For the call to worship, we'll
be reading from Psalm 135. Psalm 135. Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye
the name of the Lord. Praise him, O ye servants of
the Lord. Ye that stand in the house of
the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God, praise the
Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praises unto his name, for
it is pleasant. For the Lord hath chosen Jacob
unto himself, and Israel for his precious priceless treasure.
For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all
gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did he in heaven and in earth, and in the seas and all
deep places. He causeth the vapors to ascend
from the ends of the earth. He maketh lightnings for the
rain. He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. who smote
the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast, who sent tokens
and wonders into the midst of thee, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and
upon all his servants, who smote great nations and slew mighty
kings, Sion, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all
the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land for an heritage, an
heritage unto Israel, his people. Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever. and thy memorial, O Lord, throughout
all generations. For the Lord will judge his people,
and he will have pity upon his servants. The idols of the heathen
are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths,
but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear not. Neither is there any
breath in their mouths. They that make them are likened
to them. So is everyone that trusteth
in them. Bless the Lord, O house of Israel.
Bless the Lord, O house of Aaron. Bless the Lord, O house of Levi.
Ye that fear the Lord, bless the Lord. Blessed be the Lord
out of Zion, which dwelleth at Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. Let us join our hearts in prayer. O Lord God, Help us now to praise
you for your wondrous works written in this book as they show us
Christ our Savior delivering his people from the bondage of
sin and death and bringing us into that promised inheritance.
Oh, that we might lift up and magnify the Lord Jesus Christ
as the only true and living, successful, victorious Savior
of his people. Lord, help us now here and in
every place where your word is faithfully declared, reveal your
glory, and we'll praise you as we ought. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. As on the cross of Christ I thought,
it seemed I heard one cry. Is all this nothing in your eyes,
who you who this day passed by? Is not such suffering greater
than that which you've seen before? And was there ever any man who
grieved or suffered more? I looked again, and what I saw
I cannot fully tell. It seemed within his very bones
there raged the fire of hell. ? What caused you grief, I ask
the man ? What crimes could you have done ? That God, Jehovah,
struck you down ? And left you all alone His answer cut my heart like
steel and left me void of breath. It is for your sins this pain
I feel, for you I'd go to death. Your soul before my Father's
throne could find no place to hide. ? This is the way God can
be just ? And you be justified ? Jehovah's mercies never fail
? Each morning they are new ? Great is his faithfulness and love
Therefore we're not consumed. Jehovah God in Christ the Son
shall all my portion be. My soul shall therefore wait
for him and live eternally. Please be seated. That's a good hymn. I would suggest
if we sing it again, maybe we could change that last word to
eternally, eternally. That's the Lord's language for our hope, eternal life. I ask you to open your Bibles
with me to 1 Samuel chapter 22, 1 Samuel. chapter 22. We've been looking at the life
of David particularly the last several weeks of how he has been
fleeing from Saul's jealous rage and we saw in chapter 21 how
he with his men fled to a city called Nob. It was a Levitical
city the priest lived there and there was a priest there by the
name of Ahimelech and David ate of the showbread that Ahimelech
had in the temple and then David said to the priest Do you have
a weapon? And the Himelech said, the only
thing I have is Goliath's sword. And David said, give it to me.
There's none like that. There was a man, the scripture
tells us in chapter 21, that was an Edomite. Now the Edomites
were the descendants of Esau and his name was Doeg. And Doag was there in Nob when
David came fleeing from Saul and received from Ahimelech the
showbread and Goliath's sword. So now Doag is with Saul in chapter
22. And Saul is interrogating his
men wanting to know who it is that is supporting David because
Saul sees David as a rebel and is dead set on killing him. And Doag speaks up and Doag says,
I saw David in Nob and Ahimelech gave David bread to eat and gave
him a weapon. And Saul immediately sent to
Nob and had Ahimelech and all the other priests that were at
Nob to come before him. And Saul instructed his soldiers
to put Ahimelech to death for having supported David and to
kill all the priests. Well, the men were Jews. They
said, we can't, we can't put to death an innocent priest.
Well they feared the wrath of God and so Saul looked to Doag
and said, you do it and Doag gladly did it. Doag killed Ahimelech,
he killed all the other priests, he went into the city of Nob
and he slaughtered all of the women and children and animals
in that city, he left nothing alive. Ahimelech's son, one of Ahimelech's
sons by the name of Abiathar escaped. Escaped and came to
David in chapter 22. And our text this morning is
the last verse of 1 Samuel chapter 22. Well, we'll begin reading
in verse 22. And David said unto Abiathar,
I knew it the day when Doag the Edomite was there that he would
surely tell Saul, and I have occasioned the death of all the
persons of thy father's house." David feels guilty for the death
of Ahimelech, the priest and everyone else that was in that
city. And then he says to Abiathar who is fleeing for his life,
And I pray the spirit of God will drive these words home to
our hearts and that we will hear them spoken to us from none other
than the son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that we will
find our hope and our comfort in God speaking these words to
our hearts. Abide thou with me. Stay with me. Fear not. For he that seeketh
my life, seeketh thy life. But with me thou shalt be in
safeguard. Four things. that David says
to Abiathar. The first, abide with me. Sit down. Stay right here. Don't
go anywhere else. Don't, don't, don't leave. This will be your play. I will
protect you. The one who is after my life
is after your life. But with me, You'll be safe.
We can't read these words without thinking about what the Lord
tells us in John chapter 15. Will you turn with me there in
John chapter 15? Beginning at verse 1. I am the
true vine. Now, if the Lord Jesus said,
I am the true vine, then he is clearly indicating that there
are false vines. There are other vines out there
and he's identifying himself as the one true vine. The Lord tells us to come out
from among them and be separate. to, he told the disciples, he
said, leave them alone. There are blind guys leading
the blind, they're all gonna fall into the ditch, come out.
And when we abide with Christ, we are forsaking. There's no
coming to Christ without leaving something. And and we are forsaking
all other hope for our salvation. We're abiding, trusting, relying
upon, united to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for all the help
of our salvation. I am the true vine and my father,
my father's the husbandman. He's the one who tends the vine. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he cut it away, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it." Oh, it's a painful thing to be purged,
isn't it, brothers and sisters? And yet, it's such a good thing.
If we know not the chastisement of the Father, it means that
we're not His children. The Lord purges the vine and
he cuts the dead wood away and he forces that vine to produce
more fruit. Now this clearly, at least in
a large part, is the fruit of the Spirit. What is the fruit
of the Spirit? Galatians chapter 5, the fruit
of the Spirit is love. Love for Christ, love for his
word, love for his people. because they had no love of the
truth therefore God turned them over to believe a lie. He sent them a strong delusion
to believe a lie. Now here's the difference between
being able to articulate the truth and having a love for the
truth. If you love the truth then the flip side to that is
that you hate the lie and so The Lord's saying that the vines
that are abiding in me have the Spirit of God, the life of Christ
flowing in them and the Lord will prune them. Look at verse
three. Now you are clean. You are already
clean. Head to toe, this pruning of
the vine is not in order to make you more holy. is not to make
you more worthy or more acceptable before God. That happens through
the sanctifying work of grace in the accomplished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is his growing you in grace
and in the knowledge of Christ that he prunes. But you're clean
through the word which I have spoken unto you. God gives faith
to believe him. believe His Word and that's the
means by which we are sanctified, set apart, and made holy before
God through faith. Abide in me. Abide in me. That's what David said to Obiathar. You're being pursued by an enemy,
same enemy I'm being pursued by. Stay right here with me. I will be your safeguard. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself. If you don't abide with Christ,
you're gonna be a branch disconnected from the Lord Jesus. And you cannot bear fruit. Accept
it, abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me."
A simple language, that's simple. Abide with me, stay right here,
don't go anywhere else. I am the vine. and you are the
branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same beareth bringeth forth much fruit. For without
me you can do no thing." Nothing. Nothing. All the life comes from the vine
to the branch. The only life that the branch
has is by virtue of being connected to the vine. Abide with me. Now someone might be thinking,
how do I know if I'm abiding with Christ? Well, part of the
answer to that question, I think a very big part of it, is our
need for him to abide with us. In Luke chapter 24, after the
crucifixion, after the resurrection, Two disciples are walking from
Jerusalem to Emmaus and the Lord Jesus walks along with them.
They didn't know that it was the Lord. And he began to explain
to them the scriptures concerning himself. And when they get to
their home, they said to the Lord, not knowing that it was
the Lord, Abide with us. Abide with us. For the day is
far spent and it is almost night." How do I know that I'm abiding
in Christ? Because of the need that He has put in my heart for
Him to abide with me. Lord, abide with me. Come into
my home. Come into my home. Lord, the
day is far spent. And the older we get, the more
we understand the truth of that, how far spent the day is and
how near the night is. Lord, I need for you to abide
with me. And when the Lord came in and then the breaking of bread,
their eyes were open and they saw who it was. And what did
they say? They said, oh, did not our hearts
burn within us as he spake with us along the way? Oh, he was
abiding with us and he was causing us to abide with him. But now
he's disappeared and immediately they ran back to Jerusalem to
tell the other apostles they wanted to be where the Lord was
going to be. How do I know that I'm abiding in Christ? I need
for him to abide with me. I need for him to cause me to
be where he is. In the early 1800s, A man by
the name of Henry Light was dying of leukemia. And he had written
several hymns in his life. And one of the last hymns that
he wrote before he died, we're going to close this service with
in just a little bit. And the title of that hymn is,
Abide With Me. And here's what Henry Light wrote
in that first stanza, Abide With Me. Fast falls the even tide. The darkness deepens. Oh, Lord,
with me abide. When the helpless, or when the
helpers, I'm sorry, fail, and all comforts flee, help for the
helpless. Lord, abide with me. Abide with
me. Lord, I'm helpless. The day is far spent, the night
is coming. I need for you to abide with
me, I need you to keep me. The only life that I have any
hope of is for this branch to be attached to the vine. Another way we know that we are
abiding in Christ is perseverance. Perseverance. It's the, as we
saw in the first hour, it's the preservation of the spirit that
keeps us persevering. But it's depending upon the Lord
Jesus Christ to the very end. Lord, I have no righteousness
outside of thee. I have no hope of salvation.
Lord, you've kept me. and I must continue to be kept
all the way to the end. The only true final evidence
of our salvation is not to be found. Somebody sent me a video
of a preacher that was bringing a message on persevering and
he was saying in this message that to die well is to be able
to know that you've served God faithfully to the end. Well, if that's what's required,
I'm without hope. I'm without any comfort. My service
is so unprofitable. My service is so filled with
sin and unbelief. Lord, if you don't keep me, If
you don't cause me to find all of my hope, all of my life, I've
got to be with the vine. Lord, you're my life. I can't
look to anything else. And the only final evidence of
salvation is that we're trusting Christ to the very end for all
of our justification before God, for all the hope of our salvation.
We've got no place else to go. Can't look anywhere else. In
the book of Acts, the apostle Paul is on a ship with 276 souls
and he's being taken to Rome to be put to death. He's a prisoner
on this ship. And the ship falls into a great
tempest and it's being torn apart and some of the sailors wanted
to abandon ship to save themselves. And the Lord told the apostle
Paul, you tell the captain of the ship that if anyone abandons
this ship, none of us will be saved. They all must persevere
with the ship. And the Lord's gonna make sure
that all 276 souls Persevere. And if anyone is able to abandon
the ship, none have any hope of being saved. Here's our hope. The preserving grace of God causing
us to find our hope, our life and all of our salvation in the
Lord Jesus faithful to the end. Abide with me. That's how we
know. Say, I don't know that I'm abiding
with Christ. I've got no place else to go.
I must have Christ. I can't find any comfort or any
hope of my salvation in anything or anyone else. And it's not
that I don't try. Oh, my heart's so full of unbelief,
it's daily I'm looking away from Christ, trying to find hope and
comfort somewhere else. But the Lord has proven his faithfulness
by causing me, causing me to abide in him. David said to Ahimelech,
abide with me, abide with me. Second thing David told Ahimelech is fear not. Now Ahimelech had reason to be
afraid. Doag and his men slaughtered every living thing in Nob, had
killed every member of his family. And they were coming after him. You know what we often say, ignorance
is bliss, don't we? You know the unbeliever, bliss
because they're ignorant. They don't know there's an enemy
pursuing them, they don't know that there is a just God that
requires full payment for their sin, they don't know that. They
picture God as some sort of doting grandfather that's somehow going
to just overlook the infractions of their lives. And they don't
know that God requires a just penalty for their sin, which
is death, separation from God for all of eternity. They don't
believe that. They're ignorant. Paul put it
like this in Romans chapter 10. He said, they have a zeal for
God, but without knowledge. Being ignorant of the righteousness
of God, they go about trying to establish their own righteousness.
And that's what the natural man does. What am I saying? I'm saying that those who are
abiding in Christ, those Ahimeleks that flee to David and hear those
words, abide with me and fear not. They know that apart from
abiding in Christ, they have reason to be afraid. They have
reason to be afraid. There's a just and holy God with
whom they must do. And there is a holy fear of God. Men don't fear God. The Lord made that clear in his
word. There's no fear of God before their eyes. Ignorance is bliss. They think
somehow they're going to be able to present their righteousness
before a holy God and find acceptance in heaven by something that they've
done. David said, and the Lord Jesus
I hope is saying to me and you, don't be afraid. I paid your
debt. I quenched the fire of God's
wrath. It fell upon me. at Calvary's
cross. I put that fire out. I've satisfied
all of the justice of God. I've established your righteousness
before God by my perfect obedience before my Father. Don't be afraid. Fear not, Abram. How many times,
well, as a matter of fact, I know the answer to this. 365 times
the Bible says, fear not. I don't think that's by mistake. God's people are conscious of
the fact that there is an enemy pursuing them. And every day
they need to have the spirit of God speak to their hearts
and saying, don't be afraid. Abide with me, it's okay. The same enemy that's pursuing
you is pursuing me. I will be your safeguard. What comfort, what hope. Truth is that you and I are either
going to fear men or we're going to fear God. The fear of man
is strong, it's strong in all of our hearts. Don't be dishonest and foolish
in saying, well, I don't fear men at all. That's not true.
I know it's not true. The people who speak that way
are usually the ones that are most afraid of men. And they're
covering up their fear. No, we do have that natural fear,
don't we? Here's what our Lord said. In
Matthew chapter 10 verse 28, fear not them which can kill
the body but are not able to kill the soul. But rather, but
rather, fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell. Who's that? Who is the one who's
able to destroy both body and soul in hell? It's God. It's
God. And if the Lord should mark iniquity,
who should stand? If God finds any sin on your
account or my account, we're going to hell for it. And God's people who are abiding
in Christ know that they are hell deserving. And they come before a holy God
and they hear him say, fear not, fear not. In Revelation chapter one, verse
17, John said, and when I saw him, John receives a revelation
of the Lord Jesus in heaven. And he says, when I saw him,
I fell at his feet as dead How do I know I fear God? Because
I'm dead before God. I have nothing to offer Him for
my life. The fear of God is a spirit of
worship. It's a spirit of submission.
It's a spirit that just bows before Him and confesses its
complete dependence upon His mercy and upon His grace. That's what the fear of God is.
And John said, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon
me saying unto me, fear not. I am the first and I am the last. I am the alpha and I am the omega. I am the beginning and I am the
end. Now that's the way the Lord Jesus
describes himself. I am the one that secured your
salvation from the beginning. When I entered into that covenant
promise with my father and became your surety before time ever
was, before time ever was, you were placed in me. You were put
in Christ. You were abiding in him before
you were ever made, before you were born. And I'm the last and
I'm everything in between. I'm the one that's going to bring
you successfully before your heavenly father. Don't be afraid. I've got this. This is all on
me. Can he fail? Can he fail to fulfill
his promises? No. Abide with me. Don't be afraid. For he that seeketh my life seeketh
your life. We have the same enemies that
the Lord Jesus Christ had. and he was victorious in defeating
them all. And there's our hope. The accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who are our enemies? Well, sin. Sin's your enemy. Sin's my enemy. If God doesn't put away my sin,
if he doesn't satisfy, if the Lord Jesus Christ's blood doesn't
cover my sin, If he doesn't satisfy God's justice for my sin, then
one sin would be sufficient to send me to hell. So sin is my
enemy and sin was his enemy. Became his enemy when he bore
the sins of his people. He bore all the sins of all of
his elect in his body upon that tree. And because God made him sin
for us who knew no sin, therefore the Father had to forsake him. And the Lord Jesus Christ cried
out to his Father from the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He knew the answer to that question
is because of sin. God's eyes are too pure to look
upon sin. was obligated by his holy justice
to forsake his only son when Christ became sin. But here's
the good news, brethren. The same enemy that was after
him is after us. And he was successful. He put
away that sin. The scripture says he cast it
into the depths of the sea. And God speaks to his children. He says, I have separated your
sins from you as far as the east is from the west. And I remember
them no more. He made an end of sin. He put
it away. And so the Lord Jesus says, abide
with me and be not afraid. I have been successful in defeating
The same enemy that's after you is after me. Not only is sin our enemy, Satan's
our enemy. And the scripture says that the
Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil. Now, what
is the work of the devil? What is the work of the devil? It's to keep those blind that
are in bondage to him. We all come into this world spiritually
dead and spiritually blind. And if the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't deliver the captive and make them free, they will die
spiritually blind and separated from God. So when the Lord says
that I came to destroy the works of the devil, I came to set the
captive free. All those for whom I died, Satan
has no power over. He has no power over them. I
will deliver them from their unbelief and their daily struggles
with the spirit of evil. I will deliver them. I will give
them grace and hope and salvation. I have, well, the scripture says that that
when the Lord sends His Spirit, He convicts His people of sin
because they believe not on Him. So He gives, through the convicting
power of the Holy Spirit, the grace to believe on Christ which
they never had before. Of righteousness, because I go
to my Father. He causes the believer to look
outside of themselves to see that all of their righteousness
is in the Lord Jesus Christ and their righteousnesses are his
filthy rags. They have no place else to go. And of death and of Satan because
he's been defeated. He was defeated at the cross.
And so the Lord's saying to you and me, abide with me, fear not. Your enemy is my enemy. You have
no power over your enemy, but I defeated them. What about the
world? We live in this world. Oh, this
world has such hold and such influence on us. And the Lord
Jesus said, In this world you shall have tribulation but be
of good cheer." Why? Because I have overcome the world. He's the only man that ever lived
that was never influenced by the world like you and I are.
I have overcome the world. In 1 John chapter 4, the Lord
speaks of the Antichrist. And he's not speaking of a particular
individual that, like the religious world today will tell you, well,
the Antichrist is a particular person that's going to, no. He
tells us in 1 John chapter 4 that the Antichrist is already in
the world. So it is the spirit of unbelief
that denies Christ his glory and salvation, which is the whole
world in which we live. And then he says to us in 1 John
chapter four, you are God's little children and have overcome the
world because greater is he that is in you than he that is in
the world. The only reason Why? That we're not completely consumed
by this world and caught away into the things of this world
to the point of denying our hope in Christ is because he that
is in you is greater than he that's in the world. I have overcome
the world. If we didn't have the Spirit
of God to teach us and to show us the vanity this world, we
would fall headlong into it, to the destruction of our own
souls. And as much as we're influenced by it, he that's in you is greater
than he that's in the world. Abide with me and don't be afraid. Your enemy is my enemy. The difference
is you have no power over sin or over Satan or over the world
and I defeated them all. Abide with me. Abide with me. Romans chapter 8, the Lord tells
us, What can separate us from the love of Christ? And then
he lists the things of this world. What can separate us from the
love of Christ? Is anything able to separate
the branch from the vine? Is anything able to sever our
dependence upon Christ? Our abiding in Christ? And here's
what the Lord said. Tribulation. Distress. Persecution, famine, nakedness,
peril, sword. And then he says, nay, in all
these things, you are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus
who had loved thee. And he gets all the glory, doesn't
he? And he says to you and me, abide with me and fear not. Your enemy is my enemy. The difference is you have no
power over your enemy and I have defeated that enemy. And the scriptures are clear
that your last enemy and my last enemy is death, is death. We have yet to face that enemy,
but here's our hope. Here's our hope. The grave has
lost its hold. Death has lost its power. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
in the word of God, the first born among many brethren. And the Lord tells us in the
book of Revelation, the second death, that's the one you need
to be worried about, not the first death. The first death
is when we draw our last breath in this physical body. and we
depart from this body of flesh. That's our first death. We say,
I've conquered that. The second death, the scripture
tells us in Revelation chapter 20, blessed is he that hath part
in the first resurrection. On such, the second death hath
no power. And then in verse 14 of that
same chapter, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire
and this is the second death. Eternal separation from God is
the second death. And the Lord's telling us, you
don't have to fear the second death. I was separated from the
Father for you. I suffered that fiery wrath of
God's judgment and separation from God in order to pay the
penalty. Abide with me and fear not. Your enemy is my enemy. You can't
conquer him. I've defeated them all. O death,
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law.
Thanks be to God we have victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.
He fulfilled the law. He conquered death. He rose from
the dead and his resurrection is our resurrection. And so he
says to his people, abide with me, abide with me. Don't go anywhere
else. Don't be afraid. Your enemy is
my enemy, but with me, you shall be safe. Oh, there was judgment coming
in the day of Noah and God's long suffering waited in the
days of Noah. Why did God's long suffering
wait? Why didn't God bring judgment before he brought judgment? Because
the ark wasn't finished. The ark had to be finished. Why?
Because Noah and his family had to be saved. The wrath of God
couldn't come until the ark was finished. And then when the ark
was finished, Noah and his family went into the safety of that
ark. We know who that ark is. That ark is Christ. And Noah
and his family were delivered from the deluge of God's wrath
and judgment because they were safe in the ark. Oh, here's a word from God. Don't be afraid. Abide with me. Your enemy is my enemy. I've
defeated that enemy and I'm going to be your safeguard. Look at our text, I want you
to see this word, safeguard. The word safeguard is also translated
in God's Word, prison. Prison. Say, well, I thought
he came to set the prisoner free. Yeah, from the prison of darkness,
of the prison of unbelief, the prison of death. But those whom
he sets free from that prison, he makes them to be prisoners
of himself. What am I saying? That every
person here is a prisoner. You are a prisoner, I am a prisoner,
every person on the face of the earth is a prisoner. You are
either a prisoner to unbelief or you're a prisoner to Christ. When God causes us to abide in
Christ and did not be afraid and to believe that he has defeated
the enemy, we become the bond servants. the prisoners, the
slaves. That's how the New Testament
believers identified themselves. Paul said, I'm a prisoner of
Christ. I'm a bond slave, a willing slave, thankful that I'm no longer
serving a master that beats me with the law and puts me to death.
I serve a master now that loves me, a master who died for me,
a master who gives me hope and life and joy and peace. master
who saves me, a master who loves me. All men are slaves. David said to Abiathar, in me
you will have a safeguard, you will have a place of rescue,
a place of refuge. In the Old Testament, God appointed
cities of refuge so that if a man killed another man accidentally,
he could flee to the city of refuge. And the avenger of blood,
the nearest of kin who was obligated to get life for life, eye for
eye, tooth for tooth, that's what the law requires. The law
required death. That man could flee to the city
of refuge and in that city he had safety. He had safeguard
that city of refuge like the ark and like the cleft that God
put Moses in on the Mount of the Law. When Moses went up to
Mount Sinai, God had to hide Moses in a rock. That rock, that
ark, that city of refuge, that's Christ and he is our safeguard. He's our safeguard from the law.
He's our safeguard from the justice of God. He's our safeguard from
death and from sin and from Satan. And the son of David says to
all the Abithars fleeing for their life, abide with me and don't be afraid. Your enemy? is my enemy. I defeated
them. With me, you'll be safe. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Thank you for the table that
we're about to receive, reminding us of the shed blood and the
broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that we
would not receive these elements unworthily, but that we would
be consciously aware of what they represent and who they represent. That Christ is our life. With him, we are safe. Lord,
bless this to the faith of your people. Bless it to the glory
of Christ. For we ask it in his name. Amen. Seventy five and hard back to
him. Let's stand. Abide with me, fast falls the
eventide. The darkness deepens, Lord with
me abide. When others fail and comforts flee. Help of the helpless, O abide
with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life's
little day. Earth's joys grow dim, its glories
pass away. Change and decay in all around
I see. O thou who changest not, abide
with me. I need thy presence every passing
hour. What but thy grace can foil the
tempter's power? guide and stay can be. Through cloud and sunshine, O
abide with me. ? Hold thou thy word before my
closing eyes ? ? Shine through the gloom and point me to the
skies ? ? Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee. In life, in death, O Lord, abide
with me. Please be seated. Number 17 in
your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book, number 17. I love you.