I invite your attention back
to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. We're looking at our studies
in Isaiah on Wednesday nights. We're in the 40th chapter. I
was reading that wonderful last part of that chapter where Isaiah
Actually, the Lord says to His people, Behold your God, and
sets forth the glories and the greatness and the majesty and
the sovereignty of God to a people who had been found in idolatry
and who are now about to go into captivity. And set forth the true and living
God to these people. And I thought of Paul here on
Mars Hill. And this place Areopagus is is
Mars Hill. It was a place where Mars, after
he had killed the God who had assaulted his daughter, was put
on trial by the twelve deities. And so it became this place where
men met to discuss and dispute philosophies. And there were
a number of them in Greece. He was in Athens Paul was, having
been run out of Thessalonica and having run out of Berea for
the gospel he was preaching, ended up in Greece waiting for
Silas and Timotheus to join him. Now Greece was by human, and
that is to say carnal standards, the be-all and end-all of all
enlightened and privileged society. The Greeks loved science. They prided themselves in the
pursuit of what they called truth. Their notion of seeking truth
was not in the arena of absolutes, however, but rather on the playing
field of the debate of religious philosophy. Philosophy is philo,
sophie, love of the truth. Everyone and everything and every
behavior and every god and every religion was accepted if a reasonable
argument could be made for its relevance in that society. I won't go into Greek philosophy.
I'll leave you to read Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and find
the debauchery in that thinking. But there was nothing that was
really wrong or immoral per se, unless it hurt somebody's feelings.
which also could be forgiven by the elite because hurting
someone's feelings revealed that that person was not fully yet
evolved to the higher plane of enlightened humanity. He'd get
there someday before he'd get hurt anybody's feelings. Their ignorance was excusable
and it weighed in further education. The elite believed that they
had the right notion of everything. And if anybody hadn't come to
that place yet, they just hadn't evolved to the higher plane. Our president, when Putin invaded
that country, made a statement on TV and I shook my head and
I said, he belongs in Athens. in century number one. The reason
was, he said, of these people that had taken their tanks and
their people into that country and laid siege on it. He said,
and this is what he said, well, don't they know we're in the
21st century? It's like, that has something
to do with it. Don't they know we're They're saying, we're enlightened,
I'm enlightened, and these people are just ignorant. They haven't
evolved to the place I have. I know that in the 21st century
we don't do that sort of thing. This was the idea and the notions
of the Greeks. There was an elite society, and
then there were the rest of the folks. And the rest of the folks
answered to the elite society. The prevailing wind of doctrine
was that everyone was seeking the truth in their own way, their
own truth, and they saw things in their own way, and that should
be accepted as the normal in life. This was the way it was
in Greece. But you see, human depravity
and self-deification, which we're all guilty of, of this Greek
society's division, make it so that being right only matters
if you agree with those voices that are counted as viable by
the intellectually elite. That's the only way you're really
right. Paul was run out of Thessalonica
for preaching the gospel and Maria for preaching the gospel.
And he was preaching in absolutes, not philosophical terms, he was
preaching in absolutes. And they didn't like what he
said. He preached about Jesus Christ who died and rose again
the third day and was ascended to the Father. And he alone was
the only salvation that God would give. And he alone was the true
and living God. And he wound up in Athens. And when he did, he stirred up
the Epicureans and the Stoics because the gospel was new to
them. But being a new thing, that was
the cat's pajamas to the elite that dwelt in Mars Hill and in
Athens. Demosthes wrote this. He was
one of the elite. He said, we, for the truth shall
be said, sit here doing nothing, inquiring at court whether anything
new is said. That was their life. waiting for something new to
come down the pipe. And sadly to say, the manure
of Areopagus smells pretty fresh in America today. There is a religious edifice
on every corner, a denomination to tickle everybody's fancy,
to satisfy every particular palate, a multiplicity of self-serving
avenues and self-saving avenues, Modes of worship designed to
validate the existence of each individual's idol in the pathetic
pantheon that is accepted according to the inclination of the moment,
the doctrine du jour. And remarkably, the irreligious
are the most religious of all. What Paul saw and what Paul felt
is what every believing preacher And every believer the truth
feels, when all around him he sees the world wholly given to
idolatry. Verse 16, it says, Now Paul waited
for them in Athens, and his spirit was stirred in him when he saw
the city wholly given to idolatry. The emotion that accompanies
this sight is one of exasperation. He was stirred. The original meaning of that
word stirred is he had acid reflux. Seriously. A little vomit came
up in his throat probably when he saw what was going on in Athens. Maybe that's why such forms of
philosophical prattle were called vomitoriums because they were
called that. Look it up in your dictionary.
They were called vomitoriums. They would call that for the
projectile hurling of the wise and famous were welcome there. And yet in all of this, Paul
never wavered. He never wavered when confronted
with such things. To him, it was an opportunity
to dialogue and to talk and to preach the gospel, to declare
the truth, the absolute God. And he did not dispute as if
the gospel was one of many philosophies that might be tolerated in this
crowd, or accepted, or rejected, but rather he reasoned with them
on the basis of one truth, which is found in verses 2 and 3 of
this chapter, Paul, as his manner was, that means this is what
he always did, as his manner was, went in unto them And three
Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening
and alleging that Christ's must needs have suffered and risen
again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto
you, is Christ. This is what his argument was.
It never changed. Paul said, I determined to know
nothing among you, said Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And
whoever met with Paul got the same dose of medicine every time.
With the Jews, he took hold of their scrolls and their targum,
and from them he preached Christ and the resurrection. Or with
the extreme religionists, the devout and the revered, as is
spoken of here, or even with the philosophers of Greek philosophy,
the philosophy of vanity, the truth-seeking, elite sponges
of everything, especially New Stuff, because New Stuff was
what really tripped their trigger, Paul preached the gospel. Plain and simple. That's what
he did. That was his manner. As was his manner. The Epicureans,
they believed that God had given life solely for the seeking of
carnal pleasure. And pleasure seeking was their
meritorious worship. They worshipped their God by
doing almost anything that come to their mind. Then there were
the Stoics. who believed that life was best
seen as something to be endured without emotion and passion,
a calm demeanor, and a fatalistic resignation to uncontrollable
events. That equated to worship with
them and was meritorious to them. And both of them got schoolgirl
silly when some new idea came down the pipe. What does this
man, what does this babbler have to say? Well, he's talking about
this Jesus and erection. Well, that's new. Let's head
up to Mars Hill and have some disputes and some philosophy
talks. We'll iron this thing out, see
how it pans out. See what this babbler says, see
if there's anything to it. This was first century society. Talkers and debaters all, seekers
of truth, lovers of science for science's sake. Sports. They loved sports aplenty. Tolerant
of all things. Lover of any new idea. Validators of Olympian immortals. Naked men running 24 miles. Made them happy. They ran from one place to another
place called Marathon, I think it was, and that's where it got
its name. They were so superstitious or
religious that though they were dedicated to their own philosophies,
they would never speak against anyone else's ideas, or at least
that's what they claim. That's what most people claim.
I have my idea. You can have your idea. You know,
I believe the world is flat, but if you believe it's round,
that's okay, but you're wrong. That's the general, listen to
people today as they debate their specific issues. They all have
their issues. Oh, well it's alright for you
to believe that if you don't do it, but you're dead wrong if I'm right. So don't
talk to me anymore about it. And if you say I'm wrong, you'll
hurt my feelings and I'll need a safe place. I'll need a safe
place to go hide because you've hurt my feelings. I'm sorry,
that just really grates on my nerves. These college kids looking
for safe places where nobody will say anything to hurt their
feelings. And I thought, 17, 18, 19-year-old
boys and girls going to college looking for a safe place. And
I thought of 1945 in June when 17, 18, 19-year-old boys strapped
on their M1 Garands and their backpacks and stepped off of
those ships into an ocean under German gunfire in places like
Omaha and Gold Beach to die. for an idea. So nationalist socialism
like there was in Germany wouldn't take over the world. So they'd
be free. In these college days, same age
kids today said, oh I need a safe place because somebody hurt my
people. Bad philosophy that. Bad philosophy. Paul preached the gospel. This
quasi-religiosity culminated in a heads-your-bit devotion
to everything. Verse 23 says, For as I passed
by and beheld your devotions, that is, your worship, I found
an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God, whom therefore
ye ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you. The gods they had invented
and made with their own power and artisanship. And on Mars
Hill they had erected an altar to every God known to man, so
nobody get their feelings hurt. And just in case there was a
God that they had missed, they built an altar to the unknown
God. And they had no idea how theologically
correct they were. For He is and remains today the
unknown God, unless He reveals Himself to you. He remains there. It's a true
description. As Paul looked out on the plethora
of deities, he drew their attention to this long icon, this singularly
nameless entity. and especially to the words that
were inscribed upon its monument. Paul was a man of words, you
see, setting forth truth, not in the cleverness of men's visual
perception, but words for the mind and the heart, words upon
which faith is founded. To the subscribers of this chiseled
inscription, Paul preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified. His
message was iconoclastic. It means it tore idols down.
They admittedly did not know Christ. They had even erected
an idol to their self-confessed ignorance. This was their worship,
their piety, visible righteousness is what they had. A thing erected,
built, carved, hewn that all might observe their piety and
their true devotion to all things deity. They're on display. But the problem is, true worship
is in spirit and in truth. False worship is visual, palpable,
and on display big time. The unknown God is the God of
glory, the true and living God, the immortal, the invisible,
the all-wise God, the only potentate, the only potentate. Paul describes
Him first in verse 24 as God that made the world. and all things
therein." God that made the world and all things therein. He's talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. For without Him not anything
was made that was made according to John chapter 1 verses 1 through
3. And all the world belongs to
Him according to Psalm 24 and all the fullness therein belongs
to Him because He's made it. It's His. And Paul says of this
God, He does not live in nor can He be contained in the temple
made with men's hands. The Lord said in Isaiah 66, Where
is the house that you'll build me? The heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool. Where are you going to build
me a house? People get all funny when they
come into a church building. They think God is there. I've seen some fine church buildings
in my time. I've been to the Westminster
Abbey. Gorgeous. Isaac Newton's buried
there. Because an apple fell on his
head. Isaac Newton is buried there. Great philosophers are
buried there. Great preachers are buried there. In the building. And those archways
and apses are gorgeous. They're breathtaking. God's not
there. That thing is in God, but God's
not in that thing. Not in that thing. Where is the
house? That's what Paul described in verse 24. And he is the Lord
of heaven, and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands. And I look at these impressive
mausoleums that men erect to house their God, and all the
asylums, all they are are asylums of demented, magnificent mansions,
housing denizens of delusions, of mediocrity, that God can't
do anything. Why build a house to Him? Why
build a monument to it? Why erect an altar to it? Paul,
in verse 25, rips from its scabbard the two-edged sword and lays
the honed edge to the root and the basis of all false worship. He says this, neither is he worshipped
with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing that
he giveth life, giveth to all life and breath, and all things. He utterly discounts their crippled
notion of worshiping God that needs them, a God that needs
them in order to exist. But that's the language of the
same day in which we live. Listen to the preachers of this
day. They believe the only God in this world is you acting on
His behalf. Because He can't really do anything
unless you let Him. The only feet God has is your
feet, and the only hands He has is yours. That's the language
I grew up with. And that's all right, except
for one thing. It's a damnable lie. It's simply not the truth.
There's no truth in it. God is in the heavens. He hath
done whatsoever He hath pleased. The word that Paul employs here
for worship is the source of our word, therapy. And reeks
of their God needing them to validate his existence and importance. Well, what can I say but that
the God of this day, he needs some sessions with a psychiatrist. Bless his heart, he's poor. And
he's hapless and depressed and feckless. He wants things but
can't get them. Wants things for you, but can't
get them for you? You've got to get them for yourself.
He's a sadly shackled thing, is what he is. Subject to the
whims of the Pismires and the Helots, which he supposedly created.
How sad is that? He can't do anything. He's a
do-nothing God. You say, well, you shouldn't
talk about people's God. I'll talk about them all I want
to, thank you. They're false. They're idols. If you're God,
it's not the God of salvation. It does as He pleases and saves
whom He pleases and damns who He pleases because He's God and
can. Then you're worshiping a false
God. You got yourself an idol. So go out in your backyard and
raise up a stone out there and carve his name on it, whoever
he is. But put a little G, don't put a big G on it because he's
a little G God. Poor God, bless his little old
heart. Oh, won't some wise, free-willing,
wriggling worm of the dust please slither down the church aisle
today? Might not some maggot writhe
off the dung heap and give God a go, and validate this sad,
downtrodden, diminutive, damnable deity that he is? The unknown God doesn't need
you, doesn't need your help. He don't need to be validated.
He's the one who validates. You see, right now, if you'll
take a breath and then try to take another
one before you exhale, you'll find you can't do it. see she from man whose breath
is in his nostrils, which means who can only take one breath
at a time, for where is he to be accounted of? That breath. Where did I get that? The unknown God gave me that.
And one day He won't give me no more. One day I'll draw my last. And
I've seen many people draw their last. Breathe out and never breathe
in again. And every time it's happened, and I've sat at the
bedside of a dying person, I thought, that's all he was given. And he breathed every one of
them. He giveth breath to all living
things. This is the God whom they didn't
know. The One that gave them breath
they didn't know. The unknown God doesn't need
you. He made all men and will dispense with them as He sees
fit. He makes out of one lump vessels of the honor and vessels
of the dishonor. And what if God, willing to show
His wrath, endured with long-suffering the vessels made to destruction,
so that He could show His glory in the vessels that He's made
to glory? The honors, the vessels of honor.
What if God does that? That question is not put in there
so you might come up with a philosophical answer. That question is put
there so you can say this, so you can understand this. You
don't have anything to say about it. If God does it, whatever
He does it, what are you going to say about it? I've heard preachers
actually say things like, well, we might have something to say
about it. You say all you want to. You're a stupid worm of the
dust. You have no say in God's business.
He does not give account of His matters. He gives you breath.
The next word that comes out of your mouth requires breath
to go through those vocal cords that He made to make a sound.
And the very words of your tongue are from Him. You won't even
be able to say another word. Not a word. If He don't give
you breath to say it. That's the unknown God. That's
the God that Paul preaches. The unknown God is absolutely
sovereign. absolutely sovereign. He exists
in his glory and he did so ere there was any creature to sing
his praises, much less validate his existence by whittling his
name on some rock or carving me out of a piece of wood stump. He's the unknown God. The unknown God put everybody
in the same pot. I am a eunuch. I ain't got no Indian blood in
me, not a lick. I have a number of Native Americans
here. I have a beautiful black woman
here, and I'm a white man. And we're all part of the same
stew. Verse 26, He hath made of one
blood all nations. Ain't no difference. Ain't no difference. You see, people talk about their
family tree and they got these limbs out here. Humanity's family
tree is a pole. has no limbs on it. There are
no branches on it. It's just a pole. That's the
tree. That's the tree. Predestinated
when they would live and when they would die. Where they would
live and where they would die. And they ain't going to live
or die anywhere else. Just there. You see, our heritage
is not national or tribal or sacred. Our heritage is dust,
dirt, that which we trot underfoot every day, look down, see your
brother, see your sister, reach down and pick up a handful of
him. That's our brothers and sisters. Say it loud, and I'm
dirt, and I'm proud. That's what it is. The unknown
God is your absolute sovereign. The designer, the maker, and
the manipulator of dust. Of dust. creation, providence, salvation. They all belong to Him. Explicitly. Verse 27, the unknown God, Paul
says they should seek the Lord. If happily they might feel after
Him, if happily they could find Him. And a man who seeks for
Him with all his heart will find Him. God said He would. Though
He be not far from every one of us. He's not on those stones. We leave Mars Hill and walk ten
miles away. We're ten miles from the gods. They're up yonder. Up there exalted
on Mars Hill. Areopagus. There's where they
are. We walked in. He said, God's not here any more
than He's anywhere else. He's everywhere. He's omnipresent. He's omnipresent. He doesn't
live in us. We live in Him. We exist in Him. Everything is in Him. That is what the Scripture says. Though he be not far from any
of us, for in him we live and move and have our existence,
have our being. He said even your Greek poets
talked about being children of God or offspring of God. God
made us, we didn't make ourselves. Paul was a pretty well-read fellow.
He read Greek poetry along with the Torah and all the Old Testament. We are his offspring. He says
you say we're offspring and then you go out and make a God out
of stone. Something's wrong with that. Something's wrong with
that thinking. You say you as flesh and blood
are God's offspring and then you go out and carve a rock and
say that's God. Are you a rock? Are you a stone? There's something wrong with
that kind of thinking. The God, the unknown God, we live and
move and have our being in Him. Paul here makes an allusion to
the fact that those who erected these stone gods, these helpless
inert gods, were inadvertently revealing something about themselves. You live and you breathe. You
say that God made you, but your gods don't live and breathe,
and they need your therapeutic assistance to exist. There's
something wrong with that kind of thinking. And there's something
really wrong, and I'm just saying flat out, there's something really
wrong for any man to get on his knees and pray for someone's
salvation who believes that God can't save them unless that person
lets him. Think about that. The men do
it all the time. I pray for my children. You know
why? Because I know God can save them, and only God can. If He
will, He will. And He might save one and not
save the other, and that's His business. I hope He saves them
both. I pray for them both. Pray for your children. Pray
for the children of the folks here at the congregation who
I've watched grow up since they're babies. Pray for them every day. Call their names out to heaven
every day. God, save them. Bring them to the knowledge of
Christ. God, help them. They can't help themselves. Pray
for them. Why? Because God can do something. that God couldn't save them unless
they let Him, or by their free will, exercise enough power to
give God power, I wouldn't pray for Him. You know who I'd pray
to? I'd go out begging to them. I'd find them. I'd say down to
my son Josh, Oh Josh, won't you let God save you? That's what
I'd say. Oh Josh, please exercise your
will and give God power. Do I say stupid things like that?
No, because He ain't God. But I do pray, God save my son,
like I said, God save my daughter, and He did gloriously save my
daughter. Holding out for Josh. If your God can't do anything
unless you live, if your God is like these stone altars out
here, don't pray to them. Pray to yourself, because you're
the ones that made them. You're the ones that put them
together. And then verse 30 says, or verse 28 says, we're in Him,
we live and move and however we're in Him, being over, covered
that. Verse 30 says, God put up with the times of this idolatry
for a long time. This is in the first century,
remember it. He said, at the times of this
ignorance, God winked at. They put up with it for a long
time. Put up with it for a long time. People walked in their
own delusions according to this Word. In Acts chapter 14 verse
16 it says, Who in times past suffered all nations, God suffered
all nations to walk in their own ways. But that's all changed
2,000 years ago when God burst open heaven and came down here
in a human form. was born of a woman, born under
the law, to redeem them and to run the law. It all changed.
Everything changed. In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, a babe
born in Jerusalem, God, Emmanuel, dwelt with us. And we beheld
His glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. This is the God of heaven who came. And everything
changed. Men might have let you stay in
your idolatry and me stay in my idolatry for a while, but
that's changed now. He suffered us to be what we
are for a while, but now He requires something of us. He demands something
of us. He commands us to do something. It says here in our text, But
now He commandeth all men to repent. To repent. Your mindset was tolerated, but
it's not tolerated anymore. This is not a decision you can
make, this is obedience or disobedience to command. When I was in the service, my
captain or my major or my colonel or my general said to me to do
something, I didn't say, well I'll decide whether I'm going
to do it or not. I'd have been in jail if I had, I'd have been
right in the hoose cow, right in the brig. Well, no decision
to be made. I've been commanded. By who?
By the Lord who made me. By the Lord who gives me breath.
By the Lord in whom I live and move and have my being. The Lord
who is not worshipped with men's hands, nor in temples made with
men. The Lord is omnipresent and all-powerful and the only
potentate in this universe. The Lord Jesus Christ commands
me to turn from my idols to serve the Living God. Repent! Change your mind radically. Radically. About what? About
everything. But mostly about who He is. And
what you think recommends you to Him. Because nothing you do
does. Nothing you do, recommends you to God. Well, how can I get that recommendation?
A fella called me the other day
for someone here in the church wanting a recommendation for
a job application. I gave him a glowing reputation. Told the
fella, you're crazy if you don't hire. A glowing reputation. I gave him a recommendation that
was unbelievable. I recommended that person to that boss. who
recommends me to God? Jesus Christ. That's it. That's
my recommendation. Nothing else. And what is that? Or rather, who it is that recommends
us to God? Well, I'll tell you what, it
ain't doodads that you wear around your neck or hang from your ears
or pictures that you put on your wall. It ain't temples. It ain't the work of your hands.
It ain't your validating God. It ain't your being God's therapist.
And it ain't you interviewing God for a job. The only thing
that recommends you to God is Jesus Christ and what He has
done for God on your behalf. What has He done? He's died the
death that you owe. I love you, Phyllis. paid the
debt off. He paid it all, all the debt
off. He died for God on your behalf. According to Scripture, he honored
God's justice and God's law by being a propitiatory sacrifice.
put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself. He justified His
people by His blood and His death. He imputed perfect righteousness
to their account, and the proof that He has accomplished the
redemption and salvation is that God has raised Him from the dead.
That's the proof of it. And He will judge all men on
this plumb line and this plumb line alone. There is a plummet
hung in Israel. That plumb line is Jesus Christ. That's the plumb line. And that's
your measure. Am I righteous before God? Yes,
if I have Christ's righteousness. If I don't, I'm not. Am I saved? Yes, if Christ has saved me.
If He hasn't, I'm not. If I participated, then as much
my salvation and much my glory as it is He. If I participated. God has raised Him from the dead.
And that's what he says in verse 31, Because he hath appointed
a day, when he will judge the world in righteousness by that
man whom he hath ordained, and whereof he hath given assurance,
or proved it unto all men, in that he raised him from the dead. Now, when folks hear the gospel,
they have one of two reactions. They bow to it or they reject
it. They obey or they disobey. And this is no different. You
say, well, Paul, boy, he could convert folks. Paul couldn't
convert nobody. We have this idea in this day
where somehow preachers that they don't say it. Preachers
of grace actually say it never happens. But you listen to them
sometimes and they talk like it really is somehow up to them. They want to go further than
what the Scripture says. They want to woo men and cajole. I don't see that in Scripture.
Now I want men to be saved, but I know who's going to be saved
and my message is for those who will be saved and that's the
elect. I know that. You know, like that fellow asked
Spurgeon one time, and one of his students says, well, what
if I get saved? What if I get somebody saved that's not a Lent?
Spurgeon said, well, God will forgive you. I know who the message is for.
It's for the sheep. The sheep will hear his voice. The goats
will never hear it. The goats will never hear it. I know this, when I preach the
gospel, these two things always take place. It's the saver of
life unto some, the saver of death unto others. For some,
the warmth of the message is like the sun, it melts the wax.
For others, it's like the clay. The message hardens their heart
to stone. But it always works. Verse 32, And when they heard
the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and others said, We'll hear this
again at this matter. We'll listen. I've got to think
about this. I'll hear you again. So Paul departed from among them.
Paul said, Now wait a minute, boy, I've got you pretty close.
I've almost got you down the aisle. I've almost got you up
front. I've almost got you where you
need to be, where you can confess Jesus Christ. I've almost got
you to the place of decision." Paul looked at him, having preached
Christ, and turned his back and walked away. That's what Christ
told His disciples. You go into a house, if they
receive you and hear you, put your blessings upon them. If
they won't hear you, turn around and walk out of the house and
shake the dust off your sandals. and keep walking. We don't cheapen
the gospel by trying to shove it down somebody's throat. If
you're interested in it, you will find Christ. If you want
Christ, and if you don't, nothing I do or anybody else can do can
ever make any difference in your life. None whatsoever. Some heard it and they mocked.
Others said, well, we'll hear you again. So Paul left. He must not be much of a soul
winner. He didn't stand around and browbeat them to death or
try to gang-sabe them. Howbeit, just as some mocked and some
would hear later, certain men claimed to it. Certain men. Chosen men. And they believed,
among whom also was Dionysius, who was from Areopagus. and a
woman named Damaris, and others with her. My name ain't in the Bible. It
is Timothy and James. Timothy's in there twice, but
not that way. These two folks are remembered
forever. Dionysius and Damaris. they heard the gospel that day.
They didn't do anything. God opened their ears and their
eyes. And then he wrote their names down for us to know. And there were some others also. The reason why we don't hang
around at the end of the sermon and sing four or five versions
of Just As I Am get treated, or try to make some kind of move,
or walk an aisle, or make a profession, or tell some sad plaintiff's
story, is that we have that in our hands,
which is the very power of God and the salvation to all who
believe. Why? Because the God behind it is all power. This is eternal life, that you
know Him, the true and living God. For to you He remains, the unknown
God. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.