It's good to be here today. A while back, we did a study in
the book, Song of Solomon, and at that
time I mentioned that there's been many love songs written,
many love songs being written in this world. But this, as one commentator
said, I think it was Robert Hawker said, this is the greatest love
song ever written. So we're going to look at something
today in Song of Solomon. Turn, if you would, to Song of
Solomon, Chapter 2. The name of the message is safe
in Christ. Now, everyone in this world desires
to feel safe. Have you ever been in a situation
when you're a child or an adult where you haven't felt safe at
all? It's not a good feeling. It's
not a good feeling at all, is it? Now, we build houses to stay
safe from the elements, to raise our families in, to be with those we love. We
also, each country in this world has a military force to keep
their country safe, their citizens safe. We have police and fire departments
to keep us safe from things that naturally occur,
whether they be fires or men breaking the laws of the land,
And we feel safe, and we're very thankful for them. But natural man has no care for the most important
thing to be safe from. They have no care at all. We were all at one time dead
in trespasses and sins, with no hope in this world, and no care about whatever came
after death. Now we were afraid of death. We were afraid of death. But
we'd just shove it in the corner sometimes, wouldn't we? And when
we would be reminded of death was when one of our friends died.
or a family member suddenly died, or some celebrity who they report
on suddenly died, then we'd be reminded again. And that fear
would come up again. And the things we humans should
be most concerned about being safe is our eternal souls. And
yet man has no care about it. Natural man and woman have no
care about the safety of their eternal souls. None at all. Well, some might ask, how can
our soul be safe? How can our eternal souls be
safe when we can't save ourselves? Only in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If they're not forgiven, We also need to be safe from the law
of God. And from the justice of God. Because he has a wrath, doesn't
he? Which shall be poured out upon
sinners who are not in Christ. We're law breakers by nature
and by choice. My, we need to be saved from
the wrath of God. The wrath of the holy and righteous
and perfect God who we've sinned against. Beloved, if we're in Christ,
we're safe. We're safe from all those things.
We may die in this world, which we will. Every one of us in this
room is going to die. We don't know how. It's a good
thing we don't know how. It's a good thing we don't know
when. Because we'd worry about that, too. Right? So we don't know how, we don't
know when, but God knows. He knows the very second He's
going to take us home. And we are safe in Christ. Let's look at Song of Solomon.
We'll read verses 8 to 17. The voice of my beloved, that's
Christ. That's Christ. Behold, he cometh
leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. This is the bride
talking about Christ. He's our beloved. My beloved is like a roe or a
young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through
the lattice. Even when we are down, And we shut ourselves up. He's still looking at us. He's
still watching us. He's ever with us. He's always
looking. Always has his eye upon his bride.
Always. Do you know where the apple of
his eye? You know that? Oh my. Look at that, showing
themselves through the lattice. My beloved spake, and he said
unto me, Rise up, my love. That's what he calls us. That's
what Christ calls the church. My love. My love. That's comforting, isn't
it? He calls the church my love. My fair one. Oh, my. And come away. For, lo, the winter
is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the
earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice
of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree put forth
her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a
good smell. Arise, my love. The church is saying, arise. Christ is saying, arise, my love.
My fair one, and come away. That's the second time he said
that, isn't it? Oh my. Listen to the compassion and
the love with these words. It's not beat and stick time,
is it? She's falling asleep. We sometimes slumber, don't we?
Yeah. It's not like, get out of bed!
It's not like that at all. It's all love. spoken with tenderness,
spoken with compassion. Rise, my love, my fair one, and
come away. Oh, my dove, he calls us his
dove, thou art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places
of the stairs. Let me see thy countenance, let
me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance
is calmly. Now here's a warning. Take us
the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines
have tender grapes. Look at this. The church is now
saying, my beloved is mine. Look at that. He's ours. You
know why he's ours? Because we were his. That's the
only reason, right? He loved us. Or we love him because
he first loved us. My beloved is mine and I am his. We're Christ's beloved. We're his gift from the Father.
Do you know we were the father's before we were given to the son? We learned that in John chapter
17. We're the father's love gift
to the son. A bride picked out. My, oh, my. Back in the old days,
the fathers would pick out the brides for their sons. Christ has a chosen bride. Chosen of the Father, given to
Him. My, it's wonderful. Until the
daybreak and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved. And be thou like a row or a young
heart upon the mountains of Bethar. Now in verses eight to 13, we
see the bride. Here's the voice of her beloved.
Here's her voice. Now we don't hear the voice of
Christ through the preaching of the gospel or through the
reading of his word until we're born again by the Holy Spirit
of God. Otherwise, we don't know. We don't know the voice of the
shepherd, do we? But you know, we have a beautiful
picture with Lazarus of how we were, dead in trespasses and
sins. And he says, Lazarus, come forth. And there comes Lazarus. He'd
been dead. Well, now he's alive. Still bound up by those grave
clothes, but they unwind him from that, don't they? And notice
Christ doesn't do the unwinding. He sends his servants to do it. That picture's gospel preachers
preaching the word of God, and them grave clothes just start
falling off, beloved. Oh my. It's beautiful. Verse eight, see the words, he
cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. I was
reading an article today by an old Puritan guy, or not today,
this week, by an old Puritan fella, and he said, Christ longs
to return as much as we long for his return. And he says, think of this, we're
his bride. He desires us to be with him.
He desires to come and catch us up, but only at the time appointed
by the Father. But I had never thought of that
perspective. Norm and I were talking about it, and neither
of us had thought of that perspective, how he's eagerly awaiting to
return to take home his bride. Because we're his love. We're his beloved. We can't understand that, can
we? But it's true. Because the scriptures say it
is. My, oh my. Verse 8, when it says, He cometh
leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, this speaks of
His incarnation. He's born into this world, beloved. Speaks of
Him becoming a man. Born of a virgin. God, over all,
incarnate in the flesh. And also note in these wonderful
words that our heavenly bridegroom is ever with us. Here never leave
us, nor forsake us. Well, we may put up a wall. We
may put up a wall. But he's able to overcome any
of those, isn't he? Oh, yeah. Sometimes things might
happen and we're stinging. And we put up a little wall. And he everly comes over and
says, I love you. Through the preaching of the
gospel or through the reading of his word. What happens to
our hearts? They just melt. They just melt. And also let us note in these
wonderful words that our heavenly bridegroom, he's ever with us,
he'll never leave us nor forsake us. No matter what dark clouds
come around us, he's always with us. right beside us, beloved. Verses 10 to 13, we see the bride,
the church recalling the words of her beloved, which is Christ. He's told her to rise and come
up. Rise up out of your slumber. Rise up out of your slumber. And come with him. And notice
our Lord, notice how tender his calls are. So tender. My beloved spake, this is the
bride saying this, and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair
one, and come away. Come with me. Come with me. My, oh, my. For, lo, the winter is past.
The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing of birds is come. And the voice of the
turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree put forth her green
figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell.
Arise, my fair one, and come away. Come with me. My, take note in verse 10, where
our Lord Jesus calls his bride, my love, my fair one. Now, we know what we are, right? God, the Holy Spirit, has revealed
to us that we're just but sinners. From the bottom of our feet to
the top of our head, right? And that when God looks at us
in our natural state, He sees none righteous, no, not one.
He sees not one wanting to seek Him, not one wanting to listen
to His voice. And yet here, in verse 10, we see, my beloved spake and
said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. You
see the word fair there in the text? It's beautiful in Hebrew. Rise up, my fair, my beautiful
one. Come with me. How are sinners
made beautiful in the eyes of Christ? Clothed in this perfect, spotless
righteousness. not by any works we have done,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he saved us and he clothed us in his righteousness. The Father has put upon us the
righteousness of Christ, the perfect coat of righteousness. So now when Christ looks upon
his church, he sees the fair one, the beautiful one that he's
purchased with his own blood. He is the one who's made us beautiful. Isn't that amazing? In our natural
state, God can't look upon sin in our natural state, can he?
And here we are. Sinners by birth, nature, and
choice. And the only one who has made us to differ from anyone
else is God. And he says to us as a church,
you're my beautiful one. And I don't know if anyone has
ever called you beautiful, but Christ calls us beautiful. Isn't that
wonderful? Christ calls us beautiful, beloved.
It's amazing. And we are only beautiful in
His eyes by His perfect, spotless righteousness. And look at verse 14. We see the Lord calls His church,
My dove. My dove. Do you know doves are
harmless animals? Do you know doves mate for life? They're very harmless. Look at
this, O my dove, thou art in the clefts of the rock, in the
secret places of the stairs. Let me see thy countenance, let
me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance
is calmly, calmly there is beautiful in the Hebrew. He just keeps calling us beautiful,
beloved. Isn't that wonderful? Because we're His. We're His
by creation and we're His by purchase as well. And God, marvel
at this, God delights in His church. He delights in us as if we're
the most beautiful people in this world. In His eyes. My, oh, my. Oh, my dove, thou art in the
clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. Let me
see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice,
and thy countenance is beautiful. And he calls his bride, oh, my
dove, my, personal, possessive, oh, my dove, my. We are, again, His by creation,
and we are His by purchase, beloved. Turn, if you would, to Matthew
chapter 10. Matthew chapter 10. Now, a dove
is a harmless creature, but also a very beautiful creature. Doves
are beautiful. I love watching them. I love sitting on my porch
and watching those morning doves. I think those are some of the
most beautiful birds around. And I love their sound, their
song is beautiful. And you see the two of them and
knowing that they mate for life, whenever I see two of them, it's
just, it's usually probably the two birds, the male and the female.
And they're beautiful. Someone told me they shoot him
and eat him. Well that's okay if you want to do that. That's
fine. It's supposed to be real good eating. But I'm not going
to eat no dove. I'm sorry. I like him singing. I like him singing. My oh my. Look at this. It says in Matthew
chapter 10 verses 16 to 19. Behold I send you forth. So Christ
is going to send his apostles forth. And he sends us forth,
beloved, into the world, each one of us. sent into this world. Behold, I send you forth as sheep
in the midst of wolves. Be you as wise as serpents and
as harmless as doves." So be as wise as a serpent, right?
Be aware of things going on, but be harmless as a dove. But beware. Beware of man. There's a warning there for us.
For they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will
scourge you in the synagogues. And ye shall be bought before
governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them
and the Gentiles. Look at this. And God does this. But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what ye shall say, ye shall speak, for
it shall be given you in the same hour that ye shall speak.
God gives his people fortitude. He gives us the words to speak.
during those times. And we see here our Lord's comparison of his
church to a dove. It's so fitting because we're
weak. We're weak in ourselves. And sometimes we're apprehensive
and doubting. And our Lord, though, sees us
as beautiful. Even when we're apprehensive, even when we're
doubting, He still sees us as beautiful. Absolutely lovely. My. Why? Because we're washed in
his blood. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. We're covered in the blood of
Christ. and we're clothed in His perfect righteousness, beloved?
My, oh my. And we are made beautiful by
another, by a union with Him. Through Christ Jesus our Lord.
By the power of God the Holy Spirit who regenerates us, gives
us faith to believe on Him. Now what do we see Christ as?
We see Him as beautiful too, don't we? We see him as altogether
lovely. We see him as the fairest of
10,000. He's wonderful. He's the lover of my soul. Is
he yours? My, I sure hope God would make
it so if he's not. My, oh my. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, he's taken away our guilt by his blood atonement. He put
our sins away. Our great God has put every redeemed
sinner, the very beauty, he's put upon every redeemed sinner,
every born again sinner, he's put the beauty of Christ upon
us, which is his righteousness. A righteousness that he wrought
out, 100%. There's not a stitch of our righteousness
in that perfect coat. Not one. As I said this morning, we bring
nothing to the table but our sin. And He gives us all. He gives
us all. He gave His life for us. He gives
us righteousness. He justifies us before God. We're
sanctified in Him. He's all our wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. He's everything to us. Oh my. Rock of ages cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Oh, let us hide ourselves in
Christ. And the church of God is like
a dove. He calls us His dove. And you
know we're hidden in the cleft of the rock. We're hidden in
Christ. We're hidden in Him. And we are
eternally, and I mean eternally, we are eternally secure in Christ,
safe in Jesus Christ our Lord. Absolutely safe in Him. Bruce Crabtree wrote an article
called, We Can't Mess It Up. Talking about our salvation.
We can't mess up our salvation. It was given to us. It was wrought
out by Christ. And it's perfect. Now again,
as I said this morning, the preaching of God's free grace in Christ
will not lead us to antinomianism, will not lead us to go out that
door. No, it does the exact opposite. Doesn't it? We desire to live
a life for God now. Who do we go to when we sin?
When we confess our sins? Because we still confess our
sins, right? Who do we go to? God the Father. He's faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
First John. How? By the blood of Christ.
Our sins are forgiven, but we still confess them, do them,
don't we? And we confess our faults one to another, we say,
man, I'm such a sinner. I struggle with this or I struggle
with that. And you find out your brother and sister goes, I struggle
with that too. But praise God, we have a Savior. We have a Redeemer. We're safe in Christ. And nothing
can move us from being in Him. My, you'll lose none. There's not one of his sheep
that he died for that he'll lose. The believer is always secure
in Christ, and we are always aware of our need, aren't we? We're always aware of our need.
We're always aware of our need for Christ, and who do we take
refuge in? Christ Jesus, our Lord. We flee the him who hides
us in the cleft of the rock. Our text continues, O my dove,
thou art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of
the stairs. Christ is the stairs or steps
by which the saint ascends up into glory. He's our access to God. John
Gill wrote this, he says, the secret places may have respect
to justifying righteousness of Christ and atonement by him hidden
to other men, but revealed to his church. And how his righteousness
is what justifies us. The world doesn't know that. Religions don't even, people
claim to be preaching Christ don't even talk about the righteousness
of Christ. Because man's trying to go about
establishing their own righteousness. This is why preaching about Christ
and what he's actually done on Calvary's cross is so important. Because without the righteousness,
the justifying righteousness of Christ, we would never be
able to be in the presence of God. We must be justified, and we
are only justified in and through Christ. We must be clothed in
the perfect righteousness. We believers are now clothed
in the perfect righteousness of Christ. And he says, my beautiful
one. My. It's wonderful. So we see that whatever the church
is going through, whether it be in distress or turmoil or
tribulation, that we are absolutely, beloved, we are absolutely sheltered
in Christ. See, man can destroy the body,
can't he? But he can't touch the soul. And this is just the tent, beloved.
This is just the tent. One day, if I go before you,
you're gonna see me. You're gonna see me just in my
tent, beloved. The tent will be there, but Wayne
will be gone. I'll be in glory with the Lord.
Only because of his mercy and grace. That's the only reason
I can say that. Because all in and through Christ Jesus my Lord,
he saved my soul. And now the preachers, we tell
other people, I'm just a beggar telling other beggars where to
find bread. It's in Christ. So let us never forget, let us
take away from this today, that our Lord delights in us. He loves
us, beloved. He delights in us. We're beautiful
in his sight. We're lovely in his sight. And
he desires to commune with us. He desires us to lift up our
voices to him. In song, in praise, in adoration. And you don't have to have a
special prayer time set for it. Just praise him while you're
doing stuff during the day. Just thank him for what he's
doing. We get so busy. I get so busy sometimes. I get
busy doing stuff. And I got to stop and just say,
thank you, Lord, for that. Thank you for that. Praise your
name for that. You know? and just talk to him,
just cry out to him anytime I want. Same with you, right? You guys heard my story when
I was literally, I'm going to pray, going down the hallway,
shutting the door, just full of pharisee, just full of self-righteousness.
That's awful. We can talk to God whenever we
want, wherever we are. And it's wonderful. And he desires
to hear our voice. Isn't that amazing? God desires
to hear us cry out to him. His church, his elect, his bride. Look at the latter part of this
verse. It says, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy
voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is calmly,
is beautiful. Our countenance, he looks upon
us, he says, my beautiful one. I know for us men, we're like,
well, come on, you know. But this is true. This is true. He
looks upon us. Think about, okay, for us men
who are married, think about on your wedding day, and those
doors opened up, and your bride, you saw her for the first time
that day. You're just going to get married. Oh, my. She's the most beautiful
woman in the whole world. And your eyes are fastened upon
her, no one else, right? You're not looking at anyone
else. And she's down there and she's looking straight at you. Oh my. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. So he desires us to lift up our
voice in praise and adoration to him. and ponder the great
wonders of His grace, ponder His mercy towards us. He saved
us because it pleased Him to do so. Because it pleased Him to do
so. My, and when we ponder the mercy
and the grace of God that's been shown to us in Christ, it will
not take us long to lift up our voices in praise. And I can sing a song in my heart
without uttering a word from my lips. Can you? Oh my. Sometimes I just want to
let it out, right? My oh my. Ponder how much the Lord
loves his people. Now verse 15 here, this is a
warning for the church here. Look at this. Take us, the foxes,
the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender
grapes. I checked several commentators
with this verse. Our Lord's given us a counsel.
He's warning us to suppress our sinful nature, which sometimes Seems little
in our eyes. And what are they? What are these
little foxes? Anger, wrath, gossip, slander,
showing annoyance, irritation with one another. I ask husbands
and wives, do we ever get irritated with one another? Yeah, we do,
don't we? Yeah. Evil speaking. We need to suppress these things
for the good of Christ's kingdom. Now, there are other little foxes
that will destroy the peace of a church. They must be dealt
with. Doctrinal error must be dealt
with. Must be dealt with. Which is
contrary to anything that's contrary to the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace in Christ. Salvation by works is a little
fox. Creeps in. Oh, you gotta do this,
gotta do that. Little fox of schism. A long time ago, I was told by
an older grace preacher that when you go to preach somewhere
and someone comes up to you and says, what do you think about
this that the pastor said? Because they do that. It's amazing. You wouldn't think it would happen,
but it happens. I'm going to tell you something pretty amazing.
The guy who told me that, I was at his church for a conference. And I went outside after I'd
preached, and Vicky was still in with the ladies, and I went
outside to preach, or just to rest after we ate in the fellowship
hall. And out comes this fella. What
do you think about Jean? Now Gene's my friend. He's a
preacher. He's a good friend of mine. He just invited me to
come here. I'm thinking, you know who the one who told me
to be careful of that? It was Gene. And listen to what God
did. You know what? I'll tell you
what. God's amazing. I'm sitting there
talking to this guy. I'm looking at him. I said, well,
have you talked to Gene? And he said, well, no, no, no. And I said, well, let's go talk
to Gene. Well, no, no. And Gene comes right out the
door. And I said, hey, Gene, this fellow wants to talk to
you. You know what happened, eh? That
fellow took off. He didn't want to talk to Gene,
but what he was doing was looking for someone to agree with him
so he could say, hey, this preacher agrees with me about this. And
that's what people do. They go around trying to find
a bunch of people who agree with them and cause trouble in the
church. Nah, we won't have that, will we? No. Nope. Nope. Keep an eye out in the
little foxes. Strife, division, must all be
put away. And that's to be put away by
us, right? You know that there's been differences
in the grace movement. You know what? I'm one of the
few preachers who's not getting involved. I got friends on both sides,
beloved. I refuse to get involved in that. I refuse it. I just won't. And we just need
to lay him to rest. Because if no one speaks about
him, then there won't be no division, will there? Right? So you're
going to see preachers from both sides coming, and hey, we're
going to have a wonderful time. This will be the church where
everybody gets together, right? Oh, enough of that. Enough of that stuff. My, but
so this is a warning, though. Keep an eye out. Keep an eye
out for those things that will spoil the vine. You know, and these
things can creep in. Now look at verse 16 again, and
now we're going to get to another really good verse here, too,
again. My beloved is mine. Look at that. My beloved is mine. And this
is the church now speaking about Christ. And she calls him, my
beloved. My beloved, my dear one, my precious
one. is mine. And more importantly,
I am his. Zane, you said that it's not
our holding on to Christ the other night. You said it's not
our holding on to Christ, it's Christ holding on to us. So more importantly,
I'm his, but more importantly, he's mine. He's mine, but more
importantly, I'm his. Right? We love him because he
first loved us. And he feedeth among the lilies.
My, oh, my. The church here is proclaiming
that Christ is theirs, but again, more importantly, that we're
his. And then we feed among the lilies. Where do we feed as sheep? The green pasture of the Word
of God, eh? The green pastures of the Word of God. My oh my. And every born again believer
can say Christ is mine. That's such a blessing. That's
such a privilege, isn't it? But here are five different ways
in which anything can become ours. Number one, by formation
or production. We can make something, right?
With things we can make it and it can become ours. We can construct
things and make them ours. By purchase or exchange, we go
to the store, we buy things, we take them home, they're ours. By inheritance, mother and father
can leave inheritance for their children, and that inheritance
then becomes the children's inheritance, or if it was each one of us,
it becomes ours. By conquest, countries go to
war, men go into battle, And they take what's called the spoils
of war. The people are dead in the house, they go through the
house and clean it out. It's happened since the Roman
days and further back than that. It's called pillaging. And then by gift. Something can
become ours by a gift. And when it's a gift, it's bestowed
upon us. We didn't ask for it. We didn't
seek it. Somebody just gives us a gift.
Here, I want to give you this. And sometimes we in our pride
go, oh, no, no, no, no. No, don't do that. Someone's
given you a gift. Receive it. Receive it. And then it becomes ours. Among
all those ways, there's only one in which Christ can become
ours, because salvation is a gift of God. We can't take it by conquest. We can't make salvation our own.
We can't manufacture it. But it is a gift, isn't it? Given
to God's people. Given to God's people from our
great God. And it's a gift so that none of us can boast. We like to boast, right? And if we're all honest, we like
to boast. See, but salvation's a gift,
so we can't boast and say, oh, it's mine. I got it. No, it's
a gift. If you're saved by God, that
salvation's a gift, beloved. And because of Him giving you
that gift, you'll be with Him forever. And you're clothed in
His perfect righteousness. Again, everything from God is
a gift, isn't it? Everything. Everything. My, we are his creation. We're his creation. We're his
by purchase, we're his by creation, we're his by purchase. He purchased
us with his own precious blood. He obtained salvation for us,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. He did it, and he did it for
you and I, beloved. Do you know we're the property
of Christ? You say, oh wow, nobody's property. I'm Christ's property. I'm a servant, are you? We're
servants, aren't we? We're bond servants, aren't we?
Bore my ear, Lord. Bore my ear that I might never
go away. Mark me that I'm yours. We willingly
say that, don't we? Oh, my. You know, people of the
world, when you start talking to them about election, you start
talking about stuff, one of the first things they say is, I'm
no puppet. You know what? If I'm going to
be anybody's puppet, I'm going to be God's puppet, right? But
I'm not a puppet, are you? No. But if I was, I'd want to
be God's puppet. But I was there. I don't want to come across as
holier-than-thou, because I ain't holier-than-thou. But I'll be
God's puppet any day of the week. 24-7. Right? He made me. He made you. Can He not do with us whatever
He pleases? Who are we to say to God, why
are you doing this? See, natural man says that. Says
to the potter, why'd you make me this way? I don't want to be no candlestick. I want to be a big flower pot.
Right? No. No. We're either vessels of honor
or vessels of dishonor, right? And who has the power over the
clay? Do you know we're just dust, right? And we're going
to return to dust. Who has the power to make us
who we are? God. God. You know, I stand before
you, preach the gospel. I can't do it on my own. God
made me a preacher, gives me the words to speak, puts the
messages on my heart. It's all from him. It's all from Him. He gets all
the glory and all the honor and all the praise. And I'm willingly,
I'm gladly serve you all. It is the greatest blessing in
my life to preach the gospel and to be with you all. I'm serious. It's wonderful. And then to think
we're going to spend eternity together in glory with Christ. That's just icing on the cake,
isn't it? It's wonderful, it's absolutely wonderful. You know,
we're bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. We're
his gift, we're God's gift from the Father. John 17, six says
this, I have manifest thy name unto the man which thou gavest
me out of the world, thine they were. Well, we were God's first. Thine
they were. And thou gavest them me, and
they have kept my word. So let us think upon these truths
this week. Let us think upon these truths this week. Meditate
upon these facts, and these are facts. If Christ be mine, then
his power defends me. His power defends me. No matter
what comes my way, his power defends me. If Christ be mine,
then his wisdom and knowledge guide me. His wisdom and knowledge
guide me through everything that comes our way. If Christ be mine,
then his blood cleanses me from all my sin. All, every single one of them.
There's not one left behind. If Christ be mine, then his righteousness
justifies me before God. So that God says, as Paul wrote
in Romans, who shall bring any charge to God's elect? It's God
that justifies. Marvel at that this week. We
are justified by God in Christ. And the church cries out, don't
we cry out. We cry out, glory to God. Glory
to God in the highest. Praise his mighty name for his
goodness. My, and we cry, I'd even so come
quickly, Lord, don't we? Oh, we can't wait for the blessed
return of Christ, can we? My, oh my. So think about those
things, though. His wisdom guides me. His power
keeps me. His blood cleanses me. My, it's incredible, beloved. Absolutely
incredible. Even so, come quickly, Lord.
Even so, come quickly. And one day, this night of this
world, the darkness of this world, we'll be leaving this and we're
entering into the glorious light of heaven. We'll be more alive
there than we ever were here. Because now we see through a
glass darkly, right? But then, face to face. Praise
the name of Jesus. What a Savior. What a Redeemer.