All right, brethren, be turning
to 2 Samuel 2. 2 Samuel 2. Today, we're going to look more
closely at the rebellion of Abner. And we saw how that he rebelled
against the will of God. And that began when it was reported
that David was anointed king by Judah, according to the will
of God. And he decided that he didn't
want that. He wanted to serve his own flesh. He had his own designs in mind. And so he set up Ish-bosheth
to be the king out of Saul's house. And he would continue
in the same role that he had before, because he had a great
deal of power in that role. It would probably look really
bad if he set himself up, but he took Saul's son Ish-bosheth
to do this thing. And this is a willful rebellion
of Abner against the revealed and known will of God in making
David king. And so he takes ishbosheth, but
he's really no servant of ishbosheth. I don't think he respected ishbosheth
at all, especially as we'll see in the next chapter at another
time. But he created this ishbosheth
for his own convenience in the way that a man will set up an
idol of his imagination to serve him, to serve his own pleasures
and designs. And so we're going to pick up
in verse 12 here and go to the rest of the chapter where there's
a focus on a fight, a battle between the house of Saul and
the house of David led by Abner over Saul's house and Joab representing
the house of David there. Now, the lesson here is that
no matter what a man does to establish himself by his own
will, because you know who we are. We've all been there where
we've had a mind of our own, a will of our own, a thought
of our own to do what we're going to do because we want to do it.
And we're going to withstand and oppose the will of God if
need be. And we think we're something until he makes us to know that
we're nothing. And we see this with Abner, that
he lays his plans, he has his design, he thinks he's going
to defeat the will of God, which Saul couldn't do, and he's not
going to do it either. We need only look to Christ our
Savior and to see how he triumphed gloriously over his enemies,
who put him to death by their own wicked hands, who murdered
him, And yet Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost with the
Holy Spirit being poured out upon him and the church and said,
therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that
God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both
Lord and Christ. And so God's will is always going
to prevail. The wisest thing you can do is
bow before God and cry out to him for grace and mercy. Bow
before his son, whom he has made king of all and given dominion
to him of all things in heaven and in earth. Bow to him. That's
the wisest thing that you can do." Abner didn't do it, and
it cost his life dearly. Let me just say, there was a
reason why Saul sought to kill David. He sought to murder David
while he was king, and it's because he knew that God had appointed
David to be king, to succeed him as the rightful king of Israel. Samuel back in 1st Samuel 15
28 told Saul that the Lord hath rent the kingdom from you this
day and has given it to a man that is better to thy neighbor
a man that is better than you right because he was a man after
God's own heart and Saul discovered who he was he he was able to
discern this is David David is clearly blessed of the Lord.
The Lord is with David. David's going to succeed me.
And so this became more and more apparent with Saul trying to
take his life. And finally, David was telling
his dear friend Jonathan, the son of Saul, that his father
was trying to kill him. And Jonathan didn't want to believe
it. But they came up with a good
scheme where there was a feast coming up and David absented
himself on purpose and had Jonathan tell his father when he asked
where David was that he was at a feast of his family. His older brother called him
to a feast and he had to go. But the feast went on for more
than one day and so Saul was aware of what was going on, and
he became angry with Jonathan. And Abner was sitting right there
next to Saul when he chastised his own son, Jonathan, saying,
that as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou
shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Abner knew full
well. what Saul knew, that David was
the rightful king appointed by God, and that Saul was trying
to stop that. But he failed. He wasn't able
to stop it. And all Israel could see the
grace of God resting upon David. And so Saul tried and failed,
and now Abner tries. And this picture of David is
to Christ, and Saul and Abner is just as David is likened to
Christ, so Saul and Abner are likened to the elders of Israel
who heard Christ, saw his miracles, and despised and rejected him,
and tried to overthrow him. All right, saying, when the husbandmen
saw the sun, they said among themselves, this is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance. And this shows us our nature,
the Adam nature of us all. This is our nature, to reject
God's will, to do our own will, to set up an idol if we have
to, in favor of ourselves, in rejection of God's will and word. Unless God be gracious to us,
that's where we are. That's where we are. When he
delivers us, he's delivering us out of spiritual death. We're not saved because we're
good. We're not saved because we're righteous. We're not saved
because we're religious. We're not saved because we're
good people. We're sinners saved by the grace of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so as soon as David was anointed
king, we were told there in verse 8 and 9 of this second chapter
that Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took Ish-bosheth,
the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim and made
him king over Gilead and over all Israel. And so not only was
this son Ish-bosheth, just think about that, he was deemed not
worthy unfit to go to battle with his father Saul and his
three older brothers. Unfit. He was left behind. He
wasn't in the battle. That's the only reason why he's
alive here. So he's too weak, too incompetent
for that. But Abner figured, I'm going
to set him up. I'm going to make him king. And
I'll serve him, so to speak, that I may continue in my role
as the general with great influence and power over Israel. And again,
this man's name is Esh-Baal, as well as Ish-Basheth, meaning
something akin to, he's the son of Baal. He's the son of shame. And it's a picture of him being
the seed of the serpent of which Abner is now serving. He's serving
that body of death, walking according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience. That is the
nature of man. That is the nature of you all
and me all, us listening, us here. That is our nature in Adam. that the Lord must save us from,
that he must deliver us from. And so these actions of Abner
that we're going to look at here tonight should give every one
of us here, men, man, woman, children, it should give every
one of us pause here at what we see because this is our rebellious
nature. It is the spirit of Antichrist
that is in us by nature. who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that
he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that
he is God." Right? Pretending to be God. That's
the free will religion of man. That man's always talking about.
He's always boasting about his free will, which is not free
at all. It is in bondage to a sinful
nature. It is in bondage to a body of
death. It is in bondage to the course
of this world under the power of the prince of the power of
the air. Under his influence, that spirit that now worketh
in the children of disobedience and wrath. Paul said this, Beware
therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the
prophets. Behold, ye despisers in wonder and perish. For I work
a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe,
though a man declare it unto you. The difference in you that
hear the voice of Christ and follow Christ. The difference
is the grace of God that has delivered you from death and
made you to hear his word effectually in your heart. That is the difference.
The difference is God, but God who loved us and gave himself
for us. And so, because this shows us
that a man can hear the gospel, and he can hear it from the best
of the best preachers. He could hear Christ speak, he
could hear Paul speak, he could hear Peter speak, he could hear
Apollos speak, and not be moved from the hardness and deadness
of his own heart, except God intervene and deliver him from
death. And so here's Abner. He knows
the will of God, that David is the rightful king, but he sets
up a flimsy idol and follows him instead and tries to make
him successful, tries to make him succeed over David. And that's why I read earlier
Psalm 2, which begins, why do the heathen rage and the people
imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
his anointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder and
cast away their cords from us. And so what the Lord is teaching
us is that all who will not bow the need to Christ and confess
Christ Jesus shall die in their sins. And they shall bow and
they shall confess, but it'll be in a day when it is too late
for them. It'll be in a day of judgment,
but they'll know, they'll know. But you that confess Christ with
your mouth and believe in your heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. And that confession, that faith
that is given to you, is the testimony of God's grace in you,
for you, in spite of your wicked works, in spite of your sinful
nature. Christ has put that away with
his own blood, washing away the sins of his people, to deliver
us from that body of death and to establish us in His body,
giving us life, giving us His Spirit, giving us salvation in
Him. Alright, so as we look at the
battle set forth here in this chapter, to all that think themselves
wiser than God, and wiser than his Christ, and that you have
some other way to save yourselves, you better think again, because
you cannot save yourselves. We have Saul, who perished in
the way trying to overcome God's will, and now we'll see Abner,
who is put to shame for resisting the will of God. Now, Abner,
the first thing that we see here Abner is playing the fool in
this whole thing. And the first thing that we see here, even
David said in Psalm 14.1, the fool hath said in his heart,
there is no God. Only a fool talks and acts like
there is no God or that he's better than God or more able
than God. That's the heart of a fool that the Lord must save
us from and give us a new heart and a new spirit. And so the
first thing we see here in Abner is that he shows a disregard
for life. He makes light of it. He makes
a mockery of the issues of life and death. As often people do,
you see comedians sometimes who joke about death because they
are nervous about it. And they know there is a God,
a true and living God. And he has revealed himself and
testified of himself. And so they mock it and make
light. but not for long, not for long. And so, reading in
verse 12, we're told that Abner the son of Ner and the servants
of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. And Joab the son of Zeruiah and
the servants of David went out. and met together by the pool
of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on
the one side of the pool and the other on the other side of
the pool. Now normally a pool can be a
good time of reflection. In our capital we have what's
called the pool of reflection. It's meant to be a peaceful time.
It's meant to be a time of reflection and thinking. Is this really
what you want to do? Do you really want to go to war?
It should be a time of reflection and consideration. But Abner
decides he's going to be the aggressor here. And later on,
you'll notice when he's beaten and defeated, that's when he
doesn't want to be the aggressor. He wants a ceasefire then. He
wants it all to stop then against him. But here he's the aggressor. And Abner said to Joab, let the
young men now arise and play before us. And Joab said, let
them arise. Now David, up to this time, David's
been very patient. He's been taught through the
persecutions, through the trials of being persecuted by David,
he has seen, now right through his patience, he's gained experience. and experience hope, right? You see that pattern that we
learn in trials and how they instruct us as well. Well, David
wasn't in any great rush. He wasn't trying to force him
being the king over Israel. He was being very patient. He
didn't want bloodshed. He didn't want a civil war going
on. He saw how the Lord preserved
his life under the persecutions of Saul. And he trusted that
the Lord would bring this to pass to make him king over all
Israel as he was anointed, as he was promised by the Lord. And in that, he's a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we read that precious shall their
blood be in his sight. You that are his, your lives,
your deaths, Your infirmities, your sorrows, your trials, it's
precious to him. That's why Peter tells us, cast
your care upon him, for he careth for you. You're not forgotten. And David here is patient. But Abner's choices are leading
to needless bloodshed. And sadly, Joab goes in with
it. Joab decides, yep, let's go to
war here. And it says in verse 15, Then
there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin, which
pertained to Ish-bosheth, and the son of Saul, and twelve of
the servants of David. And they caught every one his
fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow's side. So they fell down together, wherefore
that place was called Helcath-hazarim, which is in Gideon, and it means,
like, strong men, the place of rocky men, of men, right, who
were brave and courageous, but they all just gave their lives.
24 men fought for sport, and 24 men died. Nothing was gained. It was just a worthless sport. It was just a joke, a meaningless
joke to Abner. And this fight strikes me very
much like when we're careless in religious things, right? When we debate. When people go
and debate, and they just love to debate over doctrine, and
they love to debate other people, and they just wrestle and fight
for sport to see who can win. But nothing's gained, because
whatever position you held going into a debate, you just firm
yourself up in that position. You just get more and more entrenched
in that position, and no one learns anything. No one was ever
saved by debate that I know of. because the scriptures tell us
that salvation isn't accomplished by debate. The scriptures tell
us that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom didn't know
God, that it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. There is something wise in the
wisdom of God for us to sit down, like when the Lord fed the 5,000
and the 4,000, the Lord had his servants, his disciples, set
all the people down by numbers and 50, you know, 500s and 50s
and 100s and families, and they were served. They were served that way. And
that's a picture of preaching. That's how the Lord gives you
a time to sit at that pool and reflect, to hear the word, to
consider what's being said. You don't have to think, this
is what I'm going to say as soon as he stops talking. You don't
have to think like that. So it opens your mind and your
heart and your hearing and your receiving. the word of the Lord. And so, yeah, this looks like
debate, and it looks like religious games that we get into that don't
accomplish anything. that don't win the day. Second,
this foolishness results in a larger assault between the two armies
here, in which the aggressor Abner is going to go away the
loser. He's going to go away the loser,
but not without a dear cost to David's men. It's going to cost
David's people as well. Verse 17 says, And there was
a very sore battle that day, and Abner was beaten and the
men of Israel before the servants of David. And then we're given
this very peculiar account, a peculiar account about Abner being pursued
by Joab's brother, Azahel. So let's read that, verse 18. And there were three sons of
Zeruiah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Azahel. And Azahel was as
light of foot as a wild roe. He was a fast runner. He was
fast, he was shifty, and he could run through, over rocks and through
trees, and he was good. And Azahel means God created,
or whom God created. It even means whom God anointed,
whom God anointed. And this is, Azahel's pursuing
Abner here, who's in rebellion. against the will of God. Verse
19, And Asahel pursued after Abner, and in going he turned
not to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner.
Then Abner looked behind him and said, Art thou Asahel? And
he answered, I am. And Abner said to him, Turn thee
aside to thy right hand or to thy left, and lay thee hold on
one of the young men, and take thee his armor. But Azahel would
not turn aside from following of him. And Abner said again
to Azahel, Turn thee aside from following me, wherefore should
I smite thee to the ground? How then should I hold up my
face to Joab thy brother? So even though Abner was the
one fleeing, he had the position. I mean, this was an experienced
warrior. He knew how he was going to deliver
himself when he realized someone was on his tail. He had probably
done this many times in several battles, had probably already
done this, and knows exactly how it's going to work. But he
knows this is Joab's brother. And if I take out Joab's brother,
how am I going to be reconciled to Joab? And if he's thinking
about, how am I going to be reconciled to Joab, he's got to be thinking,
one of these days, David is going to prevail. David is the rightful
king. And David is going to receive
all power and dominion. And I'm going to have to face
Joab one of these days. Howbeit, verse 23, Asahel refused
to turn aside. Wherefore Abner, with the hinder
end of the spear, smote him under the fifth rib, that the spear
came out behind him, and he fell down there and died in the same
place. And it came to pass that as many
as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still. And that actually gave the army
of Abner some time, some space to actually escape and recover
to a degree. And so one of the things to note
here though is that it is because of that very thing, even though
Azahel fell this day, that is the very reason why Abner is
going to die. Joab is going to take Abner's
life because of him taking Azahel's life. And so he's going to die
anyway, even though he didn't die today. And so the lesson
here is that our God has sent his son in the flesh. He has come, the Son of God has
come in the flesh, born of a woman, born under the law, and worked
perfect righteousness, demonstrating and showing that He is sent of
God, because no man could do the things that He did, or say
the things He said, except God were with Him. Except God had
sent Him for that very purpose. When He came, He obtained eternal
redemption for His people through His sacrifice, so that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. They wouldn't die. They would
live, and that eternally. Speaking of our eternal life,
we die in the flesh, but that's okay. That's okay. You that have
eternal life, what is this life but a vapor? And so we die in
this life anyway. And so we that have the son have
eternal life. We have an inheritance in him. And so Abner, refusing to bow
to David as king, and then getting into this fight, this needless
fight with Joab and David's men, and then being pursued by Azahel,
He put that word of truth, as it were, which was pursuing him. David is the rightful king. David
is the rightful king. You're rebelling against the
will of God. You're rebelling against God's
revealed will in appointing his son king. And he's fighting against
that word and strikes it down. He will not hear it. He will
not be overtaken. He will not let it enter his
heart. And he puts that word as it were,
that word of truth that's pursuing him, to death as it were. He puts that word to death to
his own hurt, to his own destruction. And so being pursued by that
truth, when God sends forth his word, you that hear this word,
it's a blessing. It's a blessing to hear the word
of God, to have the mystery of God revealed to you in the preaching
of the word, not with tongues, but with clarity. I think Paul
called it prophesying, not in telling the future, in telling
you what is, what is so, in preaching the word, preaching that word,
of God in plain speech, revealing the mysteries of God, that it's
not by our works that we are saved, but it's by the Lord Jesus
Christ, who obtained eternal redemption for us by his blood.
And all who believe him, trust him, put all their hope and confidence
not in themselves, but in Christ, have life. That's plain speech. And yet the natural man, if left
to himself like Abner, thrusts it through, puts it to death,
refuses to hear it, will not bow to the will of God concerning
the Son of God whom he has appointed Lord and Christ of all. He has dominion. All authority
and power is in his hand. And he tells us that putting
that word to death is like putting yourself to death. If you're
fighting against yourself, it's to your own heart, and that man
who continues in that death will die in his sins. As our Lord
said, if ye believe not that I am he, he shall die in your
sins. And so it's not by accident that
even though Azahel is the one that dies here, it marked Abner
for destruction. It marked Abner for destruction,
and he came to that destruction. We'll see that another time. And when he died, it resulted
in David being coronated by all of Israel as king, just like
God had appointed it to be. fights against the will of God,
man tries to establish his own way, and all he's doing is hurting
himself. All he's doing is just making
himself more fit for hell in what he's doing. And so in that,
though, what I'm saying is that this word was still successful.
That truth pursuing Abner still put Abner to death. And the Lord
tells us by the prophet Isaiah 55 and verse 11, so shall my
word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. What is man thinking
by resisting God? and willfully disobeying God
and not bowing before the sun. What are we thinking? It just
shows the corruption of this nature. It shows the hardness
of this heart. It shows the deadness of our
old man by nature. It just shows us what we are
and that except we be turned and delivered by the grace of
God will never come. We'll never return from our vain
idols and worshiping dead things that cannot save. So, men today,
they resist the truth, just like we see Stephen. Stephen was preaching
to the Jews, laying out to them the whole history of Israel.
And he brings it to this conclusion, saying, Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your
fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not
your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which
showed before of the coming of the just one, of whom ye have
now been the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by
the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. But they rebelled
against it. And then we're told that when
they heard these things, they were cut to the heart. Not in
a good way, but they gnashed their teeth upon him. They started
lashing out at him for the truth that he spoke. And it's a picture
again. They were being pursued by the
truth. They were hearing the word of
God. They were being instructed in the right way. But rather
than bow and submit, they despised and rejected it and murdered
Stephen for telling them the truth. Like we see the picture
of Abner putting Azahel to death. They came out, they cast him
out of the city, and stoned him there. They stoned him. But that didn't stop the purpose
of God. What it all did was actually it made the persecution to be
hot enough that the church began to exit Jerusalem and to go out
and carrying that seed of the gospel with them wherever they
went. preaching and declaring these things of Christ, and many
heard, and the Lord blessed that word, and many believed, so that
that word went out to the Gentiles, so that we have it now, today,
for our blessing. And so, take heart, brethren,
to be faithful in preaching the gospel, to be faithful in declaring
this word of God faithfully, declaring Christ because the
Lord shows us in his word that he blesses it. He will have his
will accomplished in the earth to the praise, honor, and glory
of his darling son. Now, the third thing that we
see is that they kept pursuing Abner and his men. Verse 26,
then Abner called to Joab and said, shall the sword devour
forever? Knowest thou not that it will
be bitterness in the latter end? How long shall it be then, ere
thou bid the people return from following their brethren? And
Joab said, as God liveth, unless thou had spoken, if you didn't
open your mouth in the first place, this would have never
happened to begin with. You're the one that started this
thing. And surely then in the morning, the people had gone
up, everyone from following his brother. And so you see, Abner
was so quick to draw the sword for sport, but as soon as his
life was on the line, he didn't want to hear it no more. He wanted
a ceasefire. He wanted this thing all to go
away. It's like people who If there
was a God, why is there such wickedness in the world? Why
is this world so wicked? Well, wait a minute. You're the
one that's causing the wickedness. You and me. It's what we did
in the garden. We asked for this. This is what
we wanted. We brought sin and death into
the world, and now we're blaming God for that? We're the ones
to blame for that. It's only by the grace and mercy
of God that we have light and life and goodness and gentleness
and love and peace. and rest for God's sake. And so Joab blew a trumpet and
all the people stood still and pursued after Israel no more.
Neither fought they any more. And so Abner starts what he cannot
finish. And it shows us again the foolishness
of the nature of man and how foolish the nature of man is
in despising the word of God. The wicked man refuses that chief
cornerstone, the one whom God says, this is my beloved son,
in whom I am well pleased, he builds the house. He clothes
the naked. He feeds the hungry. He quenches
the thirst of the thirsty. Come to him. And they say, nope.
And they throw him aside, and they go on their way. And they're
only going to be destroyed. preaching to the Jews on this
very thing, was preaching the truth. And then the Gentiles
said, we want to hear that the next time. This is in Acts 13,
in verse 45 through 48. It says that when the Jews saw
the multitudes of the Gentiles, the lighting of what they were
hearing, and being gathered together to hear this word, they were
filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken
by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing ye put it from you,
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. The Lord can raise up sons of
God from stones, if need be. from people that are hard and
dead and inanimate and spiritual things. He can just take whom
he will and give them life and cause them to utter praise of
God for what he has done. But the natural man judges himself
unworthy of everlasting life. And he says, well, we've been
commanded to go be a light to the Gentiles with this word,
to be salvation to the ends of the earth in the name of Christ.
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. And there's the difference. If
left to ourselves, if God passes us by and leaves us to ourselves
like Esau, we might do okay in earthly things, but we will die
in our sins and have no eternal life, only eternal death, judgment,
and ruin, and bitterness only. But those who believe him, believe
him because of his grace and mercy, because of his spirit
poured out upon us. That's the spirit we need. We
need to be turned from that spirit of Antichrist, which we see in
Abner, and given a spirit of grace and supplication to seek
the Lord for his grace and mercy to believe on the Son of God. And those that believe were ordained
to that. And he gives the heart to his
people. Lord, save me, because we don't see what we want to
see or think we should see in ourselves. But he's merciful
to the sinner who cries out for mercy and grace. And then finally,
very quickly, we see that the wicked man is no better off afterwards
than when he started. He's no better off. He returns
to the place that he started. Back in verse 12, just look at
that real quick, 2 Samuel 2.12, And Abner the son of Ner and
the servants of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, went out from
Mahanaim. So they left Mahanaim, and then
go down to verse 29 now. And Abner and his men walked
all that night through the plain, and passed over Jordan, and went
through all Bithrin, and they came to Mahanaim." They just
went back with tail tucked between their legs, and we're told in
verse 31 that 360 men died. And David lost, in verse 30,
he lost 19 men plus Azahel. So it was costly. It was dear
to him. And the kingdom of God may suffer
some loss in this life. We may suffer some loss. We may
smart and experience trials that strip us. And it can be painful. We do suffer loss in this life,
but it's nothing compared to the glory that we gain. It's
nothing like the loss that the wicked lose for continuing in
their unbelief. Our loss cannot be compared to
the riches of our God that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so beware, brethren. As Paul said, again, lest that
come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets, behold ye
despises and wonder, and perish, for I work a work in your days,
a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare
it unto you. This is the word, brethren. If
you're being pursued by the truth, bow to the Lord, trust the Lord,
cry out for mercy. He means it for your good. It's
for your good to bow to Christ. It's for your good to hear Christ.
It's for your good to follow Christ. It's for your very life.
Your very life depends on it, on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
if you do believe Him, if you do cry out and confess Him and
believe Him in your heart, you have God to praise and give thanks
for because that's what He works in the heart for all those that
He loves and has ordained from the foundation of the world in
Christ. Amen.