Deuteronomy chapter 7. This is
a chapter that we've come to in our study in the book of Deuteronomy. I've enjoyed looking at this.
I've learned a lot myself. I've read these scriptures so
many times, but just going back and studying them for myself
helps me to learn from them. I do want to start with just
reading this chapter. It has 26 verses in it, but let's
just start and read. It's just good to read God's
Word. Deuteronomy chapter 7 and beginning in verse 1. When the
Lord thy God shall bring you unto the land whither you go
to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee,
the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites,
the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations
greater and mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly
destroy them, and thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
show mercy to them. Neither shalt thou make marriages
with them, thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son,
nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn
away thy son from following thee, that they serve other gods. So
will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy
thee suddenly. But thus shall you deal with
them. You shall destroy their altars,
break down their images, cut down their groves, and burn their
graven images with fire. For thou art an unholy people
unto the Lord your God. Thy God hath chosen thee to be
a special people unto himself above all people that are upon
the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than
any people, for you were the fewest of all people. But because
the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which
you swore unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of the bondman.
from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that
the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth
covenant and mercy with them that love Him, and keep His commandment
to a thousand generations, and repayeth them that hate Him to
their face, to destroy them, He will not be slack to them
that hateth Him, He will repay them to His face. Thou shalt
therefore keep the commandments and statutes and judgments which
I have commanded thee this day to do them. Wherefore it shall
come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and
do them, that the Lord your God shall keep unto thee the covenant
and the mercy which ye swore unto your fathers. And he will
love you, and bless thee, and multiply thee. He will also bless
the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn,
your wine, your oil, your increase of king, and the flocks of your
sheep, in the land which ye swern to your fathers to give them.
Now shall be blessed above all people. There shall not be male
nor female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the
Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none
of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee,
but will lay them upon them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume
all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee, thine
eye shall have no pity upon them, neither shalt thou serve their
gods, for that will be a snare unto thee. If thou shalt say
in thine heart, These nations are more than I, how can I depossess
them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them,
but thou shalt remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh
and to all Egypt. The great temptations which thine
eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders, and the mighty hand
and the stretched out arm, were by the Lord your God brought
thee out. So shall the Lord your God do
unto the people of whom thou art afraid. Moreover, the Lord
thy God will send thee hornet among them, until they that are
left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. Thou shalt
not be affrighted by them, for the Lord your God is among you.
a mighty God and terrible. And the Lord your God will put
out those nations before thee by little and little. Thou mayest
not consume them at once, lest the beast of the field increase
upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver
them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction,
until they be destroyed. And He shall deliver their kings
unto thy hands. and thou shalt destroy their
name from under heaven. Thou shalt no man be able to
stand before thee until thou hast destroyed them. The graven
images of their gods shalt thou burn with fire. Thou shalt not
desire the silver nor gold that is on them, nor take it unto
thee, lest thou be snared therein, for it is an abomination to the
Lord thy God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination
into your house, lest thou be cursed be a cursed thing like
it, but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor
it, for it is a cursed thing." Now, it had been almost 500 years
before this time that the Lord had promised Abraham that he
would bring his children out from Pharaoh's bondage and give
to them the land of Canaan. And you and I have been studying
in the book of Deuteronomy. And the time had come that God
had promised Abraham to give them the land. They were right
on the border of the land of Canaan. Moses was ready to die
and Joshua was going to take these people across Jordan and
go into Jericho and possess the land of Canaan. It was time for
the promise to be fulfilled. And I love the way it says here in
chapter 6 The Lord says this in chapter 6 verse 22, He brought
us out from thins that He might bring us in. The Lord brought
them out of Jericho and Moses said He brought them out of bondage,
Pharaoh's bondage, that He might bring them in to the land of
Canaan. And that was the promise that
He promised Abraham. And here He was ready now to
fulfill it. You know when the Lord brings
a poor sinner out of the bondage of sin, He's got a purpose behind
it. He don't just bring us out, except
He brings us in. He brings us into the kingdom
of His dear Son, and He'll bring us to heaven. That's the purpose,
isn't it, behind it. So He brought them out that He
might bring them in. And chapter 7 is instructions
to Israel concerning their attitude they were to have towards these
seven nations that they were going now to live among and fight
among. And I want you to notice here
in verse 2 how they were to treat these people. Now, this year
is back in the days of the ancient theocracy, as we call it. It
was when the church and the state was one. And he says here in
verse 2, And when the Lord your God shall deliver them before
thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them, make
no covenant with them, nor show them mercy. Here was where the
church and the state was one. Back in these days, those who
fought spiritual battles within their souls had to turn right
around and fight physical battles. Well, I'm glad that's not like
that now, aren't you? I'm glad that the Lord saw fit
to put a distinction between the church and the state. And
He tells them to stay separate. The state is to punish the evildoers
and protect the just. And we're to preach forgiveness
of sins through Christ Jesus the Lord. And you and I aren't
like the Moslem nations, that they mix it all up together.
And I'm glad it's not that way, but it was like that way here.
It was like that way here. You and I don't take up arms
today and go out on crusades, do we? But boy, they were about
to. They were about to. The weapons
of our warfare are not carnal. They're mighty through God. We
don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but we've got a battle
in our minds. We wrestle against principalities
and against powers and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.
But this was the ancient time where they had this theocracy. And the time now had come when
the Lord had told Abraham the iniquity of the Amorites are
going to be full. This was almost 500 years later.
And now their iniquity was full and he says to them, go in to
this nation. And utterly destroyed them. You
know, you and I, we almost cringe at these statements here he makes
in verse 2. Smite them, but not only smite them, he said, but
utterly destroy them. Make no agreement with them.
Don't agree with them that you're going to spare them. Don't make
any covenant with them. And he says, show them no mercy. Boy, that seems, that's cruel,
especially to us. We've never seen anything like
this happen. But what does this tell us? This has a spiritual
application too, doesn't it? Don't it show us what happens
to a man or a people when God finally judges them for their
sin? When He'll be patient no more,
when He'll show them no more mercy, when He extends no more
long-suffering to them, when the judgment comes, here's what
happens. Utterly destroy them. And if
you look upon this and we're horrified by this, think what
will be at the judgment when the Bible says, The Lord Jesus
Christ shall judge all nations, and He says to them on His right
hand, Come ye blessed of My Father, but says to them on His left
hand, Depart from Me ye cursed. What this tells us, if nothing
else, is it's an awful thing to fall into the hands of an
angry God. The wages of sin is death. And I imagine the death that
they suffered here at the hands of these Israelites was nothing
at the death that they suffered at the hands of God. That that
the Bible calls eternal death. Separation from God. And the
Lord don't apologize. Moses doesn't apologize here
for God for this. And I tell you, I don't either,
do you? We don't apologize to the Lord. I bet if we had an
opportunity to ask all these men and all these women, do you
have any complaints against God? I bet every last one of them
would say no. It was a just judgment. It was a just judgment that God
brought upon us. Utterly destroy them. They weren't
to destroy any other nation. They didn't have permission to
go out and make war on anybody else. But boy, they had permission
and instruction. to make war on these people.
And here in verses 3 and verse 4, they didn't destroy these
nations at once. I read to you over there in verse
22, it's going to be by little and little. It's going to go
slow. A lot of it is going slow. And there was a reason for that.
The Lord said, if I give them all into your hands and you kill
them all at one time, all these beasts are going to increase
and you're going to have to be a fighting beast. All these lions
and these bears and things like that, the serpent. So he said,
I'm going to let you kill them, little by little. So it took
a while, and if we read the history of this, it took quite a while,
and they never did get all of them, did they? So he gives them
instructions while you're among them, while you're having war
among them, he gives them instructions as to your attitude towards them. And here's what he says in verse
3 and verse 4. Here's the instructions that
he gives them. This is very needed instruction. Neither shall you
make marriages with him. Your daughter you shall not give
unto his son, nor your daughter shalt thou take unto his son. Now, why did God forbid them
to mix? Why did he say, don't you dare
give your daughter to one of their sons? And don't you take
one of their daughters to your son? There was a reason for that,
wasn't there? And it's told in verse 4. For
they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve
other gods. You know, the Bible instructs
us to be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And
that's not just marriages. That's in everything, isn't it?
You know, if you're in a business, you've got to be careful about
being unequally yoked together with unbelievers in your business.
Even at work you've got to be careful. We have to work and
we know how it is in a workplace. Almost everybody around you is
an unbeliever. But you have to be careful even there, don't
you? About getting too intimate with your association. And we
tell young people all the time, be careful who your friends are.
We tell that to believers. Be careful that you don't make
bosom buddies out of unbelievers. Why is that? They turn your heart
away. We know how easily we are influenced,
don't we? They turn your heart away. I
think that's a rule. There are some exceptions, but
here's the rule. The Apostle Paul said, bad companionship,
bad communications will corrupt good behavior, good habits, good
manners. And we found that so happily.
We found that so. I want you to look over here.
Hold Deuteronomy chapter 7. And look here just here right
in 1 Kings chapter 11. I think one of the saddest, 1
Kings chapter 11, one of the saddest accounts that we have
in all the scripture concerning this is King Solomon. Because this is the very thing
that he did. And whoever wrote the book of
Kings here used him for an example. Look in 1 Kings chapter 11. But
King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter
of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians,
and Hittites, of the nations concerning which the Lord said
unto the children of Israel. We just read it. You shall not
go in to them Neither shall they come in unto you, for surely
they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon claimed
unto these in love, and he had seven hundred wives, princes,
and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his
heart. For it came to pass when Solomon
was old that his wives turned away his heart after other gods,
and his heart was not perfect when the Lord is God. as was
the heart of David his father." Now that's sad, isn't it? And
if you read the whole story about Solomon, he made them idols,
made them houses to put their idols in. Of course, the Lord
brought awful judgment upon him, took the kingdom and split, divided
the whole kingdom in two because of Solomon's sin. So that's what
he warned Moses about, and here we see it was a very good warning,
instruction Don't be unequally yoked. Because look at Solomon.
A wise man like that. And his heart was led away from
following the Lord. Now look back over in verse 5
of our text. Deuteronomy chapter 7 and look
at verse 5. We're told there in verses 2
through verse 4 how they were to deal with these people. And
now we're told how they were to deal with their idols, with
their altars and so forth. Here's what he tells them in
verse 5. But thus shall you deal with them. You shall destroy
their altars. You shall break down their images,
cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. Now, this may seem very radical
to some people. When they kill the town, they
not only would kill every man, woman, boy and girl, child. But then they would collect up
all those means by which they worshipped God. All their idols
and their images and they would grind them up into powder. They
would burn them in the fire. They would go out in their groves,
in their clusters of woods where they met and worshipped in the
shades of the trees. They'd cut them all down. So
they utterly destroyed everything that they used to worship God
with. Now, why did they do that? For
the very same reason He forbid them to marry unbelievers. He
told them over here in verse 25 and verse 26, I read it to
you, He said, you burn their graven images and fire and don't
desire the silver and the gold that they're made out of. Now
you can see why they had to utterly destroy that. Can you see? Maybe
a poor Israelite, if they had any poor among them, here he
found this beautiful golden altar that somebody had made. He thought,
boy, I'm just going to take that home and put it back and be no
harm in that. I'm not going to use it for worship.
But God said, don't you do that. Don't you do that. Don't you
be tempted to spare anything they're using in their worship.
You grind it to powder. You cut it down. You destroy
it. You know, some people don't like, and I can understand this,
some people don't like when we get negative in our messages
about false religion and about their false doctrine and the
false means that they use to worship God about. But you know,
that's necessary. The Lord has even called us to
do this. The Lord Jesus did it Himself,
didn't He? Remember what he said about,
he warned his disciples, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And the scriptures interpreted
that and said, beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees. And
look how he exposed those men. He said, woe be to you. He rebuked
them because of their hypocrisy, because of their false doctrine,
because of their insincere and hypocritical practices. He did
that all the time. And when he left and went back,
he told his disciples just to continue to do it. And look how
Paul exposed false doctrine. Remember what Glenn dealt Sunday
with in 2 John? If they bring not the doctrine
of Christ, don't let them into your houses. Don't bid on God's
speed. Be careful about being overly
friendly to them. Why? Because it's dangerous,
isn't it? It's idolatry. And we still do
it today. We expose false doctrine. We get on sometimes, especially
to these popes and the Catholic Church and providing of the candles
and bowing down to their chairs and all of that stuff. Why do
we do that? Well, because the Lord says you detest these things,
abhor these things, destroy their idols, grind them in powder and
cut down their growth. We're really just doing, basically,
what the Lord instructed us to do. We're to stand against that
which is false. We're to stand against idolatry
and falsehood and hypocrisy. In all of these things, the church
today is called to stand against these things. Brother Fortner
made a statement concerning the passage of Scripture I never
had looked at. He was quoted in that passage
where the Lord said, upon this rock I'll build my church and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And he said, whoever
heard of an army taking up their gates and going out to make war
with their gates? He said, that don't happen. He
said, what did the Lord meant when he said the gates of hell
can't prevail against it? He said, the church is coming
against the gates of hell and the gates of hell can't stop
her. I think that's probably could be the way it is. We're
making war on the prince of darkness. We're invading his kingdom. That's
what we're doing tonight. That's what we do all the time.
The church does it. And you know something? The Lord's
going to overthrow hell eventually. He's going to overthrow hell
eventually. Now look back in our text again and look in verse
6. Now I love this because here's the reasons why Israel are to
be so careful and follow these instructions. And it's a very
good reason. He tells them there in verse
6, 4. You do this. You don't mingle with them. You
kill them. You don't take their sons. You
don't give your daughters. You destroy their altars. Break
down their groves. For this reason. For you are
an holy people unto the Lord. They were different, weren't
they? They were a holy people unto the Lord. They were a different
people. They weren't like these other
nations. What's the difference? The Lord had brought them out
of bondage. The Lord had revealed Himself to them. Man, they had
been eaten mammoth from heaven. That rock had been following
them, the living water, they'd been drinking out of it. They
saw the glory of God in the pillar of fire and the cloud of the
day. They knew the way of redemption
God had revealed it to them, the way of salvation. They were
a different people. They were a holy people and God
had made them so. You're different. That's why
I'm giving you these instructions. It would be no sense for me to
be preaching to you and telling you what to do and how to live
your life and your attitude towards the world. It would make no sense
for me to get up here and do that if God hadn't given you
a new heart and a new spirit. If He hadn't made you a holy
people if He hadn't converted you. I'd be preaching in vain,
wouldn't I? And Moses gives these instructions because he said,
you're different. You're different people. And
the Lord has made you to differ. He's made you to differ. You're
holy people unto the Lord your God. And therefore, they were
to act like it, weren't they? They were to act like it. If
God has made you different, then act like it. Why were they a holy people unto
the Lord? Well, the second part of verse
6 tells us that the Lord had chosen them to it. The Lord thy
God has chosen thee to be a special people unto Him above all the
people. He chose them to be a holy, peculiar
people to Him. These two words you sometimes
see in the Scripture, and they're connected together, chosen and
holy. chosen and holy. God has chosen
us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy. Peter said you are a chosen generation
and holy people. If the Lord hasn't made a man
holy, a man has no right to believe he's chosen, does he? Because
those two go hand in hand. A chosen generation. Those that
God has elected, He's elected to holiness. And He gives them
everything they need to be holy. He gives them a new heart, a
new spirit. He washes their conscience from
dead works to serve the living God. He gives them the graces
of His Holy Spirit. He gives them the spirit of adoption. He says be strong in the Lord
and in the power of His mind. He gives them everything they
need to be holy. And then He encourages them to
live out what He's made them. He's made them holy. Therefore,
He says to them, you're holy unto the Lord your God. You're
different. Therefore, you're to live different
than this world. My dad one time told me, I was
talking to him about John 10, about the Lord's sheep. And he
said, well, I think I'm one of His sheep. My dad hadn't been
in a place of worship probably in 30 years. And didn't a bit
more believe the gospel than anything. And he said, I think
probably I want to be a sheep. And I said, well, I can't tell
you that you're not, Dad. But I know this much. You have
no right to believe it. Because my sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow
me. Those two things can't be separated, can they? They can't
be separated. Sometimes when we talk of election,
people will say this, well, you think you're something special.
Have you ever had somebody say something like that to you? You
talk about the Lord has chosen me to salvation before the world
was. Well, you think you're something special. Well, ain't it funny
that verse 6 says that very thing? He has chosen you unto Himself
a special people. God has chosen thee to be a special
people unto That word means a jewel, a treasure, the Lord's portion. Now, you won't find any motive
here for pride. This is not something that makes
the elect proud. This is a very humbling thing. But listen, the elect need to
remember and know this and never forget it. If you're here tonight
and the Lord has saved you, It's because He's chosen you to salvation. And that means that you're special
to Him. He chose you as His own jewel,
as His treasure. Remember that and live in the
praise and live to His honor because of it. I mean, that's
just facts. If you were a poor orphan, and
you lived in hunger and you lived in rags and you lived out on
the street among all these other orphans and some honorable, honest,
rich man come by and he put his hand on your shoulder and said,
young man, young woman, I'm taking you to my house. I'm going to give you a whole
room full of new clothes. I'm going to Give you a shower
to bathe in every day. You're going to sit at My table.
I'm going to teach you. I'm going to educate you. I'm
going to protect you. And you're going to be My child.
You're going to be My son. How would you feel about a man
like that? I mean, you'd never do anything
to dishonor that man, would you? Every time somebody looked at
you and said, Boy, I tell you, you've done well in your life.
What would you say? I went all to that man. found
me and brought me out of that mess and give me a home, give
me a bed, give me food, educate all to Him. And you'd never do
anything, would you, to bring dishonor from such a man as that.
It's the same way with election, isn't it? He shows us the holiness. He shows us as His special people,
His peculiar people. Look what a price He paid for
us. And I tell you, the more we realize this, the more we
say in our heart of hearts, oh, I don't want to do anything to
ever dishonor Him that chose me and redeemed me. I want to
honor Him and live for His glory all the days of my life. Peter
says, you are a chosen generation that you should show forth the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light. I tell you, that's pretty special,
ain't it? I'm telling you, that's pretty special. Somebody do that
for you. Why did He choose Israel? Well, here in verse 7, He tells
us why He didn't choose them. He says here in verse 7, The
Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because
you were more in number than any other people, for you were
the fewest of all people. He first tells them why He didn't
choose them. It wasn't for anything He saw
in them. or anything that they did, He tells them here, you
were the most disadvantaged of all these nations. You were the
fewest. I tell you, if anybody can find
any reason why the Lord chose them, I tell you, it can't be
me. Because I'm telling you, I am
one of the most disadvantaged. It seems like nobody has trouble
with sin. Nobody has the problems that
I have. in myself and around me. I tell you, I just can't
find any reason why Dave the Lord would ever choose me. Can
you? You feel just like I do. Well, that's what He was telling
them. There's no reason in you that I would choose you. Who
has He chosen? I'm telling you. You know, if
you're a parent and you're looking and you can't have a child and
you want to adopt a child. When you go to adopt a child,
you know the kind of people that we usually look for. You know
the kind of kids we usually look for. If we're going to find a
little boy, we want a cute little boy, don't we? And we want a
healthy little boy. We find one that appeals to us.
Something we see in it. But you know it's not that way
with God. He chose the base. He chose the weak. He chose the
helpless. The sick. He chose people like
that. But you know, in doing that,
boy, He just fit our needs, didn't He? And you know why He did it
that way? That no flesh should glory in
His presence. No flesh should glory in His
presence. In election, God exercises His
prerogative to choose whom He will for His glory. And Matthew
Henry said this, Those that perish do so by their own merit or demerit,
but all who are saved are saved by prerogative. God's prerogative. It's God's prerogative. So I
didn't choose you because you were more in number. You were
at the most disadvantage. You were in bondage. You were
down in bondage. In verse 8 now, we'll look at
this and we'll close. Moses gives the reason for God
choosing them and delivering them from Pharaoh's bondage.
And he says here, but because the Lord loved you. That's the reason. He gives,
first of all, for choosing them and for delivering them. But
because the Lord loved you. I tell you, that's where they
were to trace their election to and their deliverance to. The love of God. the Lord your
God loved you and because he loved you, he chose you and he
redeemed you out of Pharaoh's bondage. If one should ask us
to give them assurance of God's love and his electing grace,
we would simply say this, has he given you life from the dead? And that will settle the issue.
Somebody says, I want to know if God loves me. I want to know
if He's chosen me. Then, has He given you life? Here's the way we can know. He
chose us. How did these people know that God loved them? He
had delivered them, hadn't He? You start at the present and
trace it backwards. I was dead in trespasses and
sins. The Lord quickened me and give
me the life of Christ. Why did He do that? Because He
loved me. He loved me. You who were dead
in trespasses and sins, for the great love wherewith He loved
you, He's quickened you together. If He's given you life, then
you don't have to doubt His love to you. And you don't have to
doubt your election. Let that settle, that issue.
But how silly it would have been if the children of Israel had
gone into these seven nations and went around and started handing
out little tracts saying, God loves you. Wouldn't that have
been silly? God loves you. Here's the people
God loves, those that He's redeemed from bondage. And they are to
believe it. What about everybody else? Everybody
else are to repent. and seek the Lord for themselves. And then they can have assurance
of God's love. But you know not until then,
can you? Not until then. But because the Lord loved you
and because He would keep the oath. Here's the second reason.
Why did the Lord choose you? Why did He redeem you? Because
He loved you. That's first. Secondly, He's
redeemed you out of the house of bondage because He would keep
the oath which He had sworn unto your father. after the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house
of bondage." Boy, at once, when these people dissect you and
begin to hear Moses preach this, the assurance and the confidence
that must have filled their hearts, there's a two-fold reason the
Lord delivered me. Because He loved me and because
He had promised to do it before I was ever born. Ain't that wonderful?
They could go back almost 500 years before this, and God promised
Abraham, Abraham, you're going to have a seed, and they're going
to be down in bondage, and then I'm going to deliver them. And
I'm going to bring them out into the land of Canaan. I promise
you this. I swear this unto you. And you
know something? If you're here tonight and the
Lord has saved you, you know something? He promised to do
that before the world ever was. Isn't that wonderful? Because
He loved you and because He promised it. You say, Bruce, surely that's
not in the Scripture. Well, this is the last one we'll
turn to. Look at it over in Titus. Look
at it in the book of Titus. And look in chapter 1 and look
in verse 1 and verse 2. The book of Titus, look in verse
1 and verse 2 of chapter 1. Paul, a servant of God, and an
apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect,
and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness,
in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised
before the world began." Man, that's amazing. You can find
in this Bible that you believe in Jesus Christ. He's promised
you life. He's promised you a kingdom.
It's a present promise. But boy, I tell you something
even more better than that. You can trace this promise all
the way back before the foundation of the world. He had a long time
to think about it, didn't he? I tell you, God's promises
are sure. They're sure. I may make you a promise, but
if God makes you a promise, He'll keep it. He'll keep it. Lord bless you. I hope that was
a blessing to you.