and study the altar of incense,
the altar of incense. Lord, we bow before you again,
recognizing our own inability to do anything of a spiritual
nature. Worship is foreign to us. Honoring God is something that's
the furthest from our minds. That is, unless you, Lord, cause
us to worship. Forgive us for being so wrapped
up with this world. The things of the world give
us grace to focus upon matters of everlasting value. Oh, that Christ would be our
all in all. May we see in Him infinite beauties. Let us worship Him, the only
Savior of sinners. We recognize the need of Your
grace. Open the windows of heaven and
shower us with Your grace this hour. Folks that are listening, some
don't know the Gospel of Christ. Some don't believe on the Lord
Jesus. Oh God, grant true faith. You'll
have to do the work. The work of salvation is of God
only. We recognize that and therefore
we're bowing before you and asking you to save, asking you to bless,
asking you to direct our attention to your holy word. We thank you for our Savior And
for that great salvation we have in Him, we ask that you'll now
be pleased to speak to us poor and needy sinners. Direct us
to the Son of God, the One who loved sinners and gave His life
for us. Magnify yourself, Father, for
Christ's sake. I ask these things. Amen. Well, we've been studying the
tabernacle in the wilderness, as you know. And that tabernacle,
with all of its rituals, with all of its ceremonies, with all
of its sacrifices, the priesthood, everything about the tabernacle,
the entrances into the tabernacle, the gate into the outer court,
the door into the holy place, the veil into the holy of holies,
all of these things, the coverings, linen, white linen fence all
the way around the outer part of the tabernacle. They were
all designed by God and all were intended to typify and to teach
us of our Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners. You need to remember
this, that everything about the tabernacle, as we view it and
as we study it, it's always got, everything has to always lead
us to the Savior. Either His wonderful person,
or His work, or the result of that work. and everything about
the tabernacle leads us to worship. After all, as we began to study
the different pieces of furniture in the tabernacle, back there
in the Holy of Holies, there was the Ark of the Covenant with
the mercy seat on top, and there God said, that's where I dwell.
Now obviously, that couldn't contain the very presence of
God, because the presence of God exceeds all of the universe. God is everywhere. But the Lord
said, that's where I'll meet you. That's where I'll speak
to you. That's where I'll show mercy
to you. That's where I'll deal with you
in grace. And so as we look at this unusual
tent in the wilderness that looked very much like any other tent.
I mean, when you looked at the tabernacle from if you got up
on a knoll or up on a hill and looked down at the tabernacle,
you'd see all these hundreds and hundreds of tents. There
was nothing unusual looking about the tabernacle because the roof
of that was badger skins also. And of course, we know that pictured
our Lord Jesus. He looked just like any other
person in this world when He walked upon the face of the earth.
He looked just like any other man. He didn't go around with
a halo over His head. He didn't go around with brightness
shining forth out of Him, though that brightness was in Him. That was the very brightness
of the glory of God, which He manifested, of course, to His
three favorite disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. But everything about the tabernacle
is about our Savior. In His earthly ministry, He appeared
to be as other men. But beneath that outer body,
there was God's very presence in him. In other words, he was
God. He's man and he's God. That's a truth that's way yonder
beyond our comprehension. that once on this earth there
walked a man. But that man was more than a
man. That's the God man. And you need
to understand this. Everything he did is of value
to us and especially of value to God because of his deity. See, other men have died for
the cause of religion. Our Lord didn't die for the cause
of religion. He died as the Savior of His
people. And that one dying upon the cross
of Calvary was the God-man. Never was there a death like
His death. And every sacrifice that died
on Jewish altars, on the brazen altar, every sacrifice that died,
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them. Every day a morning
sacrifice and an evening sacrifice, and all who would worship God,
they had to have their animal sacrifice unto God. Every last
one of them pictured our Savior. But none of them could put away
any sin. None of them could satisfy God's
justice. Yes, the justice of God said,
the soul that sinneth shall die. And there was a death at the
brazen altar just every few minutes. But the deaths of those animals
did not put anybody's sin away. Only the death of God's Lamb
could do that. And all of those others pictured
Him and His sacrifice for sin. Now we pretty much worked our
way through most all of six of the pieces of furniture in the
tabernacle. Now this morning we're going
to deal with the altar of incense. That's a very special, a very
special piece of furniture. It is set forth here in Exodus
chapter 30. Let's read a little about it.
Look at verse 1. And thou shalt make an altar
to burn incense upon. Now understand this. Two altars
in the tabernacle. Okay? There is first of all the
brazen altar. That's where sacrifices were
offered. That's the only place in all
of the tabernacle where a blood sacrifice was offered. But here's
another altar, an altar to burn incense on it. There's no death
at this altar. There's no satisfaction of divine
justice at this altar. There's no payment for the sins
of people at this altar. That's all pictured out there
at the brazen altar. This is an altar which was only
used to burn incense. Incense. And here's the way it worked.
Every morning, in fact, let me just read a little bit about
it, and then I'll make a couple of comments. Look at verse two.
A cubit shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof.
Four squared shall it be. Two cubits shall be the height
thereof, and the horns thereof shall be of the same. And then
he speaks about how it's to be constructed. Verse three, thou
shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides
thereof, round about in the horns thereof, and thou shalt make
it a crown of gold round about it. So here's the basis of this
altar is Shittim wood, Acacia wood. which was very durable,
and we've talked about this in our study of the various pieces
of the tabernacle, pieces of furniture of the tabernacle,
very durable, it wouldn't decay, it wouldn't rot, it would outlast
anybody in the priesthood. It lasted years and years and
years. That's our Lord's, that's a picture
of our Lord's humanity. Incorruptible, sinless, No imperfections. The best of us in here, the best
of you men in here, I wouldn't even include myself, but the
best of you men in here this morning, is full of sin, right? We know that. There's not a just
man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. But our
Lord Jesus, He was not a sinful man. He knew no sin, He did no
sin, He was not corrupted by sin, and He could not be corrupted
by sin. And so this Shittim would, mentioned
back up in verse one, of Shittim would, or Acacia would, that
pictured our Lord's incorruptibility. Oh, thank God he's the perfect
man. That first man, Adam, he sinned. He became imperfect. He became
a sinner. And when he became a sinner,
all of us did too. He was our representative. When
he stood, we stood. When he fell, we all fell. We
all became ungodly. We all came to this world speaking
lies, ungodly before the Lord. But there came one into this
world who had no sin, incorruptible. That's our Lord Jesus. But then
over that wooden framework was gold. That picture is our Lord's
deity. This is God. This is God. So it's overlaid with pure gold,
the top, the sides, round about, the horns thereof. Apparently
there was a horn on each corner of the table. And then there
was also a crown of gold all around. And look at verse 4.
And two golden rings shalt thou make to it under the crown of
it, by the two corners thereof upon the two sides of it, when
thou shalt make it. And they shall be for places
for the staves to bear it withal. Now how the staves made, verse
5, thou shalt make the staves also of shittum wood, incorruptible
wood, and overlay them with gold, and thou shalt put it before
the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy
seat that is over the testimony where I will meet thee. So now
you have a picture in your mind's eye of what this altar of incense
looked like. Well, of what use was it? Well, it was of this use. To
burn incense. Look at verse 7. And Aaron shall
burn their own, the script says, very sweet incense. Delightful smelling incense. Every morning. Every morning. This was the way the mourning
began for Israel. They'd get up, and many of them
would go and watch as Aaron entered into the tabernacle. He went
in, first of all, through the gate of the outer court. And
that's a picture of our Lord Jesus. He's the gate. He's the
gate. He's the way we come to God.
If you're going to worship God, you've got to worship God by
the Lord Jesus. We go through the gate. One gate.
Out of all the tabernacles, here's a seven and a half foot fence.
Runs all the way around it, except for this big opening. And Aaron
would go through the gate. And here's the first thing he
would do. Offer a sacrifice for himself. There's the hot coals,
the fire burning, the wood's been put on there. He had to
offer a sacrifice for himself. And after he offered the sacrifice
for himself, Aaron, every morning, this is without fail, he would
then walk a little further to the laver. It's a brazen laver. And there he would wash his hands.
His hands were bloodied from offering the sacrifice, and he
would wash his feet. And then he would enter into
the holy place. He'd go through the door. There's
the gate of the tavern into the outer court of the tabernacle.
That's Christ the gate. And now he'd go through the door
into the holy place. That's Christ the door, the entranceway
to worship God. You want to worship God? I really
want to worship God, don't you? I want to honor God. I want to
render to God the glory that is due Him. The only way I can
render to God the glory that is due Him is to enter into His
presence by the way, the door of Christ Jesus. You've got to
remember that. Christ said, I am the door. By
Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and go in and out and
find pasture." Hebrews says He's able to save
to the uttermost all that, listen to it, all that come unto God
by Him. You can't come unto God any other
way. There's only one way to come
unto God, and that's Christ Jesus. And so Aaron would then go into
the holy place. And there he would trim the lamps. And there's the table of showbread,
the bread of God's presence on his right side. And then right
there in front of him was the altar of incense. And here's what he would do.
He would then pick up a golden censer. and some tongs. And with the
tongs in his hand and the silver censer all during the year except
for the Day of Atonement, then he used a golden censer. He'd
take this silver censer, he'd go back out to the brazen altar. Then he'd take those tongs and
he'd pick up those hot coals and put them in his censer. And then he goes back through. He goes into the holy place and
he goes right up to the veil, not on the other side of the
veil, on this side of the veil. And then he'd take incense. Incense. And he'd put incense all over
those hot coals after he put them on the altar of incense.
Put the hot coals down and then put the incense on. You say,
well, what was that incense? Well, I'm glad you asked. Go
a little further in this chapter. Look down to verse 34. And the Lord said unto Moses,
verse 34 of chapter 30, The Lord said unto Moses, and
here's the instructions regarding the sweet spices or incense. Taken of these sweet spices,
stacte and ancha and galbanum, these sweet spices with pure
frankincense, of each there shall be like weight. In other words,
each of these four spices the same weight. Thou shalt make
it a perfume. Oh, it's gonna smell good. a
confection after the art of the apothecary, and temper it together
pure and holy. And thou shalt beat some of it
very small, and put it before the testimony of the tabernacle
of the congregation, where I will meet with thee. It shall be unto
you most holy. And as for the perfume which
thou shalt make, you shall not make it to yourselves according
to the composition thereof. This is for God. This is holy
for God. In other words, when Aaron goes
in there, any of the priests who followed him, they said,
boy, that sure does smell good. I believe I'll make some of that
for my house, for my tent. Think how good that'll smell
over at my place. God says, don't do that. This
is only for me. This is only for me. In fact,
he even says this in verse 38, whosoever shall make lichen to
that, so he could enjoy the fragrance of it when he gets back to his
tent, the smell thereof, shall even be cut off from his people. This incense, it's very important
because it's the only thing that's done at this piece of furniture.
Four different kind of spices. And you can look them up. It's
very difficult to find a definition or to find exactly what these
spices mean. There are a couple of writers
who'll say perhaps this particular spice means this or stands for
that. We don't really know. But we
know that all four of them together were blended, and then put on
the hot coals, and then, oh, it smelled so good in the holy
place. And I would say that these four
things, and I don't think I'm jumping out on a limb here. I don't think I'm going out on
a limb too far. All these four things I think
picture the life of our Lord Jesus, the death of our Lord
Jesus, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, and the exaltation
of our Lord Jesus. And all of His work His work
of obedience to God's law. He said, I didn't come to destroy
the law, I came to fulfill it. He kept God's law and then died
under the curse of it. He honored God's law. He kept
it perfectly. Then he bore the penalty of the
law for sin. He died in our stead. Here's
our Lord Jesus. These four together, together,
made a perfect, perfect fragrance to God. And God smelled it. And you know what it says in
Ephesians chapter 5 verse 2? His sacrifice was a sweet savor
to God. His death was sweet to God. Very
pleasant. It's very pleasant. And I'll
tell you somebody else it's pleasant to. It's pleasant to the people
of God. Oh, how fragrant is the life of Christ and then the death
of Christ. Death of Christ for the Father.
That's what God demanded. Death for sin. Christ died on
the cross. And His resurrection showing
that God accepted what He did. And then His exaltation. God
enthroned Him. and He rules over all things.
All of the obedience of our Lord from His birth to His exaltation,
all of it is well-pleasing to God. Offered a sweet fragrance
to the Lord. And God said, that's what you
put on the hot coals. And here's what's important to
remember too, something else. that when Aaron did this every
morning, and no doubt the Israelites gathered around as many as could,
at least the representatives of the various tribes of Israel,
they watched as Aaron did his work, and they rejoiced that
they had somebody to represent them. Let me take you back out to the
brazen altar one more time. What was the brazen altar about?
It was about a sacrifice, about substitution. That's what the
brazen altar was about. And then after that substitution,
washing at the brazen laver. What is that? That's regeneration.
the washing of the water by the word of God. We're washed in
the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Certainly if the brazen altar
pictures substitution, the brazen labor pictures regeneration,
the new birth. And then we go in, and then in
the light of our Lord's presence, We walk with Him. We fellowship
with Him. There's the bread of communion
on the table. And then there's the altar of
incense where our Lord presented the sweet fragrance of His obedience
up unto death and on beyond. And God the Father was well pleased. Here's what you see in a straight
line. If you could kind of visualize
in your mind The brazen altar, substitution. The brazen labor,
regeneration. And then the altar, the golden
altar of incense, that's intercession. And as Aaron went in there that
morning, he was representing the people of Israel. He had
other things to do during the day, but the very last thing
in the day, He repeated it all over again. That's what the Scripture
says here. Look at verse 8 again. And when Aaron lighted the lamps
at evening, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense
before the Lord throughout your generations. In other words,
every morning and every evening. This never was different. Every
morning and every evening, He offered a sacrifice for Himself,
substitution. That's the only way anybody lives
before God is by substitution. That's the death of our Lord
Jesus. And then He washed it, the labor, the washing of water
by the Word of God. And then He entered into the
holy place, and then He put, after getting some hot coals
out there and bringing them in, put them on the altar of incense,
and He put that Four different kinds of spices all blended together,
making one delightful mixture. And it was offered to God, and
God was well pleased. And I want you to see this morning.
Everything about our Lord Jesus and His obedience to God was
indeed well pleasing to the Father. Who did Aaron do all of this
for? Well, first of all, he did it
for God because God told him to do it this way. Who did our
Lord Jesus, who did He do all of His obedience, His work of
redemption, His sacrifice, and all of the rest that He did?
Who did He do it for? First and foremost, He did it
for God. And I think most people are ignorant
of this that God had to do something for Himself before He could do
anything for us. There's no mercy, there's no
grace, there's no salvation, there's no forgiveness, there's
no righteousness for us unless we have a perfect representative
to obey God in every facet of His life, in His death, in His
resurrection, and in His exaltation. He is our representative. I said
a while ago, we fell in Adam and all that he represented died. We became polluted, we became
corrupt, but we have another representative. We have Christ
Jesus. And he perfectly obeyed God. And he obeyed it for his seed,
for his posterity. and all of His posterity, all
of the elect of God, all of the chosen of God, reap the benefits,
enjoy the blessings of His obedience unto our God. Ah, the altar of incense smelled so good. You know, I
was thinking about this fragrance that the incense, the burning
incense calls within the tabernacle. Outside, you've got the burning
of the animal carcasses. That wouldn't smell too good.
That would be offensive to people, the smoke rising up. Of course,
the death of our Lord Jesus, it was offensive to many people,
but it sure did please the Father. It sure did honor the Father.
But along with His sacrificial death, there's the burning of
the incense indicating everything He did, God smelled a sweet savor. Everything pleased God. Everything
was delightful to the Father. So of what use was the altar
of incense? Well, it's to burn incense upon.
No blood was ever shed here. Although once a year, once a
year, Aaron had to touch, he had to anoint this altar with
blood. Once a year. Not every day, just
once a year he had to anoint this altar with blood. which
shows the perpetual power of the blood of the sacrifice of
our Lord Jesus. But mainly, all the rest of the
year, this altar of incense was only for one purpose, to burn
incense. Two things I want to give you
here, and I want you to look now at verse 9. He says, Next word, strange incense. What would cause incense to be
strange? This would be incense that was
not made according to the instructions of God. This is to offer something
else. And I'll tell you this, if you
try to offer to God anything other than The life, the death,
the resurrection, and the exaltation of our Lord Jesus. That's strange
incense. That's offensive to God. Understand
this. There is nothing. Hear me well. There's nothing about any of
us that has any good smell about it. There's no work. No word, no deed that we have
ever done that God said, now that smells good. No, it's all
polluted before God. It's all polluted. But if you
endeavor to offer to God your works, your church membership,
your Bible reading, your prayers, your offerings, anything, you've
offered strange incense. God said, don't offer that to
Me. Don't offer that to me. I won't accept it. God will never
accept you for anything you have ever done. Understand? He will
never, He will never ever accept you, the sinner, for anything
you've ever done for Him because all you've ever done as a polluted
fountain is give forth evil and sinfulness. That's just the way
we are. You say, well, as the people
of God, we do good works. Our works are made good by Christ
Himself. All we do is sin. And if you dare to offer God
anything you've ever done as a reason why He should accept
you, God says, that's strange incense. I'm not going to have
it. Not going to have it. And not
only must there never be strange incense offered, but it must
not be offered upon a strange fire. Turn with me to Leviticus. chapter 10. Interesting passage
of scripture here in Leviticus chapter 10. Two things pertaining
to the burning of incense are called by God strange. First of all, he says, don't
offer me strange incense. And then he's going to say, as
we shall see here, don't offer me strange fire either. Look
at the last couple of verses of chapter 9 of Leviticus, and
this is when the Lord dedicated, this is at the dedication of
Aaron and the priesthood. Look at verse 23. And Moses and
Aaron, chapter 9, Leviticus. And Moses and Aaron went into
the tabernacle of the congregation and came out and blessed the
people, and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people.
And there came a fire out from before the Lord, kind of like
lightning, is the way I would interpret this, as lightning,
and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat. And
when all the people they saw, they shouted and fell on their
faces. It's going into chapter 10. And
Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his
censer, their priests, and they put on their censers fire, hot
coals, And then they put incense thereon, but they offered, God
said, strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them
not. You see, the incense had to be made exactly as God prescribed. This is not left for them, well,
I'll put in any kind of mixture I want. No. He said one-fourth
of this, or equal parts of all four of them. And then God says,
bring the fire from off the altar, the brazen altar. But here's
what these fellows did. They offered to God strange fire. What is strange fire? That would
be hot coals not taken from the brazen altar. They got their
hot coals somewhere else. Maybe they built a fire that
morning to fix breakfast over to the house, and they had hot
coals over there, and they said, this is so convenient to take
these hot coals here. Now, I don't know why I need
to go out there to the brazen altar and get them, so I'll just
get these hot coals from off our fire. Honey, back off. I'm
going to get some hot coals from the fire that you fixed breakfast
over, and I'll take these over to the tabernacle. And then they
took that in their censer over to the tabernacle, and then they
sprinkled incense upon it, and they're burning incense unto
God. God said, that's strange fire. Look at verse two. How serious
is this? and there went out fire from
the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. In
other words, that bolt of lightning that burned up the sacrifice
there at the end of chapter 9, now that same lightning strike
took these guys right out into eternity and right into hell.
Just like that. Why did that happen? Let me tell you something about
that brazen altar. That picture, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the substitutionary death
of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the only basis by which
we come to God. The blood of the Savior. You
bring your hot zeal, so I'm zealous for God. And you see a lot of
people in religion, they're just burning as it were. They're like
hot coals. They're fervent. I'm serving
the Lord. I'm serving the Lord. You approach
God on the basis of what you're doing or have done or will do,
God will kill you. That's how serious it is. Don't
you dare bring him strange incense. And don't you dare burn incense
upon strange fire. In other words, preacher, tell
me exactly what you're saying here. Only way you can come to
God is by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus and
His obedience unto God only. This is not about what you do
for God." He said, well, don't we serve the
Lord? Sure, we serve the Lord. We're serving Him right now.
We're worshiping Him, aren't we? We're talking about His Son. We're bragging upon the grace
of God in Christ Jesus to us sinners. We're talking about
how to come to God. How to come to God. Every day. See, Aaron did the same thing
every day. In the evening, he went back.
He went back to the tabernacle. What's he going to do in the
evening? He's going to offer a sacrifice for himself. He puts that up
there. That's Christ crucified. He goes
through the labor. He washes. That's regeneration.
That's a picture of a man being cleansed by the Word of God.
Then he enters into the holy place. And in the holy place,
he goes and he takes his censer again, that silver censer and
the tongs, and he goes right back out to the brazen altar.
He puts those hot coals on the censer. He takes them in, puts
the hot coals on the altar of incense, and then puts the incense
all over it. And once again, this delightful
smell just fills the house of the tabernacle. What is that delightful fragrance? That's a picture of our Lord
Jesus and his obedience unto God. And I'm gonna give you one more
verse. And it's from Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter
five. I just cannot stress this enough. Don't ever think that God accepts
you for something you have done or something you must do. That's deadly. That's a deadly
thought. The only reason God accepts anybody
is in Christ Jesus. We read in Ephesians chapter
one and verse six, we're accepted in the beloved. Not accepted
in our works. Not accepted in all the things
that we do for God. But preacher, I do all of this
for God. There's no basis for God to accept
you because everything you've ever done is polluted with sin.
You understand that? I hope we do. There's only one sacrifice that
put away the sins of His people. Only one sacrifice that satisfied
the justice of a holy God. Only one sacrifice that saved,
saved sinners. Our Lord Jesus didn't die to
make people savable. He didn't die on the cross of
Calvary to open the door so that if you want to, you can be saved.
No, He saved people by His death. That's the reason it's a sweet
fragrance unto God. So look here in Ephesians 5.
Look at verse, actually look at the last verse of chapter
four. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Have
you been forgiven? If you've been forgiven, you've
been forgiven for Christ's sake. Not because you ask for it. Huh? Not because you ask for it. God doesn't forgive you on the
basis of you asking for forgiveness. He forgives you on the basis
of the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. In fact, when
He died, He established righteousness for His people. He put away all
the sins of His people when He died. and regeneration you just
become aware of, God is already satisfied on your account because
of what Christ Jesus did and because of who He is. Alright,
now look at verse 1 of chapter 5. God for Christ's sake has
forgiven you. Verse 1. Be ye therefore followers
of God as dear children. Be imitators of God. Be forgiving. and walk in love as Christ also
hath loved us, and given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for..." Watch this. Sweet, sweet smelling savor. Tell you what you offer to God. Lord, show me mercy for Christ's
sake. Amen. Lord, save my poor soul. based upon the obedience of your
Son, which I read in your Word is a sweet savor to you." Lord,
I know in my sin I stink. It's hard to get people to admit
that. You stink before God. God looked down from heaven to
see if there were any good. He said they're all gone astray.
They've all together become filthy. You know what that word means
there in Psalm 14? They've all together become stinking. That's the best you can do. You
say, well, I don't agree with you. Well, you go ahead and stay
in your ignorance if you want to. But I hope God will enlighten
you. The only way God's going to accept
anybody is through the fragrance of the obedience of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I hope that's clear to you. Well,
let's pray. Lord, it's good to be gathered
by Your kind providential dealings with us so that we can hear the
truth of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not offer
You anything that we have said, done, or thought. We offer You
no work upon which basis we want You to receive us. Lord, we come
to You through the merits of the sacrifice of Your dear Son.
Through the fragrance of His obedience. We bring, as it were, as Aaron
did, the blending of these four spices into one. The life, the death, the resurrection,
the exaltation of our Savior all blended into one. the obedience
of our Lord Jesus, who He is, what He did for us. We only come
to You through Christ and we only ask for grace, we only ask
for salvation through Him. Lord, I pray that this message
has not been confusing to anyone. If it has, forgive me for confounding
the subject because it's a glorious gospel and there's a blessed
simplicity to it. We come to God through Christ
Jesus and His merits, not ours. Through His obedience, not ours.
Through His sacrifice, not the sacrifice of our giving or anything like that. We come
to You through the obedience of Christ. Lord, we have nothing
and nobody to offer You except we say, show us mercy for Christ's
sake. And according to Your Word, You
do just that. So we thank You for our acceptance
in the Beloved. I ask you to give us an understanding
of your Gospel, and may we go away rejoicing in Christ Jesus,
in whose name I ask these things. Amen.