I love that word, abide. I keep
reminding you when you hear that song of Acts 24, and the Lord
revealed himself to those disciples on Nehemiah's road. Abide with
us, they said, abide. Let's turn in our scriptures
to Acts 28. I always get a bit nervous at
the close of a book, We've had several familiar friends
over the years that we've been meeting. The journey through
Acts was the journey that we wanted to be embarking on when
we celebrated our tenth year of being gathered by the Lord,
and now it's gone way beyond that. So I appreciate your indulgence
and patience with me, but I've found Acts remarkably insightful
and enlightening and uplifting and glorifying to God as it ought
to be. So let's read these first 10
verses of Acts 28. And when they were escaped, then
they knew that the island was called Melita, and the barbarous
people showed us no little kindness, for they kindled a fire and received
us every one, because of the present rain and because of the
cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them
on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat and fastened
on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the
venomous beast hang on his hands, they said among themselves, no
doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he hath escaped the
sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he shook off
the beast into the fire and felt no harm. Howbeit they looked,
when he should have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but
after they had looked a great while, they saw no harm come
to him. They changed their minds and
said that he was a god. In the same quarters were possessions
of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius, who received
us and lodged us three days courteously. And it came to pass that the
father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux,
dysentery, to whom Paul entered in and prayed and laid his hands
on him and healed him. And when this was done, others
also, which had diseases on the island, came and were healed,
who also honoured us with many honours, and when we departed,
they laid at us with such things as were necessary. speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, and we pray that you might bless our time
together, Heavenly Father, to your glory and for our good and
our comfort in knowing who has written these things and the
purpose of them. For we pray in Jesus' name and
for His glory. Amen. I was just looking briefly
at the miracles of Melita. The miracles on Melita. There
are three that we see. The first one of course is that
the fall was bitten by the snake, the viper, and no harm done to
him. The second one is the healing
of the chief man of that nation, that land's father. and healing
him, and then many others came who had diseases. They came and
were healed. Paul is a pattern, as we read
in 1 Timothy 1. He's a pattern of salvation. He's a pattern in life. He's
a pattern in his zeal for the Lord. He's a pattern in salvation. He's saved not because of any
activities that Paul's doing. He's saved because of the sovereign
hand of God. I love how he describes himself
in Galatians. He says, when it pleased God. Verse 15 of Galatians. I just love that. When it pleased
God. When will people be saved? When
it pleased God. When it pleased God. Is there
anything hindering God? Nothing hinders Him. When it
pleased God. who separated me from my mother's
womb. He was separated from before His
birth and called me by His grace. All that have the Lord pleased
to come and separate them will be preachers of grace, not preachers
of works." He'd spent his time being a preacher of works, a
preacher in legalism. But then it says, and he called
me by his grace, to reveal his son. Where? all of God's children have with
him, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among
the nation." Preach him! I don't preach myself. I don't
preach anything else. I preach him! Him! This book that we have in front
of us is a him book. Every passage of this book is
a him book of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul was a remarkable man and
I trust that like me you've actually come to appreciate him more as
we see him in all of his trials and all of his frailties and
his failings and the extraordinary way the Lord has carried him
here. And of course the great miracle is that he's on Melita
because the strong wind from the Lord had blown them right
across the Mediterranean Sea to land them on this particular
beach that we looked at, this particular place at this particular
time. But Paul was a man like us. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
that we want to raise people in religion up on platforms and
on stages and hold them up in some esteem. I love the picture
in Revelation that all of the elders are seated around the
throne. There are no extra rewards in
heaven. The crown that God's people wear
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the crown and it's given
to all them that believe. But Paul, I don't know, there's
so much that's endearing about Paul. One, obviously his passion
for the gospel, but he was also just a man, wasn't he? And he
was active in all sorts of things. It's interesting, isn't it, on
the... Paul was a pattern in terms of a life of service. He's
a pattern most particularly in his gospel preaching, but he
was a pattern in the fact that he served people, in his care
for others. But on this ship, He could have
rightfully said, I was wrongfully imprisoned by the Romans by this
Felix for two years. I was wrongfully imprisoned because
the Jews told lies about me and they couldn't substantiate anything.
Of course, he could have been miffed. He could have done all
sorts of other things. He's a picture and he's a pattern, someone who
just trusts God. Why was he on that ship? Because God had made a promise
to him. You're going to Rome, Paul. You're going to Rome. And
on your way to Rome, I'm going to show you again and again pictures
of the way I save people. And here we find him on the ship,
and he's the one that says that we threw the tackling overboard
and we were involved in all the other things on the ship. Paul
was as active as all the others on this ship. He was an active,
industrious man. When he had opportunity, he would
fend for himself to show that he wasn't going to be a burden
to the churches by being a tent maker. and says that love is
the fulfilling of the law. He cared about other people.
Paul was a particular... I just love the fact that he
loved other people. If love is the fulfilling of
the law and we're taught of God, says 1 Thessalonians, we're taught
of God to love one another. He had a deep and abiding fondness. And not only was that a deep
and abiding fondness for the children of God, but it was a
deep and abiding fondness that caused him to be respected by
all sorts of other people. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
how often he is in the hands of Roman officials and treated
with great respect. Not because he was a self-righteous
religious pain in the neck, but because I think he had a reality
about his humanity. One of the glorious things about
salvationism is that we don't have a righteousness to defend.
And when we look at the rest of this world, we can't say,
I'm better than you because I've done... You can't say it without
being a hypocrite. But also, if you go to the First
Thessalonians, I just want us to get some picture of this man
and his caring for others. And you know, he's put in this
extraordinary situation because there on that beach with the
cold wind and the waves still bellowing in the background and
the freezing cold, and they'd been 14 days of being soaked,
he was pretty uncomfortable. And what's he doing? He's running
around picking up sticks. The great apostle, he's written
half the New Testament He's picked me up sticks. In first Thessalonians, it says
in verse seven of chapter two, it says, that we were gentle
among you. We were gentle among you. Religious
leaders can be so harsh and cruel to other people, and they can
be so cruel and insensitive to the failings and foibles of other
people around us. I trust that that never happens
with us, brothers and sisters. We were gentle among you. Even as a nurse, as a nursing
mother cherishes her children, being so affectionately desirous
We were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God
only, but also our own souls, because you were dear to us.
For you remember, brethren, our labour and travail, for labouring
night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of
you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also,
of how wholly and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves
among you that believe. As you know, how we exhorted
and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his
children. We were gentle. He was gentle
among them. See, Paul was a man. Paul was
a man. whose words, the words of God
he brought to people, were not embarrassed by his actions. Paul
was a man who lived before people as a servant. The Lord Jesus
Christ came as a servant. There is great, great esteem
for our God in the depth of humility of his people before him. Paul was a pattern. Paul was
a pattern. As we go back to Acts chapter
28, I want us to remember, I want us
to look a little bit at the healing of Publius' father. The first
thing I want us to note is that the hand that was laid on Publius
was a hand that was bitten by that was bitten by the viper.
What had stayed the viper's poison? What had stayed that poison of
Satan? It was just a sovereign hand
of our God. So the poison of Satan is the
poison of religion of any sort which exalts man in anything
to do with salvation and takes anything of the glory of salvation
away from the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul was a Pharisee and he was
a violent man in religion. But he was a man that having
been bitten by that viper was now a man who was in the hands
of the Lord and was useful to him. So the hand that is no longer
poisoned, the hand of healing, is a hand that comes having been
through the poison of Satan and being delivered. These miracles again, of course
I remind you, are pictures of the salvation of our Lord Jesus
Christ. They're pictures of His glory, they're pictures of the
way He deals with His people in this world. But also we need
to remember, of course, that so much of modern day religion
is in the business of running around healing people and raising
people from the dead. and I can tell you it's nonsense
and I can show you why it's nonsense. There's a hospital up the road.
Whenever there's a hospital up the road and there's a bunch
of hoodlums around the place, you know full well, whenever
there's a hospital and a cemetery, you know that they're telling
lies. These particular sign gifts that the Lord gave, he said to
the disciples in Luke 10, 19, I give you power to tread on
serpents. If you've trodden on a serpent, you've generally been
bitten by one. I've tread on serpents and scorpions and over
all power of the enemy and nothing by any means shall hurt you.
on the talks about the signs that will follow the disciples
in Mark Chapter 16. And if you've been to America
as I have, and I've been to Virginia, and out in Virginia they have
the snake churches where they let the snakes run around on
the floor. Have you heard of those churches? Unbelievable
nonsense, isn't it? Unbelievable nonsense. As if
somehow we have to prove by things that we do like that that the
Lord Jesus Christ reigns. People who don't have the Gospel
have everything but the Gospel, don't they? And I'm sure if you're
a pastor of that church, the first thing you do is make sure
there are no families in any of those things, but they're
not. People have died. These signs shall follow them
that believe. In my name shall they cast out
devils and speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents,
and if they drink any deadly things it shall not hurt them.
They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. Now let's
go back over to Hebrews chapter 2 so that we get a context of
all of this in terms of what it means today. So if anyone
tells you that they're raising the dead or healing people today
in miraculous ways by the touch of their hands, you know that
they are lying. And the test, of course, is tell
me what gospel they're preaching. Because if they're preaching
the real gospel, they won't be doing that sort of stuff. They were given for a time. They
were given to a particular people for a time. There's not a mention.
Luke's a physician. There's not a mention of Luke
in all of the Acts of the Apostles healing one single person by
putting his hands on them. Let's just go back after Hebrews
chapter 2. The word, the speech of this word The word is a big
word in the book of Hebrews. God spoke. He spoke in times
past under the fathers, and in these last days he has spoken
unto us by his Son. Chapter 2, verse 2. He says,
If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression
and disobedience received a just recompense of the Lord, how shall
we escape, if we neglect so great salvation which The first began
to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them
that heard him, God also bearing them witness, both with signs
and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit
according to his will. They finished. They were gifts
that the apostles had. If you turn back to Acts chapter
8, you'll see that even though there'd been a great outpouring
of the Holy Spirit in Samaria, and wonderful things had happened
down there. This is after the murder, the
execution of Stephen. and when the apostles were reduced
and heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto
them Peter and John, who when they were come down, prayed for
them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he
was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the
name of Jesus. Then laid they their hands on
them, and they received the Holy Ghost. The gifts, these particular
gifts of being able to handle snakes, these particular gifts
of miraculous activities that we see from the Apostle Paul
raising the dead like Eutychus and doing all sorts of other
wonders. They were gifts that were lasted for a time. They
were there to confirm the gospel that these men preached. They
were there to reveal the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, though
dead, was now living. and that his activities were
continuing on. But his power and his activities
are going to continue through the preaching of the gospel.
They were given these signs. And of course the serpent is
a picture of the devil. It's just another name for the
devil. He's called the devil, he's called
an ass, he's called a cockatrice, he's called an adder. You recall
that in Genesis 3, Chapter 2, is subtle. So therefore, he poisons
people, as he did Adam and Eve, without them realising it. And
he poisons people today, thinking that what they have in taking
the poison is better than what they have in believing in simple
promises of God. Paul's great concern and love
for the for the Corinthians was that as Satan is jealous over
them, with a godly jealousy, I have espoused you to one husband,
that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear,
2 Corinthians 11, 3, but I fear lest by any means as the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtlety. So your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that's in Christ. We want the gospel we
preach to be simple. We want it simply to declare
who the Lord Jesus Christ is in all the glory of his character.
We want to simply declare what God says about man and the utter
depravity and the weakness and the frailty of his nature. And
we want to declare the wonders of what it is for those children
to have a mediator like the Lord Jesus Christ. the stance between
God and man. We don't want to complicate things. We don't want our message to
be so complicated that it requires someone who is a trained theologian
to have it. These men were fishermen. These
men were fishermen who preached the Gospel. These men were fishermen
who wrote the New Testament. The devil is a serpent. He's
called an adder. He has He has the ability to
deceive by his wisdom. He does, as Job says in 26th
verse, he does crooked turns and he has a bite. And Saul of
Tarsus says that every legalistic religious person has been poisoned
by that poison of Satan. They make crooked paths. They make crooked paths. They make them crooked paths.
The path of religion, it's interesting to trace the journey of the church
in this last 2,000 years, and we've just seen this crooked
weaving path, haven't they? They deny the deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ, then they want to make that salvation is by Then people are captivated in
Catholicism and all of the evils of that. Then the Reformation
comes along and people are captivated. In no time at all they're captivated
again by a legalism that creeps across. And they change. They change all the time. This
Word of God doesn't change. Our Gospel doesn't change. They
make crooked paths, Isaiah 59, they make crooked paths. Whomsoever
goeth therein shall not know peace. See, Paul had a path,
didn't he? He had a simple path. He wanted to know the Lord Jesus
Christ. He wanted to be found in him,
not having a righteousness of his own. He wanted to declare
wherever he was the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul had been bitten, but he'd
come out. The Lord Jesus called the generation
and the people, and Paul would have been numbered amongst them,
and you can imagine how offended he must have been when the Lord
Jesus said to them in Matthew 23, 33, they're a generation
of vipers, you serpents. These are the self-righteous
religious people. They travelled over land and
see, they had their Bible colleges in Jerusalem. They had their
religion all over the place. so clean and righteous and honoring
to God. We mustn't think that they looked
like evil people to the average person. They didn't. And the
Lord said that your righteousness must exceed the scribes and pharisees.
People would have been shocked. Look how much these people know
the Bible. Look at how they can go to their kitchen. They're
tithing, they're minting, they're coming. They're so observant
of things, they're so fastidious about the Sabbath day, they made
rules around the rules. It was illegal for them to move
a chair on the Sabbath day. Why? Because if you were moving
a chair, and one of the legs of the chair happened to dig
in a little bit, you might have been digging a furrow to plant
seeds in. about to establish their own
righteousness. They thought that those that
did move a chair on the Sabbath were much, much better people
than those silly people who did move a chair. They had such silly
nonsense. He called them a generation of
vipers and Paul would have been stung by the words of the Lord,
would he not? He wouldn't. He would have been
stung by that word. You generate, you serpents, you
generation of vipers, you travel across land and sea to bring
them back. You're going across, you're going
to all these pagan lands and you're bringing these people
back. And when you've got them back there, it says in Matthew
23, you've made them twice the child of hell they were before.
They were a child of Hill in their first birth from Adam,
and now they're twice a child of Hill because they've got a
dose of religion, a dose of legalistic, pharisaical works religion, a
new generation of vipers. And you know better. That's the issue, isn't it? That's
what Romans 3 is saying, isn't it? The poison of Asp Yeah, first reaction is Wes,
not me. Round three. Is there any that
say God? Are there any? Paul has gone
to extraordinary lengths in Romans to show that the Jewish religion
was empty and useless and the pagan religions of man were empty
and useless and there was nothing. He says, are we better? We Jews,
we think we're better. In no wise, for we have before
proved both to Jews and Gentiles that they're all under sin. As
it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There
is none that understands. Are you in this category? Are
you part of this? I was, and in my flesh I still
am. Thanks be to God for his salvation.
There is none righteous now. There's no one, none that understands.
There's none that's seeking after God. Who's the great seeker in
this world? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
seeker. He's the seeker. Our God is the seeker. They've
all gone out of the way. They've all together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used to seep the poison of asps is under their lip. His mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way
of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God. before their eyes. There is no
fear of God. The fear of God is a treasure. The fear of God is a treasure.
It's not the cringing fear. It's the fear The fear of standing
before God without a covering of righteousness in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul was bitten by that serpent. Revelation speaks of this whole
world being made drunk by the wine of the adultery. of this
harlot, this harlot of free will works religion, this harlot that's
come out of Rome and that dresses itself in all sorts of other
robes from Rome. As I said earlier, the hand that
brought the healing was the hand that had been bitten and the
hand that had been cured. The cure comes when Christ enters
in. Paul entered in. Christ must
enter in. Christ must stand between. Paul entered in and he prayed. He prayed. What a prayer that
must have been. Do you think Publius had any
doubt, or anyone else on all that island, had any doubt he
was going to exact a cure for this man? See, Paul was addicted
to preaching the gospel, however and whenever and wherever he
possibly could. Paul prayed, Paul prayed, Paul
prayed to make sure that no one there thought that the power
was in Paul at all for this healing. And Paul laid his hands upon
him. The Lord Jesus Christ healed
him. And just as with the lady that
we studied earlier in Luke chapter 13, this news goes out, doesn't
it? The healing is done in such a
way that all the glory goes to the Lord Jesus Christ, all the
glory goes to God, where it really belongs, and not to Paul. But
then others come, when this was done, others also which had diseases
on the island. The diseases are a sign of sin,
aren't they, in people? The only reason there is disease
in this world, the only reason there is death, is because there
is sin. It's just a picture, an emblem
of sin. They came and were healed, who
also honoured us with many honours, and when we departed they laid
us with such things as was necessary. The children of God walk through
this world, and the world is our servant. The world is our
servant, isn't it? and its enticements will draw
us away from the Lord and then the Lord will take the world
away from us and we will see that not only, but yet again,
we have been exposed in our weakness Everything in this creation serves
the people of God. And I know the circumstances
that many of us go through are extraordinarily difficult and
extraordinarily painful and seem like it might be 18 years of
infirmity as it was with the lady. But the Lord sees his people
and the Lord comes to his people and the Lord has never changed
his affection for his people. I just want us to briefly look
at what it is for this laying on of hands. The laying on of
hands, as I said, is a picture in the scriptures that comes
out of Exodus and Leviticus. And I'll just read some of these
verses to you. In Exodus chapter 29 we have the laying on of hands
of the high priest. And in all of these pictures,
I want us to see that it means that there's an actual real transfer
of sin. So Paul is picturing the salvation
of people. In Exodus 29.10, And thou shalt
cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the
congregation, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands on
the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullet
before the Lord at the door of the congregation, and thou shalt
take the blood of the bullet and put it on the horns of the
altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom
of the altar. Go down to verse 15. and thou shalt burn the whole
ram upon the altar. It is a burnt offering unto the
Lord. It is a sweet savour, an offering
made by fire unto the Lord. So that's the picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree, isn't it? He's the sweet
savour. He's the mercy seat. He's the
one whose blood was shed. Verse 19, and thou shalt take
the other ram, And Aaron and his sons shall put their hands
upon the head of the ram. Then thou shalt kill the ram. and take his blood, and put it
upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and the tip of the
right ear of his son, and upon the thumb of their right hand,
and the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood
upon the altar and about. Now shall I take of the blood
that is upon the altar and the anointing oil, and sprinkle it
upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and the garments
of his sons, and he shall be hallowed, and his garments, and
his sons' garments with him. It is the picture of that sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing the sins of his people. Turn
over to Leviticus chapter 4. I'm just reading some of these
verses. I'm reading Leviticus 4, turn to Leviticus chapter
16. Leviticus 4.15 speaks of And the elders of the congregation
shall lay their hands on the head of the bullet before the
Lord, and the bullet shall be killed before the Lord. Leviticus
16 is one of the greatest chapters in all of the scriptures. It's
a great chapter that speaks of the Day of Atonement. And everything
in Leviticus chapter 16 is about the Lord Jesus Christ and him
crucified and the saving of his people by the shedding of his
life's blood. In verse 21 it says, And Aaron
shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and
confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and
all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon
the head of the goat. and send him away by the hand
of a fit man into the wilderness. So the laying on of hands, as
it was with the lady in Luke 13, is a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He, by his own blood, goes into
the Holy of Holies. And he, he as that scapegoat, is pictured as the one who takes
those sins away and takes them away perfectly and completely. I love that description of our
God. He's a just God and a saviour. He must be just. He must be just
in all of his activities. He must be just in all of his
dealings with people. He must be just in all of his
dealings with the law. This notion, this popular notion
these days, that somehow the Lord Jesus Christ died for all
humanity, that the Lord Jesus Christ, even modern versions
of it now, is that the Lord Jesus Christ died for all those who
will believe in him. What a load of nonsense. They
say the Lord Jesus Christ died for the consequence of my sins.
If they only die for the consequence of my sins, that means my sins
are still there. That's not what is pictured in
Leviticus chapter 16 of our scapegoat. And our God is bigger than that.
He says in Proverbs 17, 15, He that justifieth the wicked, and
he that condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination
to the Lord. Everything that happened on Calvary's
tree Everything that happened is about a just God and a saviour. There was a real transfer of
sins. There is a real transfer of sin. The sins of God's people became,
when the Lord Jesus Christ was made sin, he owned those sins
as his own. We read it in Psalm 69, you can
read it in Psalm 40, and in many other places in the Old Testament.
The sin became his. Why? Because of his covenant
surety arrangements with them. He was legally obliged to bear
their sins. That was the covenant that he
made in eternity. I'll bear their sins, I'll bear
the iniquity of my people." He bore our sorrows, and he bore
the sins that brought the sorrows. So the people's transgressions
wound has borne our griefs, and he
has carried our sorrows, and the Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all. 2 Corinthians 5.21, a verse that
you remember and delight in. For he hath made him sin for
us. God hath made him sin for us
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteous The laying on of hands pictures
that glorious transfer. As Isaiah 53 said, he shall bear
their iniquities. My righteous servant shall justify
many. To justify people is to declare
them before God to have no sin, to have never sinned, because
all of the sin was charged to their surety. in eternity and he bore it in
his life in this world and he bore it on Carrickberry's tree
and he bore our sins away. He bore our sins away. That's
why you can say to that woman, you're free. You're let loose. You're let loose. He was made
a curse. He bore the sins of many. He bears them. charged against you. That's why
I'll finish with 1st John chapter 4, Norm's favourite verse. 1st John 4, 19. I trust it still
is Norm, because it's mine too, or one of them. 1st 17, sorry. We have known
and believed the love of God has to us. God is love, and he
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein
is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness. That word
is confidence in the day of judgment. Do you have confidence in the
day of judgment? No one. No one. No child of God in all the Scriptures
did anything other than look forward to the Day of Judgment.
We have confidence in the Day of Judgment, because as He is,
so are we in this world. Is He right now holy? As He is, so are we in this world. Is He without sin? Now all of
God's children own their sin all the time. All of the righteous,
all of the really righteous never see themselves as righteous,
and all of the unrighteous see themselves as righteous. But
we are righteous, as He is, so are we in this world. Is He accepted? Is He accepted in Heaven's glory?
So are we in this world. The glory of our salvation is
in the union of us with our Saviour. I'll finish with Marker 7.18.
You don't have to tell me. Who is a God like unto thee?
Is there any God like this God? The people on this island had
a changeable notion of God, didn't they? Who is it like? Who is
a God like unto thee, that beareth iniquities, that passeth over
transgressions of the remnant of his heritage? Who is a God
like that? There's no other God beside me. What a Saviour we have. remarkable, remarkable thing
for Him to cause us by faith to lay hold of Him as He lays
hold of us. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that You might bless Your words to the hearts of Your
people. that we might see the glory of
your dear Son bearing our sins on that cross, that we might
in some small measure, Heavenly Father, enter into what it costs,
your dear and precious Son. And may we, Heavenly Father,
find our peace and our satisfaction where you find yours. You saw the travail of his soul
and were satisfied. He cried, it is finished. Please cause us, Heavenly Father,
to walk by simple faith in your dear and precious Son, and cause
us, Heavenly Father, to live in this world in ways that bring
honour