Give me a strength and voice
to preach a few minutes. And you can turn with me to 1
Peter 3 if you would like to. 1 Peter 3 and verse 18. We have
a good meal prepared. I'm looking forward to that today. So if you can, stay and fellowship
with us around a good meal for a while. 1 Peter 3, verse 18, For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened, made alive by the Spirit, by which also he went
and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were
disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was at preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls,
were saved by water. The like figure were unto even
baptism doeth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth
of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is gone into heaven
and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers
being made subject unto him. My subject this morning is the
blessing intended by water baptism. God intended water baptism to
be a blessing to believers. Now there's been men, and I'm
very, very well aware of this, and good men that earnestly believe
that water baptism saw its day and it yielded to that one spiritual
Baptism. We're all baptized into one body
by the Holy Spirit. William Huntington was a pastor
back in 1700s and the early 1800s. And I would have loved to sit
under that man's ministry. But he refused to baptize believers. He had another pastor and he
gave them permission to inquire of that pastor and they would
baptize those who come to faith in Christ under Mr. Huntington's
ministry. But I love the man. You and I
have to be very humble when we approach just about any subject,
don't we? We're all human and all of us
can err. I don't have Mr. Huntington's
understanding. to walk in the light that I have. So it's my understanding this
morning that baptism was instituted of our Lord just before he went
back to heaven. And to this very day, he has
not given us any plain commandment to cease to baptize in water. Now, that's my understanding.
And I approached this subject this morning, I hope with humility
and kindness. When our Lord had descended back
to heaven and the apostles began to preach in Acts 2, they remembered
the command that the Lord Jesus said to them, Go ye into all
nations, not just the Jews, but to all nations, all the nations
of the Gentiles, and preach the gospel, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost and teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo,
I am with you always, even to the end of the world." And it
seems like this teaching of all nations is associated with the
end of the world. How long is the church supposed
to go into all the world and preach the gospel until time
is no more? That's why the church has missionaries
now to send in other countries, because Christ said to us, go
into all the world and preach the gospel. And there's something
else you're associated with going into all the world and preaching
the gospel until the end of the world, and that's water baptism. Teach all nations, baptizing
them, and I am with you always until the end the world. So I take that to mean, as we
go into all nations, we send missionaries to all nations,
and as they come to faith in Christ, baptize them in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these apostles
begin to do this in the book of Acts. Let me just remind you
of some places where they did this very thing to fulfill our
Lord's command to them. In Acts chapter 2, the apostle
preached the thousands of those Jews. And he said, repent every
one of you and be baptized for the remission of sins and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And the scripture
said, and they that gladly received his word were baptized. They were all Jews, 2,000 of
them. In Acts chapter 8, Philip went down to preach the gospel
to the Samaritans. Remember that? They broadened
their ministry out now to the Samaritans, and Philip preached
the kingdom of God to them, and the name of Jesus Christ, and
the scripture says they were baptized, both men and women. And then in Acts chapter 8 also,
Philip went down into the desert and preached the gospel to an
Ethiopian eunuch. And the eunuch was concerned
about identifying with Christ, so he said, here's water, what
hinders me from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe
with all your heart, you can be. And they both went down into
the water together, and Philip baptized them. And then we come
to Acts 10 when the Apostle Peter went down to Cornelius' house,
the Gentiles, a house full of Gentiles, and he preached peace
by Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit came upon those
who believed the Word, and Peter said, Can any forbid water, that
these should not be baptized? Sin they have received the Holy
Spirit as well as we. and he commanded them to be baptized. And then in Acts chapter 16,
as the gospel began to spread farther and farther into the
dark Gentile world, Paul and Silas and his company were preaching
the gospel to a group of women on the riverbanks at Philippi
in Macedonia. And the Lord opened Lydia's heart
And she believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the scripture
says that Paul baptized her and all her believing household.
And then they threw Paul and Silas in jail. The Philippian
jailer heard the gospel. He was awakened out of his sleep.
Paul went into his house and preached the gospel to him and
it said he believed in God with all of his house and Paul took
him and his whole family that same hour of the night and baptized
them. So we see that through all of
the book of Acts they were remembering the command of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Go and preach. And when somebody
believes the gospel that you preach, be careful to baptize
him in water in the name of the Father and Son and of the Holy
Ghost. And it's my understanding, brothers
and sisters, that water baptism is still commanded of our Lord
today. I hope to show you this morning
that there is a blessing, a God-intended blessing, for true believers
in baptism. So I want us to go back in our
text to verse 18 and read that and work our way up down to what
he says about water baptism. Look here in verse 18, For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened, made alive, by the Spirit. Sometimes in the Scriptures,
when you see of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, He gave His
life upon the cross. He died. He went to the state
of the dead, that is, the body separated and the soul separated. And sometimes in the Scriptures,
His resurrection is attributed to Christ Himself. No man takes
my life from me. I have power to lay my life down. I have power to raise it up again. Sometimes the resurrection of
Christ's physical body is attributed to the Father. Peter says you
have taken by wicked hands and have crucified and slain him,
but God raised him from the dead and exalted him and set him at
his own right hand. Peter says in our text here that
it was the Holy Spirit that raised Christ. The Holy Spirit came
and entered into his body, brought his soul and body together again,
and by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was raised from the
dead. Now look in verse 19. By which? That is, by the Spirit. He went
and preached unto the spirits that are in prison. Now, that's somewhat of a complicated
passage, and if you've ever thought much about that, and if you've
ever searched the commentaries, you realize that as you come
here to verse 19, you have all kinds of interpretations as to
what this means. Some say when Christ died, His
body was buried, but His soul went to hell. That is literally
the place of torment, and they give different reasons for believing
that. One reason is this. They say Christ had to go to
hell to the place of literal torment to atone for sins. And this interpretation, to me,
can be very easily dismissed. I dismiss it in humility because
there's been some good men who believe it. Have you ever heard
of John Bunyan? He believed this at least for
a while, that Christ had to descend in his soul to the literal flames
of hell to finish the work of atoning for sin. But if I asked
you to quote John chapter 19 and verse 30 to me, I bet some
of you could. You remember what John 19, 30
says? It is finished. There's no reason for the Lord
Jesus Christ to descend into a literal hell to suffer He suffered
everything that God required, that the law required, and that
justice required when he was hanging upon the cross. That's sufficient. Once in the
end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. And that's all it took, the sacrifice
of his body, the sacrifice of his soul, the sacrifice of his
blood to God. So it was not necessary for him
to say the work is finished and then descend in hell and suffer
again. Others say that Christ descended
into hell to preach the gospel to those who were perishing there,
and they give two reasons for their belief in this. One group
of them says that He descended into hell to show those rebellious
spirits that are there now that He had gotten the victory over
death and hell, and they would have no part in it. Now, that
seems cruel to me. They knew that, didn't they?
And to say that they needed to hear that from the lips of the
Savior and He had to descend there Himself, I just can't hardly
accept that. And you probably can't either.
Others say that Christ had to descend into hell with the hope
of saving some from that place. Now, I know You probably think
I'm just saying these things, but if you go to the commentators,
especially some of our Reformed forefathers, they believe some
of this. Some credible, otherwise credible
commentators. That Christ went to hell with
a hope that some would be saved when he preached the gospel to
them. We can refute this very easy,
can't we? We can. Abraham was speaking to that
rich man, and here's what he said. He said, those who would come
out of that place and come up to heaven, they cannot. And could I say this with all
reverence? The Lord Jesus Christ bound Himself to that cannot. Between us and you there is a
great gulf fixed. And if God has fixed it, God
Himself cannot bring Him over that gulf. He cannot violate
His Word. It's impossible that Jesus Christ,
after He said they cannot leave that place, to try to turn right
around and go there with the hopes that they might leave the
place. It's not a very easy, very hard
interpretation to refute, is it? But let's simply prove this
morning that Christ, upon His death, did not descend into hell
to begin with. He went to the place of the dead,
the state of the dead, his soul was separated from his body,
but he did not go to that hell that is called the place of torment. What did Jesus tell the thief just before he died? Today you
shall be with me in paradise. And for those who say he descended
for three days while his body laid in the ground, he himself
said, you will be with me in paradise today. I'm not going
down, he said. Paradise is up. Paradise is not
that middle place that some forefathers in Catholicism thought the believers
went to. Paradise is in heaven. Paul said,
I was caught up to paradise, to the third heaven, and saw
things that's not lawful for me to utter. So when he says
here that Christ went to preach to the spirits in prison, he's
not speaking of Christ descending into hell. This is very important. I hope
you note this. Our text doesn't say that Christ
went in His human soul and preached to these spirits. But it said
by His Spirit. By His Spirit. It's not speaking
of His soul at all, His humanity. It's speaking of His divine person. He went by His Spirit and preached
to those prisoners and those sinners rebellious in prison.
Now verse 20 tells us something. It tells us who these people
were and it tells us when Christ preached to them. When did Christ
preach to them and who did he preach to? Look in verse 20.
Which sometimes were disobedient. That's who he preached to. when
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while
the ark was preparing were infused, that is, eight souls were saved
by water. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Peter tells us that in his second
epistle. And Christ by His Spirit was
preaching in Noah to those rebels that were before the flood. When a man stands to preach the
gospel, if God has called him to preach the gospel, he preaches
with the anointed of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.
And when Noah preached the gospel and warned those people and encouraged
those people to repent because destruction was coming, Christ
was in him and it was Christ who was preaching to those rebels. In Genesis chapter 6, verse 3,
he said, My spirit shall always strive with man. Whose spirit
was that? That was the spirit of God's
Son, the Holy, Blessed Spirit preaching in Noah. Now what does
this tell us? For 120 years, Christ preached
to those rebels just before the flood came. Doesn't that tell
us that Christ is divine? That He was preexistent before
He was ever incarnated? Abraham rejoiced to see My day. Did Abraham know Christ? Why,
sure, he talked with Him, fellowshiped with Him. Abraham's faith was
in a living Christ, the Son of God. The Spirit of Christ was
in no one preaching the Gospel. Christ was here when the world
created because He created all things. But we go back farther
than that, don't we? The Son of God was with the Father
before all worlds, before time. He's the second person of the
sacred and eternal Trinity. He is Himself the eternal God. He's always been and will always
be. Notice the condition of these
disobedient spirits in Noah's day. They were in prison. They were
in prison. Now that tells us, tells us a
couple of ways that you and I can look at this. What's the condition
of a lost man? He's in prison. I mean, brothers
and sisters, he's behind bars that he cannot break out of. He's dead in trespasses and sins. What a prison that is. He is in darkness. He has been
taken captive by the devil. He has no way in and of himself
to escape. that prison that he finds himself
in. God told his son, by the blood
of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners out of the
pit where it is no water. How does a man get out of this
prison of sin and guilt? Only one way. The Son of God
must open the prison door and let him out. He must come and
preach liberty to that sinner. If the Son shall make you free,
you're free indeed. And that's the only way to get
out. And Peter is telling us when Noah preached to these rebels,
these who were disobedient spirits, they were in prison. In prison. And another way that we can interpret
this passage here is to say this, and some read it like this, Christ
went and preached to the disobedient in Noah's day who perished in
the flood and whose spirits are now in the prison of hell. Now that's a prison, brothers
and sisters, there's no return from. A man can't get out of
that place. That rich man whom Christ told
us about who was tormented in the flame 2,000 years ago, he
is still in that prison this morning. He cannot escape that. That's the horror of the prison
of hell, isn't it? If it was a day, if it was a
million years, there would be hope. But it's an endless torment. The smoke of their torment ascended
up forever and forever. And on the day of resurrection,
John tells us that hell and death were raised and cast into eternal
fire, the lake of fire. And there's no coming back from
that. A man may be dead in trespasses and sins and be brought out of
that and be saved from that and thank God for it. But when this
life is over and men who believe not the gospel perish, they descend
into that prison from which there is absolutely no escape. That's a prison indeed, is it
not? Let's get to my text. Water Baptism. It's a confession of faith in
the personal death and burial and resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What hinders me from being baptized? If you believe with all your
heart. I believe that the Christ that
you preach to me that has suffered and buried and died and risen
again. I believe that that Christ is
the Son of God. So he baptized Him. That's what
water baptism is. It's a personal belief that Jesus
Christ Himself died, suffered, was buried and raised and ascended. But it's more than that. Water
baptism, when we believe, Water baptism to believers personally
identify them with the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's
not only Him who suffered, but they suffered with Him. They
suffered in Him. We died in Him. We were buried
in Him. And we arose in Him. And we ascended
in Him. We have become one in the sufferings
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, you are buried with
Him in baptism. Now, as we develop this this
morning, you're going to see this is a blessing. This is a
blessing. To know He done that personally
is one thing. To know that we suffered with
Him is quite another, isn't it? That's what we mean by substitution. That's what we mean by representation. Notice how Peter says this. He didn't say, as other places
teach very clearly, and it's very true, but he doesn't say
here that Noah was saved by being in the ark. His intention here
is not to prove that. That's proved other places. But
Peter says water baptism itself is the figure of eight souls
being saved by water. Now that's amazing that he'd
make a statement like that. How in the world can you be saved
by water? Well, what was the water? What
was the water that saved Noah and his family? The water was
the judgment of God. Look over in 2 Peter 2. Just
one page over to your right. 2 Peter 2 and look in verse 5. 2 Peter 2 and verse 5. God spared
not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher
of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the
ungodly. That water was God's judgment
upon the ungodly to punish them for their sins. And look in chapter
3 and beginning in verse 3. Knowing this first, that there
shall come scoffers in the last days, walking after their own
lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, the earth
standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world
that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." So what
is the water? It's God's means of punishing
sin and sinners for their sins. Listen to these passages, and
you can go reference these in Genesis chapter 6 and chapter
7, but you find this language all through the 6th, 7th, and
8th chapter of Genesis. Listen to Genesis chapter 6 and
verse 11. The earth was corrupt before
God, and the earth was filled with violence. And verse 7, and
the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, because it repenteth me that I have made
him. And then Genesis chapter 6 and
verse 17, the Lord said, and behold, I, even I do bring a
flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein
is the breath of life from under heaven. and everything that is
in the earth shall die. Listen to chapter 7 verse 4.
Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth, forty
days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have
made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. Listen
to verse 19. And the waters prevailed exceedingly
upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole
heaven were covered, and all flesh died that moved upon the
earth, the fowls, the cattle, the creeping things, and the
beasts, and every man died from these waters. The same waters
that destroyed the ungodly and the disobedient was the same
waters that saved eight souls." Isn't that amazing? Eight souls
were saved by water, that is, by the judgment of God. God is a holy God, isn't He?
He's a just God. He cannot and He will not excuse
sin. He must punish sin, and He must
punish the sinner because of it. Therefore, the whole world
of the ungodly died under the judgment of these waters. And
that's the wages of sin, isn't it? The soul that sinneth, it
shall die. But the same waters that punish
the ungodly must also punish those eight souls that were saved. All flesh must die. And the act of water baptism,
if it be done in faith, is saying this. The waters did punish my
sin. The waters punished me for my
sin. Just not in my person. This is
what Noah could say. But in the person of my substitute,
in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the true ark of God. The eight souls went through
those dark, violent waters, but not one drop personally touched
them. Why did it not touch them? Because
being in the ark, the ark bore the storm of the water. They
were punished because they were in the ark. And the ark took
that punishment that belonged to them because of their sins. Can you imagine how that ark
was tossed with violence? Imagine the tsunamis. The great fountains of the deep
were broken up. All the windows of heaven were
opened. I mean, there were waterfalls
pouring out of the sky. The plates were broken deep beneath
the earth. creating these huge waves and
there was popping and cracking of those timbers. And Noah could
feel that arc sticking straight up in the air. And then suddenly
it takes a dive down into the bottom of those dark waves and
Noah probably thought, will it ever come up again? What was
going on? That water, that storm, that
flood was taking the beating for Noah and his family that
were in that ark. They were saved through water. They were saved because the judgment
of God fell not upon them, but upon the ark that they were in.
And the scripture says here, and Peter is very careful to
tell us this in our text, that Christ suffered once for sins. The just for the unjust, and
he tells us in chapter 2 and verse 24, he bore our sins in
his own body on the tree. He is the true ark, and it's
him that suffered in our place, in our room, and it's through
His sufferings, the judgment of God, that you and I are saved. You read the book of Psalms especially,
and our Lord Jesus often spoke about His sufferings and likened
to His sufferings as being Himself in an awful, awful storm. Listen
to Psalms 42, 6. Oh my God, my soul is cast down
within me. Deep calleth unto deep at the
noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows
have gone over me. Picture that arc again. And when
you picture that arc up and down, into the deep waters and back
up again, all the popping and the cracking and the straining
of those timbers. Picture the Lord Jesus Christ
when He went down into the waves of God's wrath, when God punished
Him for our sins. Listen to Psalms 88, 7. The Lord
Jesus Christ, Thy wrath lies hard upon Me. You have afflicted
Me with all your ways." The judgment of God is satisfied for all the
sins of every elect soul because their sins were punished in their
substitute. And this is what God intends
to show us by the ordinance of water baptism. What is God saying
to us in water baptism? He is saying this. I punished
your sins. I punished them in your substitute
and you are no longer guilty. I am no longer angry with you. I am satisfied. Now I will be
a father to you and I will forgive your sins. And you can approach
unto me without these fearful doubts and slavish fears because
I have told you that I have saved you Through judgment. Through my judgment. Not upon
you personally, but upon your substitute. And you were in Him
when He did that. See the blessing, brothers and
sisters, in water baptism? Water baptism can't give us life. It never was intended for that.
It's just a figure. No figure can save you in any
sense of the word. We have life because the Holy
Spirit has come to us in Christ through the gospel and give us
life. Water baptism cannot purge sin
from the conscience. It won't even wash grime from
our bodies without mixing soap with it. It cannot reach the
conscience. One thing can reach the conscience,
and that is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And watered
baptism was not given us as some tool or means of further sanctification. It was given to us of God with
this intent, to aid in our assurance. to eliminate our doubts, to save
us from these unjust fears that we entertain in our conscience,
that God somehow still holds something against us, that somehow
there's more that should be done, more that must be done. And God
is telling us, when you believe and you're baptized, here's what
I'm telling you, that your sins have been punished. That's what
baptism represents to us. That ark came through the waters
and landed in a new world that had been cleansed. And our Lord
underwent that awful judgment of God upon sin, but He came
through that judgment and was raised without sin, and ascended
to heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God. And just as
the ark landed on dry land, and those eight souls stepped out
into a new world that had been cleansed with water, so everyone
who is in the Lord Jesus Christ will one day, without fail, step
out into a new world. a new heaven and a new earth,
where there is new life and righteousness and holiness and purity, because
all sin has been punished and purged away. Water baptism, I am believingly confessing.
In water baptism I am believingly confessing what God says is reality. That my sins were punished and
purged away and now I have a new life in Christ. God is a merciful
and forgiving Father to me. He is not angry with me anymore. He is perfectly and eternally
reconciled to me. Now I can approach Him in confidence
Without this slavish fear, without being filled with the doubts,
I have true grounds of hope in God. And this is what God intended
for us to learn in water baptism. We're saved through the judgment
of God. Not upon our persons, but because
another endeared it for us. And when you are taken and you're
put under that water, what are you saying? Christ my Lord went
under this water. Not that water back at the deluge,
but under God's deep, deep wrath for sin. I underwent that. And you're saying by your baptism,
I was with you. I was in you. You did that for
me. And when He went to the tomb,
He did not go there personally for Himself, but He went there
for those who believe and are baptized. And when He arose and
ascended, we believe that we ascended in Him, and that's what
God intended to teach us for baptism. Doesn't that go a long
way in alleviating our doubts and our fears? Do you believe
what God intended? In what of baptism? If God intended
this then, lay halt upon this and use it as a grounds to dispel
your doubts and your fears. What does baptism mean? Just
what God says it means. My Son went through your judgment
for you. My wrath fell upon Him. My waves
went over him. And when Noah landed that ark
on the mountains of Ariadne, they were in there one year.
They left that ark, Noah and his sons began to gather stones,
and they made an altar. They took some clean beasts and
they put it upon that alder of wood. They lit the wood and that
flash began to burn and God smelled a sweet savor. And what did He
say? I'll never curse again. And my
baptism, because God ordained it, gives me the assurance that
God will never curse me again because my sin has been punished.
That's what I'm saying by my baptism. I am saved. How? Through the judgment of God.
He had to punish us, didn't He? He either has to punish the sinner
personally, or He has to punish the sinner and the sin in a substitute. But judgment has to come. It comes to the ungodly and unbelievers
and destroys them. It comes to the aid and the ark.
and the judgment fell upon the ark and saved them. If I come
here this morning, and I've said this so many times, if I come
here this morning and I told you God was so merciful and that
He would just look over your sins, that He's sweeping under
the rug because He's so kind, what would you say to me? You'd
say, Bruce, what about justice? Is God not a just God? How can
He just look over my sins? But I'm coming here this morning
to tell you that God is a just God, and He's the judge of all
the earth, and He must, and He shall, and He has punished sin. That gives us a share of hope,
does it not? If your faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and His work is what you're trusting in alone this morning,
then for your conscience to live in fear and doubt is to deny
what God intended to teach you by water baptism. Do you believe
Him? It's grounds for a good hope.
It don't give a good hope, but it answers why I do have a good
hope. Look what he said in chapter 1, two places, and we'll close.
In chapter 1 of 1 Peter, look at verse 3 and verse 4. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again into a living hope,
a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled, and fadeth not
away. reserved in heaven for you. God has given us this ordinance
of baptism as a figure to show forth the reality of the hope
that he's given us. Christ has suffered. Christ has
satisfied. Christ has risen from the dead.
Therefore, we have hope. And that's what our baptism expresses. Look at Romans chapter 6 in closing,
in verse 3. Romans chapter 6 in verse 3. Romans chapter 6 in verse 3. Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized in Jesus Christ were baptized unto His death?
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death, that
life as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of
the Father, the power of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth
we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. If we believe that we be dead
with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him.
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead doth no more, death
hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once. But in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. Now look in verse 11. Likewise,
reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Reckon it to be so, just as God
says it is. Believe what He intended. for
you to believe in water baptism. That your sins have been punished
through the judgment of God. Oh, our Father, thank You. Thank
You for giving us strength this morning to say a few words of
encouragement to Your dear saints. Thank You, Lord, for giving us
Your Word to teach us. So often our hearts are full
of doubts and fears especially when trials and suffering comes. They shake us, Lord, to our very
roots, and you know this. Oh, help us to remember that
though we change, we vary. Things around us change. But
you've never changed. You never shall change. What
you've done shall be done forever. And you have indeed punished
the sins of all your people, your judgment fell not upon them,
but upon their substitute, their representative. Help us to live,
our Father, in this confidence. Thank you for such a hope that
has been secured for us, that our eternal happiness has been
secured in the days of your flesh, and by your resurrection and
your ascension. Thank you for these dear saints.
Thank you for their kindness. Bless the food that we have today. Bless our fellowship of time
of breaking bread one with another. And our Father, be merciful to
so many in this congregation that are suffering in their bodies
and in their souls. Remember, I pray, those that
would be among us who are lost, that have no interest in you,
especially our poor children and the young people. Be gracious,
be merciful, and visit them if you will. We pray these things
and ask for your glory and our eternal good. Amen.