All right, if you would open
your Bibles now again with me to Joshua chapter four. I've titled the message this
morning, What Mean Ye By These Stones? After 40 years, after they left
Egypt and 40 years of wandering through the wilderness, the Lord
has finally brought the children of Israel to the promised land.
And when they arrive at the promised land, at that time of year, The
Jordan River was flooded from the snow melt that would come
down from the mountains. They say at this time that the
river was 20 to 30 yards wide and very deep. One writer I've
read actually said it was deeper than it was wide. I don't know
how he knows that. Deep river. But the children
of Israel came to that river and they crossed over the Jordan
River on dry ground. It's interesting, they came out
of Egypt through a river on dry ground and they went into the
promised land through a river on dry ground. The priest who
bore the Ark of the Covenant, they led this parade, three million
people coming into the promised land. The priest bearing the
Ark of the Covenant went first. The scripture says as soon as
their feet touched the water, that water stood up in a heap
and the people passed over on dry ground. The priest got to
the middle of that river, holding the ark, and there they stood.
They stood firm until three million people and their animals passed
by. That's something, isn't it? How
they stood firm all that time. Now, I think it's good for us
to take notice of this. Specifically, it's pointed out
here that it's harvest time. The Jordan floods at the harvest
time. That's the time. that the Lord
brought Israel to the promised land. Now, why is that significant?
Why point out it's harvest time? Well, here's the reason. Israel
is going to go into the promised land and they're going to enjoy
land for which they did not labor. They're going to harvest crops
that they didn't plant, that they didn't weed, that they didn't
water. This land is a picture of the land of rest. It's the
rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord brought them in at the
harvest time to show how freely and richly he blesses his people
and how he provides for his people. You know, there's another place
that, you know, the Lord didn't drive out everybody at once.
Just a little bit, it's city by city. There's one city that
Israel came to and the Lord sent hornets and drove everybody out. And you know when he did it?
Right at dinnertime. Israel walked in, there's a house,
enters all the stove. All they had to do was ladle
out meat. The Lord just brought his people in, provided for them,
showing this is the land of rest. You don't enter this land by
works. It's by resting in Christ. Well, now the people have all
passed, clean over Jordan into the promised land. And you saw
the story that Brother Dane just read for us. The Lord told Joshua,
you get these men, stack these stones up, make this monument
here. And the Lord said, now in time to come, your children
are gonna ask, what do these stones mean? Why is this monument
here? He says it in verse six. This
may be a sign among you that when your children ask their
fathers in time to come, saying, what mean ye by these stones?
In verse 21, he's speaking of the children of Israel saying,
when your children, not if they're children, when your children
shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, what mean these
stones? Now I know a lot of times people are not asking questions
to find out information. They're asking the questions
to draw people into the debate. But there are times people ask
fair questions, especially our children. I love it when our
children ask us questions. And when people ask questions
like this, we should always be ready to give them an answer
that points them to Christ. The answer to this question What
mean ye by these stones? The answer points us to Christ. It points us to trust in him. Everything significant in this
story is Christ. The priest, they represent Christ,
our great high priest. He opened the way to the Father
for us by his sacrifice. The Ark of the Covenant, that
represents Christ. Remember, the Ark of the Covenant
was a box, wasn't it? is a wooden box made of incorruptible
wood covered with gold. And that picture's the two natures
of Christ. That incorruptible wood, that
represents the sinless humanity of Christ. Even after he died,
his body didn't decay. Why did his body decay? After
three days, Martha said, Lazarus stinketh. After three days in
the tomb, the Lord didn't stink. He saw no decay. His body didn't
decay, because there was no sin in his body. So the incorruptible
wood represents the sinless humanity of Christ. The gold represents
his deity. He's God, he's both God and man. And you know what they put in
that ark, in that box? The broken law, the Ten Commandments. They put that in the Ark of the
Covenant. When Moses had that, those tables of stone in his
hand, what did he do? He threw them down and broke
them. He's so mad, he came down, remember the children of Israel
all dancing around, worshiping that golden calf, And Moses was
so mad, he threw those stones down, broke them. And God said,
now Moses, come back up here. I'm gonna write two more tables
of stone. Moses, don't you keep them in your hand. You put them
in the Ark of the Covenant. That's where they're kept safe.
That's a picture of Christ coming, the God-man who'll keep the law,
obey the law for his people. And then that box was covered
with a lid, a lid made out of pure gold, the mercy seat. And
every year on the day of atonement, the high priest would go in and
sprinkle blood on that mercy seat. That broken law is covered
by the blood of Christ. And that's what went into the
river first. It represents Christ. Joshua himself represents Christ. The name Jesus is the New Testament
name for the Old Testament name Joshua. Joshua represents Christ. He's a picture of Christ who
gives his people rest in him. and the 12 stones that they stacked
up there. They represent Christ, the foundation
of our faith. Christ, that immovable rock.
And I want to give you this morning five foundational stones that
are pictured in this chapter. These five stones, they're a
monument to God's saving grace. You know, I'm sure we could think
of 12, For time's sake, we're gonna stick to five, and this,
I believe, will be a blessing to us. Number one, there's the
stone of God's sovereign power. Now, Israel comes to the edge
of the Jordan River. In times of war, well, if an
army is retreating, you know, rivers are natural defenses,
right? They cross over the river on a bridge, and then they blow
it up. So that's what the Germans did as they were retreating,
right? They blew up all the bridges so nobody could cross the river
and get into Germany. Well, there's no bridge on the
River Jordan. And people of Jericho thought this river kept them
safe. Nobody can attack us across this river, you know. And Israel
got there at the time of year when that river was its broadest.
It's flooded, it's even broader than normal. People, they've
been wandering through this wilderness for 40 years. And now they get
up to this river and they know the first thing they're going
to do is take Jericho. How are we going to get there? How are
we going to cross this river and get there? Well, I can tell
you how they're going to get there. It's not by them building
a bunch of boats, is it? It's by the power of God. Our
God is sovereign over all the earth. He's sovereign over the
nature that exists in his creation. Look here at Joshua 3 verse 11.
Look how he says this. Behold, the ark of the covenant
of the Lord of all the earth passes over. This is the covenant,
the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth. In verse
13, it shall come to pass as soon as the souls of the feet
of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of
all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the
waters will be parted. Joshua makes this very plain,
he points this out. This is the Lord of all the earth. He's sovereign over everything
in his creation. He's sovereign over even the
physical properties of matter. Look at verse 16 of chapter three.
That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up
upon a heap. Upon a heap. Now water runs everywhere. Water just runs till it fills
its container. The water in this glass fills
the container. If the glass was this big, the
water would go out this far. It runs everywhere. You can't
stick your shovel in the ocean and pile it up in the heap like
you do dirt. Water doesn't do that. The properties
of water don't do that. But that's what God made the
waters of the river of Georgia do. to stand up in a heap because
God's sovereign over even the physical properties of matter. And God is sovereign over everyone
in his creation. He's sovereign over his enemies.
Look at verse 10 of Joshua 3. And Joshua said, hereby you shall
know that the living God is among you and that he will without
fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites
and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites
and the Jebusites, all those sites, they're all getting driven
out. All those enemies mentioned here, they're mighty enemies.
They have well-trained armies. They have big walled cities.
They've been preparing for Israel to arrive. They've been preparing
for this. And Israel is going to move through
them like a hot knife through soft butter. Because there's
no enemy of God can stand before him. Our God is sovereign over
every physical enemy. You know, when those spies came
to Jericho, what did Rahab tell them? We've heard of you. And
this is what we fear the most. We heard what happened at the
Red Sea. God parted the Red Sea and you crossed on dry ground.
And here all this time, we thought we'd been protected by the River
Jordan. And you're God's sovereign. There's none can stand before
him. This river is nothing to him because he's sovereign over
every enemy. Rahab knew Jericho was falling. She knew it was because God's
sovereign. And our God is sovereign, most
importantly, over every spiritual enemy. Christ came and he put
away every spiritual enemy that his people had. He put every
last one of them away. by his one sacrifice for sin.
Sin, oh, that's our enemy. It's the sin that separates us
from God. Sin that would condemn our souls. But the blood of Christ
has defeated that enemy. He's cleansed us from all sin.
So that by his sacrifice, what does the Father say? There's
sins and iniquities who I remember no more. There's nothing to remember. Christ put them away. He put
that enemy away. His blood paid the redemption
price And all of the sin of all of God's people is forgiven. How about death? How about death? Death is our enemy, isn't it?
But you know, Christ came and he died as a substitute for his
people. And when Christ died, he took
the sting of death away from his people. Now, unless Christ
returns first, every one of us is gonna die. But death will
not harm one believer. Not one. Matter of fact, it'll
be a blessing to us because we'll leave this life and go to the
next. To depart from this life, the very moment we do, we'll
be with the Lord. So matter of fact, death is not
an enemy. The death of Christ made death
a friend of a believer. It's our friend. He took the
sting of death away so that death will never harm his people. Oh, Satan's our enemy. Boy, he
came to Eve, he deceived Eve. What an enemy we have. And boy,
I want nothing to do with him. I mean, I want nothing to do
with him. But our Savior, by his death,
did exactly what God said he'd do. He crushed Satan's head. Brother Henry, you say, put Satan
out of business. Now, how did he put Satan out of business?
How did the death of Christ put Satan out of business? Well,
here's why. is called the accuser of the
brethren. Well, the blood of Christ took
away all the sin of God's people, didn't it? There's no sin left.
His blood put it away. So Satan can't accuse them of
anything. Oh, now he'll still accuse. I
mean, that's not going to stop him. He'll still accuse the brethren.
But when he accuses the brethren, you know what the father says?
What sin? I don't see any sin. Satan will accuse. but he can't
make any accusation stick because the blood of Christ has made
his people to be innocent. And then the priests that led
the way into the River Jordan, they picture Christ our Savior.
Christ our Savior went into death first. That's what the River
Jordan often represents to us, death. Christ went into death
This is how he defeated death for his people. He went through
death first, and he opened the way by his death, his burial,
and his resurrection. He opened the way to life for
his people. Oh, we'll still go through death,
but what's gonna happen after that? We'll follow him to life
everlasting. See, he conquered death for his
people. That's what the priest represents. And our Lord is even
sovereign over our sin nature. Now he doesn't remove our sin
nature, it's still there. This is strong, this is vile,
this is as much an enemy of God as ever. But our God makes it
so our sin nature can't make us not believe on him anymore. He makes that new man to rule
so that we believe on Christ. See, our Savior is the Lord of
all the earth. So nothing in heaven Nothing
in earth, nothing in hell, nothing in our hearts can ever stop him
from bringing his people safe across Jordan into heaven itself. The guarantee of that is our
God is sovereign. All right, number two. There's
the stone of God's electing love. You see these stones, what does
this stone mean? This stone, it represents God's electing
love. You know, it was a great miracle that the Lord would make
those waters stand up in a heap, isn't it? Just unbelievable how
he could do that. And the people just crossed over
this wide and deep river on dry ground. I mean, the ground wasn't
even muddy. It was dry. What a miracle. And you know what? Who did God
perform this miracle for? Only Israel. He didn't provide
it for those folks living in Jericho, did he? He did it for
Israel. Look here at chapter three, verse three. And they
commanded the people saying, when you see the ark of the covenant
of the Lord, your God and the priest and Levi's bearing it,
then you should remove from your place and go after it. This time,
Joshua says, when you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord,
your God, your God, the God of all the earth is your God. Now
we know God is God over everything, over every creature, over every
person, but he's the God of his people. He's your God. You who believe he's your God
in a very special way. He's God over his people in electing
love. He chose to love his people. They're just simple as everybody
else, but God chose to love them. Because he loved them, he chose
them and gave them to his son to save. He chose those people
to make those people his. So he would be their God. And
now when he said, I've got a people, I'm gonna gather them together.
I'll be their God and they'll be my people. Well, this is a
special personal relationship. God loves these people. And God's
electing love is eternal. When we talk about something
being eternal, that means it doesn't have a beginning or an
ending. It just always is. God's love
can't change. We looked at that last week.
God's love can't change. God's love can't grow and it
can't decrease. It's always perfect. Now God
set that love upon a people. Then nothing can make God not
save you. He'll always love thee. Nothing can make God stop loving
thee. Nothing can make God say, I finally had enough, and he
casted these people out. Nothing can, you know why? He
loves those people. God's electing love for his people
is the guarantee he'll bring his people across Jordan safely.
All right, here's the third stone I see. It's the stone of God's
covenant promises. Now this ark that was made up
of the ark and the mercy seat is called the Ark of the Covenant. I don't know how many times in
scripture, but nine times in just these two chapters, chapter
three and four, nine times the ark is called the Ark of the
Covenant. I'll tell you again that God
is a covenant God. And we say that God's a covenant
God, and this is what we mean. You know what God is doing in
time? It's what he promised to do before time began. That's
exactly what God's doing. God's not reacting to what we
do, say, oh, you know, I better adjust this so my plan stays
on track. You know, God didn't have a plan.
God has a purpose. He promised he would accomplish
his purpose. In human time, all God's doing
is doing what he promised to do. That's what a covenant is.
It's a promise. Here, just physically speaking, How many times did
God promise Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I'm gonna bring your descendants
to this land. Now you're just traveling through
it, you don't own any of it, but I'm gonna bring your descendants
to this land, they're gonna own all of it. That was God's promise
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Here they all are. They're gonna
go in and possess it all. And what God did with the nation
Israel, is a picture of what God has done for spiritual Israel,
for true Israel. You know, we call before creation,
before man's time on earth, we call that eternity past. I guess
that's not exactly accurate, but that's what we call it. You
know what I mean when I say eternity past, it's before God created
anything. In that time, before creation,
when only God existed, The father chose a people to save out of
Adam's fallen race. He knew he'd create Adam. He
knew Adam would fall. He knew every human being that
would ever live. And God at that time chose a people to save because
he loved those people. And he gave those people to his
son. He said, son, this is your inheritance.
What inheritance? These sinful people. He gave
them to his son. And the father promised his son, son, I'll accept
these people. If you become flesh, you be made
flesh so you can be their representative and you obey the law perfectly
for them. If you obey the law perfectly as a man, they'll be
righteous. And son, if you be made sin for
those people, you bear their sin in your own body upon the
tree and you die a cursed death, you suffer and die till that
sin is put away, I'll accept them. They'll be justified. That
was the father's promise. The son's promise is, father,
I'll do it. He promised his father, I'll
do it. And Holy Spirit promised, he'll
give eternal spiritual life to all those people that the father
gave the son. All those people for whom the son would die, he
would move, blowing like the wind, moving where he listeth,
through the preaching of the gospel, giving life to God's
people. That's God's promise. Before
he created anything, that was the promise. And you know what? Ever since God created Adam in
the garden, that's exactly what he's been doing. Do you know,
this is a question a child asked their Sunday school teacher one
time. More than 50 years ago, a child
asked this question to their Sunday school teacher. Now God's
offering. Teacher said yes. God can do
whatever he will. Nobody can do anything against
God's will, yes. Then why didn't God stop Adam from falling? True
story. And the wise old teacher was
kind of bum-fuzzled. He said, I'll get back to you on that.
He came back a couple weeks later, he said, here's the answer. He
said, you won't understand it now, but this is the answer to
your question. God allowed Adam to fall so that
Christ would be glorified. God put Adam, created Adam, put
him in the garden and allowed him to fall. It was God who ordained
the fall of Adam. And you know why he ordained
it? So that he could keep his promise to save a sinful people
by the obedience and by the sacrifice of his son. See, everything God's
done since God put Adam in the garden, it's all been so that
God would keep his promise to save his people from their sin. And then God wrote a whole book
He wrote an entire book. This is the word of God. This
is not just a collection of stories and poems and doctrinal statements. This is the word of God almighty. He wrote an entire book with
one thing to tell us this, salvation's in Christ. God wrote this book
as a promise to God's people. Any sinner who trusts Christ
shall be saved. He wrote a whole book to tell
us that. He said, this is my promise to you. That's God's
covenant. It's His promise. Now, I don't
know about you, but I'm going to Christ and ask Him to save
me. Huh? How about you? Because that's
God's promise. Go to the Lord and say, Lord,
would you do for me what you promised? Our assurance of salvation
is this. He is faithful who promised.
Oh, he's faith, he'll keep his promise. Then fourthly, there's
a stone of God's mercy and grace to sinners. And you think about
the children of Israel, 40 years ago, the Lord brought Israel
out of Egypt. And the one and only reason God
didn't bring them straight into the promised land is unbelief. God brought him to the promised
land. They'd been here before on the edge of the promised land.
Remember, they sent to a spies in. Joshua was just a young man
at that time. Now he's an old man. He's a leader.
But this time, 40 years ago, Joshua was young man. He was
one of the spies that went in to spy out the land. And they
came back and said, oh, the land's exactly like God promised it
would be. I mean, they had grapes the size of your head. Just took
two men to carry them grapes, you know, on a pole across their
shoulders. They said, oh, it's a land flowing
with milk and honey. It's rich, it's beautiful, it's
wonderful. The land is exactly like God
promised it would be. But there's giants in the land,
and we can't take it. Ten spies said, boys, we better
turn around. I mean, it's a suicide mission
to go in there. Joshua and Caleb said, the land's
just exactly like God promised, and we can take it just exactly
like God promised. Let's go. Let's not even wait
till tomorrow. Let's go take it today. Because
God promised we'd have it. And Israel didn't believe. And
every one of them over 20 years old died in the wilderness, except
Joshua and Caleb. Because they believed God. Now
this went on for 40 years. You know the story of Israel
in the wilderness. How many times do we read they didn't trust
the Lord? They didn't trust the Lord to deliver them. They didn't
trust the Lord to have the power to deliver them from all these
kings. And this is after they saw the Lord deliver them from
Pharaoh. None of these kings and none of these armies would
be any match for Pharaoh and his army. They saw the Lord destroy
them. They didn't fire a shot, but they didn't trust the Lord
to deliver them from the Gergeshites, whoever in the world they are.
They didn't trust the Lord's love and care for them. They
said, the Lord's brought us out here in the wilderness. to starve
us to death and make us die of thirst. And that, the day they
said that, that very day, they had manna in the morning and
water to drink from the spin rock. 40 years long, this unbelief
just kept going and going and going and going, and God still
brought them to the promised land. The only explanation is
God's graciousness to sinners. God is gracious to sinners. God
brought a group of sinful, rebellious, untrusting people to this flooded
river and brought every last one of them clean over it. Clean
over it. It's because God's merciful to
sinners. God's elect are born just as
full of sin and full of unbelief as Israel ever was. Israel's
got nothing on you and me. We've seen God's provision and
God's power much more clearly than they have. Yet God still
saves his people. He does it so there'll be trophies
of his grace to magnify his grace in saving his people. They've
been rebellious from Adam on down the line. I'm telling you
from Adam to now, absolutely nothing has changed about human
nature as of. And God saves his people anyway because God's gracious. And that's pictured here. Did
you notice that chapter three, verse 16, that the waters which
came down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far
from the city of Adam as it is beside Zeratan. Now the waters
here that ended up standing up in a heap, they ran from the
city named Adam and they flowed from there all the way down there
by Jericho And that's where the Lord stopped that water, made
the water stand up in a heap. Now in order to save his people
from it, this is what's pictured, in order to save his people from
their sin, God had to send his son to undo everything Adam did
to his people. And that flow of pollution of
sin just flowed unabated, didn't it? Just flooded the banks. Just,
I mean, our sin has abounded, hasn't it? You know where all
that flow of sin from Adam stopped? At the cross of Christ. At the
cross of Christ. And you know why Christ came
and put a stop to that? Because God's merciful to sinners.
Yeah, I read that and thought, wonder why somebody decided to
name that city Adam. Well, I know why they did. So
God could give us this picture of salvation in Christ. That
goes back to the first stone. God's sovereign, isn't he? Somebody
of their own free will named this city Adam, but God determined
for him to do it. Because God's offering. Give
us this picture. Then here's the last stone I
see. There's a stone on which every believer stands firm. On
Christ, the solid rock. He's the foundation of our faith. You know, as Dan read the story,
you remember they took those 12 stones from the area where
the priest stood as those three million people passed clean over.
They'd been standing on these rocks. This is the foundation
upon which they stood. Now I thought of those stones,
first of all, as the stepping stones of salvation. These are
the foundation stones of salvation in Christ. The first stone is
the stone of conversion, when we're first brought to Christ.
When Christ first reveals himself to our hearts, First gives us
faith in Him. Oh, and the Lord first reveals
Himself to us. Isn't that a time of such joy?
And you see something you never saw before. The preacher's been
saying it over and over and over again. I never saw it. Now I
see it. I stand only, only, only, only in Christ. It's Christ and
Christ alone. That's all of salvation. And
I'm telling you, that makes me so happy. I'm happy to give up
my works, I'm happy to give up trusting in my morality, happy
to give up trusting in everything about me, and just trust Christ
alone. I'm so happy to do it. That's
all I want. That answers my every need. Trust
Christ and Christ alone. And the rest of our lives, here's
how the believer's gonna continue. We're gonna continue like we
began. Trusting Christ alone. I'm not
going to graduate to the point I do enough good works. I trust
Christ plus a couple of my good works. No, we're going to continue
just like we began. Trusting Christ alone. And then in times of trial. Dan
mentioned this in his prayer. In times of trial. the rain's gonna fall. The wind's
gonna blow. The water's gonna rise. I mean,
it will shake you, your very soul. I mean, it'll just shake
you down to your boots. It'll rock you, and you think,
I cannot go through this. I can't. I'm not talking about
a hangnail now. I'm talking about a trial. I mean, now how you
gonna go through that? There's this giant river, 20,
30 yards long, however deep it is. I can't swim that. I can't
cross that. Now, how are you going to get
through this now? I'm asking you, how are you going
to get through it? Look over to Isaiah chapter 43. I've told you this before. Some years ago, my parents were
vacationing in the Canadian Rockies. And my dad had a, long story
short, a brain bleed. And mom had called the ambulance,
and then she called me in the middle of the night. And she
was going to hang up when the ambulance got there. And I said, no, just set the
phone down so I can hear what the paramedics and things are
saying. And I heard them. And I knew at that time. I'm
never going to see my dad alive again. And I looked at my dear wife. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make
this so personal. I didn't plan on saying this. I looked at Janet
and I said, what am I going to do now? I mean, I love my dad. I mean, he just, if I ever want
to know how I'm supposed to conduct myself, I just look at him, you
know. What am I going to do now? You know what she told me? You're
gonna do what you've been doing. You're gonna trust Christ. That's
how you're getting through this trial. It's trusting him alone. Isaiah 43, verse two. When thou passest through the
waters, now not if you pass through the waters, when you pass through
the waters, I will be with thee. And through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shall not be burnt, neither shall the flame Kindle
upon thee, and here's why. I'm the Lord thy God. I'm the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. Here's how we're gonna cross
this river, Jordan. Trial, oh, it's by trusting Christ
alone. You're gonna get the same way
you began, by trusting Christ. Now one more, look back at our
text, Joshua chapter three. I saved this one to the end,
but this is what we normally think of the River Jordan. We
think of that, those cold waters of Jordan as death. Even in death,
we stand in Christ alone. Joshua 3 verse 13. And it shall
come to pass as soon as the souls of the feet of the priest that
bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall
rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall
be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they
shall stand upon a heap. Now this day, Three million Israelites,
the only Israelites that got their feet wet were the priests
bearing the Ark of the Lord. And they stood there till the
job was done. Look at this over chapter four,
verse 10. For the priests which bear the
Ark stood in the midst of Jordan until everything was finished
that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak. Now you know what that's
a picture of? That's Christ, our great high
priest. He went to the cross and he stayed there to everything
the father commanded him was finished. That's why he said
it's finished. Of all God's people, of all of
his children, the only one of them who ever taste death is
Christ, our great high priest. His people are going to cross
Jordan. They're gonna cross this river of death on dry ground. You're not even gonna get your
feet muddy. Christ, our great high priest,
took it all away. We'll cross that river without
getting wet, without getting hurt, because Christ, our great
high priest, has tasted death already for the sin of his people. And he drank it dry. He drank
the river dry. So it'll never harm you. See,
these stones, they form a wonderful monument, don't they? A monument
to God's saving grace. And we don't have a stone monument
sitting around somewhere, you know, to remind us of this, but
we have a monument. It's like the writer of the Hebrews
says, well, we don't have an altar, but we have an altar. It's Christ.
We have a monument. You know the monument we have
to constantly remind us of God's saving grace? It's the preaching
of the gospel. God's given us that monument,
the gospel of Christ. Isn't that special? And when
our children ask, what do you mean by this monument? What do
you mean by this constantly dragging me over there to church? What
do you mean by having, I gotta go to church five times this
week, three times at Bible school, twice on Sunday, again on Wednesday.
What do you mean by all this? This is the saving grace of God
Almighty. This is how God saves His people.
Now you can trust him. You can trust him. All right,
let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
that you've so graciously given us the gospel of your dear son,
the gospel of your saving grace to preach, to hear, to believe,
to cling to, the gospel of Christ that gives life to our souls,
that feeds our souls, that comforts our hearts. Father, how we thank
you for this great monument of your grace Father, I pray you
take your word as it's been preached this morning, that you cause
it to go forth, Father, for your glory, that your people might
be able to see the saving glory of Christ our Savior. And Father,
bless it, our good. You promised that you'd bless
your word. You promised that your word would reach the hearts
of your people. Cause us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
would you do that for each of us here today? Cause us to hear
the gospel, fear of faith, and to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, we ask these things for
our good, but primarily for your glory. Would you get glory in
saving your people here today? Father, it's in Christ's name,
for his sake and his glory, we pray. Amen. All right, Sean.