Let's open our Bibles now again
to the book of Exodus chapter 1. I don't apologize for my difficulty
in controlling my emotions a moment ago. I think there's something
wrong if the gospel that we preach, we come together, we worship
together, doesn't bind our hearts together. And it has, it has. With Eric and with every one
of you, so dear to me. And I'm thankful for that. All
right, get that for free. I've titled the message this
evening, The Providence of God in Redemption. Now the theme
of this whole book, of Exodus is deliverance from sin by the
power and by the purpose and providence of God. Redemption
in Christ is in every line of this book of Exodus. Christ is
easy to find. If you've got eyes to see it
all, Christ is easy to find in this book. The book of Genesis
that we just finished is the book of beginnings. The book
of Exodus is the book of redemption, or the book of deliverance. You
know, the Lord uses those words interchangeably. When he comes
back, he's talking to Israel about their history. He says,
I redeemed you from the house of the bondman, or I delivered
you from the house of the bondman. Those words, redemption and deliverance
are used interchangeably. And the book of Exodus is a picture
that all of God's, all of spiritualism takes this journey from bondage
to the law, to the glorious liberty of the children of God. Now the
book of Genesis ends with Joseph dead and all the rest of Israel
is left behind in Egypt. But you know, the Israelites
were happy there and why wouldn't they be? They had the best of
everything in Egypt. They lived in the land of Goshen,
which was the best place, the best land in all of Egypt. They
were prosperous in their work in Egypt. They were growing and
multiplying, becoming strong. Why wouldn't they be happy where
they were there in Egypt? But that makes you wonder, how
then, if they're so happy there, will they ever be brought out
of Egypt like God promised Abraham that he'd do? Well, it's gonna
happen by God's providence and by God's power and not the way
that you and I would have done it. Now, there are three things
I want us to see in our text tonight that God commonly uses
to bring his people to Christ. Number one is this, the Lord
makes his people miserable. In this case, he makes them miserable
under the preaching of the law. Look back again here at verse
one. Now, these are the names of the children of Israel which
came into Egypt. Every man in his household came
with Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun,
and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher, and all the souls
that came out of the loins of Jacob were 70 souls, for Joseph
was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his
brethren, and all that generation, and the children of Israel were
fruitful, and increased abundantly, multiplied, and wise, exceeding
mighty, and the land was filled with them. The estimates at this
time were there were somewhere between two and three million
of the children of Israel. Just 70 started, now there's
between two and three million of them. Now verse eight, there
arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. Everything
had been going great for the Israelites in Egypt until a new
king came to power who knew not Joseph. And this word that he,
to know, there it says, which knew not Joseph, means to be
revealed to. It means to perceive, it means
to confess. Now this new Pharaoh knew who
Joseph was. He either knew him maybe personally
or he knew from history books, he knew from stories. He knew
the name Joseph, he knew about Joseph, but he didn't perceive
the character of Joseph. He didn't perceive the kind of
man that Joseph was. That kind of man, the character
and the wisdom of Joseph had not been revealed to this new
pharaoh. So he hated Joseph and he hated
all the people of Joseph. And you just think how quickly
this man was forgotten. How quickly Joseph was forgotten. Egypt owed its very existence
to Joseph. And in just a generation or two,
he's completely forgotten. You know, they all would have
starved to death if Joseph hadn't been there to interpret Pharaoh's
dream for him and tell him that the seven years of dearth were
coming and coming up with a plan to keep the people from starving.
They all would have starved to death if it wasn't for Joseph.
And Joseph didn't just keep Egypt from starving to death, Joseph
made Pharaoh wildly wealthy. He made just so much wealth added
to Pharaoh, and the current Pharaoh was still benefiting from that,
from all the riches that Joseph had added to him. Joseph had
made Egypt even a more powerful player on the world stage, but
how quickly was he forgotten? I want you to look over to Ecclesiastes,
the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter nine. You know, that's just human
nature. to quickly forget someone like
this. Ecclesiastes chapter nine. Verse 13. This wisdom have I seen also
under the sun and it seemed great unto me. There was a little city
and few men within it and there came a great king against it
and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it There was
found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered
the city. Yet no man remembered that same
poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better
than strength. Nevertheless, the poor man's
wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. This A poor man
that lived within that city. Nobody really knew him. He was
just poor, seemingly insignificant. But by his wisdom, he saved that
city from destruction, from this mighty king, mighty army that
was around then. And as soon as the city was delivered
and they were safe, they forgot all about him. And not just forgot
him, they despised him. You know, that story is told
time and time and time and time again in history. It never ceases
to amaze me. after Winston Churchill saw Great
Britain through World War II, I mean, the ink was hardly dry
on the treaty, and they kicked the guy out. I mean, just unbelievable
to me, you know? I've seen it happen in a church
where there's been a faithful, faithful pastor, and the pastor
retires, a new fella comes in, you know, and they just, not
only do they forget the old pastor, the man's been faithful, faithful,
faithful, faithful to them. and they just turn on him so
quickly, not just forget him, turn on him, you know, they just,
they wanna move on to the next thing. That's what happened in
Egypt. Joseph was quickly forgotten.
And we all know the end of the story, what happens to Egypt
because of it. Egypt is gonna suffer greatly.
But the real tragedy is what this picture is. This picture
is what happens to a congregation of people, wherever they may
be found, when there arises a pastor who knows not the Lord Jesus
Christ. False prophets do not know Christ,
because he hasn't been revealed to them. They don't preach Christ. They don't preach Christ and
Him crucified, because they don't know Christ. They don't perceive
who the Lord Jesus Christ is. So their preaching is a disaster
for the people who hear it. That preacher cannot tell who
Christ is. He can't tell how Christ saves
sinners because they don't perceive Christ. And since they don't
perceive who He is, they don't know what He accomplished. And
since they don't know Christ, what do they do? They put people
under the burden of the law. They're going to afflict people
and whip people with the burden of the law and the burden of
the ceremonies of religion. Look at verse 9. And he, this
new Pharaoh, said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children
of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal
wisely with them, lest they multiply. And it come to pass, when there
fall without any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight
against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore, they
did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens,
not just have burdens, but they afflicted them in it. And they
built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Python and Ramses, probably from
the prophets and the money that Joseph had accumulated all those
years. Look down at verse 13. And the Egyptians made the children
of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter
with hard bondage in mortar and in brick and all manner of service
in the field. All their service, whatever it
was they did, wherein they made them serve was with rigor, with
bitterness and just, Torture. This is man's wisdom. We're gonna
put the children of Israel under bondage and make their lives
miserable so they don't overwhelm us. Well, here's the picture. Man's wisdom in religion. That's
the problem. Boy, when you got man's religion
entered into the equation of religion, you got problems because
man's wisdom is always wrong, just like this pharaoh's idea
where his wisdom was wrong. But man's wisdom knows now the
law's got to be kept. If God's gonna accept us, the
law must be kept. So here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna try to make people keep the law. And they can't
do it, but we're gonna make a miserable triumph. We're just gonna keep
just laying the rod of the law on them, make them miserable.
And that is all the law can do to you and me. is make people
miserable. That's all it can do. It just
makes us miserable because we can't keep it. The law can never
be satisfied with you and me because we cannot be perfect.
But they just keep laying the wood to them, just making the
law with bitterness and rigor. Now I'll give just a few examples
of what I'm talking about. A man who does not perceive who
Christ is. He will preach. Christ died on
the cross. Christ has done all that he can
do. He lived a life. He obeyed the
law. He did it as an example to you so you could obey the
law. And he's done all that he can do now. He suffered and died
and shed his blood. He's offered you the sacrifice
now. He's done all he can do. It's up to you now to do the
rest. They tell you, you have to make
a decision. You got to do something to make this thing effectual
for you. You've got to take the first step in spiritual life
toward God. Now if you do that, God will save you. That puts poor sinners under
such a great burden. Because it's a burden to do something
they can't do. They cannot do it. Over the weekend, My son Clark
was there putting in a side door in our house. And we'd ordered
the door and measured it and everything, you know. And they
made that door an eighth of an inch too wide. And how in this
world are we going to get that to fit? Now Frank was putting
that door in. I'm telling you, the burden.
Because I don't have the skill to do it. I mean, I do not have
the skill to do it. Now it took Clark all day to
get that door in. But he just whistled while I
worked and went around. You know, it wasn't that big
of a deal to him because he knew what he was doing. Our problem with the law, what
makes it such a burden to it, is we can't keep it. We cannot
obey it. But this false prophet, he doesn't
perceive who Christ is, so the only thing he can tell you to
do is do better, do better, do better. This is what the law
says. You've got to do it, just putting a burden on people. He
has no idea that the Lord Jesus Christ, by his death, completely
and utterly saved everyone for whom he died, and he did it without
any help from them. Now, God's servant knows Christ.
He does perceive the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. He's God
to be perfect. He's man so he can be our representative.
That man preaches a successful Savior. He has completely and
utterly removed all of the sin of all of His people and you're
complete in Him. You're accepted by the Father
in Him. And the command of the gospel,
now just like this fellow preaching the law, he's got all these commands.
God's servant has a command too. The command of the gospel is
quit trying to make yourself righteous and believe Christ.
Just quit all your works of religion. Quit all your works trying to
get God to be pleased with you. and rest in Christ. See, the
gospel preacher takes all the burden off of us, doesn't he?
Well, that man that doesn't know Christ, he puts the burden on
us. I'll give you another example. This false prophet, he doesn't
perceive who Christ is, so he's gonna preach how Christ has saved
you. He saved you by grace, but you've gotta keep the law now
in order to keep your salvation. You know, we've got some things
here, some ceremonies and things you've got to do, and you've
got to live up to our standards if you're going to keep this
salvation that Christ purchased for you by His grace. That man
is mixing grace and works. You know why he's doing it? He
doesn't know Christ. So he doesn't know Christ is
none. He doesn't know that Christ is
all. But God's preacher, who perceives who Christ is, He's
got a message of good news for sinners. He preaches that Christ
already obeyed the law for his people as their representative.
Now the law has been kept. Christ has taken the law out
of the way. Righteousness has already been established by the
Lord Jesus Christ. You don't do it, he did it for
his people. See, God's servant who knows
Christ, he preaches Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The end of the law, the goal
of the law, It's not to beat you and me up with it and keep
telling us you haven't kept it but you better start keeping
it. The goal of the law is to make us see our sinfulness. To
see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The goal of the law is
to make us see I can't keep it. And to drive us to Christ for
salvation. That's the goal of the law. Christ
is the end, he's the goal of the law. He's also the end, the
termination point of the law. Christ is the termination point
of the law's hold on you. Christ died for you. The law
cannot demand one more thing from you if Christ already kept
it for you. So the command of the gospel
is, or we looked at Sunday morning, only believe. Only believe and
just rest in Christ. Now there's so many more examples,
but you see what I'm saying. The way that you know that a
preacher knows Christ, that he perceives who Christ is, is his
message. Puts all of the responsibility
of salvation on Christ. And takes all the burden off
of you. If you can find a man preaching that, that man knows
Christ. He perceives who Christ is. Now
that's the gospel. But many of God's elect, find
themselves growing up under the preaching of the law. Before
they know anything about Christ, they just find themselves under
the law. That's just the natural religion
of man, isn't it? Something's gotta be done with
this law. Well, we better get about keeping it, you know? And
it makes them miserable. And outwardly, more than likely,
it makes them self-righteous, too, because somehow they delude
themselves into thinking they're keeping the law well enough,
But if they're God's elect, this I promise you, sooner or later,
this law keeping, this demands of the law is gonna make them
miserable. And they didn't become miserable on accident, any more
than the children of Israel became miserable on accident. No, God
did that. God did that according to his
purpose, according to his grace to accomplish his purpose of
redemption. This is God's way. of bringing his people to himself.
Now there's nobody here, not a single person here, who has
grown up and spent years and years and years under the preaching
of the law. God's delivered you from that.
Aren't you thankful? Aren't you thankful? Oh, I think
about that as a parent. I think how thankful I am that
my children never were taught anything but the gospel. But
you know what? Even when you grow up under the
sound of the gospel, we're legalists. I mean, I know
what I'm talking about. All of you children sitting out
here, we're legalists. We somehow think, well, I'm better
than everybody else because I hear the gospel. I'm under the sound
of the gospel and I've been taught the truth of the scriptures,
you know. And you're pretty pleased with yourself. But if you're
one of God's own, He's gonna make you miserable. He's gonna
make you miserable because you got the facts without Christ. He's gonna make you miserable.
And that's uncommon. I mean, nobody wants to be miserable,
do they? But this is what God does for his people. It's according
to his purpose, he makes them miserable so that they'll cry
out to him for mercy. Miserable without Christ. All
right, here's my second point. Now this is God's purpose, his
power, this is God's doing, he makes his people miserable, and
when they cry to him, God hears them. Look over at chapter two
of Exodus. Verse 23. And it came to pass in the process
of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel
sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried. And their cry
came up unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their
groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel,
and God had respect unto them. Now this pharaoh was very unwise,
wasn't he? All his predecessors had prospered
by following Joseph's counsel. These other pharaohs, they all
knew this. I'm being blessed for Joseph's sake. And I'm sure
this Pharaoh would have been blessed for Joseph's sake, too,
had he followed him, but he made this bonehead move to oppress
the people of Israel, to oppress the people of the true and living
God, the God that Joseph served, the God that Joseph worshiped,
the God that Joseph told them about. He says, the God of my
fathers that has shown me all this, it's God. And this man
made the bonehead move to start oppressing the people of God.
Now I ask you, What would make a man start doing the opposite
of something that's worked so well for years and years and
years? I know why he did it in this case. It's so that he would
accomplish God's eternal will and purpose. Solomon wrote in
Proverbs 21 verse one, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.
As the rivers of water, he turneth it withers whoever he will. Our
God turned the heart of this new king to do what he did. This new Pharaoh did what he
did as the political leader of his country so that he would
accomplish God's purpose. Not his. He's trying to squash
out Israel. He's trying to make Israel weak.
He didn't accomplish his purpose, did he? No, he accomplished God's
purpose. God is the one that turned his heart to make this
bad decision that made Israel suffer and ultimately destroys
Egypt. I mean, just the destruction
that came, they lost their entire army, they lost a whole generation
of young men. But God turned his heart to do
this, to accomplish God's will. Now, we would do well to remember
that when our political leaders do things that we disagree with
or we do things that we know are wrong, we do things, we know
this is gonna turn out bad, we know it, sure as shooting, we
know it. They may be doing wrong, but
let me tell you, they're doing what God's purpose for them to
do. They're not doing something against the, God's hand turned
them to do what they're doing so they accomplish God's will,
not theirs. And this man determined he was
gonna oppress Israel. And this, I mean, was harsh. It was so harsh that all the
people could do was sigh. and cry and groan. They couldn't
even put into words. They just could not put into
words the misery that they were in. They were so broken hearted.
They didn't even know what to say to the Lord. They just groaned
and moaned and cried. Now again, that's a very painful
situation to be in. I've been in that situation.
It's tough. I mean, it's tough business. Cecil Roach told me
one time, he said, when all we can do is groan, Cecil said,
that's when we're really praying. See, if all we can do is groan,
then we're praying from the heart. We're praying from the heart.
And I believe old Cecil was right. When all we can do is groan and
cry and weep We're not making any suggestions to the Lord.
How often are we guilty of that in prayer? We've got this problem.
Lord, here's what you can do to fix it. Would you do this?
You know, this would fix that problem. But when all we can do is groan,
we're not making suggestions. Now we're praying. We're praying
from the heart. We're crying on the Lord and
we're waiting on Him. We're dependent upon Him. And
you know what it says here? The Lord heard their groaning.
And maybe over the course of time, they made some suggestions,
you know, by how the Lord could set them free, what the Lord
could do to improve their situation. But when it got to the point
that all they could do is groan, the Lord heard them. Now the
Lord will always hear the groans of His people. Always. The Lord's not going to hear
our high and lofty speeches that we make as a pretense of prayer. The Lord's not going to hear
that. The Lord's not going to hear our prayers. We pray to
impress men with all of our knowledge and the way we can turn a phrase
and impress people. The Lord's not going to hear
that. The Lord's not going to hear prayers that exalt us. Oh
Lord, I thank Thee, I'm not as other men are. The Lord's not
going to hear that. But when His people groan, The
Lord hears them. The Lord always hear the groans
of misery from his people. When all they can do is cry.
Cry. And just look to him. You all know I've got a grandson.
I may have mentioned him once or twice. He can't really talk
yet. He's got just a few words, you
know, that he can say. Well, that little fella sits
there on the ground and all he can do is cry. And he looks up
at his papa. Guess what? 100% of the time,
he gets picked up. He gets comforted. That's a very
silly illustration. And you notice I'm not in any
way comparing myself to the father's love for his people. But you
cry out to God. in complete and utter dependence
upon Him. He's gonna pick you up. He's
gonna comfort you. He always hears the groaning
of His people. And more than just audibly hearing
His people, Moses says here that the Lord, when He heard them,
He looked at them and He had respect unto them. The Lord had respect unto this
sinful people? Yes, sir, He did. This word respect,
I looked it up, and I thought I probably knew what it meant,
and I was totally wrong. This word respect, that's translated
respect here, is almost always, it's used hundreds and hundreds
of times in scripture, it's almost always translated to know, to
know. The first time this word is,
Hebrew word is used in scripture, Genesis four, verse one, and
Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived, and Bear came.
Adam knew his wife. The Lord had respect unto his
people. He heard them in union with them, as one with them. The Lord hears the cries of his
people as the cries of his son. Do you know why the Lord has
respect for any son of Adam? It's because he sees him in Christ.
The Lord had respect unto Abel's offering because it was a picture
of Christ. The Lord has respect to his people
because he sees them in Christ. So the Lord sent the deliverer
to Egypt to deliver them and bring them out of that place.
Now you got to remember this. It was always the Lord's purpose
to deliver Israel after 400 years of bondage. He told Abraham years
ago, this is what he was going to do. His people are going to
go down into Egypt. They're going to be slaves in
the house of bondman for 400 years. And then he said, I'm
gonna bring him out. But before the Lord did his will,
he made his people so miserable that they cried to him and all
that they could do is groan and depend upon the Lord's mercy
and grace to do something for him. And what the Lord did for
them is what he promised Abraham that he'd do. I wish I would remember this.
Isaac, I probably won't. But the next time, the Lord brings me to the point
that all I can do is groan. I'm so miserable that all I can
do is groan. I wish I'd remember this and
think, could be, now the Lord's getting ready to do something
spectacular. But He's not going to do it until His people groan
and cry out for it and ask for it. So that brings me to the
third thing. The Lord did all of this for
his people in Egypt by his sovereign purpose and power. Now, Pharaoh
didn't do this. Pharaoh did not have the power
to do this to God's people any more than Pilate had the power
to put Christ to death, to crucify. He didn't have the power to do
that. The Lord did this. He just used Pharaoh as an instrument.
He told us about that. He said, I just raised Pharaoh
up and I get power in destroying him. Pharaoh didn't do this.
The Lord did this to accomplish his purpose. The Lord is the
one who raised up a Pharaoh who was so boneheaded he had no regard
for Joseph and he hated Joseph's people. And the Lord is the one
who allowed this Pharaoh to afflict Israel and to make them miserable.
The Lord allowed all that to happen to make his people miserable
so that he would deliver them at the exact moment he promised
to do it. 430 years. They had 30 good years in Egypt
and 400 years of affliction. But that was God's purpose. You
know, you think, well, God's got a purpose. He purposed it
from all of eternity. He's going to do it. I mean,
now, we're good Calvinists here, right? We all believe that. This
is what God, whatever it is God purposed to do, He's going to
do it. I mean, nothing in heaven or
earth or hell is going to stop Him from doing it. We all know that. I
mean, every person here stakes their life on that. Now, we know
that. Well, then why pray? Why do we pray? I mean, I just
go through the motions of pray, but truly pray to our Father,
to thank Him, to offer, to talk about His praises, and to lay
out our petitions before Him. Now, why would we do that if
Lord's just gonna do what He always purposed to do anyway?
Because before the Lord does His eternal purpose and will,
He makes His people pray for it. His people pray for it, and
then He does it. In Ezekiel chapter 36, you can
read this sometime. Throughout that chapter, the
Lord goes through and tells Israel that they're in bondage, they're
in bondage again, they're groaning again, they're just being afflicted
again, and they're groaning and crying out to God. And God tells
them, this is what I'm gonna do for you. I'm going to shower
you with mercy and grace. I'm going to bring you back to
your land where it's a wasteland. I'm going to make it an oasis
in the desert. I'm going to make you fruitful.
I'm going to make all your trees and all your crops. Oh, everything's
going to be wonderful again this year. I'm going to bring you
back to the temple. You're going to rebuild the temple. You're going to have
the worship and the sacrifices. And I'm going to do all this
for you. He goes on for roughly 36 verses. And then verse 37, he says this,
I will yet be inquired by the house of Israel to do it for
them. I'm going to make my people beg
me to do it. And then I'm going to do it.
And what I'm going to do is what I purpose to do all along, but
not to my people pray for. Now, figure that out if you will. I'm just going to pray. How about
you? And the Lord brought Israel Now the Lord did that. He arranged
all these events to have Joseph sold down to Egypt and have them
all fall down into Egypt. The Lord did that. The Lord is
the one that made the Egyptians put his people into hard bondage.
The Lord is the one that made his people so miserable that
they would cry out to him and then he would deliver them. Now
the Lord did all of this for our benefit. Let's not forget
these things we read in scripture, these are for our benefit. These
are to give us a picture of redemption in Christ. Now you think God's
purpose and his providence was so tough for those people to
endure? But I want you to think about
just a few things. If it were not for all these events in Egypt,
the people made to be served with rigor and they're so miserable,
if that never happened, We never would have had Moses the deliverer,
a picture of Christ. If God's people had not been
in this horrible mess down there in Egypt, we never would have
seen God's power in redeeming his people out of the house of
the bond. How many times have we all quoted,
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. We never would have
had that if it wasn't for this bondage in Egypt. If it wasn't
for this bondage, we'd never had the glorious picture of redemption
through the blood of Christ our Passover. Christ our Passover
sacrificed for us. If we never would have had Israel
being delivered from Egypt and spending that time out there
in the wilderness, we never would have had the picture of Christ
in the tabernacle of Moses. Every stitch and stick of that
tabernacle pictures Christ. If Moses And that failed, the
first time he thought he was gonna deliver Israel, gone out
to the backside of a mountain for 40 years, where he'd been
alone with sheep for 40 years, so that he forgot how to speak
to human beings. If that never happened, we'd
never had the picture, not just the picture, we'd never had the
gospel of the burning bush. Moses, take off your shoes. I
am that I am is here. I am has sent you. When you go
to my people and they ask you sent you, you tell them I am
that I am. We never would have had that
if it wasn't for this mess in Egypt. If it wasn't for this mess in
Egypt, we never would have heard the Lord tell Moses. But Moses
went up and prayed and talked with God. And he said, Lord,
show me your glory. If Lord hadn't had to deliver
his people from Egypt and work all these miracles to deliver
his people, we never would have heard God tell Moses, Moses,
I'm gonna make my goodness pass before you. Here's my glory,
it's my goodness. My goodness to sinners. I'll have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. My greatest glory is in my sovereign
mercy to sinners that saves them 100% of the time. Saves them
to the uttermost. See, this is written for our
benefit so we can look to Christ and find redemption and salvation
in Him. The Lord put His people in this
terrible trial so that He could show them something more glorious
about Himself than they ever would have seen any other way.
I don't know about you, but I hope I remember that the next time
I'm in the furnace of trial, don't you? What a gospel we have to preach. Being a pastor has to be the
worst, best job any man has ever been called to do. What a gospel
we've got to preach. I mean, you just can't exalt
our Savior high enough, can you? We can't rest in Him enough.
We can't trust Him enough. We can't glorify Him enough.
But maybe between now And when the Lord calls us home, maybe
he'll teach us something about that, you reckon? I hope so. All right,
let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for this glorious gospel of full, free, complete redemption in
our Lord Jesus Christ. The redemption that you purpose
for your people from all of eternity. Father, we know you have a people
You chose them unto salvation before the foundation of the
world. You sent your son to establish righteousness for them, to justify
them by his sacrifice upon the tree. And we know, we know they
shall be redeemed and glorified together with Christ. But Father,
we're asking that you'd have mercy on us here tonight. Us
here tonight, those that or believers that have known you for a long
time, been trusting you. Father, would you be with them?
Would you comfort and strengthen their hearts with your presence?
Would you continue to bless them, bless their hearts by the preaching
of the gospel? And for, Lord, those here that
don't know you, Lord, would you be pleased to save them? Father,
we're begging you. We're crying out to you. that
you'd save those that we love here after the flesh, would you
be pleased to reveal yourself to them? Call them to Christ
by your power, your grace, and your purpose. Father, we give
you all the praise, all the thanks, and all the glory for it, for
it's all yours. And Father, all these things we ask, and we give
thanks in that name which is above every name, the name of
Christ our Savior. Amen. All right, Sean.