Brethren, let's go back to 2
Corinthians chapter 1. Now the chief object for our
souls to be seeking at all times is our Lord Jesus Christ. as the chief object that our
soul is to be seeking at all times, the Lord Jesus Christ. From our youth to our old age,
we are to be seeking Christ, coming to Christ through faith
in Him. In every trial, we are to seek
Christ. to look to Him and seek Him and
come to Him. Bow down, humbled, begging for
mercy. In every decision we have to
make, every new job, every new endeavor that we face in this
world, our chief object is to seek Christ. Come to Christ,
asking His direction, seeking His counsel, walking in His steps,
following Him. And in all good times, when we're
prospered and we're not to look to those things, we're to look
to Christ and seek Christ and come to Christ and follow Christ. That's our chief object that
our soul should be seeking all the time, only, always is Christ. Now, that one that God draws
and truly gives a heart to be able to come to Christ and to
keep coming to Christ, always asking mercy, always humbled
in contrite, always seeking His will in all things, that person
who God is enabled to do so will always find mercy from Christ. Always. But those who refuse,
those who will not bow, those who have their hearts set on
this world or on other things, shall receive the fiery judgment
of God, and that shall be justly poured out. Now, first of all,
the reason that we need to seek mercy from Christ is because
we're fallen. We're fallen. Verse 2, Hazzi fell down through a lattice
in his upper chamber that was in Samaria and was sick. Now do you know that when he
did this, the law of God required that lattice work be put up all
around a man's upper story of his house. He was to put lattice
work there so that men wouldn't fall and die and blood come upon
his house. He'd be guilty of blood. That
was a law. Listen to this. When thou buildest
a new house, this is Deuteronomy 22.8, When thou buildest a new
house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring
not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence. When
I read that, I thought, well, I guess I shouldn't get too put
out with the Ewing Township building codes because God gave some building
codes too. But this was given, this law
was given so that it would bring not blood upon a man's house
if any man falls. That was the whole purpose of
it. But this king broke the law of God. He didn't put up that
lattice work. Or he put it up, but it was just
flimsy. He went the cheap route, went
to the lowest bidder and put up something cheap. And he was
the one who failed. And when he failed by breaking
that law, he failed and he brought blood upon his own house. Well,
Adam broke one law of God. Just one law of God is all Adam
broke. And he failed and he brought
blood upon his whole house. And every person in this world
needs to seek mercy from God because we have all fallen in
Adam. Romans 5.12 says, as by one man. Sin entered into the world and
death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that in Adam
all have sinned. Like this king, when we fell
in Adam, we became sick. He said he fell and he became
sick. We fell and we became sick. We
have a sin sickness. Because we broke the law, that
means we're guilty, we're not righteous, we're unrighteous.
The Scripture says, Romans 5 says, the judgment was by one offense
to condemnation. That's all of it. That's where
we are because of that one offense. We've all been judged and the
curse has come upon us because of that one offense. And not
only that, we're conceived in sin so that we come forth dead
spiritually. Romans 5 also says, by one man's
offense, death reigned by one. So there you've got legally the
righteousness of God and you've got spiritually in us an unholiness
because of Adam's seed. Now, take a hazzai here. And I'm going to probably pronounce
his name about five different ways in the course of this message.
It's a long A, ha, long I, ziah, A-ha-ziah, A-ha-ziah, that's
how you pronounce it, A-ha-ziah, kind of like U-ziah, but A-ha-ziah. Now, now that he's sick, now
that he's broken this law and he's fallen and he's sick, now,
if he goes back, somehow gets himself back up on that roof,
puts up the lattice work, obeys God's law, is he going to do
away with his fact that he broke God's law? Is he going to do
away with this sickness if he does that now, if he starts trying
to keep God's law and do what God said? No way. Why? He's already fallen. He already
broke the law. He's already sick in sin. And
nobody can start today and decide, I'm going to try to keep God's
law and do good works and expect that God's going to receive them.
You can't do that. Why? You already broke the law.
You already broke the law. A man will say, I don't like
the fact that sin is by representation. I don't like that I sinned in
another man and therefore God imputes sin to me. Well, then
you don't like salvation because salvation is by the last Adam.
And his righteousness that he accomplished for his people is
imputed to his people. You can't have one without the
other. This is how God fixed it. Read Romans 5. That's what
it's all about. Just like we sinned by one man's
disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one, Christ Jesus, shall many be made righteous. We can't have
it any other way. That's the only way it is. That's
the way God did it. But we cannot cure ourselves
by our works. Christ said a corrupt tree cannot
bring forth good fruit. It just won't happen. Romans
3.20 said, Therefore by the deeds of the law, by our law keeping,
there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. Think about that statement. By
the law is the knowledge of sin. What does the speed limit sign
do? If you keep that speed limit sign, does that get you anything? No, you just did what you should
have done. You don't get anything for keeping the speed limit.
When was the last time a police officer stopped you and said, I just
want to inform you, you kept the speed limit. That's not their
job. Their job is to stop you. When
they stop you, what do they do? They tell you, you broke the
law. That's what that law is there
for. To give you a knowledge of sin. That's all the law of
God was given for. It wasn't given for us to try
to keep it and come to God by it. It was given to show us our
sin. our sin. Now don't miss that
point now. An old saying is wrong on the
fall, wrong on it all. If we don't understand that we
all fell in Adam and are spiritually dead and need Christ to do all
the work to save us now. If we miss that, we're wrong
on everything. So we fail now. So Christ must
do it all. Now secondly, we see the dead
fruit that will be produced by our sinful flesh. Verse 2, Ahaziah,
verse 2, after he was sick, it says there, he sent messengers
and said unto them, Go inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron,
whether I shall recover of this disease. Now, this man was king
of Israel. He was in Samaria because the
tribes were divided at this point, but he's king of Israel. Israel
was the one nation. There's a bunch of nations around.
The one nation that God said, I'm going to reveal myself to
this people. I'm going to give them my oracles,
my law, my mercy seat. The one people. The one people. And yet he sent messengers to
inquire of Beelzebub in Ekron, in a Philistine country. Baal. This is two parts of this. Baal means Lord. If you went to the Philistines
and you just sat and listened, you would have seen people going
through some similar things that they went through in Israel.
You would have seen them making offerings. You would have seen
them bow down and call Lord, Lord. Because that's what Baal
means. But you remember what Christ said? He said, broad is
the way that leads to destruction. And there is a narrow way. That
way is Christ. And He says, few, few there be
that find it. Few. Very few. And He said, not everybody that
says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
He said, in that day, He'll say, depart from Me, you workers of
iniquity, I never knew you. But they cried, Lord, Lord. But
they cried, Lord, Lord, unto a different Lord. It was a different
God that they prayed to and sacrificed to. Zabub means flies. Lord of the flies. That's who
they worship. The Lord of the flies. Beelzebub. The Lord of the Flies. They were
worshipping a man-made idol called the Lord of the Flies. Now to
make it even more insulting to God what this man did, they had
to go right past Jerusalem to get to Akron. And Jerusalem was
the place where God said He built His house, His tabernacle, His
temple, and He said, I will meet with you through the blood of
a lamb, through a high priest representing you on the mercy
seat. All picturing Christ. Christ
says He will meet with His people in heavenly Jerusalem. through
Christ our High Priest, through faith in Him, Him representing
us to God, through His blood, and He'll be our mercy seat.
So that's even more insulting. They passed by. If we pass by
Christ to try to worship God, that's insulting to God. That's
an insult to God, to pass his son to try to worship God. And then the king here was not
even interested in eternal salvation. He wasn't interested in righteousness
and holiness and his sin and his need of a savior. He wasn't
even interested in that. All he wanted was somebody to
tell his fortune. He wanted to know, shall I recover
from this disease? That's all he wanted. A spiritually
dead sinner, or somebody that's spiritually dead, that's fallen
from grace, they seem like they profess Christ, but they left
the faith. They never knew Him. They proved
that God never called them. A spiritually dead sinner is
the most irrational thing there is. Not interested in God, not
interested in His Word, And this is God's Word. This is the Word
of God right here. And a man won't even, he won't
have any interest in this. But you let some mystic come
along, or some philosopher come along, or some preacher tell
him what he needs to do to be saved, and he'll, well that's
interesting. Because that appeals to the flesh.
What I'm preaching here don't appeal to anybody's flesh. It
don't appeal to that sinful nature. And a dead man, that's why Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 2, the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. Neither
can he know them. It has to be spiritually revealed
so he can have spiritual discernment. They're not interested in hearing
how men can live eternally. Just like Ahaziah, they're interested
in how can I live right now in this present time. That's all
I'm interested in. That's all he was interested in. And that's
what most religion is dealing with today. It's not telling
you what you need, what's necessary for you to come into God's presence
and live eternally. It's just telling you what you
need to live today. Listen to me. If you get a disease
and you recover, you're going to die. But if Christ cures you of what
caused the disease, sin, and gives you eternal life, though
your body perishes, you'll never die. Now which one do you think
seems more important? And yet to a natural man, we
see what he thought was important. I just want to know, am I going
to live now? That's all He wanted to know. That's all He wanted
to know. So seek Christ. He's the one
that will make it so that though you die in the flesh, you'll
never die. We'll be with Him in an instant
in spirit when we die. And then when He returns, He'll
raise this body that has to go back to the dust, He'll raise
it with a new body, glorious, like unto His glorious body.
Now here's the third thing. This is the question. This is
the question. It's another one of those questions
that the Lord asks a sinner. The angel of the Lord, the angel
of Jehovah, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, pre-incarnate Lord Jesus
Christ. The angel of the Lord said to
Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of
the king of Samaria and say unto them, Is it not because... I'll give you a word that will
help you understand this. Is it not because you imagine
there is not a God in Israel that you go to inquire of Beelzebub,
the God of Ekron? Is that not what this problem
is? That in your mind, you don't think there's a God in Israel.
You don't believe on the true and living God. That's why you're
going to Beelzebub, this idol God. This man was guilty of a
complete and absolute denial of Jehovah. Absolutely denying
the Lord Jesus Christ. To go after an idol rather than
Christ is to deny God. Now, I know when you consider
what an idol is, we think of that big statue down in Brazil,
you know, where everybody is on top of a mountain. That's
what we think of an idol. But brethren, an idol is anything
that comes between a sinner and God. That's right, it can be
sports, pleasure, drugs, it can be... All the, you know, men
will get curious and they'll dabble in all the different forms
of religion in the world. And all of them are just will
works religion. This is the only message, the
true and living God, the grace of God is the only message that
tells you, you can't do a thing to save yourself. God's got to
do it all. Every other religion, I don't care what it is, it's
going to tell you there's something you can do. And they are all
the same. They are preaching free will
and works and telling you you can be saved by that. Your will
is the weakest. My will is the weakest thing
we have. You can't will yourself to do anything if it is not God's
will. You know, if that was the case,
my father when he had cancer, he would have just willed himself
not to have cancer. You can't will yourself to do
anything. God's sovereign will is how we're
saved. His sovereign will. Now I'm going
to ask every unbeliever this question here. Is it not because
you imagine there's no God in Israel that you go to inquire
of the idol gods of this world? Now I ask this of us who believe
too because you know when a trial comes or when we get into some kind of
situation and we know the will of God, we know what God would
have us to do, or even when it's good times. So many times we
let something come between us and God. And it can be like it
was here, a fortune teller. Don't ever go to a fortune teller.
That's just blasphemous to go to somebody that... It acts like
they tell you the future. It can be your loved ones, it
can be your children, or your husband and wife, or boyfriend,
girlfriend, whatever, your loved one. It can be irrelevant doctrines
of men. When a man starts preaching Christ,
even if he is preaching Christ in truth, but he is doing it
with the motive of getting you to believe some doctrine that
is irrelevant, Or even if it is a relevant doctrine,
but that's his purpose. It's just simply to get you to
believe that doctrine. He stopped preaching Christ.
That's just so. God makes this charge. Is it
not because you think there's no God in Israel? I don't want to play the fool,
do you? Because you know what the fool says? God said the fool
had said in his heart, there is no God. I don't want to play
the fool. I want to know God. So lastly
now, let me show you the difference between those who reject Christ
and those who really come to Christ for mercy. Let's see the
difference. Now here's how the Lord deals
with a man who rejects Christ. He takes these messengers and
He turns them around. He sends them right back to Ahaziah. And this is what He tells them,
verse 4. Now therefore, it means for this reason, Thus saith the
Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art
gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed." He said,
because you've gone and you've inquired of this idol God and
did not bow to the God of Israel, did not believe the God of Israel,
but went to this idol. And that's the only reason you
did it. That's the only reason, that's why we turned to idols. not believe in God. And He said,
because you've done that, you're going to die. You will not live,
you're going to die. And all who refuse to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ shall die. They shall die. But physical death is not eternal
death. After we die, Scripture says, then we're going to come
into judgment. A man who does not have Christ for his advocate. He doesn't believe on Christ.
That man is going to come into judgment. We are all going to
come into judgment. That man is going to come into judgment
and Christ is going to give His Word and that man is going to
suffer the fiery judgment of God. We see it here pictured. When King Isaiah heard that this
Word came from Elijah, verse 9 says, Then the king sent unto
Elijah a captain of fifty with his fifty. This captain that
was over fifty men, he goes with these fifty men. And he went
up to him. And behold, Elijah sat on the
top of a hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man
of God, the king has said, come down. There was no reverence. There was no repentance. There
was no respect. He probably said, Thou man of
God, mockingly. That's probably how he said it.
But by saying it, God says, by our own words we'll be justified
or we'll be condemned. Our own words will judge us.
And that man's own words judged him. He said, thou man of God,
and that's who he was. So that meant that King Uzziah,
because he was a wicked king and had proven himself so, this
captain of 50 should have bowed to Elijah instead of bowing to
that wicked king, according to God. Romans 13. He should have bowed to Isaiah
rather than that wicked king. Not disrespect that wicked king,
not carry out his duty to that king, but he should have bowed
to this man of God. But now watch this, ìAnd Elijah
answered and said to the captain of fifty, ìIf I be a man of God,
letís let God decide. Let the fire come down from heaven
and consume thee and thy fifty.î And thatís what happened. God
did it. And then the second fifty came
the same way. And verse 12 says, ìAnd the fire
of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.î
Now, what we see here, brethren, when we see this, Christ is going
to judge all who stand before Him, who have never bowed the
knee to Christ in saving faith. He's going to judge them. Elijah
here was on top of a hill. On top of a hill. Christ is on
top of a high hill. It's called Mount Zion. It's
not a physical mountain. It's Hebrews, you find it in
Hebrews 12. It's called heavenly Mount Zion, the mountain that
can't be touched. And that's where He is, seated
at God's right hand. That's justification to you and
me who believe that He satisfied the work, the law. He did it.
He did what God sent Him to do. And God has committed all judgment
to Him. Scripture says He has appointed
a day into which He will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He has given assurance
unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead. He raised Him to that heavenly
hill and sat down because the work is finished. And so God
is going to pour out fiery judgment at Christ's Word. You get the
picture here? Elijah is a picture of Christ.
And Elijah at His Word spoke and God poured out judgment.
And that's what will be in the Day of Judgment. Christ will
speak. He knows who believes on Him. He gives them faith to do it.
And he knows. And if a man shows up there and
doesn't believe on Him, hasn't bowed to Him, being demanding
like these men were, Christ will give the Word and God will pour
out His judgment on him. Why? Because God is holy. Now get this, I'm fixing to tell
you what the Gospel is right here in as brief a statement
as I can make it. God is holy. That's the number
one attribute about God. God is holy. Everything He does,
He does right. That's what it means. That's
just number one. God is holy. God is love. He loves in accordance with what's
right. And we've all broken God's law,
all of us. And because God is holy, God's
law must be honored and vindicated. Must be. Now when Christ came,
what Christ did was He honored and He vindicated God's law on
the cross when He bore that fiery judgment in the place of all
those God the Father gave to Him in eternity. Read Ephesians
1. Blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places according as He chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. And Christ came and laid
down His life for them. And what He was doing there is
He took our sin and went to the cross so that the fire came down
on Him to honor that justice, to satisfy that justice and declare
that God is holy and righteous and will by no means clear anybody. When Christ died, every single
person for whom He died, died in Him and were justified. When you die, the law can't ask
anything else of you. That's it. It's over. And the
best illustration I ever heard on this is when Lee Harvey Oswald
had supposedly shot the president and everybody was just so stunned
and wanted to see him brought to justice. And when Jack Ruby
stepped out and shot him and killed him, we all went, ah,
because Justice has got nothing else to say to him. He's dead.
You can't prop a dead man up in court and try him. He's dead. Justice has got nothing else
to say to him. Well, Romans 6 says, when we died in Christ, everybody
for whom Christ died, our old man of sin was destroyed, crucified
with Christ, died under the strict, fierce wrath of God so that the
law can say nothing else to them anymore. But I'll tell you something
else. Everybody in this world who does
not bow the knee to Christ and believe on Him, when they meet
Christ in judgment, He also is going to honor and vindicate
God's holy law right there too when He casts them into outer
darkness. That's what we have pictured here, that fiery judgment
coming down. So one way or the other, brethren,
you're going to see, that law is going to have to be honored
and satisfied. And what we're seeing right here is the wrath.
Paul said in Romans 1.8, and I think he's talking about this,
He said, you know, when they knew God, they didn't believe
God, but they worshiped and served the creature and the foolish
heart was darkened because they didn't like to retain God in
their mind, God made it so they couldn't. And he put it like
this, he said, and we see the wrath of God revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness. That's what happened to these
50 and the next 50. God from heaven poured down fire
on them. Judgment, justice. You see, people want to blame
Elijah for that, but Elijah just said, if I'm a man of God, let
this happen. Who poured it out? It's called the fire of God.
God did it because it was a just thing to do. And then those men,
if they didn't know Christ, then those men met God in judgment
and suffered an even worse judgment. for eternity. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance
on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints
and to be admired in all them that believe, because our testimony
among you was believed in that day. So sinner, listen to me. You don't want to meet Christ
on that holy hill and have Him honor and vindicate God's law
by casting you into the fiery torments of an eternal judgment
that you'll suffer forever. You don't want to meet there
and learn about that law and justice. Come and bow to Christ. See, everybody Christ died for,
judgment is not going to be It's not going to be us being condemned
or some being greater than others or anything like that. Judgment
is going to be Christ declaring, I represent that man. He's righteous and holy. I told
you all the story about Jay Bird, didn't I? About Brother Marvin. He had a friend. And he worked at a convenience
store. And he didn't know this kid came
in and was underage and he sold him alcohol. And they came in
and arrested Jay and told him he had to go to court. So he
got him a lawyer and went to court and he asked Marvin to
go with him. And they went to court and they
were sitting there and there was a bunch of people ahead of
them. And these people kept trying to represent themselves. And
they'd go up, try to talk to the judge, represent themselves,
and the judge would just tear them up one side and down the
other. You don't, you're not a lawyer, you don't speak the
law, you don't know the law, don't you ever come in here without
a lawyer to represent you. And would just double their fine
or whatever, you know. And so Marvin was getting kind
of worried and he said, they called Jay's name and said that
he didn't hear any, He hadn't seen the lawyer, didn't know
where the lawyer was. They called Jay's name and he
said, and he said, man, my heart was beating. I thought, Jay don't,
his lawyer didn't show up. And just about that time, his
lawyer stood up between him and that judge and said, I represent
him. And the lawyer went up there and talked to the judge. And
the judge talked to the lawyer and said, come on, you're free
to go. That's what judgment will be for the believer. Christ,
our advocate with the Father, saying, I represent that man.
You don't want to stand there without an advocate. Well, let's
see how the last group of soldiers came and what happened to them.
Verse 13, And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty.
And the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees
before Elijah. and besought Him. He didn't command
Him. He beseeched Him. And He said
unto him, O man of God. He didn't say that mockingly.
He believed Him. He believed Him. O thou man of
God. He said, I pray thee, let... He didn't command Him anything.
He said, you, if you will, let my life and the life of these
fifty, thy servants, be precious in thy sight. It's a big difference
in finding grace in God's sight than God being something in your
sight. We need to find grace in God's
sight. And look at this. Behold, there came fire down
from heaven and burned up the two captains of the former fifties
with their fifties. He honored and vindicated that
judgment. He said, yes, that's just. Now watch what he said, ìTherefore
let my life now be precious in thy sight.î And how does Christ
receive such a humble sinner? Broken in contrite, verse 15,
ìAnd the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, ìGo down with him,
be not afraid of him.î And he arose and went down with him
unto the king.î Those other men demanded. They come demanding.
And they said, ìYou come down.î Well, brethren, Christ already
came down. He came down and He settled that fiery judgment for
His people and He's gone up to glory now and He sat down and
He's not coming again until He comes back for His saints. So
He's not coming down. But He's going to make you and
me who He saves, we're going to have to come like that man
came and we're going to have to come down. That's the problem. That's the problem. With a man
who says he has not sinned, that he's righteous or that he's not
all that bad. If you just say I'm not as bad
as so and so, all you're saying is I'm righteous. I don't believe
God's just to deal with me that way. I don't believe it's fair.
That is a haughty, arrogant, big head is what that is. It
needs to come down. It needs to come down. The day of judgment is coming.
It's coming. But this is the day of grace
right now. Do you remember when James and John, the Lord had
sent them out to preach and they encountered some unbelievers
and men turned around and walked away and James and John said,
Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven
and consume them just like Elijah did? And the Lord said, He rebuked
them. He said, you know not what manner
of spirit you are of. The Son of Man has not come to
destroy men's lives. He don't have to do anything
to destroy our lives. We already did that. We already
under the condemnation. He don't have to do anything
to do that. But He came to save His people. So don't misunderstand. The day of judgment is coming.
That's going to come a day when He's going to be a just judge
in fiery wrath, casting out all unbelievers in the outer darkness.
But right now, He's dealing in mercy. This is the day of grace. And He is calling out all His
people. And He promised this, ìAll that the Father giveth Me
shall come to Me, and him that come to Me I will in no wise
cast out.î He said, ìNo man can come to Me except the Father
which has sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last
day.î See, He wonít cast out one that comes like this man
came. Now you might say this, you might say, well if I'd have
been there and I saw those first two groups of soldiers go up
there and I saw that fire come down from heaven and lightning
or whatever it was and consume them fellows, I'd have come just
like that last group of soldiers too. Well, would you? Would you? You
see sinners perishing around you all the time. You see them
blaspheming God and being hardened in their sin and going on in
rebellion and never coming to God and perishing and going to
hell. You see that every day. Just like these men saw. And
you see here, you've seen some that God's given a new heart
and drawn to Christ and made them believe on Christ and they
have joy in Him and rejoice in Him. So would you? Which one
will you join with? Which one of these two groups
will you join with? You are in one camp or the other. Right
now, where we sit, we are all right in one camp or the other.
We are either united with the God-hating blasphemers or we
are bowed to Christ, trusting Him alone, apart from any work
we have done. We are in one of two camps. It
doesn't matter if a man is religious or if he is a pimp. He is in
the same camp if he is trusting His works. It's either grace or works. You
either come like Cain came, and God rejects you, or you come
like Abel came with blood, and God will receive you. I say come
to God, bow down and ask in mercy, and you'll see. If you come and
say, Lord, let now my life be precious in thy sight, Christ
will be precious in His sight, I guarantee you. I guarantee
you. Because God's worked that. That's how I know. I pray God
to regenerate His people and call out His lost sheep. Alright
brethren, let's bow in prayer. Father, thank You for Your Word.
Thank You for Your mercy to call Your people and even to choose
a people freely by Your grace and give us and trust us to Christ
to do everything to glorify Him and bring honor to Him as He
brings honor to you. Lord, make us understand that
this thing is not about us being praised for what we do. This
thing is about you being praised and your Son being praised. And
make us to be willing to do that. Make us to come and bow down
and ask mercy at Christ's hand. Lord, don't let the idols that
come in our hearts and would overtake us. We ask You not to
let those things turn us from Christ or come between us and
Christ. Our total dependence upon Your
grace and mercy and power. And Lord, we pray for Your lost
sheep everywhere. We pray for those that are in
Will Works religion, pray for wherever they are. You have them
and You know where they are. We trust You are going to call
them and not one is going to be lost. We do inquire of You. We ask You for these things and
we depend upon You to do it. Pray that You will take this
Word now and penetrate some hard heart and bring them out, bring
them to Christ and make them rejoice with us in this free
sovereign mercy. to know that all righteousness
and all holiness and redemption and wisdom is all found in Christ. It's in His precious name we
ask these things, Lord. Amen.