Our text is going to be in 1
Samuel chapter 2. But, as we were singing that
hymn, a verse came into my mind that really captures what this
message is teaching us. What we're going to hear in this
message, and it's from Romans 3, and it's verse 20, which says,
By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. And then
Paul goes on to say, but now the righteousness of God. The
righteousness of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what
we see here in our text from 1 Samuel chapter 2. The Lord
is taking our eyes off of the law and thinking that we can
make ourselves righteous under the law and to put our eyes on
the righteousness of Christ. He's the righteousness of God.
And that's what our Lord is doing. He's turning us from thinking
that we are something under the law and can make a righteousness
for ourselves and save ourselves. And that this is how we come
to God. And he's saying, no, not at all.
You look to Christ, my savior. That's the one whom I've sent.
You looked it to my son. So first Samuel two. Now we've
seen so far in this chapter, it begins with Hannah's prayer.
And that's a beautiful prayer, turning our eyes upon Christ. And then after her prayer, picking
up around verse 11, the scriptures begin to detail the sins of Eli's
household. Who was Eli? What's so important
about him? Well, Eli is the high priest
of Israel at that time. And that means he's a descendant
of Aaron. And he's actually from Ithamar,
Aaron's youngest son. We don't know how this happened,
because it should have been through Eleazar. But at some point, somewhere,
it changed. And now this Eli, Ithamar's son
or grandson or something, he is the high priest. And he has
two sons that he has laboring as a priest, labors in the temple
for the people. He has Hophni and Phinehas. And these men were abusing the
office of the priest. They were oppressing the people.
They were dishonoring God. They were doing things that caused
the people of God to just not want to be there. They didn't
want to come and sacrifice to the Lord. These men were taking
portions of their sacrifice. They were taking things that
they shouldn't be taking, and they were taking them when they
shouldn't be taking them, and just taking what they wanted
to fatten themselves up. In fact, we find out that Eli
was partaking of it. He wasn't doing those things.
He wasn't going after it. His sons were, but he wasn't
forbidding it. And he himself is a very heavy man. He's full of fat and very heavy,
because he was partaking of it. But by the actions of these men,
what the Lord is showing us here in the scripture, what they're
meant to do is to bring us to see there's cracks here. There's
problems here with the law. There's something that's not
right here. And it's because the Lord is
teaching his people that the law is unable to save sinners. The law is not able to make sinners
righteous. And that's how they were using
it. They were trying to make themselves righteous. And the
problem isn't with the law. The problem is with us. We're
the sinners. It's the infirmity of our flesh. It's the weakness of our flesh.
And so rather, when we go to the law, rather than working
a righteousness, and the law is not going to make you righteous,
Rather than being made righteous, rather than improving ourselves,
what we are found by the law is that we are sinners. That's
what the law shows us. It shows us that we are sinners
before God. And that's because this flesh
is corrupt. The Lord's teaching us, we fell
in Adam. We sinned in Adam. We died in
Adam. We became rebels and enemies
of the true and living God in Adam. We come forth naturally,
not having a spark of divinity in us, not having some light
of God in us. We're sinners. We're rebels against
God, completely entirely against God. And we are dependent on
the grace and mercy of God. Otherwise we will not come to
him. And so we're not going to work
a righteousness for ourselves. And then we see a picture of
Eli. Eli was an old man. It says that
in verse 22. Now Eli was very old. And one
of the pictures that that gives us Here in this passage is that
Eli, he tried to talk to his sons, Hophni and Phinehas. And
he told them, hey, what you're doing is wrong. Don't do this
anymore. You're asking for trouble. The
Lord's going to correct you if you don't fix this. And he said
these things, but he was not able to constrain the lusts and
the passions of Hophni and Phinehas, which is a picture of us. This
old man of flesh, once in a while we get a thought, I'm going to
fix this, I'm going to make things right, I'm going to do better,
but this old man is unable to constrain and control the lusts
and the passions of our nature. We're sinners, and that's going
to become plain to us if we're the Lord's people. He's going
to make us to know our corruption, our sin, and our shortcomings. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And he tells us in the scriptures,
Paul writes to the Romans, Romans 8, 8, saying that there shall
no flesh In the flesh, no man can please the Lord. We don't
please the Lord by the flesh. They that are in the flesh cannot
please the Lord. And then another lesson that we see here from
Eli is, well, he's the high priest. He represents the priesthood
under the Old Testament. And the priest in the Old Testament
was to minister to the people the things of God. He stood there
and ministered to the people of God. He was to bring them
in an acceptable manner before the Lord and to represent them
there so that God would receive them in the law of Moses. And
there's three things that we see as we study the Old Testament,
as we look at it, we'll see that the high priest did three services
for the people. He was to sacrifice to God for
the people. He was to make a sacrifice to
them to atone for their sins. He was to intercede for the people
of God so that the Lord wouldn't destroy them, but that he would
receive the sacrifice and forgive his people. And then finally,
he was to bless the people and seek the blessings of God for
the people that he ministered to. But this chapter is showing
us that by the law, we're not made righteous under the law.
We're found sinners. sinners and we cannot save ourselves
by the works of the law and this chapter serves as an example
one of many examples of what Paul wrote to the Galatians in
322 when he said the scripture hath concluded all under sin
that's what the scripture is showing us every one of us is
a sinner But God did it for a reason. God had a gracious purpose in
showing us that we're sinners. It's not just to put our face
in it. It's not just to make us feel
bad about ourselves. God has a gracious purpose in
showing his people that they're sinners. And Paul said it in
the rest of Galatians 3.22, that the promise by faith of Jesus
Christ might be given to them that believe. to them who hear
the word and believe Christ and come to God by faith in Christ,
trusting him for righteousness. And so he shows us this, that
we would come to him, not in the works of the law, not thinking
that we're something, not to try and come to God in the law,
but that we would come to God in Christ, in Christ. And so
we're not going to fare any better than Hockney and Phineas fared
under the law. Their shortcomings are our shortcomings. And we may do things a little
different. We may even get further than them. But if you continue
to try and come to God, In the law, you will die in your sins. That's what Christ said to the
Jews. He said, if you believe not that I am he, that I am the
Christ, meaning all your salvation, if you believe me not, you will
die in your sins. That's what he said. And so we're
seeing that by the law. That's not our righteousness.
Our righteousness is Jesus Christ. He's our acceptance with the
father. So, as we come to the close of this chapter, our Lord,
in verse 27, sends a prophet, a man of God, to speak to Eli. And, in essence, what he's telling
him is the Lord's going to abolish this priesthood, and he's going
to raise up a faithful priest, after the order of Melchizedek.
He doesn't say those words here in this passage, but in the Scriptures,
that's what the Lord shows us, is that there's going to be a
new priest after the order of Melchizedek, and he's going to
fulfill that role of the high priest for my people. He's going
to do it faithfully, unlike what we see here with Eli and his
sons. We're gonna see, we're gonna
look at some things about the priesthood of Christ tonight. That's what I wanna show you,
some things about Christ tonight based on what our Lord tells
us, or tells Eli, or tells us through speaking to Eli what
he shall do. And our text is specifically
verse 35. So 1 Samuel 2, 35. And I will
raise me up a faithful priest that shall do according to that
which is in mine heart and in my mind, and I will build him
a sure house, and he shall walk before mine anointed forever."
Now, historically, This does seem to have a fulfillment historically
in the Old Testament. That is, when Solomon became
king. So he was David's son and he
became the king. And he removed the high priest
at that time, Abiathar was his name. And Abiathar was from the
lineage of Eli. He was the high priest at that
time. And he removed him because he
was found treasonous. He committed treason against
the king. And we're told this in 1 Kings 2, 26 and 27. This is Solomon speaking to Abiathar.
And he said unto him, the king said, get thee to Anatoth, unto
thine own fields, for thou art worthy of death. But I will not
at this time put thee to death, because thou bearest the ark
of the Lord before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted
in all wherein my father was afflicted." In other words, he
did serve faithfully to David and the sufferings of David,
he was faithful to him. He served him and suffered with
the king faithfully, but But he went after another one of
David's sons and was found treasonous because Solomon was made king. And so Solomon thrust out Abiathar
from being priest unto the Lord. that he might fulfill the word
of the Lord which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh. So this was the end of Eli's
lineage there in the priesthood. And that man was replaced with
Zadok. Zadok was actually from Eleazar,
the older son. So it went back now to the eldest
son there with Aaron. Now, as with all scriptures,
this is not just to teach us a historical lesson about these
things. They're not very profitable to
us just to learn about that. But these are given to us as
types and shadows and pictures to show us that Christ who did
come and what he did is in fulfillment of what the Lord has spoken and
he is the fullness of the fulfillment. He is the anti-type. He is the
one whom the pictures all point to, and now the one whom all
the scriptures testify to, and sing of, and glorify, and speak
of, because our God pleases our Father to glorify His Son in
the hearts and minds of His people. That's how we're saved. And so
it's to make Christ known to us. Now let's see verse 35 one
more time. 1 Samuel 2.35 And I will raise
me up a faithful priest that shall do according to that which
is in mine heart and in my mind. And I will build him a shore
house, and he shall walk before mine anointed forever. Now, I
don't know the specifics of what Zadok did or didn't do. I can't
really speak of them. All I know is that he fulfilled
that role to replace Abiathar. But I do know exactly what Christ
does and what Christ has done in accordance with the will of
the Father. And he does it perfectly. And
so we see Christ meets all these things that God said that he
would do in raising up a faithful priest that would do his will. And so the scriptures and the
Spirit reveal things to us about Christ. We know that God the
Father sent his only begotten Son in order to work and obtain
salvation for his people. If there was a law that could
have been given whereby we could make ourselves righteous, then
Paul says in Galatians that God would not have sent the Son.
He wouldn't have sent Christ and he certainly wouldn't have
sacrificed him on the bloody tree there. He sent His Son to
be a faithful high priest, and when He came, He did everything
according to the heart and mind of the Father for the people.
For example, we know that when Christ came, the Scriptures tell
us that He was made a propitiation for His people. A propitiation. This is what the Scripture says
in Romans 3.25, Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for
the remission of sins that are past. Remission meaning forgiven,
for the forgiveness of sins that we've done through the forbearance
of God. And so when Christ came, He came
as a propitiation, to be the propitiation. And what that means
is, under the law, we are sinners. In Adam, we've rebelled against
God. We continually sin. Like the
scriptures say, we commit iniquity like a man drinks water. We commit
sin and do all kinds of sins that we don't even realize that
we're doing. And we don't see or know the offense that we are
to the true and living God by nature. And so when Christ came,
The wrath and the anger of God was against us, against me, for
my sins. And when Christ came, he interposed. The wrath was on me. The gaze
of God's judgment was upon me for my sins. And when Christ
came, he said, Father, put that gaze on me. Look on me, Lord. I'll pay the debt for their sins.
Put their sins on me. I am accountable. I'm their surety. I'll pay the price. Their death,
I'll die their death. Let them go free. Take me. Let the sheep go free. And so
that judgment, that wrath of God, which was against me, was
propitiated, meaning it was turned from me and put on Christ. That's the propitiation. The
wrath was turned from me and was put on Christ instead. That's
what it means that he is a propitiation. He turned that wrath from his
people that we might live and know the true and living God. And so he came into the world
to make an atonement, to make that covering, to satisfy God
so that his justice is fully satisfied and his people go free
in him. Now Christ did this by the sacrifice
of himself. He shed his own blood. A high
priest shed the blood of bulls and goats. That's not able to
save us. the blood of bulls and goats.
Peter writes of this saying that you're not redeemed with corruptible
things such as silver and gold and what he's saying there or
even if you look at the blood of bulls and goats What he's
saying is it's not by our works in religion. We're not redeemed
because we came here tonight. We're not redeemed because we
read the scriptures and read the scriptures. We're not redeemed
for our prayers. We're not redeemed for beating
ourselves and making ourselves feel terrible because of our
sin. That's not what redeems us. We're
not redeemed because we light candles and we burn incense and
we go to big ornate buildings with stained glass and crosses
and all kinds of religious-looking symbols. That's not our redemption.
Our redemption is the blood of Christ, not the blood of bulls
and goats. That's what that picture, the
blood of bulls and goats, it all pictures dead religion, dead
letter religion. Instead, we're redeemed with
the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. And so, the next thing that our
Lord is showing us, that our God is showing us is that the
sufferings of Christ, the weakness of Christ coming in the likeness
of this flesh was all ordained and purposed of God. It was all
determined before the foundation of the world for the salvation
of His people. God purposed for the rejection
of His people who rejected Him the sufferings of Christ, His
violent death being taken, all that was ordained of God. It
was purposed of God. Peter even stood up before the
Jews, and he says, speaking of Christ, that Him being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, He have
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. And so, what he's showing us,
what the Lord's teaching us here, and revealing Christ to us, is
that it reveals to us something of the love of our Father for
you, His people, for whom He sent His Son. He purposed this
in Christ for you. He purposed your salvation in
Christ. when the light of God, when He
brought forth the uncreated light, saying, let there be light, when
He created the earth, that was a testimony of God's gracious
will and purpose for people that He would create here on the earth.
It was in darkness, the world. And He said, let there be light.
And it declared, God has a gracious will and purpose for someone
that He's going to put here. And that's a picture of His Son. He is the light. God's people
who reveals to us the gracious will and purpose of Almighty
God and what he's done. And so Christ's coming shows
us the love of God. It shows us his purpose to be
gracious to us before we ever sinned in Adam in the garden.
God had a purpose to be gracious to us in Christ. That we might
know the manifold wisdom and mercy and grace of God and have
fellowship with him and to enter into that glory with our God,
and that fellowship and friendship with our God. And so he tells
us this, not as just dead letters to hear, not as just some religious
rote for us to memorize, but to know the grace and mercy of
our God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, to encourage
you, look to him. Believe him. Lean wholly upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is gracious and merciful.
He didn't come here to condemn you. He came here to save his
lost sheep. To call you out of darkness and
to be kind and give you an inheritance, an expected end in Him. And so
we see our God's grace toward us, His willingness to forgive
us in Christ because whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel
determined before to be done, that's what Christ came and did.
He came and did all that was in the heart and the mind of
God. he came to do for his people. And that's what it said there,
the first half of that verse. In 1 Samuel 2.35, I will raise
me up a faithful priest that shall do according to that which
is in my heart and in my mind. Christ is that faithful priest. There's not another priest in
the world that is more faithful than him that came anywhere near
close to what Christ has done for the people of God. He's the
faithful priest. And our Lord shows it in scripture
that he's doing and came and fulfilled the heart and mind
of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but
have everlasting life. That's God's heart. for you,
his people, for you that believe, for you that have been delivered
from darkness. That's his heart in Christ. And so Christ didn't
rebel against the father. And he took us unto himself. And just as the father sent him
to do, and he tells us in scriptures, we won't look at this tonight,
but in Psalm 110, verse four, he said, the Lord has sworn and
will not repent. Thou, speaking to Christ, thou
art a priest forever. after the order of Melchizedek.
And so we'll see that more as the Lord blesses us together. We'll see it more and more, but
these things which Christ did form the basis and the foundation
of our confidence in Him. He's not a dead letter prophet. He's not just some dead letter
figure in dead letter religion. He's real. He's living. He accomplished
our redemption. by the death of himself according
to the will and purpose of the Father. He did this. He did this. And so that's why
I stand here before you and preach Him and only preach Him and don't
talk about the dead letter things but show you how they all point
to Christ who is the living Savior. saves his people and gives you
life to know him to experience him right now right now in spirit
and in truth now at the end of that verse it says of 1st Samuel
2 35 and I will build him a sure house and he shall walk before
mine anointed forever and so This is the language of the scriptures
that speaks of Christ coming and executing that office of
the high priest. Now, here's a few, let me just
give you a few verses. Zechariah, go to Zechariah verse
six. So that's going to be after Ezekiel
and Jonah, Hosea and Jonah and all them. Let's go down a little
further. Zechariah, that comes before
Zachariah. Zechariah 6 and we're going to
look at verse 12 and 13 and again we're only scratching the surface
but you know when we get through Genesis we're going to go right
on into Exodus and see all these types in the law and so I just
want to begin to show you what the priesthood and what he accomplished
and speak unto him Verse 12 saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts,
saying, Behold the man whose name is the branch, and he shall
grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of
the Lord. And that's what the Lord did.
He ordained Christ. Christ said, I'll raise this
temple up in three days. tear it down and I'll raise it
up in three days." And he did that when he rose from the dead,
after he sacrificed himself unto the Father for his people. Now
verse 13, even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he
shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne,
and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of
peace shall be between them both." Right, he's talking about a priest
sitting on a throne, which again is a picture showing us that
this priest who would walk before his anointed, which is the king,
is showing us that all this is met in Christ. He's not only
the prophet, he's the priest and he's the king. He's all things
to us. And all these offices are fulfilled
perfectly, wonderfully in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything
else is just a type. It's just a picture. It's just
a shadow to speak to us of the glory of Christ who fulfills
it all perfectly in its fullness. And then the scriptures go into
great depth about what the high priest wore, not only what he
did there in his office, but what he wore. And all these things
have symbolic meaning. They all speak to us of the gospel
and what Christ accomplishes. Let me give you another example
here in Nehemiah. Nehemiah 7, verse 65. It says, and the Tirshatha said
unto them, now that's just a word, I think that's either Babylonian-ish
word or Persian word, that means governor, that's all. It's just
the governor said, which was Nehemiah at the time, when he
came back from the captivity, and the governor said unto them
that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood
up a priest with Urim and Thumim. Now, Urim and Thumim, this has
to do with the priesthood. And what these were were stones
that were kept in a pocket or in a pouch or something on the
breastplate of judgment, which the high priest wore when he
sacrificed and ministered in those sacrifices to make an atonement
for the people. And urim means lights. And Thummim means, what does
that mean actually? Yeah, perfection. It means perfection. And what it's showing us there
is that Christ is, He reveals the true and living God to us
perfectly. He's the light that gives us
an understanding of who God is. Because by nature, we are in
darkness. We are dead in trespasses and
sins, meaning we don't know the true and living God. We're like
the woman at the well with all kinds of oddball questions that
aren't even in the ballpark of things. And Christ says, the
day is coming when you're going to worship the true and living
God, not on this mountain, not at this well, not in this place,
or in Jerusalem. Those who worship God will worship
him in spirit and in truth. And the one who does that is
Christ. He's the light of God's people.
He's the one who reveals to us the Father. Otherwise, we're,
like we see in the Old Testament, we're just going into religion
thinking, well, this is what's going to please God. This is
what's going to gain my acceptance with God. This is what's going
to cleanse my guilty, filthy conscience from my sins. If I
do this, if I do this right, I better do it better next time,
because it didn't do it. It didn't get the job done. I'm
still fearful. I'm still afraid. I'm still scared,
because that's what we do in religion. I'm reading my Bible
more. I'm praying more, which is all
good. We should do those things, begging God to show us Christ,
because Christ shows us the Father, and He's the one who gives us
peace. So long as we're looking to religion
to give us peace, we're always afraid, and we're always wondering,
did I do enough? I don't think I did enough. And
no, you didn't, and I didn't. That's not how we're delivered
from darkness. John the Apostle said in him
in Christ was life. He's the word that was made flesh
and in him was life and the life was the light of men and the
light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended
it not. Because we're so busy looking
at what we should be doing and we get caught up in the historical
things of the priesthood and it's not about memorizing what
the priest wore and what he did, it's seeing what do these things
speak of? Who do they speak of? They speak
of Christ. They speak of Him who is our
life, who propitiated the wrath of God, taking it from us, putting
it on Himself because He came as our shorty and took our place
as our substitute to bear our sins, to put them away forever,
and to make us righteous in His own righteousness, and to put
His righteous robe on us, and to bring us into the presence
of the Father. Father, here am I and the children
which Thou hast given me. to bring us in triumphantly in
His glory, in His grace, in His power to know the true and living
God. And that's what He's doing. That's what He makes known to
us. And that's what He accomplished.
Now, again, thinking of what this faithful priest would do,
turn over to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53. Let's go to the end of that chapter,
picking up in verse 10. We see this again of what our
faithful high priest did for us in laying down his life. Yet it pleased the Lord, Father
who sent him, to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed,
that is, you for whom he laid down his life, you whom he redeemed
with his own blood. He shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. There it is. I will send a faithful
priest who will do all that's in my heart and my mind. All
that I've purposed to do for you in grace, I'll send him. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. And he bare the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors. And so what we
fail to do when we come to this chapter and we see these guys
have made a mess of things. And it's just a picture of what
the mess that we make in trying to come to God in the law and
in religious things, thinking that that's my righteousness
and that's why God is pleased with me. That's just making a
mess of it. That's darkness. That's not light.
What we failed to do by the law of Moses, Christ accomplished
perfectly by His perfect obedience. He's the faithful priest whom
the Father speaks of here that He would send to save His people
from their sins. By one offering, He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Sanctified by Him, by His blood. what he did. And so Christ gives
us life in himself by giving us his spirit. He raises us from
the dead, from trusting in dead things that cannot save, and
he calls us by his gospel, opening our ear, circumcising the ear,
circumcising the heart, so that we hear that gospel call and
come in faith. And it hits that soil prepared
by the Spirit of God. We don't prepare it. The Spirit
of God prepares the soil to hear and to receive that Word. And
so my high priest Your high priest makes us to know the true and
living God. That's something Eli and Hophni
and Phineas did not do. They made it dark. They clouded
it up with all their works and their wicked works of flesh that
they were doing, sticking in their flesh hooks and ripping
out the meat out of the pot and taking what they wanted. They
were obscuring. They were hiding God from the
people. But Christ comes and he doesn't
do that. We preach Christ, and he's the
light. And so he says, this is the Father.
Behold his love, who sent me to save you, because you can't
save yourselves. And don't be afraid. I've got
good news for you. I've laid down my life. My blood
is sufficient and has saved you and cleansed you from all your
sins. You're mine. And he gives you a spirit so
that we walk now by faith in the new man, looking to Christ.
And he strips away all those dead works that we trusted in.
He says, let that go. Put that down. That's not your
righteousness. That's just a distraction. Let
that go. Don't look there. Look at me.
And he just keeps us coming to the Father in him, in him, because
he's perfect and He's our light and He makes us to know the true
and living God and He's able to do this because in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is the gracious will
and purpose of your Father who loved you and chose you before
the foundation of the world and put you in Christ, gave you to
the arms of Christ to do this for you, to not leave you in
darkness, to not leave you trusting dead things that cannot save.
To not leave you under an Eli or a Hophni or a Phineas who's
lying to you and just doing things in the flesh. He sent you Christ. And so we don't have confidence
in earthly priests. We don't have confidence in lighting
candles and hoping our family member prays for us or something
like that when we're dead. That's not our hope. Our hope
is Christ. Your hope isn't in what will
you do, it's all in Him and what He has done. Trust your God,
trust the Savior whom the Father has sent for this purpose, to
make known to you the way of salvation. It's Him, He is the
way. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And I'll close with this verse,
for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness when
He created the earth, And He's shown that uncreated light on
that dark planet, has shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, so that's why we
look to Him. He's the beauty, the faithful
priest of Almighty God, sent to save you and give you hope
and confidence in Him, not ourselves, but to believe Him and come to
the Father in Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.