Psalm 40. I waited patiently
for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of
an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a
rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in
my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear,
and shall trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man that maketh
the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn
aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are thy
wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which
are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in
order unto thee. If I would declare and speak
of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. Burn
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said
I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my
God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared Thy faithfulness
and Thy salvation. I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness
and Thy truth from the great congregation. Withhold not Thou
Thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let Thy lovingkindness and Thy
truth continually preserve me. for innumerable evils have compassed
me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of mine head. Therefore, my heart faileth me.
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help
me. Let them be ashamed and confounded
together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be driven
backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate
for a reward of their shame that say unto me, aha, aha. Let all those that seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, the Lord be magnified. But I am poor and
needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help. and my Deliverer, make no tearing,
O my God." Psalm chapter 40. And I encourage each one of you,
if you will, to do your utmost this morning to follow with me
in the Word of God and ask the Lord to speak to you. This is
God's Word and this is God's day and God's church and we're
here to represent the Lord Jesus Christ. This psalm, Psalm 40,
if you notice the title of it, the title is like many of these
psalms, a psalm of David. But the old writers, many of
them point out that in that title the word is somewhat different.
And it is rather a psalm for David. In fact, some translated
a psalm concerning David. And while I'm sure that this
psalm speaks about David, that is the son of Jesse, the king
of Israel of many centuries ago, this psalm speaks about David's
son, David's Lord, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Because many
times in the Old Testament, He is referred to under that name
of David. Let me give you one example.
In the prophecy of Ezekiel, and remember, Ezekiel lived some
300 years after David had passed off the scene, after he had died. And Ezekiel, through the inspiration
of the Spirit of God, said this about a coming day. He said,
And David, my servant, shall be king over them. and they all
shall have one shepherd. And we know who that shepherd
is, who is the good shepherd, the chief shepherd, the great
shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. David, my servant, shall be king
over them. And we know the Lord Jesus Christ,
that He is God's servant. He is God and yet He came into
this world as a man and He came to serve God, to do the will
of God, to do the work that God sent him to do. And so Ezekiel
said, and David, my servant, shall be king over them. And
he is king. We sang that hymn just a few
moments ago. Crown him king of kings because
he is. Crown him with many kings. And
every crown, every crown belongs unto the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
no crown that belongs to any man. Every crown belongs to our
Savior, to Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Crown Him with many crowns. Crown Him the King of love. I like that, don't you? Who loved
us and gave Himself for us. And my servant David shall be
king over them. Over all of God's people, he's
king. And we know that He's King of
kings and Lord of lords, and they all shall have one shepherd.
We know He is the good shepherd. The psalmist said, the Lord is
my shepherd. I shall not want. And those of
us who know Him today as our Lord, as our Savior, He's our
shepherd. And we shall not want. He will
not withhold any good thing from His people. He makes all things
work together for good to those who love Him, to them who are
the called according to His purpose. So this psalm here is a psalm
concerning David. And those of you who are concerning
David, David's son, a psalm concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And those
of you who are familiar with the letter of Hebrews, you recognize
that the author of that New Testament letter, that he quotes from this
passage of Scripture. In verses 6 through 8, we find
this in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, sacrifice and offering thou didst
not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened or
digged. Many, of course, believe that
refers back to the law concerning the Hebrew servant. Remember,
after he had served his master for six years, he was to be turned
loose in the seventh year. But if he said, I love my master,
I love my wife, I love my children, I will remain a servant forever,
then the master was to take that servant before the judges of
the city and his ear was to be pierced or digged and he would
remain a servant forever. I've already mentioned that the
Lord Jesus Christ, He came into this world as God-man. as God's servant. And that's
the reason He could say, My Father is greater than I. Not in His
deity. He's one with the Father, one
with the Holy Spirit, eternal. Every attribute that's true of
the Father is true of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But as
a man, the God-man, God's servant, He said, My servant, My Father,
rather, is greater than I. And then if you read on, sacrifice
and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened. Burn
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said
I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of
me. This is where it was written, one of the places. This is where
it was written of Christ. Lo, in the volume of the book
it was written of me. I come, O Lord, to do Thy will. He came to do the work which
the Father gave Him to do. Yea, thy law is within my heart. Now, I'm going to borrow a sermon
outline from the greatest preacher who ever lived. The greatest
preacher who ever preached. You say, who was that? Well,
it was the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who it was. He was a preacher. He was a preacher. Never look
down on preaching, my friends. I know we live in a time when
people say, well, we want to share. We want to discuss. We want to give our opinion.
Or we want to have a play. We want to have a ballet. We
want to have a dance. We want to have a musical cantata. My friends, those things may
be good in their place, but they should never take the place or
usurp the place of the preaching of God's Word. He's chosen by
the foolishness of preaching. That's what the world says about
preaching. It's foolish to come and sit
and listen to a man stand before us, a man just like we are, and
to stand before us and take God's Word and and bring out the truth
as he has studied and prepared. Well, that's foolish. And we've
got all this technology today and someone said they read about
one preacher you could text him while he's preaching. Heard about
one man who had a mobile phone on his person when he was in
the pulpit and it rang and he said, would you excuse me just
a moment, I need to take this call. That's blasphemous, isn't
it? as far as I'm concerned. Can
you imagine the Lord Jesus Christ? He was a preacher. And so I'm
going to use His outline today. And He had five points. And you
see it here in verses 9 and 10. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation, lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness
within my heart, I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation. I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness
and Thy truth from the great congregation." Our Lord preached
God's righteousness, faithfulness, salvation, lovingkindness, and
truth. And that's my outline this morning.
First of all, He preached God's righteousness. Now, someone might
say, well, why? Why would he preach God's righteousness? Because, my friends, man doesn't
have any righteousness. Many men that stand in pulpits
across the land today, no doubt, who preach man's righteousness,
but they've never read evidently that God says that all of our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags in His sight. If we're going
to preach righteousness, then we must preach God's righteousness,
and that's what our Lord preached. He preached God's righteousness.
Now, let's think about this for just a moment. God's righteousness. And I'm going to divide our thoughts
into two parts, and I want you to pay close attention to me
now. Our Lord preached God's righteousness. First of all,
he preached what men have come to call God's essential righteousness. In other words, God is just,
God is holy, God is righteous. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right, Abraham said. And of course, we all know the
answer to that. Because he is God, he cannot
do evil. There is nothing of darkness
with Him in the New Testament. John said, God is light. You
see, holiness is sometimes declared under that emblem of light. God
is light. And John went on to say, and
in Him, that is in God, God who is light, in Him is no darkness
at all. His essential righteousness. Our Lord preached that. He said,
Your Father in heaven is perfect. And He is perfect, my friends.
He's righteous. When Isaiah, you know, when he
had that vision and was able to see into heaven, he saw the
Lord Jesus Christ there. We know that from John chapter
12. But what he heard was those seraphim around the throne continually
crying, Holy, Holy, Holy. Many people say that's God's
chief attribute. He's holy, my friends. And our
Lord preached God's righteousness. That's His essential righteousness. But He also preached this righteousness
that God has worked out. It's also called the righteousness
of God. And it is the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is very important.
If you're interested in your soul, and I trust you are, and
you know that you're going to go out into eternity soon, all
of us, and you're going to face God. Are you going to face God
in your righteousness? If you are, my friends, you're
going to be consumed. Not annihilated, but consumed. because our God is a consuming
fire. You must have a righteousness,
my friends, that will allow you to go into the very presence
of this thrice holy God. And that righteousness, my friends,
it must be equal to His righteousness. That's the reason it's called
the righteousness of God. It's a righteousness that the
Lord Jesus Christ worked out as a man when He came into this
world by His perfect, His perfect obedience. You see, you and I,
we were conceived in iniquity, or in sin rather, shaped in iniquity. The Lord Jesus Christ, He was
conceived by the Holy Spirit. in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
And He came into this world as that Holy One, God said, through
the angel to Mary, that holy thing that shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God. He was perfectly holy. And all
of His thoughts, think about that, how many thoughts have
you had in your lifetime? Millions, billions maybe. The Lord Jesus Christ for 33
years as He walked upon the face of this earth, all of those millions
of thoughts that He may have had, my friends, they were all
perfect. They were never tainted with
sin. For you and I, we've probably
never had one thought that hasn't in some way been tainted with
sin because our nature is sinful. about His words, all of the words
which He spoke. How many words have you spoken
in your lifetime? How many words have I spoken?
Unadvisedly, words have come out of our mouth that we wish
that we could recall, words that were untrue, words that hurt. The Lord Jesus Christ never spoke
one word, my friends, that was not perfectly holy. and all of the actions, what
our hands have done, where our feet have carried us, all of
these things. If you could write across your
forehead today what is true of you, what is true of me, you
would have to write, Sin! Sin! Sin! What was written across the forehead
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Holiness to the Lord! Holiness
to the Lord! This righteousness is called
the righteousness of God because He is God. And it is a righteousness
that was accomplished by His obedience and His death, both,
His passive and His active obedience. His active obedience in keeping
the law of God, His passive obedience in suffering at the hands of
that broken law. I want you to look with me, if
you will, into Romans chapter 3. It is this righteousness and
only this righteousness, the righteousness of God, the righteousness
that Christ worked out as a man when he came into this world.
It is this righteousness which will allow God to justify the
ungodly. That's what the scripture here
says in Romans chapter 3 and verse 26, the Apostle said, to declare,
I say at this time, His righteousness, God's righteousness, His essential
righteousness, to declare at this time His righteousness that
He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. If you look down to the next
chapter, chapter 4 and verse 5, but to him that worketh not. You say, I'm going to earn my
salvation. I'm going to work for it. I'm
going to merit my salvation. I'm going to be good. I'm going
to be holy. I'm going to be a church member.
I'm going to get baptized. I'm going to be moral. To him
that worketh not. You will never obtain that righteousness
which God demands, that righteousness which will allow God to declare
you to be just if you are trusting in your works or the works of
any other mere man. Say, I'm trusting in my church.
I'm trusting in my priest. Who is your priest? I'm trusting
in my priest too. He's our great high priest, isn't
he? He's that priest after the order of Melchizedek. He has
an everlasting priesthood. What does the writer say? Now
to him that worketh is a reward, not reckoned of grace, but of
debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly. That's who I am by nature. And that's who you are by nature
and by practice, ungodly, unlike God, because God is absolutely
holy. He justifies the ungodly. Now, look back to chapter 3 again
in Romans. I believe that this is one of
my favorite, if not favorite, verses in all the Scripture,
verse 22. Even the righteousness of God, the righteousness of God, which
is by faith of Jesus Christ. This righteousness of God is
that righteousness by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. You see that? Righteousness of God that allows
God to be both just and justify the ungodly. This righteousness
is the righteousness by the faith, by the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ. Now notice it says, unto all.
I love that, don't you? Unto all. You say, well, Brother
Pledger, I know you believe in sovereign election. I sure do. That's what the Word of God says,
isn't it? But my friends, someone said, well, why don't
you just preach to God's elect then? Because we don't know who
they are. And so we go forth preaching unto all. Unto all. This righteousness of God which
is by the faith of Jesus Christ is unto all. We preach it unto
all, to everyone. Aren't you afraid someone who's
not one of God's elect might believe? Oh, no. Not at all. No, no. I know that only God's
elect will believe. But they will believe. And notice
the next part of that verse. Upon all them that believe, how
may I have this righteousness? That's all important, isn't it?
You know, I'm amazed that I see what's going on around me, aren't
you? When I see people that are so
interested, I see some of these sports events, 100,000 people
sitting out there in the stadium in the cold to watch their team
and love it. And sometimes watch their team
lose and love it. And people are interested. It's
time of the year. People have joined gyms and health
clubs and they're getting their health in shape, so to speak.
How people can put so much attention and so much interest in the things
of this world, my friends, and put so very little attention
concerning their soul. My soul, my soul, that's really
me. That's really you. And when this
body dies, this soul doesn't cease to exist. The body goes
back to the ground, turns back to the dust, but my friends,
the soul returns unto God who gave it. It's appointed unto
men once to die, but after this the judgment, when I come before
God Almighty, this thrice holy God, I must appear before Him
in this righteousness. or I'll be cast into outer darkness. This righteousness is unto all
and upon all them that believe. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ? And if you don't, why not? Why
not? Why not? Why spend another day
in unbelief? Why? Why would anyone rush headlong
to hell, my friends, like they were rushing toward God and run
away from God like they were running away from hell? And that's
what men do by the multitudes. You say, well, how is this righteousness,
how does it become mine? You say, by believing. Yes, it's
reckoned to be yours. It's imputed to you. When you
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, His perfect righteousness is
accredited to your account. You say, how is that possible?
I'll tell you how it's possible, my friends. The same way that
your sins were accredited to Him. The same way that your sins
were imputed unto Him. Look back with me in the psalm,
Psalm 40. How do you explain verse 12 in
this psalm? For innumerable evils have come
past me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of mine head. Therefore, my heart faileth me."
That's the Lord Jesus Christ speaking there, my friends. The
same way that His righteousness is charged to us, is laid upon
us, is imputed unto us, so our sins were made to meet upon Him. So much so that He became liable
for them. He refers to them as His iniquities,
mine iniquities. Though we know in Himself, in
His person, He had no sin, knew no sin, did no sin. He was that
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners man that He was. And yet He took our sins upon
Himself and He called them His. And he said, there are more than
the hairs of mine head. Can you imagine if he just took
all of your sins? If he just carried all of your
sins? But oh no, it was all the sins
of all of his elect that he took upon himself, my friends, that
God charged upon him. No wonder, he said, therefore
my heart faileth me. The Holy Son of God was made
to smart as a surety. He was made to smart for the
debt that we owed. We used to sing that little chorus,
I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt he did not owe. That's Christ, isn't it? That's
the first thing he said, I preached. I preached thy righteousness.
in the great congregation. Number two, he said, I preach
thy faithfulness, thy faithfulness. The God of the Bible, the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He is faithful, isn't
He? He is faithful. That old false
prophet in the Old Testament by the name of Balaam, God put
some words in his mouth. This is one of the words that
God put in his mouth. Balaam, the old false prophet,
he said, and don't listen. People all the time tell me,
well, he says some good things. Balaam said some good things,
my friends. He was still a false prophet.
Just because a man says some good things, if he never said
any good things, no one probably would listen to him. Don't be
fooled, my friends. Like Dr. Lloyd-Jones pointed
out many years ago, many times a false prophet may be may be
found out by what he doesn't say more than what he does say. Some things a false prophet will
never say. Oh, he'll say some good things.
Balaam, he said some good things, and the good things that he said
were the words that God put in his mouth. And the Bible tells
us that. And one of the words was this,
God is not a man that he should lie. In other words, that He
should change. What is lying? It's changing.
It's saying one thing and changing and doing something else. God's
not a man that He should lie. Neither the Son of Man that He
should repent. What is repentance? It's being
sorrowful. It's being sorry for something
you've done. The Lord never will repent. He'll
never change His mind. That's what repentance is, isn't
it? A change of mind. God's never changed His mind.
He is of one mind, the Scripture says. He's of one mind. And who can change Him? God doesn't
change. He's God. People change who make
mistakes, who do not know the future. None of those things
can be true of Him. He's not a man that he should
lie, neither the Son of Man, that he should repent. Hath he
said, and shall he not do it?" You say some things, I say some
things, and we may have said them with the best of intentions,
but we couldn't do it for one reason or the other. We didn't
have the strength. We didn't have all the knowledge.
Things happen, but not with God, my friends. He's of one mind,
of one purpose. And He's never going to change.
He's never going to deviate from His purpose. And there's nothing
outside of God that could cause Him to change. Hath He spoken
and shall He not make it good? He's spoken, my friends. He's
spoken. He's given us this Word, this
written Word of God. And you can take it and you can
live upon it. You can base your life upon it.
These promises of God They're not going to fail because they're
His promises and He's not going to fail. Take comfort from this, child
of God. Scripture says in the New Testament,
faithful is He that calleth you who will also do it. As He called
you, them He called, He also justified. Them He justified,
He also glorified. Take comfort in this, my friends.
You say, yes, but I feel, I just feel like I've failed. I've sinned. And I just feel like such a failure. Take comfort in this, my friends.
God's faithful. He's never failed. You and I
will fail a million times along this journey. And we'll fall. But thank God He's faithful.
He raises us up, doesn't He? He picks us up. Faithful is he
that calleth you who also will do it. He'll do it. Has he called
you to live with him forever? To enjoy him forever? Sure he
has, if he's called you and he's going to bring you there. Not
going to be any miscarriages along the road, my friends, with
God. You may be sure of that because he's faithful. Take comfort,
child of God. And number two, think about this.
In every family, as I look out on this congregation, I see several
different families. Husband, wife, children. And
you know what I see? I see some family resemblances.
I see some children that look like their parents. And it seems
like as children grow older, they even look more like their
parents. Well, God is our Father. if we
know Him today as our Lord and Savior. He's faithful. This should
be true of us. This should be true of us. Isn't
that right? We should be faithful. That should
be a characteristic of family resemblance, faithfulness. When
we tell someone we will do it, let's do it. When we give someone
our word, let's perform it by the grace of God. Let's be faithful. You parents, your children are
watching you and they're quick to remind you too, aren't they?
You promised. Let's be faithful, my friends.
Our Father in Heaven is faithful. Our Lord preached God's faithfulness. He said the foxes have holes
and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath
not where to lay His head. And yet, my friends, He's promised
us to meet every need that we have as we go through this world.
Food, water, clothes, shelter, and don't listen. Don't forget
to thank Him for it. Someone sent me an email. I know who you are. I haven't
forgotten. But it was a picture of heaven.
And of course, this is all supposedly. But bear with me just a moment.
This person looked in one room and these angels, they were busy.
They were working. They had things to do and they
were busy. And the person being taken through
heaven said, well, what's going on here? These angels are fulfilling
the requests that have been sent up. The requests that have been
sent up to God. The petitions that have gone
up to the Father. These angels are busy, busy filling
those petitions. And then they go a little further
down the room and here's a room that's vacant. One angel inside
there. What's this angel? What's this
all about? Well, this angel's taking the
thanks from those who've requested and their petitions have been
granted and they turn around and they thank the Lord for His
goodness. Remember those ten lepers our
Lord healed? Only one leper turned around
and thanked the Lord. That's just about right, isn't
it? Of all the blessings, benefits that we receive, how many do
we really thank the Lord for? Every morning when we get out
of our beds and we still have our faculties, our minds, and
our bodies are moving, and we live in a warm house, or a cool
house if it's hot outside. All of these conveniences we
sit down to a table that is better than kings could sit down to
many years ago. Let's not forget to be thankful
for God's faithfulness, for His generosity, for His goodness. The third thing our Lord preached
was God's salvation. The salvation of a soul is precious
and it is God's salvation, isn't it? in the belly of that fish. That's what he cried out. Salvation
is of the Lord. Our Lord was not bashful to tell
men that by nature all men have an evil heart and that we must
be born again. And that word means born from
above. That shows us that salvation
is of the Lord. It's not of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, nor of blood, but of God, my friend. Salvation is of the Lord. The
wages of sin is death. That's what we deserve. That's
what we've earned. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God, it's God's gift, is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Remember in John 17, in his prayer,
he said, that I might give. Christ said that. That I might
give. He gives. That I might give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given me. He said, you have not
chosen me, but I have chosen you. He said, you believe not
because you are not of my sheep. Salvation is a gift, my friends.
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Someone might
say, well, all those things are true. But isn't it also true? Now listen, this is the way people
reason. Isn't it also true that in the
Gospel of John we read at one of those feasts that the Lord
Jesus Christ went to, the Bible says, in the last day, that great
day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any, if
any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." Yes, we do
read that. But let me tell you what we don't
read. We do not read that one man came. Oh, yes. I see him
weeping over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. thou
that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would
not." Oh yes, he cried. Come unto me, all ye that thirst. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But you never
find one person coming unless the Lord first went to that person
and gave them the desire, gave them the grace, gave them the
ability to come. Salvation is of the Lord. Our Lord preached God's salvation. Not man's salvation, God's salvation. Number four, He preached God's
loving kindness. He is the one after all who said
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And
one of the things that I love about being a preacher. And I've
been trying to preach for a number of years now. One of the things
I love about preaching the gospel is I serve a good Savior. I serve a good Lord. And I'm
telling you, if you're here this morning without Christ, loaded
down with sin, He is willing to save you. His loving kindness. Never met, never will meet, never
will hear of anyone who loves like he loves. I'd hate to go
into this world and just preach the law, wouldn't you? Just preach
the law. Do, do, do, do, do, and you will
learn. Oh, no. I'd hate to have to preach
that message. But the message I preach is good
tidings of great joy. It's already done. The work's
finished. Look to Christ. Trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ today. If you came into this building,
I believe the gospel, don't you? I believe it's the power of God
unto salvation. And I'm convinced that a man
or a woman coming to this building lost, loaded down with sin. If you right now, if you would
just look to Christ, if you just trust Him as you are, you'd walk
out of this building justified. All your sins forgiven! They're all gone! justified,
a child of God, adopted into His family. What a wonderful
Savior. God's loving kindness. And the
last thing, He said, I preached God's truth. Now, when you preach
the truth, you preach Christ. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. The truth. You shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free. Who is the truth? Christ. And when you know Him,
and you look to Him, Well, you trust in Him. You're free. You're free, my friends. You're
not a servant of Satan any longer. You're a child of God. You're
free to serve Him with gladness, with joy all the days of your
life. I told you this story a couple
of weeks ago, and I heard it as a true story about a man back
during the days in our country when slavery was practiced. He
came into a southern town. He was riding up on his horse
and they were having a slave auction right in the center of
town. And I've been to Raleigh, North Carolina where they still
have the place where they sold the slaves there years ago. This
man rode into town and there was a young woman up there being
auctioned off as a slave. And he detested slavery so much
he got down off of his horse and he was just overwhelmed with
the whole scene. And before long he was bidding. And he bid. until he got the
highest bid. He bought the slave. He had his
bill of receipt. She came to him and he said,
you're free. Free? She said, free? I've always
been owned. Someone has always owned me.
I don't understand what that means to be free. Well, you're
free. You can go anywhere you want to go. Go anywhere I want
to go? Yes, anywhere you want to go.
Then I want to go with you. I want to go with you. You bought
me. My friends, Christ bought us with his