If you will, let's turn to Acts
chapter 1. I want to pick up hopefully right
where we left off Wednesday evening. I got a little long-winded. I just felt compelled today to
preach on this. Looking at Moses there in Exodus
and if you go through where we are there and read about what
the Lord speaks to Moses and then you go read Things that
Paul said, it's just the exact same. It's exactly the same experience. same for all the Lord's preachers
and his people and things the Lord teaches us and what he shows
us but I dwelled on that and I was driving down here this
morning and I just I think the message and I thought we need
to we need to finish this up so Acts chapter 1 look there
in verse 14. These all continued with one
accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the
mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. And in those days,
not that very same day, not the day they went up for joy, but
a few days later, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples
and said, the number of these names gathered were about 120.
There's about 120 people there. Men and brethren, This scripture must needs have
been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake. This was the Holy Ghost speaking.
Use David as the pen. Before concerning Judas, which
was God to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us.
and had obtained part of this ministry. He didn't maintain
it to the end. It wasn't made faithful to the
end, but he used to preach a gospel. He used to say some good things.
Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity,
and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and his
bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the
dwellers at Jerusalem, insomuch as that the field is called in
their proper tongue Aslodama, that is to say the field of blood,
for it is written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation
be desolate and let no man dwell therein. And his bishopric, let
another take. We looked last time at the difference
between Peter and Judas. You remember what that difference
was? One could not leave the Lord no matter what. No matter
the shame, no matter the guilt, no matter who was in town. It
had to be where the Lord was. And the other killed himself
so he didn't have to be around the Lord's people. He didn't
want anything to do with that gospel. Didn't want anything
to further that gospel. He wouldn't lay down his life for that gospel.
It wasn't life to him. It was a burden and it disgusted
him. He was just mad that he had to sit there and listen to
it. And so he killed himself. He hung himself. Why did Peter
preach that? Do you remember that? They came
up there in that upper room. That sanctuary, where the Lord
meets with his people, where the Lord speaks comfort to his
hearts. And then we go out, we get the classroom learning, and
then we go out, and that's our practicum. That's the, where
we put it in shoe leather and we learn it. And that's right.
Yes, yes, yes. And we come and we rejoice in
his house because of what he says. And then we go out into
the world. We don't go hide in a cave somewhere. We don't go
on the backside of the desert and huddle up and be all by ourselves.
We walked through this world with his word in us. But they
were in this upper room and they had joy. And they were all there
because they wanted to be there. And they were all there for one
reason. Because the Lord revealed himself to them and he was risen.
One of the old writers said, this is the purest form of the
church. That's recorded. How long did
that take to get stinky? that fast. And if it wasn't,
if it would have stayed that way, and I showed up, it would
have went south quicker. Y'all heard Brother Don say it
a hundred times, right? If you think you found the perfect church,
don't go there. You'll ruin it. Don't move there. If you think
that place is perfect. It didn't take long until that
preacher that was there heard what was coming out of the mouths
of those he preached to. He heard their concerns. He heard
their bad concerns and their good concerns and their fears. And we're a frightful people.
He heard their pains. And he said, what's wrong with
you? Though it was legitimate. They turned around and said,
Lord, is it I? Judas failed. He could fall. Buddy, how long
would I last? If Paul saw through a glass dimly,
how much do you know? Are you real sound in the scriptures?
How much do I know? That great apostle, he said,
I'm just getting glimpses, boys. I'll tell you about the scriptures.
That's foolish is what that is. That's a fool is what it is.
But he stood up and he said, everything that happened with
Judas, that's what that's talking about, had to be. Everything
that happened with Judas, why he fell, that's because the Lord
purposed it. He's on his throne. Behold your God. Yeah, if he
took his hand off you, you'd fall too. All flesh is grass. Look to him. Don't look at your
sin, look at his blood. Don't look at your failure, look
at his faithfulness. Don't look at your pettiness,
look at his generosity. Some people call that preaching.
Blessing the hearts of the Lord's people. Comfort them. I'm nothing. You're right. He's everything. Quit looking to you. Look to
Him. All of our fear and our anxiety
and our unbelief and us getting spun up over things, that's evidence
that we don't believe God and that we don't know Him that well.
And we don't remember his promises. It's just proof to us. I was
gonna write an article this week about indwelling sin. Vernacular
changes over the years. And there's faithful men of old
that said some things that I wouldn't say in our day. And I know what
they meant by it. But Spurgeon wrote about indwelling
sin. What mankind means nowadays is
I'm so good and there happens to be just a little bit of bad
left over in me. That's wrong. Go read Romans
7. Paul said, that sin that's in
me, not a little bit. He said, that is in my flesh,
the whole of me. There's a new creation, that's
a baby. It'd be like a child in my kingdom, Lord said. That's
a little part. And that sin's the bulk of it,
isn't it? What that new creation's housed
in. Don't look at those things. And that's our instinct to look
at it, isn't it? And to get scared of what's going on outside, what's
going on inside of us. And all we do is talk about those
things. and aches and pains and we'll look next to our arthritis
comes to us. Why do you think the Lord made
us that way? The trials that we go through, well, what's God
teaching you? Did he do it by accident or did he do it on purpose?
Take a breath and wait on him and see what he's teaching us.
See what his word says. Peter, that's good preaching,
isn't it? Peter was preaching good. Would the Lord raise up
Judas on purpose and make him walk with him for three years
and have him preach and teach and heal the sick and baptize
folks and then take his hand off of him just for his glory
and our benefit? We'll discuss that some too.
The Lord uses a variety of things to teach his children, doesn't
he? Just like we use things to teach little children things.
And he's so plain in his preaching. He said, I'm the door, I'm the
way, I'm the light. Things we can understand, isn't
it? But he also speaks loudly sometimes. And he speaks mildly,
either through Judas falling or through nations. Me turnin'
over to Isaiah 43. I was thinkin' about one of the
Lord's saints who got a job offer. The job was in jeopardy last
year. Got a job offer in Hawaii. That's
nice there. Y'all ever seen pictures of that
place? And not that they would move, but you think about things.
If I say, don't think about a walnut tree. What's the first thing
you think of? Walnut tree. They can't move there. Ain't
no gospel there. But there's cheap flights sometimes, right?
We can make it back on the weekends. Just to entertain the thought.
God burnt that place to the ground two days later. And then on the
other hand, something close, and you know what, you can get
a 50% pay increase and doing the same thing. Now it's gonna
take about an extra five hours a week, just 30 minutes here,
30 minutes there. Take a little bit more time,
a little bit more time away from the gospel. Makes headline news
under investigation, violating policies, about to shut that
place down. Sometimes when the Lord speaks, he speaks loudly.
Look here in Isaiah 43, verse three. This is the word of the
Lord. He's speaking, he says, For I
am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I
gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Why would
he do such a thing? Since thou was precious in my
sight. Thou has been honorable and I've
loved thee. Therefore will I give men for
thee and people for thy life. How in the world could the Lord
find me precious in his sight? He's altogether lovely. Why don't
all mankind just love him and adore him? That just makes good
sense, don't it? How in the world could he love
somebody like me? He gave a man for me. He gave
himself as the lamb for me. Does that make us cuss him and
get mad at him? I've heard that 400 times. That
makes us adore him more. I've given people for thy life.
Well, how do we respond to something like that? Verse five, fear not.
Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north,
give up. And to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from
afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Even every
one that is called by my name. For I have created him from my
glory. I have formed him, yea, I have
made him. He's my property. I made him,
I formed him. It's from my glory. That means
it has to happen. What we read in the New Testament.
I ain't gonna lose one of them. Because it would be his glory
on the line. Not poor little old us. My life's on the line. Yeah,
well his glory's on the line. Which do you value more? You
kicking up gold dust in the streets of heaven having crowns in your,
or jewels in your crown, or God's glory? God's glory. That's what he wrote down. And
it came to pass with Judas. And he's wrote this down in Isaiah
43. Let me tell you a secret. As God's prophet, I'm going to
tell you what God's going to do. He's going to do exactly what
he said. And he ain't going to lose a child, not one. One ain't
going to sneak in over the fence and have one too many on the
bus, and there won't be an empty seat. It's going to be spot on. Spot on. Just as he purposed
it. And he's going to get all the glory for it. And his people
won't have it any other way. I want him to get all the glory
for it. Don't you? Back in our text, what a comforting
message Peter had to those people. What a message, just declaring
the Lord's word coming to pass and it shall come to pass. He
ain't lying to us. He ain't like us that he should
lie. He's telling us the truth. The
problem ain't what the Lord said, the problem is us believing it.
And he said, now believe him. Believe me, what a good thing.
What a faithful man of God, sent of God to give a message for
the hour to those people. And then being a man, he just
made a horrible decision. Then a bad business meeting is
what took place. Let's have a business meeting.
We're gonna hash out some things. There's some orders of business
we need to take care of. Ah, Peter, made a bad decision, buddy. Look here at verse 21. Wherefore,
of these men which have accompanied with us all the time that the
Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism
of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must
one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection."
What's Peter talking about? Well, he's kind of giving the
qualifications there for an apostle. The Lord told him in his 12,
haven't I chosen you 12 and one of you is a devil? And he said,
I'm equipped you, I'm gonna send you out. This number 12 is important
to the Lord. It's gonna be representative
throughout his word. And this is all right. This is
the qualifications of an apostle. They had to be called by Christ
in person. They had to be witness of him
after his ascension, see him risen, and had to be taught in
person by Christ. And these men, they've been there
since the beginning, since John was baptized down that river,
whenever he baptized the Lord. These two men have been there
this whole time. Same amount of time we've been here. They
heard all the same messages we've heard. They saw all the miracles
we saw. They were taught by Christ, weren't
they? Three years. I can't wait to get there, but
solitarsis took to Asia for three years, didn't it? He's an apostle,
met all the qualifications, called in person, taught in person.
The whole three years in perfection, isn't it? And all that began
is because God chose, the will of God chose somebody. He chose
those 12, that's what he said. Here's where the decision making
takes a turn. Verse 23, and they appointed
to Joseph, called Barsabbas, whose surname was Justus, and
Matthias. They called Justus and Matthias.
That Justus, spelled almost the same. It means just, just. There's Justus there, and Matthias. You go back to the bones of that
word, the etymology. Grace, God's gift. They're gonna have a vote. Y'all
want justice or do you want grace? What do we say? Give us grace. We're gonna learn something. That's what man wants. You get
that? Did God choose this? God had
other plans, didn't he? They prayed and said, Thou, Lord,
which knoweth the hearts of all men, show whether these two thou
hast chosen." That's true too. The Lord looks on the heart. We can't tell. That's wise. We
can't tell on the outside. This whole time we've been looking
at Judas. He's the only one with an additional duty. He seemed
to have all these extra responsibilities that we weren't worthy to have. And he wasn't yours, Lord. He
was a devil. He betrayed you. We can't look
on the heart. These are faithful people and
faithful brothers from the beginning, Judas was there that whole time.
He preached the truth, he healed the sick, and he'd never experienced
total depravity. He'd never experienced unconditional
election. He'd never experienced that being
atoned for. He knew that grace was irresistible,
but he had never found grace to be irresistible. He had to
have it. And he didn't persevere, did
he? But everything on the outside, we'd have said, that's the one.
And Peter's over there denying him in front of teenage girls. We don't know the difference.
Lord, you look on the heart. That's good too, isn't it? You
look on the heart, show whether these two thou hast chosen, that
he may take part of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas
fell, by transgression fell, that he might have his own place. Peter may have been getting ready
to get to judging. We need some help. There's supposed
to be 12 of us. We're missing a wheel. We're missing a tire
on this 12-wheeler. And we got work to do. Lord's
gave us work. I need somebody to help me. You need help? I can't do this all by myself.
Now let's get after it. That could have been a good motivation.
Or it could have been, he thought the end was near, and he's like,
I'm gonna get to judging people, and as soon as we get this 12th
one here, I can get to judging. It's gonna be over. Lord's coming
soon. Turn over to Matthew 19, we'll
look at it real fast. Matthew 19. The Lord told him about a rich
man, it's as easy for him to get into heaven as it is for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle. And it said in verse
25, Matthew 19, 25. When his disciples heard, they
were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved? Because
they were all multimillionaires, weren't they? They knew he wasn't
talking about money. And it's talking about riches
of self and knowledge and all the things they agree with. And
I agree with the right things. And I got it right. And they
said, who then can be saved, Lord? We value all these things. Not the things, Lord. We value
man's opinion and what our expectations are and what we think it ought
to be like. Instead of what you say, who
then can be saved? And Jesus beheld them, he said
unto them, verse 26, with men this is impossible, but with
God all things are possible. Salvations of the Lord. We'll look next hour, but at
best, and this is very hopeful and generous, at best someone
that says that they found the Lord and they found the gospel,
at best they're a babe in Christ, they ain't learned how to talk
yet. Most of the time, they don't
know the Lord. The Lord hadn't revealed Himself yet. He hadn't
revealed to them who they are, what they are, if they found
it. If they found Him, they weren't ever lost. That ain't true, is
it? Salvation's of the Lord. He said,
with man, it's impossible. You can have the best commentaries
and the best preachers. I had the best preacher of this
nation. You ever see? I loved him, my pastor. And I didn't
miss a message. He was there every week and twice
on Sunday. And I knew all the doctrine,
and it was straight as a gun barrel and just as empty. It
didn't do nothing for me. Being in the right place under
the right man with the right checklist of three-point gospel messages
didn't do me a lick of good. God had to work in my heart.
I had to be born again. That ain't possible with man.
Now, does that mean I don't raise my children? I command my household.
If you live underneath my roof, you're coming here. We're worshiping
God, and there's no question. From birth, that's never been
a question. If I have influence over somebody, they're gonna
go where the gospel's gonna be. Children, you have friends come over and
spend the night, that's fine. They're here at Sunday morning at 8 a.m.,
they're going to services. That's the way it was when I grew up.
But the Lord has to do the work. With man, it's impossible. We
can take that horse to water, we can ground it. He has to make
it drink. God, all things are possible.
And then Peter, what a message, right? Lord, how can we be saved? He said, I'll save you. Calm
down. Then answered Peter, verse 27,
and said unto him, behold, we've forsaken all and followed thee.
What shall we have therefore? That may not hit you, did it?
It's me. I gave up everything. On purpose, I knew what I was
doing. Moses went to the backside of that desert. He was Pharaoh's
son. And he had children. You think
his children ever looked him in the eye and said, Daddy, you
reckon we can go back and see Papa Pharaoh? I know his clothes
are getting kind of old, you know. Maybe time's passed. Maybe he'll take you back. We
can move back. They heard those stories, didn't
they? Well, they didn't willingly give up Moses did. God made him
willing to lay his power, walk away from all that. And Peter
says, we walked away from everything. We've done that. I left the nets,
straightway left the boat. What about my family? Who cares?
I need you. Sell off everything or burn it.
Peter says, we followed you, what we get now? Oh, Jesus answered him. Verily I
say unto you, did he smack him right in the mouth? He said,
stop that. Don't you say stuff like that. No. Verily I say unto
you that ye which have followed me in the regeneration when the
son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye shall also sit
upon 12 thrones. You twelve apostles are going
to sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
What do I get out of this, Peter asked, and the Lord said, just
do what I tell you to do, and there'll come a day, whenever
I come, you're going to sit on one of the thrones, and you're
going to judge twelve tribes of Israel. I'm going to put you
to work. You're my servant, you're going to keep serving. You're
going to be thankful about it. That's what it says in Revelation.
The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them were
the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. There's 12. Matthews wasn't an apostle. Some
say, well, he was real apostle, but James died, and then Paul
took that place, and that makes 13. God says there's 12. There's 12 names. Maybe Peter
was there and was thinking, well, we need to get this work going.
We can preach the gospel. That's the driving thing inside
of someone that's been saved by grace, is they want to do
anything they can to get that gospel out there. So people,
once you have a value of your soul, you value other people's
souls, and you want them to know the truth. Do whatever it takes. Maybe Peter was doing that. Or
he was like, well, the Lord's coming soon. I can get to judging. Get my name
put up there on that wall. But back in our text, regardless
of what the motive was, they gave the Lord two choices. Both
these men, Justice and Matthew, is very likely faithful brothers
to the end. They've been with them this whole
time. And they were faithful, they were good men, hardworking
men, they knew the scriptures, they knew the gospel, they experienced
God's grace. And Peter and them, they said,
well, this must be the two, and we're gonna give the Lord the
choice. They picked the two. But the Lord ain't backed into
a corner like us, is he? We're coming up on a time of
this nation every four years, we're gonna have two choices.
And I don't want neither one of them. We're gonna give Lord
two choices? There's so many things, I get
offended by things sometimes. And I think, not just me, but
disrespecting the Lord's house or his worship or whatever. If
I'm offended by it, what do you think the Lord thinks about it?
We'll see Moses next week, his anger be kindled. Not that he's
angry with us as he is with the wicked, but he's displeased in
our choices and our excuses. Lord ain't backed into a corner.
He's going to do something that this world would have never guessed.
That we'd have never guessed. We need a replacement. There
gotta be 12. Judas, obviously, son of perdition. This was God's
purpose from the beginning. He took his hand off of him and
he did exactly what he wanted to do according to the will of
God. His determinate counsel was fulfilled. Who would we pick? Well, let's find somebody young,
because we might need them for a long time. And they've got
to be strong, and they've got to have a loud voice, and eloquent, and give
them a good thesaurus. They'd be pretty smart, so they
can look these words up. God picked Saul of Tarsus with marching
orders to go kill God's people. He sent Ananias down there to
go preach to him, and he said, Lord, You know this fella, right? I
know you know him, but I gotta say this out loud. He'll chop
my head off and be happy about it. And he said he prays. How
many prayers do you think he said throughout his life? Bunch,
right? God says right now is the first
time he's ever done it. Now he's praying. You can't pray
to somebody you don't know. If he knows me now, go down there
and preach to him. Okay, I'll go. We'll see at max nine. Verse
26. They picked two, and they said,
all right, now, Lord, do you show us which one? Verse 26,
and they gave forth their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthews,
and he was numbered with the 11 apostles. They didn't wait
on the Lord, did they? Throughout scripture, over and
over and over again, we're told to wait. I preached on that recently,
and then afterwards, I saw an article by Brother Tom Harding.
It's in the bulletin. Bob wasn't here to hand them
out. They're on the back. That's a good article to read that, what we
do while we wait. We're not idle. We're not slack
and lazy children. But we do something while we
wait, don't we? They didn't wait on the Lord, and they gave their
lots. It doesn't say they cast their
lots. Do you see that? They gave their lots. That means they voted. Very likely, they took a coin.
And everybody at the 120 went, and they said, we got justice,
we got Matthews. We got justice and we got grace.
Which one do you want? And so they went heads for Matthews,
tails for justice. And they went and laid them down.
And then they counted them. They said, all right, it's Matthews.
The Lord put it in the hearts of his people. They voted on
it. Heads for justice, tails for grace. But you know, you
can't separate the two. We don't want justice. We don't
want what's coming to us. We don't want justice to take
place. Just sweep that stuff underneath the rug. Don't talk
about it. Don't talk about those things. We just want grace, don't
we? We just want warm, fuzzy feelings
and TV messages or conference messages and things that make
us feel warm and oozy and fun inside. I don't want to hear
about that justice and what man deserves and what I am if God
takes his hand off of me. We can't have both. We can't
have one without the other. We have to have both. On that
coin, there's two sides. You can't have one side of the
coin and not have another side of the coin. Can you? That's what David wrote.
Surely his salvation is not unto them that fear him. That glory
may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the
earth. Where's that righteousness and peace met together? Where's
mercy and truth met together? That's Calvary, wasn't it? When
Christ was made sin for us, just like that rod that was cast down
and turned into a snake. He was a brazen serpent lifted
up in wilderness. And truth shall spring out of
the earth. He come out of the grave, and righteousness shall
look down from heaven. That's who is looking down on
us, making intercession for us. They have to have both, it has
to be legitimate. We'll read next hour, because
thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise
thee. Loving kindness, that's one word. Old Ryder says, that's
the Old Testament word for grace. Loving kindness, Lord's love.
And he's kind, he's merciful to us. And out of his love and
his mercy, that's gracious. That's something we didn't work
for. He gave it. We're not instructed to cast
lots. I touched on that last week, but we're instructed to
wait. Though we're told about casting lots in Proverbs 16,
it says the lot is cast into the land, but the whole disposing
thereof is of the Lord. That's what Peter just preached.
The Lord controls everything. He's sovereign. We're not sneaking
one past him. And he probably thought out of
Proverbs 18 that this would be a good idea. It says the lot
causeth contentions to cease and parteth between the mighty.
You got two real strong opinions. Well, let's flip a coin. The
Lord will make it land where he wants it. We're gonna rebute
it. Land on heads. Best two out of
three. That's what our nature said.
Two out of three. I thought of the people it's
recorded in scripture that casted lots. Joshua did for the dividing
of the land, but, and Jonah, those men was on the boat. That peevish prophet. Poor Jonah
got on that boat and was going to Tarsus. And then the storm
came, and they said, come, these heathens that know God, come,
let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil
is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot
fell upon Jonah. They said, who are you? He said,
I'm a Hebrew. They said, what do you do for a living? I believe
God. It's so, isn't it? It says in verse 26, And he was
numbered with the eleven apostles. He wasn't an apostle, but he
was there with them. And we never hear of him again.
And I've always heard that from a young child, that that's a
bad thing. That doesn't mean nothing. It
doesn't mean anything. There are several people mentioned
either that didn't have names throughout the scripture, especially
preachers, or a prophet come in and said one thing and then
left. You don't read anything else about him. The Lord may have
kept them faithful to the end. But out of Peter's air, out of
his haste, even out of good motivation, good strong work ethic, he wanted
to get after it. He made some bad moves that even that appear
to be scriptural, He made the best decision he could with the
information he had at the time, that's what I always say. And
it wasn't right. It wasn't right. Tom Harding
said, fire him! Get him out of there! He said,
that's what mankind wants to do. No, the Lord's teaching him. God sent Peter there to preach
to him, didn't he? And I thought, you know, this frail, weak man
that's so prone to wonder is no different than anybody else.
that preaches or doesn't preach. It ain't no different than you
and me. I heard a preacher saying that recently. He said, preacher,
are you talking to me? He goes, yeah, and me too, because
I'm just like you. I know what you think, and I
know what you experience, because I ain't no different than you. But the
Lord was using Peter, wasn't he? He was of like passions,
as we are, just like Elijah was. That's what James talked about.
But he was still God's man. And I thought, you know, The
Lord probably did all this to show us something for us to learn. The Lord's teaching us something
here. We gotta learn some things. But also to prepare Peter to
go through this, to teach him he couldn't do any choosing or
make any decisions. That way when Solitarsus came
to be his fellow laborer, his fellow apostle, he'd be all right
with taking him. God sent him. That's my brother. And he heard him preach and he
said, that's right. Paul said, I've been an agent for three
years. The Lord's been teaching me. He said, amen. That's good. Now
it's right, isn't it? What we meant for evil, God meant
for good. What we meant for good and didn't know any better out
of ignorance, God still meant for good. He was wise. We weren't
wise. Acts chapter two, verse one says,
in the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one
accord. Where? In one place. They didn't
let that phase them. Peter messed up, yeah, well,
it'll be my turn next week. All right, one accord, let's
get this gospel out there. Where? One place. Gather together
in his sanctuary. All right, let's pray together.
Father, teach us to wait on you. Show us Christ as our wisdom.
And we seek him for our wisdom. His providence will come to pass,
his glory will be exalted. Make us diligent while we wait,
Lord. Let us run a good race while we wait. Let us fight a
good fight. Give us a desire to tell of Christ and Him crucified,
His sovereign power and might, His victory over all the things
that we are and that we're prone to wonder to. Thank you for your
patience, Lord, and through him for us, for our sakes and his
glory. Be with our brethren who are
suffering and heavy laden. Lord, give them peace to wait.
Forgive us for what we are, and it's because of our Lord we ask
these things. Amen. All right, brethren, we'll
meet back at 1030.