Very good. Well, I thought we'd
spend this last half hour just going back into Jeremiah and
looking at the situation. We've laid out something of the
case before the people. And reminded, I trust ourselves,
that the situation in Jeremiah's day is a parallel in the situation
in the days of Paul and a parallel in the situations of the day
today. And if we don't see the Word of God as living and active
and speaking about the religious world around us and the apostasy
that's around us and the rebellion against God that's around us,
then I pray the Lord might deliver us from from such blindness. I was thinking in the break about
those people as they flocked into Jerusalem in the days of
Titus when the Roman armies and the Jews had rose up in rebellion
and they believed, having been taught by their leaders, that
because they had promises they believed from God that they could
go to Jerusalem and be saved. It's remarkable, isn't it? Fancy
being in the company of a million people. Fancy being in the company
of a million people. Fancy being there And on your
way to Jerusalem, you looked up and you thought that as you
were getting there, you were probably singing some of the
Psalms of ascent and thinking, the closer I get to Jerusalem,
the safer I am. And here I am with a million
plus people in Jerusalem. And surely, surely there is safety
and there's confidence in the fact that all the religious leaders
and all of my nation is as much as possible gathered here together.
It is a stark picture, isn't it, of religion in this world. I pray the Lord might cause us
to see that that is exactly the situation now. There are people,
multitudes, aren't there, who take their confidence from the
fact that there are numbers, there are so many people. When
I spoke to the pastor of the church that meets here after
me, he said, there are just so many people that believe what
I believe. We believe that Jesus loves everyone and he died for
everyone and God wants to save everyone and that human beings
are given free will. And he said there are so many
people who believe what I believe and what we're preaching. And
we've got this course that's come out of this Pentecostal
church in England and millions around the world have been watching
it. And so-called tens and hundreds of thousands possibly have been
converted by it. And how on earth could you be
right? How on earth could you be right? We have all these people
with us. When the Lord returns, he asked
a question, didn't he? Will he find faith on the earth?
Will he find faith? The apostles asked the question,
are there few that be saved? The answers are evident by the
questions asked. He'll find faith on the earth
where he produces faith. Where the object of faith is
revealed to people, then his people will find all their hope
and all their refuge in him. So I want us to consider what
Paul was laying out, and as I said earlier, this is the last personal
apostolic word to the Jewish leaders we have recorded, and
I don't for one minute want to think that there wasn't a testimony
that continued on in Jerusalem to the Jewish leaders, but the
Holy Spirit has chosen for this one to be the last that we have
recorded. And therefore, we need to think
that these are the last personal apostolic words recorded for
the Jews prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. They had the letters
of warning and the letter to Hebrews came to them and maybe
many, many other letters, so they were far from ignorant.
But as we read some of these verses in Jeremiah, I want us
to get an understanding of The situation of God's people at
that time, the situation of Paul in his day, and the situation
of us today. We did look earlier at Jeremiah's
call in chapter 1. But in chapter 5 verse 14, I'm
just going to run through these. I was hoping to print them out
for want of time, but I would just like you to follow with
me through Jeremiah as we try and get something of the picture
of what he was confronting, the religious apostasy. And if you
wish to see more of it and see in some ways it as graphically
presented or even more so, you read the first. opening chapters
of Ezekiel, and you'll see that these religious people had their
slogans and their religious people had their ideas of their own
safety, as it were. As I said earlier, Jeremiah's
name means the Lord shall exalt or the Lord will be exalted.
And he will be exalted as his word is revealed and his word
comes true. And he says in chapter 5 verse
14, he says, I will make my words in thy mouth afire, and this
people would, and it shall devour them. In verse 30 and 31 of the
same chapter he says, And wonderful and horrible things is committed
in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests bear rule by their means. They rule by their
authority. They lord it over the children
of God. And what does it go on to say?
And my people love to have it so. The Lord Jesus Christ said that
light has come into the darkness, and men love the darkness because
their deeds were evil and they wouldn't come to the light. They
love to have it so. And what will you do in the end
thereof? Jeremiah 16 is a passage that
I have quoted to you often in the past. It says, Thus saith
the Lord, Stand ye in the ways. So before the people there are
many ways, aren't there? Stand ye in the ways, and see,
and ask for the old paths. That word old means everlastingly
into the distance. You ask for the path of the eternal
covenant. You ask for that path that had
its beginning before the foundation of the world in the eternal councils
of God, which is what Jeremiah in chapter 31 will remind the
people of. Stand ye in the ways, and see,
and ask for the old paths. Where is the good way? and walk
therein. You might recall that Christianity
in its early days was always called the way. It's the way
of truth, it's the way of righteousness, it's the way of peace with God.
It is the way in which the way, the Lord Jesus Christ, takes
his people. We're in the good way and walk
therein and you shall find rest for your souls. Let's rest in
the midst of a tumultuous time, isn't it, for these people? But
they said, we will not walk therein. We won't walk in an old path.
We won't walk in a good way. We won't stand and examine and
test and see. Verse 17. Also I set watchmen
over you, saying, hearken to the sound of the trumpet. As
I said earlier, that trumpet sound is the call for the Lord's
people to stand and be counted, but it's also the jubilee trumpet,
that trumpet where that glorious year of jubilee is sounded, that
all that you have lost because of your failings and your sins
has been restored to you by God. You're restored to freedom. You're
restored to your lands. It's a jubilee trumpet. And in
the history of Israel, the jubilee was never ever celebrated. Never. There's not one recorded incidence
of the jubilee trumpet on that 50th year being sounded. And
I think it pictures the fact that it was only ever going to
be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can see why someone
wouldn't do it to give back their slaves and give back the land
that the slaves had. You can understand why the rich
and the powerful never ever did it. They would have been horrified. But they said, we will not hearken.
Verse 18, Therefore hear ye nations, and know, O congregations, What
is among them? Here, O earth, behold, I will
bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their own thoughts.
I want us to remember again and again that apostasy and rebellion
against the Word of God and a rebellion against the Gospel is, as the
Holy Spirit said in Acts 28-24, and some believe not, it's an
active indicative. They're active, and as we go
on reading, you'll see how more active they are. A hero, earth,
behold, I will bring evil upon this heap, people, even the fruit
of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened to my words,
nor to my law, but rejected it. Rejected it. Jeremiah warns them in chapter
four, in chapter seven, verse four, just on the next page.
He says, trust ye not in lying words. saying, the Temple of
the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord. A three-fold
repetition is an extraordinary emphasis, isn't it? It's only
used in terms of God once in the Scriptures. Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty. So they're emphatic, aren't they?
That their safety is in this Temple. And that's exactly what
happened in 70 AD. It's exactly what happened to
these Jewish leaders and their followers that Paul was talking
to. They have their slogans. They have their slogans. There's
safety in the temple of the Lord. There's security here. In verse 11 of the same chapter,
Is this house which is called by my name become a den of robbers
in your eyes? Behold, Even I have seen it,
saith the Lord." Well, the Lord Jesus Christ did see it and he
did say it, and he went to that temple and twice at the beginning
of his ministry he cleansed that temple of their robbery and their
idolatry and those out of courts. He began and finished and he
said the same. He told them that they had turned
his house, which is a house of prayer for all nations, into
a den of robbers, Matthew 21. chapter in chapter 8 verse 5
it says, Why then is this people of Jerusalem
slidden back by perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to seat and refuse
to return. Refuse to return. The wise men are ashamed, they
are dismayed and taken to. They have rejected the word of
the Lord, and what wisdom is in them? Therefore I will give
their wives unto others in their fields, to them that shall inherit
them. For every one of them, from the least even to the greatest,
is given to covetousness. From the prophet, even to the
priest, everyone dealeth falsely. So what's false dealing look
like? Verse 11, because, for they have healed the hurt of
the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there
is no peace. How do they say peace today?
God loves you. God loves you. God has a wonderful
plan for your life. They quote Jeremiah 29 verse
11. God has a wonderful plan for your life. God wants to save
you. God is standing at the door of
your heart and knocking. God the Father loves you. The
Lord Jesus Christ has come and he's on Calvary's tree, and the Holy
Spirit is anxiously wanting to save you, and all you have to
do is give a cent. It's peace, isn't it? Salvation
is in your hands. If you can do anything to begin
your salvation, to maintain your salvation, or to be rewarded
for your salvation at the end, then you have nothing but works
righteousness, and all those works will be burnt up. It's
exactly what's happening, isn't it? Paul warns the Thessalonians
in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 2, he says, For yourselves know
perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in
the night. For when they shall say, Peace
and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon
a woman with child. And they shall not escape. But
you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake
you as a thief. You are all children of light
and children of the day, and we are not of the night or the
darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us
watch and be sober. Watch therefore, says the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peace, peace is what the religious
world is saying to people, isn't it? Whether it's the Jewish religious
world or the Hindu religious world or the Islamic religious
world, it's saying you can do something, can't you? You can
do something to earn and merit and to keep your salvation. Verse
12, it says, in Jeremiah 8, were they ashamed when they committed
abomination? They were told by the Lord, weren't
they? We've been through the apostolic testimony of the early
church for the best part of 30 years, and we have read the apostolic
gospel. And I take it a task, if you
go and search the Gospels that are being preached in this world,
all around this world, in all the churches of this town, you
will not find a Gospel testimony that matches what the Apostle
said. In fact, they'll find it offensive. They find it offensive,
what the Apostle said, and they have been warned, those that
we've had opportunity to talk to, were they ashamed? When they
committed abomination, no, they were not at all ashamed. They
weren't ashamed and they couldn't blush. Neither could they blush. Therefore they shall fall among
them that fall. In the time of their visitation
they will be cast down, saith the Lord. There was no shame
and no blushing. They operated in open, wicked
deceit against the Lord Jesus Christ again and again and again.
They've operated in open and wicked deceit against Paul. They
did it again and again, didn't they? The one thing they wanted
to do was stop the apostolic testimony, to stop the Word of
God. You can't stop the Word of God,
brothers and sisters. His Word will go to his people.
No wonder. Jeremiah asks the question, is
there no balm in Gilead? Well there is. Is there no physician
there? I reminded you earlier that the
prophet Jeremiah was often called the weeping prophet. He says
in verse 1, O that my head were waters, and that my eyes a fountain
of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the
daughter of my people. Our Lord Jesus Christ wept over
Jerusalem. I don't know all that went through
his mind, and I don't know all that went through his heart as
he wept over that city. And Paul writes Romans 9 and
Romans 10, speaking of his people, of his brethren. with tears in
his eyes dripping onto the page. God's people are not impervious
to the hurt that the deceit and the wickedness of others and
their rebellion brings them into. And may it be so with us. The Lord says that he keeps the
tears of his people in a bottle. He's preserved your tears, brothers
and sisters, your tears for your lost family and friends, your
tears before God. They're hidden from this world
and God keeps them. And one day when we meet him,
he'll wipe every tear from our faces. It'll be gone. First six of chapter nine. My inhabitation is in the midst
of deceit. Through deceit they refused to
know me. I want again for us to see the
responsibility of those who are in religion. Jeremiah is speaking
to these people in Jerusalem about what is about to happen
and he's talking to them, he's not offering, he's telling them.
demanding them where salvation is. Physical salvation for them
was in going to the Babylonians and putting up the white flag
and admitting the fact that they are sinners deserving of it and
that their city will be destroyed because of their wickedness.
And there is a refuge. Flee to the refuge. people. Verse 14, again this is a phrase
that's repeated again and again in the book of Jeremiah. I trust
the Lord might cause you to go and read it and think about the
church of today in light of all this. But they have walked Let's
go back to verse 13. And the Lord saith, Because they
have forsaken my law, which I set before them, and have not obeyed
my voice, neither walked therein, but have walked after the imagination
of their own heart, and after Baal, in which their fathers
taught them. Jeremiah had a testimony from
God in chapter 11 verse 3. the word that came to Jeremiah
from the Lord, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and
speak unto the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant. which I commanded your fathers
in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt. You've got to remember that when
the New Testament Scriptures and the Old Testament Scriptures
are speaking to the Jews, they're speaking to a people who before
God, prior to Mount Sinai and twice after Mount Sinai and many
other places in the rest of the history, they just said to God,
you tell us what to do and we'll obey it. They stood before God
and said, we can obey you. We can honour you by our obedience. So they are a people that entered
into a covenant and they entered into a covenant with God willingly
and they entered into a curse, says Nehemiah. And the only possible
way for that curse to be taken from people is in the Lord Jesus
Christ bearing that curse for them. They understood nothing
of what they were entering into. They were ignorant of the fact
that they are people who had made a promise to God. They entered
into a covenant with God. They said, we'll do it. They
said, we'll do it. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
And it's sad and it grieves me enormously that one of the great
differences we have between the people, the religious people
of this world and what the Scriptures say is that we don't put people
back under the Old Testament covenant. We put people under
the New Covenant. God's people are under a New
Covenant. For anyone who puts someone back under the covenant
of works and the covenant of law, they're taking them back
to Sinai. And if they take them back to
Sinai at any point whatsoever, whether it's tithing or whether
it's their circumcision, as Paul speaks of in Galatians, whether
it's any obedience to the law whatsoever, you are under a curse. You're under a curse. Christ,
Galatians 3.13, hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. They said they would obey and
they said that they would suffer all of the penalty of disobedience
and God was going to honour his word to them. Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us, for
it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, that
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith, God's children are not under the law at any point or
in any way whatsoever. We're under a covenant of grace.
The law has been kept perfectly. We don't keep the law. In the
Lord Jesus Christ we have kept the law. All the requirements
of the law are fulfilled in us. Because when the Lord Jesus Christ
walked on this earth 2,000 years ago, he perfectly obeyed God
with all of his heart, all of his mind, in every way, loving
God, loving his neighbour. And we look to the law now and
we find it delightful because we look to the law and we see
it fulfilled in our Saviour. And anyone who puts anyone else
back under a covenant of law is absolutely ignorant. They're
ignorant of the character of God. They're ignorant of the
curse of God and they're ignorant of their own activities. They're
ignorant of what God is saying. They are this day as rebellious
as the people in Jeremiah's day were. They are this day, 2020,
as rebellious as the people in Jerusalem in 70 AD were. We have a glorious gospel. They have broken the covenant
of the law. They've broken it. They think they're keeping it,
and in their efforts to keep it, all they're doing is breaking
it. even though God earnestly, let's
read verse 6 and on. Then the Lord said unto me, Proclaim
all these words in the city of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem,
saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. He's
just reiterating what they'd promised at Mount Sinai. For
I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought
them out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early
and protesting, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they obeyed not,
nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination
of their evil heart. Therefore I'll bring upon them
all the words of this covenant which I commanded them to do,
and they did not. If you're under the law, it's
one tiny little bit you're under all of the law. It is a package.
The notion that you can break it up and divide it up into bits
that suit you, that are convenient for your activities, is just
not in the scriptures anywhere. You obey one bit of the law,
put yourself under any obligation to one bit of the law, you're
obligated to all of it. Every last little bit of it.
They obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but everyone walked,
verse 8, in the imagination of their evil heart. Therefore I
will bring upon them the words of this covenant which I commanded
them to do, and they did them not. The Lord said unto me, A conspiracy
is found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of
Jerusalem. They are turned back to the iniquities
of their forefathers, which refuse to hear my words. And they went
after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house
of Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their fathers.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, I will bring evil upon
them, which they shall not be able to escape. Though they cry
unto me, I will not hearken. Again and again throughout the
book of Jeremiah, we'll find that the Lord says to Jeremiah,
as in 7 verse 16, he says, pray not for this people. Don't pray
for them. Neither lift up a cry nor prayer
for them. Neither make intercession to
me, for I will not hear. 11 verse 14, he says, therefore
pray not for this people. Neither lift up a cry or prayer
he repeats the same. Over in chapter 12, and we're
getting closer to our Hope of Israel passage in Jeremiah 14,
but I want us to see the flavor of what is going on. And I want
us to see that this is exactly what happened in the days of
the Lord Jesus Christ and the days of the apostles and is exactly
what is happening now. The Jews are the equivalent of
the religious world today that put people under a covenant of
bondage to works. It's exactly what I believe the
Scriptures are saying. It says, and this is a phrase,
a similar phrase to the one that Lord Jesus Christ uses in the
New Testament. Verse 1 of chapter 12 of Jeremiah,
Righteous art thou, O LORD, but I plead with thee, Yet let me
talk with thee of thy judgment. Wherefore doth the way of the
wicked prosper? There's nothing more prosperous
than religion, isn't it? Hillsong is a rich organisation. I heard that their annual income
is $76 million a year. They're doing well. Nothing like
the Roman Catholic Church whose income is measured in billions.
And they deceive and are powerful beyond all imagining. Wherefore are all they happy that deal
treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea,
they have taken root, they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit.
Thou art near in their mouth, but far from their reins. You honour me with your lips,
but your heart is far from me. Verse 10 of chapter 12. Many
pastors have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion
underfoot. They have made my pleasant portion
a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate. Whenever
we see Whenever we see the rebellion and the wickedness of this world
and the apostasy against God, the beginning place always is
in the Church of God. It always begins behind pulpits.
Whenever we see evil and horror out there, we always ought to
remember that it begins in pulpits. They have taken the character
of God and made a caricature of it. They have made it desolate,
verse 11, and being desolate it mourneth under me. The whole
land is made desolate because no man lay it to heart. No man lay it to heart. The Lord has promised judgment. We come to chapter 14. There's a dearth. God, in promises
that you can read in Deuteronomy 28 and 29, has brought a dearth
upon the land. There is There is a drought of
the word of God, but in those days, under that covenant, there
was a drought in the land. The word of the Lord came to
Jeremiah concerning the dearth. Judah mourneth, and the gates
thereof languish. They are black under the ground.
The cry of Jerusalem has gone up, and their nobles have sent
their little ones to the waters. They came to the pits and found
no water. They returned with their vessels
empty. They were ashamed and confounded and covered their
head, because the ground is chapped, for there is no rain in the earth.
And the plowmen were ashamed and covered their heads. And
if they had read their Old Testament scriptures and been led into
what their Old Testament scriptures, they would have seen that the
reason for all of this was because of their rebellion against God.
The evidence was laid out before them in the scriptures 500, 600
years prior to this. Verse 7, we read this earlier,
but, O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it
for thy name's sake. You've fulfilled what you have
promised. You've fulfilled what you have promised. For thy name's sake, for our
backsliding to many, we have sinned against thee, O the hope
of Israel. the hope of Israel, the saviour
thereof in times of trouble, why shouldst thou be a stranger
in the land, and as a wayfaring man turneth aside? Why should
you? Well, there is a very good reason,
isn't there? The apostasy of the people. And the apostasy
is actually magnified by the words of the prophet, because
they were warned in the very place where all this was befalling
them. I hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof. Jeremiah is encouraged. If you turn over the chapter,
then we must hurry. Jeremiah is encouraged. In verse 15, he says, Thou knowest, remember me, and
visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors. Take me not away
in thy long-suffering, know that for thy sake have I suffered
rebuke. I want you to be reminded that
when Paul spoke those words, the hope of Israel and those
Jews that were standing before him, they would have known these
passages and probably a lot of them would have been able to
recite them. They would have seen themselves as the ones who
were saved through all of this. They are the descendants of the
people who were saved through all of this and taken to Babylon
and spent that 70 years there and brought back again. And they'd
rebuilt the nation Israel. They'd rebuilt the temple. And
they were the descendants of these people that were saved.
They'd been through all this. So this was very living, real
history for them. It wasn't something ancient and
it wasn't something far from them. He says, verse 16, Thy words were
found and I did eat them. Thy word was unto me the joy
and rejoicing of my heart. Leave in God's word of judgment,
God's word of grace and God's word of mercy in the midst of
judgment. But God's word of judgment, whatever God does is right. Whatever
God does is good. Always, all the time, always. He must, he must be just, our
glorious God. The words were found in Ida Deaton. What a lovely picture of the
fact that God's words go down into the very being of us and
what you eat sustains your life. And it's the joy in rejoicing.
Why? Listen to the last bit of that
verse in Jeremiah 15, 16. For I am called by thy name,
O Lord God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of
the mockers, nor rejoiced. I sat alone because of thy hand,
for thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual
and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? how God charges the pastors with
responsibility, but he causes his true servants to weep and
mourn and lament. Verse 19 speaks of Jeremiah's
call, Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou wilt return, then
I will bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me. And
if thou take Fourth, the precious from the vial thou shalt be is
my mouth. Let them return unto thee, but
return thou not unto them. I don't have time to go into
the great detail of it. We actually proclaim the word
of God and those that leave, we long for them to come back.
But God says you are not to return to them. you're not to return
to them. We speak the words of God and
they can return to you and that's gloriously fulfilled in what
happened in that house of prison for Paul in Rome, isn't it? That
some believed. They returned and some believed,
but you're not to return to them. I will make thee a fenced brazen
wall, and they shall fight against thee, for they shall not prevail
against thee. I am with thee to save thee and
deliver thee, saith the Lord. You might recall Paul's words
in 2 Timothy chapter 4, everyone deserted me. There he was all
on his own and he makes the great but, the best but in all of the
world, isn't it? But the Lord stood by my side. You can have the Lord standing
by your side, it doesn't matter what the world does. It doesn't
matter what the world your great shepherd has picked
you up and put you in his arms and carries you close to his
breast as he promises in Isaiah 40, then you're safe. You're
safe in this world. That's why we might finish with
that glorious description in chapter 16. and the glorious promise. Oh Lord my strength and my fortress,
my refuge in the day of affliction, no wonder Paul was writing. or
whoever wrote the book of Hebrews used that same phrase in reference
to the refuge that we fled to. Refuge in the day of affliction,
the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth
and shall say, surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity,
and things wherein there is no profit. There is no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself,
and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will this
once cause them to know, and cause them to know mine hand
and mine might, and they shall know that my name Jeremiah finishes with the rising
up of the King Jehoiachin to sit at the King's table. But
I want us to finish and come to the Lord's Supper with the
words of Jeremiah 50 verse 20, which speaks of the glory of
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, in those
days, and at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for, and there shall be none, and the sins of
Judah, and they shall not be found. For I will pardon them
whom I reserve. That word pardon means to be
propitious, to be merciful. It means to be lifted up. God, be merciful to me, a sinner,
in the midst of a just and righteous judgment because of the apostasy
of this people all around us. In the midst of that, you are
a faithful God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might cause us to flee to the refuge and
lay hold of the hope of that anchor that's gone within the
veil into the very Holy of Holies, taking his own blood, our dear
and precious Lord Jesus Christ. Father, make us to flee again
and again. Make us to see something of your
hand of grace and mercy upon your people in the midst of a
wicked and adulterous generation. make us to know something of
our sins and something, Heavenly Father, more precious, the glorious
salvation in your dear and precious Son. We thank you that when he
cried, it is finished, it is all finished for all of your
people, forever our Father. Bless your words to our heart
and cause us, Heavenly Father, to be made to stand for your
glory and for your truth in an apostate religious world. Bless
your word to the hearts of your people, Heavenly Father, wherever
they might be, that we might find him precious and glorious. We might take his words and eat
them and find them joy to our very souls. to rest, Heavenly
Father, in he who is our peace and our rest. For we pray in
the name of your dear and precious Son and for his glory, our Father. Amen. Thanks, God. Thank you for being with us.
May the Lord bless his word.