Open your Bibles now to the book
of 1 Peter, chapter 1. When God created me, I became a living soul. The Scripture says, God created
man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and he became a living soul. Now I have a dying
body. Apostle Paul called it a corruptible
body, a mortal body. He called it a body of weakness
and a body of shame. I have a dying body, but I have
a living soul. I have an eternal soul. I have
a soul that will never perish and never be annihilated. At
death my body will return to the dust from whence it came.
But the scripture says, my living soul will return to God who gave
it. So I am a living soul. I have a dying body, I have a
perishing body, I have a corruptible body, but I have a living soul. My soul lives in this tabernacle. My soul for a little while dwells
in this natural body. There will come a time when this
body will no longer exist, but there will never be a time when
my soul shall not be a living soul. And then secondly, because
of sin I am a condemned soul. I have a living soul that dwells
in a dying body. But that soul, because of sin,
is a condemned soul. It's condemned by the law of
God. It has broken the law of God, consciously, willingly broken
the law of God. It's condemned by the justice
of God. For the word of God declares,
The soul that sinneth it shall surely die. Now that's not talking
about death in the form of physical death or annihilation, but it's
talking about a second death. It's talking about an eternal
death. It's talking about a death that really never dies. It's
talking about separation from God, gnawing memory, outer darkness. It's talking about dwelling in
a place where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. It's talking about a place of
loneliness, suffering, and torment forever. That's a living death.
That's the second death. That's an eternal death. And
because of sin, I am, under God's law, before God's justice a condemned
soul. Now thirdly, the Bible declares
first, I am a living soul. I have a body. I am a living
soul. And I am because of sin a condemned
soul, condemned by the law of God, condemned by the justice
of God. Now thirdly, my soul is a valuable
soul. It's really, when I stop to think
about it, my only lasting possession. My soul is really my only eternal
possession. The material, the physical, the
earthy will pass away. Everything my eyes look upon,
everything that my hands touch will someday pass away. The Scripture says, Heaven and
earth shall pass away. It shall be burned and melted
with a fervent heat, but my soul will live on. And that's for
a reason Christ said, What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world? What if he is the most famous
man in the world? What if he is the wealthiest
man in the world? What if he is the strongest man
in the world? What if he is the most popular
man in this world. What if he is the healthiest
man in this world? What shall it profit him if he
gain the whole world and lose the only thing that's eternal,
the only thing that's lasting, the only thing that is really
his lasting possession? My soul's a valuable soul, a
valuable soul. And then in the fourth place,
and I want you to turn to Luke chapter 12 and read a passage
with me, Luke the twelfth chapter, if I live for the world, if I
live for the material, if I live only for the physical, if I live
only for pleasure and popularity and fame and a gratification
of this natural man, if I live only for those things, I'm a
lost soul. I am a lost soul." Christ said
in Luke 12, beginning with verse 16, and he spake a parable unto
them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself,
saying, What shall I do? because I have no room where
to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do.
I'll pull down my barns, I'll build greater And there I bestow
all my fruits and all my goods, and I will say to my soul, or
to myself, So thou hast much goods laid up for many years.
You're prosperous, you're secure, you have nothing to worry about.
You've got plenty of things in the barn to eat, plenty to drink,
plenty to wear. You have a comfortable living,
you owe no man anything. You have a prosperous farm, you
have plenty of land, you're secure for your old age. Now eat, drink,
and be merry, take thine ease, relax, you're secure, everything's
all right. But God said unto him, Thy fool,
thy fool. This night, not many years hence,
this night Not when you're eighty or ninety and have enjoyed these
things that you've laid by and stored up, but this night. Not
ten, fifteen, twenty years from now when you've had plenty of
time to eat, drink, and be merry and take thine ease, but this
night thy soul shall be required of thee. This night your body
is going to give up that soul. Who shall these things be which
thou hast provided? So is he." What do you mean,
so is he? So is he a fool. That's what
Christ is saying. So is he a fool. A man's a fool
that laith up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God, who
is not rich in faith, who is not rich in fellowship with God,
who is not rich in communion with God. It doesn't matter what
you've laid up. So if I live only for this world
and for this flesh and its comfort and its ease and its satisfaction
and its glory, I'm a fool. And not only that, but I'm a
lost soul. Now turn back to our text, I
Peter chapter 1, and this is the thing that interests me most. I know that I'm a living soul. I know that. I know that that
this body will die. It's a dying body, it's a corruptible
body, mortal body, and to my shame it's a sinful body. But
I do know it's a living soul. I know I am a living soul, and
I know that before God's law I am a condemned soul, that God
shall in no wise clear the guilty. The soul that sinneth it shall
die. Left to myself I'd perish, and perish forever. And I know
that something not all of it, but something of the value of
my soul. I've given it some consideration,
I believe many of you have. And I do know this, I don't want
to be a lost soul. I want a saved soul. In 1 Peter
chapter 1, verse 9, it talks about something in which I am
vitally interested, and that is the salvation of my soul,
the salvation of my soul. I read a few moments ago in the
book of Psalms, I believe it was Psalm 90, that we are to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Number our days. Our days may be brief, they may
be short, they may be long, but at the longest they're short.
But he says here, the salvation of your soul, receiving the goal
of your faith, verse 9, the salvation of your soul. Nothing is of greater
importance to me, and nothing should be of greater importance
to you. The Apostle Paul talked that way over in Philippians.
He said, as he talked about his birth, his ancestry, his pain,
his religious accomplishments, his works, and all of these things,
he said, I count these things but dumb, less than nothing,
of no value at all, of no value at all. Now we keep scrapbooks. We're sentimental. We keep scrapbooks
of what we've done and where we've been and whom we have known. But Paul looks back on all this
and he says it's less than nothing. It's dumb. I count these things
but dumb. That I may win Christ and be
found in him. Oh, oh, that I may know him and
the power of his resurrection. And here the Apostle Peter describes
the salvation of our soul, and he does it in a five-fold way,
and this is my message to you regarding the salvation of your
soul. First of all, Peter tells us
in verse 10 of I Peter 1 that this salvation, this salvation
of your soul, your valuable soul, your living soul, your immortal
soul, your only lasting eternal possession, This salvation of
your soul is no new salvation." Look at verse 10. This salvation
of your soul, of which salvation? The prophets. Now when Peter
talks about the prophets, he's not talking about the apostles.
When he talks of the prophets, he's not talking of the New Testament
preachers. When he talks of the prophets,
he's talking about men like Elisha and Elijah. and Jeremiah. When he talks of the prophets,
he's talking of Amos. He's talking of Daniel. He's
talking of Moses. And this same salvation, the
salvation of your soul and of my soul, is no new salvation. It's no new thing. I think one
great error, now listen to me carefully right here, one great
error which persistently hangs on in many circles today is that
Almighty God has had more than one way of saving sinners. Now, if any of you have a Scofield
Bible, does anybody here this morning have a Scofield Bible?
Well, turn in your Scofield Bible to John, chapter 1. John, the
first chapter. Now, they've changed it, I think,
in the new ones, but this is what the old ones said. John,
chapter 1, and look in the footnotes. Right below, John, the first
chapter, verses 11, 12, and 13, and it says there, the law starts
out this way. Grace as a dispensation begins
with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The law, which at
one time was a point of testing for salvation, is no longer a
condition of salvation. It never was. The law was never
a condition of salvation. Grace begins not with the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ on Golgotha's hill. Grace begins
with God in eternity. The law never was a point of
testing for salvation. Men talk about dispensations,
and there are dispensations. They're not dispensations of
salvation. There are different dispensations
in which God has revealed himself in different ways to men, and
God has worked with men in different ways, but God never has saved
men except by Christ. Turn with me to Acts chapter
10. Now let's look in the Scripture a little bit. In Acts the tenth
chapter, did you see that down there, John? Right below, John
chapter 1, in Acts chapter 10. Now listen to this. In the tenth
chapter of Acts, verse forty-three, "...to him give all the prophets
witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him should
receive remission of sins." Who are the prophets here? Moses,
Elijah, Isaiah. They didn't preach the law, they
preached salvation through sacrifice and atonement. And that sacrifice
and atonement is Christ. To Him give all the prophets
witness. Now turn to Romans, chapter 1.
In the first chapter of Romans, Paul is describing his gospel
here. In Romans, chapter 1, verse 1,
Paul says, I'm a servant of God, a bondslave of Jesus Christ. I'm called to be an apostle.
I'm not a prophet, I'm an apostle. And I'm separated to the gospel
of God, the saving gospel, the redeeming gospel, the gospel
which puts away sin and makes a man acceptable to God, the
gospel which reconciles a sinner to God. Now look at the next
line. The gospel of God which he promised
before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Now the New
Testament wasn't written when Paul wrote this. He was writing
the New Testament. So this gospel of God, which
was prophesied by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, is the
gospel of God which was prophesied in the Old Testament. What's
the next line? And it's concerning his son.
It's not concerning the ceremony. It's not concerning the law.
It's not concerning works. It's concerning his son. That
was the—turn with me to John chapter 5. This is what—don't
be blinded like these religious leaders in the days of Christ
when he was despised and rejected and hated and nailed to a cross.
They thought God saved men by the law, too. They thought that
God redeemed men by works of religion, too. And they didn't
understand the writings of Moses. Christ said in John 5, 45, Do
not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There's one
that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom you trust. Moses wrote
the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy. And Christ said, Moses is going
to accuse you, for if you had believed Moses, If you had understood
Moses' writings, if you had listened to Moses' message, you would
have believed me, for he wrote of me. Christ wrote of me, and
Moses wrote of Christ. You know, when Moses gave the
Passover to Israel in Exodus chapter 12, when God was going
to pass through Egypt, When that great plague was going to fall
upon the Egyptians, the firstborn son in every home was to be destroyed,
Moses told Israel to take a lamb, lamb for each house. If a house
was too small in number, the two houses would share a lamb,
and they would slay that lamb and roast it and put the blood
on the doorpost, and when God saw the blood, it'd Passover.
And then from then on, they were every year to observe that Passover
feast. Christ is our Passover. That's what Paul wrote. Christ
is our Passover. And when they slew that lamb
in Egypt, it was a type of Christ. It was a picture of Christ. When
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, he was lifting
up Christ. And as those people looked to
that serpent, they were looking at a picture of Christ. They
were looking at a type of Christ. They were looking at a representative
of Christ till he comes, for our Lord said that. As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life. Turn to 1 Corinthians 10.
Listen to this. Now watch this carefully. All
of these things that happened in the Old Testament, all of
these types and shadows and symbols and sacrifices and atonement,
these were all Christ's. Even, watch this now, in 1 Corinthians
10 talking about in verse 3, they did all eat the spiritual
meat. That's the manner that was gathered from the ground
each morning. And they did all drink the same
spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them. And that rock was Christ. There's
enough truth right there to dispel and put away once for all any
thought that God ever saved sinners any way but through Christ. That
rock that Moses smoked, that brought forth water that quenched
the thirst of all these Israelites, that rock was Christ the Lord. Turn with me to Romans 4, one
other scripture under this heading, the fourth chapter of Romans.
Now listen to this. Romans 4, verse 1. Listen to it. Now Abraham, we're
going back to if anybody is saved by works in the Old Testament,
if that's what people believe or by the deeds of the law, well,
it would certainly be Abraham, wouldn't it? He was a representative,
a pattern of all whom God redeemed, father of the faithful. What
shall we say, then, that Abraham our father, as pertaining to
the flesh, hath found?" Romans 4.1. If Abraham were justified by
works, he hath whereof to glory. He's got something to brag about.
He's got something to glory in. If that's the way he's saved,
by keeping the law, by observing the commandments, by doing deeds
of religion, He's got something to boast of. Look at it, but
not before God. Not before God. Before men, but
not before God. For what sayeth the Scripture?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Abraham, Christ said, believed
God. Believed God about what? That God would send a Savior,
that God would send a Redeemer, Christ said, Abraham saw my day,
and he was glad. It was the fulfillment of every
promise. Abraham believed God. Now, to
him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of
debt. If you're going to work for salvation,
then you're saved by debt, not by grace. So let's go back to
our text now. Peter says five things about
this salvation. First of all, it's no new salvation. It's the way God has always saved
men, the way God's saving men now, and the way He always will,
by faith through the merits of Jesus Christ. Now, secondly,
verse 10, it's the salvation by grace. Of which salvation? The salvation of your souls.
Of which salvation? The prophets have inquired and
searched diligently who prophesied of the grace. that should come
to you, grace. What is grace? Unmerited favor. It's God giving us what we do
not deserve. Salvation is totally and completely
of the Lord from beginning to end. Over in Jonah chapter 2
verse 9, don't turn there, but listen to what Jonah said. As
Jonah was swallowed up by the fish and taken to the bottom
of the ocean, And the seaweed, the scripture said, was about
his head, and darkness so thick, darkness so terribly dark, that
you could cut it with a knife down in the belly of that fish.
All hope gone, no way out, completely imprisoned. Some believe that
he even died. Jonah cried out in that hour,
in that hour of helplessness. In that hour of hopelessness,
in that hour of complete despair and inability, he cried out,
salvation is of the Lord. And my friend, it is no more
true of Jonah than it is of you and me. Down in the darkness
of sin, in the clutches and bondage and prison of a broken law, in
our hopelessness and helplessness and inability, we have to cry,
Lord save me or I will forever perish." Turn to Ephesians chapter
2. This is what Paul is saying here
in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning with verse 1. Listen to it, "...and
you hath he quickened, made alive, who were dead." God saved Jonah
as a picture of the believer. The whale threw Jonah out on
the dry land. He was delivered, he was saved.
by the grace of God, by the power of God. And you, too, who were
dead in trespasses and sin, hath he quickened." Now listen to
this. In times past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among
whom we had our conversation in times past in the lust of
our flesh and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as others, just
like the Gentiles, Philistines, Hittites, Amorites, all of these
ungodly people. What's the next line? But God. Here's the difference. Jonah
was hopelessly imprisoned, but God set him free. Jonah was helpless
down in the depths of a whale's belly, but God set him free. Jonah was in darkness, Jonah
was in death, but God set him free, the only one who could.
And you and I were in hopeless, in a hopeless, helpless condition,
enslaved to sin, in bondage to the law, bound and could not
set ourselves free. Watch it! But God, who is rich
in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were
dead, He quickened us with Christ. Now, the gospel doesn't come
to you and to me asking anything of us. And I challenge these foolish
preachers that are trying to appeal to the dignity of the
flesh, and trying to appeal to me and to do something for God.
The gospel does not come to me asking anything of me. It does
not ask me to produce a righteousness. It presents me with one. The
gospel does not come to me on the ground of my merit, but it
comes out of the heart of God's mercy. The gospel does not come
to me as a reward, but as a gift. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal salvation. The gospel does not come to me
on the basis of justice. If God gives me justice, he'll
send me to hell. But it comes to me on the basis
of free, free, free, free grace, totally free. Let not conscience
make you linger, nor our fitness fondly dream." All the fitness
he required is to feel your need of him. That's
so. All the fitness he required is
to feel your need of him. Augustus Toplady wrote, in my
hands, no price I bring. If I drive a Cadillac up in front
of your house next week and say to you, I've got a gift for you,
you say, Well, I can't accept that. And I say, Well, I want
you to have it, but I just can't accept that. Let me pay you for
it. No, I'm not going to take any
pay. Well, let me just pay you something. Well, if you want
to pay me something, pay me a dollar. That's a legal sale, isn't it?
Dollar and other considerations. I didn't give you the car, you
bought it." Somebody says, Well, my soul, he didn't buy it. You
gave it to him. No, I didn't give it to him, he bought it.
He didn't pay but a dollar, but he paid something. And salvation,
if I contribute anything, if there's any condition except
my need of Christ, if there's any return on my part to God
for what he's given me, then salvation is not a gift. I bought
it. I earned it. Now the third thing
about this salvation, 1 Peter 1, it's no new salvation. It's salvation wholly and completely
by grace. God gave it, God gave it. I didn't
deserve it, God gave it. I didn't earn it, God gave it.
It was a free gift. He even prepares the ground in
which he plants the seed. He even prepares the heart in
which he sheds the God he loves. He even prepares the mind which
is willing to receive Him. He even gives us the desire to
come to Him. He even grants the repentance
that leads us to tears of sorrow over sin. He even gives the praise
that lets us embrace Christ. It's all of God. I know the flesh doesn't like
that, but that's what Scripture says. That's what the Bible teaches. Christ is the author and finisher
of our faith. And if you want something that
will really challenge you to do a little studying in God's
Word, you don't live by your faith, you live by the faith
of Christ Jesus. Now you weave that around in
your mind a little while. Everybody runs around hollering,
you keep the faith. You don't have any faith. The
faith by which you live is the faith of Christ Jesus. You say,
that's deep. It ain't deep, it's just so.
We're shallow. It's not deep, we're shallow.
Our problem is not the deep things of God's Word, our problem is
the ignorance of our minds. It's all of God, all of grace,
all of Christ. Christ is all in all, that no
flesh should glow in his presence. It's totally and completely a
free gift. Salvation is, and he bestows
it. on whom he will. Now the third thing is salvation
through the sufferings of Christ. It says these prophets, verse
11, searched what manner of time the Spirit of God in them did
signify when he testified before the sufferings of Christ. My
salvation was purchased, but it was purchased not by me, but
by my My salvation was paid for, but it was paid for not by me,
but by my Lord. Here's the chief point. To save
sinners, Christ suffered. To redeem my soul, Christ suffered. To reconcile me to God, Christ
suffered. And Jeremiah, speaking of Christ
in the book of Lamentations, says this. Listen to it. Is it
nothing to you? all ye that pass by, is it nothing
to you? Behold, and see, if there be
any sorrow like my sorrow, which is done unto me." Oh, those awful
Jews nailing him there, that's not what he said. Oh, those awful
Romans that drove those awful nails, those rusty nails in his
hand, that's not what he's talking about here. Is it nothing to
you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." Who
afflicted me? Who bruised him? Scripture said
it pleased God to bruise him. These Roman soldiers were only
instruments in the hands of God's justice, for Christ was our representative. Christ was the guilty one. Not
his guilt, my guilt, but he was the representative person. He
had taken our place before the law, and the law condemned him.
He had taken our place before justice, and justice condemned
him. Is there any suffering and sorrow
like my sorrow? In this day when the Lord hath
afflicted me in his fierce anger, the heavenly Father turned his
back on the Son because the Son was bearing our sins. Oh, how he suffered! From his
birth to his death he was a representative person. From his birth to his
death he stood in our stead. from his birth to his death,
both by his life and by his death. He suffered. A man of sorrow
was acquainted with grief. He made his soul, his soul, in
the place of my soul, an offering for sin. My soul is saved because
the soul of Christ was damned. My soul is saved because the
soul of Christ suffered. My soul is saved because the
soul of Christ was an offering for the sin of my soul, and his
soul's suffering was the soul of his suffering,
the heart of it, the gist of it, the essence of it. All that my sins deserved, Christ
paid. and the final blow was separation
from the Father, for this is the greatest suffering." This
is no new salvation. The way Abraham was saved, the
way Abraham was saved, this salvation is all of grace. It's the gift
of God. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And this salvation is through
the sufferings of Christ and then Last of all, it is a salvation
to glory. Look at verse 11 again. He testified beforehand the sufferings
of Christ and the glory, and the glory, and the glory that
should follow. Now the glory we're talking about
here is His glory. This is the correct reading The
Holy Spirit, through these Old Testament prophets, testified
beforehand, before he came to the earth and died on the cross,
the Holy Spirit testified beforehand through these prophets of the
sufferings of Christ, his substitutionary sufferings, his sin offering,
his soul offering. It told all about it. Isaiah
53, he was wounded for our transgression. He shall make his soul an offering
for sin. He was wounded in the house of
his friends. Is any sorrow like my sorrow? Is it anything to you, you who
pass by? God hath afflicted me in his
fierce anger. The Holy Spirit testified of
the sufferings of Christ, the substitutionary work of Christ
in the Old Testament, and the glory that should follow these
sufferings. I'll turn to two scriptures.
First of all, Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, the glory that should
come to him, and he's going to get the glory. He's not going
to share it with me or with you. In Hebrews 12, verse 2, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
and the glory, that's what that is, for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God." Turn to Ephesians
chapter 1, and here in Ephesians chapter 1 he talks about the
Father choosing us, the Son redeeming us, and the Holy Spirit calling
us, and after each of these descriptive phrases he winds up with this
word in Ephesians 1.6, talking about the Father's work, "...to
the praise of the glory of His grace." And then he talks about
the Son's work in whom we have redemption, verse 12, that we
should be to the praise of his glory. And then he talks about
the Holy Spirit's work, and the last line in verse 14 says, unto
the praise of his glory. So the Holy Spirit testified
in the Old Testament about the sufferings of Christ to redeem
us, and he says there's some glory going to follow this suffering,
and that glory is going to be his. Every knee shall bow and
every tongue shall confess that he's Lord to the glory of God. God's going to get the glory. I worry about folks that are
not willing for God to have all the glory. I get deeply concerned about
people who are not willing for God to have all the glory. They want some credit and some
praise. I listen to preachers on the
radio and television, and I hear them calling names, and I hear
them acknowledging gifts that people send by calling their
names, and I hear them praising the flesh for what they're doing.
how they're serving the Lord, and how they're keeping on keeping
on. And I hear them describe ministers
and servants of God who are giving themselves for the Lord, and
all this praise for the flesh and glory for the flesh. And
I get worried about these folks. The glory is His. And we've got
guests and visitors here this morning, and some preacher says
every visitor is an honored guest. Not here, he's not. Christ is
the honored guest here. And you can join with us to worship
Christ if you want to, but you're not the ones who are going to
get the glory. I'd rather have Him than you. I'd rather Him
get the glory. He deserves it. He's worthy of
it. We're not going to share it with Him. If you're not willing
for Christ to have all the glory, you're not going to be in that
crowd in glory that gives Him all the glory. But this is our
glory, too. 1 Peter says that he testified
of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow
these sufferings. But it's going to be our glory,
too. For Hebrews 2, verse 10, says this. Listen to this. I
jotted this down. I must have wanted to read it.
It says, yeah, watch this. It says in Hebrews 2, verse 10,
It became him for whom are all things. and by whom are all things,
in bringing many sons to glory." He's going to bring us to glory,
for we shall see Him, and we shall be like Him, and we shall
be joint heirs of His glory. When all my labors and my trials
are over and I'm safe on that beautiful shore, just to be near
the dear Lord I adore, that'll be glory for me. People talk
about crowns in heaven. You won't be interested in things
like that. We won't be interested in things
like that. Who could be interested in a crown when they're looking
upon Christ? People talk about stars in their
crowns. I just don't think that we're
going to be interested in those things, and I think the only
thing that attracts them attracts us to them now is our perverted
sense of values. Just to be near the dear Lord
our door, that through the ages will be glory for me. When by
the gift of his infinite grace I am afforded in heaven a place
just to be there and to look on his face, that will be glory. That will be glory. Our Father,
bless this word which has been preached, O the value of our
eternal, immortal soul, and how important the salvation of our
soul. By Thy grace, through the sufferings
of Thy dear Son, unto the glory that shall follow, wean us from
this world. Speak to our hearts, both to
the young and to the old. Show us, as Solomon found out
so vividly, vanity of vanity, all is vanity. The things of
this earth shall melt and pass away with a fervent heat, but
they that do the will of God shall live forever. And this
is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth
the Son, and believeth on Him, might have everlasting life.
Make Christ in his glory uppermost in our hearts and our thoughts,
and let us seek him and study him, meditate upon him. Let us strive to know him, whom
to know is life eternal. Give us a thirst, an unquenchable
thirst for the living water. For it's in his name we pray, amen. Don, you come and lead us in
a closing hymn.