turn back in your scriptures
with me to Acts chapter 28. Paul finishes what's recalled of his
public ministry and finishes what's recorded of his words
to the Jews. It's a glorious way that Acts
begins. The bookends of Acts are all
about the Kingdom of God. Paul preached to these people
He expounded and testified the Kingdom of God, persuading them
concerning Jesus. If you want to know where it's
all promised, it's both out of the law and out of the prophets. It is
so extraordinary that you can do it from morning till evening. And he can do it from morning
and evening again. It says that he received, verse 30, he received
all that came to him. And when they came to him, what
did he do? He testified the kingdom of God and persuaded them concerning
Jesus. I love the way Acts begins in
Acts 1, verse 3. It says, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he showed himself alive after his passion. and by many infallible
proofs, being seen of them 40 days. And what was he doing in
the 40 days? He was speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God. It's what we do, isn't it? We
speak concerning the Kingdom of God. The Jews, of course,
had another notion of a kingdom, and the religious people of this
world have other notions of kingdom, but we preach the things concerning
the Kingdom of God. We preach the Lord Jesus Christ
in all of his glory. The Kingdom of God is not about
buildings. It's not about an Israel after
the flesh. It's not about an earthly heritage.
It's not about food and drink. It's not about do's and don'ts.
It's not about religious observances. The kingdom of God is a spiritual
kingdom. And what a shock must have gone
through the religious people in Jerusalem when the Lord Jesus
Christ said that publicans and harlots go into the kingdom before
you. They had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the publicans
and harlots would never get into the kingdom. The kingdom, he says, is going
to be taken from you, Matthew 21, 43, and given to a nation
bearing the fruit thereof. What's the fruit? That fruit
we read of in Isaiah 57, isn't it? It's that fruit, isn't it?
It's that fruit of faith, that fruit of worship, that fruit
of adoration, that fruit of just looking to the Lord Jesus Christ
and looking away from ourselves. So the kingdom of God is a spiritual
kingdom. It's not an earthly kingdom at all. It's only known
by revelation, he says in Mark 4, verse 11, unto you it is given
to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. It's a grace gift of
God to reveal the king, to reveal himself. and it's known only
by the new birth. In John chapter 3 the Lord Jesus
is talking of Nicodemus, one of the most highly qualified
religious teachers of the day. He's called the teacher of the
Jews. There was none better than him. He would have stood alongside
Gamaliel and those others, and the Lord says to him, except
a man be born again, he cannot had all the religion in the world
and all the morality in the world, and he was as blind as a bat.
And except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God. He can't see it. He can't enter
in. The kingdom of God is received
as a little child, Luke 18. It's received as a little child.
Little children are dependent. In another, the Kingdom of God
is inherited, 1 Corinthians 6. The Kingdom of God comes not
in word only, but it comes in power. And Paul had left before
the Roman Church for a few years a testimony of what the Kingdom
of God is. He says the Kingdom of God is
not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace. Romans 4.17. The Kingdom of God is not meat
and drink. The Kingdom of God is not about
what you do and what you don't do. It's not about your religious
obedience and your religious observance. I want to remind
you that the people that Paul is speaking to here, as the Jews
were wherever they were scattered, and even in Jerusalem, they were
extraordinarily fastidious about keeping the laws. If you ever
get a chance to look at the Jewish regulations regarding the Sabbath,
it is just extraordinary, and they do it today. They have Sabbath
lifts over there now. You know how you get into a Sabbath
lift? The doors open automatically. I go up to the next floor, the
doors open automatically, and you can go in and out, in and
out. Because if you press a button, you're working. So you can be
a righteous Jew on a Sabbath by not pressing a button. You
can be more acceptable to God, more pleasing to God by not pressing
a button. We might, laughingly, mock them. I trust we won't. But the religion
of today is absolutely no different whatsoever to that being practiced
in this very town. The kingdom of God is not meat
and drink, Romans 14, 17. But it's righteousness. Whose
righteousness? It's the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's peace. Whose peace? His peace. It's joy. It's joy in the Holy Ghost. rejoicing in who the Lord Jesus
Christ is, as he reveals himself to his people. So I wanted just
to have a look at the title of my message, which is The Activities
of Unbelief. And it comes from that verse
in Acts 28-24, some believe the things that were spoken, and
that's passive, and some believe not. It's active. See, believing the Word of God is an activity.
It's an ongoing activity. It's an ongoing religious activity. Paul in Romans 1 says that they
hold down the truth in unrighteousness. They hold it down. Imagine being
in a swimming pool with three balls and you're trying to hold
them down. There's always one popping up. The revelation of
God in creation, the revelation of God in your conscience, continually
cries out. And we are suppressing it. They're
suppressing it. The Jews of that day suppressed
it. They hold down the truth in unrighteousness. They stumble over the stumbling
stone. Corinthians chapter 3 verse 15
there is a veil on their heart when Moses is read. People are
willfully ignorant and they're active. That's what this passage
is saying. Paul had presented them the most
extraordinary evidence. The Lord Jesus Christ presented
to the Jews in Jerusalem and to Paul the most extraordinary
evidence of who he was. He was a living, breathing fulfilment
of the Old Testament, as Norm showed us earlier. He was pictured in all those
Old Testament saints of God, like Joseph and Moses and the
Ark, all of them, right throughout the Old Testament there are pictures
and the Lord Jesus Christ came and he's a living, breathing
and walking one. Hebrews 4.12 calls it an evil
heart of unbelief. It's an evil heart. They're going about, see that's
what Paul says of them in Romans chapter 10, isn't it? He says,
I bear them record, I bear these Jews a record that they have
a zeal of God of God's righteousness and claims
to be religious of any sort, they are going about, they're
continually going about, they're going about to establish their
own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God. Peter says, that this world was deluged with
the flood and this creation that we see is the product of a flood.
They deliberately suppressed the activities of unbelief. Proverbs describes those in unbelief. There is a generation, Proverbs
30 verse 12, there is a generation that is pure in their own eyes,
pure from their unrighteousness. There
is a generation that is pure in their own eyes and yet is
not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, oh how
lofty are their eyes and their eyelids lifted up. There is a
generation. The Jews in the days of the Lord
Jesus Christ rejected the counsel of God against themselves. The
counsel of God was that you were sinners. And the response of
religious and righteous men is, well, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. And I'll show you how
I'm not by the way I behave. See, lurking underneath and beneath
unbelief is a deep spiritual hatred of God. And there's this
enmity. The natural man has an enmity
against God, says 1 Corinthians 2. But they cover this enmity
against God in a cloak of goodness, in a cloak of motives and desires
and work. They want to have a self-righteousness
that men can see and applaud, that men can esteem and honour.
beneath it is a heart that is continually, continually saying
that God is a liar. So he says that we are evil. He says you being evil, he's
talking to his apostles, you being evil. And the religious
masses, no I'm not. Look how good I am, and look
what good things others say about me. Look how bad others are,
and I'm not like them. It's like the Pharisee at the
temple, isn't he? I thank God, he says, I thank
God that I'm not like that other wicked man just over there. And
look what I do, and I fast, and I tithe, and I do all these other
things, and I'm a righteous man. I love what the Lord Jesus Christ
said. He prayed with himself. That prayer never reached beyond
the top of his skull. He prayed with himself. And the
other man went home. And what did he do? He beat on
his chest. He said, my problem's in my heart. My problem's just
not the things I do. My problem's deeper than that.
My problem's what I am. But the religious man, when he
hears that God says that his righteousness is of ill reason,
I'll show you even better. that Paul is speaking to here
in Rome would have been extraordinarily righteous. They would have lived
amongst the wickedness and the idolatry and the destitution
of the immorality of Rome. They would have lived there as
righteous people. They would have been as righteous
as you could possibly imagine. They would have paraded themselves
around And yet, when God says that our
best deeds are just filthy rags, they want to turn around and
say, look how much good I can do. You see, there is a willful
rebellion in religion which is more wicked, more wicked than
the wickedness of the world. None of God's servants ever are
condoning sin in any form. us at all. We don't approve of
it in ourselves, amongst ourselves, or in this world. But nevertheless,
the big difference between these people that believe not and those
that believe, one of the first big differences is that they
never saw themselves as sinners. See, sin in the scriptures, I
was talking to Eureka about it out in the back, sin in the scriptures
is a verb, it's a doing thing. But sin in the scriptures is
a noun, it's a being thing. So if sin is something that you
do, then stopping the doing makes you righteous. If sin is something
that you are, you need a saviour. The change of your outer guns,
the change of your lifestyle, doesn't change what you are.
Let's just go over the scriptures and see that this is the case.
I don't want you to be hearing anything other than what God
says. In 1 John 1 verse 8 it says, And if we say we have no
sin, sin there is a noun, it's what we are. We deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. We deceive ourselves and we can
deceive others about our righteousness. You're not going to deceive God.
The truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
sin there is a verb. Sin there is a doing thing. So
sin is both a noun, what you are, and sin is what you do.
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word
is not in us. Man needs to be brought low. I love thinking about Paul on
that Damascus road. He quotes it in Acts chapter
26 and it's recorded three times for us in the book of Acts so
that we will not forget Paul's pattern, isn't it? He's marching
down that road religious and righteous on his way to murder,
to imprison, to harass the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his enmity is against the Lord Jesus himself. And then what
happens in his conversion? There's a light from heaven.
There's a light from heaven. There's a light from heaven. So this is a solution to the
activities of unbelief. There's a light from heaven. Above the brightness of sun shining
round about me and them which journey with me. And when we're
all fallen to the ground, fallen to the earth, when you meet God,
the most appropriate place is as low as you can possibly get.
And God takes his people as low as you can possibly get. The
safest place for all of us is to be as low as possible at the
foot of the cross. We're all fallen to the earth
and you hear a voice. I see a light, a falling. I hear a voice, I heard a voice
speaking to me, a voice that speaks personally to these people.
It was a voice that those Pharisees that we read about, and the Jews
we read about in Acts 13 earlier, they'd never heard this voice
speaking to me, saying in the Hebrew tongue, so, so, why persecutest
thou me? All of your activity is against
me personally. You think you've been murdering
Christians, but all of it is directed against me. And it's
hard for thee to crick against a prick's. And what's the first
words that come out of his mouth? aren't thou Lord? If you'd asked
Paul to write a dissertation on Lord in the scriptures and
Christ in the scriptures, he would have written volumes, quoted
thousands of scriptures about the Lord and Christ. The very
first word that comes out of his mouth when he meets him is,
I haven't got a clue who you are. I haven't got a clue. You
have to reveal yourself. You have to reveal yourself.
God is in the business of sustaining the pride of all men, and religious
self-righteousness is the most evil thing that is. That's why
the Lord Jesus said that those people that the Jews had gone
over, they were missionaries, weren't they? They had their
Bible colleges in Jerusalem, they had their mission field,
and they went out and they gathered these people from Turkey and
from Greece and from all of these places of wicked, evil, idolatry,
and they brought them back to Jerusalem, and they polished
up their lives, and they taught them scripture, and they had
them in their Bible colleges, and they did all this stuff,
and the Lord Jesus Christ says they're twice the child of hell
they were before. Twice the child of hell. They're worse off. Worse off. Religion. Religion that allows
for the self-righteousness of men and the boasting of men.
is enmity against God. So let's look briefly at the
activities of unbelief. I want us to go back and have
a look. The first thing I want us to
see is in Acts chapter 28 verse 22. We desire to hear of thee
what thou thinkest. One of the activities of unbelief
is that man raised up in his own estimation, he wants to know
what someone else thinks. He wants to know what someone
else thinks. Down in verse 29 it says the Jews departed and
they had great reasoning among themselves. What do you think? We want to hear what you think.
I do hope you haven't come here to hear my opinion. As the longer
you go on in life, no one cares much about your
opinion, and they're pretty wise in it too. I'm not interested
in opinions. Paul wasn't there to give them
an opinion. He was there to declare the testimony of who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. Christianity's genuine relationship
with God is not something that we debate. In modern Christianity
people want to have these dialogue sessions and these days they
have them in pubs so it's a nice relaxed atmosphere and you bring
all these people in and then you have these questions and
everyone sits around and, oh, what's your opinion about this?
God's not in the business of just giving opinion. Paul wasn't
in the business of giving opinion. You remember Job? Job had an
opinion, didn't he? Job was forced to defend himself
and he gets right to the very end of the book of Job and he
starts defending himself and defending his righteousness and
he actually wants to bring God into court so that he can prove
that he's not as wicked and that the things that were wrong that
were said about him by these other miserable counsellors was
wrong. And then God speaks, doesn't
he? He speaks and he just asks Job questions, doesn't he? What do you know about Almighty
God? Job was a righteous man, wasn't
he? Righteous men need to be brought down, and what's his
response? I am vile. I am vile. Job's opinion was
irrelevant. The opinion of the other three
counsellors was irrelevant. There's one opinion that matters.
throughout the scriptures, people come with their opinions about
God. He's not impressed. Our God is high and lifted up
and is way, way, way above He says you think that I'm all together
like you. You think that I'm all together like you. You've
got to get rid of that thinking and the way that thinking is
dissipated is for people meeting the Lord Jesus Christ. He says,
and we'll be looking at Isaiah in the next couple of weeks,
he says in Isaiah 65 too, I have spread out my hands all day to
a rebellious people which walketh in the way that is not good after
their own thoughts. We are inundated in this world
of ours with that Nike symbol and other symbols like it, isn't
it? Just do your own thing. The God of power and the God
of success and the God of victory. Just do it. And we're told to
follow your own heart. Aren't we? You follow your own
heart. Well God says they're the words of a fool. Let me read
it to you on Isaiah in Proverbs 28, verse 26. He that trusteth
in his own heart is a fool, but whosoever walketh wisely
he shall be delivered. He that trusteth in his own heart
is a fool. Jeremiah 17.9 should be a well-known
verse to us, isn't it? The heart of man is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. It means it has an incurable
disease. You want to trust your heart? Who can know it? That's why in
Mark 7 when the Lord gives that long list of the evils that come
out of the heart of man, The very first thing that comes out
of the heart of man in Matthew, Mark chapter 7 verse 21. For from within, out of the heart
of men, proceed evil thoughts. clean that up if you're into
developing a bit of righteousness for yourself. God is not in the
business of just giving an opinion. I'm not here to give you an opinion.
I'm here to declare who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Paul was there
to persuade them. He was to persuade them to put
up their white flag, surrender to the Lord. See, belief is not
an opinion. The next thing that says in verse
22, Acts 28, for as concerning this sect, that word sect is
the word we get heresy from, it means a choosing, a choosing. You've chosen, you've chosen
this Christian path. What choosing did Paul do on
the Damascus road when he was lying there in the dust? Who
did the choosing? Paul didn't choose. People can
choose between various religious opinions, but salvation is not
a choosing. It's not a choosing at all. Salvation
is not a choosing. We don't have two different opinions. We don't have two different paths
to follow. We just have one. It's not a
choice. is in his nostrils, for wherein
is he to be accounted of? So these men, their activities
of unbelief, they want an opinion. They want to talk about this
sect. And they want, and we know, so
they've heard about it haven't they? They weren't ignorant people
that says at the end of verse 22, we know that everywhere All that heard is spoken against. Everywhere it is spoken against. free and sovereign grace, wherever
the Lord Jesus Christ is raised up to be on the throne of this
universe, to save his people by redeeming particular electing
love and grace, to preserve them, to be the surety for them, to
be the one that stands as the mediator between them and God,
to do it all. See, people are happy to have
the Lord Jesus Christ as then cooperating in their salvation
and cooperating in their sanctification. But when we say salvation is
of the Lord from eternity to eternity and salvation is of
the Lord in all of its entirety, when we raise up the Lord Jesus
Christ on Calvary's tree and we present him in the glory of
what the scriptures describe him as doing is when that father,
as the scriptures say, when the father took out the sword of
his justice and he plunged the sword of his justice in his son.
I love what Todd Nybert said, it's the most God-like thing
God ever did, was putting his son to death on Calvary's tree.
It's the most God-like thing God ever did. And these people
that run around and talk about, here we have a statement of faith
from a people. These guys have got master's
degrees from the best Bible colleges in Australia. And they say, this
is what happened. He took the punishment for mankind,
the punishment which mankind deserves. If he took the punishment that
mankind deserves, then all of mankind is saved. All of mankind
must be saved. Unless God is unholy, unless
God is unjust, unless God is unsovereign, not sovereign, unless
God's word is deceiving people, he died for his sheep. Why can't
they say it? Why can't they say it, that he
died for his sheep, he died for his bride? The scriptures say
it over and over again. God is not embarrassed about
his character. He's not embarrassed about his
activities in any way, shape or form. We magnify the word
of the Lord. We magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. The activities of unbelief. Belief
is an opinion. Belief is a choice. You can choose
your way. You can choose your way. There
are many paths up the mountain. I get really annoyed these days
when I meet other people who object strenuously to what we
proclaim here about who the Lord Jesus Christ is and then want
to say, well, you have your way of believing and we have our
way of believing, but we're all going the same way. There's a
great big mountain up there and there are thousands of paths
up the mountain. As Billy Graham said, there's a broadness in
the love of God. And anyone who's slightly sincere... What about these Jews? Do you
think they were sincere? But those Muslims that flew those
planes into those Twin Towers... Are they sincere? They were insincere. Of course they were sincere.
There is just one way. There is just one door. And it's
not a choice. And it's not an opinion. And it might be spoken against.
But it's never spoken against out of this book here, is it?
It's never spoken against. All we're doing is holding up
what this book says. We're just saying, this is what God says.
This is what God says. This is God's declaration of
his son. This is God's declaration of
his kingdom. You see, what they're saying is that we've heard about
it. We've heard about what's being said, and we stand here
as judge and jury of it. are denying it as a Jew who claims
to be knowledgeable, you're actually declaring that the Lord Jesus
Christ is a liar. And you're declaring that his
apostles and his servants are liars about him. See, it's an
activity. It's an activity of unbelief.
We know that it's everywhere spoken against. And we have joined hands with
them in speaking against it. The activities of unbelief. Christ
is to be debated. It says in Acts 28 verse 27 down
there, it says, and their eyes have they closed. It wasn't a passive activity,
it's an active activity again. That's the tense of the verb,
the eyes are closed. They believe themselves to be
righteous. We read Romans 10.1 often, don't
we? They go about to establish their
own righteousness. They didn't believe day, and they believed not. They
believed not because they believed themselves to be righteous. They
didn't believe that he's coming again. They didn't believe the
testimony of Moses and the prophets about the Lord Jesus Christ.
They didn't believe Paul's personal testimony. He'd written the book
of Romans, which was available to them. They didn't believe
the personal testimony of the Roman Christians. and says down
there in verse 29 they had great reasoning among themselves. See they thought themselves to
be reasonable didn't they? They thought themselves to be
wise. Like a gripper he says I'll consider
this and at a convenient time I'll have you back to talk at
a convenient time. Today is the day of salvation.
There is no convenient time in the future. The very words are
words of rebellion against God. Paul preached the kingdom of God,
a kingdom of grace that begins with God. God sending His Word,
the Word made flesh and dwelt among us. It's not a choice. It's not an
opinion. It's a revelation, not a decision.
It's a new creation which believes. It's a new creation that God
creates in righteousness and true holiness. That's why Paul
said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded. Paul's eyes
are open and his prayer is that other people's eyes would be
opened. He didn't want these people to go away in their wicked
unbelief, their evil heart of unbelief. He wanted to declare
to them that the Lord Jesus Christ is God's King. He's enthroned
as always. He's enthroned. He's ruling over
all things, even the hearts of these men. They don't believe
what Moses spoke of concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't
believe that Abraham saw the glory. They don't believe. And
the reality is that no amount of evidence will cause people
to believe No amount of evidence. Men's
mouths must be stopped by the revelation of God. So there's
some of the activities that are unbelief. So what do they believe?
Ultimately, those who don't believe the scriptures, who don't believe
God, they believe Satan. See, there are only two voices
in this world, aren't there? There are only two destinies,
the people in this world. There are only two families in
this world. There's the family of God. and
the family of Adam, the family of Christ, and the family of
Satan. They believe him. They believe
the lie. So the devil is a liar and a
murderer from the beginning. So how does he murder people?
He murders them by lying to them. Did God really say? Did God really say? Eve, you
can debate. You can give You'll know good and evil, and
if you know good and evil, you'll be able to choose what's good.
You'll be able to polish up your life. You'll be able to use your
free will. What a lie. What a shocking lie. What horrible,
horrible tragedies have befallen this world because of that lie. He's a liar. He lies to people. They believe the lie. God sends
them a strong delusion because they have no love of the truth.
No love of the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2 horrifies so
many people, isn't it? They receive not the love of
the truth that they might be saved, and for this cause God
shall send them a strong delusion. I figure that when God sends
a strong delusion, people are deluded. I believe when people
are left captive to Satan, as 2 Corinthians 4 says, they'll
be captive to Satan and they'll believe what he says. They believe Satan. They believe
the lie. They believe salvation is by
works, in some way or other. Salvation is either 100% grace
or it's 100% works, and there is no middle ground between them
at all. They believe that their works are worthy. If you reject
free and sovereign grace, you adopt works of some form or another,
and you might dress it up in pretty fancy clothes, but nevertheless
it's works, and that's all it is. See, they don't ultimately
believe that God is as holy as he claims to be. They don't believe
that God is as holy as he claims to be. They think that God accepts
and is pleased with men's best religious efforts. They talk
about doing things which please God. They talk about getting
rid of evil activities that displease God and doing things that please
God. They believe in some way or another they can match the
standard of God's holy law. They believe that somehow God
will accept something less than blood and torment. They believe
that somehow God will accept their sincerity and their human
goodness. When God says, be holy, they
say, I can do that. And God says, obey my law. They
believe in some way or another they can do it. Men do not see
God as holy as he states himself to be in the scriptures. You
might recall that incident in Numbers chapter 15 or 16, I think
it is, where that man went out to pick up some sticks on the
Sabbath day. And all the congregation stopped.
He was arrested. word from God to know what to
do with this man who picked up a few sticks on a Sabbath day?
What was the answer of God? Kill him. Stone him to death. And all of you do it. God is
holy. God is holy. You can ask Nadab
and Abihu. You can ask Aaron's sons. You can ask Korah, Dathan and
Abiram. God is holy. God is holy. And we don't see sin as sinful
as it really is. Picking up the sticks on the
Sabbath day was a denial of the Sabbath rest of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Everything about sin says something about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Everything about religious self-righteousness
says something about the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Religious
men can take the Bible and they turn it into a rule book for
Christian living, and the book's about him. The book's all about
the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe the lie. They believe,
ultimately, that someday they'll be saved, even if they're not
saved now. They are in the business of preaching
peace to themselves, and they'll find people who'll preach peace
to them. and they change the character
of God. They modify the character of God to suit their abilities
and their aspirations. They say that God is sovereign,
but he's not sovereign in the new creation. They say that God
is sovereign, in providence, but he's not sovereign in propitiation.
They say that God is sovereign, but he's not sovereign over the
hearts of men. These men did exactly as Paul says in Acts
13, they did exactly as God had ordained that they would do.
They were fulfilling exactly what God had ordained. They believed
that God is sovereign in his will, but he's not sovereign
over the will of man. They say that God is not sovereign
in creating love and worship and obedience to him. They believe
themselves to be righteous and they found a road which is broad. I don't want to make the road
to heaven any narrower than God makes it. most of us ever think that it
is. There is just one way, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is just one path. There is just one hope. It's
the hope of Israel that chains Paul. It's the hope of Israel
that saves sinners like us. It's the hope of Israel that
makes us to see that all of our righteousness is a filthy rags
and we have no hope outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a
glorious saviour for sinners. What a glorious saviour for sinners. Someone asked Henry Mayhem before
a meeting, he said, I hope we get a lot of people saved today.
Henry's response was, I'd like to see a lot of people get lost. saved. He came not for the righteous,
but he came for sinners. Does that include you? He came
for sinners. He came to call the sinners to
repentance. He calls the sinners to himself. What a saviour we have for sinners.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
that our God rules He reigns over all things. We praise you
Heavenly Father right now. Jesus Christ, and we praise you,
Heavenly Father, that our lives are in His hands and our times
are in His hands, our salvation is in His hands, and we praise
you, Heavenly Father, that He comes and He reveals Himself
to sinners like us, and He reveals Himself as a crucified Saviour. He bears those wounds which He
earned in His sojourn here on earth. He bears them now, Heavenly
Father. He is both the Lamb and the Lion. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that we'd find ourselves washed in the blood of the Lamb, and
we'd find ourselves rejoicing that He is the Lion of the tribe
of Judah. Cause us to look to your Son, our Father, to look
away from ourselves, because there's nothing in there that
commends any of us to you. that you can say of your dear
and precious Son, with whom I am well pleased, and you're well
pleased with all those who are in Him. Bless your word to the
hearts of your people, our Father, and cause us to rejoice in salvation,
both free and sovereign grace in your dear and precious Son.
For we pray in his name and come before you pleading his cause
and his worth and his righteousness and nothing of our own. Bless
your word, heavenly Father, to the hearts of your people. Make
it spirit and life to us as we go out into this world again.
We pray in Jesus name and for his glory. Amen. Thank you.