Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our reading, Philippians chapter
4, and reading for our text just the last part of verse 8, though
we will be speaking from all of the verse. But it is the words,
think on these things, that I desire to bring before you. Think on
these things. The whole verse reads, Finally,
brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there
be any virtue If there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4 and verse 8. What we think is very important. We read in Proverbs that as a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he. and that the thought of
foolishness is sin. Very often, evil deeds and evil
works, they begin with the thoughts. And indeed, in the context here,
the Apostle, in a positive way, sets forth in our text the things
that are to be thought on and then immediately follows it with
works. Those things which ye have both
learned and received and heard and seen in me, do, and the peace
of God shall be with you. If we would that there be fruitfulness
and the effect in our lives and walking in the ways of the Lord,
then that begins with our thoughts. And we think of the Apostle when
he had the struggle with the corruptions of his own heart
in Romans 7. And he says there that the good
that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that
I do. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of death? And he says, I thank
God through Jesus Christ my Lord, He said, then so with the mind
I serve the Lord, but with the flesh the law of sin. And the mind, by grace, by the
Lord's teaching, is graciously affected and changed, and that
person thinks in a different way than they did in unregeneracy. What think ye? of Christ. What a question that that is. What think ye of Christ? The hymn writer takes it up and
says that that is the test. And it will be a test of really
how we are, where we are in the things of God. Because the Holy
Spirit will always magnify Christ and lift him up and extol him. So our text here is actually
an encouragement. It's an encouragement in three
ways. One way is that Paul, by the
very fact that he is addressing the point of thought, he shows
that It is and will be a trial to the people of God. The psalmist in Psalm 119, he
says, I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. And if we are mindful of what
goes on in the chambers of imagery and in our thoughts, then it
will be a trial and a burden and a concern. I find it so. I believe many of the people
of God find it so. The imagination of the heart
in man is only evil continually. And I've often thought of this.
how that ability to imagine things and to think of things, in my
case, as a design engineer, was absolutely vital. I would be
told by sales engineers what kind of a machine that they wanted
to do a certain thing in a factory, and I would have to imagine right
from nothing that machine, how it would work, what shape it
would take, how I would build it, I needed that ability. But that same ability that God
did give me and bless me with over many years in engineering,
yet also is my great burden and great trial. Because unless those
thoughts, unless those imaginations are reined in, the old nature
will take them. and it takes them to all manner
of evil and corruptness. It doesn't take much to lead
it away. And the very fact that the apostle
here comes concluding his epistle to the Philippians, and he comes
directing them and speaking to this point, I am thankful for
that. I believe many of the Lord's
dear people will be thankful that others will find a need
that this point be addressed and help be given to the minute. The second thing is, for those
that are troubled with thoughts, the apostle doesn't cut them
off here. He doesn't say, now, if your
thoughts are not of true things and honest things and just things
and pure things and good things, how can you be a child of God? If you've got wrong thoughts,
you can't be converted, you can't be one of God's people. He doesn't
say that. He addresses it in a way that
doesn't cut off a poor, tried and tempted child of God. The third encouraging thing is
that this text, it comes to us in the way of the gospel, not
in the way of the law. It doesn't come saying, thou
shalt not think upon things that are not true, thou shalt not
think upon things that are not honest. What the law does, the
law which is righteous, is good, is just, it is holy. But the
law commands, but it does not give strength to obey and to
fulfil those commands. But the word that comes before
us here comes in the way of the gospel because it comes in a
positive way. It comes in a way to help a poor
sinner to deal with those thoughts. And we think of how the apostle
says these things before us in Romans 8. He says, if ye, through
the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Will
mortification, putting to death, or Doing the opposite, the body
wants to go one way, you mortify it by saying, no, I'm not going
that way, I'm going to go the other way. And it's a very hard
thing. We've used the illustration sometimes
here with two children that may want of a parent, one wants to
go one place, say one wants to go to the beach and one wants
to go to the zoo, One thinks that they've got the better case
and the better argument, and they state their case, and they're
the oldest one anyway, and they want their way. And the parent
says, well, no, I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to
take the younger child, what the younger child wants. And
the older one is mortified. What? You didn't listen to me.
You haven't done what I wanted. And I thought you'd go my way
and you're not. And you're going to my younger
brother or sister's way. And it is a painful thing to
be mortified. And that is the path that the
apostle takes before us. There is a A counter-attraction. If you get a child playing with
scissors or something dangerous you don't want them to, the worst
thing you could do is to go to that child and say, give me those
scissors, and to try and take them off them. Hold on to them
harder than ever. They'll pull against it. But
if you come up with something that they like, if you come up
with some sweets or something, a toy or something that they
like, And the scissors just would be dropped, and off they go to
get this counterattraction, what they like. And the way of the
gospel, it draws. The Lord says, no man can come
unto me except the Father which sent me. Draw him, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. And so the word here, it comes
bringing before us those things, not that we should not think
on, but the things that we should. It is replacing it. And filling,
if our hearts, if our minds are filled with what is in this text,
there'll be no room for the others. We have a solemn case in the
scripture where our Lord spoke of one that when the evil spirit
is gone out of a man, he goeth through dry places or clear places
and then he comes back to his own house And he finds it swept
and he finds it garnished. It's empty. And he goes and takes
seven spirits that are worse than himself. The latter end
of that man is better than the beginning. It's not enough to
cast out that which is evil. It must be replaced with good. And you know, the children of
Israel, when they came into the Promised Land, God said to them,
they weren't to take all of that land at once. They weren't a
big nation. They hadn't got enough people
to fill up that land. He said, you should do it little
by little, lest the beasts of the field, they increase upon
you. And when some of the tribes,
they came to Joshua, they came to him and said, we haven't got
enough land. We need more land. You're a big nation, right? Well,
here is a part. You take it, you dispossess the
Canaanites of that land if you're a big nation and they made room
for them. And it is in that principle as
well that the Lord blesses his people. We are to have those
blessings in our soul that push out the evil and don't leave
any room for others to get back in. And so we have these three
things in which this This text is an encouragement that Paul
does address it, he doesn't cut off those who have wrong thoughts,
and he comes in the way of the gospel, pointing to those things
that shall be a help to us. And that is my desire this morning,
that it might be a help to us in looking at this word. Now,
when we look at the things that the apostle is setting before
the Philippines, he's saying whatsoever things. Each time
he'd say whatsoever things. So it is encompassing a very
wide range of things. A large range of things that
are true, that come under that heading, or that come under the
heading of being honest. It is A range of things like
that. And really, in one sense, our
text is like a sieve. And if we have thoughts that
are coming into our mind, we put it through this sieve and
it's got different parts to this sieve. So you see whether it
will pass through. Is it true? Yes, it's true. Right. Go to
the next part of the sieve. Is it honest? When it goes through
that, it is honest, but then is it just? And if it's just,
well, is it pure? If it gets through that part
of the sieve, is it lovely? Is it a good report? You know,
it might get part of the way through that sieve and then come
to a grinding halt. No, it doesn't satisfy that. Some people, they think, as long
as something is true, then they can spread it around everywhere,
they can tell everyone, they can put it around as if it's something
of a virtuous thing, but is it a good report? Is it something
that needs to be spread about like that? Well, I want to, this
morning, go through this verse in looking at Not the whole range
of things that may be considered. We couldn't do that. We wouldn't
have time for that. But I want to look at it in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Because whatever we think, if
we were to come at this text and speak of many right and good
and honest and true things, but Christ be not there, how would
we be profited and bettered? If we went out from the house
of God and we hadn't found Christ, we hadn't found our Lord to think
upon in here. He must be here. He is here. And where can you
find those things that are true and honest and pure and just
in poor fallen man? They will all centre in Christ
and in the gospel. but especially in the Lord himself. And it is in that way that I
desire to bring this word before you. And I want to go to the
various parts in the word of God. And the first one is we
have whatsoever things are true. And I direct you to John's first
epistle and chapter five, where the end of that, chapter in verse
20, we have this statement, this is the true God and eternal life. The whole verse reads, we know
that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding
that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is
true even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. It's the most beautiful sacred
verse. He is not a created angel. He is equal with God. He is God. If you have seen me,
you've seen the Father also. This word is so vital in the
defense of the precious truth that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with
us. If he was not truly God and truly
man, then he could never redeem his people, he could never save
them, he would never be in all the parts in our text, in all
holiness, purity, justness and rightness. He is the true God. What a beautiful point to begin
in. What a solemn position we are
in when we deny that truth right at the very start, that we do
not see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true God. The Jews in John chapter 10,
when they spoke against him was because that he being a man,
made himself equal with God. The truth was that he, being
God, made himself man. And yet they were in no doubt
of what the claim of our Lord was. Our Lord did truly claim
to be God, and they understood that. And he never countered
them. He reinforced it. This is the true God and eternal
life, Jesus Christ. The second point that is set
before us here is whatsoever things are honest. One of the things that really
characterized the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ was how
honest that he was with men. One of our hymns it says, and
it's speaking regarding sin, nor are men willing to have the
truth told. The sight is too killing for
pride to behold. To be truly told of our sinnership
and the evil of our heart, our heart rises up against that.
Now the Lord so clearly told those things which were honest
concerning man, that out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts,
vileness, that the corruptness is within. And men, they rose
up against that. But what the Lord gave was a
true and honest report. We read of that that He spoke
also concerning Pilate right there in his time of judgment
in John chapter 18. We have the Lord before Pilate,
I'm thinking I might have the Wrong verse there. He comes before
Pilate and he bears witness and testimony of the truth. Pilate asked him, he says, what
is truth? And he asked him concerning his
kingdom. The Lord said, my kingdom is
not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. And Pilate asked
him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest,
I am a king. To this end was I born. Before
this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. And he is very honest before
Pilate in all that he says before him. You know, when we are brought
before rulers, when we are brought before those that we think that
we might not receive the truth, then we can be rather economical
with the truth and not really honest. I think of the case when
David was waiting for tidings regarding his son Absalom. How
was it with the young man Absalom? And he has two messengers coming,
and both of them he acknowledges as good men. Ahimehas, he wanted
to run first, but Joab said to him, Thou shalt not bear tidings
today, because the king's son is dead. But he insisted. He
wanted to go. But Joab, he sends Cushi. But then Ahimehaz still wants
to go, and he overruns Cushi. He gets to David first. David
asks this question, is the king's Son, how is the young man? Is
the young man safe? That was his word. Is the young
man safe? And you know, Ahai Mahas, he
said, I saw a large tumult, but I knew not what it was. And we
say, Ahai Mahas, didn't you hear what Joab gave as the reason
why you should not run? The king's son is dead. Dear
Ahima, as good man as he was, he couldn't bring himself to
be honest with David. He knew that honesty would hurt. Kusho, when he came, and he says
that all the enemies of the, my lord, the king, be like that
young man is, David knew exactly what that meant. You know, sometimes
we can have a message But because it's not completely honest, it
doesn't help, it doesn't do any good to those that hear that
message. The Lord Jesus Christ is honest
with his people. He was honest with Pilate. He
was honest with those that came to him. And you know, if we're
like him, and if we know our sin, we'll be like that publican,
God be merciful, be honest also before God. We can't hide it from the Lord.
It's a good thing to tell him everything. But then we have
in the third place the things that are just. Whatsoever things
are just. Stephen, when he was one of the
deacons that were chosen by the Church, when he was arrayed before
the elders and ended up being stoned with the Apostle Paul
having his clothes laid at his feet, then Stephen testifies
as to what they had done. And he says, which of the prophets,
in Acts chapter seven and verse 52, which of the prophets have
not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which
showed before the coming of the just one. And our Lord Jesus
is spoken of as a just one of whom ye have been now the betrayers
and murderers who have received the law by the disposition of
angels. and have not kept it." How honest
also he was with them. But he speaks of the Lord as
the just one. And Peter, he says before us
in his first epistle in chapter 3 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 by the Spirit. And the Apostle, when he writes
to the Romans, he says to them in Romans 3, verse 26, to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that's Christ's righteousness,
that he might be just and the justifier of him, that believeth
in Jesus. It is a wonderful thing that
the holy and just God can pardon and forgive sin. In Proverbs
and several other places in the Word, we have that God delights
in a just weight, a just balance. Some of the Jews, the corrupt
Jews, they would have two weights in their bag. If someone wanted
to come and buy grain off them, flour off them, whatever it was,
they would pull out their weight. And for you's example, it had
one kilogram written on it. But actually, it only weighed
900 grams. So the person buying it would
think that they've got a kilogram, but they were shortchanged. And
then if they were coming to buy something off someone else, then
they'd have another weight. And that weight also said one
kilogram, but actually weighed 1.1. So when they were getting
things, they got more. And the scriptures speak so much
against that bag of deceitful weights, dealing with two different
measures, two different ways, one with one person, one with
another person, just to your advantage. And the gospel, the
way the Lord deals, he doesn't just say to one sinner that I'm
going to pass over your sin and I'm going to take you to heaven.
And another one, he says, I'm not going to pass over your sin.
You are consigned to hell. The Lord says that every transgression
shall be punished. Every disobedience, the wrath
of God shall come on that person. And everyone that the Lord shows
mercy upon, he suffers for. He puts away their sin. He endures
the wrath of God in their place. There is no injustice. The debt
is paid. Full satisfaction is made. And
who is he that shall say to any man that has suffered for another
man, you are unjust, you are unkind, you are wrong because
you didn't suffer for that person as well. If we find someone in
the current situations in the nursing profession or whatever
that's been so kind and so helped one person, And someone says,
well, yeah, but why didn't you help this person? Why didn't
you help them? And they said, one thing, I perhaps
couldn't help them, but it was their choice to help one person. And does it make them an evil
person because they didn't help another person? And with our
Lord, all that he's done is just. And every one of that innumerable
multitude in heaven that are saved, the Lord endured the wrath
of God on Calvary for. He suffered the just for the
unjust. Yes, those that are saved were
no more just, they were no more good, they were no more righteous
than any other. But the Lord suffered in their
place and blessed them and brought them to be with him. And so when
we have the word that is before us here to think on these things,
we're to think on the justice of God. And it runs right through
the word of God. How can God be just and yet justify
sinners? How can he really say, and not
be accused of being unfair or accused of bringing to heaven
those that were really guilty. And we find that substitutionary
offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think on that. Think not only on those things
that are true, the Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, his honest
testimony concerning you and me, concerning man, and to think
on his justice. But think then on the fourth
place, on the pure word, Jesus, the pure word of God. In Proverbs, we read that the
words of the Lord are pure words. Every word of God is pure. Thy words were found and I did
eat them. They were to the joy and rejoicing
of my soul. What would we be if we came to
the Word of God and there was something mixed with it? That's what if something is not
pure. We read in the Word of God about pure gold. Well, my
ring is not pure gold. It's an alloy. It looks gold.
But I know that there's other things mixed with it. It's an
alloy. It's not pure. If it was put
in the fire, part of it would be burnt up and go away. It wouldn't
stand the fire. We are used to many things that
are not pure. There's things that are joined
with it. But with the Lord, with his word, it is pure. It comes from heaven. This is
what we need. a faithful translation of the
Word of God. Whatever language we're in, we
should be convinced that it is by God's will and God's purpose
that he has given us that Word and that that Word is pure, is
not being interfered with by man. I often use the illustration
for the children at school when I go into the schools and I ask
them, are these someone in the class that that speaks another
language other than English. And usually you get one or two
that are. And then I give the illustration. Say if one comes from France,
they can speak French. I said, well, now we have a French
person come to speak to the class. I said, none of the rest of us,
we can't understand French. But you can. He can't understand
English. So he tells you what the message. You hear him in French, and then
you tell us in English. I said, if you decided you're
going to be very crafty and you're going to tell something completely
different, you're going to turn his message and tell us the opposite. He wouldn't know because he doesn't
understand English, and we wouldn't know because we didn't understand
French. So we're utterly dependent upon
that person who knows both French and English to give us the pure,
exactly what was said. And we need, and we bless God
for a faithful translation. And we know that God that first
gave the word, the Lord gave the word, great was the company
of them that published it, that he will make sure that that word
for His Church is pure. And so we bless Thee, Lord, for
that, and we are to meditate upon this, that not only the
written word, but the incarnate word, heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not pass away. The Lord Jesus
Christ himself is the pure word and the words that he speak,
the words that I speak unto you, they are life, they are truth,
they are what we can rely upon and lean upon. Think on these
things, the pure word of God. Now Psalm 119, he speaks of the
high regard that he had for the word of God. But then we have
in the fifth place, that which is lovely. And my mind went to
the Song of Solomon. It's a beautiful love song between
Christ and the church, and how the bride thinks of her spouse
and thinks of her beloved. And, you know, by nature we see
the Lord, there is no comeliness that we should desire Him. We
do not see Him as lovely at all, a root out of dry ground. But
in the Song of Solomon, what is said is very beautiful. In chapter 5, we have the question
from the daughters of Jerusalem, and they ask, what is thy beloved
more than another beloved? O thou fairest among women, thou
church, thou member of the church, what is thy beloved more than
another beloved that thou dost charge us so? And she charged
them, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love.
Well then she goes through in that last part of Chapter 5 of
Solomon's Song, a description of her beloved, beautiful description
really of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. But when she comes to
the closing of that description, in verse 16, his mouth is most
sweet, yea, He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved and
this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. What a description
for the Church of God. What do we think of Christ? Unto you which believe he is
precious, but is he lovely? You know, sin is ugly. Sin is
an evil thing. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
lovely. Something lovely is that which
we can look upon with delight, and we love to see it. If we had two paintings, and
one was a real horrible painting, and the other one was a beautiful
painting, so it's a lovely painting, you like to look at that, dwell
upon that, examine it in every aspect of it. And so it is with
our Lord. We are to look upon him and may
we come to that same assessment as the spouse. He is altogether lovely. But in the sixth place, we have
a good report. Jesus of good report. I think of that in the gospel. Peter, when he writes in his
first epistle, chapter 1, verse 12, he speaks of the sufferings
of Christ and of those that were searched of what man of time,
this is the prophets, had gone before, the Spirit of Christ
which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow,
unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto
us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you,
by them that have preached the gospel unto you, with the Holy
Ghost sent down from heaven, which sings the angels' desire. to look into. And we have the
gospel of good report, the things that are reported unto you. The gospels are reports of witnesses. They are witnesses that witness
Christ's life, his death, his sufferings, his ministry, and
they reported it to those that they preach to, and they report
it in the Word of God here. It is of a good report. It is a good report concerning
the Gospel itself, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners, and the Apostle says, of whom I am chief. It
is a good report that The tomb is empty that the sacrifice that
the Lord offered on Calvary was accepted of his father, that
he rose again from the dead, that sin was put away, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish but should have eternal life.
The Lord said, I give unto them eternal life, they shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of mine hand. It must have been an amazing
thing on that first day of the week, as the reports gradually
came in, the reports of what had happened, the stone was rolled
away, him they saw not at the tomb, the reports that were coming
in of the two on the way to Emmaus, others who had seen him, and
at the end of that day they come with this, the Lord is risen
indeed. All of these reports, they were
good reports, they were true reports, And that day began with
sadness, but it ended in goodness." Maybe there are those of you,
you're hearing the gospel, hearing the word of God, you hear it
as a good report and you're drawn to it. You desire the benefits
and the blessings of that report. And the apostle, he says here
that these things are reported unto you. And what is the amazing
thing here? He says, they are preached under
you the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
So that report is with the Holy Spirit's witness. And then he
says this, which things the angels desire to look into. If there
is anything that we should think upon these things as in our text,
it is the things that the angels desire to look into, to think
on those things of the report of the gospel. what men have
been chosen of God to bear a report of what Christ has accomplished
and done. May we approach the New Testament,
especially in this, as a true report of witnesses of historical
fact of Christ's coming of what he accomplished and what he did
and rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven. The
Lord said, if you believe not that I am he, you shall perish
in your sins. It is a faithful, it is a good
report, a report that can be trusted, a report that gladdens
poor sinners. The seventh thing is virtue or
goodness. Jesus is virtue that extended
unto others. We do read indeed that our goodness
extended not unto God, but unto them that are upon the earth.
But our Lord's virtue, we think of the woman with the issue of
blood, 12 years, she thought that she should be healed of
many physicians of no value. But then she said, if I may but
touch the hem of his garment, And she went and touched that
hem, and we read that virtue or goodness flowed from the Lord
to her, and she was healed. You know, we might have good
men, we might have many people that can do many, many things,
but not able to communicate that to someone else. We could have
a very skilled craftsman, but if they weren't a skilled teacher,
they couldn't convey their skill to another person. And so with
the Lord Jesus Christ, the blessings that he has, his goodness, his
virtue, what he is, his righteousness, is to be communicated to another. What would it be for the Church
of God if she had no righteousness of her own, which she does not
have, and Christ had righteousness, which he does have, but he couldn't
communicate it to another. But our Lord does. The virtue
of our Lord, his goodness, his righteousness, is communicated
to sinners, to believers. Think on that. Think on that. One of our hymns, it says this,
Christ has holiness enough to sanctify us all. In other words,
the blessings of the Lord are communicated to sinners. Of his fullness have all we received
and grace for grace. The fullness, the treasure, the
blessings in Christ communicated to a poor sinner. Then we have lastly, that Jesus
is to be praised if there be Any praise, think on these things. When our Lord came into Jerusalem,
then they cast their garments before him in the way. They sang
praises to him. They said, Master, forbid them. He said, if these should hold
their peace, the very stones would cry out. The wrath of man
shall praise thee. The remainder of wrath shalt
thou restrain. The praises of the Lord are that
which should be upon our thoughts and in our tongues and really
fill our hearts. It will be so in heaven. It will be so that they are those
that sing his praise, not just as the angels do, and they do,
but as those that are as the blood-bought family of God unto
him that loved us. and washed us from our sins in
his own blood, be praise and honour and glory for ever and
for ever. If there be any praise. A sad thing if we can go over
our lives and see nothing to praise the Lord. Sometimes when
we're very low, maybe be reminded of that. Maybe this morning,
if some of you are low, and downcast, despondent with things that are
happening and things in your own heart, to go back over your
life and think on this last verse, or this last part of this verse,
if there be any praise. I believe there are those times
that we have really praised the Lord for various things, answers
to prayer and how he's appeared for us. and the present clouds,
may they not overcloud those. But we think of Ebenezer, hitherto
hath he helped us. Sometimes I've thought of this
with the children of Israel, when Moses first came to them
and he said to them in Egypt, the Lord's appeared, we're going
to be delivered. And they praised the Lord. Well,
wasn't long after that, they wouldn't even listen to Moses
for soreness and for travail and trouble that they were going
through. Was it wrong that they praised him at first? Should
they not have said, well, we'll wait and see, and when we are
delivered, then we'll praise? No, there's always a principle. When the Lord appears, we praise
him. We don't give way to the thought,
let's prove it first, let's try it first. You praise the Lord,
yes, there may come trials in the meantime, but then there'll
be fresh cause for praise, and they did the other side of the
Red Sea, didn't they? Praise the Lord again. And so
if there be any praise, Lord, help us to go from the Lord's
house today and think on those things that we have praised the
Lord's for, and those things that are in here, directing our
thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ and what he is to us in all of
these points, and to think on these things. May the Lord add
his blessing. Amen.