and we'll go to chapter number
two. We're certainly thankful to have
those of you who are watching by way of the internet. We're thankful you can join us
for worship this morning. And we ask that God would indeed
be gracious to each of us and enable us to worship Him in spirit
and in truth. Let's look to the Lord once again. Lord, it is such an awesome thing
to bow before You. in remembrance of who you are
and all of your glorious attributes. It is an awesome thing. It's a time of reverence as we
bow before you. But it's also a time of honor. and privilege that we can enter
into the very presence of God through the Lord Jesus. And Lord,
we come to you now especially about this service. We ask that
you would bless your word. You have said that you'll send
forth your Word and it will never return to you void. And we fully
believe that. This is the effectual Word of
God. It will do that which you've
ordained for it to do in whoever you send it to. Lord, may it
be of the Word of grace to all of us, to all who are watching,
all who will be listening to this message later. Oh God, show
mercy upon us, the vilest of sinners. We set before You like blind Bartimaeus who said, Lord,
have mercy on me. Jesus, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on us. We wait for You like the leper
waited for the master to come down from the mountain. And You
said to him, Lord, if You will, You can make us whole. We recognize
Thou art the God of sovereignty, the God of electing grace. the only God of salvation. And
it is within your right, it is within your power to be gracious
to us. We wait for you, Lord. We bow before you. We bring no
goodness to you because we don't have any. We just, all of us,
we come before you as sinful people. and we do plead that
bloody sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. Wash us, Lord, and then we shall
be clean, whiter than the snow, as the scripture says. So be
with us now. We ask that you'd save the lost,
rescue the perishing, Lift up, Lord, those who are downhearted. Lord, encourage those of your
people who are dejected. Every moment of every day, we
need you. We ask you to be with us through
this service. In every moment of our lives,
and then someday we'll see you, that is, the Son of God, in heaven's
bright and wonderful glory. So, bless the message this morning,
and these who sit before me, give them the hearing ear, the
seeing eye, and Lord, the believing heart. These things we ask in
the name of our Savior and for His sake. Amen. We've been dealing
with the subject of the tabernacle in the wilderness now for several
weeks. And I think somebody mentioned
to me that, I guess somebody remarked to them, why is he preaching
so much on this? Well, it's because it's such
a vital subject, and it is just so full of God's salvation, it's
full of grace, and it is, of course, full of our Lord Jesus,
the Savior. God had given instructions to
Moses back in the book of Exodus that he said, make me a sanctuary. I'm going to dwell with you. What a marvelous thing that God
would dwell with people. And we know that's a picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ. We read in John chapter 1, and
the Word was made flesh, and He dwelt among us, that is, He
tabernacled among us. And John said, we beheld His
glory, that glory of God, the glory of the One who's full of
grace and of truth. So this tabernacle in the wilderness
was the sanctuary and the earthly residence of God, the one who
made all things by His authority, by His power. He ordained there
would be one designated location where He would meet with men
and men would meet with Him. This is a perfect picture of
our Lord Jesus. And right from the beginning
of this message, I want you to understand, if you haven't understood
before, may God the Spirit give you enlightenment on this. There is no coming to God. There is no worship of God. There is no drawing near to God
except through Christ Jesus. You've got to understand that. We must have a mediator. We've
got to have one to stand between us and a holy God. There's the
go-between. That's Christ our Lord. And God
said, He said, I'm going to dwell among you at the tabernacle. Now, I don't know how much all
of them realize, but many of them realize God is in our midst. God is in our presence. That
One who made all things, He is here with us. And the fact that
God was there at the tabernacle, though He fills all things and
the heaven of heavens can't contain Him, yet God said, I will dwell
there. I'll dwell among you. He said,
I'll be your God, you'll be my people. And as a good many of
the Israelites, those who believed anyway, as they considered the
thought that God was among them, they rejoiced. This is their safety. Here are
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. They're in the wilderness. all around them and they will
continue to face enemies of various nations. But that which should
alleviate all of their fear is this fact. God is with them. God is with them. Every morning
when they got up, they knew God was with them because they went
out and gathered manna. Every morning, manna. And then
God would send meat, He'd send quail, and He would feed them. That God who dwells in the tabernacle,
they would say, He's fed us again today. And though we have no
cabinets, we have no storehouses, We have no place to put any food,
we can't keep any food, yet we know in the morning there'll
be more food. And we'll never lack for water,
because water comes from that rock, and that rock is following
us. And that rock is Christ Jesus,
is what we read in the book of 1 Corinthians. So they knew they
had safety, they had provision. Oh, maybe they didn't have everything
they wanted, but they had everything they needed. And that which they
especially needed was God. They needed God's presence. And
they knew every time they looked at that tabernacle, they knew
this is where God dwells. And whenever one would get discouraged
about something when they had family meetings or visiting from
one tent to another tent, and someone would be discouraged
about circumstances, one of the believing children of God, confident
of the Lord, would say to them, don't worry about anything. Look
yonder at the tabernacle. What do you see? I see the residence
of God. God is with us. You who are God's
people, you who rest in the Lord Jesus, by God's grace to the
salvation of your soul, I want to remind you right now, God
is with you. He's with you. He's your safety.
And no harm can come to you, not ultimately. Nobody can destroy
your soul. Your soul is saved. And though
you may have many obstacles as you go through this earthly journey,
and though you may have many enemies, and you face many disappointments,
remember, that tabernacle of God is still with you. He said,
I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Throughout
the wilderness journeys, God dwelt in the tabernacle. And
he dwelt among the people, many of whom didn't even believe him. They found no peace in the Lord. They knew nothing of his grace.
And we read in the book of Hebrews chapter three that many of them
died in unbelief. But you know what? God took care
of them too. He did. He watched after them
too. And if he watched after his enemies,
if he provided for the unbelievers, oh, how much more shall he provide
for his believing people, those to whom he's given faith. No wonder our Lord said to His
disciples when they were in the little fishing boat going across
the Sea of Galilee, and a storm came up and He was asleep in
the back of the boat. And they went and woke Him up
because here's the thunder crashing, lightning flashing, the winds,
the waves. They woke Him up and said, Master,
carest Thou not that we perish? Have you ever said that in essence
in some difficulty of life? Lord, don't you care? And he
says to each of us when we have those kind of thoughts what he
said to his disciples, O ye of little faith, why do you doubt? So here are the Israelites. God
is in their midst. He's their protection. He's their
provision. He gives them everything they
need. Now, as we get to the book of Numbers, Numbers consists
of two numberings of the children of Israel. Two, as it were, census
were taken. The very first is in the first
and the second chapters of Numbers. And this is accounting not of
all of the people of Israel, but of the men age 20 and above
who could fight the enemy. And so these are numbered And
we're given the numbers. You can calculate how many were
ready for battle. But that's not the only thing
that is given here in Numbers chapter 1 and 2. There's also
those designated locations where God said, this is where this
tribe will be, this is where this tribe will be, and that
tribe will be. And guess what? They all encircled
the tabernacle. They're all around the tabernacle.
The tabernacle's in the middle. God was literally in the midst
of them. And they could all, in the morning,
when they pulled back the flap of their tent and looked out,
all of them could see the tabernacle. They could see the tabernacle.
And they knew the things that went on in the tabernacle. And
a good many of them, maybe most of them, would go to the entrance
into the tabernacle at the outer court, the gate of the tabernacle. And there they would wait as
the morning sacrifice was offered to God. God said there will be
every day a lamb in the morning and a lamb in the evening sacrificed
to Him. And of course, that picture is
God's lamb. The Lord Jesus who was sacrificed
for us, but He only died one time because He finished the
work of redemption. But many of them would go. They
would attend like a worship service every morning. And those that
were unable to attend due to sickness or whatever, for whatever
reason, they knew exactly what was happening at the gate of
the tabernacle at 9 a.m. every morning. The man would
say to his wife, they've had breakfast, they've had their
manna, they drank some water, and maybe say, I've got such
a headache today, I just don't feel like going there to the
gate of the tabernacle today. But I know what they're doing.
I can visualize it in my mind's eye. at killing the lamb. Oh God, thank you for the lamb.
Oh God, thank you for your lamb that's going to come into this
world. And I worship you, I worship you through that lamb that is
the lamb of God, Christ Jesus, the Lord. And throughout the
day they would be, if they weren't traveling, of course, Throughout
the day, they knew the things that were going on at the tabernacle.
And many of them would say, listen, we're such sinful people. I need
to take an animal and sacrifice it to God. Come on, honey, let's
go. Kids, let's go. Let's go. You
finished your studies? Okay, let's all go. We're going
to the gate of the tabernacle because we need to offer a sacrifice. Well, daddy, why do we need to
offer a sacrifice? Because we're sinful people.
And this sacrifice pictures that one who's called the seed of
the woman, that is, Messiah. He's coming. And one of these
days, He is going to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Now, as the children of Israel,
I've already told you, they all are encircled around the tabernacle. They had a designated area where
every tribe would be. It wasn't kind of, well, first
come, first serve. You go stake a claim to whatever
position you want. No, there was no disorder at
all. Our God is the God of order.
Let all things be done decently and in order. And so as we get
especially into the second chapter, we find that not only are the
numbers of the men qualified to go to battle given, but also
every designated location for every one of the tribes is given. Let me read a little bit to you.
Numbers chapter two. Look at verse one. And the Lord
spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying, by the way, which one of the
tribes are Moses and Aaron from? They're of the Levitical tribe,
tribe of Levi. Okay, that's called the priestly
tribe. Look at verse two. Every man
of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard or
banner. With the ensign or the mark,
every one of the, call it a banner or flag if you want to think
of it in terms of that, had a special mark on it designating that particular
tribe of their father's house. He says, far off from the tabernacle
of the congregation shall they pitch. One writer said, and I'll
just give this to you. I'm not sure it's factual or
not, but he studied it a whole lot. He said that the whole area
of the children of Israel, the area it would take to hold them
all would be three square miles. We're talking about a big encampment
here because you're talking about over a million people. Now watch
this. And on the east side, on the east side, do you remember
where the gate into the outer court was? It was at the east
side. The east side, it was the eastern
gate, the only gate into the tabernacle. And on the east side,
toward the rising of the sun, shall they of the standard of
the camp of Judah, they shall pitch throughout their armies.
And Nashon, the son of Abinadab, he shall be the captain of the
children of Judah. And his host, those that were
numbered of them were three score and 14,600, 74,600. So that's
within the nation or within the tribe of Judah, there were 74,600
soldiers. Able-bodied men ready to take
up weapons and fight for the cause of Israel if need be. These men are 20 and above. Verse
five. And those that do pitch next
unto Judah shall be of the tribe of Issachar. And Nethaniel the
son of Zuar shall be captain of the children of Issachar.
And his host and those that were numbered thereof were 54,000
and 400, 54,400 of course, verse seven. And then the tribe of
Zebulun, and Eliab the son of Helan shall
be the captain of the children of Zebulun. And his host and
those that were numbered thereof were 50 and 7,400, all that were
numbered in the camp of Judah." See, this is the way God set
it up. Their camps consisted of three
tribes counted together. Those separate, yet they're counted
together, so you've got four groups of people. East, north,
south, west. Right? You got it? So every side
of the tabernacle's got three tribes of Israel. And you'll
notice, and we'll get into this more later, you don't read the
name of the tribe of Joseph, you read the tribe of Ephraim
and Manasseh, who were the two sons of Joseph. And it's interesting,
that tribe which is not mentioned here is the tribe of Levi. So
you got three tribes here, eastern side. Over here's three more
tribes. Over there's three more tribes.
That'd be at the back of the tabernacle, right? You can visualize
that. So that's on the western side.
It's eastern side over here where Judah's at. Over there's the
western side. That's the way God set it up. He set it up that way. Now look
at verse 9. All that were numbered in the
camp of Judah. So that's Judah and Issachar
and Zebulun. All of them together were 186,400
soldiers throughout their armies. And there's a little statement
that is very important right at the end of verse nine. These
shall first set forth. They went first. This is the
tribe of Judah. Now we know what their standard
was, their banner. Their banner was a lion. That's their banner. And whenever
anybody saw the banner that had a line on it and the background
was a light blue like the color of the heavens, that's Judah's
tribe right there. And Judah would always go first. Now they had the largest number
of army men, but more than that, that's the
very tribe through which our Lord Jesus is going to come.
So they're mentioned first here as being more important. And
their location is not over to the side of the tabernacle or
even behind the tabernacle or to that side of the tabernacle.
They're in the very front of the tabernacle. Now the only
group between them and the gate of the tabernacle were the Levites. The Levites, they had camped
all the way around, right inside of all the other tribes. So that
whenever you looked outside your tent door, you could see, of
course, the tabernacle was in view of everybody. Because you
see, the Lord Jesus, He is always in the center, and we're always
around Him. Doesn't matter who you are, if
you're a believer. And here these Israelites, they
saw the tabernacle right in the middle, and the people of Judah
were right there, right there, the nearest, to the gate. Because you see, the entrance
into the tabernacle is through one who was of the tribe of Judah. And you know what he's spoken
of as being in Revelation chapter 5? Lion of the tribe of Judah. That's who he is. He's the lion. And He leads the way. He's first
when they went off to march and they were going in an easterly
direction. It's the tribe of Judah going
first. Look with me back in Genesis
chapter 49. Look at Genesis chapter 49. It's interesting to consider
there in Numbers chapter 2, you remember reading, I read too
that the Lord said, pitch your tents far off. It's got to be a distance between
you and the tabernacle. And that's the way it was under
the Levitical law. A distance. But our Lord Jesus
has come into this world and He has died for His people. He
has shed His blood to redeem us. And we're brought nigh to
God. We're not a far distance off
from God. We're nigh to God. In fact, He
dwells within us. Scripture says, Christ in you,
the hope of glory. And I'll read this, what I want
to read here out of Genesis 49 in just a minute, but think of
this. The children of Israel, they
encircle God. I said Christ is in the middle.
Every eye's on Him. It doesn't matter where you live,
in the north, the south, the east, or the west. All of God's
people focus on Him. He's the focus. It's like that
tabernacle was the focal point. And then, and I didn't finish
this thought, but the tabernacle was the focal point, and then
around the tabernacle, the priesthood. And the Israelites would always
remember those two things. There's the tabernacle, there's
the Lord, and I've got a priest who's ministering to God for
me. And let me tell you something,
we have a priest who ministers to God for us. He's our great
high priest. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he is the lion of the tribe of Judah. Here in Genesis chapter
49, Jacob is on his deathbed. He's called his sons in. He's
going to pronounce blessings upon them. And look at verse
8. Judah. Genesis 49. Judah? What does
Judah's name mean? Praise. Praise the Lord. He's
one of the sons of Leah, Rachel's sister. And when he was born, the last
of her four sons, she said, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Judith, thou art he whom thy
brethren shall praise. I had Ron read Psalm 148 for
that reason. We all praise Him. All of His
brethren praise Him. And one of these days, everybody,
everything that hath breath is going to praise the name of our
great Judah, the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, how come Moses didn't
come out of the tribe of Judah? Moses came out of the tribe of
Levi because he is of the priestly tribe, but also he represents
God's law. Law can't take you into the promised
land. Only Jehovah Jesus can do that.
Read on. Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck
of thine enemies. Think of the cross of Calvary,
where our Lord Jesus, He conquered every enemy of His people. Thy
father's children shall bow down before thee." And all of the
father's children do. We bow down before Christ. Jude
is a lion's whelp. He's a young lion. Full of strength. Full of power. And from the prey,
my son, thou art gone up. Where has he gone up to? He's
gone up to glory. He's seated at the right hand
of God, having finished His work of redemption. Well, why was He exalted on high? Because look at this next statement.
He stooped down. That's why. He humbled Himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore, God is highly exalted in Him. It's because He stooped
down. He couched as a lion, as an old
lion. You don't want to rouse him up. You don't want to rouse up this
lion against you. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. And
we know that the government of Judah existed until the Lord
Jesus came. And then in 70 AD, it was all
destroyed. Oh yes, Shiloh has come. What does Shiloh mean? The gatherer. He's the one who gathers his
people around him. In fact, he says in verse 11,
binding his foal under the vine and his ass's colt under the
choice vine. Think of his entrance into Jerusalem. Think of him being the vine.
He said, I'm the vine. I am the vine. You're the branches,
he told his disciples. He washed his garments in wine,
in blood, in the blood of grapes. See Him at the cross of Calvary
shedding His blood. And His teeth shall be red with
wine, or His eyes shall be red with wine, His teeth white with
milk. You know what He gives to us?
He gives us the wine and the gospel that makes the heart merry. And He gives us the milk of the
Word to strengthen us. To strengthen us. I'll go back to Numbers, the
second chapter, then. So here we have Judah positioned
right in front of the gate. And then, of course, within all
the tribes was the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe. We know that
Judah, Judah was the fourthborn son to Leah. It was Reuben, Simeon, Levi,
and Judah. She was the one who gave him
the name of Judah. She said, I will praise the Lord.
And that's what she did. She named Judah the praise of
the Lord. And here we have Judah positioned
in a very strategic location. They face the door or the gate
of the tabernacle. And when the pillar of cloud
began to move, And they heard the ram's horn
sounded out by the priests. It was Judah who led them. And
it's our Lord Jesus who leads us. He leadeth me. Oh, blessed thought, He leadeth
me. That's what we sing. He leadeth
me beside the still waters is what David says in Psalm 23. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness. He leads me because I don't know
where to go. Oh, blessed, pleasant thought
that our great Judah leads us. He leads us to God. He leads
us to salvation. He leads us to the water of life
and then gives us a thirst to drink. He leads us to the bread
of life and gives us an appetite to eat. This is our great Judah. Judah. But within the tribe of Judah,
there was one individual who was set aside for a very, very
important job. Look at verse three of chapter
two again. And on the east side toward the
rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of
Judah pitch throughout their armies. And Nashon, who is the
son of Abinadab, he shall be the captain. He shall be the
governor. He shall be the leader. He shall
be the chief of the children of Judah. And whenever that pillar
of cloud began to move, and the people of Judah, specifically
Nashon, when he heard the ram's horn sound, he picked up that
banner, Let's go! He leads the way. He leads the way. He's the one
out front. Who is this man? Really, we don't
know much about him. Back in the first chapter, we
know that Moses and Aaron selected one man from every tribe who
would be there to validate the counting of the men, and he was
the one who represented Judah then. Who is this guy? Well, like I said, we don't know
too much about him. But we know that he was the captain
of all of Judah, and he led the way. Go with me to the book of Ruth.
Let me just show you a few things about this man, Nashon. Some pronounce it Na-shon, and
that's probably more correct, but I've always said Na-shon,
so you know who I'm talking about. Look at the book of Ruth. The
book of Ruth in chapter 4. We know that Ruth married Boaz,
right? The kinsman redeemer. And that's
a beautiful story in and of itself. Don't have time to get into that
right now. But look at Ruth chapter four and verse 18. Luke, or Ruth, excuse me. Ruth
chapter four and verse 18. Now these are the generations
of Phares, son of Judah. Phares begat Hezron
and Hezron begat Ram and Ram begat Abinadab. And Abinadab
begat Nashon. And Nashon begat Salmon, that
was his son. By the way, he married Rahab
the harlot after the Israelites took over Jericho. And in fact, Nashon's sister
married Aaron. So Aaron is his mother-in-law.
But Abinadab begat Nashon, and Nashon begat Salmon, and Salmon
begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse
begat David. He's in the lineage. Oh, well
might he be out there in the front. He's in the lineage of
David. More than that, he's in the lineage
of the son of David, even the Lord Jesus himself. So go to
Matthew chapter 1. Look at Matthew chapter 1. And I'll read the first six verses. The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat
Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob. Jacob begat
Judas, or Judah and his brethren, and Judah begat Phares, and Zerah
of Tamar, and Phares begat Esram, and Esram begat Aram, and Aram
begat Abinadab, and Abinadab begat Naasan, same guy, just
different spelling in the New Testament, and Naasan begat,
he begat his son Salmon, and then come all the way down, to
verse, let me read verse 15. And Elihud begat Eleazar, and
Eleazar begat Mathan, and Mathan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat
Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is
Christ. He's in the royal lineage. You see, this is the genealogy
of Joseph. Now go over to Luke, the third
chapter. Here's the genealogy of Mary. And we'll find this man is still
in the genealogy because both of them, you see, were of the
tribe of Judah, both Joseph and Mary. That's the reason in Luke,
the second chapter, that they took a census and Joseph and
Mary had to go to Bethlehem. They had to go to Bethlehem in
order to be counted. Now look at Luke chapter 3. And here we're tracing the lineage
of Mary backwards. We're going backwards now. So
look at verse 23. And Jesus himself began to be
about 30 years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Heli. And now drop down to verse 31. The last statement of verse 31,
which was the son of David, which was the son of Jesse. Remember,
we're going backwards now. which was the son of Obed, which
was the son of Boaz, or Boaz, which was the son of Salmon,
which was the son of Nason. And you keep on going and going
and going, and it says, verse 38, which was the son of Enos,
which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was
the son of God. The Lord said to Moses, here's
my man. This is my man. This guy over
here, in Numbers chapter 2 and verse 3, his name is Nashon. He's my man. He'll be out front. He's got the banner. He holds
the banner up. And I'll tell you what, all the
children of Israel, when they saw that banner move, they're
moving with it. And our Lord Jesus, He not only
holds the banner, He is the banner. He's the banner Himself. In the
book of Isaiah we read that. He draws people unto Himself. We're drawn to the banner. We're
drawn to the ensign. He is the Lion. He's the one
who conquered. You see, the reason we will never
be defeated is because the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed,
Revelation chapter 5. He prevailed over all of our
enemies and over all of His enemies. And He's been exalted, this One
who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. as all of Judah and all of Israel,
as they followed that one man, we follow our Lord Jesus. He's
out front. He's never faced anything that
you will face, He faced first. And He went into death. He went
into the grave, so will you. But He went first. And He came
out. So will you in the resurrection.
And He's gone home to glory. And so will you. Jesus, our forerunner,
has entered in. He went first. He's gone to heaven.
There's a man in heaven. And because there's a man in
heaven, there's going to be a whole lot more men in heaven. And women
too. This is Nashon. He leads the
way. And we follow Him. His banner over us is love. And He is conquered over all
of our foes. Neshon, that idea, He's the captain
means He's the author. The word captain means author. Christ is the author and finisher
of our faith. There in Hebrews chapter 12,
He's the prince. He's the one who is exalted to
give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. I'll tell
you, it's an honor to follow our nation, to follow our King,
to follow our leader, the Lord Jesus, and we'll follow Him right
on into glory one day. And on this earth, He leads us
now, and we follow Him. He leads not only the tribe of
Judah, He leads the entire nation of Israel. He leads all of His
true people. And He'll never lead us in the
wrong direction. He'll never lead us out somewhere
and then forsake us. He's always with us. And one
more thought, and I'll quit. There that tabernacle was, and
all the way encircled around the tabernacle were the people
of God. Yet the Scripture also says that the Lord Himself encircles
us. What nearness. Oh, how close we are to our Lord. How close He is to us. Oh, God give us faith to trust
Him. to rest in Him and not be fearful. Lord, take the things
that have been spoken this morning and magnify Yourself. We're thankful
for our great nation, the great Judah, the great Son of God,
our Lord Jesus Christ. He went into the very heat of
the battle for us. He conquered every foe. And because
of Him, we've been redeemed and reconciled to God. Divine justice
was satisfied by our Savior. And He's gone on back to glory,
where He's seated upon His throne, ruling and reigning over all
things. And we follow Him through His
Word, and we shall someday follow Him right on into glory, to be
with Him forever and ever. Thank You, Lord, for these beautiful
pictures that You give us in the Word of God of spiritual
truths. And we're thankful we're numbered
among those who are the followers of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. For Christ's sake, I pray these
things. Amen.