Rest in prayer. Cynthia's going
in for a knee operation on Friday, so remember her. She's going
to have a total knee replacement on one leg. And so remember her
in your prayers and seek the Lord's help for them. The other
folks are mentioned here on the prayer list, so remember them.
Happy birthday to Eric Burt. He's him and his wife still in
Pennsylvania, I guess, with their mother. They should be headed
back this way once the weather gets cool enough. But remember
them in your prayers. Other than the fact that my cat
has had a psychotic break because I have a little hound dog puppy
outside the house. No great news, but if anybody
wants a hound dog puppy, he's a cutie. Huh? But he's a hound. But he is a hound, so
he ain't no inside dog. It's hound stink. Hound smell. They have a hound smell. Mama always told me and Billy,
we smell like goats. We'll begin our worship service
this morning with the handout, Complete in Thee. Complete in Thee, O work of mine,
Take, dear Lord, the place of Thine. Thy blood hath pardoned
naught for me, and I am now complete in Thee. Angels divine, O blessed
thought, and sanctified salvation wrought, Thy blood hath and glorified I too shall be. Complete in thee, no more shall
sin, thy grace hath conquered faith within. Thy voice shall
bid the tempter flee, and I shall stand complete in thee. Yea, justified, O blessed thought,
And sanctified, salvation wrought, Thy blood hath poured out for
me, And glorified I too shall be. ? Come plead in thee ? Each want
supplied ? And no good thing to me denied ? Since thou my
portion, Lord, will be ? I ask no more ? Come plead in thee
? Yea, justify ? And sanctified salvation wrought
? ? Thy blood hath poured unbowed for me ? ? And glorified I too
shall be ? ? Dear Savior, wind before thy bar ? ? All tribes
and tongues assemble ? O Son, will I be at Thy right
hand complete in Thee? Be justified, O blessed thought,
and sanctified, salvation wrought. Thy blood hath pardoned not for
me, and glorified. I think of old John Davis on
his banjo, playing that during conference years ago. That high-pitched tenor voice,
mountain voice of his was so sweet. After scripture and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 141. Turn with me to the prophet Isaiah,
if you will. verse twenty-five and i will
turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy draws and take
away all thy ten and i will restore thy judges at the first and thy
counselors at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the city
of righteousness the faithful city zion shall be redeemed with
judgment and her converts with righteousness. Let us pray. Our
Father in heaven, blessed creator, sustainer, consummator of all
things, who resides in a light where unto no man can approach,
yet you have bid your children, whom you've bought with the blood
of your dear son, to boldly come before you and speak from our
hearts You know what we ought to pray before we pray it. And
you know the words that are upon our tongue before we say them.
And all times our prayers are weak and frail. Sometimes we
can't even pray. We're so broken. But we know
the Spirit takes our infirmities and prays for us with groanings
that cannot be uttered. Father, we pray today for those
who are sick and going through trials. Remember our sister Cynthia,
she's getting ready for this operation. We pray you'd be with
the doctors. They minister to her. Pray for
a quick recovery for her. Pray for the others who requested
prayer. We ask Lord your help for them. You know every case.
We pray you'd minister them mercy and grace in this hour. Father,
we pray for ourselves this day that as we gather here, you might
cause us in our hearts to give praise and thanksgiving to Christ
for all he's done for us. And has indeed redeemed us by
his blood as he purged the dross from us. And we thank you, Father,
that this was the work of thine and not ours. We thank you that
we are complete in thee. have need of nothing, for the
work is finished, fully and completely, and all that remains is for us
to be told about it. We thank you, Father. Help us
this hour to worship you in spirit and in truth. Uplift your Son
in our midst, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Hymn number 141. Thank you. ? Look ye saints, the sight is
glorious ? ? See the man of sorrows now ? ? From the fight return
victorious ? ? Every knee to him shall bow ? ? Crown him,
crown him ? ? Crowns become the victors ? ? Crown the Savior, angels crown
Him ? Rich the trophies Jesus brings ? In the seat of iron
throne Him ? While the vault of heaven rings ? Crown Him,
crown Him, crown the Savior of kings. Sinners in derision crowned
him, mocking lust, the Savior's claim. Saints and angels crowd
around him, on his title raise his name. crown him, crown him,
spread abroad the victor's frame. Hark, those bursts of acclamation. Hark, the loud triumphant chords
Jesus takes crown him, crown him, king of
kings and lord of lords. Oh, I love that old anthem. Malcolm,
you and Steve receive the offering, please. Let us pray. Father, again we
approach in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and
our King, the victor who indeed is crowned victorious for on
the cross of Calvary he defeated all the foes and bruised the
serpent's head and won the victory and the salvation
of all his people. He sits now enthroned in glory,
having accomplished the work that he came to do, waiting till
the day when all his enemies are made his footstool, and they
will sing with a loud and unified voice that he is Lord to the
glory of the Father. We thank you, Father, that in
him you have given us all things. And as we turn unto thee that
which you've given us, let us do so with joy and thanksgiving. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. you you write your attention back to
Isaiah, the first chapter. Isaiah ministered at the same
time as Jeremiah and Amos, ministered in a nation that was
full of idolatry, and set forth the glories of
Jesus Christ on every page of this grand and glorious gospel
according to Isaiah. This first chapter is a clear
and precise declaration of the salvation of God's chosen people,
His elect. There is hardly a facet of salvation
that is not covered in this passage of Scripture. The singular truth that stands
out in this passage is that salvation belongs to God. it is his salvation. Salvation
is of the Lord. It is clear from the first part
of this chapter that the kind of people God saves, the kind
of people that make up the elect, are wicked and vile creatures
by nature. They are described in verses
two through eight, and the description is not pleasing. The elect of God are not moral
icons and good people. The elect of God are the worst
of humanity, the offscouring of the universe. They are the very definition
of utter depravity. The absolute surety of their
salvation has never been in question. But God says in verse 9 that
He left a very small remnant And had he not left that remnant,
they would have all been as Sodom and as Gomorrah. Religion without Christ is completely
useless, and God does not employ it in the salvation of the elect.
makes that clear verses 10 through 15 these are very religious people
praying people people days holy days and all those things offer
oblations to God sacrifices to God in the name of God and he
says I'm sick of the whole mess away with it I'm weary he said
in fact I'm so sick of it when you raise up your hands to pray
for me I'm not gonna hear you I'll turn my face from you. It is impossible for anyone,
even the elect, to save themselves. When our Lord said, Wash you
and make you clean in Job 16, or rather in verses 16 and 17,
anybody who knows anything about their sin knows that that's not
going to ever work, even under the old covenant. Washing and
cleansing and baptisms as such is mentioned in Hebrews chapter
6. They avail nothing In fact, Job said, I can wash myself in
snow water, which is the purest water you get, I reckon. I'll
wash myself in snow water and make my clothes ever so clean,
you shall plunge me in the ditch and show me how filthy I am.
God mercifully promises this salvation to all who come to
him. In verse 18, he says, Come, let us reason together. let us
reason together. And what is the basis for the
reasoning? What do we reason about? Should we come before
God and reason about our goodness? Should we come before God and
reason about our works? Should we come before God and
reason about what we do in church and all the things we do in our
prayer life and our Bible reading? Shall we come? He says, here's
the basis of our reasoning together with God. My sins are as scarlet,
my sins are as crimson, and my only hope is that God will make
them white as snow and white as wool. That's my only hope. This is the argument that I have
before God. This is what I can declare before God that is true
and unchangeable. I am a sinner without hope and
without help in this world, and there's nothing in me or about
me that can ever change anything about that. That's my argument.
That's all I've got. I don't have anything else. If
you and I are ever saved, if you and I are brought into a
saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ, It will be the work of
God alone, and He alone will get all the glory for doing it.
In verse 25, in the verses that
follow, our Lord lays out for us the
manner of this salvation. He says in verse 25, And I will
turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy draughts, and
take away all thy tin. And I will restore thy judges
as at the first, and thy counselors at the beginning. Afterward thou
shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall
be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. This is the salvation that God
declares. This salvation is by divine resolve. God says, I will. I will. The text does not speak of man's
resolution to turn to God, but in God's resolve to turn his
hand of mercy upon his elect. This is God speaking. The ones
spoken of and spoken to are God's elect remnant according to the
election of grace, and the thing being described is salvation. "'I will purperge thee of all
thy draws.'" That's quite a statement. Salvation comes to the elect
by God's will. That's made clear in Romans 9.
when he says, It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Therefore let him have
mercy on whom he will, and mercy on whom he will he hardeneth. Though election alone is not
salvation, there is no salvation apart from God's electing grace. This is what Isaiah declared
in verse 9. He said, Except there had been
a remnant except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small
remnant. We should have all been as Sodom
and we should have been as Gomorrah, cities of perversion that were
destroyed from heaven by a rain of fire. He said what we deserved
was what Sodom and Gomorrah got, but God left us a very small
remnant. What is a remnant? It's a scrap.
That's what you and I are. We're scraps of humanity. We're
not the best of the bunch. We're not the leaders of the
flock. We're discounted on every hand. They don't care anything
about us. We don't matter in this world.
We don't have any influence. I know that people think they're
influencers. This day, they get on the Facebook and they become
an influencer, an internet influencer. To me, that's just a laughable
thing. And I do laugh at most of the things they influence
about. We're not anything, we're a remnant. Bill Carver used to
have a cloth shop, a remnant shop. He never bought anything
whole. He'd go to these cloth manufacturers
when they would run off extra stuff, because they always did
when they run off a little roll of a certain print, they'd run
off extra stuff and cut that off just in case there was some
flaws in the cloth. He'd buy that extra stuff. A guy could sell a, pocket watch
to a nudist. I swear, he was really good.
I remember one time I bought a
little old Mustang from him for $1,100 and years later I was
kind of hard up for cash and so I sold it back to him for
$1,100. He drove down south to some mill, traded that Mustang
in for $2,000. 18-wheel truckloads of cloth
worth $50,000. What is he selling? He wasn't
selling fine stuff. He wasn't selling Gucci bags. He was selling remnants. That's
what you and I are. If God, the Lord of Hosts, not
left a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and
Gomorrah. He did that because he chose a chosen remnant. The
old poet said, "'Tis not that I did choose thee, for, Lord,
that could not be. My heart would still refuse thee
had thou not chosen me. My heart owns none before thee,
for thy rich grace I thirst, for this I knowing. If I love
thee, thou must have loved me first.'" Salvation is not by
the will of man. Salvation is by the will of God.
I will purge. I will turn my hand upon you.
Salvation is not by the works of man, it's the work of God.
Salvation does not begin with man turning to God, it's God
turning himself to man. Salvation begins with the will
of God. The divine resolve. I will. I say that a lot, and don't get
it done. But when God says I will, You
can count on it. It's going to get done. Salvation
is accomplished by the hand of God Almighty's irresistible grace. I will turn my hand upon thee. Not the hand of affliction and
chastisement, not the hand of vengeance and wrath, but the
hand of efficacious grace. And that is all in the light
of the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to
Zechariah chapter 13. Zechariah 13, it speaks of that
thing that happened on Calvary's tree when the Lord was made to
be sin for us. He knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. When the Lord was
made sin, God poured out His wrath on Him. God poured out
a punishment. The only man to ever suffer the
wrath of God in the history of humanity was God's dear son.
He suffered the wrath of God. In the Psalms he says, I am consumed
with the blow of thy hand. Our Lord and Savior suffered
for our sins because of our sins. And this is the language that
is employed to describe that in Zechariah chapter 13. In verse
7 it says, Awake, O sword! That's the sword of justice.
It's never been out of the scabbard but once. But on that day, 2,000
years ago, on a lonely tree outside Jerusalem, that sword was unleashed. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
and against the man that is my fellow, my friend. Like me, the
same interest, the same thoughts, one with me. Awake, O sword. against my shepherd and against
the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts, smite the
shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I'll turn my
hand upon the little ones. That's how it happened. It didn't
happen. It didn't happen until God satisfied
his own justice by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, then
he turned his hands on the little ones. That's us. That's us. His mighty hand of
salvation. Wretched, depraved sinners are
converted and turned to God when He turns His hand upon them.
You will be converted. You will come to Christ when
He turns His almighty hand upon you. Scripture says He plucks
the elect as brands from the burning, as firebrands from the
burning. He snatches His redeemed ones
from the power of Satan, the overpowering Satan for them.
He turns the heart of His beloved people to Himself. He turns the
heart of the people. When God turns His hand upon
a sinner, He strips him. He strips him. He breaks him.
Breaks him down. He changes him. Makes him different. He restores him. That's the language
used here. I will restore, he said. I will
restore. I think of David as he came back
from the Philistines and says, David recovered all. David recovered
all. Salvation of God's elect is a
personal salvation. It's not a traditional salvation
like the Romanists and the reformers practice that begins with a child
being christened. Somewhere along the line of the
lifespan of the child of God, the one whom God has chosen from
all eternity, God will interrupt that career personally one-on-one. He will cross that sinner's path
where his point of most rebellion and he will stop him there. and
he will deal with them. I will turn my hand, he says,
upon thee. Upon thee. The objects, the trophies
of God's saving resolve and purpose and purchase and power are all
the same. God turns his hand upon you to
save you. It is because he has always loved you. He has loved you from all eternity,
chose you in a lecture, redeemed you by the blood of His dear
Son. Salvation began with God's divine resolve. Somewhere, a
long time ago, before there was time, God said, I will turn my
hand upon you. Our sins must be punished. Justice
must be satisfied. Righteousness must be honored.
The salvation of the leg requires a divine redemption. A divine redemption. and you
don't have anything to do with that. Religion believes you does,
and you do, but you don't. I remember seeing a movie many
years ago called Dead Man Walking, and a lady played a nun in that,
and she told the man who was trying to get forgiveness for
what he had done. He'd murdered a lot of people,
and he's gonna be put to death in an electric chair or a gas
chamber or something. she says you'll have to work
out your own redemption. You're going to have to be involved
in this. No. You're not involved in redemption
at all. Redemption is a mercantile term. Somebody's being bought
with a price and you don't have the price. You don't have the
legal tender to do it. A man who's a rich man, according
to Psalms, cannot justify his brother. Only the blood of Jesus
Christ is the price that God required, the death that we owe
God for sin. Salvation of the elect requires
divine intervention and divine redemption. Before a holy and
just God can save a fallen man, a guilty sinner, that sinner's
sins must be purged. I will turn my hand upon thee
and purely purge away thy sins. Romanist dogma says that there's
this thing called purgatory. And if you die in your sin, if
your relatives have enough money to pay the church, you can you get out of what they
call purgatory and your sins will be purged in purgatory.
That's what that means. If enough money is paid to get
you out of there and then you'll finally go to heaven. Purgatory
happened 2,000 years ago on Calvary Street. He said, I will purge
away thy dross according to pureness and according
to righteousness. Our Lord's redemptive work is
prophesied in this matter over in Malachi chapter 3 when it
talks about the angel of the covenant suddenly coming into
the temple. We know the angel of the covenant
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He said in verse chapter 3 of
Malachi, Behold, I send my messenger, that's John the Baptist, and
he shall prepare the way before me. The Lord whom ye seek shall
suddenly come into his temple. It was sudden. The shepherds
were out in their field by night sometime in October, right before
the rainy season of marsh javan and they were out there taking
care of the sheep and all of a sudden this bright light came
from heaven because not far from there in the city of David, a
little town called Bethlehem, there was a baby born and heaven
lit up The angel sang glory to God in the highest and peace
on earth and goodwill toward men or toward men of goodwill. Why did that happen? It happened because the angel
of God had suddenly, suddenly come into the temple. The messenger
of the covenant he's called, the covenant of grace. whom you
delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord. But who
shall abide the day of his coming? Because he's coming to do something.
He's just not coming as a martyr. He's not coming as an example.
He's coming to accomplish something. He's coming to make something
happen. And who shall stand in his appearance? Because he shall
be like a refiner's fire. Now we're talking. Something's
going to happen. Those people who he came for
are going to be refined. What does that mean? That's a
term, a metallurgical term. It means to smelt a certain metal
until it's smelted and then it can be changed into something
else. A refiner's firing a fuller soap.
Oh, so he's not only going to change them, he's going to cleanse
them. A fuller soap was a person who bleached cloth. made it white
as snow. That's what the fuller was. He
shall sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver and he shall purify
the sons of Levi. Who are the sons of Levi? The
priesthood. Who is the priesthood? The church of the living God.
A royal priesthood, a holy priesthood according to 1 Peter. And purge
them as gold and silver so they can offer unto the Lord an offering
in righteousness. He's gonna do that. That's what
he came to do. The process is a refining process.
You know what it is. I've said it before. They smelt
that gold. They smelt that silver. And when
it starts to bubble, it starts to boil in the smelting pot,
the dross comes to the top. And it shivers. It shivers under
that dross. And that dross is scraped off
the top. And then you have a mirrored finish. And that's the picture
of refinery. Our Lord Jesus Christ refines us as gold. He purges
us of our dross and it's a trembling thing to be purged of your dross.
It'll shake you up, it'll strip you down. That dross comes to
the top and the Lord Jesus Christ scrapes it off and he looks in
it and he sees his own face. Goes just like a mirrored finish. That's how salvation works. A wondrous thing. Salvation of the elect is personal. I will turn my hand upon thee
and purely purge away thy draws. The marginal reading is there
that I will purge away thy draws according to pureness, according
to righteousness. So it has to be a righteous act
for God to save us. God has to declare himself to
be righteous and he did according to Romans chapter 3. He actually
declared his righteousness in the salvation of sinners. The
ones who had just before that, in fact, said all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Those people, those people
were under the law and found guilty because they were under
the law. He said, I will purge them of their dross. I'll purge
them purely of their dross and I'll declare that the salvation
of my people, those wretched and vile sinners, was the right
thing to do. I will declare my righteousness,
he said, that he might be just and justify them to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Dross is our iniquity. It was that song we sing, how firm
a foundation thou dross'd to consume thy gold to refine it.
Our transgression is our sin. Before God can be just to save
any man, his sins must be purged away. Purging sin is no small
thing. All the sacrifices and ceremonies
of the law could not put away one sin. Could not put away one
sin. That's what it says in Hebrews
all the way through the book of Hebrews, especially in Hebrews
chapter 10. All the bloods of bulls and goats
and heifers. of turtle doves, all the blood
shed from the day Cain's first sacrifice, or Abel's first sacrifice
was made until the end of time, until our Lord showed up. No
sacrifice ever put away a sin. It pictured sin being put away
by the Lord Jesus Christ. No work performed by man can
purge away sin. It can't undo our situation.
No amount of suffering which men endure can purge away sin.
The Lord Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, has completely purged
away all the sins of His elect by His death as a sinner's substitute.
He's put them away. It says in Hebrews chapter 1,
after describing the glory of Christ as the effulgence of God,
upholding all things by the word of the power, it says, when,
oh wait a minute, that means sometime, somewhere, sometime,
when He had purged our sins, had purged our sins, He sat down
on the right hand of the Father. Our sins were wondrously charged
to Him when He was made to be sin for us. Now, I've heard many
men try to explain that, and I've tried my best, and I've
stopped trying to explain that. After 46 years of preaching the
gospel, I can honestly say I can't explain it. It's too big for
me, too wondrous. It's too mighty an ocean for
me to cast my tiny little bark upon. he was made sin for us charged
him with our sins our sins were made to meet on jesus christ
it says in hebrew chapter i mean excuse me isaiah chapter fifty
three and when our sins were upon him according to jeremiah
he laid stripes on our iniquity With Christ's stripes we are
healed, and those are the stripes. Our sins were punished in Him,
and His death satisfied the law for us. Cursed is everyone who
is under the law. Jesus Christ was made a curse
for us. A curse for us. Our sins were
put away by Him. That's the language of Scripture.
Sins are put away. That's the language of scripture.
I know I'm a sinner, but before God Almighty, whose eyes are
too pure to behold evil, my sins are as far from me as the east
is from the west. They are behind God's back. They've
been put away. They've been put away. This is
the divine redemption, the redemption that works and has worked. This
salvation results in divine regeneration. The work of Christ's finished
redemption, there's no doubt about that. He actually paid
the price and bought the properties and owns the properties that
He has purchased. God in His mercy ordained a way
in which His elect would be made aware of it. What a wondrous
thing. He could have done this, and
I say that foolishly as a human being, using human language. God couldn't have done anything
except what He did. to try to make a point. He could
have done all this without ever telling us about it. Couldn't
he? Couldn't we? He just woke up
one morning there in glory and he said, well, you know, I redeemed
you 2,000 years ago. I redeemed you by blood and pain. Oh, you sinned this and you're
okay. He could have done that. I know he figured out a way to
tell us about it. To tell us. preaching of the
gospel, the Holy Spirit takes that Word of God and shows us
what God has done for us. That's what it says in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. It says the Holy Ghost has given
us, the Spirit of God has given us, He searches all the things
of God, yea, the deep things of God, so we might know. He's given us so we might know
what God has freely given us. That's what the preaching of
the gospel does if it's done right. Before any sinner can
see and enter into the kingdom of heaven, he must be born again
by divine regeneration. In redemption, Christ purged
our sins away, blotted them out by the book of God's law. He
purged our record from the court of heaven. In regeneration and
diversion, he causes his elect to know that they have been redeemed,
justified, sanctified by writing in their hearts and minds through
the declaration of the gospel. In regeneration, the conscience
of sin is removed." The conscience of sin is removed, not the consciousness. forget we're sinners, we will
not forget when we're in glory. For our song of heaven will be
worthy as the lamb that was slain that has redeemed us by his blood
out of every kindred, nation, tongue, and people. That's what
we know. But He's purged our conscience
from dead work. What are those dead works? Trying
to please God by the law. Read Romans chapter 9. Not Romans,
Hebrews chapter 9. purged our conscience. We have
no more conscience of sin. What does that mean? If by God's
grace He has saved us, He has given us a clear conscience.
Now, it's not always clear because we don't always look to Christ.
But when we're looking in Him, our conscience is absolutely
free because there's no grounds upon which a conscience can ever
accuse us. If we have no sin, you see, and
we know we have no sin because of the work of Christ. Conscience
has no place in our life. That's why it says, remove the
conscience, Hebrews chapter 10, remove the conscience of our
sin. The guilt of sin is purged away.
Gil said all iniquity is caused to pass from them. They are clothed
with a change of raiment, the righteousness of Christ by which
they are justified from all things and are pure and spotless and
without fault before the throne, unreprovable in his sight, Scripture
says. This word tin back in our text
means dross, same word. It also means a plumb line or
a plummet. Now plumb line in Scripture is
used to speak of righteousness. that this part of the passage
teaches us that in regeneration our Lord by the Spirit purges
us of our righteousness. Tin is shiny. The old Puritans
used to call our self-righteous sins Splendida Beccata, splendid
shining sins. We must be stripped of our righteousness. Isaiah said, Our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. Paul said, I will be found in
him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, for the
righteousness which is the face of the Son of God. No man will
ever be saved until he gives up all hope in his own righteousness. And no one will ever give up
his own righteousness until his sin is purged and he is born
again by the will of God. our righteousness is what keeps
us from Christ. If you ever find out you're a sinner,
you'll come to Him. But as long as you hold on to
a personal righteousness, you will never come to Him. You never
will. And God saves the sinner. There
is a divine restoration in verse 26 and 27 of our text. It says,
I will restore thy judges as at the first. And our counselors,
as at the beginning and afterward thou shalt be called the city
of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed
with judgment and her converts with righteousness. God will
restore his elect to righteousness and faithfulness because he's
redeemed them with justice and righteousness. This is salvation. This is what salvation is. God says, I will turn my hand
upon thee, and purely purge away thy draughts, take away thy tin,
and I will restore thy judges as the first, and thy counselors
as the beginning, and afterward thou shalt be called the city
of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed
with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. That's the
salvation that God has wrought for his people. Father, bless
us to understand you, we pray in Christ's name. Take that bread out of the oven.