Alright, let's open our Bibles
to the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 25. 1 Samuel, chapter 25. I've entitled
this message tonight, A Sinner Coming to the Savior King. A Sinner Coming to the Savior
King. Here in this passage, we have
a beautiful picture, an illustration of the salvation of a sinner
by one who is both sovereign, one who is anointed of God, a
king, but who is also a Savior, a Savior like no other, who is
really the only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is pictured
in David, King David, as you know. We have three characters
here, three main characters in 1 Samuel 25. If you've already
read it, we have David, the king, God's anointed, the savior of
his people. Remember when he saved his people,
when he defeated Goliath. And of course, it wasn't David.
We know that. It wasn't David who saved Israel.
It was God. David had no abilities to defeat
a foe like Goliath, but God used this this weak vessel to save
his people. And so David is the Savior. He
was a type of Christ. We have a man here named Nabal. Some scholars believe that his
name means fool or foolish, but most scholars say that it's a
play on words. His name sounds like the Hebrew
word for fool. But it really doesn't matter
because whether his name was fool or just sounds like a fool,
he was a fool. And that's the way the scripture
pictures him, or portrays him, and he's a picture of all of
us by nature. Fallen man by nature. Nabal,
unbeliever. No respect for God. No respect
for God's truth. Only regard for himself. And
then we have Nabal's wife, Abigail. Abigail. And she's a picture
of a sinner coming to the Savior King. Her name means the Father's
joy. And I thought about that when
I was studying for this, because we've been studying in the book
of Luke, chapter 15, how there's more joy in heaven over one sinner
that repents than over ninety and nine that need no repentance. And you know, a believer, a sinner
saved by grace, born of God, is the Father's joy. That's the
Father's joy, because in that, the Father gets more glory than
any other work that he accomplishes. Even greater joy than the work
of creation. Even greater joy than the work
of providence. In the redemption and salvation
of a sinner. And that's what Abigail pictures. You know, our Lord, in speaking
those stories in Luke 15, you remember that the Pharisees accused
him, said, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.
Well, here in 1 Samuel 25, we're going to see that this man not
only receives sinners and eateth with them, but he receives sinners
and marries them. And that's a great picture of
Christ, the great bridegroom in his church. His bride, married
to Christ. We're not married to the law,
we're married to Christ. We're in relationship with Christ,
and it's a relationship of grace, it's a relationship of love,
unearned, unmerited, undeserved love. It's a relationship of
mercy and forgiveness, and it's that relationship that establishes
our relationship with each other, or should. Isn't that right?
Certainly should. Well, David, as I said, he's
a type of Christ. Nabal is a type of rebellious,
fallen, unbelieving sinner left to ourselves in nature. Abigail
is a type of sinner saved by grace. And if you read the story
that way, you just can't help but just rejoice, can you? Picture
what happens between the first coming of Christ and his second
coming, because it appears to the world right now that Christ
is at present dead or in exile, just like David was in running
from Saul. To the most of Israel, he was
dead or in exile, and he was a runaway. He was despised and
rejected of men. He had a few followers. That's
like our Lord. He had a few followers, but he
was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. There wasn't a moment in his
life, in his public ministry, that the religious hierarchy,
the religious authority were not after him, trying to catch
him up, trying to get him, trying to move his name off the face
of the earth. And David was in exile here,
running from Saul. Saul wanted to get rid of David.
He was driven into the wilderness because of Saul's anger and Saul's
envy. And that's a great picture of
our Savior. David and his men are in Carmel. where there's
a man named Nabal, as I said, his name is a play on words,
folly, foolish. And David sent his men to ask
Nabal a few provisions. We're hungry, we need water,
we need food, just give us a few provisions. Look at verse 10
of 1 Samuel 25. Look at Nabal's response in verse
10. He said, And Nabal answered David's
servants, and said, Who is David? Now, he's not asking this for
information. It's like he was saying, Who
do you think you are? That kind of response. And he
said, Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? In other words,
a nobody. That's his pedigree. He doesn't
have any honorable royal blood in his body. And he says, and
who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays
that break away every man from his master. He likens David to
a runaway slave there. That's what he's saying. He's
just a rebel, runaway slave. And he says, shall I then take
my bread? Now listen to this. Boy, it sounds
like a follower of Saul, doesn't it? You remember Saul's, his
whole philosophy of life was I, me, mine. And here's Nabal,
shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh, that
I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know
not whence they be?" Where did they come from? That's Nabal's
response. You know, he was a little like
old Pharaoh back in Moses' day, when he said, who is the Lord
that I should obey him? Pharaoh had no regard for the
God of Israel, the God of Moses. And he let it be known. Nabal
did too. It's like many today who respond to the gospel in
unbelief when the gospel of God's grace in Christ is preached.
And it shows forth how sinners by nature are nothing, none righteous,
none good. And they'll look at a preacher,
they'll look at a believer and say, who do you think you are?
You need to understand who I am. What about my religion? What
about my beliefs? What about my works? You see,
that's the kind of thing that's going on here. It's rebellion
and unbelief. The Jews made the statement.
They said, we will not have this man to rule over us. That's what
Nabal is saying here. We won't have David, a man like
David, to rule over us. He's a nobody from nowhere. So
Nabal had no regard for God's anointed King. And that's what
unbelief is. That's when a sinner hears the
gospel, walks out unaffected in unbelief. He has no regard
for God's anointed King, the Savior King. And that's why man
by nature, that's an evidence that man by nature has no regard
for Christ. That's why he was a man of sorrows,
acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men. Look at
verse 13. Here's something interesting.
Now here's David's first reaction to what Nabal said when he sent
men to tell Nabal, ask Nabal for provisions. Incidentally,
Nabal was under obligation by the Law of Moses to help David
and his men because he was a fellow countryman. You were never permitted
under the Law of Moses to allow one of your countrymen to go
hungry, to go without provisions if you had the ability to help
them. So another thing that Nabal is
showing there is his total disregard for the Word of God. Total disregard
for any fellowship of his countrymen. But look at David's first response.
Look at verse 13. He says, And David said unto his men, Gird
ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man
his sword. And David also girded on his sword. And there went
up after David about four hundred men and two hundred a boat by
the stuff, by the provisions that they did have. So what's
David's first reaction there? Well, it's to take vengeance. Go after Nabal. We're going to
kill that fella. He responded that way to me.
Now, back over in chapter 24 and verse 6, David did something
different. When he confronted Saul, he refused
to take vengeance himself, personal vengeance against Saul because
Why? Because he knew that vengeance
belonged to God. And you remember back there in
verse 6, he said in chapter 24, he said unto his men, the Lord
forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, talking
about Saul, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth my hand against
him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. He's the Lord's
to do with what the Lord would do. The Apostle Paul taught that
in the book of Romans chapter 12. We read when we were going
through that how vengeance belongs to God. We're never, never, never
given any permission or right to take personal vengeance on
anyone because vengeance belongs to the Lord. Our revenge is selfishness
and sinful. God's revenge is justice. Strict,
perfect, righteous justice. And so it belongs to Him. But
now, David, Acts differently here when it comes to Nabal.
Here, or back when he was dealing with Saul, I'll tell you what
it was, it was the power of the grace of God in his life that
kept him from taking Saul's life and taking vengeance. You know
that? It was Christ living through David. I honestly believe that. It wasn't David himself, because
the flesh will always react the way David reacted against Nabal. And against Nabal, the flesh
took over. Well, what we see there, in some
sense, is a little personal decline in David. Personal decline. Look back at chapter 25. Look
at verse 1. Let me show you what's happening
here. It starts off in an interesting
way. It says, and Samuel died. And Samuel died. It says, all
the Israelites were gathered together and they lamented him. They sorrowed, they grieved over
Samuel and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose
and went down to the wilderness of Paran. David's personal decline. You know, many times in Scripture,
when you read of one of God's children going down geographically,
That's a little illustration or picture of a spiritual decline. One of the greatest illustrations
of that is Elimelech and Naomi. You remember when they were in
Bethlehem, the house of bread, and they had a famine in Israel,
and they went down to Moab. And you saw the spiritual decline.
I believe that's what's happening here with David. But one thing
you need to understand when you're reading and studying and trying
to understand the Old Testament pictures and types is this. You
have to make a distinction. For example, here we have to
distinguish between David personally. David was a weak, sinful man
just as we are, men and women. He was a sinner saved by the
grace of God, but now David had no more right personally to appear
before God based on his own works and accomplishments and performances
and his own righteousness than any sinner here tonight does.
He was a sinner saved by the grace of God. And you don't have
to read many of his Psalms to find that out. He knew his frame. He said in Psalm 130, he said,
O Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who would stand?
Not me. Because David knew what he was.
So you have to distinguish between David personally and then David
officially, you might say, as a type of Christ. There are things
we can look at here in David's life that we can see, types,
illustrations, and pictures of Christ. But now there are times
that we have to suspend that and say, well, that's David.
We could say this now, Samuel's death. Who was Samuel? Remember,
he was the prophet of God at that time. There were other prophets,
but they were all in Samuel's school at Ramah. And Samuel certainly
not only was a prophet of God, bringing forth the Word of God,
He was a symbol or type of the Word of God. And when Samuel
died, it shows a decline of the Word of God in the land. In fact,
it says here, where they gathered and they sorrowed over him. That's
really kind of ironic, since the people didn't listen to what
Samuel had to say. As a whole, the nation wouldn't
listen to Samuel. They applauded him after his
death. That's the way it is many times with the prophets of God.
They hate them when they're alive, but when they die, they build
monuments to them. Christ said that to the Pharisees. He says,
you build monuments to them. But he said, when they were alive,
your fathers were always after them to kill them, to torture
them, to reject them. And that's the way people are.
We love to praise a prophet when he's dead, but we don't listen
to him when he's alive. And that's hypocrisy. That's
what it is. That's sham religion. But Samuel
died. And that's a good picture of
a decline of the Word of God in the land, and it says, David
arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. When the Word of God
is forgotten, there is a decline spiritually. Mark it down. Men and women get away from God's
Word, God's truth, the Bible, there's always a spiritual decline. Now, I think about this, you
know, if you want to see an illustration of our Savior in this matter,
I think about that time after the prophet Malachi when there
was four to five hundred years where there was no prophet of
God in the land. We call that the lost era where
after Malachi and then when Matthew starts up, that four to five
hundred year period when there was no prophet in the land, no
word from God. God just left them to themselves.
And what happened? Then the Savior appeared. And
you could say he went down, but now his going down was not like
David's going down. David's going down was a spiritual
decline. Our Lord's going down was a condescension,
a humility for the purpose of saving us from our sins. And
that's a good thing. That's a great thing. David,
he declined spiritually here, but for our Lord, His going down
was our being raised up, because His death, He died, He was buried,
He arose again the third day, He arose again as the firstfruits
of His people. And that's our salvation. Look
at verse 2 of 1 Samuel 25. It says, And there was a man
in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel, and the man was very
great. And he had 3,000 sheep and 1,000
goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. That's Nabal.
It says, now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of
his wife Abigail. She was a woman of good understanding
and of a beautiful countenance. One preacher, I was listening
to a message on this, and he said that proves it, that a woman
can be beautiful and smart. Now don't you all say anything
to me after going out about that. But it says here, but the man
was churlish. It means he was rebellious, stubborn,
stiff-necked would be a good term for it. Stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears. In other words, he's portrayed
here as a dead sinner, spiritually dead sinner, dead in trespasses
and sin, and evil in his doings. Those two go together. You see,
a rebellious, unbelieving heart can only bring forth evil doings
no matter how they appear to the outward man, to the natural
eye. It may be religious. This man,
apparently, he was prospering greatly in the things of the
world. And most people would say, well,
he must be doing something right. Well, God says he's churlish
and evil in his doings. And that shows you that without
God, without Christ, without God's grace, it doesn't matter
how things look, whether you're healthy, wealthy, whether you've
got a beautiful wife, whether you've got all the things that
the world is going after, it is nothing but evil doings. That's
all it is. It'll perish, and you'll perish
with it. But notice what he says about Nabal at the end of verse
3. And he was of the house of Caleb. Now, you remember Caleb? You've heard about Caleb. Caleb
was one of the two men that is mentioned when the children of
Israel were going into the promised land. Joshua is mentioned, and
Caleb is mentioned, and then the others. But they're mentioned
by name because there you have a great type of salvation. Joshua, or Yeshua, as they would
say in the New Testament, or Jesus. Joshua, the leader of
Israel, the commander of Israel, leading the people over into
the promised land, and he's a type of Christ. Our Joshua, God our
Savior. And Caleb means the faithful
one. Some say it means faithful dog,
but it really means faithful one. That's what it means. And
he's a picture of all who follow Christ into the promised land.
So there's a nobility there that is from God in the family of
Caleb. It's from God, though. It's not
in man. It wasn't in Caleb by nature. It wasn't in any of his
family. It's from God. It's a nobility of spirit. It's
a nobility of grace. It's a nobility of faith following
the Lord Jesus Christ. And what he's showing us here
is this man Nabal. That family connection means
nothing as far as a person's spiritual condition. He was a
descendant of Caleb, that great man of God, that great man of
faith. Well, what did that mean to Nabal? Nothing to him. He was a fool. He was a churlish
man. He was an evildoer, no matter
how people looked at him. That great man of God, Caleb,
looked at how his family had degenerated. One writer said,
Nabal was a degenerate plant of a noble vine. And that's so. Look over at Luke chapter 12
with me. Luke chapter 12. You remember this, you're very
familiar with this. This kind of sums up Nabal. And look at verse 15. Here's Nabal. Remember how he's
described here in chapter 25. He was very great. He had 3,000
sheep, 1,000 goats. He was a man of substance in
that sense. And here's what Christ says about
that. In verse 15 of Luke 12, He says, He said unto them, Take
heed and beware of covetousness. For a man's life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. Nabal learned that lesson from
his great ancestor Caleb, but he didn't. And that's when our
Lord began to speak this parable, verse 16, the ground of a certain
rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself,
saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow
my fruits? I've got more than I can store, that's what he's
saying. And he said, This will I do. I'll pull down my barns
and build bigger, greater barns, and there I will bestow all my
fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, So
thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease,
eat, drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool,
like Nabal. This night thy soul shall be
required of thee, and then who shall those things be which thou
hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure
for himself, and is not rich toward God." That's Nabal. You want to be rich toward God?
Then you better go where the riches are, in the person and
finished work of Christ. There's the riches of God right
there. Look to Him. Rest in Him. Follow Him. Love
Him. Worship Him. Rest in Him. And that's how a person becomes
rich toward God. That's how a person is righteous
in God's sight. Not like the fool Nabal. The
fool has said in his heart, no God for me. That's Nabal. Look back here, 1 Samuel 25.
He mentions Abigail here. said his wife was Abigail, a
woman of good understanding and beautiful countenance. As I said,
Abigail's name means the Father's joy. And she illustrates here
the people of God who have been given by God a good understanding
by the Holy Spirit. How did Abigail get this good
understanding? The Bible teaches us that no
man or woman by nature has a good understanding of the things of
the Spirit of God. So how do you fit Abigail into
that truth? Well, if she has a good understanding,
it had to come from God. The natural man or the natural
woman receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness
unto him, just like Nabal. By nature and by practice, Abigail
was no better than Nabal. She was a sinner saved by the
grace of God, and she had a good understanding by the Holy Spirit. Now, sometimes the Bible will
show us people like this who have been given faith and repentance,
but it doesn't give the history of how they got that. We just
know, because God's Word says it so, that they got it from
God. I'll give you another example of that. It's in Luke chapter
2. There's a man there named Simeon. The Lord came into the
world in his incarnation, and his mother and father were going
to take him to the temple. On that day, to have him circumcised,
and the Bible tells us in Luke chapter 2, there was a man there
named Simeon. He was a just and devout man,
and the Holy Spirit had revealed unto this man, Simeon, that he
would see the Christ child before he was taken out of this world.
And you remember what Simeon said. He said, Lord, I'm ready
to go now, for today I have seen thy salvation. Now, who taught
Simeon that? Did he just know that on his
own? Did he just wake up one morning and say, no, God taught
him. He was born again by the Spirit
of God. Any sinner, Abigail, Simeon,
or whoever it is, who has a good understanding of the ways of
God, who God is, a holy God, who has a good understanding
of themselves, that we're sinners, and we deserve nothing but death
and hell. based on our best efforts to
keep the law. Any sinner who has a good understanding
of Christ and how God saves a sinner is a sinner who has been born
again by the Spirit of God. That is how they get that good
understanding. Without it, there is no good
understanding. So here you have the characters.
Now look at verse 4. As I said, David heard in the wilderness
that Nabal did shear his sheep. That was a festive time. And
he says, and David sent out ten young men and David said unto
the young men, get you up to Carmel and go to Nabal and greet
him in my name. Now, I don't know that that means
anything particularly as far as David's attitude, but some
said, well, he should have told him to greet me, greet Nabal
in the name of the Lord. Maybe that's so. But either way,
it says in verse 6, And thus shall ye say to him that liveth
in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine
house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. David is letting
him know, I have no intentions of war or any kind of destruction. I come in peace, and he says
in verse 7, Now I have heard that thou hast shearers, now
thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not. And it
is David actually protecting them. And neither was there aught
missing unto them, we didn't take anything from them, while
they were in karma." In other words, while they were away from
you, we didn't hurt them, we didn't protect them, we didn't
take anything from them. David is saying to Nabal, I wouldn't
dare take any of your possessions without asking you first. I'm
not a robber. And so he said, and just like
our Savior. He didn't steal, he didn't rob, it wasn't robbery
for him to claim to be God, for he is God. And when they accused
him of breaking the law, he told them, he said, I didn't come
to break the law, I came to keep the law in every jot and every
tittle. To the most minute detail of the law, Christ kept the law
perfectly. He had to in order to save us
from our sins. He had to satisfy both the law's
precept as our Savior and the law's penalty as our Savior.
That's why he paid the debt in full. That's why his righteousness
is my righteousness and your righteousness if you know him.
And so David is saying here, I didn't steal from you, didn't
harm you. And he says in verse 8, he says,
ask thy young men and they will show thee. Wherefore, let the
young men find favor in thine eyes, for we come in a good day.
Give I pray thee whatsoever cometh to thine hand and to thy servants
and to thy son David. And when David's young men came,
they spoke to Nabal according to all the words in the name
of David and ceased. They finished what they had to
say, and Nabal answered David's servants and said, Who is David?
Who and who do you think you are? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays
that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take
my bread, my water, my flesh that I've killed for my shears
and give it unto men whom I know not which they be? So David's
young men turned their way and went again and came and told
him all those things. It reminds me of how our Lord
sends out his ministers, his prophets, his preachers to preach
the gospel and tell sinners of the great bounty of grace and
mercy that comes through him. And they turn them away just
like a fool. And David said, verse 13, gird
ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man
his sword. And David also girded on his sword. And there went
up after David about four hundred men, and two hundred of both
by the stuff." So here David is going after him. David was
angry with Nabal, but his vengeance was self-serving. But let me
tell you something. One of the things you'll see
in this chapter as we continue through it, and obviously you
know it's going to take me more than one message to get through
this chapter. There's two great truths that are re-established
in this illustration. And that's this. Think about
it in light of what the book of Hebrews tells us in chapter
9. It's appointed unto men once
to die and after that to judgment. Let me tell you something about
God. He will damn sinners. Mark it down. God will damn sinners. You have to deal with a holy
and just God who will by no means clear the guilty. That's the
God I have to deal with and that's the God Nabal is going to have
to deal with. God will damn sinners. He can't but damn sinners. And
the reason is because He's holy and He's just. The soul that
sinneth must surely die. But now let me tell you the second
truth that's re-established here in this illustration. God will
save sinners. God will save sinners. Don't ever think that those truths
cancel out each other. Don't ever think that because
you read about God's mercy and grace in and by the Lord Jesus
Christ, that He will no longer damn sinners. You know, most
people today, they preach or hear as if God's going to save
everybody. Now, they won't say it that way. They won't say it that way. There
was a fellow down south, he even told one of the members down
here at the church down in Albany, he said he thought eventually
Satan would be saved. But that's the way people think.
Now, they won't say it that way, but that's the attitude. God's
a loving God. He's a merciful God. He's a gracious
God. And He is. But if you believe
that to the point that it puts you in some kind of a mindset
that God will no longer damn sinners, You missed the God of
this book. He will damn sinners. And we
have to preach that. He that believeth not shall be
what? Damned. My friend, and here's
the good news now. You say, preacher, you've told
us the bad news. Well, here's the good news. God will save
sinners. Listen to me, for Christ's sake. He will not save any sinner apart
from Christ and him crucified and risen again. He'll damn every
sinner apart from Christ. If you don't have Christ, all
you have to look forward to is damnation. And I'll tell you,
a person is a fool to go through this life not seeking and looking
to, believing in and risking in the person and finished work
of Christ, not looking for grace and mercy in him, for righteousness
in him. And there you have Nabal summed
up. David here a type of Christ, and Nabal rejected him. That's
just the way sinners by nature do the Savior. God is angry with
the wicked, but his vengeance is not emotional, it's justice. Psalm 212 says this, kiss the
son lest he be angry and you perish from the way. Kiss the
son? What does that mean? That means
to believe on and love and follow and commune and rest in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Claim as a sinner that you have
no right and no Worthiness to enter into the presence of a
holy God that if God were to give you what you deserve and
what you've earned, it would be damnation. Your only hope
is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your only hope is the
righteousness of Christ. Kiss the Son, the Son of God. lest he be angry, and you perish
from the way." Who is the way? Christ is the way. I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. You see, if you come before God
without Christ, without being washed in His blood and clothed
in His righteousness alone, you will not meet God as a loving
Father. You will meet Him as a just judge
who will damn you in your sins and do it rightly. So what's
he saying? Well, we need Christ. This thing
is all about Christ. Blessed are they that put their
trust in him. That's how the psalmist ended
that psalm, Psalm 2. Blessed are they that put their
trust in him. And here's David getting ready
to draw his sword against Nabal. Now, David's vengeance was selfish. But when God draws His sword
of justice against sinners, it's not selfish. It's His glory.
It's His justice. It's right for Him to punish
sin. You say, preacher, how can I
avoid that? How can I flee from that wrath to come? Run as fast
as you can to Christ. And I'm not talking about getting
up from the pew and running down here. You can run down here all
day long and never find Christ. I'm talking about in the heart.
as you're moved by the Spirit of God, to run to Him and look
to Him. Don't worry about how much or
how little you have or don't have. Somebody says, well, maybe
I don't believe enough. It's not how much you believe,
it's in whom you believe. That's the issue. Now, Abigail, you're going to
find out something about her in the next messages. One thing that she knew, or two
things she knew, she knew that she didn't deserve anything good
from King David. And she knew that King David
was going to be on that throne. She knew those two things. How
she knew them, I don't know, but I know she knew them because
she said it. She went to David. She even tried to intercede for
the people, and she said, put their sin on me. I'm guilty.
That's what she said. But I know you're coming to the
throne. You're going to surely be there. The sure mercies of
David. That's two things. So you know what she said to
David? Well, James just sang it. Did you read that passage
when you picked that song? Tell the truth now. You did? Well, there's another sovereign
providence of God. She said, remember thy handmaid. That's what she said. She said,
when you come to your throne, Remember me. That's what she's
saying. The Lord remembers me. Remember
the thief on the cross? He said, when you come into your
kingdom, remember me. That's what Abigail did. Friend,
that's our only hope. We'll talk more about that next
time in Abigail. But you run to Christ. Believe
in Him. Rest in Him. He's your only hope.
He's my only hope. I don't have any hope in myself
or anything I am or do. It's all in Him and what He accomplished
at Calvary to put away my sins and to make me righteous before
God.