Let's get our songbooks and turn
to 450. This is a good song and it's
enjoyable to sing the words of it. Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? And indeed it is. Suzanne sang
about the love of the Lord Jesus a few minutes ago, so let's sing
as a congregation, 4.50, and you can remain seated on this
one. There will never be a sweeter
story Story of the Savior's love divine Love that brought him
from the realms of glory, just to save a sinful soul like mine. Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful, wonderful, wonderful? Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful, Wonderful it is to me! Endless as the universe around
me Reaching to the farthest soul away Saving, keeping, loving
ones that found me That is why my heart can truly say Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful! Wonderful! Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful it is to me! Love beyond
our human comprehending Love of God and Christ, how can
it be? This will be my theme and never
ending something wonderful Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful, wonderful. Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful it is to me. Isn't the love of Jesus something
wonderful? Wonderful! Wonderful! Oh, isn't the love
of Jesus something wonderful? Wonderful it is to me! James is going to sing it by
John Newton. Right? John Newton wrote this
song. I know he did, so I don't even have to ask. But anyway,
I wasn't there when he wrote it, but I'm familiar with it. And I think we're going to, after
you sing the verses, we're going to sing the chorus with you,
right? Yes. That's what you want us to do?
OK. Sounds good. Everybody sing out.
Here we go. I saw one hanging on a tree,
and I knew he ain't much. He fixed his lengthened eyes
on me as near his cross I stood. Oh, can it be a bond? A dream, the Savior died for
me. My soul is screaming, my heart
is beating, just to think He died for me. Word, no matter
if you're right or wrong, He gets seen. ? Her neck to take my legs away
? ? And I'm more than fabulous ? ? It seemed to charge me with
his death ? ? Though not a word he spoke ? ? Oh can it be upon
a dream ? The Savior died for me My soul
is thrilled My heart is filled Just to think He died for me
My car just fell and on me And plunged me in despair His house
is run, his blood has spilled, and had to nail him back Oh,
can it be, upon a tree, the Savior died for me? My soul is thrilled, my heart
is filled, just to think he died for me. Alas, I knew not what
he said, but now my tears are vain. Third check by the drain. ? For I, the Lord, have faith
? Oh, can it be upon a tree ? The Savior died for me ? My throat
is thrilled, my heart is filled ? Just to think He died for me A second look, he gave a second
I pray to your forgiveness This blood is for thy ransom paid
I die that thou mayst be O can it be upon a dream The Savior
died for me My soul is real My heart is real Just to think He
died for me Just to think He died for me Thank you. That was such a blessing. It's good to have Brother Shepard
back with us. He's preached here lots of times
and always blessed by the messages God gives him. And I'm thankful
to call him my brother and my good friend. Grateful to God
for you, brother. You come preach to us. It's a wonder that he calls me
his friend. I've been so abusive to him for
the last two days. I've accused him of taking an
old man and working him so hard. I told him he was working me like
a barred mule. But if Brother James can sing
like that, I'll try to stand up here and preach. I want you to turn tonight to
the book of Acts. Chapter 16. Chapter 16, beginning in verse 11. You read
the whole thing, but we'll start tonight at verse 11. Therefore, loosing from Troas,
we came with a straight course to Samothracea, and the next
day to Neapolis, and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief
city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony. and we were in
that city abiding certain days. And on the Sabbath, we went out
of the city by the river, by Riverside, where prayer was bought
to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted
thither. And a certain woman named Lydia
a cellar of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped
God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended
unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized,
and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged
me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide
there. And she constrained us. Now this account is one of an
amazing providence. An amazing providence. that is
wrought by the hand of the Spirit of God. Paul didn't know exactly where
he was to go. He wasn't like a lot of preachers
now that always know the Lord's will and are sure this is the
Lord's will and the Lord told me this. He was not like that. So he started off in one direction,
but the Bible says the Spirit of God forbid him to go in that
direction. And so he started off, I guess,
in the opposite direction, but the Lord forbid him to go in
that direction. And so he just stopped, and that
night as he slept, He had a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, come over and help us. And Luke records that we knew,
we knew then that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel
in Macedonia. He forbid him to go into Asia
Minor, and he sent him into Macedonia to this chief city and Roman
colony called Philippi. But Paul was not on a fool's
errand, and neither is any other gospel preacher. He's being moved all the time
and steered and guided by all the events of providence, by
everything that is going on in the world around him. He's being
moved in a direction, ordained by God before the world was, and he's looking for Lydias. He's looking for Lydias. That's
what I'm doing tonight. That's what all these brethren
who truly preach the gospel, that's what they're doing. Brother
Jason, that's what you do. We're looking for Lydias. And
we don't always know where they're going to be. We don't know what
all is going to transpire. But these who are loved of God
from old eternity, these who have, because of Christ's death,
been redeemed by His blood, they're chosen to salvation. But we know
this. God has us and this gospel on
a collision course with some Lydia somewhere. And oftentimes it's not as we
think it, because when you read as Paul was brought to speak
before certain higher ups in courts, And yet he had a shipwreck
on the way and had to change his plans and move, but finally
he's there and he preaches to these men, but it doesn't say that they
were converted. Doesn't say that, well, I guess
he was just on a fool's errand. No. Because later on, we read
about the saints in Caesar's household. An old guard standing
there, guarding. Paul, it seems, is preaching
to this high man, this ruler, this man in authority, and he's
paying no attention to him, but God's got the attention of this
guard. This little handmaid is over
here. serving and making sure that everything about Caesar
and everything about his court is done. They're not interested
in this gospel. But God's got her attention.
And she hears what Paul says. And that's the way it is always,
all the whole way through the whole book. The providence of
God. is the handmaid of salvation. And there come here on this occasion
to this city, and though God would not send
him to Asia Minor, there's a certain woman here. I always loved that. And there was a certain man. A certain woman. That can be said about all God's
people. They're certain people. He made
them certain in that everlasting covenant. But here, just as God
works all things, His ways not being our ways, here's this woman
who, guess what? She's from Thyatira, Asia Minor. And her name is Lydia. And she's
here. It says she's a seller of purple. I won't go into all that Gil
said about that. He wrote about that much about
what that purple was and all that. But let's just say she
was a businesswoman. And somehow in the providence
of God, because of certain business situations or whatever it might
be, she's found here now in this city of Philippi. And Paul doesn't know her by
name, but he's looking for Lydia. He's going to go here and preach
the gospel, go there and preach the gospel. And then he's going
to come up on one once in a while who actually hears what he's
saying. And that's what we find in every
case because Philip, if you remember, was brought up out of what was
evidently a great revival and he's all of a sudden sent over
into the desert. That's an unlikely spot. Although
that seems sometimes where I preach, a desert. But he sent him to
a man that we call the Ethiopian eunuch. And that was the way with our
Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he often, to the amazement
of everybody around him, he's just here and there and every
place preaching, teaching. And all of a sudden, he stands
up under a tree, looks at that tree, and calls that man by name. He says, Zacchaeus, come down. I'm going to your house today.
Why? Why would you go there? He too
is a son of Abraham. That's the way it was with Peter.
When Peter was sent down to Cornelius' house, the place he most likely
wouldn't ever have gone on his own, because he, like all the
Jews, viewed these Gentiles as unclean. But God said, I'm sending
you down there. What I call clean, don't you
dare call unclean. And it's this way with all of
Christ's sheep, with all that he died for and redeemed, he
always seeks them till he finds them. Till he finds them. That's the
way the shepherd is. We're seeking God's sheep. And while this one and that one
and the other one and most people will not hear this message, he
said, my sheep will hear my voice and they'll follow me. And this is the way it is with
all his Lydia's. She was there for whatever reason. And she's here by the river with
these other women. She's probably, most likely,
a Jewish proselyte. She knew something. She knew
a little bit. But Paul says here, that she hurt us. Now, I'm just
asking you, don't you suppose that all the rest of those women
hurt him? Or were they deaf? Or were they
without ears? But it didn't say anybody else
hurt him. But said she hurt him. And she was first heard the truth
in her ears. God had sent this man to her. And he had preached the gospel
to her. And she heard with her ears. But something else has got to
go on. Something else has got to go
on. And that's something else is
that the Spirit of God, that third person of the Godhead,
the Spirit of God must take this message and this
gospel and reveal it to her. You see, that's what religion
in our day doesn't think is required. Just preach it to him, take it
or leave it, pressure men to believe in it. No. Something else has got to go
on. Because Christ said, all things are delivered to me of
my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, who the Son is, but
the Father, and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom
the Son will reveal him. Always get back to this business
of revelation. God must reveal himself. There must be revelation takes
place, a work of God's spirit. No man can come to me, Christ
said, except the Father draw him. So that's why it says here that she was Lydia, whose heart The Lord opened. Paul didn't open her heart. And Lydia didn't do what most people said
when Jesus comes on your heart's door knocking. She didn't open
her heart. It says here that the Lord opened
her heart. It says Lydia, whose heart the
Lord opened. Why was that? Why was that required? Because her heart was like every
sinner. It was a fortress with barred
doors. held fast by Satan, absolutely
resistant to the truth, blind to the light of the gospel, without
understanding. She was oblivious to her condition. Her deceived heart was deceived as to the way of
righteousness. The Bible says that we're blind
and we do not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He describes it like this. having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. So it says that every one of
these people that God has chosen and love with this everlasting
love, and redeemed by the blood of his son, he says in the Old
Testament and the New, and they shall all be taught of God. That's what it means when it
says that her heart was opened. God, using the means that He
ordained, which was the preaching of the gospel, He opened up her heart. He taught
her by His Spirit, and she came to Christ. You see, there's a real problem
in our day. I've noticed when people speak
of God giving men a new heart, and they are automatically on
a wild goose chase towards something mystical. The Lord opened her
heart. The Lord, he gives his people
a new heart. The new heart is nothing but
a heart of faith. You make it mystical if you want. You can talk about changes all
you want. But the truth is, that I've almost
done everything as a believer that I did as an unbeliever,
but the only difference is I trust Christ. I'm sorry to disappoint you.
I know you think I've improved a lot. But it's the truth. The new heart is simply because
he says, with the heart man believes unto righteousness. The word that is translated here,
opened, we can just forget what naturally
comes to our mind. like a knife splitting a heart. That's not what happens at all.
Because the word that's translated open here, according to the Greek
concordance, it means this, to open the mind of one. It says it means to cause, to
understand a thing. That's amazing, isn't it? You
thought it was something that's going to... They talk about preaching on
sermons, open heart surgery. God's going to perform? No. He's going to cause his people
to understand some things. He's going to deal with them
by His Spirit, taking His Word, the Word that Paul preached,
and He's going to give, as He did to Lydia, to understand some
things, to open her barred mind with
her natural prejudices. I can remember almost to the
place and moment When I had looked and had marked
in my Bible places which I said denied predestination, denied
sovereignty, denied all these things, And like in a moment's notice
almost, I began to think about all those scriptures and I began
to see, oh, that's not the way it is at all. That's the way
it is. This is the way it is. It's God
doing everything. I'm not a bright boy. I didn't
arrive at that on my own. I'm a proud man by nature. I'm a stubborn man by nature. How did that happen? How did
everything I preached against, how did everything I tried to
deny, work around, talk about in a way in which it was like
an orange, I'd suck all the glory out of it, explain it away. How did that happen? The Lord
opened my heart. The Lord overruled my natural
prejudice. The Lord taught me. The Lord
gave me an understanding. Turn over to Luke chapter 24.
You've read these before. But in Luke chapter 24, look
at what he says in verse 32. These had been talking on the
road to Emmaus together. And they were just down in the
dumps. They were viewing Christ's death
as a defeat, as a loss. And then he came and he made
known to them. They did not know who he was
naturally, but he made himself known to them. He revealed himself
to them. This is what they said. And they said one to another,
did not our heart burn within us while we talk with us by the
way, while he opened to us the scriptures? A lot of people say that there's a big difference in head
knowledge and heart knowledge. That's a lie. I'm just telling
you that's a lie. A person may know a few things
and they may make a profession, it'd be nothing at all, but true
knowledge The truth is wrought in the heart by the Spirit of
God, and it's the truth. And as they talk about here,
it caused some real emotions. Their hearts burned within them.
They rejoiced in what they heard. I brought a message a while back
on this, true knowledge. is essential for true emotions. You can have all the emotions
you want, but if it's not based on the truth of God, it doesn't
matter a hill of beans. Let's go watch a movie and get
excited, or watch a sad program and cry. We just have emotion
for emotion. It's nothing unless it's based
on the truth. Look at verse 45, or verse 44. And then this is later when Christ
meets with the disciples, it says, and he said unto them,
these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with
you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. And then he opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. First thing I learned about this
book as a preacher lost but being
taught of God is this. This book from cover to cover
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's about Christ and Him crucified. And whether it is in the Psalms,
or whether it is in the Prophets, or whether it's in any book in
this Bible, it's always about Christ. That's the shocking thing in
our day. When we find out it ain't all
about us. The gospel is not about us. The gospel is not about our happiness
and our fulfillment and all the hours and such as that. The gospel
is about God. You see, John says this in 1
John chapter 5, he says, and we know that the Son of God is
come and hath given us an understanding. I don't know why people think
that God is somehow paying a bounty on ignorance. That's what we
are. That's why we have to be taught
of God. That's why He has to teach us
by His Spirit, because He's the only one that can. We imagine Lydia just sitting
over there, a quiet, humble woman, and she hears She hears Paul
preaching. Oh, she just immediately rejoices
in what she hears. I'm not so sure it's that way. She's a businesswoman. She's
evidently a woman who thinks for herself. She's evidently
a woman who is making all the decisions for herself. She's
a woman already in religion. That doesn't sound like such
an easy task to me. But the Lord opened her heart. That's what gives me hope for everyone I preach to. And that is if the Lord has chosen
them, and Christ has redeemed them, He'll open their heart to believe
the truth of the gospel. And we know that the Son of God
is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know
Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in
His Son, Jesus Christ. And then that last phrase is
a real getter. This is the true God and eternal
life. In other words, eternal life
has got something to do with knowing God in Jesus Christ. and is bound up in the knowledge
of God in Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the scriptures,
as he's set forth in the scriptures and revealed by the Spirit of
God. She'd be just as lost today,
having heard Paul, the great preacher, She'd be lost today if she had
heard Henry Mahan, if she'd heard Norm Wells or Bill Parker, Jim
Byrd, me, doesn't matter who it is, if the Lord hadn't opened
her heart. She's blind to it, just like
all of us. We don't want to believe it.
That's what it means. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. We don't naturally want to believe
it. Our parents have reinforced that
idea by telling us that in order to go to heaven, we have to be
good boys and girls. And the preacher has reinforced
it even more. We're twofold the center, the
Jerusalem center, because we have been taught that it's our
choice. It's up to us to make the decision. It's up to us to live a good
life if we want to go to heaven. That's just natural to us. I remember Brother Henry telling
me one time about a man who heard him on TV. And Henry said, he said, I'll
tell you, there's one thing we've all got in common. He perked
his ear. He said, we're all sinners. He
reached over and turned to Chandler and said, I'm not a sinner, or
am I? And he turned back. Yeah, we're sinners. And the
condition, the term totally depraved, that won't even touch it. We're dead. We're blind. We're haught. We're lame. We're deaf. We're dumb. We're
everything that every picture in scripture of a sick man and
a sick woman that can be described. Isaiah 1, from the head of our
toe, from the tip of our head to the tip of our toe nothing
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, leprous, head to toe. And my friend, if it was left
up to you or left up to me, we'd stay lost for eternity. But God gives to his people this
understanding. Let me show you a verse of scripture
over in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul
is talking about the weapons of our warfare. God's people. He says, for the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal. That's why I don't give you five
cents for apologetics. I'm not interested in somebody
trying to prove from history or prove from geography or prove
from some modern discovery. I don't care if they did find
the Ark. Or all this scientific reason
proving the existence of God? God alone can prove the existence
of God to a sinner. But he says our weapons are not
carnal. We don't use the bait and switch idea of getting people
in the church. We don't say that the end justifies
the means. We say that God has ordained
the means and the end. Preaching the gospel. But mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. Pretty strong language. Casting down imaginations. Every image that has ever been
made out of gold or stone or wood, whatever it was, began
right here. in the imagination, the fallen
imagination of men, everyone. He says, and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. What's the
knowledge of God? The scriptures, the gospel. That's the grace of God, the
knowledge of God, the truth of God, against the knowledge of
God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. In one sense, I'm telling you,
this preacher does not have every thought. submitted in obedience to Christ. No. But there's one area, there's
one area that God has subdued, he has brought captive every
thought and imagine of my mind about, and that's the way that
he saves sinners, only in Christ. I'm settled on that. That thought,
all those thoughts regarding salvation, He's brought and He's
subdued them and He's taken captive those thoughts and they are all
fixed on Christ and Him crucified. That's the way. You see, it says that God gives
His people Well, whenever Philip joined
himself with the Ethiopian in that chariot, he was already
reading the Bible. You know that? He didn't have
the King James either. He didn't have the New Testament,
but he had the Old Testament. When Paul says, the gospel I
preached to you was the gospel according to how Christ died,
according to the scriptures, he was talking about the Old
Testament scriptures. That's what he is. First question to Paul. First
question to the eunuch. Do you understand what you're
reading? He said, how can I? Except some man showed me. I can't understand it. This book
is a closed book. And when those who proclaim or
presume to proclaim the gospel, when they speak not according
to this book, they make it even a tighter closed book, if it
can be such. But when God sends somebody along
like Paul, or like Brother Bill, and he preaches to them the truth,
the sin of God, he doesn't even have an idea what he's here for
as far as details are concerned. He just knows that God said wherever
you go, you preach the gospel. Because God has a people. And when he sends somebody like
Philip to cause a man to understand, he took from Isaiah 53 and he
showed him that the one suffering, the one dying, the one enduring
what Isaiah said in 53 was this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the one. It would have been the same if
he talked about John 6. Because wherever it is in this
book, it's always about Christ. It's
always about Him. And when God gives His people
this understanding, does that mean that they understand every
verse of Scripture? Every detail of scripture? No. The more I learn, the more it
reveals to me, the more I find out I don't know. But it means they're made to
understand then that salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. It
is not a matter of God doing His part and we doing ours. We begin to understand that He's
done it all. It's not what we do or are to
do, but it's what He's done. And it's his work that is accomplished
by the Lord Jesus Christ, especially by his death. Now you can go
through the Old Testament types and pictures, everything there,
and you're going to find out that the sacrifices are about
Christ's blood. that the priest is about Christ.
You're going to find out about the blood is about Christ's blood. You're going to find out the
ark is about him, the Passover lamb, the ark of the covenant,
the prophet, the kings, everything about him. But I believe that the thing that
is central to having an understanding about what Christ and his cross
is all about in the salvation of his people is about and has
to do with his justice. That's the forgotten attribute
of God. They say God can do this this
way and God can do this way. One that they like is God can
do anything he wants. No, God has done what he said. And somehow it always comes back
to the matter of justice. And it ought not surprise us.
Because he said I'm God and there's nobody else, there's no other
God, there's no other one like me. What am I? A just God and
a Savior. I heard a preacher say, he'd
always say it like this, God's a just God, but he's a Savior. No, you missed it. You see, the
gospel is about how God can be a just God and a Savior. It's all about His justice. And for that reason, Paul, when
he spoke about going out to this one and that one, he said, I'm
ready to preach the gospel to Jew, to Gentile, especially these
Gentiles. I'm not afraid. I've got a message
for them. For they're in, in the gospel. is the righteousness of God revealed. It's funny how so many preachers
claim to preach the gospel who have nothing to say about the
righteousness of God. How in the world can he be just, inflexibly, eternally,
immutably just? and yet justify or declare righteous
a sinner like you and like me and like Abel and Noah, Paul,
and all of God's people. How? Because He sent His Son. The propitiation for our sins Because Christ paid the debt
in full. That justice demanded, which
the law demanded. That's all the law can do for
you is demand justice, which is your death. Is that right
Bill? That's all it can do. We want to hear about the Ten
Commandments. All they can do. is not only pronounce you dead,
but demand by justice your death eternally. What happens when God saves a
sinner then? God is right to forgive us, to
pardon us, to cleanse us, to bless us, to do everything that
salvation involves. He's right to do it if he does
it in the Lord Jesus Christ, if he does it in our Savior,
if he does it in our substitute, in the surety that he made, in
the covenant head. And the devil will say, he'll
say, Neil, you ain't got any right to be saved. God wouldn't be right to save
you. But you can say He is right in
saving me because I'm looking to His Son. He's already dealt
with my sin on that cross. That's what He was doing. He
was revealing the righteous way that he saves his people. He
was establishing righteousness. Christ was bringing in an everlasting
righteousness. And it's all about justice. So if Christ died for my sin, if he died for my sin, then His justice demands that
all these other blessings become mine, including the Spirit opening
my heart. It's a matter of justice. I'm different from a lot of people.
I don't like for somebody to just come along if I've got a
problem or something like that and just pat me on the back and
say, everything's going to be alright. And I sure wouldn't like it if
they just came along and if I owed a big debt and they just came
along and said, well, you'll be able to pay it some way. They
don't know me. If they hand me a receipt, that's
marked paid in full. If they hand me something, an
official document, You know, like you get when you pay off
your card and they mail you that title and there's a sheet with
it that says, this debt has been satisfied and full. Those kind of things always make
me happy. But nothing like in the matter of my sin. Because
that's what God is doing. He's getting this message to
His people. That's why it's good news. that
He is just and the justifier of that one who believes on the
Lord Jesus Christ. We can be justified. He's just. And everything really is hunky-dory. Because He's not diminished His
character one bit. And He saved our wretched, vile
souls through the Lord Jesus Christ. She heard what Paul said, but
the Spirit of God had to enable her to believe, had to give her
understanding as to what he said, had to teach her, had to give
her faith and enable her to lay hold on it as evidence. And she attended unto the things that were spoken
of. by the Apostle Paul. And they
always will. And they always will. Well, if
she believed what Paul believed and what he preached, he preached
free grace, salvation, full final salvation, salvation in Christ
alone, salvation by grace alone, Christ plus nothing. Well, she
probably turned into a prostitute the next day, didn't she? Oh my. Verse 15 says she was
baptized. I don't believe that Paul had
to preach 14 sermons on baptism. It says she was baptized and
her household, which does not mean that God is sending forth
household salvation here, but somebody in her household believed
also because the Lord opened their hearts. And she said, if you've judged
me to be faithful. She hadn't been saved long enough
to be faithful. You know, you're saved first. No. If you've judged me to believe,
if you think based on scripture, if you've judged righteous judgment
concerning me on this matter of salvation, why don't you come down to my house?
I've got plenty of food. Got room for you? She's filled
with grace, which brings about graciousness, hospitality. Come on down to my house. What's
mine's yours? That's why we preach the gospel. We're looking for Lydias. And when we find one, we might
not know who they are, but the Lord knows them that are His. Amazing things, these stubborn,
blind, hard-hearted rebels. They're no match for the Spirit
of God. You're running, hiding from grace. I'm telling you, grace will find
you out. through His sheep. We're looking for Lydias. That
the Lord is going to open their hearts. Which is, He'll open their heads. Because they're so entwined and
joined together, it's utter foolishness to talk about a difference in
the two. He'll give understanding. He'll bring about a change of
mind. He'll teach us what these things
of Christ mean. And He'll enable us to believe
them. And we'll be rejoicing about
it too. God bless you. It's been a great day. A great
day of worship. Let's get our psalm books and
look at 77. Let's stand and sing this. We'll be
dismissed with this song. Look forward to seeing you folks
in the morning. Come out and worship again. Go
home and get some rest. And we look forward to being
back here at 10 o'clock in the morning. Stand together. 77. So, Thou Savior dear, it is not
nigh, if Thou be near. O may no earth, nor cloud arise,
to hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes. With the soft news of kindly
sleep My weary eye lives gently sleep Be my last thought, how sweet
to rest Forever on my Savior's breast Abide with me from morn till
eve, for without Thee I cannot live. Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die. Be near to blessing when I weep, Care through the world my way
I take. Alight with me, drill in thy
love. I lose myself in heaven above.