In Colossians chapter 3 we read
these words, If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with him in glory. mortify therefore your members
which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection,
evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry, for which
thingsake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience,
in the which ye also walked sometime, when ye lived in them. But now
ye also put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy
communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another seeing
that ye have put off the old man with his deeds and have put
on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of him that created him where there is neither greek nor jew
circumcision nor uncircumcision barbarian civian bond nor free
but christ is all and in all. but Christ is all and in all. Oh, how we need to be reminded
of that central fact of the gospel, the centrality of the gospel,
that Christ is all and in all. He is in all we preach and he
is all we preach. He is the very message of the
entire book of the scriptures. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation
is a message of Christ. It is not partly about Christ. It is not that Christ is the
primary message of the Scriptures. He is all the message of the
Scriptures and He is in all the Scriptures. Every book, every
chapter, every word is God's message unto man, by Christ,
in Christ, preached in the Word of God, in the Living Word Christ. He is God's message. He is God's
speech. He is all. He is the Creator of heaven and
earth. He is the Sustainer of all living
things. He is Almighty God, the Sovereign
Ruler of heaven and earth. He is the One to whom all men
are accountable. He is their Master and their
Lord. He is the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end. He is the reason for all things. He is the reason we are here. Christ is all and in all. Many will confess that. We may confess that. We may say, oh yes, Christ is
all. But our lives and our speech
betray us. How many preachers there are
who stand up in Christ's name, who will say that, but then all
their utterances are anything but. They will preach of man. They will preach of sin, perhaps.
They will preach of our works. They will preach of our practical
duties. but so little is said of Christ.
And yet, all the scriptures, every prophecy, the law, the
prophets, the Old Testament, the New Testament, is all a message
of Christ. He is the beginning and the ending. He is our only hope. As sinners
he is our only hope, our only salvation. He is the one to whom
we're accountable and he is the only one who can save us. He
is the only one who can deliver us. He is the only one who can
pass our way and give us mercy, show us mercy, show us grace. In ourselves we are helpless,
hopeless, lost, ruined sinners. but Christ is a mighty and a
glorious saviour. We're lost sinners that sit by
the wayside like the blind man. We cannot see. We're lame, we
cannot move. We're deaf, we cannot hear. We're
dead by nature in trespasses and sins. We're like that blind
man and should Jesus pass our way, we need him to show us mercy. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy upon me. Is he your all? Is Christ the one to whom you
run in time of need? When you're brought to an end
of yourself, when you're brought into great trial and great difficulty,
when everything is hopeless, when you cannot see a way out,
when you know not where to go, is he your all, in all? Do you fall upon your face and
cry out unto Him? Do you look by faith unto Christ,
knowing that He is your all? Knowing that He rules over all
things? Knowing that He has the power,
the strength to deliver you? Knowing that He will deliver
you? Knowing that He is willing and
able to save? Is He your all? Or do you turn
constantly to the left hand and to the right hand? To the counsel
of men, to the comfort of men. Do you turn to your own wisdom,
your own understanding? When troubles come your way,
do you constantly seek to deliver yourself? Do you constantly work
out a way out and an answer? Do you look to yourself or do
you look entirely unto Christ? In 1st Samuel and chapter 30,
we read of David when he was brought into great distress. And for David, Christ was all
and in all. We read there, and it came to
pass when David and his men would come to Ziklag on the third day
that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and smitten
Ziklag and burned it with fire and had taken the women captives
that were therein. They slew not any, either great
or small, but carried them away and went on their way. So David
and his men came to the city and behold it was burned with
fire and their wives and their sons and their daughters were
taken captives. Then David and the people that
were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had
no more power to weep and David's two wives were taken captives
Ahimoam the Jezreelites and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. And David was greatly distressed,
for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all
the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his
daughters. But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. He was in great distress. His family were taken away. The
city was burnt with fire. The whole people around him had
lost their wives, their children. They were turning against David
and blaming him and were ready to stone him. He had nowhere
to go and no strength to defend himself. But he turned. to the one, the only one who
could save. David encouraged himself in the
Lord his God. For David in reality, Christ
was all in all. It was real to him and God brought
him into circumstances which made it real to him. He didn't
have an outward profession. He didn't simply go to a meeting
place once a week and say some prayers and read some scriptures
and go on his way in his own strength and his own wisdom.
It was not a form for him. He knew God. And he knew the
reality of being saved by his God. He knew the deliverance
by his God. He knew Christ. He loved Christ. Christ had made himself known
unto him. Christ had delivered him. So
when he found himself in great distress, David encouraged himself
in the Lord, his God. How is it with you? Where do you find your encouragement?
Where do you find your strength? Where do you find your wisdom?
Where do you find your help? The scriptures alone, no matter
how true, Won't suffice, the bare words on the page aren't
enough. You need God to come by his spirit
and read them unto you and speak unto your soul. You need Christ
to come and deliver you and make himself known unto you by those
words. Reading the outward words alone,
having the Bible alone isn't enough. The outward form of religion
isn't enough. Going to a meeting place, saying
your prayers, reading the scriptures, hearing the gospel preached,
if that is all you have in the outward form, it won't save. We need to hear Christ preached
and we need to hear him preaching. We need to see Christ in all
the scriptures and we need him to speak and to make himself
known in all the scriptures as he did unto those disciples whom
he met on the way to Emmaus. He read unto them, he showed
them himself in all the scriptures. We need him. We need the reality. But if he should come in his
gospel, and make himself known unto you. If he should come in
the midst of your trials when you're lost and helpless and
don't know which way to turn and make himself known unto you
in power, then you will know, as Paul knew, as David knew,
that Christ indeed is all in all. In this chapter in Colossians,
where Paul writes, he points the believer to the reality of
living faith in Christ. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. The believer is one who has been
slain, slain with Christ upon the cross, crucified with Christ
and risen again with Christ. His old man was nailed to the
cross in Christ, his sins were judged upon the cross in his
Saviour. Christ's blood was shed on his
behalf and washed away all his sins past, present and future. His old man was crucified and
he is risen again with Christ, a new man, a new man. In this chapter Paul contrasts
the old with the new. There are two men here. Lie not
one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with
his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him. where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian-Scythian bond nor free,
but Christ is all and in all. Yes, there is an old man and
there is a new man. The old man in Adam, the old
man by nature, the old man of flesh, the old man in which we've
fallen in sin, the old man in which we are dead in trespasses
and sins, there is the old man with his deeds, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness
which is idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
Filthy communication. There is an old man with his
deeds. And the joy of the believer is
that that old man was nailed to the cross with Christ and
crucified. Ye are dead and your life is
hid with Christ in God. And there is a new man, risen
from the dead, risen from the grave, Jesus Christ, in whom
the believer is one, a new man, a new man who is alive forevermore,
a new man in whom there is but righteousness. perfection. A new man who is one with Christ. A new man in whom there is neither
Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, civian,
bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Oh there's a
new man. Are you in him? And is he in
you? Is Christ your all? and in all. To the old man, the old man by
nature, you and I by nature, one and all, to the old man Christ
is nothing, he's less than nothing, we have no care for him, we have
no thought for him, we have no desire for him. Indeed to the
old man, Christ is an enemy. Not only are we apathetic and
disinterested in Christ, but if Christ is preached unto us
truthfully, we resist him, we oppose him, we will not have
this man to rule over us. We reject Him when He comes unto
us. Christ came preaching the gospel. He came unto the Jews. He was
born a Jew. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not. He came as the light in the darkness,
and the darkness hated the light. It recoiled from it. It rejected
it. As with the Jews, so with us,
when Christ comes into the darkness of our world, when he comes as
the light of God preaching the gospel unto us, when the light
of God is presented unto us, when Christ is presented unto
us, we reject him, we oppose him. In our hearts we take up
the hammer to nail the nails into him and to crucify him,
because we will not have him to reign over us. He's nothing
to us. Why? Because we will reign. We love to sit upon the throne. We love to rule all things. We
want to rule our own life and our own destiny. We want our
own way. We seek our own glory and we
oppose. and hate he who reigns over us,
he who is the creator, the sustainer of all things, he who is the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. We hate his sovereignty. We want our way. We want to be
the one with the choice. We want to sit there and say,
will I receive this Jesus or will I reject him? This is why
in religion, Men preach and men accept and men rejoice in a message
of free will that presents a Jesus to us where we can receive or
reject him. Will you accept this Jesus as
your savior? Oh well I'll go away and I will
think about it. Maybe, maybe not. Why? Because it puts us upon the throne.
There's a little Jesus sat at our feet begging and we sit there
imperious on our throne. Shall I accept him? Shall I reject
him? And in so doing we have rejected
him. Whether we claim to have accepted or not because that
that we've accepted is not the reality. It's a Jesus, a little
idol of our own making that we put up on our shelf and we worship
and we say there's my God, when really we're looking unto ourself
and our own decision to place him there and to say I chose
to follow this way, I chose this Jesus, look at me, I made a decision
that others didn't make, look how better I am than others. We are worshipping ourselves
whilst claiming to worship God. We are idolaters, liars by nature
and we demonstrate the old man that reeks in our nature. That we will take on religion
and we will take the words of scripture and we will take the
name of Jesus and make a profession when all the time we've rejected
the one true and living God. We've rejected Jesus Christ.
We've rejected the sovereign Christ because we will not have
him. We will not have him to reign
over us. So we make a Jesus of our own
imagination. An idol. And we follow that.
How dead, how evil is the old man within each and every one
of us? Is this you? Or you don't mind
a God that waits for your decision? You don't mind a God that waits
upon you to live a certain way that approves of how good you've
been? That praises you? that puts you
on the pedestal, that puts you on the throne. Oh, you'll worship
a God like that, you'll accept Jesus like that. But you won't
accept the Saviour who created you, who sustains you, before
whom you must stand one day, the One who is over all. The old man is dead, he's dead
in Adam, dead in the fall, dead in trespasses and sins. When
Adam fell, the nature of the fall, the nature of Adam's rebellion
in the garden was to take the throne of God and say, I will
rule. And to worship self, to worship
the creature more than the creator. Self is all to man by nature
and Christ is nothing. Self is all in all to man by
nature. Is he all in all to you? Is everything
about you and what you have and what you will do and what you
will gain and the praise of man towards you, is it all self? Truly it is for each and every
one of us until we're brought down. until Christ comes in his
gospel and passes our way and brings circumstances to bear
in our lives that we're brought down and we're humbled and we're
brought to an end of our own strength because we sat upon
that throne thinking we were kings when we had no kingdom,
when we had no army, when we had no strength. We were living a lie. And when
God sends the winds from the east, when he sends the storms,
when he starts to show us what we are, that actually we have
no strength, no wisdom, no ability, no righteousness, and that our
will counts for nothing. We can think we'll do this and
everything stops it. We can decide we're going to
go there and God takes the strength away from our legs. We can decide
that we will do this and God blinds us. We will decide we
will bring this to pass and God sets enemies against us. when
he brings life to a point where we cannot go on, and where we're
trapped, and where we see we're nothing. And when he begins to
shine the light of his gospel such that we begin to see what
we are, sinners by nature, and we begin to see how glorious
God is. how glorious Christ is and how
filthy and vile we are in his presence then we will begin to
know that Christ is all and we are nothing and without Christ
we perish without him we're lost Without Him, we're dead. Then we begin to know that we
are a perishing sinner that needs salvation, that needs a Saviour,
that needs One to come our way and touch our blind eyes and
cause us to see, to touch our deaf ears and cause us to hear. to touch our lame legs and cause
us to walk, that we need one to come to the graveside where
we lay like Lazarus did, and call out unto us, come forth. We need a savior. We need life,
for we are dead. We need righteousness, because
we're full of sin. We need cleansing by the blood
of Christ because we're an unclean thing, we're lepers. We need
life because we're dead, we need a saviour. We need to be made
a new man. We need Christ and we need Christ
in all. We need him to be all in all. We need Him to be our Lord, our
Saviour. We need Him to be our life. We
need Him to be our righteousness. We need to be justified by Him. We need to be cleansed by Him.
We need to be separated by Him. We need to be sanctified by Him.
We need to be led by Him. We need to be ruled by Him. We
need Him to be our shepherd. We need Him to be the door into
eternal life. we need him to be our mercy seat
we need him to be our God we need him to be our priest and
our sacrifice our altar we need him to be all in all and if we're brought there and
he says come forth and he gives us faith and he gives us life
And we rise from the dead with Christ. He will give us a heart
that seeks those things which are above. Where Christ sitteth
on the right hand of God. He will set our affection on
things above, not on things on the earth. Because we are dead. And our life is hid with Christ
in God. Then, then we will see Christ,
who is our life. appear and then we will appear
with him in glory. Oh what a saviour he is. Oh what a new man he is to his
people. have put on the new man which
is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him where there is neither greek nor jew circumcision nor uncircumcision
barbarian civian bond nor free but christ is all in all how different is christ from
men in the flesh from the old man The old man is divided. He's at enmity with God and he's
at enmity one with another. From the very beginning of time,
man has turned against his neighbor and been at war one with another. Cain slew his brother Abel because
Abel sought salvation by faith alone in the Lamb of God, Jesus
Christ. whereas Abel sought it by his
works through his own fruit. And it has gone on ever since.
Man, war against man. In this world there are Greeks
at enmity with the Jews. Jews at enmity with the Greeks,
the Gentiles. In this world there are those
who are circumcised, the religious, and those who are uncircumcised.
In this world there are barbarians, civians, bondmen, freemen, all
against one another, all divided. Oh the distinctions, oh there
are the blacks and the whites and the males and the females
and the Americans and the Chinese, the different nations, all divided. all scattered, all the different
languages, the different tongues, the different cultures, the different
politics, the left and the right, all one raging against another,
all divided. But in the new man, in Christ,
they are all one. They are all one. All the natural
distinctions have passed away. One may be Greek, one may be
a Jew, but by faith in Christ, they're one in Christ. One may
be circumcised, one may be uncircumcised, but when brought to faith in
Christ, they're one. One may be a barbarian, one a
civian. One may be a bondman, one may
be free. One may be a ruler of a company,
one may be on the bottom rung, but in Christ they're one. For
Christ is all in all. In Christ they are all but sinners. All the same, all brought to
see that they're wretched, no matter where they're from, no
matter what part of society, no matter how high up or how
low down, they've seen that they are dead, equally dead before
God, equally vile, equally guilty. And in hearing of Christ in his
gospel, they're brought to see that in him they're one in Christ. He's their all. He chose them. God the Father chose them, elected
them under salvation, laid their names upon the breastplate of
Christ and on His heart. He came into this world in the
fullness of time for each and every one of His people. wherever
they are, wherever they're from, all one in Him, that He came
in their place. He came, born a man. He lived a man amongst sinful
men. He was rejected by all. Yet He came, preaching the gospel
of the kingdom, preaching the gospel of salvation, preaching
the gospel of free and sovereign grace. He came in their place. He came and was rejected. He was condemned. He was put
to death. He took all his people's sins. He was made sin. He bore the
sins of all his people. He was crucified in their place. He went into the darkness of
the cross. where God looked upon him, bearing
the sins of his people. And God poured out his just wrath
and judgment upon his own son. He gave his son, and the son
gave himself for those he loved. He sought them out. He gathered
them as one in him. He bore their sins in the darkness. He suffered an eternity of wrath
in their place. When they hated Him, He loved
them. O believer, when you hated Him
and rejected Him, He loved you. He bore your sin. He bore the
judgment. He laid down His life. And He
gathered you in with all His people, all one in Him. And in time, He sought them out. He sought you out. He sought
us out. He sent His gospel. He sent the
Spirit of God into the four corners of the earth. He sent His gospel
to find His people, to save them, to seek and find that which is
lost, to seek and save that which is lost. He came to save the
lost sheep of Israel. He came to save them by grace. He came to find them with the
gospel. He showed them what they are.
He prepared them. He brought them in as guilty
sinners before Him. He brought them to cry out for
mercy. And He showed everyone that cried
under Him, everyone that calls out under Him, He showed them
mercy. He shed His love upon them. He
delivered them. and He caused them in Him to
rise again from the grave, all one in Christ, who is all and
in all. Oh, what a Saviour He is, as
God brought you to hear Him, to see Him, to know Him, to be
one with Him. Yes, He is all in all. He is
all in all in life. in death, in salvation. No matter where we are, He is
all to the believer. No matter what we may face, He
is all to the believer. No matter what trials we may
face in life, He is all. No matter that we may stand on
the brink of death, when we pass through death's veil, when we
enter eternity, for the believer he is all. He is all their hope,
all their salvation, all their life. He's all in justification. He justified his people. He answered
the law's demands. He paid the penalty in full. He delivered us entirely from
the law's demand. The law demanded that we should
live righteously and we broke it every command, every moment
of our lives. and it brought us in guilty,
and it condemned us to death, and it demanded the penalty should
be paid. Christ paid the penalty. He delivered his people from
the curse. He delivered his people from
the law's penalty, it's judgment. He delivered them from underneath
the law. They are a dead man to the law. They're delivered out of its
reach, out of its rule. They're alive in Christ, seated
in heaven above. He delivered his people from
sin, from the rule of sin, from the presence of sin. Their old
man is considered dead. It was slain upon the cross.
He is all in righteousness. He is all the righteousness of
His people. Christ is the righteousness of
God to His people. They have no righteousness of
their own. He is their all. He is all in
redemption, all in ransom. He ransomed us from the grave.
He redeemed us. He set us free. He paid the ransom
price. He paid the price of redemption.
He set His people at liberty, at freedom. He brought them into
freedom. He brought them into a safe destination. He delivered them. He is, to
his people, the power of God unto salvation. Without him, they're lost. But
when he comes unto them in the gospel, he's made known unto
them as the power of God. The power of God under salvation. He is the wisdom of God. He is
all their wisdom, all their understanding, all their knowledge. He is all
to them in sanctification. God has taken them in Him and
separated them from the world. Separated them from the old man. They are sanctified in Christ. He is made unto them sanctification. Sanctification is not something
they work at, something they try to achieve. We are sanctified
in Christ. He is our sanctification. We
are separated unto God in Him. He is all in all. He is all in the church. He is
all the message of the church. He is all the reason the church
exists. He is the head of the church
and we are his members. He is the body. He is all in
the Gospel. The Gospel from start to finish,
the message of God is Christ. It begins with Christ, it continues
with Christ, it ends with Christ. He is the Alpha and the Omega,
there is nothing but Christ in the preaching of the Gospel.
And He is all in Providence. No matter what circumstances
we're brought into, no matter where we're brought to pass,
no matter what comes our way, no matter what trials may be
brought our way, He is all. He sends the trials. He sends
every circumstance of our life, from the minutiae, the everyday,
the things we don't even think about, to the great events, the
great troubles that come our way. No matter what fires we
may be brought to walk through, He sends them. And He is in them. He is all in all. He sends them
for our good. He sends them to turn us under
Him. He sends them to bring us away
from self, to stop us looking upon the earth and to set our
affection on that which is above. He sends them to cause us to
cling unto Him, to wait for Him, to love Him, to call unto Him,
to cry out for mercy. They're for our good and for
His glory. Without these trials that He
sends His people, they would grow cold. their old man the
flesh would look outwardly upon outward things and would see
some strength in self and would see some wisdom and try to do
things in its own strength it would like Peter when Peter was
called to walk on the water with Christ it would start to walk
and think that it does it in its own strength and then when
the storm comes it would start to sink and realize that there
is no strength in man. Then the flesh sees that it is
dead. Then we see that we're dead in
the flesh. And then we cry out once more
unto Christ. Yes, he sends these trials, he
sends the storms that we might sink and cry out unto him in
faith. And then he lifts us up and he
delivers us. We saw in David, that David was
brought into great distress. He was brought to an end of all
things. The people sought to stone him,
they blamed him. He was alone and he faced death
and he suffered. And what did he do? He encouraged
himself in the Lord his God. because he knew that Christ was
all in all. He knew that either he'd die
and be with Christ, or Christ would deliver him. There was
nothing to look to in man, nothing to look to in self. Christ was
all. When Job was stripped of all
things, when his children were slain, when his riches were taken
away, when his health was taken away, and when all around blamed
him and said, you must have done some great sin, Job. Where did
Job look? He looked unto Christ. God gave
him faith to say, in the end, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Do you know Christ. Is he your all in all? Paul knew
him. He writes this book of Colossians.
He writes Christ is all in all. He writes elsewhere that for
him to live is Christ and to die is gain. To live is Christ and to die
is gain. Can you say that? Is your life
Christ. Is to live to you Christ and
is to die again because then you'll be with him? Is he all
to you? How could Paul say that? Well
he tells us in Galatians, I through the law am dead to the law that
I might live unto God. I've been slain but now I live. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. The life which I now live in
the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. He is all
in all. Peter too knew the same thing. He knew, he was taught that outside
of Christ there was nothing. There's nothing in this world
but darkness and death. There's nothing but sin. There's
nothing but blindness. Turn from Christ and you turn
into the darkness. There's no hope there. There's
no hope in this world. There's no hope in the pleasures
and the riches and the esteem of this world. Time will tick
away until you're an old man and it's taken away. Or maybe
you'll be taken in a young age. We do not know what a day will
bring. But there's no salvation in this
world and in the wisdom of this world. Christ is all in all. There were many who were offended
at Christ. Many who were offended at the
gospel. From that time many of his disciples
went back and walked no more with him. They're his disciples. There were those who walked with
Christ, who heard him, who followed him as disciples. Not the twelve,
but others. There were those who were with
him, who were then offended and walked no more with him. Then
said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? And Simon Peter
answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of
eternal life and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ
the Son of the Living God. To whom else shall we go? Where will you go? Is he your all? Is he your all? When Christ was crucified and
laid in the grave. Mary Magdalene went to the grave
early in the morning. Oh, the sorrow she felt her Lord
had been slain. She'd watched him die. She'd
heard his cries upon the cross. She'd seen him laid in the grave. Oh, they've taken away my Lord
and I know not where I shall find him. Oh, the sorrow. How she longed for him. Mary
stood without at the sepulchre weeping. And as she wept, she
stooped down and looked into the sepulchre and see of two
angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other
at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say
unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because
they have taken away my Lord. and I know not where they have
laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back
and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus
saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the
gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence,
tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself and saith
unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. To Mary, Christ was all. She thought she'd lost him, but
then he appeared unto her. And when he spake, she knew. When he spake, she knew. We may hear the gospel in word
only. We may, as it were, go to the
grave site. We may go to the graves of religion,
seeking to find the Lord and find nothing there. We may hear
the gospel We may read the scriptures and we may know nothing, but
when Jesus speaks unto us, in particular, when his word comes
in power, we will turn and say unto him, Master. And he will
indeed be our all in all. Has he come unto you? and called
unto you by name, is he, is Christ, your all in all. Amen.