Our second hymn will be He Hideth
My Soul, 258. He Hideth My Soul. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my
Lord, A wonderful Savior to me. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock, Where rivers of pleasure I see. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of his love and covers me there with his hand. And covers me there with His
hand. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my
Lord, He taketh my burden away. He holdeth me up, and I shall
not be moved. He giveth me strength as my day. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life
in the depths of His love, And covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His
hand. With numberless blessings each
moment He crowns, And filled with His fullness divine. I sing in my rapture, O glory
to God, For such a Redeemer as mine. He hideth my soul in the
cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of His love and covers me there with His hand. And covers me
there with His hand. When clothed in His brightness
transported, I rise To meet Him in clouds of the sky. His perfect salvation, His wonderful
love, I'll shout with the millions on high. He hideth my soul in
the cleft of the rock That shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of His love, and covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His
hand. Thank you. Returning with me, let's first
turn to Revelation 18. When you get to Revelation 18,
put a marker there, and then we're gonna return to our text,
which is Genesis 11, and that's where we'll begin. The start of Genesis chapter
11, it speaks of the building of the city and the tower of
Babel. This ancient city will come to
be known as Babylon, Babylon, that kingdom that took Judah
captive. But even now, here in its earliest
history, it is spiritual Babylon, which spreads the false religion
throughout the whole world. Now, we know that the Lord came
down. When they had done this, the
Lord came down and he confounded their language and he scattered
the people. All the nations of the earth,
from the reading of the scriptures, were there in Babylon. They were
all there. They had come down out of the
ark at the Mount Ararat, that mountain range Ararat, and made
their way down maybe down the Euphrates or one of the rivers,
and came upon that plain called Shinar. And it says in verse
9, Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord
did there confound the language of all the earth. And from thence
did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. And so this is from this point,
they were all scattered away, and all those nations that were
there present, they carried that language of confusion with them
throughout the whole face of the earth. Now Babylon is defeated
by the Lord Jesus Christ. He has redeemed his church with
his own blood and she's going to be entirely destroyed at the
return of Christ. But until he returns, our Savior,
because of the blessings that are obtained for His people through
the blood redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is even now
calling His people out from her captivity. He's given us His
Spirit, and He's given His Church the ministry of reconciliation,
this blessed Holy Gospel, which we declare, and by that word,
He calls His people out by His grace and His Spirit. He makes
us to hear that word and to hear the voice of our Savior. And
we come out from this wicked false religion. Now let's go
back to Revelation 18. These truths are pictured for
us here in Revelation 18. And we're gonna look at verses
one through four. And after these things, I saw
another angel. Now, when it says that in the
scriptures, that word angel is not always a created angel being,
but that word is used sometimes to describe Christ. It speaks
of Christ here. He saw another angel come down
from heaven, having, listen to this, great power, and the earth
was lightened with his glory. That's Christ. That is the Lord
Jesus Christ. He is the true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world, John 1.9 says. And he,
verse 2, cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation
of devils. and the hold of every foul spirit
and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. That strong voice
of our Lord Jesus Christ is heard in the preaching of the Gospel. That's where the strong voice
of Christ is heard by his people in the preaching of the gospel
and the gospel declared exposes the false religion. It shows
the people that what you're hearing under that false gospel is the
doctrine of devils and it cannot save you. It cannot save you. And therefore, all nations, and
he tells us, all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath
of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication
with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through
the abundance of her delicacies. This whole false religion is
just woven into the whole fabric of society that man delights
in and glories in. We are all born into darkness
and we are all partakers, by nature, of that false religion. We are all partakers of it. Verse
4, And I heard another voice from heaven. which is either
the voice of the Father or it's the Holy Spirit and the voice
of the church proclaiming the gospel saying, come out of her,
my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that you receive
not of her plagues. And so every one of God's elect
people, everyone whom He chose before the foundation of the
earth and gave, committed to the care of Christ His Son, they
hear that voice. They hear that strong voice,
they hear the gospel, and being blessed of God, being regenerated
by the Spirit, They hear that word and they come out. They
come out from trusting their vain, dead, false works that
cannot save them. That's what Christ has accomplished
in his redemption. This is the word that now goes
forth thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, now let's return
back to Genesis. I want you to see that. Because
that's, we're looking at this city of Babel. And it was founded
by a people cursed, by a man cursed. Let's look at Genesis
9 real quick. Genesis 9 verse 24 and 25. And Noah awoke from his wine
and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said,
cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his
brethren. He was cursing here Ham and all
of Ham's posterity down to Ham's youngest son, Canaan. And this
family is a type of all those who will never hear. It's a picture
of those who are hardened in their sin. They love their sin.
They rebel against God. They do not hear God's voice,
and they won't hear it, and God hardens them in their sin. It doesn't matter if they're
Jew or Gentile. This is speaking of all those who are cursed and
will not come out of that curse. They love it. They love it. And
it's not about one thing that we should know when, you know,
because people look at Ham and they say, oh, well, there's a
cursed race. And that's not what the Lord's teaching us at all.
This isn't about physical and carnal differences in man. There's one race. the human race. There's one race, the human race,
and we're all fallen in Adam and we must be saved. If we're
going to be saved it's by the grace of God regardless of our
physical traits and characteristics. There's one race and we we must
be saved by the grace of God in Christ. Now this man Nimrod
That's who we're going to be hearing of in a moment. This
man Nimrod personifies this corrupt and vile nature that's in us,
born of Adam. And he walks 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. And I say this all because this
is Babel's foundation. This is her founding here and
her foundation. Let's go to Genesis chapter 10. Let's stop at Genesis chapter
10 verses 8 through 10. And Cush, he's one of the sons
of Ham, and Cush begat Nimrod. And he began to be a mighty man,
a mighty one in the earth. He was a man of influence and
power. And it has something to do, his
influence was gained having something to do with what we read here
in this next verse, verse 9. He was a mighty hunter before
the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as
Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. Now that word before,
it means before the face of God. Sometimes it's translated against,
but it's before. What he did, the mighty deeds
this man was doing, was in just open sight, not even trying to
hide it from the Lord. He was a rebellious man. And verse 10 says, the beginning
of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, like Iraq. and Akkad and
Kalne in the land of Shinar. This is all in modern day, what's
called modern day Iraq. So this man is building a kingdom
in the earth, and he's believed to be a violent man, a bloodthirsty,
ambitious tyrant of a man. Now, notice that when we look
at the Whore of Babylon in Revelation, in Revelation 17.5, it calls
Babylon, Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots,
and Abominations of the Earth. abominations of the earth. Verse
six there of Revelation 17, she's described as being drunken with
the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And so seeing Nimrod being called
a mighty hunter, I don't believe that's speaking simply of him
being a big game hunter. a man who's taken down elephants
and tigers and things like that. He's a man who's hunted the souls
of men. Consider this, in Proverbs 6,
26, we're told that by means of a whorish woman, a man is
brought to a piece of bread and the adulteress will hunt for
the precious life. This whore of Babylon will hunt
for the precious life. And it shows us the appeal. In
describing her as a whorish woman, it shows the appeal of the flesh
to the false religion, the false gospel, things that puff up the
flesh and cannot save, that are not profitable for us. And so
this man Nimrod is a loyal subject of the evil one. And he hearkens
to the voice of the evil one, just like Adam hearkened to his
voice and plunged his whole posterity into spiritual darkness. And he put his whole posterity
in fleshly bonds. in fetters and chains and we're
taken captive by that evil spirit and that's the voice we hear
and we don't even know it. We think we're free and doing
what we want and we're slaves to this weak, fallen nature. Slaves to sin and we cannot free
ourselves from death. Peter even warns believers. This
is believers now. Peter warns believers who have
been delivered from that city, from that false religion. He
says, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil has
a roaring lion. A lion is a hunter. as a roaring
lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. And so Babel is
the city of this cursed hope, of the hope of the cursed, and
we must be delivered from it. And that deliverance is only
by the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. As we heard this
morning, you can adopt all these various forms of religion You
can pick anyone you want, and they're all the broad way that
leadeth to destruction. And many there are that are going
on that road. who must be delivered by the
grace of God in Christ. And this man Nimrod did not serve
God in spirit and in truth. He was of the same religion as
Cain. He was of the same religion as
Ham. Cain was proud of what he brought,
expecting God to be pleased with the fruit of the ground that
he brought. And he's of the same religion
as Ham, who mocked his father and pointed out all his faults
and did nothing to clothe him, because he had nothing to clothe
him with. He didn't know the truth. He believed the false
gospel. And this religion is the worship of self. It seeks
to defy the voice of God. God said, Ham's cursed. And Imrod
says, oh yeah, I'll show you. I'll show you what I can do.
and I'll build a lasting habitation for myself. And this man sought
to provide for all his needs. But scripture teaches us that
by the works of the law, there shall no flesh be justified.
By your religion, there shall be no flesh justified. And that
no man is justified by the law, and the sight of God is evident,
for the just shall live by faith. This is what our God is telling
us. We are saved by faith that looks to Christ, the one whom
the Father sent to save us from our sins. He has given us everything
we need in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And Nimrod, like the
law, is not a faith. not a faith and again as many
as of the works of the law are under the curse so that's Nimrod
he's the founder of this city and everyone who is of the flesh
is a subject of Nimrod's Babylon taken captive under that curse
but let's look now at the building of battle let's go to Genesis
11 and pick up in verse 1 We're told here first, and take note
of this, that the whole earth was of one language and of one
speech. That means that all the nations
all his sons and his grandsons and great-grandsons and their
children, all these people heard the faith of Noah. And they heard
the faith of Shem. And they heard the faith of Eber,
by whom the Jews are called Hebrews, by Eber. They heard their faith
declared, but they did not believe it. They didn't believe that
word which was preached unto them. And so the first thing
I would say is don't neglect this word of faith that you hear
by the glory of God. that you hear this strong voice
of salvation who says, I've saved my people. You're delivered in
me. Believe me, trust me. Don't look
to the works of your hands. Don't look to this false religion. It cannot save you. Look to me. Don't neglect that word and beg
God that you hear it, that you continue to hear it, that you
hear it by faith, by his spirit, by his grace. to help us to hear. We never stop needing that grace
of God to make us to hear, myself included. I'm always praying,
Lord, save me. Save me, Lord. Help me. Help
me to hear. Lord, I need your grace every
hour. Your people here need your grace. Lord, help us to hear it. Bless
us with your presence. Give us your spirit to hear this
word. Open my ear, Lord, because all
these nations heard this word and it did not profit them. They
heard it and they despised it. They despised it. They treated
it with contempt. And for a time, in verse one,
they all heard this word preached. They all knew what Noah said.
They all knew the truth. They knew what happened with
Shem, Ham, and Japheth when Noah was naked and Ham exposed his
sin and his brethren covered the sin. They heard the word
of faith preached, but soon they would be driven to utter confusion. and they wouldn't hear it anymore. And they carry that confusion
throughout the world, across the whole face of the earth. And so when, what we see in that
is those that hear it, who harden themselves, who harden themselves
against that word, the Lord says, I'll harden you in it. I'll harden
you even more in that word. We pray, Lord, soften my heart.
Lord, give me your spirit and soften my heart that I be not
hardened against it the way the flesh is. The way this flesh
is, Lord, and I'm still in the flesh. Save me, lest I be hardened
in my sin. Help me to hear. All right, verse
two and three. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the
east, or eastward, that they found a plain in the land of
Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another,
go to, let us make brick and burn them through thoroughly.
And they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar. Now the Lord has recorded this
for us here. The spirit has given us this
account of Babel. And it's to teach us of false
religion that is spread throughout the whole world. And we're to
hear it because all nations, as we saw in Revelation 18, all
nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
This is the spirit that we're drunk on by nature. You never
have to put a sip of alcohol to your lips. And by nature,
we're all drunk with this spirit, the wine of this spirit. Now,
I know that the flesh reads this, because I did it myself. The
flesh reads this and thinks, what's the big deal? These guys
are just building a city here in the plain of Shinar. But as we look at it, we see
this is actually describing the precepts of the flesh. This is exposing what the heart
trusts in. These are the precepts, the laws
of the flesh at the heart of false religion. First, I'll show
you four things here. First, the religion of the flesh
seeks to do the works of God. The religion of the flesh wants
to do God's work for itself. They said one to another, go
to let us make brick. Let us make brick. This invention
of man captures what's going on in the heart of man that despises
and rebels against God. This was the same language that
God used that's recorded for us when God made man. When the Lord said, let us make
man in our image. And what the Lord is showing
us, what he's showing us, you know, God made man upright. But
man has sought out many inventions, many inventions, that are seemingly
harmless, but are full of rebellion and wickedness against the truth
of God. The Jews, when they saw Christ,
when Christ came and they ate of that bread which he made and
distributed to them and the fishes and it multiplied to them, they
asked Christ, what shall we do that we may work the works of
God? What can we do that we may do
the work of God? Why? Because man wants to be
like God, independent of God. He wants that power and all those
blessings and be able to bring goodness to himself without God
being around. He wants to do the works of God. And our Lord said this, and this
is the voice we're to hear, this is the work of God that ye believe. on him whom he has sent." Christ
spoke of faith. That's the word of life. Not
what we do to save ourselves. Look to Christ. Believe Him. He speaks of faith. That's our
hope in Christ. Faith in Christ. Second, what
man, here's the next precept, what man puts his hand to, he
defiles it. He ruins it with sin. He thoroughly corrupts it. Regarding
the bricks, they said, let us burn them thoroughly. Let's burn these bricks thoroughly.
What are they doing? They're proving the work. They're
hardening the work. They're making sure that this
is a solid, sound, righteous work. This is solid, they're
saying. They're attempting to make for
themselves an everlasting city. A city that'll never crumble.
A city that'll never fall. A city that's going to endure
any and all judgments God will bring against it. I'm sure the
flood, I know how easily we forget things. I'm sure they still thought
of the flood. The brethren in the scriptures
record for us that next time it'll be by fire. Noah, they
probably heard Noah say, last time it was by water, next time
it'll be by fire. And they said, let's build us
a city that's going to endure any and all judgments that God
can throw at this thing. Let's make sure that we make
this thing burn thoroughly through so that it's hardened and a sure,
perfect work. That's what we do when men are
laboring for a righteousness in the law or in their religion,
in their practices, whatever it is that they're doing, they're
trying to make a sure righteousness that will endure the judgment
of God. Paul wrote this, every man's
work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because
it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is. And so these men wanted to burn
that brick through thoroughly to make sure it endures, it lasts,
it's eternal. That's what they're doing. It's
picturing the works that men do for righteousness. And what
our Lord shows us in the scriptures by his gospel is that there was
one man proved and He endured, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
proved of the Father. He endured, and His righteousness
is an everlasting righteousness. His work was proved of God on
the cross, and God was satisfied, the law was satisfied, the justice
of God is satisfied, so that His people, who come to God in
Him, are delivered. God is satisfied with all you
that believe. on Him whom the Father hath sent. And when our God raised Christ
from the dead, He declared, You that believe Him, you that believe
My Son whom I've sent, you're justified. You're justified,
I'm satisfied. All your sins are put away. Rest
in my son. Rest in him. Don't keep laboring
and striving and spending to make a righteousness for yourselves. I've provided everything for
you in my son. If an enduring righteousness
is what you seek, look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Put down your
bricks. Put down, all it's doing is building
up a wall between you and the living God. Come to Christ. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this outcome of man's works,
the next thing, the third thing we see is it's an imposter. It's
not righteousness. It's not the righteousness of
God. It's a work of death. It said, and they had brick for
stone in lieu of stone. Stone, God made the stones. He
made all those elemental things. God made it. A man saying, well,
in place of what God does, we're going to put our own works. Let's
make brick in lieu of stone. And these stones were made of
what? The dust of the earth. This white clay that was in that
part of the world found there. And they made it with their hands.
And it shows, it's just like what Cain did, when Cain grew
up the vegetables and the fruits, and he brought the best of the
best from the land. Although it doesn't even say
that, who knows what he brought, but he brought the fruit of the dirt. And that's
what we bring forth when we're doing good works to save ourselves,
we're bringing forth fruit of the dirt, of the dust of the
earth. And these bricks are made from
the dust of the earth, and they're made with our sinful hands. Man
himself is made of clay, and all his works are clay. For when
we were in the flesh, Paul said in Romans 7.5, the motions of
sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring
forth fruit unto death." Fruit unto death. It wasn't good fruit
unto God, which only Christ bears in his people. Fourth, when man
is done with his work, he's proud of it. He glories in his work. He believes, I've achieved something
for which God now owes me. eternal life. I've made a righteousness
and God must justify me for this work that I've done. It's a good
work and God must reward me now for what I've done. Our text
adds, and slime had they for mortar. Now besides the fact
that it's called slime, which is a picture of our works, they're
slimy, grimy, filthy works. But also that word slime It's
a reddish substance, and there are some, I think it's called
bitumen, but the thing that caught my eye is that it means to swell
up, to bubble up from the earth. And that, my friends, is the
pride of man, the pride of our hearts, because man vainly believes
that God's gonna reward him for his good works. And all it is
is pride, just bubbling up and swelling up from the dust. These
are the flesh's precepts. Do the work of God, do the best
you can, make it as hot as you can to withstand the judgment
of God, and it must be the fruit of your flesh, and you'll have
something to be proud of, and God will have to reward you from
that. These are the precepts of the flesh. Now, let me just
show you one more thing here. In verse 4, Nimrod and his men
were building a fortified, lasting kingdom. Verse 4 says, And they
said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top
may reach unto heaven. and let us make us a name, lest
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." And
so here's where we see that those seemingly harmless little precepts
of the flesh are now growing and building and becoming more
and more wicked. more and more evil. We're seeing
them more for what they are because these men were looking to save
themselves. They were looking to deliver
themselves from the judgment of God. The God who had given
them a token and said, I will never destroy you with water
again. I'll provide for you, believe
me. And they said, nope, no, we're
not gonna trust your word. We're not gonna believe what
you're saying. They wanted to protect themselves. And so in
this verse, there's four more motivations that they reveal
in what they say. First, they said, go to, let
us build us a city. Let's bring all our works together
and secure for ourselves a lasting habitation. But faith doesn't
rest in what we've done to secure for ourselves. Faith rests in
the promise of God in Christ. Our Lord told his disciples,
I go to prepare a place for you. And I go, and if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself
that where I am, there ye may be also. You don't have to provide
a lasting habitation for yourself. I'm doing it for you. Trust me,
believe me. Christ our Savior gave his life
for his people. And he gives faith to his people
so that like Abraham, we are made by the grace of God to look
for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. not our works, not what we put
together, but what God has done in Christ. Second, they said,
let us build us a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. Now, some noted when I was reading
this, some noted that this is speaking of a wall that they
were building around Babel. We always think of a tower, but
some say this is speaking of a wall that they're building.
And there are some scriptures in Deuteronomy that describe
the cities when they were coming into their inheritance that said
their city was fenced up to heaven. It was a great wall. Whether
it's a tower or they're speaking of walls is really not the point. What they are saying is we need
to build ourselves castle-like defensive structures. We need
to protect ourselves. We've got to do this so that
we don't get overtaken by anything, by anything. We're going to protect
ourselves. And so, that's what the flesh
does to save itself. We strive in the flesh. We labor
in the flesh. We spend in the flesh to make
a righteousness for ourselves to protect ourselves and deliver
ourselves from the wrath of God. The promised wrath of God against
sin. That's what we're spending and working for in the flesh. But God says, you're not going
to save yourselves. You're not going to deliver yourselves
from the judgment of God. They were building a tower whose
top may reach unto heaven. And I noticed back in Revelation
18 verse 5, God tells us that what they really built were sins
that reached up to heaven. That's what he said of Babylon.
He said, your sins have reached up to heaven. They're building
a wall to protect themselves. And God says, all you've done
is heaped up sin upon sin upon sin. And God's going to destroy
you for him. It's an offense to God because
we're despising the salvation of God. We're despising Christ.
We're not believing him. We're saying, forget that. I'm
doing what I need to do to make sure I've got a cache of works
here to protect myself against the Day of Judgment. Faith flees
to Christ. He is our protection. He is our
salvation. He's our help. He's the rock
in a weary land. He's our covering and our Savior. The name of the Lord, Proverbs
18.10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous
runneth into it and is safe. That's where we're safe, in Christ.
Third, they said, let us make us a name. They expected God
to say, wow, well done, fellas. Here's your reward. Here's a
reward. They thought God would glory in their name, but the
Lord tells us, he shows us the one, that name in whom we are
to glory. And he glorified the name of
Christ. Neither is there salvation in any other name given among
men, given under heaven whereby For there is none other name
under heaven given upon men whereby we must be saved. That's the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God gave him to his people for
their salvation. We don't glory in our works,
we glory in Christ, whom the Father has sent. He put away
our sins completely. He is sufficient to the uttermost
to save us. We don't need anything else.
We have everything in the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
He has overcome our insurmountable walls of sin. He's brought them
down and brought us into the safety of Christ, under His wings,
under His protection. He's reconciled us to God. And
fourth and finally, they said their motivation was lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. They were doing these works to
preserve their lives, to make a name for themselves and to
preserve themselves alive. Faith, however, has no other
hope. Faith says, I know whom I've
believed and I've committed all things to him against that day.
Faith rests in Christ. Faith believes Christ and He's
a good hope. Don't look away from Him. Don't
trust your works. Your works don't add up. They
will not stack up. All that stacks up is sin. But
Christ has put away that sin forever. He is the righteousness
of God. He is, in Him is forgiveness
and peace and reconciliation and life and hope and love. The love of the Father is found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We see it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they were scattered. They
were scattered. They thought to protect themselves
and God came down and scattered them and sent them away with
confusion of language. And Mark 8, 35 says, for whosoever
will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose
his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save
it. They heard Christ, they didn't
believe it, and so they labored in their own strength, in their
own works, their own ideas, their own philosophies, their own vain
deceits. And that's confusion. And that
is the confusion of the false religion, which is now spread
across in all nations, across the face of all the earth. But the understanding that God
gives his child, is the word of faith which we preach. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Amen. Let's pray, and then brother,
close us in a hymn. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your grace. We thank you, Lord, for your
peace and mercy and abundance of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, that by your
strong voice you expose the religion of the flesh. You show us the
things that this flesh hopes in, which is nothing more than
the doctrine of devils that cannot save. Lord, thank you for your
light. Thank you for blasting away those
things that we naturally hope in and showing us Christ. Lord, give us faith in Him. Let
us trust in nothing else besides the Lord Jesus Christ. Be merciful
to us in Him. Receive us in Him. Draw us to
Him. Keep us ever in Christ Jesus,
our Lord. Lord, in Him we could want for
nothing more. Help us, Lord. Keep us there. We see how wicked, how evil,
how deceitful false religion is, and we see the perfection
of our God in Christ. Lord, draw us to Him. Help us,
every sinner here, to look to Him and to Him alone. It's in
Christ's name we pray and give thanks. Amen. Let's stand and sing a closing
hymn, 447. I have found a friend in Jesus,
447. I've found a friend in Jesus,
he's everything to me. He's the fairest of ten thousand
to my soul. The lily of the valley, in him
alone I see. All I need to cleanse and make
me fully whole. In sorrow He's my comfort, in
trouble He's my stay, He tells me every care on Him to roll. He's the lily of the valley,
the bright and morning star, He's the fairest of ten thousand
to my soul. He all my griefs has taken, and
all my sorrows borne, In temptation He's my strong and mighty tower. I have all for Him forsaken,
and all my idols torn, From my heart, and now He keeps me by
His power. Though all the world forsake
me, and Satan tempt me sore, Through Jesus I shall safely
reach the goal. He's the lily of the valley,
the bright and morning star. He's the fairest of ten thousand
to my soul. He will never, never leave me,
nor yet forsake me here, while I live by faith and do His blessed
will. A wall, a fire about me, I've
nothing now to fear. With His manna, He my hungry
soul shall fill. Then, sweeping up to glory, I'll
see His blessed face, where rivers of delight shall ever roll. He's the lily of the valley,
the bright and morning star. He's the fairest of ten thousand
to my soul. Thank you.