning these two men long,
long ago. We're back here all the way to
the beginning of time, aren't we? The beginning, really, of
humanity. And somebody might say, Bruce,
why in the world would you want to go back 6,000 years ago and
talk about these two men? We have pressing problems. in
our day that we need to deal with, and we do. I've got some
heart problems. You've got heart problems. We
have family problems. God knows we have national problems. And there's many things that
you and I could talk about tonight and I could preach about. And
there's a time and a place to talk about these present troubles
and trials that we're going through. Then why do we go here and preach
about these two men tonight? It's because of verses 4 and
verses 5, something that took place with these two men. They
brought an offering unto the Lord. One of them was rejected
and one was accepted. The Lord rejected Cain. He rejected his offering. He
found no favor. God didn't look with any sympathy
upon this man. The other man He accepted, forgave
him all of his sins, was merciful to him, was a father to him. And this was so important in
the life of these two men. Everything else that happened
in their life was secondary. This was the most important thing
that happened in these two men's lives. That's why I wanted to
look at it with you. They were on the stage just for
a little while. I don't know how old Abel was.
He was killed. He was violently killed. But
what did that matter? He was accepted of God. It's
well with him today. He's not remembering how he suffered
or how he died. And Cain went out and was a very
prosperous man. I'm sure he suffered in his conscience
the rest of his life, but he was a very prosperous man. He
built a city, named it after his son. But the rest of his
life was secondary to him. because of what happened here
when he was rejected. And you and I, we come on the
stage just like these two men did, we live here for a while,
and this is the most important thing to you and I in our lifetime. Am I accepted of God? Have I
found favor of Him? Is He my Savior? Is He my Lord? Is He my God? Is He my Covenant
God? If it is, everything else that
happens in my life is just temporary. I'll soon be gone of all of it.
But if I'm not accepted of Him, no matter what else happens to
my life, It won't be well for all eternity. And then in these
two men, Abel and Cain, we find out the way of acceptance, the
way of finding favor, mercy and forgiveness of our sins, life
eternal, and the way to be rejected. So that brings me to my first
point I want to look at, and I think we need to do this. This
being thought about, one rejected and one accepted, let's look
just for a minute and see if there's any distinction to be
made in these two men, in and of themselves. And I would say
there's not. There's not. They're brothers.
They're born to the same mother, the first two men that was ever
born. They had the same dad, they had the same mother, raised
the same way. There was no corrupt influence
around them at that time as the world soon became so corrupt.
They didn't have the problem with sex and drugs as they later
had problems with. It wasn't their environment that
made a distinction. That wasn't the reason why one
was accepted and one was rejected. They were just alike by nature. They were born alike. They were
raised alike. And I think it's very important
to remember that both of these men were born outside the garden. And why is that important? If
one had been barred inside the garden and one barred outside
the garden, we may say, well, here's the cause of one being
accepted and the other being rejected. Because inside that
garden, things were different there, wasn't it? Adam and Eve
fellowshiped with God, walked with Him in the cool of the day.
They were holy. They were harmless. God created
them upright, but they disobeyed the Lord, they sinned against
Him, they fell and He drove them from that garden. And it was
outside the garden that both of these men were born and lived. So why was one accepted? And
why was one rejected? We see here three things in verses
3. You see this? You see three things
that are sort of interested about this. We don't know what time
of day it was or what day of the week it was, but it said
in verse 3, in the process of time, There came to pass. There was
a day of the week. I don't know what day it was.
It may have been the first day. It may have been the seventh
day. We're not told. But there was a time. They knew
it. There was a time of day when
they came to worship and bring their offering. And we're told
here there was a place. They brought their offerings
to a certain place. I doubt if it was a building
like this. They may have erected some kind of a tent. I don't
know if there's an altar that they made out of stone, but there
was a place where they came to, to worship and meet with the
Lord. And then, and here in verses
3 and 4, there's an indication here that they'd been told, they
understood that they weren't to approach unto God empty-handed. They both brought an offering. Now that tells us something about
fallen man, doesn't it? I think it tells us why we have
so much religion in the world. These men were fallen men. Cain
was a fallen man. But he came to the Lord. He approached
unto the Lord, but he knew, I cannot approach unto God empty-handed. Don't man feel that way today?
The things that's made, the creation of God, it reveals something
to the conscience of man. God has left man a conscience.
And no matter where man lives, in the darkest places of this
world, he feels this need of God. He don't know who God is. He
just knows that He made the earth and that His wrath is revealed
against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of man. But this
universe preaches to men everywhere, you need God. And here's what man says everywhere,
I can't come empty handed. And this is why you see so many
denominations, this is why you see some weird things happening
even in the jungles of this world, people doing strange things.
Because everybody has their criteria as to what God requires of them. So they bring things. They bring
things to God. Everything from prayers, to Bible
readings, to church membership, to baptism, to weird and strange
things, the type of underwear they wear. Strange things. Why does men feel a need to be
religious? I think it's just that way by
nature. But they don't know what to bring, do they? And if man goes untaught, he
never will approach unto God to be accepted until God teaches
him what he requires. That's what we see in these two
men. Look at the offerings here in verse 3. Cain brought of the
fruit of the ground that offering unto the Lord. Now, this is the
most natural offering that he could have brought. If I had
been there and untaught of God, you know what I would have brought
if I'd have been Cain? Just what he brought. Because
he was a tiller of the ground. He brought what was natural to
him. He grew things, you see. He grew
cabbages. He grew carrots. He had fruit
trees. And boy, I bet you when he loaded
his basket up, it was some of the most beautiful fruit and
vegetables you've ever seen in your life. Because the earth
was young. It was rich. He had this native vegetables
and fruit and he worked hard. Let's give him the credit for
it. He worked hard. I don't know for sure what Hebrews
chapter 11 verse 4 means when it called his offering an excellent
offering. It may have been that it was
excellent in his eyes, but I tell you one thing, he had some labor
in it. Because the weeds and the thorns had already begun
to infest the ground. And when he planted that garden,
he said, this is what I'm going to offer to God. And he hold
it until he had blisters. Some days it was so hot that
his body was wringing wet with sweat. He worked. And then when it come time to
harvest, he didn't pick out rotten fruit. He didn't pick out what
the rabbits had chewed on his carrots. He said, I'm taking
the best I've got. And can you imagine how beautiful
it was? There was his basket and was loaded with all colors
and shapes and sizes of fruits and vegetables. My goodness,
folks, it was beautiful. And as he carried that in his
arms, there was no doubt in his mind, God's got to accept this. He's got to accept this. How
beautiful. How clean. How lovely that was. Cain brought unto the Lord an
offering of his own hands. He worked hard. What about Abel? Well, he was
a shepherd. And we're told here that Abel,
the keeper of the sheep, he went into his flock, he chose out
a first born lamb, probably one about a year old, he examined
him, make sure he had no blisters on him, no scars, and he cut
his throat. And then he took him out and
laid him down and hung him up and he ripped that belly open
and gutted him and he took all the fat and stuffed it back in
him. And then he took it up in his
arms and brought it to this place. And there he stood. Can you imagine? The wool that was red with the
blood, his own blood. Maybe his hands were soaked. Maybe he had some on the skirts
of his garment. But there he stood with that
old bloody limb. What a mess. What a mess. And he laid it down between his
guilt and a holy God. Between himself a poor fallen
sinner and a just God. He laid it down between him and
God. But if you had seen that, which
offering would you have accepted? Which one do you think the world
would have accepted? You know the Bible says something
about the world going in the way of Cain. I tell you one of
the ways of Cain. A bloodless, a bloodless religion. A clean, pretty religion. And they're pretty themselves.
And they're so nice and they're so kind until you get them stirred
up about the way of acceptance. They're not pretty anymore. But you and I know which way
we'd have accepted. We know which way the world,
we know which offering the world would accept it. But we know
which offering God accepted, don't we? He looked upon that
messy, bloody lamb and he said, Abel, you have my favor. All your sins I forgive. I'll
be a father to you and I'll receive you to heaven when you leave
this world. All the cause, He brought this
bloody sacrifice. All the world know what bloody
sacrifice He did. But without it, there's no remissions
of sins, brothers and sisters. The cross ain't a pretty thing,
is it? It's not a pretty thing. You look at the Lord Jesus Christ
hanging there on the place they call the place of a skull, of
all places. And look at Him hanging there
with blood running from His brow down on His face and running
from His face down upon His side and from His side down upon His
legs and off of His feet down upon the ground. What a bloody,
bloody mess the Lord Jesus was. He wasn't pretty. He was a sacrifice
for sin and God accepted Him. Blood. I love it, don't you?
I love the blood. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing else. What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. It ain't pretty. Not to the flesh. No, it ain't. But boy, it's the
only thing that'll satisfy God. It's the only thing that put
away sin from a man's conscience. The blood of Christ. Sometimes
when I go places, these preachers know this too, you go places
to a dinner or something and somebody finds out we've got
a preacher there. And they want you to come up front and ask
the blessings. You know, they don't want the blessings, they
just sprawl for a show. That's why I don't even like
to do it. But I tell you what I started doing. I don't know
if this is right or wrong, but I get up there, here's the way
I start praying. Oh great God in heaven, thank
you for the precious blood of your dear son. Oh Lord, I'm so
thankful that your blood reaches deeper than the stain is gone.
And here you are praying over the food. And you just know that
you hear somebody saying, how repulsive. How repulsive! Blood! You ever go into somebody's house?
I love to go into people's houses and they've got these paintings
on the walls and just about every house has got a painting that's
got a vase that's got some kind of pretty fruit in it. A bowl full of apples and all
colors of fruit. Just about everybody's got those.
They love those things. Did you ever go into anybody's
house and on their dining room wall you see a man holding an
old bloody lamp? Did you ever see that? I never have. But that's what God accepts.
The blood of His Son. We have a guy in our congregation,
and he does mechanic work, and I shook hands with him Sunday
morning. And boy, his hands, I looked at his hands, and if
you've ever had to change an engine or something like that,
that's what I saw. He said he'd been changing an
engine, and boy, the grit was down in the pores of his skin.
And I said, how do you get that off? He said, I take the Lord. And I soaked my hands in lard
and put some latex gloves on there for three or four hours,
and when I take them off, he said, it's all gone. Ain't that
what sin has done for our conscience? We sin against God, and our conscience
is defiled, and it's stained with sin. And what can go down
in the depths of our conscience to wash us? What can reach there? Water can't do it. Good works
can't do it. Reformation can't do it. What
can reach the conscience, and it don't take two or three hours,
to purge it? The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else. Nothing else. That's why when we come to God,
we come to Him to be accepted of Him, for Him to accept us,
we bring one thing, and that's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else. God will accept
you. Nothing else. Something else let's look at
for just a minute. The verse that I read to you
over in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 4. It said, By faith Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Let me say two things
about this. By faith. By faith. What does
he mean by faith? Well, I think he means two things.
And first of all, let me say this. How faith comes. Faith is absolutely necessary.
You can't be saved without it. But we're not born with it. It's
not something that lays dormant in a man's heart and you muster
it up. Faith comes by hearing. If this man brought to God what
God required, he had to hear what God required. Faith comes
by hearing. Well, who did he hear? Somebody
had to preach to him. And I don't know who else would
have done it, but his dad and mom. What would they have said
to him? Well, I think we can see back
over in the 3rd chapter. Look in the 3rd chapter of Genesis.
Look in verse 6. The 3rd chapter and look in verse
6. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit
thereof, did eat, and gave it to her husband, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were
opened, And they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord
amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto
Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard
your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked,
and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee thou
wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat of?" The first thing we see that Adam
and Eve must have told their sons was this. If you're going
to approach unto God, you've got to be clothed. This is something
they experienced. This wasn't just some doctrinal
point that you can know or not know. This was something they
experienced. They said, sons, listen to us.
This is something we know without a shadow of a doubt. If you come
to God without a proper clothing, you're going to stand there ashamed
of yourself. God's going to see you and you're
going to be ashamed. You know this is such a beautiful
picture of what God requires. You know God requires us to be
clothed when we come before Him. You see this garment mentioned
and described so many different ways and going to so many different
names in the Bible. It's the righteousness of God. It's the righteousness of Jesus
Christ. Let me read some names. It's
called the garments of salvation. Or the robe of righteousness. It's called the best robe. It's
called the wedding garment. It's sometimes called the skirts
of the Lord. Are the Lord our righteousness?
Our fine linen, clean and white? Righteousness without works? Righteousness of faith? You can
see these in the Bible. The way this garment is described. But after a while it becomes
evident. Whatever name it goes under,
you've got to have it. You've got to have this garment. That's the first thing these
two boys heard. You've got to be clothed before
you come before God. And the second thing was this.
They told their sons this. And they heard it. Abel believed
it, Cain didn't. They said, sons, listen. The
garment that God requires, you cannot provide. You cannot weave
a garment sufficient before God that He will accept you in. They
tried it, didn't they? They weaved their garments out
of these fig leaves. And when they heard the voice
of the Lord God, what did they do? They ran and hid themselves.
Why? He said, I was afraid. Why were
you afraid? I was naked. He wasn't naked. Yes, He was. Yes it was. They didn't know it until God
came close searching them out, speaking their names. We got, my wife and I, I remember
this from years ago, my wife was coming down through Muncie
the other day and she said, there's fig tree ministries. And they
advertise in the paper all the time, Fig Tree Ministry. Kay Whitehead is their pastor.
Who in his right mind would name their ministry Fig Tree Ministries? Ain't that amazing? I see these
two. Can't you see them? Can't you
see them having each other dress? And he says, sweetheart, how
do I look? Oh, let me tuck you in here from
behind just a little bit. Oh, you look great. You look
great. Well, you look great too. I can't see a thing. Well, I
can't see anything on you either. And they got all somewhat cocky
about it, thinking that God could not see
anything because they couldn't. But boy, when the Lord came close,
when He began to say, Adam, where art thou? I guess those leaves
just swiveled up, don't you think? And dropped off. And Adam said,
oh no! And he even said, oh my word,
what's happened? And they ran and hid themselves. You see, brothers and sisters,
what God requires of you and I, we cannot provide. And going
about to try it however we will is nothing but loading our religious
basket up and trying to bring it to offer it before the Lord.
It's taking a bunch of fig leaves and trying to clothe ourselves
with it, thinking that God cannot see beyond the leaves. You know why men live as they
do. You know why this world goes
on and sleeps of the night. And they can sin at will and
they're never ashamed of their self about it. They're never
humble about it. You talk to them about death.
You talk to them about the judgment to come. They don't care. They're
not embarrassed. They can't blush. And you know
why? They think God can not see any
further than they can. But let God speak to them. Let
God whisper to their conscience. Then they'll stand naked. Wait
till death comes. Let them breathe out their last
breath. Let them take one step out into
eternity. Then they'll see their nakedness.
Let the Lord Jesus Christ come down from heaven. The earth and
the heaven flee from His face. Then they'll see their nakedness. No, they don't see it now. That
was their problem, too, wasn't it? That was their problem. We're clothed. We've re-weaved
some righteousness. And now, when God comes here,
we can stand before Him. They told these boys, listen,
fellas, we tried this. We tried to weave out our own
garments. It won't work. Don't try it. Listen to us. Don't try it. And
thirdly, they told their sons this. The garments that God requires,
only God can provide. Over in verse 21, look at it.
Unto Adam also, unto his wife did the Lord God make coats of
skin. He made coats of skin. Animals had to die, had to shed
their blood, and He clothed them. What God requires, He has to
provide. Old Scott Richardson, remember
what he said? I bet he said this to every one of us. Remember
what Scott used to say? What God requires, God provides. And what God provides, God will
accept. He didn't even trust Adam and Eve
to put these clothes on. He clothed them. He clothed them. Bring here the best robe and
put it on him. Put it on him. God required perfect
obedience. At best, everything we do now
has sin mixed with it. It's defiled with sin. Somebody
had to render to God a perfect obedience. Jesus Christ did that. Somebody had to have precious
blood. Uncorruptible blood. The Son
of God had that. And He offered it to God as an
atonement for our sins. And it was accepted. All God
demanded, Jesus Christ provided. All we needed, He's given to
the Father in Heaven. Cain and Abel heard this. Cain
says, I don't believe a word of it. Abel says, I believe it. I believe it. By faith, by faith
he offered them to God. Faith come by hearing. You can't
have faith without knowledge. Let's be honest about it. We
don't trip over, we don't stumble over Jesus Christ as a man stumbles
and falls in a hole. You and I cannot believe in a
Christ that's not been preached to us. It's impossible. How shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a
preacher? That's why we preach the gospel to man. That's the
first thing, by faith. Second thing, I think the Apostle
means when he says, by faith he offered him to God, I think
he brought that lamb in his arms, put him between his sin and God,
fully trusting, fully trusting, with all the confidence that
God would accept him for that sacrifice he's saying. And you're
here tonight, You're here tonight and you know in your heart of
hearts that God requires of you to be righteous. And you know
in your heart of hearts that you've not been righteous. You
cannot be righteous. You're nothing but a rotten,
sorry, hell-deserving sinner, to say it straight. And now you've
heard that Jesus Christ has provided what God required. He satisfied
the judgment of God, the wrath of God. Trust Him. Trust Him. Bring your heart to trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Bring Him, as it were, between
you and the judgment of God and fully trust that God will accept
you for Christ's sake. He will forgive you and give
you everything He required and everything you need freely for
the mere sake of His Son, Jesus Christ the Lord. Trust Him. Trust Him. Lastly is this, by faith Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, and now
listen to this, by which he obtained witness, he obtained witness
that he was righteous. Now listen, he was a sinner. If he hadn't been a sinner, he
wouldn't have brought a sacrifice. He was a sinner. He was born
outside the garden. He was a sinner. But the Bible
says, God says, you're righteous. You're righteous. God testifying
of His guilt. Now see these three things. Abel's
faith, the sacrifice, and the witness. You want a witness,
don't you? Don't we feel like today we need
a witness? I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I trust the Lord Jesus Christ. I want the Spirit of God to bear
witness with my spirit. I truly trust Him. I am accepted
in Jesus Christ. I want that, don't you? The Spirit
bears witness with our spirit. Well, these three things, by
faith, listen to this now, by faith in the sacrifice, He obtained
witness that God was pleased and accepted him. God testifying
of his gifts. How did he obtain witness? Lightning
may have fell from heaven. A fire may have come down and
consumed the sacrifice. I don't know. I like to think
it had to do with his spirit. I like to think that there was
just In the calmness of that hour, the Spirit of God bearing
witness with His Spirit. But how in the world does that
happen? That's not easy, brothers and sisters, to discern. God
don't speak to you like I'm speaking to you, does He? You don't feel
chill bumps run up and down your spine. How does God bear witness? Three things. His faith, in the
sacrifice, and here's the way I think it is. God didn't bear witness to Abel's
faith. That wasn't it. By faith, he offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice by which he obtained witness, God
testifying of his faith. I'm looking at your faith and
I see it's real. I see it's a gift of God. I see
that you're really trusting. I'm looking at your faith. That's
not what God bore witness to. What did God bore witness to?
His gifts. Those lambs. The fat. The blood. What did God say? Abel, what do you think about
this? And he said, well that's what
you require. And God said, yes, that's what I require. Abel,
what do you think about this? That's what I was told to bring.
Yes. You heard the truth. Listen to
this. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater. And this is the witness which
God has testified of His Son. What does God say about His Son?
Well, He says things like this, in Him, I am well pleased. I made His soul not offering for
sin, and I saw that sacrifice, and I'm satisfied. I love the
Son, and I've given all things into His hands. He says these
wonderful things about His Son. What do you say about His Son?
What's your heart's opinion of Jesus Christ? Are you looking to the same place
God's looking? If you've got your eyes off yourself,
you've been looking away from yourself, to Jesus Christ alone,
you're looking to the same place God is. And you two have the
same opinion. You're joined in one. You two
are in agreement. And that agreement alone is the
testimony of God in your spirit and to your spirit. Are you pleased with Him? Is
He your all? He's God's all. God's trusting
Him. God's resting in Him. A dear
old preacher, I love the message he preached. He said the Lord
Jesus went up there to heaven and He sat down. And why did
He sit down? Because His work is finished.
And He's so pleased with it, He sat down. And God is so pleased
with it, God said, sit down. And the angels, they're so pleased,
they're marveled at it. Everybody's pleased but us. Isn't
that a shame? You won't get a witness of the
Holy Spirit as long as you're looking to yourself. And as long
as you're loading your little basket, it's when you kick your basket
aside, throw down your hoe, and say, that's useless. And you
look to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
Look into Him. Not your faith. Look into Him.
There's the witness. There's the witness. That's when
you'll know it. That's when you'll know it. God
has accepted you in Him. You take your eyes off of Him,
gone is the witness. That's why we get down and long-faced,
ain't it? Because we don't trust in Him. This is the witness which God
has testified of His Son. Old Scott Richardson used to
say, when somebody asked him, is Christ enough? Scott says,
if He's all you have, if He's all you have, He's all God requires,
look to Him, trust Him, and there's when you'll see yourself clothed
and accepted with God. Can we pray again? Oh, our gracious and tender and
merciful Father in Heaven. Merciful, merciful Father in
Heaven. Oh, we bless You for such a wonderful
gospel. Lord Jesus, when we obtain mercy
to look to You, we have such a difficult time, Lord, getting
our eyes away from ourselves and self-trust Oh, Lord, You
know the misery that we bring ourselves into. Oh, give us tonight
grace in our hearts to simply trust You. Put all the trust
of our heart in You, knowing that You're all that's required
of us for time and eternity. And we need nothing else, Lord
Jesus, but You. You're all God requires and all
we need. Give us grace to trust You. Oh,
what a blessing, what a grace for our poor sinners we are to
bring our hearts to trust wholly in you and nothing else. I pray
tonight, Lord, for your children this year, that you'll give them
hearts to trust in you as Abel did and walk in this witness. I pray for the poor lost here
tonight. Maybe some poor person trying
to load their own basket and come before you with things that,
if anything, will only curse them more, will never satisfy
God or never satisfy their conscience. I pray tonight that you'll give
them to see that what they need is what you've already provided,
already provided. And they'll obtain mercy to trust
you. To trust you. And oh, for grace
to trust you more. Thank you for this dear pastor.
Thank you for dear Todd. Thank you for this congregation.
Thank you for these dear people. Lord, with They draw out mercy
from your heart, the depths of your heart's mercy. Let them
obtain mercy day by day. Cause your gospel, the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the gospel of His grace to prosper and run
swiftly. Bless this mountain with a gospel. Oh, we ask you, our gracious
Father, our tender, gracious, kind Father, for the glory of
the Lord Jesus. That you'll honor yourself here
in this place. Uphold this dear pastor. Bless
him and keep him. We ask for your namesake. Amen. Good to see you everybody. Lord
bless you and keep you. I'm glad I was here.