Alright brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah chapter 49. Isaiah 49. We're just going to
look at two verses. Verses 8 and 9. Verse 8 says,
Thus saith the Lord, and this is what I want you to focus on
here. Thus saith the Lord, I will give thee, speaking of Christ,
for a covenant of thee people, speaking of his elect, I will
give thee for a covenant of the people to establish the earth
to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. That thou mayest say
to the prisoners, go forth, to them that are in darkness, show
yourselves. Now you know what a covenant
is. A covenant is a mutual agreement between two parties so that certain
conditions have to be met upon the condition that certain promises,
certain rewards will be given. In order for those rewards to
be given, those conditions have to be met, those conditions have
to be fulfilled. And God made a covenant with
Adam in the garden When he made that covenant with Adam in the
garden, that was God making a covenant with man. And Adam was the representative
of all mankind. And when Adam transgressed against
God, we broke covenant. The whole human race, we broke
covenant and we failed in all our covenant obligations in Adam. So death passed upon all men.
For all have sinned, all have come short of the glory of God. So God never looked to another
sinner to do anything to fulfill any conditions whatsoever to
come into God's presence. None. There's nothing in us able
to fulfill any conditions, period. I like to I'm changing the oil
in one of my lawnmowers, something like that. When you get oil on
you, on your hand, and you go to get a rag or you go to wash
your hands or whatever, it is so easy. Oil will get on you.
It'll get on your clothes. It'll get on the doorknob. It gets on everything on your
way to try to get it off your hand. You just imagine if you
were covered in oil, from the tip of your head to the bottom
of your feet, and you are gonna try to sew a snow white wedding
garment. Well, sin is like oil, and we're
covered in it, in our nature, in our thoughts, in our words,
in our deeds. so that we cannot make the required
wedding garment that we need to come into God's presence,
to make us as chaste virgins to enter into God's presence.
Christ alone is the only one who could make that garment and
make us white, purged of all our sins to enter into his presence.
And so God said here, thus saith the Lord, I will give thee, I
will give Christ for a covenant of the people for God's elect. Now, I just want to look today
at this one thing. Christ sets His people free from
the power of sin and death. It says there in verse 9, that
thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth. To them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. I've titled this, Redemption
by Christ our Covenant. Redemption by Christ our Covenant. Now the first thing we see here
is the prisoners. The prisoners. Verse 9 says that
thou mayest say to the prisoners. Now all who Christ saves, every
single one that Christ saves are guilty prisoners. That's
what we are. We did the crime and we're guilty
by Adam's transgression in the garden and by our own sin. We're
guilty. And in addition to that, everyone
that Christ saves, every single one he will save, are born in
a prison cell. We got Adam's nature. And so,
our nature holds us in chains with no way of breaking those
chains. It holds us in a cell like solitary confinement. with
no windows and no way to let darkness in whatsoever. He's
going to say to the prisoners and to them that are in darkness,
we're in a prison without any light, without any way for us
to get light, without anything we can do to make light enter
in, without any way to break the chains, without any way to
get out of the cell. That's what the flesh, the sin
nature is in a sinner. Now that's true of all men and
that's true of those Christ will set free, that he will liberate
from this dungeon of sin and death. Now if you were born free
and later you did a crime and were found guilty and was locked
up in a prison cell, then you would know the difference between
freedom and imprisonment. But if you were born in a prison
cell, born in the darkness of solitary confinement, you'd never
know the difference between being in prison and being free. And
that's the problem with sinners. We're born in prison. We're born
in this prison, this dark dungeon of sin and death so that we do
not know by nature the difference between being in prison and being
free. You who want to boast about your
free will, a man who wants to talk about how free he is and
how he, I can get up in the morning and do what I want to do. I can
go where I want to go. I can come to Christ whenever
I get good and ready. You listen very carefully. A
sinner under the power of his sin nature has as much freedom
as a sinner in a prison cell. That's true. You can tell yourself
and you can tell others that you're free. You can convince
yourself you're free as you can be. And indeed, you can get up
when you want to, you can walk around, you can eat, you can
lay down, you can go to sleep, all in the confines of that prison
cell. You can't get out of that prison
cell. And that's a man who is in sin, bound by his sin nature. He can't do anything but what
his sin nature allows him to do. That's what a sinner is.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?
Then may you do good that are accustomed to do evil. Why should
you be stricken anymore? You'll revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint." Now, everybody
sitting here today who does not hear this gospel, I mean hear
it with a believing ear, with a believing eye, with a believing
heart, with a rejoicing heart. This is why. Now listen to me. If you can hear, listen carefully
to what I'm about to tell you. You are in prison on death row,
too blind to see your sinner. That's the problem. If our gospel
be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. In whom the God of
this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. unless,
this is what it's going to take, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. That's the good news. God has
sent His Son, the Deliverer, the Redeemer, the Liberator,
to come to where we are. And Christ Jesus, His Son, has
come to purchase liberty and has purchased liberty for those
given Him of the Father, those elect, chosen of God, and loved
from everlasting. The Scripture says, He came to
loose those that are appointed to death. The Scripture says
to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison
and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. That's
what He came to do. So there's the prisoner. There's
the one sitting in darkness. Now, if you can say there, sit
there and say, well, I'm not in a prison like that. I'm not in darkness like that.
It just might be God didn't come to save you. He might just leave
you right there. If He does, He's just to do it. He's just to do it. But if he's
pleased to save you, he's going to save you. If he's determined
to save one, he's going to save them. And not one of them is
going to be lost. All right, now here's the second
thing. Christ is the mediator of the everlasting covenant.
That covenant between God and man. Christ is the mediator of
it. Now notice this key word here
in verse 9. That thou mayest say to the prisoners,
go forth. Never, when you're reading the
word of God, always look at every word. Every word is important. That word mayest is very important. That thou mayest say to the prisoners,
go forth. God gave Christ for a covenant
of the people that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth.
Now, the word can means ability. The word can means ability. You
can do something. The word may means consent. You
have the consent to do it. Now, Christ is God who can do
whatsoever He pleases. But God can do nothing contrary
to His holy, righteous, just character. And therefore Christ
cannot, He may not, set guilty sinners free without the full
consent of divine justice. He may not do it. He has not
the consent to do it unless He does it with the full consent
of divine justice. You remember the old westerns,
whenever they'd have the bandits, the outlaws, they got their friend
and he's in prison, you know, and they slip up there under
the cover of darkness and they tie a rope onto the bars of the
window, you know, and they take off on their horses and yank
the window out, break him, bust him out of jail? Well, Christ
didn't come to bust his people out of jail. He didn't come to
make a prison break. He came to do this thing legally. He came to be the one in whom
God could mercifully set free His prisoners in a way that is
completely, thoroughly just and legal according to the perfect
justice of God. See, Christ is God and He's man. It's just the importance of Him
being the God-man in one person because He's the mediator. He's
representing God. and he's representing his elect
who are flesh and blood. So he's God, God the Son and
man. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now as Son of God,
he fulfilled the conditions required so that God could be both just
and the justifier of his elect. So he bore the wrath of justice
and justified his people. And as the Son of Man, He fulfilled
the conditions required to make each elect child the righteousness
of God. Christ fulfilled the law for
His people, then He was made sin. And He stood guilty in place
of each of the convicted criminals that God gave Him to save. And
by bearing our sin, God justly executed the death sentence upon
Him in place of His people so that Christ has paid the debt
we owe to divine justice. Justice has been... You hear
people say, I just hope justice is done. Justice has been done. Christ died. He laid down His
death, His life, and He did it in the place of those criminals
God gave Him to save. So he, boy, he's, if you had somebody you wanted
to see let off a death row, and you told the judge, I'll go,
and I'll go to the, I'll go and have the lethal injection on
their behalf. With God, you couldn't do that. You and I couldn't do
that because we're sinners. We couldn't do it. Christ came
and was proven to be sinless, proven to be spotless, so that
He can go and He can And with God, this is the mystery, is
with God, before God would even pour out justice upon this one
who was spotless and innocent, He had to be made the guilty
one. And God, He bore our sins in His body on the tree, and
He was made the guilty one. So God's just to punish Him.
And having punished Him in our room instead, Him bearing the
lethal injection in place of us, Him going to the chair instead
of us, Him going to the cross, that's what it is. He's completely satisfied divine
justice. Justice has been done for His
people. And by that finished work of Christ the Substitute,
doing this work for His people, God is just now to show mercy
and save His people. Mercy and truth are met together. righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law being made a curse for us. That's what's happened. So now Christ has the full consent
of divine justice that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth. Do you see? Do you see that?
Now, here's the third thing. Christ is the messenger of the
covenant. He said, I've given thee for
a covenant, so I just tried to show you how He's the mediator
of this covenant. Now, He's the messenger of this
covenant. Verse 9 says that Christ may
say to the prisoners, go forth and to them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. You see, God the Father has given
His Son, Christ Jesus, the honor of being the head over his church,
his body, of bringing the good news of the gospel to each one
for whom he died and setting them free from the prison. He's given him the privilege
to do that. But now we have to remember,
all those that he's done this for, they're still in prison. They're still in that black pit. of solitary confinement in their
own nature. Though full atonement's been
accomplished, though free justification has been accomplished, those
that he did it for are yet dead in sin, in the prison cell, in
darkness, shackled by our sin nature. And in that state, we
don't even know we're prisoners. We don't even know we have a
need of being delivered from prison. We don't even care whatsoever. And that's true. That's true
of the spit-shined religious man who's got all his tradition
and all his creeds and all his good works and his church and
everything he's built for years and years and years and years
and all he's done in religion. That's so for him. If he's still
dead in his sin, as true for him as it is for the drunk laying
in the gutter, it's true for him. But if Christ accomplished
this for him, I'll tell you what he's going to do. Christ, who
has all power in heaven and earth committed to him, I'll tell you
what he's going to do. He's going to send the gospel
to him. He's going to send somebody with the good news of the gospel,
the good news of what he's accomplished, the good news of what he's done.
And when He sends them forth, the Spirit of God will regenerate
by the light of the gospel shining into their hearts. And therefore,
they're going to find out they're on death row. When this good
news come, they're going to find out they're on death row. But
until then, we're like a bunch of folks in the penitentiaries
right now in this country. If you ask them, the majority
of them will tell you, I'm not guilty. I've been wrongfully
charged. That's where a sinner is. That's
where God finds his people, walking around saying, I'm not guilty.
Everything you said about me is not true. I'm being wrongfully
charged. That's not me. I'm good. I'm basically good. That's what
folks think. Sinners have to be lost. Somebody
has to be lost. They got to be sinners. We got
to be made sinners. We got to be made lost. That's
what we have to be. Or you keep looking back. Some
man, he'll keep looking back to when he made his decision
or back to something he's done or look into things he's done
for evidences and things to give him hope and encouragement that
he's a child of God. When we get this, get this. Try
to get this. If we have to look anywhere but
Christ to find evidence that we're a child of God, we're not
a child of God. We're still in darkness and in
sin. If we gotta look somewhere other
than Christ and say, there's all my confidence and all my
assurance, we're lost. That's just so. And this is a condemnation. We
like it to be so. The man in his dark cell likes
to be in that cell. He likes it to be so. This is
the condemnation. Light's coming to the world and
men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are
evil. For everyone that doeth evil hates the light and he won't
come to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. Now don't
misunderstand what I'm saying to you. Please don't misunderstand
what I'm saying to you. A sinner is not passive. He's not passive in regeneration. He's not passive in this thing
of salvation at all. No, no, no, no, no. He's fighting
with every fiber of his being to prevent it. He's anything
but passive. He's trying his best not to be
saved. He's trying his best not to hear.
He's trying his best to put his head in the sand like an ostrich
and ignore everything that's being told him because he don't
want to face the fact he's going to meet God. So he's not passive
in it at all. He's actively trying to keep
it from happening. And believer, that's so, it's
so often true of me and you that we're in a prison and we're in
darkness. Look over at Romans chapter seven. We know that in our flesh dwells
nothing good. You find yourself have a will
by that being made willing by the power of Christ to walk after
Him, to honor Him, to do that which is honoring to Him. But
how to perform that which is good? I'm talking about what
God says is good. I'm talking about to fulfill
that which God says is right and just and holy. We can't find
it. We just can't find the ability
to do it. Because we're sinners. Because sin is mixed with everything
we do. Our best thought is vanity. Our best thought is enough to
send us to hell. That's so. And that will always
be the case, brethren. And the more we see of Christ,
the more light shines in the room, the more we're going to
see that's the case of us. Now look at this. Verse 22, Paul
said, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. And
that new man has been born of the Spirit of God. I delight
in the law of God. Don't you? I mean, everything
about the law of God is good. It's holy. It's just. It's good.
It tells us how to serve God. It tells us how to serve our
brethren. I mean, it's good. There's nothing about it that's
bad. I love the law of God. Here's the problem. But I see
another law in my members, in my flesh, in my old man, warring
against the law of my mind, against the new man, against the new
nature, bringing me into captivity, prison, bringing me into chains,
bringing me into bondage, captivity to the law of sin, which is in
my members. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Now, those of
you that's been made to see God, been made to see Christ, been
made to see what true righteousness and true holiness is, you can
say with me, that's true. That's true. You've been made
honest by God. You can say that's true. And no longer going around
trying to fool everybody, yourself included. If Christ be in you,
the body is dead because of sin. That's right. That's a, that's
a, contradiction to many. It's a contradiction to us. We're
hunger and thirst after righteousness. And there's a part of us that
hungers and thirst after that which is sinful and wretched.
And it's a warfare so that we can't do what we really would
like to do. but thanks be to God, He has
given Christ a covenant of the people. So Christ our light brings
the light of the message. He brings the light of the gospel
of redemption accomplished to each of those for whom He's accomplished
it. And He draws us to Himself and He keeps doing it. How does
He do it? How does He do it? Well, Christ
prays the Father. We saw this last week or the
week before. Christ prays the Father who sends
God the Holy Spirit. And thereby Christ comes as the
gospel is being declared to them. And He comes into His people,
into that dark cell of sin and death, and He speaks this gospel
in power, saying to the prisoners, go forth. And to them that are
in darkness, show yourselves. When will us who love sin and
love it and will hold on to it and not let go of it, When will we let go of that and
come to the light? Only when he says, show yourself,
only when he says in power, go forth. Now there may be, there's
going to be evil, unjust prison warden called the devil that
wants to prevent this from happening. He wants to stop this from happening.
And he's going to influence everybody he can to keep you in the prison.
There may be a false creature who's keeping guard, and he's
trying to make sure. He's telling you, listen now,
don't go down there and listen to those folks. Don't go down
there and listen to them, because that's a separatist group right
there. They're antinomian. They're lawless. They're telling
you, if you believe Christ, you can just live like you want to.
And we can't live like we want to. Because if we live like we want
to, we'd be drunk all the time. Instead of just being drunk on
our ungodly, self-righteous religion. But I'll tell you what, God's
able to save the warden, I mean, the guard, too. Remember Philip? If you're the guard keeping watch,
you gotta live in the prison. Remember, I mean, the Philippian
jailer, remember him? God saved him. He's able to get
his gospel to where his people are and save them and call them
out. Even the guard, he's able to do that for. Or there may
be your cellmates, your inmates that are in prison with you.
And I'm talking about those good friends of yours. Those good
friends that tell you, man, don't take that religion stuff too
far. When you start telling them, I think this is so. And they
tell you, listen to what I'm telling you. Don't listen to
what they're telling you. Good friends, good friends. They won't
tell you to hold on to a lie. They won't tell you. Man, throw
the key away. You don't want to get out of
this prison. We got such freedom here. The food's so good. The conditions are so good where
we are. Oh, we got good things to wear.
You don't want to get out of this prison. It's just wonderful
right here. He's able to shut their mouth
too. And then you got that old sin nature of you that don't
want to hear. But Christ binds the strong man.
That's what He does first. He binds the strong man. And
then He begins to speak personally to you. And He begins to make
you see your awful condition. He makes you to see your own
death row. He makes you see you are guilty. He makes you see
you did the crime. And he makes you, when he does
that, he brings you to start really crying out for mercy.
You may have thought before you said some prayers and called
it calling on God so that you could tell mama and daddy, well,
I tried and he didn't answer. But I'm telling you, when this
happens right here, that little smart-ass little butt will be
brought down to the dust. And then you'll find yourself
calling out for mercy. When you find you're locked away,
can you imagine, can you imagine if having conditions like you
have on right now, and nobody here is hurting at all, we all
got it fine and good. Can you imagine if today you
got convicted of a crime and sentenced to life in prison?
Can you imagine that? You think about it. I mean, that
would just be That'd be awful. You know what? To know you're
going to spend the rest of your life in prison, especially if
you got the death penalty, and you know at any time they're
going to come in and say, here, today's the day. I mean, you
think about that. You think how you would just
beg and beg your advocate to have, dude, you want the best
advocate you could find to speak for you and present you in the
courts. You'd want the best just judge
there is. You'd want every faithful witness
you could find. You'd want everybody and you
would the whole time be begging, begging, begging anybody and
everybody that'll listen, that judge. Please, please have mercy
on me. Please just have mercy on me.
That's what will happen if God makes you to see your condition,
makes us to see where we are. We must beg God, have mercy on
me. And this is the good news. He
hears. When He's done this, He hears. Psalm 69, 33 says, For the Lord
heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners. He hears the
cry that he's put into the heart, and then he begins to speak his
gospel into our hearts. He begins to tell us the good
news of what he's done for us. He begins to speak to us about
God's everlasting love. and say, from before anything
was ever made, God created you when He gave you to me. And when
He sealed your destination before the world was ever made and appointed
you to eternal life by giving you to me to do everything to
bring you to Himself. And that message of everlasting
love begins to be so sweet and so dear to your heart. He tells
you, I came forth and I went through this life and I completely
thoroughly proved that I was a fit man, holy and righteous
without sin, so that I could go forth and I could be made
sin for you and put away your sin, bury it all away. And I've
borne it all away. So that now, it's not just that
you've got a pardon. It's just not that you're seen
as being, your record's being expunged. I have thoroughly eradicated
your record. It don't even exist. It's not
as if you never sinned, you've never sinned. You've been holy
since God put you in the Holy One, been holy since Christ came
forth and did everything necessary to sanctify you by sanctifying
himself that you might be sanctified in truth rather than in that
little pretended thing you called holiness. And he makes you see now, there's
nothing else to be done. There's nothing else to be offered.
There's no other work to be done. There's no other work that can
be done. There's no more offering for sin. I have done it all. I am all that God will accept. Christ says, He's all that is
righteousness with God. He's all that God is pleased
with. He's all completion with God.
That's what he makes known in the heart. You remember Barabbas? Barabbas was sitting down there,
and he was in that jail cell, and he hears, he knows today's
the day that the custom is they're gonna set somebody loose. And
he hears them calling, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas.
And he's thinking to himself in that prison, whoo, I have
got off scot-free. They ain't never even gonna know
it's, that I did all this crime, I fix, get to go out of here.
And the next thing he hears is, Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify
him! The tune changed then. He starts
singing another tune then. And here comes that warden down
that hallway, and he hears his keys jangling, and Barabbas is
sitting there, and he's hoping with everything he's got that
that prison guard's just going to keep walking right on past
his cell and go to somebody else. But he doesn't. He stopped at
Barabbas' cell and he takes those keys out and he turns to lock
in Barabbas' door and he opens up his door. And he comes over
to Barabbas and he unlocks the chains off of his, shackles off
of his ankles and the shackles off his arms and he says, stand
up Barabbas. And he says to him, Barabbas, Jesus Christ has been chosen
to die in your room instead. So you, my friend, are absolutely
free to go. And Christ speaks His word into
your heart and says, now, go forth. He says, now, show yourself. And you hear the lock open, and
you hear the chains hit the floor, and you hear Him say, show yourself. And you come trembling, and you
come with your head bowed down, weak, out of that darkness of yourself,
and you step out into His light. And when you step out into His
light, He reaches out with His everlasting arms, And he takes
off all your old prison garments, dirty and full of spots. And
he clothes you in his perfect wardrobe of righteousness. And he pulls you to himself.
And he holds you near to him. And he says to you, now come,
son. We're going home. There can be no charges laid
against you again. There can be nothing else laid
to your charge whatsoever. If you go out and you accidentally
commit a crime tomorrow, I've paid it off. It can't be laid
to your charge. Come on, we're going home. Mmm,
when you hear that news, If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. That's right. You hear
other inmates yet in their cells all around you, those that you
thought loved you and meant the best for you and was telling
you all the things they were telling you before and you hear
them start, you try to tell them what's happening and you hear
them start telling you, well that's not fair that God would
love some and pass by us. But he came to you. He came to
your cell. He came to where you are in darkness.
And He spoke light into your heart, and life into your heart,
and He unlocked your chains, and He called you out. So you
quit crying out. That's unfair. That's unfair. Now you know you didn't deserve
anything. If you want justice, you want fairness, you want what
God calls justice, or do you want mercy? Now you know I want
mercy. I want mercy. And he makes you
know I've given you mercy. And I haven't even spared fairness. I haven't spared justice. I've
done it in justice. And you don't have to be bribed
and have your arm twisted by a preacher and by mom and daddy
and by everybody trying to beg you and sweet talk you and get
you to come out of that cell either. You come out of it. because
you see what a fool you'd be to stay in it. You come out of
it. Oh, turn ye to the stronghold,
you prisoners of hope. He says, and I'll assure you,
I'll reward you today. I will give you this free salvation
today. Fifthly, why are we so willing
to come out? Why are we so willing to follow
Him? Why are we so willing now to serve Him and honor Him the
rest of the days as we're walking through this world on our way
now to that promised city that He's promised? Why is that? Look
back at verse 8 again. I will give thee for a covenant
of the people. This willingness is because Christ
Himself, Christ Himself becomes our covenant. I will give thee
for a covenant of the people. When Christ is formed in us,
when Christ himself is formed in our hearts so that to make
us know him, Christ is ours. Now I want you to think about
that, brethren. This is one of those Selahs. Stop and think
about what that means. Every virtue Christ is, is yours. Every holy, righteous,
thought, word and deed which Christ is, is yours. His death, His burial, His resurrection
is ours. His acceptance with God is ours. His immortality, His security
is ours. His beauty, His glory is ours. The peace that He is, is yours. The comfort that He is, is yours. He Himself is our covenant. The person, Christ the Lord,
is our covenant. Because God in His free gift
gave His Son to you And He's been formed in you. And you that
He's been formed in, Christ Himself is ours. Eternally. Never to be taken away. The gifts
and calling of God are without repentance. Now, this is what
we do. Turn over to Psalm 107. Before, we were going around
and we were praising ourselves and we were talking about our
good works and talking about our goodness and everything about
us. Now, here's what we do. Here's what we do. Let me tell
you this. This is how you can tell if a
man truly has experienced the power of God's grace. Listen
to who he talks about. Just listen to who he talks about.
Listen to who he exalts. Listen to who he magnifies. Listen
to who he majors on. Listen to who the focus is. Because
this is the believer. Psalm 107.15. Oh, that men would
praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to
the children of men. For He hath broken the gates
of brass and cut the bars of iron and sundry. That's what
He's done for us, brethren. Oh, who shall deliver me from
this body of death? Every single time we find ourselves
unable to lift up our heads, unable to read, unable to pray,
unable to look to Him, and you just can't make yourself do it. Just can't. I thank God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one. He delivered me. in the beginning, and He keeps
delivering me and keeps delivering me. And one day soon, He's going
to deliver each one of us who are trusting Him to do it. He's
going to deliver us into that glorious liberty of the sons
of God. that glorious liberty where we'll
be with Him forever with no more sin, no more darkness, no more
prison, nothing but that pure, pristine, one-on-one communion
with Christ Jesus, our covenant. You see, Christ is the covenant
who gives us liberty. This is redemption by Christ,
our covenant. Look back up there again at verse
8. The Lord God said, I will give thee I will give thee."
He gives Christ to us. And the only thing that we go
through this world saying and what we'll say forevermore is,
thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. I do pray. I hope you will hear this and
really, really think about what you heard. Don't let it go in
one ear and out the other. I mean, go home and study what
you've heard. Go home and really... I can't even make you do anything.
I just pray He'll do... I pray He'll give you a heart
to really and truly seek Him. Every single person that cries
out for mercy to Him finds mercy. Because there's no way you'll
make that cry for true mercy from a pure heart until He's
already shown you mercy. And He'll show you more mercy.
I hope that. And for us who already have been
called by Him, I hope we continue to look to Him and Him only.
Him only. He's our completion with God,
our full, complete acceptance with God, both now and forever.
Amen.