All right, John chapter 1. Now,
we'll read the portions of Scripture we need to as we get to them
in the message. The title of this message is
John the Baptist's Testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
the Christian religion is a message about a person. It is not a system
of ceremonies, though it's got a couple of ceremonies, it's
not. It is not a system of morality,
though there are certainly some morals spoken of and some things
told us about how we should live and conduct ourselves in this
world. It is not a message of society and how society should
be structured. Christianity is first and last
a message about a particular person, the Lord Jesus Christ. You take away that person, you've
got no religion. Not just so. What I mean is you've
got no Christian religion. Without Christ, there is no Christian
religion. And without the testimony or
the message concerning Jesus Christ, you have no worship.
You know, there are plenty of people who worship God ignorantly. That is, they worship Him without
really, or worship without really knowing who God is or what He's
about. And their worship is indeed vain. It accomplishes nothing. It's
not acceptable to God. Without the message of the Lord
Jesus Christ, without the truth of Him, there is no true worship. Now this testimony concerning
Christ has been recorded for us in the Scriptures. It is the
testimony of God. Look over here. It first John
chapter five. Now we will get to John chapter
one. First John chapter five and I
say that with confidence there have been times I got through
the introduction it was time to go home. We'll see if we can
make a little more progress than that. First John chapter five
in verse nine says we accept man's testimony. But God's testimony
is greater because it is the testimony of God which He has
given about His Son. Now, God the Father and God the
Son make up what we might call a mutual admiration society. The Heavenly Father is pleased
with the Son. We preached on that last week,
at least referred to it. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased, hear ye Him. The father is pleased with the
son, and the son loves the father, and is wholly taken up with love
for the father. And the father is the one who
makes the son known, and the son is the one who makes the
father known. Now you say, how does that work?
I don't know, it's just what the scriptures teach us. It's
God that testifies of the Son, and it's the Son that tells us
about the Father. Now, this is God's testimony
we're talking about, so it's something that is true. We can
count on it. We take men's word for things.
In fact, as men, we're more likely to believe men than we are to
believe God. But we take men's word for it,
says John. Well, much more should we take
God's Word for it. Why? Because it's God's Word. God
who cannot lie. God who, whatever He says, must
be true because the moment He says it, it's true. His Word
defines reality. All right? It sometimes, this
testimony of Christ, sometimes comes to us through the mouth
of a prophet. It says in Hebrews chapter 1,
verse 1, God at various times and in various
ways spoke to the fathers through the prophets. To my knowledge,
there has only been one time that God has opened the heaven,
so to speak, and spoken that men might hear what He had to
say. And on that occasion, there were
only three men, other than the Lord Jesus Christ, To hear it,
and that's on the Mount of Transfiguration. And what did he say? This is
my beloved son. I say once, twice. Once at the
Lord's baptism, and then again at the Transfiguration. And here's
what the Father said. This is my beloved son, in whom
I'm well pleased. And then later he tagged on,
listen to him. Everything else God has said,
he said to us through prophets, through the apostles, and through
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now among the prophets through
whom God spoke is one we know as John the Baptist. John the
Baptist, in fact, the Lord Jesus Christ says he is the greatest
among all the prophets. Now there have been some pretty
impressive prophets. Imagine Moses. Moses was a prophet.
Moses went up there on Mount Sinai. And Moses met with God. And it says that Moses spoke
with God as a man speaks to a man face to face. That's got to be
quite a prophet. And we think of Elijah, who the
scriptures kind of set forth as The example of the Old Testament
prophets, you know, they kind of almost use his name to represent
all the prophets. Elijah there on Mount Carmel,
he puts that sacrifice together and he prays to God and a fire
comes down and burns up the sacrifice. Pretty impressive prophet. And
then here's John the Baptist, out on the back side of the desert,
out in the wilderness, And he stands there with his
rough clothes, eating wild food. And sometimes
I think when he spoke, people must have thought they were listening
to a wild man. He said some remarkable things. And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
there has not arisen among men a prophet greater than John the
Baptist. And maybe it's for this reason
that in that long line of Old Testament prophets, he's the
last one. As you read and we look at this
passage here in John chapter 1, we find this about John. All
the other Old Testament prophets said, he's coming, he's coming,
he's coming. John said, there he is. He's
here. He's here. John identifies himself
as that herald of the king. As that voice in the wilderness
crying, make a straight path, a level path for the Lord. When kings would come, they'd
send somebody ahead of them. So probably somebody with trumpets
and a herald and they'd say, the king is coming, the king
is coming. Clear the road. We don't want his chariot having
to hit potholes and rocks and all that. We don't want his way
to be difficult at all. Make a nice level road for the
king to come in. And John says, I'm that man for
God. He's the greatest of the prophets.
And in this passage we have a summary of John's testimony about the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know, sometimes I dream and
I think, boy, wouldn't it have been good to listen to some of
those prophets preach. Wouldn't you have liked to have
gone to Jordan and listened to John? That would have been something
now. Sit there in that little valley
and listen to this wild man preach the gospel. Well, here we've got his message. We've got what the Holy Spirit
deemed worthy to preserve for us of what John had to say. And this thing, this strikes
me about John's message. And it should be something that's
true of every preacher's message. John's message was about the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's a man who stuck to the message
that God gave him. Oh, I hope God keeps giving me
grace to do that and not grow weary of it. And I hope that I pray the same
thing for our brethren who preach. I hope that I never have to go
somewhere and sit down and listen to one of the preachers that
we've become accustomed to and sit down and he doesn't preach
Christ. I'd say that was a bad day. was taught about Christ
by God and his message was Christ upon Christ upon Christ. And that's all he had to say.
And here's his testimony. And it's in four parts. The first
one here is in verse 15 of John 1. John testifies concerning
him He cries out, saying, I like this about John, this is kind
of how you get a picture of John's preaching. John was not one of
these mealy-mouthed preachers. He was not one of these soft
seminarians. He cries out. He speaks with
a voice that penetrates. He speaks with a voice that commands
and demands attention. And he cries out, this was he
of whom I said, he who comes after me has surpassed me because
he was before me. Now John, I don't know how often
he preached. I bet you he preached every day,
or at least every day, weather permitting. And as long as there
was somebody coming out there where he was to listen, he declared.
And here's one of the things he declared. He who came after
me is above me, has surpassed me, because he was before me. Now, John's message, like every
gospel preacher's message, contains some things which seem to contradict. John says, here's one that came
after me, and he was before me. How do you do that? That's the
mystery of Christ. He sets forth Christ's superiority
here, in christ's pre-existence that is that the lord jesus christ
existed before john did now you read the chronology john was
born about six months before that's john the baptist john
the baptist was born about six months before the lord jesus
christ now how then is the lord jesus
before john we'll look back at micah chapter five verse two. Jonah then Micah. Chapter five. Verse two, but you Bethlehem
Ephrathah. Now that Ephrathah identified
which Bethlehem it was, because there was two Bethlehems in the
land of Israel, and so it specified a particular one. But you, Bethlehem,
Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, those
little towns and family groupings there in the tribe of Judah,
out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.
Now what's this a prophecy of? This is a prophecy of the birth
of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you think it was that
Herod was able to find out from the religious leaders of the
Jews where the king was supposed to be born? Right here. Remember when the wise men came
through? And he questioned, well, where is this supposed to happen?
Bethlehem. Well, you go to Bethlehem and kill all the boys two years
old and younger. Bethlehem. And there was a day. We don't know for sure what day
it is on the calendar, but it was a particular day on the calendar,
an identifiable spot in time. Jesus was born in Bethlehem,
but whose origins are from old, from ancient times. The Lord
Jesus Christ did not begin in Bethlehem. He has been around from the foundation
of the world. In fact, He is the eternal God. There never has been a time when
He did not exist. In fact, He existed even before
there was such a thing as time. And John says, He's to be preferred
over me. because even though he was born
after me, he came before me. Christ is superior, John says,
because he's the one from whom we receive all God's blessings. Verse 16, from the fullness of
his grace, we have all received one blessing after another. Now
this is one of those unusual phrases If you look into King James,
it says, from His fullness have we all received grace for grace. That word grace, normally when
we see the word grace, we get all doctrinal with it. And there's
nothing wrong with that. I mean, there's a doctrine of
grace. There's truth about grace. And when we think about grace,
we might automatically define it as unmerited favor. And we
think about grace in terms of the things that God does for
us, freely and without cost to us. And all those are true. But the word itself, its essential
meaning is this, favor. Favor. Now look back at Luke
chapter 2 verse 52. Now we always think of grace,
as we tend to anyway, as something that's given to a person without
them deserving it. And in the context of the gospel,
that's true. But really, just the Greek word
for grace, it just simply means favor. And it doesn't say anything
about why the favor comes. Look what it says about the Lord
Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 2 and verse 52. And Jesus grew
in wisdom and stature and in favor. That word is the word
that's normally translated grace. He grew in favor, in grace, with
God and men. They say, well, Christ didn't
need grace. Why would He need God's grace? He never did anything
wrong. He never did anything that would make it so God had
to bless Him in spite of what He was. That's the point here.
Jesus Christ earned God's favor. Jesus Christ did always those
things that pleased the Father. And just like any son who pleases
the Father, it caused the Father's heart to go out toward Him in
favor. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
grew, everything the Father saw about Him, He was pleased with.
And speaking in human terms, His heart just swelled with love
and pride in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ grew in favor. And you
know, when you think about the Lord Jesus Christ and the kind
of son he was to the Heavenly Father, imagine the fullness
of that favor. We love our children, don't we?
We favor our children. And yet, no matter how favorable
our children are, there are things about them which are unfavorable. Isn't that true? And so our pleasure
in them is always limited. Our joy and pride in them has
its bounds. Not so with the Heavenly Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we look at the Lord
and we say, we find no fault in Him. The Father says the same
thing. I find no fault in Him. He's
perfect. He's the exact copy of the Father
in human form. And then John says, from the
abundance, the fullness, the overflow of His favor, that favor He earned, we receive
favor upon favor. Here's the picture I see. huge
vessel of water full and overflowing as though
there is a well in it that just keeps springing up and you look
up and it's just like a waterfall coming around the rim of that
thing all the time and we're just standing in there and the
water's just falling on us that's the favor of God first in Christ
because he's perfectly favorable. And upon us, because we receive
the overflow, the super abundance of that favor. Now the favor
we get is wholly unearned by us, but it was completely earned
by the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why the doctrine
of grace is such a pleasing and pleasant thing to a sinner. It
tells him that everything he's getting from God, and the root
of all that is God's favor towards him. Every blessing he's getting
from God is not blessings he earned, not blessings he worked
for, not blessings he qualified for, but blessings that fell
on him as they overflowed out of Christ. That's favor, friends. That's
the doctrine of grace right there. There is no other grace. but
the grace of God towards the Lord Jesus Christ overflowing
on the sinners like you and me. And we just stand there like
it's a waterfall and let it flow over these wretched persons of
us. And we bathe, as it were, in the favor of God. Later John says, I'm a voice.
He said, that's all I can do. I can tell you about this grace.
But He is the source of all that grace. And then he goes on to say this,
that Christ is superior because He is the messenger of a better
covenant. In the Old Testament prophets,
the Lord Jesus Christ is called the messenger of the covenant.
It says here in verse 17, for the law, we're in John 1 verse
17, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. Now, Moses was the messenger
of the Old Covenant. And you know, there's nothing
wrong with the Old Covenant. I mean, the law of the Lord is
perfect, says the scriptures, and there isn't anything wrong
with it. And you know something? God could have spoken from Sinai.
And He could have laid down His law in the Ten Commandments and
all the ceremonies and all the social and political laws that
He laid down. He could have laid that all out
and He could have backed up and said, All right, folks, that's
it. This is the way you come to me. You do this and live.
And if God had said that and never said anything more, He
would still be a just God. You couldn't bring a charge against
Him. You couldn't accuse Him of foolishness.
You couldn't accuse Him of injustice. You could not accuse Him of a
lack of goodness in any way. Because there's nothing wrong
with that law. The problem with the law is in us. The problem
with the law is that it does no good for us because we're
sinful. The Lord Jesus Christ approached
God through the law, did He not? And He gained the favor of God
through the law, did He not? The law is a perfectly good way
to find favor with God, if you can do it. But that leaves us
out of the running, doesn't it? As Romans 8 verse 3 says, For
what the law could not do in that it was weak in the flesh.
And that's the problem with the law. It's resting upon a weak
foundation of our righteousness. And you build anything on the
righteousness of a man, it's going to come tumbling down just
like that house built upon the sand, isn't it? So when we talk about Moses and
that covenant that came through him, nothing wrong with the covenant,
nothing wrong with Moses' mediatorship under that covenant. However,
the Lord Jesus Christ brought an even better covenant in, the
covenant of grace and truth, the covenant of favor. Grace
and truth came through Jesus Christ. Christ brought God's
favor to us. The law holds the favor of God
out to us as something we may achieve by obedience. Christ
brings the favor of God to us as something earned by Him and
given to us. And that makes it a better covenant
for us right away, doesn't it? It gives us something we don't
deserve, something we can't earn, and that's good for people that
can't deserve or earn anything good, isn't it? And because this favor comes
to us, and this grace is given to us
in all its many forms, then the truth is made known to us. Now,
John here, and I'm assuming that these words are a continuation
of what John the Baptist said. They may be commentary by the
Apostle John. I'm not sure. You know, the Greek
language didn't have quotation marks. to let us know. When it
says John testified this, then there isn't anything to let you
know when they're done with the testimony of John. But I assume this is
basically what John the Baptist was saying. But John is not saying
that Moses brought the law. But it wasn't quite the truth.
We had to wait for Christ to get the truth. That's not what
he's saying at all. He's saying that because Christ brings us
the grace of God, We learn what the truth is. You see, the law
can be rightly declared. You can read it in the Bible.
You can hear someone preach on it, and they can preach on it
rightly. And you still remain in ignorance. Because once again,
the law depends not only on your righteousness, but on your wisdom.
And we haven't got the wisdom to understand what it is the
law is saying. The Pharisees took that law, and they looked
at it, and they parsed it, and they conjugated the verbs, and
they looked at it. God, they were so technical in
their understanding of the law, and yet, for all their understanding
of the law, it says this, they were ignorant of the righteousness
of God. Their foolish minds being darkened.
could not see the truth that was declared in the law. But
when Christ comes with the gospel and he declares the truth, he
brings with that the grace to understand the truth. You realize
it doesn't matter how much you teach the Bible to someone, whether
it be that you teach him the law or what. Nobody's going to know anything.
Here's what I'm going to say. Nobody's going to know anything about
the truth until the grace of Christ comes to them. That's
just so. But I have noticed this about
the law and about the gospel. You can preach the law to the
unregenerate and they will remain in their ignorance. They will
remain ignorant of the accusations that it's bringing against them.
And they won't get mad at the preacher. They won't. You preach the gospel,
and the light of the gospel lays them bare. Just opens it up. They can't hide anymore. And
they'll get mad. Why? Because even in the unregenerate
state, the gospel, when it's preached clearly, has power in
a man's mind. And he cannot escape its convicting
message. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. And then Jesus Christ is shown
to be superior in this. His message came to him without
a mediator. All the prophets, including Moses
and including John, a mediator told them their message. What
does it say of the Lord? Verse 18. No one has ever seen
God. The God, the one and only, or
some of the ancient Greek manuscripts say the only begotten son, but
actually both phrases mean the same thing. In essence, it's
the same, talking about the same person. The God, the one and
only, who is at the Father's side has made him known. All those prophets, and thank
God for them, all those prophets, including John the Baptist, they
got their message by way of a mediator. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
that mediator. And He Himself came from the
Father's bosom and has returned there. He, with His own eyes, so to
speak, has gazed upon the Father, gazed upon God. No man has seen
God at any time. Not you, not me. But there's
one man, the God-man, who has. God in human flesh. God and man
joined together in one single person. And he has made God known. I said I'd like to hear John
the Baptist preach, and that would be interesting. Even just
to see a video of it, you know? How much more? to sit and listen
to the Lord Jesus Christ preach. It must have been something to
see him take the five loaves and two fishes and have the disciples
pass them around and feed 5,000 people with them. It must have
been something to stand there at the tomb of Lazarus and see
him speak the word of life and dead Lazarus walk out of the
tomb. It had been something to see him come walking across the
stormy waves. But I tell you of a truth that
I bet you agree with me. More than being there for any
of those experiences, I would count it the highest
privilege of all, would you not also to be like Mary and just
sit at his feet and listen to Him teach. That must have been
something. To hear the voice of Him who speaks nothing but truth,
who doesn't have to speculate, who doesn't have to say, as I
do sometimes, now this is my opinion, this is what I think
is being said there. He speaks and that's it. Full
truth. pure truth with authority. And here's the second testimony
of John. Now this was John's testimony, this is verse 19,
this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests
and Levites to ask him who he was. Now isn't that just like
religious people? John's out there talking about
Christ and they send men out there to find out about John.
Who are you? And John's answer essentially
is, it doesn't matter who I am, it's not about me. They go, he
did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, I am not the
Christ. Now there were a lot of people
evidently, or at least several in that day who were claiming
to be God's Christ. The prophecies of Daniel pointed
to that time and there were people looking for the Christ. And so
there were religious hucksters, just like in our day, who took
the opportunity to say, I am the Christ. There's some people
saying that today. Believe it or not, I get their
emails. There's once in a while, you know, somebody else, they're
selling a book, you know, and you look a little bit, who is
this person? Well, I'm the Christ. Okay, I don't need your book
then, because I know whatever you are, you aren't the truth.
But there were others in that day saying to Christ, but not
John. John said, I'm not him. Don't look to me. Don't look
toward me. Don't concern yourself with me.
I'm not the one you need to be concerned about. I'm not the
Christ. Well, they asked him, well, then
who are you? Are you Elijah? Now, there is a prophecy in the
scriptures again, Malachi, that Elijah would come again and would
turn the hearts of the father to the children and the hearts
of the children to the fathers. Now, they mistook that prophecy
thinking that God was actually going to send the person of Elijah
back. And John said, I'm not Elijah,
I'm John. But the Lord Jesus said this,
He says, if you can take it, when he was talking about John
the Baptist, he says, if you can take it, he is Elijah that
was to come. The prophecy concerning Elijah
coming again was a prophecy concerning John the Baptist. But John answered
these fellows according to their tradition, according to their
myth, that Elijah The prophet himself was going to raise from
the dead and come back and start prophesying. You see, John's
message was like Elijah's message. John was sent to preach repentance
and to churn up or plow up the fallow ground. And that's why
he's called Elijah, because he had a message and ministry like
Elijah. But he said, I'm not really Elijah. Well, they said,
well, are you the prophet? Moses had prophesied that someone
would come, a prophet would come, raised up from among the people,
and to him all the people of God would listen. And so, once
again, the Jews, they talked about the
prophet or that prophet. They realized that while there
might be many prophets out there, one would come. who'd be the
final prophet. And they said, John, were you
him? He said, no. Verse 22, finally they said,
well, who are you? Who are you? Oh, they just can't
get over John. Let us learn from this. As much
as we may appreciate preachers, get over them, they're men. That's
right. They're men that have been given
gifts for your benefit, but don't look to them, don't trust in
them. Listen to what they have to say. Test it with the Word.
If they are preachers of God, they're not going to be wanting
you to look at them anyway. They're going to want you to look at
the one they speak of. And beware, be wary, any time
the names of preachers become prominent in the conversations
of religious people. As though it's important you
listen to this preacher or that preacher. It doesn't matter what
preacher you listen to as long as he's talking about the right
person. That's just so. And John says, who are you? Give
us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you
say about yourself? Well, it's almost like John says,
I'm going to give these guys some kind of answer. They're
never going to leave me alone, you know? So he says this, all right, I'll
tell you what the Bible says about me. This is prophet Isaiah.
I am the voice of one calling in the desert. Make straight
the way for the Lord. Okay, you got to know who I am.
I'm a voice. That's all I am. I'm the voice of a herald announcing
the arrival of the king. And I've called you to make a
straight level path for his arrival. And what does he mean by that?
Repentance. repentance. He says, He's coming
to you. Don't make His coming to you
a rough ride for Him, lest He bring judgment. That's
really what the message of John was. He's saying, receive Him. Welcome Him. Alas, the testimony of our Lord's
arrival is this. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. John told these fellas, I'm a
voice telling you. I'm a voice out here in the wilderness.
And I'm telling you, and I'm telling the fellas that sent
you. You better humble yourself. You better repent of your stinking
righteousness. You better repent of your hypocritical
religion. and prostrate yourself before
the King of Glory, because He's almost here. That was His message. Even when
He describes who He is, it's in terms of who Christ is. Now some Pharisees who had been
sent questioned Him. Why then do you baptize if you're
not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? Here John has just
said, the Lord is coming, and they're unmoved. Well then how come you're baptizing
if you're not the Christ, and you're not Elijah, and you're
not the prophet? John replied this way, and all
what wisdom was given to John to deal with these fellows, he
says, I baptize with water. Now, let's correct our translation.
You know, the interesting thing is, is it seems like all English
translations have been written by infant sprinklers. And they
just cannot be honest when it gets to this. John said, I baptize
in water. The word is not with, the word
in Greek is en, en. And it translates into English
as in. That's just what, well, John says, I baptize in water. But among you stands one you
do not know. Now here's something. I don't know how literally to
take this for sure. But I'm sure that they went out
to where John was preaching. And we know that on at least
one occasion when John was preaching that the Lord Jesus was in the
audience because he came to be baptized by John. Maybe this
was the occasion. And John sees him. And John says
to him, I baptize in water. But there's one fellow right
here in this crowd. You don't even know who he is. He is the Lord
who's come and you haven't recognized him. You're all taken up with
me. You ask questions about me and you need to know him. Oh, religion. God save us from religion. Really. Isn't that true? God
saved us from religion, from all these foolish and useless
questions about men. There's only one man we've got
to know about, the man Christ Jesus. And here's what he says
after me. You don't know him. He's the
one who comes after me. The thongs of whose sandals I'm
not worthy to untie. Now John says, you're asking
about me, you want to know who I am, you're peppering me with
questions. I'm not important. There's somebody here and you
don't even know him. But he is so great, I'm not worthy
to take the place of a slave and get down in the dust and
untie his sandals for him. Now that was about as low a job
as a house slave could get. To be the one to have to meet
you at the door and take off your sandals and wash your feet. That job was given to the lowest
guy on the totem pole. And John said, I'm not, this
man is so high, I'm not even worthy to render him that service. Why are you so taken up with
me? When you walk in someone's, as
though John is saying, when you walk in someone's house, the
house of a great man with servants, do you take any notice of the
man who bends down to take off your shoes and wash your feet? He's just some nondescript fella
to you who doesn't matter. He's going to do his work and
get out of the way. You're there to see the great
one. He said, well, how come now you're all taken up with
me, who's not really even worthy to be that kind of slave? And
yet you're not thinking about the owner of the household. What is John's testimony of Christ?
his greatness, his superiority over everyone
and everything. Now I said John gave four testimonies.
We only got to two of them tonight. Next Sunday night we'll look
at the other two. Here's his testimony. Behold the Lamb of
God that takes away the sin of the world. Boy, I like that testimony,
don't you? And then his fourth testimony.
He says over here in verse 34, I have seen and I testify that
this is the Son of God. John's testimony, Christ is great,
surpassing all prophets, surpassing all men, surpassing me, so great
that you shouldn't even notice me I'm not even worthy to untie
his shoes. All that we and all of the men
could get some kind of understanding of how great Christ is. You know,
it'll put an end to all our controversies. It'll put an end Like I was talking
this morning about Elijah saying, how long will you halt between
two opinions? It'll put an end to your halting
when you see how great Christ is. When you see Him high and
lifted up and seated on a throne, when you see Him in the bosom
of the Father, when you see Him at the right hand of the Father
and hear Him declare the Father, when you see Him uphold all things
by the power of His Word, then nothing else will distract
you. Heavenly Father, show us the
Son that we may know Him and know His glory and be taken up
with Him. Forgive our sins. You are God that pardons and
you pass over the transgression of the remnant of your heritage.
You delight in mercy. So delight yourself in being
merciful to us. Put away all our sins. In Christ's
name we pray. Amen. Okay, you are dismissed.