We'll see what the weather brings,
but let's turn in our Bibles to John chapter three. Isn't it remarkable, one of the
lovely things about John's gospel are these long conversations.
I don't know, I haven't counted how many words there are. But
what a remarkable privilege to be in the presence of the Lord
Jesus Christ and to be able to ask him questions and to hear
from him. Nicodemus had to be stopped before
he could hear from him. So let's just read these verses. Let's start at verse 7. Nicodemus answered and said unto
him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak what we do know, and
testify that we have seen, and you receive not our witness.
"'If I have told you of earthly things and you believe not, "'how
shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? "'No man
hath ascended up to heaven, "'but he that came down from heaven,
"'even the Son of Man which is in heaven. "'And as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, "'even so must the Son of Man
be lifted up, "'that whosoever believeth in him "'should not
perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the condemnation, that
light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that
doeth evil hateth the light, and neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. That word wrought is the word
that we use for wrought iron. It means that they are forged,
forged in difficult and painful circumstances for the iron. Nevertheless,
it's a great promise of God, isn't it? The deeds of believing,
the deeds of hearing, the deeds of bowing to the Lord Jesus Christ,
the deeds of loving Him, they're all wrought in God. And that's
our prayer. And that's why we're gonna sing
again, thanks Norm. We rest, number 52. We rest in
thee. our shield and our defender we
go not forth alone against the foe. Strong in thy strength, safe
in thy keeping, Lord, we rest on thee, and in thy name we hope. Strong in thy strength, safe
in thy keeping, Lord, we rest on thee, ? And in thy name we
go ? ? Yes, in thy name, O captive of salvation ? ? In thy dear
name, O Lord, remains above ? ? Jesus, our righteousness, our sure foundation
? ? Our Prince of Glory ? Jesus, Thou art, is this Thou
short compassion? A prince of glory and Thou King
of love. We know in faith Thou won't break
me, this feeling, and needing more, we trade Thy grace We rest on thee and in thy name
we go. Yet from our hearts a song of
joy appearing. We rest on thee and in thy name
we go. We rest on thee our shield and
our defender. I'll sing through the gates of
Bellismere Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray yet again that we would be reminded. of what our Lord
Jesus Christ said, that without him we can do nothing. And we
pray, Heavenly Father, that our meetings together as they have
been for these many years would not be things of nothingness.
They would be things that engender faith and worship of you. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that these things, these things that bring praise to you are
the things that you've wrought. in your people. And we just thank
you again, Heavenly Father, for your Word. We thank you for its
truthfulness. We thank you for the remarkable
things that are revealed in it. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that you would cause it to be a living and an active Word,
and a Word especially that shines a remarkable light on the glory
of our dear and precious Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. Bless
our time, Heavenly Father, to His glory, for we pray and come
to you thanking you in His name for your promises made and fulfilled
and signed and sealed with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Bless our time, our Father. Amen. So once again, we come
to the point where Nicodemus is now silence. It's a lovely
place for the religious people to be. He came with the we know,
and he says, how could these things be? All scripture is focused and centered
on those three remarkable things that we want to spend our lives
in contemplation of. Who is God? What is he like? Who is he as he was revealed
in his son? Who am I? And how can someone
like me, like Nicodemus, be in the presence of God and be loved
by him? It's a remarkable opportunity
the Lord gives us, doesn't he, when he brings us together, that
he opens up his word and he teaches his people. And Nicodemus is
set before us as the most remarkable example. He is declared to be
the teacher of Israel. There are definite articles before. Thou
art a master of Israel. Thou art the master of Israel. He was Israel's best teacher
and yet he was so profoundly ignorant of the things of God. He had studied and read and lived
the most abstemious life you could possibly imagine. And he
stood before people and taught about God. And no doubt he would
have said to those people that listened to him, don't believe
what those Pharisees say. Those Pharisees don't believe
in the resurrection. We believe in the resurrection. Don't believe
what the Sadducees say. He was a Pharisee. He would have
said, don't believe what those Herodians believe. Don't believe
what those, here is the word of God. Here is the truth of
God. And it's a sobering thing to
think that that's exactly what we're doing here today. We are
saying this is who God is, this is who man is, and this is how
God saves sinners in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in a sense,
we are saying we know too. Nicodemus is saying we know.
The people of this religious world are saying we know. It's
been amazing to me over these many years that we've been meeting
now how often, as we come to a passage of Scripture, there
is the most extraordinary practical illustration laid out before
us. Two of Australia's most famous
writers and Christian leaders put out a pamphlet and were interviewed
just a couple of weeks ago and the reason I think about them
is because they are the master of Israel and I met with one
of their disciples who was a master. He actually had a master's degree
from Bible College. And as extraordinary as it is
on those three things that matter most, the nature of God, the
nature of man, and the nature of how God saves sinners, on
all three of them, they are profoundly wrong. In fact, these two men
have probably had 90 years of study together. Ninety years
together they've studied and have preached throughout the
world and have written books. And the most senior and experienced
one made a statement which should shock people. He said that the
atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ is not mentioned in the sermons
in Acts. He's absolutely adamant that
the atonement The cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ is not
mentioned in any of the sermons in Acts. It's a salutary lesson to us,
isn't it, that people can have the esteem of this religious
world as Nicodemus had the esteem of his religious world. and be
supposedly teachers and supposedly standing before people proclaiming
God and proclaiming salvation in God and yet be as blind as
bats to the most fundamental things. And of course, Nicodemus came with we know and
then had to put his hand on his mouth and say, how can these
things be? And one of the remarkable things,
as I've said before about Nicodemus, is that he was actually brought
to a place where he wanted to be taught. And one of the extraordinary
things that has troubled me about religious leaders that I have
dealt with for this past 25 years is that no matter what you say
to them, no matter how serious the allegations you make of what
they are saying, there is just a complete and utter deadness.
And so we stand before people and say we know, as others do. So the question then is, who's
telling the truth? And there's only one adjudicator
of all of those things, and that is, what does the scripture say?
Did the apostles not preach the atonement in all of their missionary
journeys in Acts? Or did they, as Paul said, preach
nothing but the atonement? And this fellow just can't see
the atonement there. He can't see the Lord Jesus Christ
and him crucified just after the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified
and his witnesses came and bore witness to him. You see, Nicodemus had to be
taught two very, very fundamental things, hasn't he? That to see
these things and to know these things requires a life-giving
miracle of the new birth from God. You must be born again,
no matter how polished, no matter how exercised your flesh is,
no matter how knowledgeable it is, no matter how much scripture
you memorise. You need a new birth, no matter
how abstemious your life has been. You need a new birth to
enter the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus also had to know and
learn, doesn't he, that this the wind blows where it wishes. That God bestows this gift of
life as he wills, as he sees fit, at a time of his choosing. And you can't command it to happen. You can't manipulate it to happen.
They're not born of the will of the flesh. Grace is not giving
everyone a chance. Nothing in salvation is by chance. All that God does is purposeful
and is not controlled by men. So Nicodemus's reaction is just
so natural. How can these things be? He's
saying, I've read my Bible, I'm a student, I've memorized it.
I've used it as the real book of my life in every detail. They have the most remarkable
details, these Pharisees. You're allowed to eat an egg
on the Sabbath as long as you intended to kill the chook. You're
allowed to drink some vinegar, but you weren't allowed to gargle
vinegar. You're allowed to sit in a chair,
but you couldn't move a chair because in moving a chair you
might make a scratch in the ground which is a furrow which is ploughing.
They have them today. They have them in Israel, don't
they? They have lifts, Sabbath day
lifts. So on the Sabbath day you can
get into a lift and the doors go up to the first floor and
they open and they close and they go to the second floor,
they open and they close. So you're not pressing a button.
Because pressing a button's work, and it defiles you. The reality is that again and
again and again we must be reminded and remind, may the Lord remind
us, that there's a Pharisee dwelling in all of us. And all of us by
nature think that somehow our activities are going to cause
us some esteem and some reward. With God, Nicodemus is man, as
we've said from Psalm 39, he's man at his best state. He's the
best that Israel had and here he is, a sinner in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ and what a remarkably instructive
lesson we have from it. And he wasn't like the idolaters
of the past. Nicodemus could say, I've actually,
I've seen and I've studied the history of Israel and I've studied
the warnings. And I remember the last time
God destroyed Jerusalem and he destroyed it because of all the
idolatry that was in Jerusalem and the idolatry that was in
the temple. And I'm not like that. We've got rid of all the
idols out of Jerusalem, we Pharisees. We got all the rid of all the
idols out of our houses. We know. How can these things be? Are you
telling me, the Lord Jesus Christ, that after I've come to compliment
you as a teacher that's come from God, that not one of these
remarkable acts of mine has earned me any favour with God, or any
knowledge of who God is, or any knowledge of what the Scriptures
are saying? I've stood before men and declared
God, and here I am with you and I'm bringing compliments to you. You see, the reality is there's
nothing about the grace of God which can be seen by the natural
man. The revelation of God is a mystery
to the natural man. The character of God is a mystery
to the natural man. Nicodemus, and all like him,
knew nothing about God, and he couldn't perceive the kingdom
of God, and he couldn't enter the kingdom of God. He didn't
know. There is, as Proverbs 16 and
Proverbs 14 say, it says, there is a way that seemeth right unto
a man. And that's all of Adam's people,
isn't it? There is a way that seemeth right
unto a man. But the end thereof are the ways
of death. The end thereof are the ways
of death. See there are multiple ways.
There's a way that seems right and there are multiple ways to
get there. Free will works religion is the
damning delusion. But Nicodemus was no Arminian,
he was a Calvinist. Knowing all the doctrine is not
anywhere near the same as knowing who God is. And I love how the Lord Jesus
Christ deals with Nicodemus. Nicodemus is now shut up to the
mercy and the grace of God. He's shut up. And Jesus answered
him and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel and knoweth
not these things? You're a master of Israel and
you don't know these things. You don't know these basic things.
You're a master of Israel. Even when Nicodemus is brought
to a place where his mouth is stopped, he still has to be brought
even lower. He has to be brought to a place where the Lord Jesus
Christ and he alone is the teacher of him. He must. All of the foundations of what
Nicodemus believed must be brought down. This is Nicodemus' state,
isn't it, before the Lord? You're a master and you don't
know the basis, you're the gospel. How great is the darkness that's
in the Pharisees. See, God must do something for
you. In the meeting of any sinner
with the Lord Jesus Christ, We have a meeting of one who is
but grass. That's what you are, isn't it?
All flesh is grass. And the goodness thereof is like
the flower of the grass. And what's our God? A consuming
fire. What happens to grass in the
presence of a consuming fire? You plead for mercy. You plead
for mercy. You have nothing to boast in. God must do something for you,
Nicodemus. God must do everything for you. You must be made a new creature,
a new creation. Has God brought you to the place
where you can say, I'm blind? I'm blind, Lord. I'm blind and
I need you to give me sight. He said to the Pharisees, the
Lord Jesus in John 9 verse 41, he said, if you were blind, you
should have no sin. What a remarkable statement.
If I need all of my sight, everything that I see, if I need God entirely
to do all of that, to give me eyes and to give me sight, you
have no sin. But now you say, we see, therefore
your sin remaineth. See Nicodemus says, we know.
must be brought down to nothing like rotten Bartimaeus. What
would you have me do to you, says the Lord, Nicodemus, I mean
Bartimaeus, that I might receive thy sight, like the leper before
him? Lord, if you will, if you will,
you can make me clean. Nicodemus. The Lord is getting
Nicodemus blind. The Lord is getting Nicodemus
to be brought down. Just like Naaman the Syrian,
wasn't it? Naaman the Syrian had to be brought
down. Naaman thought he was a great man and a great soldier who happened
to have leprosy. Naaman had to be brought to the
place where he came to realise that he was a leper who just
accidentally happened to be a great man. And what was the solution
to Naaman? To be brought down. Elisha didn't
even go out and greet him. How was Naaman cleansed? You
go down into that muddy Jordan. I know you've got all these fancy
rivers back where you came from. You go down to that muddy Jordan
and dip in there seven times. It was the bringing down of Naaman
that healed him. It wasn't the waters, was it?
It was the bringing down. If the Lord would bring us down,
Nicodemus now has to see that he's blind. It's the whole, the
whole, the healthy don't need a physician. It's the sick, it's
the lepers. It's a humiliating question that
Nicodemus is asked. There is a place, no matter how
much we have been brought down, there is a place within us that
needs more bringing down again and again and again. Nebuchadnezzar
had to be brought down, didn't he, for seven years. He lived
like a beast, eating grass. And when Nebuchadnezzar came
to himself, came to his senses in Daniel 4, what does he say? Seven years, seven years. He says, now I, Nebuchadnezzar,
praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works
are truth in his ways, judgment. And those that work in pride,
he is able to abase. So the only person that will
be abased is someone that God has done a work in. Norm has
written articles and written letters to these men in Sydney
who claim that there is no atonement in the preaching. And there's
not even a response from them. There's not even the courtesy
of a response from these esteemed religious leaders, which is why
Nicodemus is in a remarkable place. Because in the very next
words that Nicodemus says, he wants to defend the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish the fact that the Sanhedrin,
of which he's a member in John chapter seven, is acting unrighteously. And then at the end of his life,
He humbles himself even more and touches a dead body and becomes
defiled. He honours the body of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I want us to note that the
Lord Jesus, when he confronted these people in the temple, the
very first thing he speaks to them of is, destroy this temple. That's where my authority comes
in. Destroy this temple and I'll raise it up again. His very first
words to them in Jerusalem are about his death and his resurrection. And where does he go with Nicodemus
in verse 14 of this text? There's an absolute necessity
about it. The Lord Jesus Christ preached the cross and his resurrection
at the very beginning of these things. When people are shut
up and people are humble before him, the very first thing he'll
do is he'll teach them about his death and his resurrection.
And that's where all the salvation is. And that's where all the
glory of God is. And that's where all the revelation
of the character of God is. Every attribute of God is magnified
at the cross. And every attribute of man in
his natural state is magnified at the cross. If you want to
see what you are, and you want to see what sin is, then you
go to the cross. And we naturally want to think,
don't we, that if I was there, I wouldn't have been like those
people. I would have been better. And in your very thought of that,
you reveal how desperately you're in need of a birth from above
and a rebirth, and for God to come with his wind and blow upon
him. Are you a master of Israel? Your
foundations, Nicodemus, are all wrong, and everything you've
built on them, all of this life, and everything you've built in
all of this religion, and all of these missionary organizations,
and all of these missionary success, and all of these Bible colleges,
and all of this stuff you've done. It's all wrong, because
the foundation is wrong. So the ground has to be ploughed. to be prepared for the seed.
I'm planting some of Daisy's dad's special white corn from
El Salvador and I'm excited about it. I got my little ropery hoe
out last week and it was brutal what it did to that soil. Absolutely
brutal. And it was brutal to me in its
brutality. But that soil now is just looking absolutely wonderful.
And that corn will be magnificent. Everything has to be ploughed.
See, Nicodemus has to be taught, doesn't he, that these things
are not hidden in the scriptures. One of the essential things that
we must learn, isn't it, in biblical truth, everything new is untrue. Someone says there's something
new come along, you know, without having to even look at it, that
it's untrue, some new method, some new way. We go back to the
old path. The Lord Jesus Christ took Nicodemus
back to an old path. He says, I've told you of earthly
things and you believe not. See, these things are not hidden
in the scriptures. The new birth is not hidden in
the scriptures. Ezekiel 36 and 37 speaks of it. The wind blowing where it will
is not hidden in the scriptures. Where did Abraham get his faith
from? He was in awe of the cold days, wasn't he? And God, the
wind blew. They're not hidden. How did Noah
and his family survive? Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. The wind blows where it wishes.
Abraham has called the God out of the whole world. The wind
blows where it wishes. Ishmael and Isaac are a picture
of the natural birth and the spiritual birth. The spiritual
birth is a promise birth from God. Jacob and Esau. So these men thought, like Nicodemus,
thought that their descent from the patriarchs mattered in salvation. And yet look at the stories of
the patriarchs. What a lineage Esau had. And yet God hated him. Don't
you know Nicodemus, the wind blows where it wishes. We speak what we do know and
testify that we have seen and you receive, not our witness. He's just testifying to what
the scriptures are saying. When the Lord goes to Nazareth,
he just tells them, doesn't he, this is who God is and this is
how God saves and he'll save who he wishes to save. He'll
save Naaman and he'll save a Gentile woman and he'll leave. Hundreds
and maybe thousands of lepers and widows say distinct grace
is distinguishing grace. Grace is always saving grace. And when sinners hear of distinguishing
grace and mercy, they are filled with wrath. And Nicodemus' compatriots
in that Sanhedrin spend the rest of their time in these gospel
accounts plotting and scheming and lying just so they can entrap
who is the truth, so they can entrap one who can see right
through them. Barely, barely. Verily, verily,
truly, truly, verse 11, I say unto thee, we speak what we do
know and testify that we have seen, and you receive not our
witness. As we said earlier, Nicodemus
comes with a we know, and the Lord says, we do know. We do
know. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
that this religious world has been captivated by John 3.16
and made John 3.16 to be the touchstone and the foundation
of everything. And their understanding of John
3.16 has been the touchstone and the understanding of everything.
And I have yet to hear of a missionary going out for 20 or 30 years
without saying that our job is to go out and to show the love
of God to everyone. In fact, the local mission organisation
that goes to all the high schools in this district has its name,
316. That's its name. because they
believe that God loves everyone and Jesus died for everyone and
the Holy Spirit wants to save everyone and salvation is an
offer and you can be saved by your own works and your own activities
and yet John 3 16 is in this passage where the greatest religious
teacher that Israel had produced is shown to be completely and
utterly ignorant of the scriptures it's extraordinary isn't it how
how the Lord will teach his people and how extraordinarily sad it
is when the Lord just leaves them. He leaves them to that
delusion. We are promised that false Gospels
will abound and here we have in this passage their most famous
verse and Nicodemus being told that he's as blind as a bat.
He hasn't got a single clue about the scriptures, hasn't got a
single clue about who God is or himself. I pray that this
story of Nicodemus causes us to cry out to the Lord that I
might see that I might not be deceived. I know my heart is
deceitful and wicked and above all, I know that I can construct
and create a religion. I know that I can preach a peace
to myself. Lord have mercy upon me. Lord
save me. Lord save me. Because if you
leave me to myself, if you don't interfere in my life, if you
don't come and take me captive, I'll believe any lie, and all
of them." No wonder Paul said he would just forsake everything
to win Christ and to be found in Him, not having a righteousness
of my own, because all our righteousness is not in Him. See, you'll only
receive, that's what he's saying to him, isn't it? You don't receive
our witness. You'll only receive the witness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll only receive the witness
of the Holy Spirit when you are born again. The old man never
receives the witness of God, no matter how dear, how clear,
how evident, how much the teacher pleads with him, how often the
lesson is repeated. John and these gospel accounts
are repetitive, aren't they? Again and again and again. And
there are lots of instructions. One is that the deaf will never
hear. The other one is, of course,
that the children of God need to hear again and again and again. I
certainly need to see another picture of saving grace. You
must be born again. It's a promise of the work of
God. If I have told you of earthly
things and you believe not, how shall you believe it if I tell
you of heavenly things? He's spoken to him in the most
simple terms, these earthly things, birth. It's such an instructive
thing, isn't it? We've all been through it. We
all know that we played absolutely no part in our conception and
that we played no part in our birth other than being a pain
in the neck, a pain somewhere else for women. But we didn't
want to leave. The women finally got sick of
us and removed us. And it's a new creation. And
the birth, there was a life before there was a birth, wasn't there? The birth is the revealing of
a life. And where does that life come
from? It's a life that comes from God. Will a child be born
live or will a child be born dead? Who decides? It's God's
life. These are earthly things, Nicodemus.
And the new birth is a picture of the spiritual birth, and all
of those things pertain to the spiritual birth, doesn't it?
There must be a father, there must be a seed, there must be
a life that comes that didn't exist before. And the wind, you
hear the sound, Nicodemus, you hear the sound and you see the
effects of it. But you can't make the wind blow, and you can't
make the wind stop blowing, and you can't tell it where to blow,
That's the same with everyone born of the Spirit. It's a divine
miracle of God, Nicodemus. Everyone born of the Spirit,
so is everyone born of the Spirit. He told him again, again and
again, didn't he? We read them the previous week
out of Matthew's gospel in Matthew 13, again and again. He likened
the kingdom of heaven to treasure, treasure hidden in a field, to
a merchant who was looking for pearls, to a mustard seed, to
the seed that was sown on the ground, all of them seemingly
insignificant, often hidden from all sight, and yet, And yet,
there was a life there. There was a treasure there. See, the Lord Jesus Christ is
just using earthly things to speak of spiritual realities.
When he was with the fishermen, he spoke of fish. When he was
with the farmers, he spoke of sowing. When he was with the
shepherds, he spoke of sheep and a good shepherd. All of these
remarkable illustrations. I'm the good shepherd. I lay
down my life for the sheep. They would have known of good
shepherds that lay down their lives and were attacked by bears
trying to protect their sheep. He was the good shepherd. I lay
down my life for the sheep. He's the door. He's the one that
brings access. Access into heaven, which is
what he's going to talk about in a minute. He's the bread of
life. You don't live without him. He's the water of life.
You don't drink without him. When it comes to Nicodemus, Nicodemus
who's spent his whole mature life doing nothing but studying
the scriptures, the pictures are out of the Old Testament.
Nicodemus, you know the story of the serpent that's lifted
up in the desert. You know, you know what that story pictures.
No he didn't. He didn't have a clue about that
story and he knew it off by heart and he'd preached sermons on
it and he didn't know the first thing about it. He needed to
be taught by the Lord Jesus Christ what that was. I've told you of earthly things.
I've made my presentation to you Nicodemus as simple as we
possibly can and you do not understand I pray again and again that we
will be, as we began our service, as people who were taught of
God, that God would send his spirit, that he would be our
teacher, that he would reveal yet again to us he who is true. Verse 13, and we have to finish
on account of the weather and time. But no man has ascended
up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son
of Man which is in heaven. Many people entered heaven. Abel
and Abraham and Moses and multitudes entered heaven, but this one,
he ascended into heaven. And he's the one who is in heaven,
which is in heaven. If you want to enter the kingdom
of God, the entrance is a person. It's as simple as that. It's
a person, isn't it? The entrance is the person of the Son of Man.
The access is not a doing, but a being. I love what Nicodemus
was caused by the Holy Spirit to ask, how can these things
be? Not what do I have to do? It's all about who he is and
what he did. No one ascended up to heaven
but he that came down from heaven. See he existed before he came
down from heaven and he existed in heaven in the bosom of the
Father. Not only did he come down from heaven but he's in
heaven. You reckon Nicodemus is confused at this stage? The Lord Jesus Christ is in the
bosom of the Father and present here. He's interceding, as we
read in Romans 8 earlier today, He's interceding for us and showing
His wounds and He's showing the reason for all of His children
who are entering into heaven. They've been bought by His blood,
they've been purchased, they've been redeemed by His precious
blood and He's showing those things. And they are with Him
in heaven. According to Paul, we are seated
with Christ in heavenly places and yet He's here with us now. You don't understand earthly
things. Spiritual things are way, way beyond our understanding.
What do we do, brothers and sisters? We believe. We believe. We simply believe. Entrance into heaven is a person. Heaven's glory is a person. And all those who are born again
are born in this world again because of an eternal union with
Him. And wherever He is, they are. And we are as secure as He is. We are as safe as our covenant
keeper is. And he's the one that's made
the promises, and he's the one that's come down, and he's the
one that's in heaven, and he's the one that ascends. When he
ascends, who does he ascend with? He takes all of his bride with
him, wherever he goes. And that's what heaven is, isn't
it? Heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven is being in the
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless his words
to our heart. Let's close in prayer. Our Heavenly
Father, we thank you that your dear and precious son came down. In fact, he was sent, but he
came with a glorious willingness, a covenant to fulfil. A bride
to redeem with his blood. a people to be saved. And we
pray to you, Heavenly Father, that he's the good shepherd and
he shepherds his people through the trials of this world and
shepherds them into his fold. We pray, Heavenly Father, that
you would just grant us the joy and the peace and the simplicity
of simply believing believing what you say and finding rest
and hope for our eternal souls in your dear and glorious Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in his name, Heavenly
Father, bless those that can't be with us and bless your word
preached throughout this world. And we thank you, Heavenly Father,
that all of yours will be taught of you. Thank you again, our
Father, for your grace to sinners like us. Pray in Jesus' name,
Amen.