Turn in your Bibles with me this
morning to the book of Numbers. The book of Numbers and the sixth
chapter. Numbers 6. This week I received a letter from Brother Henry Mahan, who has been a dear friend of
mine for, I suppose, nearly thirty years. And I count him as one of my
fathers in the faith. I thought about it when I read
his letter. what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1. He says, Unto Timothy, my own
son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father
and Jesus Christ our Lord. And it was very encouraging to
me. words of grace and encouragement. And at the close of that letter,
he jotted down a passage of Scripture. And I went back. I remembered
where it was and what it was. And I turned back to that passage
of Scripture and read it again. And it's my text this morning.
It's here in the book of Numbers, in this sixth chapter, beginning
in verse 22. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, speak unto Aaron, and unto his
sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel,
saying unto them, The LORD bless thee, and keep thee. The LORD make His face shine
upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel, and I will bless them." When I read those words again, I thought immediately how full
the Old Testament is of gospel truth. And I thought also how wonderful
it is, as Brother Mahan once said, to see the Old Testament
through New Testament I remembered passages of Scripture
like this where our Lord said after His resurrection to the
disciples, these are the words which I spake unto you while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which
were written in the Law of Moses." That's what this book is considered,
part of this Law of Moses, and in the Prophets and in the Psalms
concerning me. These Old Testament Scriptures
are about Christ. And also what is said in Acts
24 by the Apostle Paul, when he said, But this I confess unto
you, that after the way which they call heresy, after the way
that these scribes and Pharisees and various established religions
call heresy, So worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things which were written in the law and in the prophets."
He said the things of the law spoke of Jesus Christ. And then he would write in his
epistles to the Romans these words. He says, for whatsoever
things were written aforetime. He's talking about these Old
Testament scriptures. He says, they were written for
our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures,
might have hope." He gave us these words and has preserved
them so faithfully through everything imaginable and for so long a
time that His people might have hope. Now, there are four characters,
if you will, in this text. There is the one who is described
as the Lord, Jehovah God. And there is this man, Moses,
who is representative of the law. representative of the necessity
of legal satisfaction of God's offended holiness, a man symbolic
of justice and the righteousness of God. And then there is this
man Aaron who is God's priest, and who is a type of the Lord
Jesus Christ who is the great high priest, the high priest
after the order of Melchizedek, the great high priest of his
people, and it was only the priest that could say what was to be
said to the people. Look back in verse 22, And the
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, this high priest,
and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the
children of Israel. only the priests were to command
or proclaim or speak this blessing to the people. Let me read you
a verse out of Deuteronomy 21. And the priests of the sons of
Levi shall come near, For them the Lord thy God hath chosen
to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the Lord,
and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke
be tried." God had commanded them and appointed them to speak
and proclaim this blessing to his people. And then there is
also this fourth character, or people, and they are the children
of Israel. They are this earthly nation
that God set apart unto Himself and identified himself with and
called his people because he would make them a representative
people and picture in them that spiritual people, his elect that
he had given to Christ before the foundation of the world. This Israel is a foreshadowing
of the true Israel. When Paul writes in Romans 9,
and he's talking about how most of the Jews by nature and by
birth, they had for the most part rejected Christ and His
gospel, he said, but don't think for a minute that the gospel
is of no effect. He says, it is not as though
the word of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all
Israel which are of Israel. Not everyone in this nation of
Israel is of the true spiritual Israel. There is a remnant according
to the election of grace in this people, and there is also a remnant
according to the election of grace among the Gentiles. And these remnants together make
up the true Israel of God. And if you notice, when this
blessing is pronounced and spoken, It is given in particularly and
exclusively, not in some general sense, but he describes it as
a blessing to them. The Lord bless thee. The Lord bless you personally
and individually. And he says to Moses, Tell Aaron
and his sons, he saying, Ye shall bless them by something that
is said." You notice that? You will bless them saying unto
them just exactly what I command you to say. And these blessings
which this nation enjoyed, and this very word that they heard
in their natural ear, these blessings are but representative, as these
things all are, of spiritual blessings, of what I'll call
here gospel blessings. And they represent blessings
that are not temporal blessings that will end, but they are spiritual
and eternal blessings, the blessings of the grace of God. I don't know if you noticed in
our reading where Joe read that fourth verse of Psalm 65, but
he says in that verse, is the man whom thou choosest, and causeth
to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts, we shall
be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy
temple." He's talking there about spiritual blessings. And one
of them is the blessing of divine election. Blessed is that man
that God chooses. Paul says to the Thessalonians,
God be thanked because he in eternal love from the beginning
chose you to salvation. And then he also points out this
blessing of effectual and mighty calling. He says, blessed is
the man that God chooses and causes to approach unto Him. Because we are such that if left
to ourselves, we would never come to Christ. We would never
be able to approach unto God without Christ. And he says,
blessed is the one that God causes to approach unto Him. And then
he speaks of access to God as a blessing. Blessed is the one
that God chooses and causes to approach unto Him. Not to go
to that which is temporal and fading and ending. but to come
to God, to come to Him to whom to know is life eternal. And then He speaks of acceptance. He speaks of them dwelling in
His house forever. So all these things, perseverance
included likewise, dwelling in that house with God and of God
forever, these are spiritual blessings. He says also in Psalm
32, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is
covered. He's not talking about health
and wealth and prosperity or any of the other things that
men clamor after and that false religion regards as a blessing. These things might be used of
God to bless in one's sin, but apart from Christ, they are nothing
but a curse. He says also in Psalm 32, Bless
is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity. Blessed is that one that the
Lord does not charge his sins to his own account. Why? Because
he's charged it to his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
again, in Psalm 34, he says this. He says, O taste and see that
the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts
in Him. Not the man who has his pockets
full, or his retirement settled, or his children well and prospering,
or his health good. He says, blessed is that person,
regardless of what their outward state appears to be, if they
are found trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to look back
at this text, that the Lord makes a blessing to my heart. And I want us to see how this
blessing or these blessings are typical of gospel blessings and
are blessings that are spoken to God's people just as blessings
are spoken to them in the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
Notice, first of all, this. This is a blessing, or these
are blessings of the Lord. If you look down in that 24th
verse, he says to Moses, you tell Aaron and his sons to bless
the children of Israel, saying unto them, reminding them, that
it is the Lord alone who can bless you. Not only is it God
alone who can tell us and who knows what real and true blessings
are, He alone is the one who can bless us. And that's what the gospel, that
is, the true gospel, which is described in this book as the
gospel of God, that's what the gospel has to do with. It has
to do with those blessings which He has blessed His people with
in Christ. It doesn't have to do with telling
you and me what to do. It doesn't have anything to do
with telling us simply how to live so as to gain His favor. He says it is the Lord that has
spoken and it is the Lord who has said, the Lord bless you. What does that mean? It means
that the gospel is a word or a proclamation of blessings from
God. And if you look in the original
of this text, where we find this word Lord, which is the word
Jehovah, It is used three different times with different accents
each time it is used, which I believe has something to do with showing
us that God Almighty, who is without doubt the one true and
living God, blesses His people as He manifests Himself to them
in this Trinity of His sacred persons. And by that I mean this. It is
God the Father who hath blessed us. It is God the Son who hath
blessed us. And it is God the Spirit that
does bless us. And these three are one. the Lord God Jehovah. And not only do these three bless
us as one and most definitely in one accord and in harmony
with each other in the salvation of His elect people, they make
all these blessings to be ours in Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, Paul again,
when he wrote to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 13, he
says, as a way of benediction, if you will, he says, the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy
Ghost be with you all. Amen. What is that? That is the blessing of the triune
God. And what we don't find in this
book is what we do find in the gospel preached by false religion
in our day, which presents God the Father doing one thing, loving
one people, Jesus Christ doing one thing, dying for another
person or all people, and then the Spirit of God, unable to
save those, actually save those that either the Father loves
or the Son dies for. Oh, no. there is a perfect harmony
in the Godhead. And so when Paul begins writing
in his very salutation to the church at Ephesus, he makes known
that the Father has spoken to his people words of blessing. What does he say? He says, be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings." Did you hear that? Not most of
them. Not some that if you do something
at a certain time and live so as to get them as a reward for
your doing or your faithfulness or something like that. Oh, no. He says, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ because He has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings. in Christ, all in Christ, wherein He chose
us in Him from the foundation of the world. That means that
every spiritual blessing has been given by the Father
to His people In Christ, before the world began, in His will,
in His decree, in His everlasting covenant, He spoke and He blessed
them. Are we going to listen to what
men say? Or are we going to listen to what God the Father says?
You see, the truth is, it says that He has in these last days
spoken unto us in or by His Son. Not only has the Father spoken,
but in the very coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only the
Father, but the Son also has spoken blessings to His people. You see, no earthly priest can
bless you. I don't care what their claim
is. And we ought to know if we had
one eye and half sense just listening to what they bless. When they
prayed on the coast down here, all those fishing boats down
the river and the priest supposedly blesses the fleet? Or when people
gather up their dogs and their cats and their gerbils and the
hamsters and everything else and the priest supposedly blesses
the animals? That ought to tell us that these
foolish people And men by their superstition who fall down before
them seeking a blessing, they cannot bless you. But our blessings must be spoken
not only by the Father, but also by His Son who is a priest forever,
and because of a particular reason. Now, you think about this. Why
didn't he just say to Moses, Moses, bless these people. Bless
my people. Because you and I, or no people,
can be blessed by God by a bypassing of our sin in the sight of God
and all we have violated of His law and His command. He cannot
bless us by law because we are unable to keep that law, and
we have so fiercely and openly violated and broken that law. The only way He can speak to
us is through His priest. Why? Because He can only speak
to us by the sacrifice the priest offers. Do you see that? He can only speak to us through
this Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. He can only speak blessing
to us by virtue of His sacrifice, which is the sacrifice of Himself. The psalmist says of Him, Grace
is poured into His lips. Why? Because it's through His
priesthood, that of Jesus Christ. It's through His priesthood,
the one that all these earthly priests represented. is through
His priesthood and the offering of that one sacrifice for our
sins forever, which was Himself, that He can speak blessing to
us. And that's what the Gospel is
about. It's about God in Jesus Christ pronouncing blessings
on us because sin has been put away in His cross death, and
these covenant blessings have become ours because the testator
has died and the covenant is ratified, and just like no priest,
Aaron or anyone else, could ever come without blood. you and I can't be blessed without
blood. Why? Because blood represents
that life laid down for sin. And Jesus Christ is that great
priest forever who is the one that gives us eternal blessings,
what Paul calls the forgiveness of sins, plenteous redemption,
the gift of righteousness, the one by whom God speaks blessings
to us, by whom He speaks peace to us. And God can only give. wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
redemption, all these things. He can only declare us righteous
in Jesus Christ. And He can only speak that to
us in our experience by the third person of the Godhead. The Lord bless thee, God the
Father. The Lord bless thee, God the
Son, in His death and sacrifice. The Lord bless thee in His Holy
Spirit. What does He do? Well, He comes
to us in time. He comes to us in time by this
message, wherein He speaks blessings, which is called the gospel of
God, the gospel of grace, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And by that word of truth, by
the proclamation of that word of truth, the Spirit of God speaks
that peace and blessing to our hearts. And it is the Lord that blesses
us. It is the Lord the Spirit who
takes the things of Christ and shows them to us and speaks in
power to our souls, giving us faith to believe the promises
of God and trust the Lord Jesus Christ and bless us. It's the Lord that blesses us. He blesses us with faith and
love and every grace and to confess as Jonah, salvation is of the
Lord. He said, you say to this people, the Lord bless thee. And then if you'll notice this,
secondly, it is a blessing, or these blessings are joined with
power. He says, the Lord bless thee
and keep thee. Did you ever notice how religion
offers what they call blessings, but you may not enjoy them long? If you slip up, if you fall,
if you fail, if you make a mistake, or if you leave us, that's not
blessing, is it? Conditional blessing are no blessing
at all to a sinner. But he says here that these blessings
are joined with power. He says, the Lord bless thee
and keep thee. That is, almighty power is behind
these blessings, and he will keep those he blesses. The Lord Jesus stood one day
before those disciples and he said to them, all power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Somebody says, well, I trust
the Lord, but I just don't trust myself. Self isn't in this equation. All trust, all true faith rests
in Jesus Christ and Him alone. Our hope lies in one outside
of ourselves and in His power, not our power. He had such power, he said of
his life, no man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. He had that power over his life. What kind of power do you think
he's got over your life? John says he came unto his own.
and his own received him not." Well, that's the end of it, ain't
it? No, not quite. Because he says, but as many
as received him. Well, why did they receive him?
Because of his power. But as many as received Him,
to them gave He power or authority or the right to become or be
called the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."
You see, assurance is never in what I feel or have done or will
do or are doing. It's always in Christ. and who
He is, and what He's done, and the fact that we rest in His
keeping us. Because God's given Him power
that He should give eternal life to as many as the Father hath
given Him. You see, it says the Son has
power to forgive sins on earth. He had power to heal, so we just
know by that He had power to heal the greatest sickness of
all, which is our spiritual sickness. He had power to liberate from
bondage and captivity. He has power to keep. That's
a blessing. That's a blessing. Because I
don't have that power. In 1 Samuel 2, in verse 9, he
says, he will keep the feet of his saints. That priest in John chapter 10
says, I give to my sheep eternal, everlasting life, and they shall
never perish. Somebody says, what if they stop
believing? There ain't no way they can. I read somebody had a bulletin
article recently, and I know this to be true. Those that God
has given the gift of faith, they not only have believed,
they are believing right now, and they will believe, and they
can't do anything else. Why? Because he gave them faith. They believe. They believe what
he says. They rest in him. They believe
the gospel. Paul said, because it's the power
of God and the salvation to everyone that believes. The preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness, but unto those of us who are
being saved, it's the power of God." What does he say? He says of
his people, they're kept. Kept. Oh, he tells us to keep
ourselves. in our conduct of life and such
as that before men. But that's not to be saved. He's
the keeper of our souls who are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time. They're kept by the power of
God. because they're kept believing. That man that just expresses
the very state I'm always in, it said, when he said, Lord,
I believe, help thou my unbelief. Though unbelief constantly plagued
him and wracked him, it did never ever finally keep him from believing. I believe. You believe. I mean in your heart of hearts
that you rest in Christ. That's the only one that true
faith rests in. And he says in Ephesians, now
unto him that's able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think according to the power that works in us. The Spirit
of God comes to indwell His people, and the great evidence of that
indwelling is He gives us faith. That new heart that He gives
is the heart of faith. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. We still have that old nature.
That's the only one we've got is that old – that's what we
are by nature. Unbelievers. Weak and frail. Prone to fall and falling all
the time. But the Spirit of God, Paul says
in Galatians, works the fruit of the Spirit. What's that? One of that, he says, is faith. Faith that works by love. Jude says it like this, Now unto
him that is able to keep you from falling, that means falling
finally away. You may fall, but he says though
he falls seven times, I'll be there to lift him up every time.
He will not fall away. Now unto Him that's able to keep
you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy. Do you ever suppose for one minute
that God Almighty who knows all things and especially knows our
weakness and our sin and our frailty, do you ever think for
one minute He entertained any hopes of us being able to keep
ourselves? No way. Because that's the gospel
blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. Not only that, it's also a blessing
of revelation and manifestation and illumination wherein He gives
us that look of favor and approval and love. Look at verse 25. The Lord make His face shine
upon thee. Ever since I've got my new little
granddaughter, and I suppose you'll be plagued for as long
as you have me with her as my new illustration, but since the
Lord has given me my new little granddaughter, and I can go out
in the morning barely able to go, it seems like, and drag and
I go out there to the car when her mom drives up and I look
in that back glass at that little gal that's laying there in that
car seat and she looks at me and she sees me and she will
just break out in the broadest grin and smile. Her countenance shines upon me. Isn't it an amazing thing to
even think that the face of God could ever look upon such wretches
as you and I are and smile a smile of approval and favor? Verse 26, he says, the Lord lift
up His countenance upon the You see, to see the lifting up
of God's countenance and the face of God is to see the glory
of God's grace in Jesus Christ. Have you ever noticed the relics
of ancient civilizations and not-so-civilizations of the past
when they dig up the remains of these peoples and nations
that have lived and they unearth their gods? They are such grotesque
creatures with frowns upon their face. Have you ever noticed that? They'll scare you to look at
them. Their temples were full of images
of the most grotesque and scary beings. Why? Because in their
hearts of hearts they knew and had that witness that there is
a God to face and they'll have to face Him as those who've sinned
against Him. The Bible says that God set forth
His Son, the propitiation for our sins. What does that mean? It means through the death of
Christ that God, in the matter of our sin, in the matter of
wrath against sin, He is now appeased. He is now propitiated. His wrath has been replaced,
that frown of his disapproval and favor has been replaced with
a smile of approval. Paul says, but we all, with open
faith, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of the Lord. No man hath seen God at any time. But John said, the Son hath declared
Him. The only God we'll ever see is
the Man, Christ Jesus. And the Bible says, For God,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ." What is the glory of God? Well, he said to Moses, it's
my grace that I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy." But you see, that fact in itself,
when we look upon God as that God which is what He is in His
glory outside of Christ, that's not good news. But when you see the glory of
that grace in the face of Jesus Christ, and that means in the
person and through the work of Jesus Christ, when you see that
reality in Christ, it's a glorious thing. And it's the smile of
God. It means God. who will have mercy
on whom he'll have mercy has had mercy on you. God, who will
be gracious to whom he'll be gracious, he's been gracious
to you. How? In Christ, through the death
of Christ, through his sacrifice for sin. And it shows us here
also that the gospel is blessings of grace. In verse
25, he says, And the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and
be gracious unto thee. Well, I'll tell you, I just want
God to deal with me fairly. No, you don't. Or I just want God to give me
what I deserve. No, you don't. unless you're
in Christ. Well, I'll tell you what, I've
lived as a Christian all my life. That's too long. Because you have no ground upon
which to think yourself blessed unless you've been brought to
see the glory of God's grace in Christ and receive those gospel
blessings. Be gracious to us. That means
we deserve nothing but His wrath. Paul said, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. And any other gospel other than
the gospel of God's free grace, that's not the gospel. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, It's the gift of God. Everything
in God's salvation is a gift. And we never arrive at a place
where at some point we begin to deserve it. No. It's grace
all the way. Grace in Christ. He says, being
justified freely by His grace. through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. It's the free gift, the gift
by grace, where sin abounded, grace did the much more abound. Grace has reigned in righteousness
through Jesus Christ the Lord, and it is grace all the way,
the Lord bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you. Paul was on one occasion, I believe,
really smitten by a bad physical affliction. There are those who
say the Lord's people, if you're the Lord's people, He don't want
you to be sick. Paul didn't know about that.
But it's believed he had a terrible eye problem. And you and I, at some point
or another, are going to have some great difficulty. It may
not be an eye problem, but it's going to be something. But what does he do? He prays
to the Lord, he said, Lord, three times he says, Lord, take this
away from me. Take this affliction. And the
answer from the Lord was, my grace is sufficient for thee. His grace is sufficient. And the apostle says, what does
he do when we have just used up grace and grace and grace
and grace? Sometimes I get the feeling like,
Lord, you have bound to have bankrupted the bank of grace
in heaven on me. He says He gives more grace. The bank of God's grace to His
people will never be depleted. It will never fall on hard times. It's infinite, eternal, matchless
grace. And then is the blessing of peace. The Lord lift up His countenance
upon thee and give you peace. Now, I know that that has to
do with the peace that God in grace
gives. The Lord give you peace. And it is two-fold at least.
On the one hand, it has to do with peace with God. Paul says of Christ, and having
made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile
all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things on the earth or things in heaven. He made peace by the blood of
His cross. You and I can't make peace. As
a matter of fact, peace is far from us. But it says, he made
peace. That means God was in Christ
reconciling us unto himself. That's why he has that smile
of approval on his face. Because we who raised our heads
and our hands against his Christ, we who stood as rebels in the
garden in our father Adam, We who have showed ourselves enemies
to Him in our own minds by wicked works, He has made our peace by the
blood of His cross. But we are also in need of the
peace of God. Oh, it flows out of that peace
with God. But we need the peace of God. I mean the experience of that
peace. That's why the Gospel is called
the Gospel of Peace. Christ said, Peace I leave with
you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give
I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Believe on me. There's that peace
that we experience in believing. That's right. Paul writes in
Romans 5, he says, therefore, being justified, that's an accomplished
thing. It is God that justifies. It
is Christ that dies. Being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ made
that peace and we are brought to the experience and enjoyment
of it by His enabling us to believe on Christ. This is the promise in Isaiah
26. Thou will keep him in perfect
peace. Are you interested in perfect
peace? That's the gospel blessing, the
Lord give thee peace. Thou shalt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on thee. The Lord's people sometimes find
themselves troubled. They're not so much in peace
in their conscience because of sin. because of their constant failures,
even as believers. They're not found possessing
peace in their experience because of things all around them and
in them that trouble them. This is the promise, that He
will keep in perfect peace those whose minds whose hearts are
stayed or fixed upon him, because he trusteth in thee. Paul says, And the peace of God,
the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Keep us from being overly troubled. Keep us from being like teacups
in the tempest. Then verse 27, And they shall put my name. That's like a seal. They shall
put my name. That is, in the proclamation
of these blessings, because it's the Lord who commands this, it's
the Lord who's the blesser. Because these blessings are His
gift and they're in Christ, all of them. That's the seal that they're
His people. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel." Who are they? They're those that
have been blessed with all spiritual blessings as the gift of His
grace in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's what I came to do today. came to bless the Lord's people. You say, you can't be a blessing. No, but the gospel I preach can
be if the Spirit of God blesses you with it to your heart. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel, and I'll bless them. Lord, bless me. Keep me. Cause your face to shine
upon me. Be gracious to me. Lift up your
countenance to me. Give me peace. And by this gospel,
bear witness in my heart. that I'm your child. I don't just want blessings. I want the blessings that come
from the true blesser. I want gospel blessings. May God bless His Word to your
heart and mine. Father, this day we give you
praise. for such infinite mercy, for looking upon us with the
eyes of sovereign love, setting your affection upon us from old
eternity. Sending your Son into this world
to become flesh and to die as our substitute and Savior. Put
away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself. Satisfy every claim
of your offended justice in our behalf. and for sending your
spirit, for sending a faithful gospel messenger one day to pronounce
these blessings, and for your spirit taking them, sealing them
to our hearts and making us to know that we have been so greatly
blessed by your grace. We give you thanks and praise. Make your word, your gospel,
the gospel concerning the Son of your love to be blessings
to someone who hears this this very day. And may all thanks
and glory and praise be to you forever. Amen. Oh, shoot.