Let's open our Bibles again to
Isaiah chapter 38. You may recall at the end of
the last chapter that the Lord had promised Hezekiah he was
going to destroy Sennacherib's army that had surrounded Jerusalem
and sent all these horrible messages their way. Most of the writers
think that what is recorded here in chapter 38 takes place in
the three days before the Lord fulfilled his promise to destroy
Sennacherib's army. And during that time, Hezekiah
has become very, very sick. He's about to die. And Lord healed
Hezekiah. And Hezekiah wrote about his
experience in being healed. He wanted to write to thank the
Lord and to praise the Lord. There'd be remembrance made of
what the Lord had done for him. And Hezekiah's confession of
praise and thanksgiving is every believer's confession. That's
what I've entitled the message this evening, Every Believer's
Confession. You watch here what Hezekiah
writes, his story, and see if this is not your confession.
The first thing every believer confesses, they confess, I heard
the gospel. I heard I'm dead in sins. God
said, I'm sick, I'm sin sick, and I'm going to die eternally,
verse one. In those days was Hezekiah sick
unto death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, came unto him and said unto him, thus saith the Lord,
set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live. Now, the message of the Lord
to all men is you're dead in sins and you're going to die
eternally, so set your house in order. Your flesh is gonna
die, set your house in order. You know, we better set our house
in order. Your earthly house, set it in order. Make sure your
family is taken care of the best you can anyway. Set these things
in order. But I tell you the house that we must set in order
is the house of our soul. And the way we set the house
of our soul in order is through faith, by looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's not by trying to do better.
It's not by trying to clean up our act and keep the law. We
set our house in order by faith in Christ. Now look at Romans
chapter 7. Now God must send us this message
that we're going to die and not live. Because unless God sends
us that message, we think we're alive. We don't see any need
for Christ. Romans 7 verse 9. This was the
Apostle Paul's confession. For I was alive without the law
once. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. I thought I was alive until God
sent his word to me, until God let me see what his word, what
the law really says. Now this is a dark time. Can
you imagine what a dark time this was for Hezekiah? Here he
just received this wonderful news. God's going to destroy
Sennacherib's army. You know, all's going to be well
in the kingdom. And he gets the news you're going to die. And
he thinks I might die before the army, you know, Sennacherib's
army is even destroyed. What a dark time for him. Well,
isn't that your experience? What a dark time when we first
hear the gospel tell us we're dead in sin. What a dark, bitter
time. In verse 17, this is what Hezekiah
says. He said, behold, for peace, I
had great bitterness. I thought I was going to have
this time of great peace, but my peace was turned into great
bitterness. And this is what he goes through
when he hears the word from the prophet, he's going to die. In
verse nine, The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been
sick and was recovered of his sickness. This is what he wrote
afterward. He heard that news and I said in the cutting off
of my days, I should go to the gates of the grave. I'm deprived
of the residue of my years. Hezekiah was about 39 or 40 years
old here in the prime of life, the strength of his life. That strength of this fleshy
life, There's no defense, is it? There's no defense against
what sin does to these bodies. And it happened, well, and he
said, and when it came to me, he said, there's no hope. Verse
11. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord and the land
of the living. I should behold man no more with
the inhabitants of the world. There's no hope for me. I'm a
goner. and it happens so quickly. Look
at verse 12. He says, mine age is departed
and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. I have cut off like a weaver
my life. He will cut me off with pining
sickness from day even to night without make an end of me. I
don't care how many years that we live. When we get to our last
day, you know what I'm saying? It was so quick. It happened
so quickly. I heard something the other day.
They said that something, I don't even remember what it was, happened
40 years ago. And I thought, what? That was
just a few days ago. See, what? It happened so quickly. And then Hezekiah says, my soul
is going to be judged and I'm going to be destroyed. And you
know whose fault it is? It's my fault. Look how he says
this here in verse 12. Mine age is departed and removed
from me as a shepherd's tent. I have cut off like a weaver
my life. That weaver's shuttle going so
fast. He said, I did that to myself. It's my fault. It's my own sin that's caused
this to come upon me. Now that's the first gospel truth
any of God's children first ever hear. We hear the truth of our
own sinfulness, and you can't hear anything else. You hear
you're dead in sin, you hear God's couldn't judge you, and
that's all you can hear. What a dark, dark news that we
hear. Well, that leads us to the second
thing. Every believer confesses. When that happened, I sought
the Lord. I grant you, now the Lord sought
me first, that's why I heard the gospel. The Lord sought me
first, and he gave me a heart to seek him. The Lord, when he
showed me who and what I am, now he gave me eyes to see, he
gave me understanding, but when he did that, I sought the Lord. Verse two, then Hezekiah turned
his face toward the wall, and he prayed unto the Lord. and
said, remember now, Lord, I beseech thee how I have walked before
thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which
is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Now,
when you first read that, it sounds like Hezekiah is bargaining
with God, doesn't it? I don't think that's what he's
doing because of what he says later on. But you know, the first
reaction of the flesh is to bargain with God, isn't it? I was watching
the history of the D-Day landings at Normandy. And I think almost
every soldier they interviewed said, I laid on that beach and
said, God, if you just let me get off this beach, I'll live
a good life the rest. I think all of them said that.
I mean, buddy, they all started bargaining with God. That's the
first reaction of the flesh. But you know what? Hezekiah's
case shows us There's no hope in the flesh. There's just no
hope to be found in our flesh or what we think we can do. Hezekiah
had been a good king. He was one of the good kings
of Israel. He had done what was right in the will of God. He
came in, took out all the groves and got rid of all the idolatry,
restored the right worship of God. But here he is still sick
unto death. You know why? Because that's
what sin does to all of us. Sin's in all of us and that's
what it's gonna do. Sin, when it is finished, brings
forth death. Sin reigns unto death, even in the best of men.
If it reigned in Hezekiah, you can just bank on it, it's gonna
reign in us. None of us have done, whatever
it is that we think we've done, we haven't done anything to cleanse
our soul from sin. Now we may have done something
we're supposed to do. Hezekiah should have got rid of all the
idols, shouldn't he? We may have done something we're supposed
to do, but none of that will ever justify this. And if we
belong to Christ, there not going to be any of this bargaining
with God business going on. He'll make us call on him. We're
going to quit bargaining and start begging. We're going to
quit bargaining and start begging for mercy and we'll repent, which
that's what Hezekiah talked about in verse 14. He said, like a
crane or a swallow, so did I chatter. I didn't mourn as a dove. Mine
eyes fail with looking upward. Oh Lord, I'm oppressed. Undertake
for me. Now, if the Lord ever shows us
who and what we are, we will cry to him. We won't quit crying. We won't quit calling upon him.
We won't shut up just like that crane or a swallow. They can
go on and on and on. I mean, they're just tireless.
That's the way we'll call on God if we ever see who and what
we are. Now, if we see something of our
sin by our own fleshly eyes, our own power and wisdom, you
know what we'll do? We won't call on God, we'll try
to do better. We'll try to make up for everything we've done
wrong. But if God's the one who gives us eyes to see, to see
our sin, we'll mourn over our sin. When Hezekiah talked about
mourning like a dove, he's talking about a true heart mourning over
sin. You know, the dove mourns quietly,
silently. It's in the heart of mourning
over sin. True mourning over sin. Not just
mourning over what we've done, all the different things that
we've done. It's a mourning over what we are, over who we are.
And that kind of mourning always leads to repentance. Now, repentance
is a whole lot more than being sorry I sinned, because usually
when somebody's sorry they sinned, what they're really saying is,
I'm sorry I got caught. That's not repentance. Repentance is
a turning. The Lord has turned Hezekiah. He's not pleading his own merit.
He's begging for mercy. He says here in verse 14, O Lord,
I'm oppressed. Undertake for me. Lord, my sin
has oppressed me. My sin has put me in the grave.
The word there is an anguish. My sin has put me in anguish
of soul. And I can't do anything about
it. I can't do anything to save myself. So Lord, undertake for
me. This is a mercy beggar in that
Lord undertake for me. If you don't undertake for me,
if you don't take up my case, I'm gonna die. Now this is something
else every believer will confess if they're honest with ourselves.
The affliction of trial causes us to seek the Lord, doesn't
it? It does. It makes us depend upon
the Lord. That's why the Lord sends us
these trials. And conviction of sin does the same thing. Conviction
of sin causes us to seek the Lord, to completely depend upon
Him, to say, there's a Kai the Lord will undertake for me. If
you don't take up my case, I'm a goner. And right now, that's
all His Kai knows. All he knows is he's going to
die. Because that's all the Lord's
been pleased to tell him so far. That's all he knows. You see,
the Lord always shows us our need of mercy before he shows
us mercy. The Lord always kills before
he makes alive. He always removes all hope in
the flesh before he gives us any hope in Christ. So here's
the third thing every believer confesses. I'm saved in Christ. I have eternal life, I'll never
die, I'll never lose my salvation because I'm in Christ, because
of what Christ has done for me. Now look here again at verse
two. See if this is, Hezekiah's not bargaining with God here.
Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and he prayed
unto the Lord and said, remember now, Lord, I beseech thee how
I've walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and
have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept
sore. Now if the writers are correct
and this is transpiring before Sennacherib's army is destroyed,
Hezekiah is worried about his kingdom, you know, the people.
This man's the leader, you know, they're looking to him and he
turns his face to the wall. He doesn't want anybody to see
the leader crying. He doesn't want his fear to infect
everybody else while, you know, the Snakreb's army is still out
there. So he turns his face to the wall.
But also when he turned his face to the wall, he turned his face
toward the temple. He turned his face toward the
mercy seat and began to cry for mercy. And you know, everything
he says about himself here in verse three is 100% true. Because
these things are true of every believer. If you have faith in
Lord Jesus Christ, these things are just as true of you as they
are of Hezekiah. You've walked before the Lord
in truth. You've walked before the Lord
with a perfect heart. You've done that which is good
in the sight of God. Now, how's that possible? How
can that truly be said of any human being? We've just seen,
I'm gonna die because of my sin. How can this be true? It's true
of us if we're in Christ. Christ is our representative.
He's the representative of his people. And what Christ did,
his people did. Now, it's not like we did it.
It's not like God's just pretending that we did it. You know, he's
putting on the books like we did it when we didn't. No, what Christ,
our representative did, His people actually did in Him. When Christ
walked before His Father in truth, so did every believer. When Christ
walked before His Father with a perfect heart, so did every
believer. When Christ did that which is
good, when He perfectly obeyed the law, so did every believer. And that's why every believer's
confession is Christ is my righteousness. My confession is Christ. He's
all my righteousness. I don't have any of my own. I
didn't add anything to it. All of my righteousness is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all
my righteousness and Christ is all my salvation. The only reason
I have spiritual life, the only reason I'm not eternally dead
at this very moment is Christ took all of my sin sicknesses.
He took all my wounds and my bruises and my putrefying sores
into his own precious body on the tree. And he cleansed all
that filth, all that disease of sin has been cleansed in the
blood of his sacrifice. And then Christ, my Savior, gave
me his health. He took all my sickness and he
gave me all of his health. He gave me his life. The life
that I have is Christ. It's Christ formed in me. Look
at verse 16. O Lord, by these things men live,
and all these things is the life of my spirit. So wilt thou recover
me and make me to live. Christ made me live by giving
me his life. That's what the things is that
Hezekiah is talking about here. By these things men live. Well,
first is by Christ giving me his life. That's how we live.
Secondly, we live because God has loved his people from all
of eternity. Now, yes, we've sinned. Yes,
we're sinners. That's all we are. That's all
we've ever done. And that sin deserves death.
But we live because God loves sinners. Look at verse 17. Behold, for peace, I had great
bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it
from the pit of corruption. For thou has cast all my sins
behind my back. Now there's an indication here
of the Lord's manner in saving His people. Now we know how God
saves His people, don't we? He crucified Christ, our substitute,
in our stead. But there's an indication here
of the manner that God has in saving His people. And the picture
is this. You see, get it in your mind's
eye, tender, loving Father, big, strong. And he sees his small
child fall into a pit. That child is sinking in the
miry muck of that deep, deep pit. And that father, in love,
he doesn't stroll over to the pit. He runs to the pit. And with strong, loving arms,
he pulls that child out of the pit. And he gets that child up
out of that pit. And he doesn't just set him down
and let him run off again, he's gonna fall in the pit again.
He holds him to his chest and won't let him go because he loves
him. There was an urgency in that
love to deliver his child. That's God's tender love in saving
his people. Look in Isaiah chapter 63. God
didn't save his people so he could love them. He didn't send
his son to die for them so he could love them. God saved his
people by sending his son to die for them because he did love
them. He loved them already. Isaiah
63 verse 9. In all their affliction, he was
afflicted. And the angel of his presence
saved them in his love. And in his pity, he redeemed
them. And he bare them and carried them all the days of old. He did that because he's always
loved his people. I looked at that. And I just. Sat back in amazement. And thought what love? That Almighty
God would love a sinner like me. Like that. What love? that God would provide His own
Son to be the ransom for my soul so I don't go down to the pit?
What love that God would sacrifice His only begotten Son so that
I'd live? What love that God would pour
out His justice and His holy fury against my sin that He put
on His Son so that he could pour out this love and this grace
on a sinner like me. Shawn, what do you contribute
that to? The only thing you can contribute it to is love. God must love his people if he'd
do that to his son to redeem him. By these things men live,
by the love of God. Thirdly, by these things men
live. We live because God has cast all our sin behind his back. That's what he said in verse
17. Here's why I live, for thou hast cast all my sins behind
thy back. Now you go figure out if you
want to where the back of God is. I don't know. God's everywhere. So how do you know where his
back is? Where is it he's not looking? I don't know. But whatever,
wherever the back of God is, I can tell you what this means.
What this means is the sin of God's people is gone. Adam doesn't
exist. That's what this means. The sin
of his people does not exist. So I really wouldn't spend too
much time trying to figure out where God's back is or where
it is that God doesn't look or how it is that God could not
remember sin, even though he knows everything. This is written. So we have this understanding.
There is full, free forgiveness of sin in our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how men live. Fourthly,
by these things, men live. We live because the Lord is both
willing and able to save. Look at verse 20. first phrase
there, the Lord was ready to save me. And the first thing
I heard, I still remember this well, the first thing I heard
was the Lord says he's going to kill me because of my sin.
And it made me so afraid. I thought, well, there's no hope
for me. And that's all I knew because at that time, that's
all the Lord told me. What I didn't know was the Lord
was ready to save me all that time. And he was ready to save
me because that was his eternal purpose. He determined to save
me from the foundation of the world. This is his eternal purpose. And he was always ready to save
me. He just did it in his time when it pleased him. And I'll
show you that. Look over second Kings chapter
20. Now this is the same recording of the same event, but we hear
something different here in second Kings chapter 20. Verse 2 Then he turned his face
to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying, I beseech thee,
O LORD, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth,
and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good
in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. And it came to pass, afore
Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of
the LORD came to him, saying, Turn again. And tell Hezekiah,
the captain of my people, thus saith the Lord, to God of David,
thy father, I've heard thy prayer, I've seen thy tears, behold,
I will heal thee. On the third day, thou shalt
go up into the house of the Lord. God was so ready to save that
Isaiah didn't have time to get out of the house. I mean, here
he came and he delivered the message that God gave him and
he turned around and left. He didn't have time to get out
of the house before God said, now go back and tell him the rest of
the story. That's how ready God is to save. Hezekiah's prayer
sent Isaiah back to tell Hezekiah the rest of the story, the good
news that there is in Christ. Now back in our text, look at
verse five, Isaiah 38. Go and say to Hezekiah, thus
saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father, I have heard thy
prayer. I have seen thy tears. Behold, I will add unto thy days
15 years. Now you read that and you think,
sounds like God changed his mind. God said, I'm going to kill you.
And then he says, I'm at 15 years. Well, no, that can't be. So what
we know from the rest of scripture, God never changes. God never
changes his mind known unto God or all his works from the beginning
of the world. The Lord was ready to save. It was always God's
will. Hezekiah lived 15 more years.
Hezekiah just didn't know it. All Hezekiah knew was the Lord
said he's going to die. And Hezekiah just assumed it's
going to be tonight. And you know why he assumed that?
Because in his heart, he knew that's what he deserved. God
never said you're going to die tonight. Hezekiah just assumed
that. This was God's eternal purpose of mercy, to be merciful. And because this is God's purpose,
you know what he did? He moved Hezekiah to pray for
mercy. God determined to have mercy
on him. And so God moved him to pray for mercy. This is the
way God does things. Now, isn't that the confession
of every believer? We hear the gospel and we think,
I'm going to die and I'm going to die right now. That's what
I deserve. I'm going down into the pit.
And we cry to the Lord for mercy. And as soon as we cry, The Lord
answers. He answers in mercy by showing
us the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the good news of the
gospel. God answers us in mercy and truth by showing us Christ
our substitute. And we have the life of Christ
because Christ died the death our sin deserves. That's our
confession. Here's the fourth thing every
believer confesses. My salvation, the salvation of
any sinner is a supernatural work, a work that only God can
do. Look at verse 7. And this shall
be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this
thing that he has spoken. Behold, I will bring again the
shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sundial of
Ahaz, 10 degrees backward. So as the sun returned 10 degrees,
by which degrees it was gone down. Now salvation is a miracle. It's a miracle. that only God
can do. With men, salvation is impossible. Who then can be saved? Well,
with men it's impossible, but not with God. But with God, all
things are possible. And God gave everyone a sign
so you couldn't mistake this. Hezekiah being healed is a miracle
of God. God did it by himself. And this
is the sign God gave. And we looked at creation, Sunday
morning. God created that ball in space
and set it spinning. And right there it stayed, just
spinning, spinning, spinning, doing right what it's supposed
to do. And God suddenly made that thing spin backwards. Now
you figure that out. How did it stay in space and
go backwards? I mean, it stopped and then went
backwards. How's that possible? Well, you'll
sooner figure that out then you'll figure out the miracle of how
God saves a sinner. It's a miracle and it's contrary
to nature. The earth spinning backwards
is contrary to nature. It's there it is on its axis
and it goes backwards. That's contrary to nature. That's
contrary to the way things work. The earth can't stay in its orbit
if it stops spinning or starts spinning backward. But it did,
didn't it? That's salvation. The salvation
of a soul is contrary to human nature in every way. Because
it's spiritual, not carnal. Human nature is just spiritual,
or is carnal. Salvation is a spiritual work.
Salvation is the creation of a new nature. There's two natures
in one body, in one person. Now that's contrary to human
nature. And those two natures are contrary to each other. They
fuss and fight and fuse with one another because they're contrary
to one another. A sinner be made righteous. Now that's contrary
to human nature. It is contrary to new human nature
because the new birth is a birth of the nature of Christ where
we become partakers of the divine nature. Well, the divine nature
is always contrary to human nature, isn't it? Being cleansed from
sin is contrary to human nature because that's all we can do
is sin. This is contrary to nature. Salvation that comes from the
pure eternal love of God that we've just read about. Now that's
contrary to hateful human nature. This is the way God does things,
not the way we do things. Salvation is a going up that
comes from coming down. Now that's contrary to human
logic, but that's God's salvation. Eternal life is given through
death, through the death of another. That's contrary to human nature.
And all that's contrary to us because that's something human
nature cannot do. But it happened, didn't it? It
can't happen. A sinner can't be cleansed from
his sin. But in God's grace, it did, didn't it? Cleansed from
our sin in the blood of Christ. And that's something only God
can do. Only God can save a soul. Only
God can forgive sin. What's harder, take up your bed
and walk or say your sin's forgiven? Because everybody knows your
sin's forgiven, take up your bed and walk. Only God can forgive
sin. Only God can cleanse the soul
from sin. Only God can cause a new man to be born in us. It's
such a supernatural work of God. I believe it with all my being,
yet I can't understand it. It's a supernatural work of God. And that's what every believer
confesses. I don't have anything to do with my salvation. God
did it all. And here's the last thing every
believer confesses. Because God's the one who saved
me, I've got a changed walk. Part of my new changed walk is
I walk praising the Lord. Verse 18, for the grave cannot
praise thee. Death cannot celebrate thee.
They that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth. Dead
people can't do anything. People who are dead in their
sins, they can't praise God, but the living do. When God gives
people life, they sing the praises of God. They praise Him for who
He is and what He's done for them. And I love the way Hezekiah
says this, the dead can't celebrate God. The dead can't do that,
but the living do. That's a good word for worship.
Celebrating, celebrating what God's done for his people and
his son. Secondly, here's the changed walk of a believer. We
teach Christ to others. See that at the end of verse
19? He says in verse 19, the living, the living, he should
praise thee as I do this day. The father to the children shall
make known thy truth. Isn't that what we do? We teach
our children Christ. We do it in the home by talking
to them and teaching them. We teach our children by example. Make sure your example matches
your words, because your children watch that now. They watch that.
Make sure you don't just give lip service to this, but that
your home is a home where Christ is worshiped. That's how we teach
our children. We bring them here to the service and we teach them.
You kids, don't think you come here to the service, and I hadn't
thought about you. As I'm studying, I think about
you. Spurgeon said, there ought to be something in every message
for the children. And I try to make it where you
can at least understand, you know, what I'm saying. Years
ago, we just had a fair few children in our Bible class, when I was
teaching the class. And I thought it was out of the
blue, Janet pointed her finger at me. She said, are you thinking
about this kid sitting over here? I am. She said, good. Why was
that so important? We teach our children. We're
going to teach our children Christ. We do that in a service. We have
classes for them every Sunday morning. Next week we have a
vacation Bible school. What are we going to do? We're
not entertaining the kids. It's not free babysitting service.
They're going to be well taken care of, but they're going to
be taught Christ. Our teachers, we've got teachers
teach every week. We've got these teachers teaching
in Bible school. You see them Friday night. They're
going to be exhausted. Why are they willing to keep
doing that? Why every Sunday morning they go teach. They could
be here in adult class. They don't. They go teach. Why
do they do? Why do they want to do that? Because we, the fathers
teach their children, the scriptures we teach in Christ. Thirdly,
part of our changed walk is we sing the praises of Christ. Verse
20, the Lord was ready to save me. Therefore, we will sing my
songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the
house of the Lord. The church has always been a
singing people. And that's just natural. Singing
is a natural way to show thanksgiving and happiness and praise. My
daughter Savannah says, this is how you can tell when you're
really happy. When you open your mouth and a song just comes out.
She said, that's when you know you're really happy. That's a
believer. You just open your mouth and
a song of praise comes out. Hezekiah said, I had great bitterness,
but now I have peace in the blood of Christ. I can sing about that. I can sing that. And last, this
is our changed walk of every believer. You know where you'll
find me in my walk? You'll find me in the house of
the Lord. Verse 21, for Isaiah had said, let them take a lump
of figs and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.
Hezekiah also had said, what is the sign that I shall go up
to the house of the Lord? Hezekiah heard he's gonna be
healed, and when he heard he was gonna be healed, you know
what he said? Not when am I gonna be able to go fight, snack, grab,
or when am I gonna be able to go sit in my throne and rule,
If I'm going to be healed, this is what I want to know. What's
the sign I'm going to go back to the house of the Lord? Because
life's not life if I can't worship. That's the life of a believer.
And God gave him evidence he's going to be healed, he's going
to go back to the house of the Lord because he made the earth spin
backwards. Well, God didn't make the earth spin backwards to give
me evidence of my salvation. He gave me something better than
that. Wayne, I got something better. I got something better
than what Hezekiah had. I've got the Word of God. God
gave me His Word and showed me salvation in His Word. The evidence
He gave me is His Spirit dwelling in me. That's the earnest money,
the Spirit dwelling in us. And the evidence that God has
healed me of all my spiritual sicknesses is I come to Christ. You'll find me in my walk in
a place of worship. God saved me. He sent me that
Word. that I'm gonna die. He made me
seek him. He made me call upon him. In
mercy, he revealed the Lord Jesus Christ to me in a supernatural
work. And the only thing that I can
do from that is thank him and praise him. All right, let's
bow together. Our Father, we thank you for
your gospel. We thank you in your infinite mercy, grace to
your people that you still today are sending your prophet with
the message of the gospel, with the message of Christ. Clearly,
not a shame, not taking the edge off of it, clearly and boldly
telling us what we are by nature and telling us of the Lord Jesus
Christ. of his sufficiency, of his glory,
of his beauty. Father, I pray that you'd cause
us to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that
you'd hear us in mercy. We pray as our brother Hezekiah
prayed, Lord, we're oppressed. We beg you to take up our case.
Take us up or we will go to the pit. and how we thank you for
the good news, the sure salvation that there is in our Lord Jesus
Christ. I pray that you'd cause each
one of us to leave here this evening with Christ on the heart,
that we'd be taken up with him, that we'd call on him, that we'd
look to him, that we'd be found looking to him, following him,
seeing his praises. It's for his glory, for our good,
we pray. So in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, we give thanks and ask that you bless your word.