I want to tell you about God's
foreknowledge. God's foreknowledge. Here in verse 14 of John chapter
10, it says this, I am the good shepherd, and know
my sheep, and am known of mine. Know my sheep, and am known of
mine. Now there's two blessed truths
which unconverted men have fought and do fight and will continue
to fight against as long as they've got a breath. Religious teaching. And the two truths are predestination
and poor knowledge. Men despise it because it takes
all the glory away from them. It takes the power away from
them, the rights away from them. And they despise it. But why
would anyone, why would anyone who claims to be a Christian,
to blame to be a believer, deny things that are in the Bible?
Deny things that are in the Bible. Why would they do that? That
can only be one reason, is that they don't know God. The Scripture
said in John 6 that they shall all be taught of God. All thy
children, Isaiah 54, 13 says, all thy children shall be taught
of God. Not everybody, but His children will. Now you think
God teaches us all different things. Now we learn at different
levels, we learn at different speeds. Some have learned faster
and grow faster than others. But God teaches His people the
same thing. Teach them that He is God, and
beside Him there is none other. He teaches them that. They're
going to find that out. You find a fellow that hates and despises
the idea that God is God, and denies Him. If they're fighting
for the free will of man, they're fighting against the free will
of God. When they're talking about the power of man, they're
fighting against the power of God. And anybody, I'm here to
tell you, everybody that knows God knows He's sovereign. Everybody
knows God knows that they're ruined by sin and had not God
done something for them and come to them where they are, they
would have never come to God. I mean, they know that they're
helpless and impotent before God Almighty. There's no ifs,
ands, or buts about that. And they know that who Christ
died for, He's going to have them. God teaches us these things. Now, you may learn them at a
different Speed and ability and that, but another thing about
the sheep, when they hear that shepherd's voice, they'll say,
that's my master's voice, I understand that. I hear his voice. So when
you find somebody that fights against predestination, against
God's foreknowledge, you've found someone who has not been taught
of God. Now they may be a lost sheep,
And they may be found one of these days, but as long as they're
fighting against it, they don't know God yet. I know that without
a shadow of a doubt. They've never experienced God's
sovereignty. They've never experienced God's
power upon them. And look there in verse 22, here
at John 10. Here's a perfect illustration
of what I'm talking about. They just got through saying
our Master was the devil. And it was at Jerusalem, the
Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter, and Jesus walked
in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about
Him and said unto Him, How long dost thou make us doubt? If you
be the Christ, if you're the one sin of God, if you're the
one anointed of God, tell us. Just come out and tell it plainly.
Just tell us. Our Lord answered and said, I
told you. Now watch this. And you believe not. The works
that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. Open
the eyes of the blind, raise the dead, cleanse lepers. But
do you, watch this, but do you believe not because you are not
of my sheep, as I said unto you? My sheep hear my voice and I
know them, and that's what I want to talk about. I know my sheep
and have known of mine. I know them. I know them and
they follow me. Now, let's consider what God's
foreknowledge does not mean. We're going to talk about God's
foreknowledge. The Bible is full of it. But let's consider what
it's not. Now, this is the average way
that the average person believes. If God had a telescope, and He
looked down the telescope of time, and He's looking around
the world, and He sees somebody down here, He says, I see that
person is going to repent. I see that person's going to
believe. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to predestinate
that person, because I know they're going to believe, and I know
they're going to repent. And so you see, we foresaw who
would believe, and therefore He elected them based on what
they foresaw they was going to do. Well, that would be fine
if you didn't know anything about the condition of the sinner.
You know, when God began to teach me the gospel, a fellow I used
to run around with, he said, what you do is you make God too
sovereign and man too dead. How do you do that? Can you make God too sovereign?
Can you give him all the glory that's due him? Oh, and can you
make man deader than he is? A man that's dead, if he just
dies the moment he's dead, he's as dead as he's ever going to
be. Or rather, he's been dead 24 hours. You know, that's the
first thing you do when you come up on somebody that's hurt or
something. You check their pulse. You check
to see how they're breathing. And when that heart stops, if
you don't get it started, you're dead then. One second after your
breath leaves your body, you are a hundred years. And that's
what man is. He's dead in trespasses and sins. He don't have the power. He don't
have the ability. He can't believe because he's
dead. You know, if that was so, if this idea was true, I would
take my children and I would talk them into believing. I'd
talk them into it. But they're dead. They can't
hear my voice when I preach the gospel, much less the voice of
God. And if God don't give them ears, that's why the Lord said,
my sheep hear. But where do you get the ears
to hear? He's got to give you ears. The hearing ear and the
seeing eye comes from the Lord. Is that not right? You know,
if you deny total depravity, and when I talk about total depravity,
I'm not talking about, that just means a man's dead in trespasses
and sins. He's totally unable. Our Lord
said it this way, you will not come to me that you might have
life. And here he told them, you will not believe and you
cannot believe because you're my sheep, not my sheep. And when
we talk about total depravity, it doesn't mean a man is as bad
as he can be. It means he's as bad off in the
sight of God as he can be. There are some people that's
worse than other people. And they've got prisons for them.
They've got jails for them. And there's people that's really
bad, and there's people that's halfway, you know, we call them
moral people, good people, whatever you want to call them. But nevertheless,
they're all dead. Nevertheless, none of them have
the power. They're all as bad off as they can be in the sight
of God. And when you look down, when they talk about God looking
down through the telescope of time and seeing that this would
be believed, what that makes, some say it makes themselves
better than others because they believed and they repent. And
you would not believe how many people I've run across who believe
that. They'll say that to you. You know, in these churches where
they use altar calls and invitations and all that, you say, well,
how come you say you got saved and that fellow down there beside
you is crying just as hard as you was, begging just as hard
as you was. What made the difference in you
becoming a believer in him? Well, I had more faith than he
did. My repentance was purer than his. So who's going to get the glory
in that man's salvation? Is God going to get it? Oh, and what that does, it makes
God's will dependent upon man, and what man's going to do. And then God takes credit for
something that the fellow doesn't. We don't even do that. And oh,
beloved, I tell you, because we believe, people say, because
we believe, this causes God to elect us. Well, if they speak
not according to the law and the testimony, it's because there's
no light in them. But Acts 13.48 says, what does
it say? As many as were ordained, predestinated
for new, as many as were ordained to eternal life, what did they
do? They believed. If God ever saved or elected
anyone, anyone, because in time they would believe, then that
would make believing a meritorious act that God owed to that person,
and it would cease to be grace. Ain't that right? And look over
with me at 1 Corinthians 1.30. And we've all heard this quoted
so many times, but, you know, for by grace are you saved through
faith. And what does it say about faith?
That's not of yourself. It's the gift of God. It's not
of works. If it was works, man would boast.
Not of works, lest any man should boast. But look here in 1 Corinthians
1.30. Now here's how it goes. But of
Him are you in Christ Jesus. Now how do you get in Christ?
God puts you in Christ. Chose us in Christ. Foreknew
us in Christ. blessed us in Christ, quickened
us together with Christ, crucified us with Christ, buried us with
Christ, raised us up together with Christ, seated us together
with Him in heavenly places. So how do you get in Christ?
Not by free will, not by works, not by your merit, but of Him.
If you get in Christ, God puts you in Christ. And then God makes
Christ unto you. This is that being taught of
God again. Christ, and God made Christ under
us wisdom. How are we going to know God?
We don't get any spiritual sense. We weren't born with it, so when
He's made wisdom under us, we see God and know God through
Christ. Have a spiritual understanding
through Christ. And He made Him righteousness
to us. We don't have one. God said, Christ is your righteousness. And He made Him sanctification,
and holiness and sanctification is the state of being. You can
never be any more holy at any one time than any other time.
You know, can God be holier than He is? And if Christ is our sanctification
and Christ is our holiness, how can you be any more holy at any
one time than you are at another? That's why progressive sanctification
is a horrible doctrine. Now I'll tell you what happens.
When you grow in grace, you begin to loathe yourself more. You
fall out of love with the world more. And you want to be with
the Lord's people more. You want to cherish the Word
more. But you get more sinful the older you get, and the more
you know about God, the sinful you become in yourself. There's
an old man, he's gone. The Lord called him home. We
were at Elmore. He come to my office one day
and he sat down and he said, He said, and he was way up in
his seventies, he said, I'm the simplest I've ever been in my
life. He said, how can that be? Well, every believer knows that.
But oh, listen to what he says now. May this righteous sanctification. And redemption, that means that
he's coming back to this body here. That's what that means.
And here's why this has happened. This is why God made Christ unto
us, why God put us in Christ. Verse 31, that according as it
is written, he that glorieth, or boasted, let him boast of
glory in the Lord. Where else are you going? Huh?
Well, so that's what his foreknowledge doesn't mean. God did not look
down through time and say, well, that fellow's going to bleed.
That's what people say. I've heard people say about,
you know why God chose Paul? Because he knew he'd make such
a good, good soldier of the cross. Oh, but well, what does foreknowledge
mean then? How is it used in the scriptures?
Now, the word for knowledge is not in the Old Testament, but
when you look in the Old Testament, you'll find that word know. Just
like I used that word, I said, I know my sheep. You find that
word know. And that means to regard with
favor. It means to love. It's like a
man knowing his wife. It's like a father knowing his
child. having an intimate acquaintance
with, a love with, a favor with, a regard to, just to know them
intimately in a wondrous, wondrous way. It means more to know in
the sense that I just know that person. It means that it's a
term of affection. When God told Jeremiah, he said,
before I formed you in my belly, I knew you. That means that he
loved him, appointed him, chose him, had an intimate acquaintance
with him before he ever formed him in his mother's belly. That's
what it means. And you know, he said, of all
the nations of the earth, thee only have I known that I had
this love for him. Now, in the New Testament, it's
used the same way. Now, I want you to see something
with me just a moment. Look over in Matthew 7. Matthew 7. It's used the same way. That's
what our Lord said there, I know my sheep. I have a favor, and
regardless favor, and have an intimate acquaintance, an intimate
knowledge of my sheep. They're my sheep. Here, Matthew
7, verse 23, look what it says. You know, many go, verse 22 says,
many will say unto me that day, Lord, Lord, very religious people,
put billboards out, Jesus is Lord over the dowels. You know,
many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in your name? And in thy name cast out devils,
and in thy name done many wonderful works. Very religious. Use the
name of Jesus all the time. And then, then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me you that were
connected. Now when he says here I never knew you, does that mean
he didn't know who they were? Didn't know where they were?
Didn't know what they did? Of course he knew them. That's
why he called them workers of iniquity. I don't know you. I
don't have this love for you. I don't have this regard for
you. I don't have this intimate acquaintance with you. You find
no favor with me, is what he's saying. And 2 Timothy 2.19 says, The
foundation of God stands assured, having this seal, the Lord knows
them that are what? His. His. And foreknowledge is
used only in the New Testament. And let me tell you this, the
word foreknowledge is only used in the New Testament. It's never
used in connection with events or actions, anything that happens
or anything anybody does. It never does. Foreknowledge
always, always refers to persons, not what they do. or what they
don't do, not the actions of those persons. So you follow
with me, we're going to look at several places, and the first
one is over in Acts chapter 2. Let's just look at these words,
pornage, and how they're used. Acts chapter 2. It never has
to do, Acts 2.22, It always refers to persons,
not what that person does or what that person does not do,
not their actions. He said here in Acts 2.22, You
men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which
God did by Him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know. Now watch this, Him. Him, the
person, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. Now, it's not talking about white
Christ. It's not talking about His crucifixion. It's talking
about God, by His foreknowledge and determinate counsel, delivered
up a person. Delivered up a person. God spread
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. It's not talking
about the act of the crucifixion, but who it is that is being crucified,
and why he's being crucified, and why they took him with wicked
hands. Because God, by His foreknowledge,
God, by His determined counsel, delivered him up to them. It's
the person. And He loved that person. That
was His blessed Son, the Son of His love. That favor that
He had towards them. And oh, that's what it's talking
about, Him that was delivered up. Let me tell you something
about the death of Christ now, beloved. It's not how much blood
was shed, it was whose blood it was shed. It was who was on
the cross, not how long he was on it. But now look over here
in Romans 8.29. So you see, poor knowledge has
to do with people. People, not what they do. That's
what, you know, they say, well, God looked down and seemed they
would repent, that they would believe. Then He saves them because
of an action. But when you find poor knowledge
in the Scriptures, it always relates to people. People, Acts
8.29, Romans 8.29, I'm sorry. I get off folks who are mixed
up at home. I had a brother and I'd had them in four different
places. And my wife would look at me and say, I said, well,
I'm of this place. And I said, what did I say? And four different people said,
I said, four different things. And there's four different places. Well, look here in Romans 8,
29. Now watch this, talking about
foreknowledge, dealing with people. For whom He, see whom, not what
they did, not their repentance, not their faith, not their works,
not their merit, for whom He did foreknow. He also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He, Christ,
might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, talking about people here, not their
actions, not their repentance, not their faith, Moreover, them
he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom
he justified them he also glorified. You see, it's not talking about
us surrendering our wills here. It's not talking about us believing
in our hearts. It's our person here that's in
view, people that God foreknew, people that God predestinated.
And these two verses that I read, it refers to He, eight different
times, God done this. You have to average free will
to read that, and you'd say, Well, whom He did foreknow. He did know that I was going
to repent. He did know I was going to believe. Oh, that's
not what God is talking about. It's whom. It's them. It's us. And that's why I ask
the question, what shall we say then to these things? If God
be for us, who in the world can be against us? And He is eight
times here. You notice it's He, He, He. He,
He, He. And oh, now look in Romans 11,
2. Right over here in Romans 11, verse 2. And that's what, you know, before
the world ever began, God knew His people. He knew them. He knew them. Romans 11, 2. He said, God hath not cast away
His people which he what foreknew, that he loved, that he approved
of, that he appointed, that he anointed, that he had this intimate
knowledge of and intimate acquaintance with. And that's why we just
stand in utter astonishment and amazement that what we are, what
we do, what we were, and what we are now, that God foreknew
us and in spite of what we are, knowing what we are, all that
we'd do and all that we'd be, He says, I love them. They are
mine. I'm going to save that man. He
don't believe. He is dead in trespasses and
sins. He's got a mind that's against
me. He's in enmity against me. But
I'm going to overcome every obstacle that's in that man, in that person. I'm going to justify him. I'm
going to call him. I'm going to sanctify him. I'm
going to make him righteous. Why? Because I foreknew him and
I will not cast him away. How can it be, how can it be
that Thou, my God, should die for me? For me who Him to death pursued? Depth of mercy, can that be?
Mercy still reserved for me? Can my God, His wrath forbearing
me, the chief of sinners spare? Can it be? Oh, when folks find
out who God did, they'll quit switching the blowgun from one
side of their mouth and sitting looking at you like a cast down
at a new gate and say, what he talking about? No. God don't cast away the people
He foreknew. No, He don't. Look over here
at 1 Peter with me just a moment. You know, I... I put an article
in the newspaper here a while back. Oh, you wouldn't believe
the response. And it was 1 Peter 1. And I said
four lies that the devil told. The first one is that God loves
everybody. The second one is that Jesus
died for everybody. The third one is that He wants
everybody to be saved. And the fourth one is Oh, what
was it? That man can be lost again. That's what it is. Man can be
lost again. Oh, my. There's begging to turn
the walls down. And I just put a little article
in about the size of that. That's, you know, 450 words,
something like that, maybe 600, 550. And they take hold. The whole page is out. Oh, you know, frightening. They
despise it. They've heard a lie so long that
when they hear the truth, they think the truth is evil spoken
of. They think the truth is the lie. Now look here in 1 Peter 1, verse
2. Here we go with this word for knowledge again. Elect. Elect. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. You see, elect
according to the foreknowledge of God. Well now, who is this
elect that he's talking about here? Who is these people that
God elected according to His foreknowledge? It says here in
verse 1, to the strangers. Strangers scattered throughout
Pontius. God's people are strangers in
this world. That's why we are. Strangers
and pilgrims. And they're scattered around. And those are the ones
that He says, God elected you according to His foreknowledge.
He chose you. Gave you grace. Loved you according
to His knowledge. Those people, those strangers
over there in Galatia, those strangers over there in Cappadocia,
those strangers over there in Bithynia. That's what He done. Foreknowledge always means God
foreknowing people, persons, persons. Now, and thank God it's
that way. Thank God it's that way. Thank
God it's that way. Now let me say this about God's
foreknowledge. God's foreknowledge is not the
cause, not the cause of Him foreknowing us and loving us. Something goes
before it. Something goes before Him for
knowing us. First of all, it's His sovereign
decree. He said, Him being delivered by His determined counsel. God, before the world began,
He determined, according to His own will, that His Son would
come into this world. That his son would be made of
a woman. That his son would be made under
the law. That his son would die on a cross. That his son would be taken by
the hands of wicked, sinful men. And his son would be nailed to
a tree. And his son would bury his own
body on the tree. That's what he's talking about.
His determinate counsel is the ground of his foreknowledge.
He predestinated us, if you will. Love that word. Love it. Love election. Love election. Chosen and election. Christians
in the Scriptures, I think three times, elect and chosen is twenty-something
times maybe, you know. But God's foreknowledge is based
upon His purpose. God's purpose. before the world
began to have a race that he called his own. You know, Adam's
race was fallen. God said, I'm going to have a
race and they're going to be just like my son. I'm going to
choose a race, you see. And there's two men. When it's
all said and done, every member of the human race is represented
in one of two men. You know, God views the whole
world in two men. Adam and Christ. In Adam, all
are dead. In Christ, all are made alive.
In Adam, we all became disobedient. In Christ, we became obedient. We learned the wages of sin in
Adam, which is death. The gift of eternal life is grace
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? Oh, thank God. And you know, he had this race. Before Adam was ever made, he
had a race. a people chosen, and I'm going
to conform them to the image of my Son. That's what predestination
is, being conformed to the image of Christ, being predestined
to the adoption of children. And God's foreknowledge is based
upon His promise, I'm going to have a race, I'm going to have
a people, and they're going to be my people, and I'm going to
see to it that they come to my Son, and I'm going to make them
just like Him. And you know why A4 knows what will be? That we
would believe, that we would be here today, that we would
rejoice in the poor knowledge of God, rejoice in His electing
grace. Because He decreed what would be. And oh, God elects us because
He foreknows us. And everything He knows about
us, that everything about us is wrong from the top of our
head to the sole of our foot, but yet, He foreknew us and He
elected us. Look in Romans 9.13. This is
the perfect illustration of it. Romans 9-11. You see, He foreknows because He elected
us. He elected us because He foreknows. But oh, it says here in verse
11, for the children being not yet born, Twins, not identical
twins, for the children being not yet born. They hadn't done
any good, they hadn't done any evil. Now watch this, that the
purpose, purpose of God, according to election, might stand not
of works, but him that calls. It was said unto the elder, It
said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
Jacob have a love, Esau have a hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid. And he says to Moses, I'll have
mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. And oh beloved, he said, I'm
going to have mercy and I'm going to have compassion on my, I'm
going to have compassion on Norm, I'm going to have compassion
on we. And then look what he says about Pharaoh. For this
Pharaoh, who is the Lord that I should may him? God raised
him up to drown him in the Red Sea. He raises some folks up
just to drown them, just to show he's powering them, he's riding
them. And our beloved, our election is not in us, it's in God's sovereign
will. You know, our Lord in Matthew
11.25, He prayed and he said, I thank
the old father. This is how we feel about God's
electing grace. God's wondrous, marvelous, precious,
electing grace. He said, I thank him. I thank
him. An old father. He's our father. He spends his spirit in our hearts
when we cry out of a father. I thank you, O Father. You're
Lord of heaven and earth. You're sovereign. You're God
Almighty. You're Lord of heaven and earth.
You're sovereign. You can do what you will. And
I thank you. I thank you. I bless you. That you hid these things from
people who think they know. For people who think they got
their answers. For people who think that they
got it all figured out. And they think that they're worth
something. They think God owes them something. They think that
they're good people and that God's going to put all their
good works in the balance and their bad works in it, and some
way or another, He's going to let the balance tip in their
favor. He said, I thank you that you've hid these things. You've
blinded their minds. You've hardened their hearts.
You've hid these things from the wise and the prudent. And
you took a bunch of babies that don't know nothing. Absolutely
don't know nothing. If a baby learns anything, he's
got to be taught. You know all a baby can do is
cry and make a mess. Now ain't that right? Somebody runs behind the children
cleaning them up. And that's what God does for
us. All you and I do is make messes and He takes care of them
for us. Ain't that right? Oh my, how many messes have we
made? Not only made messes, I am a mess. Mess in the middle of
a mess. But oh my, he said, I'll take
the babies. I'll take the babies. The babies
don't know nothing. And I'm going to teach them.
I'm going to reveal the truth to them. I'm going to take, and
they're going to sit there, and they're going to learn, they're
going to rejoice, they're going to be thankful, and then as I
begin to teach them and instruct them, they'll start growing.
There'll be babies, and then there'll be young men, and there'll
be fathers, and then there'll be old men. And we see all of
them right here, right now. And our beloved niece Paul went
down to help them much, which had to lead how? Through grace. And God's choice of persons to
be elected comes from nothing in us. And look here in Romans
11, 5, and I'll be done. You know, God's choice of person
to be elected, to be chosen, to be predestinated, comes from nothing in us or anything
from us. He says here in verse 5, Even so, then, at this present
time, also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace." Huh? Election of grace? Chosen of grace? One of God's
elect by grace? And if it's by grace, there's
no way it can be of works. Ain't that what it says? And
if it's of works, then there's no way it could be of grace.
Because if works enter into it, it's not grace anymore. And if
grace is in it, then works has no part in it. It's like oil
and water. It don't mix. And ain't you grateful? Don't
it just fill your heart with joy and praise and thanksgiving
and humility and appreciation? That God not only saved you, but He saved you on
purpose. And He saved you on purpose because
He knew you. He knew you. Before you was in
your mother's belly, He knew you. You know, everything that
I am as a person in this world right now, it started back generations
ago. I've got my great-grandfather
in me. I've got my grandfather in me,
I've got my dad in me. My stature in this world is because
of my genetics, because of my parents. I'm so much like my
dad that some people, when they see me, they say, it's like my
dad. They say, well, you're Don Bell,
made over. And I am. I ought to be. I'd
hate them. Not look like my dad, ain't look
like, you know, a red-headed stepchild. When you, you know,
ain't to be regarded as somebody. But anyway, and I go on, you know, and he got
his from his father, and you go on back. Well, that's the
same way it is spiritually speaking. When God saves us, he went all
the way back before the foundation of the world. And we get our
spiritual life, our spiritual nature, our spiritual stature,
how we're going to grow and what we're going to understand, and
how we'll be as spiritual, whether we're going to be preachers,
whether we're going to be deacons, whether we're going to be psalm
leaders, whether we're going to have a great grasp of the
truth, how much we love this. All these things are in us and
gave to us in Christ. We get our spiritual stature,
our spiritual makeup from Christ. And one of these days, God's
going to take us, who are His people, and when we get to glory,
we're all going to be just like Christ. In the sense that we'll
love God with a pure heart, without sin, we'll know God as we want
to know Him now, and we'll not have sin anymore, never have
sorrow, never grief, And what a day that will be.
I don't know if you ever heard this story or not. Down at home
there's an old store down there. A fella sitting there by a wood
stove, and there's several old country stores down there still
the same way, sitting there one winter, and sat whittling. And
this fella asked him, said, what are you whittling? He said, I'm
whittling the dog. And he looked up, said, like them up there?
He said, yeah. He said, how in the world do
you get them out of that? How do you whittle a dog? He said,
well, I cut off everything that don't look like a dog. And that's what God's going to
do to us. He's going to cut off everything that don't look like
Christ. And He's whittling, sometimes
He whittles pretty hard. Sometimes a big chunk comes off.
But He's going to whittle us until He makes us just like crumbs. You know, we're His dogs, Lord.
Even the dogs get the crumbs from the Master's table. Amen.
All right, preacher. Yes, okay. Sweep over my soul, sweet Spirit,
sweep over my soul. My joy is complete when I sit
at His feet. Sweet Spirit, sweet for my soul. Wonderful. Sweep over my soul
Sweep over my soul Sweet Spirit Sweep over my soul My joy When I sit at His feet, sweet
Spirit, sweep o'er my soul. It is to me. Let's look to the
Lord. Almighty God, we praise you that
you allowed us to hear your word today. It's a precious thing,
O God, that you, in your everlasting purpose, purpose of people, hear
your precious word. Thank the Lord for this opportunity. It's a privilege you've extended
to us to be here set apart for just a short time to fellowship
and ruminate on the Word of God. We thank you for the speaker
you sent to us this year. We pray, O God, that you'd be
with those people that you put in the shepherd over there in
Crossville, and be with them as far as 80's away, to be with
those men that would stand in his place, that you would feed
them so they could feed the flock of Christ. Be with Brother Don
as he speaks to us a couple more times and goes on down to rescue
and speaks there.