Well, let's turn our Bibles to
Genesis 31. Genesis 31. There's 55 verses
in this 31st chapter of Genesis, and I'd encourage you to go home
and read it. I was going to do the whole chapter, just kind
of skip and have you read it beforehand, but I got a recipe
for a meal, and I wanted to cook this meal, so we're going to
look at the first 16 verses. Genesis 31. Look at the end of
chapter 30, that last verse, verse 43. This is the same paragraph
Moses had wrote. in the end of the same paragraph,
but Genesis 30 verse 43, and the man increased exceedingly
and had much cattle and maidservants and menservants and cannibals
and asses. That's Jacob. What do you think
about them people that's got a whole bunch of servants in
this country? People ought not have that much.
I hear that all the time. That's just too much for one
person to have. That'd mean nothing to him. He
had a lot, didn't he? Abraham had a lot, didn't he?
Isaac had a lot, didn't he? Jacob had a lot. He was increased
exceedingly. Lots of servants, men, women,
camels, and asses. And Laban knew, that's what we
looked at last time, wasn't it? Laban knew that the Lord had
blessed Jacob. He knew that Jacob was the only
reason he was increased. And that's why he was increased,
because Jacob was there. The Lord was blessing Jacob.
And he knew that Jacob knew that the Lord had only blessed him.
He's the one that did all the work. Business is booming. What would
you do? Let's celebrate. We have a Thanksgiving,
right? It's a harvest feast. Let's get
together and rejoice in this. Wouldn't you? The world did not. His family did not. The world
does not now, and the world will not rejoice if the Lord blesses
you. People's gonna be bitter. Those
unregenerates are just gonna, and they're gonna be mad about
it. They are. So when they get mad
about you, I want you to remember this, okay? This'll be good for
us. It'll teach us something. Genesis 31, verse one. And he
heard, that's Jacob. He heard the words of Laban's
sons. They were the ones watching all
his sheep. He was watching Laban's sheep,
remember? Saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's,
and of that which was our father's, hath he gotten all this glory. This one that the Lord loves,
this Jacob, he's doing so well, and it's making us look bad,
daddy. What's people gonna say? This servant of yours is getting
all the glory. Everybody just loves him. We
can't have it. We're gonna have to do something about this. That's
what they're saying, isn't it? Remember back whenever Jacob
arrived on the scene, 20 years before this, back in chapter
29, it says, it came to pass when Laban heard the tidings
of Jacob's sister's son, he ran to meet him, and he embraced
him, and he kissed him, and he brought him to his house, and
he told Laban all these things, and Laban said, surely thou art
my bone, and thou art my flesh. He couldn't wait to see Jacob.
And now they can't wait to see him go. Something changed, didn't
it? He could see it on their faces.
He wasn't a fool. He wasn't some bumbling idiot.
He looked them dead in the eye. Jacob looked them people in the
eye. I tell you that all the time. I look people in the eye
when I talk to them. You look people in the eye when
you talk to them, too. He looked them in the eye and he could
see it on their faces, verse 2. And Jacob beheld, he saw the countenance
of Laban. And behold, it was not toward
him as before." Boy, something's changed. You ain't hugging right
up and hugging me and kissing me no more, are you? Something's
different. Them boys is yakking in the background.
Solomon said in Proverbs 18, a brother offended is harder
to be won than a strong city. And that's between believers.
That's between believers, isn't it? I heard somebody read that
recently. It takes God to teach us we're
the offender, not the offended. Everybody I talk to is offended.
You ever met somebody that divorced and it wasn't their fault? It's
always the other person's fault. You ever had a bad business deal?
Well, it's somebody else's fault. That's called an external locus
of control. Somebody else, they did that, the infamous they,
right? The Lord teaches us it's us. We're the offender, then
he'll bless us. Laban was Jacob's uncle. And
all Jacob's cousins, Laban's sons, they were the ones that
had trouble. He'd served them well, been there for 20 years,
and they were offended. They were offended by him. They were
offended in his prosperity, which was their prosperity too, wasn't
it? Jacob was sent there by his father to get his bride, and
he came unto his own, and his own received him not. Do you
see any patterns here? You heard that before, Bob? He came to
his own, that's his family, isn't it? Now they don't want nothing
to do with him. Turn to Matthew chapter 10. This will be good
for us, Matthew 10. The Lord was sending his apostles
to go preach. It says in Matthew 10, verse
16, he said, behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of
wolves. Be you therefore wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. Who's fit for these things? Sheep
among wolves. I wrote all this the other day,
and I got a, not a bone was broken, but I had a pound of flesh took
out of me this morning. Wolf got a hold of me, bit me
real hard. You imagine this, you're a sheep.
You know what a sheep is? We know what sheep are, don't
we? You're a sheep, and you have no offensive weapons, and you
have no defensive weapons, and you can't run fast, and if you're
in a field or a forest, you stick out in any environment. That's
a beautiful picture, I thought. You stick out. Can't keep from
it, can you? Now, you're surrounded by wolves. They're bigger than you. They're
faster than you. They got sharp teeth. They got
strong jaws. They hunt in packs. They coordinate
their attacks. Does that sound appealing? Do
you want to go out rattling cages and finding wolves? Leave them
alone. If I were going to be in that
situation, the Lord had better be with me. All right. He had better be my shield. He
had better be my defense or I absolutely have none and I'm a goner. And
we don't farm no more. So let's put it in modern terms.
Can you imagine being a quadriplegic in a room full of devil worshipers?
That's what these people were. They're their father, the devil.
They ain't the Lord's people. Ain't born by his spirit. Verse
22, Matthew 10, 22. And you shall be hated of all
men for my name's sake. Because of me. I'm gonna jump
ahead in this chapter just real quick for his name's sake. The
Lord's gonna change Jacob's name to Israel. He's a chosen of God. Do you think he put that, he
embroidered that and put that on the hind of his camel? I'm
a chosen. I'm God's elect. You think he
did? I guarantee he didn't. He said, I'm a sinner. Same way
God's people in this world don't go around promoting that they're
Christians. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. No, I'm a sinner.
If you do that, learn. I don't know who you are, but
learn from it. Lord gives us these examples. He said, you're
going to be hated because of my namesake, because you're really
in me. You ain't going to be everybody's
buddy. You can be hated. Why? Look down verse 35, Matthew 10,
35. For I am come. The great I am, he's come to
set man at variance against his father, and the daughter against
her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and
a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth,
he gives us command once he states that, he that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son
or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He said, if you
don't forsake them, if you take their sides against me, if you
defend your family against the gospel instead of defending the
gospel against your family, he said, you're not my disciples.
Fact. How do I know that's a fact?
He said so. He said so, didn't he? Over in John, we read it
this way. He said, I have manifested thy
name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. He's
speaking to the Father. He said, Father, I've manifested your
name and all that, the beauty that that entails. in the people
that you gave me out of this world. He goes down further and
says, I have given them thy word. I've given them, he'd given himself,
didn't he? He's the word. He goes, I've given him my world
and word and the world has hated them because they're not of the
world. Even as I'm not of the world. That offends people. Jacob's here. He's right in the
middle of a world that blasphemes the Lord's name. And I want to
tell you what that means. That doesn't mean that mankind
tells, dictates to God what he shall damn. Right? That man thinks it's one little
phrase. No, no, no. Taking the Lord's name in vain
is... I got a letter in the mail that said, oh, you need to go
look up a YouTube video. Heaven's trying to say something.
What heaven's trying to say? That's blasphemous. God don't
try. You don't know who He is. Well,
God wants to do something. That's blasphemous. Now, there's
young believers that ain't learned how to speak yet. When the Lord
just says to somebody else to talk about luck and chance and
all these things, right? We'll see if Rachel, that language
learns, the Lord teaches them. He changes their language. They
don't talk that way. They stop blaspheming. They stop
saying these things. They start declaring what he
did. In a world that Rejects the Lord's word. They reject
his truth when it's plainly declared, declared the believer rejoices. I said, Lord's done this. I said,
let God be true. Never meant a liar. He said, I'm, I'm the
wrong one. He's the right one. No, I just
think that bad world hates it. The world hates
his, the Lord's people without a valid cause worldly or spiritually. In their eyes, in our eyes, right?
Why do they hate us? Because of Christ. Because of
the true and living Christ, not some dude named Jesus. Because of him, he's the Lord.
From my teenage years, I've been told, you think you're better
than all of us, don't you? I said, no, I don't think I'm
better, I think I'm worse. You're lying. False humility.
I'm telling you the truth. People told me, I said, you think
you're the only one that's right? I said, no, I know that God's
the only one that's right. I get mad. I get mad. It's black
and white. I've sat down with the scriptures
and I've show people, I say, here's what God says. And eventually you
paint them in a corner hard enough. And they'll say, I don't care
what it says. Better. You will one day. I'll
tell you that right now. Nobody cares till they do. Hmm. We just looked at walking in
a lot on Wednesday night, didn't we? Remember Noah's Ark? How many windows was in that
Ark? You boys remember? There's one window, that was
a long time ago, huh? Two years ago. There's one window in that
Ark. That's the only place light came
in, wasn't it? What if we saw this world through the light?
What if we saw that we was on that ark and we saw this world
in the light of Christ, through Him, the window? What's this
world? It ain't nothing but dead, floating,
stinking corpses, bobbling in judgment. That's all this world
is. That's all everything is. It's
vanity. It's going to burn. Isn't it? Just floating there. And the believer, Not the heathen,
the believer. Not the unregenerate. The one
that has life says, but for the grace of God there float I. Outside
of His grace, outside of Him sending His Son for me, I have
no hope. I ain't no different than them. They don't give a
haughty spirit. They don't give a know-it-all spirit. That gives
a broken and contrite heart. There's a big difference. We
ain't up itty, we're down itty. We're not one-uppers, we're one-downers.
Lord's people are. Like Jacob, the Lord puts a difference
between his people and the world. Between Israel and Egypt, we
can't walk together. We're unevenly yoked. I can't
have fellowship with them people because I ain't in the same ship.
They're in a different ship. Is that plain enough? You can't. We're not holier than thou, we're
not trying to be exclusive, but the language of a true child
of God's different than everybody else, and it's hated. Our confession
of what he's done is hated by the punk and the Pope. Don't matter which end it is
at. Verse three, back in our text, Genesis 31. Genesis 31,
verse three. The Lord said unto Jacob, return
unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred, and I will
be with thee. It's gonna be hard, but you go,
and as I promised you a long time ago, I'm gonna be with you.
I'm gonna be with you. Jacob didn't belong there. He
was in a heathen land among unbelievers. He belonged with his people,
God's people. He belonged back in Bethel, the house of God,
with the people of God, where the true and living God's worshipped.
That's where the child of God belongs, right? We're gonna gather
to that light now. This is the story of every son
of Jacob. This is Jacob's story, and this
is the story of every one of God's children. That's where
we belong. He's been for 20 years. He's
been there all chapter 29, all chapter 30. He's been breeding
cattle and making money and growing his family, right? Ain't got
time for God. We got children, buddy. That's
when you need to be raising them underneath the sound of the gospel.
For 20 years, he didn't mention Lord wants just cattle, jealousy,
division, envy, hatred, but God. Lord came to him. Lord spoke
to him here. God upholds his covenants. God
upholds his vows. And in great mercy, he makes
Jacob miserable. And the Lord's all-knowing wisdom
and grace, he made Jacob miserable. He made his family hate him,
made his family turn against him. That way, it'd drive him
to the house of God, back to Bethel. That was the most horrible. I won't get off on that. Priscilla
and Aquila lost their home, got booted out of Italy. You can't
be here no more. They didn't sell it. There was
no market to sell it in. They lost everything. You think
there's traveling down to Corinth when that was, that's the worst
thing that's ever happened to us. This is miserable. And they bumped
into some fella named Paul. And they was in the same business
as tent makers. And God saved them and used them mightily,
mightily. Best thing that ever happened
to them, they lost that house. Best thing that ever happened to them,
they went bust in Italy, wasn't it? God saved them. God used
that for our benefit in this day. Best thing that ever happened. Lord said, these things I've
spoken unto you that you might have peace in the world. You shall have tribulation, but
be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. Read
in Acts 14, confirming the souls of the disciples and extorting
them to continue in the faith and that we must, we might make,
maybe there's no, it says we must, we must through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of God. That's comforting. Like, it's
what's supposed to happen. Oh, it's terrible. No, this is
how it's supposed to happen. I know, I've been through it.
Oh, okay. The airplane's supposed to make that sound when you get
about 2,000 feet up. That's what it's supposed to
do. That gives you comfort, don't it? You in trouble? That's supposed
to happen. I worry for the souls of those
who do not have soul trouble. I worry for the souls of those
who don't have a sin problem in their soul. You read that
bulletin last week? All the ones that think they
don't bear fruit are bearing fruit while they think they ain't.
That's fruit that they're bearing. The Lord Jesus Christ will hedge
us about, we're gonna read that next hour in Psalm 34, but Hosea
and Gomer, he hedged Gomer about that. It puts us right where
he wants us. He hedges us in and that hedges the enemies out,
and it brings us to our Father, brings us to our Lord. And it
won't be easy. It won't be pleasant, but it
will be profitable. It won't be pleasant, but it
will be profitable. What kind of profit will there
be? You're gonna see a richness and mercy. You're going to be
rich in grace and you're going to be rich in his love and kindness.
That's what that trial is going to bring. That's the instrument
of instruction. I'm getting in the next hour.
That's the instrument of instruction. The Lord trains his children.
It's trouble trials. We ought to make a smile. I've
had a rough week, Bob. That means the Lord loves me.
It showed me he loves me a whole lot this week. That's a good
thing, isn't it? He's going to call each of his children just
like our father Abraham, just like he called Isaac, just like
he called Jacob, he's going to call them. Now look here in verse
4. Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his
flock. There was a command, you come
to the field. Called them by name, didn't he?
What field's that? Green pasture? You come to where
the other sheep are. This is in the open, isn't it? We publicly profess Christ, don't
we? We don't do it in a closet. These two heathen sisters, both
deceivers, both selfish, both self-righteous, but they were
chosen of God. They were given to Jacob. Jacob
paid the perfect and full price for each one of them. And they're
going to go with Jacob and Jacob's sons to the promised land. Mercy, exclamation point. Grace,
exclamation point. The Father chose a people as
the bride of Christ. He gave us to him. Christ provided
the full payment for us, and he's going to bring us to the
promised land. We're going to be with him forever where he
is. He's going to bring us down to a field to teach us that too. Next hour, Psalm 34, and that
was written after David had faked being crazy. And after he faked
being crazy in Philistines and went hiding in a cave of a dullum,
it says, everyone that is in distress, and everyone that is
in debt, and everyone that's discontented gathered themselves
unto him, and he became captain over them, and they were with
him about 400 men. We're drawn together, we're gathered
together in this field or a hold or a cave, right? And he's going
to teach us the nature of sin. He's going to call his people
and he's going to show us sin. Look here in verse five. And he said
unto them, I see your father's countenance, that it's not towards
me as before. Your father's against me, but
the God of my father hath been with me." What a thing to learn. I pray each one of us can learn
this, each one of us, through experience, not through a piece
of paper, through living it. That if God is for us, who can
be against us? Nobody can be against us. They
are. They ain't gonna hurt you. You
won't have one bone broken. The world wants to, but it can't. God's for us. God's for his people. He keeps his eye on his child.
He's going to teach us of the righteousness of Christ our husband. Look there in verse six. And
ye know that with all my power I have served your father. We
work as unto the Lord when we do something. Why? Christ did. Christ did. He served with all
his power to that law, didn't he? to honor his father. Jacob
was a cheat. He was lazy. He was a mama's
boy way up in years, not any longer. That's what he was till
God saved him, not any longer. Believers by God's grace are
trustworthy. They're hardworking. They're
fair. They deal righteously in this world. King Saul, all his
shepherds, they all kept sheep, didn't they? All of them. David
did, went and fought bears and lions. King Saul kept his father's
donkeys, and he lost them. And then a whole crew of them
went out city to city to city, and they never did find them.
A lot of people go into ministry because they ain't got nothing
else to do. They can't do nothing else. It's a bad way. It's a
bad way. Right there's where it stops. I was studying, I was working
as hard as I could, and right there, I got a phone call. I was serving as hard as I could,
Bob. Daily hurt her foot, might be broke, gotta go to the hospital.
Other children are coming here for me to look after, but I gotta
go to work. I gotta leave in a couple hours.
What am I gonna do? When am I gonna study? What am
I gonna do? God sent that. God hurts your
foot. Why? I strive serving my father. That's what I was doing. Them
people scared to death we was gonna sue them. I'm a child of
God. I ain't suing nobody. The Lord
sent it. You hear me? I'm his child. He
sent that trouble. I thank him. Don't get mad and
go out and act like a fool in front of the world. No, thank
him. God sent this. He sent the trouble. By serving
him. He looked upon us. No bang big
hits me. Children got EBT cards in the mail the other day. Took
me two and a half precious hours of my week to give them back.
I won't have it. I won't do it. I'm here on a
mission. You understand that? Either God will feed me by the
gospel, he'll provide for me, or I'll take my coat like Paul,
dust it off, and I'll go on to where the gospel is. It ain't
gonna happen. I must be about the business
to the father put me on. I can't have it right then. That's that's what a top when
I hung the phone up and I thought, What am I gonna do? You need
you need a meal today. I don't have time to get you
a meal today. And in 35 minutes, I finished the rest of this message
and the whole next. I couldn't top fast enough. I
said, Lord, you had to do this. I'm a sheep. I ain't got nothing
but wolves around me. What am I going to do? If you're
going to feed him, it's going to have to be your feed. He did. He was faithful. Verse six. And
you know that with all my power, I served your father. The Lord's
going to teach us, just as Jacob taught his wives, of the judgment
that's just, and it's performed by God and accepted of God. Look
at verse 7. And your father hath deceived
me and changed my wages ten times, but God suffered him not to hurt
me. My brother Todd had a message on this. Would you have quit
working if somebody changed your wages ten times? It's just up
and down, up and down, up and down. Get a job somewhere else,
man. I ain't doing it. Jacob served with all his power at
all 10 wages. Our father completed all 10 commandments
for his children with all his power and perfection. Verse eight. If he said thus,
here's how I changed them. The speckled shall be the wages
and then the cattle bear speckled. And if he said thus, the ring
straight shall be the higher than they bear all the cattle
ring strength. I thought about that all week. Difference between
speckled and spotted. That's big spots, little spots. He said,
you get all the spotted ones. And then they all come out spotted.
He said, well, you get all the ones with little spots. Finicky, picky, picky, isn't
it? Pettiness is what it is. Verse
nine. Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and
given them to me. Nothing was good enough for him,
so the Lord gave it all to me. Why did the Lord word it last
chapter we looked at? This was the totality of the
covenant, wasn't it? You get the ring, strake, speckled, spotted,
and brown. That's what we looked at last time, wasn't it? And
now we learn that Laban was just playing this by ear over time.
What's that showing us? One, it gave me a message last
week, so we see his covenant in totality. And now he gives
me another message this week, so that's all that's very kind
of him. It shows us we cannot satisfy
the law. You can't keep up with it. You
can't keep up. People think, well, now Lord
saves, now we gotta try to keep this and that. You can't do it.
You can't make yourself holy. You can't do it. You don't even
know the law. People out saying they will sanctify
themselves. You ever had a medium well steak? I love a medium well,
medium normally. You die and go to hell. You gotta,
do you have, do you have a, Lord had housing codes. Do you have
a rail around top of your house? If you don't, you'll die and
go to hell. We don't know his law, do we? We're outmatched,
boys and girls. Lord gave us these things. That's
what happened. Lee and Rachel, they saw all
this play out, and now Jacob's telling his brides the reason
why. They said, you saw that. Remember when he was getting
speckled sheep, then he was getting reamed straight sheep, then he was getting spotted
sheep, then he was getting brown sheep as ours? You saw that happen. You experienced this. Look at
verse 10. And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived,
I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the rams
which leaped upon the cattle were ring-streaked, speckled,
and grizzled at Spodden. And the angel of God spake to
me in a dream, saying, Jacob. And I said, here am I. And he
said, lift up now thine eyes and see, all the rams which leap
upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled. For I
have seen all that Labor doeth unto thee. His eyes on his people,
isn't he? He said, Jacob's telling his brides, all the cattle we
have, every single one of them, no matter what they look like,
God gave them. He's blessed us in spite of ourselves, and we
can't stop him. It pleased him to do so. We're going to thank
him anyway. And he went on, verse 13, I'm
the God of Bethel, where thou anointest the pillar. Remember
that, Jacob? And where thou bowest a vow unto me. Poor conviction,
isn't it? You remember that? Remember when
you worshiped? He says, now rise, get thee out
of this land and return into the land of thy kindred. Everything,
ever, was purposed, not planned, it was purposed by the Lord to
drive Jacob home. That's what he's telling his
wives. Everything has come to pass. They ain't a speckle or
a spot on a sheep and that herd that wasn't exactly where it
needed to be to make Jacob be driven home. Is that your experience? Have you lived that? As we age,
we desire to be with the Lord, to be away from sin, to be made
like our husbandmen, don't we? As we get older, this world just
is more unappealing, more unappealing. He says, go home, Jacob, this
ain't your home. Verse 13 again, I'm the God of
Bethel. Without us knowing it's the pillar,
without vows to vow unto me, and now arise, get thee out of
this land and return into the land of thy kindred. He says,
I'm the God of Bethel. You remember that? Remember that
ladder you saw Christ touching this earth, touching the heavens?
All blessings come up and down. All the prayers go up through
him and all the blessings come down on him. Were you called
on me? Were you vowed a vow? Remember
that? He said back in chapter 28, Jacob
vowed a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in
this way that I go and will give me bread to eat, give me a raiment
to put on. He's got more wool and he knows
what to do with. I can't sell it fast enough. So that I come
into my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God.
And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's
house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the
tenth unto thee. He said, you remember that, Jacob?
Has he failed yet? Has the Lord been slack on any
of his promises? He's been abundant, hasn't he?
Verse 14, and Rachel and Leah answered and said unto him, is
there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house?
They said, you're right, there is nothing here for us. Have
you said that in this world? There ain't nothing here for
me. I'm here, like I'm gonna have to eat and sleep and live
here, but there ain't nothing here for me. We're not even locked. Look at verse 15. Are we not
counted for him as strangers? He don't even lock us. For he
hath sold us and hath quite devoured also our money. For all the riches
which God hath taken from our father, that's ours, and our
children's. Everything the Lord's increased,
not what Laban's done, what God's done, that's what our increase
is. You know what Paul told the church at Corinth? He said, all
are yours, all things are yours, isn't it? Whether Paul or Paulosephus,
or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things
to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ, and Christ is God's.
If he owns a cattle on a thousand hills, well, right to us too,
isn't it? Verse 16, for all the riches
which God hath taken from our father, that's ours, and our
children's. Now, then, you're right. Everything you've said is true,
Jacob. There's nothing here for us. God's done everything. Now
then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do. Do. For the man, Jacob. I thought
a lot about that. It was a lot easier for him to
come there by himself. You ever travel by yourself?
That's easy. Just put a toothbrush in a backpack
and go. You ever had 12 children and four wives and 5,000 goats
and camels and... Gonna move all the way across
the country with a big family and a bunch of stuff? Let me
tell you, that's hard. That's hard, ain't it? Imagine
moving on that thing. Imagine moving every, I'll read
it verbatim. You imagine that. Moving everything you have across
the country to serve God. It's hard, and there's more trouble
on its way after that. That's the easy part. And his
wife said go, didn't it? My pastor told me that, and it's
so. I was talking to a man, they called him to be pastor at a
place, and everybody asked him, what's your wife think? What's
your wife think? What's your wife think? Normally, when the Lord calls
a man, he calls his wife, too. What did Rachel and Leah say?
Whatever God told you to do, do it. Whatever God told you
to do, we'll walk with you. We'll help carry all this stuff.
Isn't that something? He's got a long way to get home.
There's a big chapter in there. We'll stop there and pick up
next. We'll do part two next time. So, let's pray together. Father, how gracious you are
to the people We were at war with you, we were enmity. Still
in our sins, Christ came to us to where we were, called us by
name, brought us into his fold, provided for us everything that's
required in abundance, blessed us in wealth of mercy, wealth
of grace, wealth of love, and will keep us Make us thankful, Lord. We're
thankful. Make us more thankful. We understand these things. Make
us understand more grace and understanding. We believe, but
help our unbelief. Thank you for this hour, Lord.
Be with your children. Comfort their hearts and grow
them as it pleases you. To Christ's name that we ask it. Amen.