Alright brethren, that scripture
reading goes right with our message and the songs do. That second
hymn we sang is going to be my new favorite hymn for a while.
That's a good one. Alright, Ephesians chapter 1.
Ephesians 1. Our subject is the motive. The
motive. And it truly is the motive, the
motive of love. In verse one, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints, which
are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you
and peace from God, our father, and from the Lord, Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him. in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. The Lord Jesus, in Revelation
2, the Lord Jesus sent his angel, his preacher, to the church at
Ephesus. And he declared to them that
the Ephesian brethren had left their first love. They still
were maintaining good works. But their love toward God the
Father and toward his son was not what it was at the first.
And their love toward one another was not what it was at the beginning.
when they were of one heart. And so the theme in this epistle
of Paul to them is love. We see it spoken of throughout.
The love of God is what we're talking about. The love of God. The love of God toward sinners
like you and me. The love of God's the motivation
for those born again of God. It's not natural love. It's not
the carnal, fleshly love we're talking about. That kind of love's
here today and gone tomorrow. That kind of love loves only
if you can benefit me. But the love of God for his people's
in Christ. God is love. He is love. And his love for his children
is everlasting. That means it's without a beginning
and it's without an end. It's as eternal as God. It's
sovereign and unchangeable. So the message Paul declares
to them is the message that the Spirit of God uses to motivate,
to constrain, to humble, to correct, and to strengthen God's children.
It's the message of God's adopting love. It's the good news of God's
sovereign, everlasting, unchanging love and grace. Nothing subdues our sinful flesh
and strengthens us in the new man as the gospel of the love
of God in Christ for sinners like you and me. When the Spirit
of God blesses it to your heart, this is what subdues our flesh.
This is what grants us repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this is where Paul begins. He begins with this good news
that God predestinated His elect to the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to Himself. In love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. That's where he begins. Now,
in adoption, it's very something we can understand. The Lord has
sovereignly worked it out so that we In every culture, they
adopted children, and we do in our day, so we know something
about adoption. In an adoption of a child by an earthly father
and an earthly mother, everything is determined by the father and
the mother before the child ever knows anything about it, often
before the child is even born. Everything has been laid out.
Everything has been taken care of. Everything has been done.
God the Father adopted his children from eternity. He adopted his
children from eternity. In verse 3, Paul said, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. According as he had
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holding without blame before him, in love he predestinated
us. He has done it, having predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself. When
an earthly father and mother chooses a child, they do it before
the child's even born often, but they do the choosing. They
do the choosing. An agreement is entered into
for the adoption of that child. An agreement's entered into.
And when that agreement's entered into, that child is theirs. Now before this world was made,
the Father and the Son entered into an everlasting covenant
with each other. The elect became the sons of
God in eternity. That's how we have to speak of
it, because we're just creatures of time. God's eternal and it's
always been, it's everlasting. According as he chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. That was due to God's
love for his people. He chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. He loved his elect and his son
and the father and the son entered into this covenant unbreakable
this covenant to save these children and adopt them to himself. God the Father adopted them to
himself by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now a child that's adopted has
nothing to do with adoption. And so the children of God had
nothing to do with God's choice to adopt us. God loved his children. God loved His children, and it
was based on nothing in the children. But, verse 5, it was according
to the good pleasure of His will. It was to the praise of the glory
of His grace wherein He made us accepted in the Beloved, in
Christ Jesus. You see, first and foremost,
God's choice of His people, His electing His people, was due
to God's love for His Son. It was due to God's love for
his son. Christ is the essential son of
the Father, and he's not the son of adoption. He is God's
own son, eternally, essentially, God's son. And the whole purpose
of this, the choosing of his people and the predestinating
us to the adoption was for the sake of his son. Brother Ravi
read it. He said in Romans 8.29, for whom
he did foreknow, He loved them before, he chose them before. He also did predestinate. to
be conformed to the image of his son, that his son might be
the firstborn among many brethren. This was for his son. It was
for his son. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
whom he justified, them he also glorified. That's the all spiritual
blessings that he blessed us with in Christ before the foundation
of the world. Right there. And being in union
with the Son of God from eternity, God's elect were His sons from
eternity. We were His children by adoption
from eternity. And God the Father loves each
one of His children with an everlasting love. With an everlasting love. There's nothing that can alter
it. There's nothing that can change it. There's nothing that
can cause Him to love in any less degree than
he has always loved his children. The Son of God could say from
eternity, Behold, I and the children whom thou hast given to me. He
could say that from eternity. Christ said, Thine they were,
and thou gavest them me. And here's the amazing love of
God. This is the amazing love of God.
This is what Christ said. And this is so from eternity.
Christ said, Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me. That's amazing love. That's the
love of God for His people. Now the Lord said in Revelation
that the brethren of Ephesus had left their first love. That's
what we're susceptible to do and will do. They left their
first love. God's love never changes, never
diminishes in any degree for us, but we'll grow lukewarm. And we'll leave our first love
for him and for our brothers and sisters in the family of
God. And that's what had happened. Now, Paul's purpose in declaring
this good news is so that God the father might renew their
hearts in love. That was his purpose. That was
his purpose. That's why he started right here
with the love of God. Look over to Ephesians 3, verse
14. This was his prayer. This is
why he was preaching or declaring in this letter what he's declaring.
He said in Ephesians 3, verse 14, For this cause I bow my knees
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named. that he would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by
his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth,
and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God. Child of God, you that are born
of God, do you see the love of God for you? Do you see the love
of God for you? God loved his people. before
the foundation of this world, and He loved us in Christ, and
that love is everlasting, without any beginning, without any end,
without any wavering. It's the sovereign, unchangeable
love of God. Now, secondly, when an earthly
father and mother have adopted a child, they prepare everything
for that child. They prepare everything for bringing
that child to themselves. They prepare everything. And
so God predestinated his children. He predestinated his children.
Verse 5 in Ephesians 1 says, in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. Now,
usually adoption of a child comes with a cost, a high cost, a high
price. It costs a lot to adopt. Then
the price to prepare a place for the child is expensive. Well,
the price it cost to adopt God's children to himself is beyond compare. The price
it would cost to adopt his children is the highest price ever, ever
paid for a child, and nothing will ever surpass it. Due to
our sin in Adam, due to God's holiness, God's justice demanded
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's own son, who entered into this
agreement to prepare everything and pay the price, demanded he
come forth and lay down his life for us. For God to adopt all
these children, He gives His only begotten Son to die that
they might have life and live. So the Father even predestinated
the time when His Son would come into this world and His Son would
pay the redemption price necessary so God could give us the spirit
of adoption being merciful to us and do it justly. Galatians
4, look back one page, two pages, Galatians 4, verse 4 says, when
the fullness of the time was come, this is what predestination
is, God predetermining the time. And God predestinated our adoption,
even the time that His Son would come forth and pay the price.
When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that
were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. God's own beloved Son, the Lord
Jesus, paid His life to redeem us. He paid, the price was His
blood, And he paid that price to purchase the children. That's what redeemed means. He
made us his purchased possession by paying the price. in his own
blood. Each elect child was adopted
in eternity, but in time Christ came forth and redeemed us from
the curse of the law by the price of his own blood. This was all
so that God would be just to make us experience his mercy
in calling us and saving us. Now, This is what Paul declared in
Ephesians, in verse 7, he said, In Christ we have redemption
through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. Isn't that insearchable riches? That you have been redeemed by
Christ, that all your sins have been forgiven. Well, you can't
put it... the price of his precious blood. That's the riches of God's grace. Now again, Paul's purpose is
that God might strengthen his children in love. They had left
their first love. And the whole purpose of this
is to strengthen his children in love. That's why he's declaring
this. That the Spirit of God might
come forth and strengthen his children in love. In love to
God, our Father, in love to our Lord Jesus, in love to one another.
So Paul declares what John declared. Look at 1 John 4. This is what
John declared. We find this same word throughout
every apostle's writings because this is our gospel. This is what
we need to hear all the time. 1 John 4, 9 says, and this was
manifested, the love of God toward us. Because that God sent his
only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.
Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us. And sent his son through propitiation
for our sins. Beloved, if God so, loved us. If he loved us this way, we ought
also to love one another this way. It's knowing, brethren,
that we're sinners. That's where this thing's going
to have to begin, and the Lord's going to teach us that we are
the sinner. That we're the sinner. That we did not love God. Left
to ourselves right now, we wouldn't love God. But God didn't love
us because we loved Him. He didn't love us because we
did something for him. He didn't love us because we treated him
in a good way. We did just the opposite. Yet he loved us. The problem with our love is
we often base it on what others have done for us. whether they've
measured up. It's a terrible thing to keep
score and start thinking I've done more than the other because
that won't, that's not love and it won't end in love. We have
never done anything to make God love us and God loves us. Love your brethren even when
your brethren don't do anything worthy of your love. Love them
when they do things that demerit your love. Because that's what
the love of God makes people do. You just keep loving them. It's not of us. It's not anything
we could do. You know this. You know you have
your sinful flesh that tries to justify reasons not to love
your brethren. You start going to the scriptures,
searching the scriptures to justify yourself and condemn your others.
That's a devilish thing. God has to come to us and make
us know all over again, you've never merited my love and I loved
you. My son came forward and laid
down his life for you when you didn't do anything to deserve
it. That's what humbles us. That's what makes us see that
the unsearchable riches of God's grace and His love to us, that's
what makes you strengthened by the Spirit to love, even if you're
not loved. Even if you're not... You know,
the effect that whatever is in others, that's not your responsibility. Only God can affect that. You
cannot determine what anybody else does. But God's given you,
if he's given you a heart to love, then God says love one
another. So you just focus on loving your
brethren. Don't focus on how they reciprocate. You just focus on loving them. That's the message. The Spirit
blesses to make his child put away bitterness and evil speaking
and malice and be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us. All right. Thirdly, Now with
earthly adoption there comes a time when the child is born
and brought to the father and to the mother. And so it is with
God our father. When it says there, having predestinated
us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself, everything
God works in time is according to God's eternal purpose. He
determined everything from the beginning. And God predestinated
the time when he would cross our path with the gospel. He entrusted Christ to do this
as the head of the church, to send us the gospel at the predestinated
time. And at the predestinated time,
Jesus Christ our Lord would send the spirit forth, the spirit
of adoption into our hearts so that for the first time we could
cry out, Abba Father. Had God not predestinated His
children to the adoption, we'd have never known Him. We'd have
never known His love. We'd have never known Christ.
Because before the Lord came and did this work for us in our
heart, we were orphans cast out. You know the scripture. Ezekiel
16.4. Look there with me. Ezekiel 16.4.
Ezekiel 16.4. As for thy nativity, as for your
birth, in the day thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither
was thou washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at
all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee. Nobody
loved you to do any of these unto thee,
to have compassion upon thee. But thou was cast out in the
open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou
was born. Look at verse 8. Now when I passed
by thee and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time
of love. That was the predestinated time.
That was what God predestinated you unto. I spread my skirt over
thee, I covered thy nakedness, yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. You know why Ezekiel was sent
by the Lord to declare that to the children of Israel? They
had left their first love. And that's the message God sent
Ezekiel to preach. To strengthen his true people
among them in love. was to remember the time of love
God predestinated and called them. His love to them. Now by God's electing grace,
by His predestinating grace, we were children of God and we
were heirs all since before the world was made. We were children
of God and we were joint heirs with Christ from eternity. But
in our unregenerate state, we didn't know that. In our unregenerate
state, we hated God and we didn't know that. We were under the
law. We were under the law. The law
only speaks to those who are under the law. And it declares
you guilty, and it shuts your mouth. That's what the law does. Back in Galatians 4, look there
with me again. Galatians 4, 1, Now I say that
the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant,
though he be lord of all. You see there, he's an heir,
but while he's a child, he's not treated any differently than
the servants are. Did you know that the slaves
in Israel, they couldn't call the master father? Only the children
could do that. And when we were in that state,
we couldn't call God our father either. But the child's under
tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father,
till the predestinated time. He's under tutors, he's under
governors. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage
under the elements of the world. Now, go back to Galatians 3.23.
Paul speaks of the law throughout as being the rudiments of the
world, the elements of the world. The law is spiritual, but we
don't know what the law says to God, bless it, to our heart
spiritually. We were under the elements of
the world. Galatians 3.23, but before faith came, before Christ
came, before he gave us faith, we were kept under the law, shut
up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. That's
what the law does to us. It just keeps us shut up. Wherefore? The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come,
after Christ has come and given you faith to believe that you're
saved and made righteous by the faith of Christ, we're no longer
under a schoolmaster. For you are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. You see, the servant, he has
to have, he has to be ruled because he's a slave. But a child who
has love in his heart, He loves His Father. He loves His Father. So at God's predestinated time
He sent us this good news and He gave us the spirit of His
Son and we were born, truly born, born again of God. Now look back
at Galatians 4 and look at verse 5. Christ came to redeem them
that were under the law that we might receive, that we might
be given the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, before
we ever even knew it, before we ever had any idea we were
children, because you were sons of God, God has sent forth the
spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, wherefore
thou art no more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an
heir of God through Christ. That's when God creates a new
man in his love that has the love of God in the new man. He
writes his law, the law of his everlasting covenant on our hearts,
the law of faith, the law of love. That's what the new man
is. The new man is created in God's
image, in love, in love. You are a new man, a new child
born of God, just carrying around an old dead man, is what you
are. That's what Paul was referring
to when he said, who should deliver me from the body of this death?
You've heard it, they would strap a dead body on a man as punishment
and he'd have to carry him around until the body just disintegrated
and went to the dust. That was a punishment. Well right
now, you're born again and there's a new man in you, created after
God's image, perfectly conformed to the image of his son right
now. All that it'll ever be is in that new man right now. And
you're carrying around his dead body. And that dead body's going
back to the dust, and God's gonna raise him incorruptible in a
glorified body. But here's what God tells you
and makes you know in your heart when he speaks this gospel to
your heart, sends you this spirit. He makes you know, I have loved
thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, in loving kindness,
have I drawn you. That's when you fall in love
with God. That's when God becomes your father and Christ becomes
your elder brother. He becomes your everlasting father,
the last Adam in whom you'll always be complete. That's when
you begin to love God. The parts of us that, you know,
has our bitterness and our unloving, unlovable part, that's our old
man. That don't change what God has
done in the heart of his child and what you are in the new man.
And God's going to keep that new man reigning. That's when we cease being servants.
That's when we stop serving in the oldness of the letter, trying
to please the tutor, the law. That's just living to self. Then
we worship. Then we live unto our Father
in newness of spirit, in faith and in love because we know we
are the children of God. That'll never change. You're the children of God. The
best correction my father and mother ever gave to me was to remind me how much they
loved me. That always did more than anything
else they could do. To remind me how much they loved
me and what all they had done for me. That's what melted the
heart. That moved my heart more than
anything else. His brethren at Ephesus were
leaving their first love. And just like God did the very
first hour he called them. He sent Paul with this word to
remind them of the Father's eternal, unchanging, sovereign love for
them. Because that's what God's going
to use. That's what He's going to use. In Romans 8.14, I want
you to see this, Romans 8.14, Paul has been talking about how
we're no longer servants of sin, we're the servants of righteousness.
And he began by saying to us, you're not going to do this by
the law. You're not going to do it by
the law. You've got an old man in you that still sins. And whether we're going after
the lust of our sins or the lust of our self-righteousness, both
is living unto our flesh. Both of them. And you can't mortify
that by your flesh. You can't. But here's what he
reminds you of, verse 14. As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God. For you've not received
the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit
itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God. When the Lord did this in the
first hour, when he does this for you throughout the life of
faith, that's when we behold our sin. That's when we behold
our sin. When he shows you, you're my
child, I've loved you, my son died for you, made you righteous,
he put away your sin, that's when we really see the hideousness
of our sin. But it's not to bring you into
bondage again and make you fear. That's not what it's for. That's
how God made you know you were a child in the first hour, and
it's how He renews you to know that we have not ceased being
God's child due to our sin, due to our lukewarmness, due to our
self-righteousness, whatever it is God's correcting us for.
He loved us when we did not love Him. Try to understand that. It ain't what you do that's going
to affect how He loves you. He makes His child to know. He makes His child to love Him
and to obey Him by making us know we are His child. And we
can call on our Heavenly Father at any time for mercy, because
you're going to need His mercy. And you can call on Him for grace
to help you. in every time of need. That's
why he gave us the spirit of adoption. It's the spirit of
his own son. Not to bring us into bondage
to fear. Don't let that ever happen to you. Don't do it to
yourself. Don't do it to others. That's not why he gave us the
gospel. He gave us the gospel to make us know we're His children. We can call on Him. That's why
we preach the gospel of God's everlasting, adopting, predestinating
love, redeeming love. That's why our sovereign Savior
accomplished the counsel of God His Father in drawing us to Himself
to make us know we're the children of God. Now, lastly, stay there
in Romans 8 just a minute. This whole thing, I'll just add
this to the last point. You know, when you've adopted
a child, and you begin to raise that child, that child's going
to be, you're going to be teaching that child all their life. And
when the child disobeys, you don't stop being their father,
and they don't stop being your child. And you make them know
that. They know that. And you keep
loving them, and you keep teaching them. That's what God's doing
for us this whole time. Now lastly, I want you to see
this. There's one more thing involved in adoption. It's when
God brings us into glory to behold Christ and enter into our eternal
inheritance with Him. Let me give you this from Ephesians
1.11. Paul said, in whom also, not
only do we have forgiveness of sins in Christ, but in Christ
also we've obtained an inheritance. And we've been predestinated
to this. According to the purpose of him, he worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the
praise of his glory who first trusted Christ. Now, here in
Romans 8, Paul said in verse 16, the Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That's
how he keeps this love in our heart. The Spirit bearing witness
in the new spirit he's put in you that you are a child of God. You are a child of God. And if children, then heirs.
You know, when you have children, you leave them an inheritance.
And he said, if we're children, then we're heirs. We're heirs
of God and we're joint heirs with Christ. If so be, we continue
in faith. If so be, we suffer with him.
Bear the cross to the end. Let nothing turn you from Christ.
Trust in Him. That we may be also glorified
together. We're suffering with Christ now.
We're going to be glorified together with Christ when He's glorified.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us. That's what you have to look
forward to, child of God. Now, the whole creation has come
under the curse. And Paul, he personifies creation
and the creatures and he says, "...and they are all groaning,
waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, and we are
too." And he said down in verse 23, "...ourselves also, which
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption." Here's what he means, the redemption
of our body. That's also included in adoption. God adopted us in eternity. We
were his children from eternity in Christ. He predestinated the
time when Christ redeemed us, and then the time when he revealed
it to us and made us know we're son, and he's predestinated the
time when he's going to redeem our body and we're going to be
with our Father in heaven forever. The life of a believer is full
of suffering, but The message by which God strengthens
us to endure until the end is this message of God's love that
never changes. In Christ. It's in Christ. Brother Robbie read there the
love of God in Christ. Nothing will separate us from
it. Nothing. He gives us assurance that we're
joint heirs with Christ. We have an inheritance, as Peter
said, reserved in heaven. Just for you. to behold Christ, to be perfectly
conformed to His image, to be able to worship Him and really
and truly worship Him with no sin whatsoever, to be able to
obey Him in perfection and serve Him in perfection and in perfect
love that knows no deviation. That's going to be our inheritance.
What a day that'll be. from the bondage of corruption
into that glorious liberty of the sons of God, we'll be conformed
to the image of our Lord. As I said right now, the new
man is. But in that day, we will be perfectly
conformed to his image. You see how this is all of Christ? He's doing all of this. The new
creation is all Christ's creation. He did it all. He worked it all.
And God, our Father, has predestinated us unto this inheritance. And you know what he's done?
He's given you the Spirit of God, and he sealed you with the
Spirit of God, brought you to believe, he sealed you, and the
Spirit of God is the earnest. It's the guarantee. It's what
keeps you knowing you're going to enter into this inheritance.
Because the Spirit keeps, no matter how you fail, no matter
how the devil tries to convince you, you can't possibly be a
child of God. A child of God wouldn't do that.
The Spirit of God comes and bears witness in your heart you are
a child of God. That's the only way you believe. That's the only way you believe.
Have you ever been, Lord ever just left you long enough to
show you that you can't believe without Him? You can't. The only way you believe God
is the Spirit keeps bearing witness in your heart. You're His. You're
His. That's the only thing that will
deliver you from that bondage. God will not allow one hell-like
child to perish in unbelief. He can call everyone just like
He's called you. Nor will He allow those He's
called to ever fall away. Each one's been chosen and predestinated
before time, and they'll experience this adoption in time, and will
experience adoption at the end of time. This is so. So, John said, 1 John 3, 1, Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth
us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that
hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure."
When the Lord said they were leaving their first love, they were not loving God and
they were not loving one another as they once did. And so the
Lord sent this message. to remind them of His love, of
His love in Christ, of Christ's love. And after Paul prayed that they
would be strengthened in their heart by God, to know the love
of God that passes knowledge, this was Paul's exhortation to
the brethren in Ephesians 4 and verse 1. He said, I therefore,
the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you are worthy of the
vocation wherewith you call, with all lowliness and meekness,
with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in a bond of peace. And I pray
the Lord would make us see His love That's how He's going to
renew us in the spirit of our mind, make us put off the old
man and put on the new. He's just going to keep doing
this over and over. That's not a one-time thing. And He brings
you to say, can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's
blood? Died He for me who caused His
pain, for me who Him to death pursued, amazing love, How can
it be that thou, my God, should die for me? I pray God will bless
that. Amen.