Episode Transcript
Good morning.
The ten o'clock hour is upon us.
We can get our unruly students in line here.
They're excited to see each other, and I'm glad.
I like seeing that.
We begin today in 2 Kings chapter 22, and we're thankful for everybody who's here: members, visitors, people who've tuned in online.
For the last two lessons, we've studied about what a prophetess named Huldah told the messengers of King Josiah.
Which included the priest Hilk.
Now, if you haven't been with us, or if it's been a few Sundays, you might be a little bit lost.
So, you can always go back on Facebook.
And listen to these messages.
Every one of them are recorded in order.
And we teach verse by verse, so you won't miss anything if you'll go back and review those lessons.
But the message this prophetess gave the messengers of Josiah was not a comforting message.
It was one of judgment and wrath.
And the pouring out of that judgment upon Judah, as we learned, was a sure thing.
And now we come to the next part of her message from God.
And it's found in verse 18.
We are in 2 Kings 22, verse 18.
But to the king of Judah, which sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall ye say to him.
Now, without reading anything after this, we know that one of two things is about to happen.
Because the word but signals a cont in what was spoken before the word but.
So if the words spoken before the word but were pleasant words, then the words spoken after but may not be.
Genesis chapter 4, verses 4 through 5.
Genesis chapter 4, verses 4 through 5 as an example of this.
And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof and the LORD had respect unto Abel and his offering.
So there's good news.
But unto Cain and his offering he had not res.
And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
So the bad news came after the word but.
You had good news, God accepted, he respected Abel's offering.
Then you had but, and the bad news, he did not res Cain's offering.
So it was great news to Abel and to us, by the way, that God accepted the blood sacrifice that he offered.
Because that showed Abel, it showed everyone after that, the way you come to God is through the blood.
But it was terrible news to Cain and to those who believe, like he does, that God did not have respect.
To that offering.
That means he rejected it.
And what did the word but hinge upon in that passage?
It hinged upon the fact that Abel obeyed God and Cain didn't.
That's what it was all about.
It was the same news.
There's an offering.
But obedience was the difference.
So if the words spoken before the word but are un words, Then the words spoken after the word, but may be pleasant words.
We're going to look at all these options here.
This is fun to me, and I think it's instructive for us, too.
1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 9.
1 Thessalonians 5, verse 9.
If you're taking notes, and I do encourage you to do that.
For God hath not appointed us to wrath.
Now that's great news, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what that is?
That's better news.
So we have good news, and then we have better news after the word but.
So that's another possibility when you have the word but is that the The words spoken after that are even better than the ones spoken before the word, but Josiah sent his messengers to this prophetess.
Saying, Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us.
And knowing that you are appointed to wrath is terrible news.
Those who are saved are not appointed to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
So knowing you are saved is great news, and that's what the gospel is.
It's the great news, isn't it?
So we've looked at how the conjunction, but, and that's the part of speech that the word is, but, it's a conjunction.
And if you need to go watch School Rock and Sing that and singing that song, Conjunction, Junction, What's Your Function?
Yeah, hooking up words and phrases and clauses.
Isn't that right, Brother Doug?
Yeah.
But we saw how it can lead from good news to bad news, from bad news to good news.
And now we're going to look at how, again, it can lead from good news to better news in Matthew chapter 3, verse 11.
Matthew 3, verse 11.
And in this passage, John the Baptist was baptizing converts in the Jordan River.
He was dunking them under the water and bringing them back up.
And he said in that passage, I indeed baptize you with water under repentance.
Now, that's wonderful.
That's a great thing he was doing.
That's not bad news at all.
He said, But he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
Now that's better.
What John was doing was a good thing.
It was wonderful that people were believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the salvation that he would bring them because he had not gone to the cross yet in John the Baptist day.
But after that word, but John gave even better news.
I'm baptizing the converts, but there's one who's going to baptize them not with water, but with the Holy Ghost and fire.
And not the way Benny Henn does it, by the way.
That's not baptizing with the Holy Ghost and fire.
That's just another charlatan trying to put on a show for people and misleading them.
But the better news is that Jesus would come after him, and that Jesus was mightier than he was.
That Jesus was far more worthy than he was, and that he would baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire, which John him couldn't do, by the way.
And I'm going to tell you: if John the Baptist couldn't do it, Benny Henn sure can't do it.
From good news to better news, and now the third example.
Of the use of the word but is when bad news comes first, then you have the word but And then you have worse news after that.
None of that's fun.
Nothing on either side of the word butt is pleasant news.
But in Psalm chapter 31, we see that David, King David, has written about himself, and as he often did in the Psalms.
When he wrote about himself, he was also writing about the Lord Jesus Christ, who was to come hundreds of years later and after David came.
And he wrote in verse 11, this is Psalm 31:11, I was a reproach among all mine enemies.
Now that's terrible news, isn't it?
But especially among my neighbors, and of fear to mine acquaintance, they that did see me without fled from me.
So the bad news in that verse is that David was a reproach.
That means he was scorned.
He was shameful.
In the sight of his enemies.
That was the bad news that came before the word, but.
The worst news came after because he said, but especially among my neighbors.
And a fear to mine acquaintances.
You know it's bad enough that your enemies hate you, but it's worse when your neighbors and your acquaintances do.
The Psalm also pictured Jesus, who was hated by the Gentile world.
Those were the enemies.
But he was a reproach among his brethren, the Jews, which was even worse than being hated by the Gentiles.
From good news to bad news, from bad news to good news, from bad news to worse news.
And now we see How the word but can come between bad news and not so bad news.
Jesus taught a parable in Luke chapter 12.
And I'll use part of that parable to demonstrate this use of the word but.
You didn't know there was so much to learn about the word but, did you?
Luke chapter 12, verses 4 through 48 A.
Luke 12: through 48, and put a lowercase letter A.
And just if you're not familiar with that, we do that to let you know we're not quoting that whole verse, we're quoting the first part of it.
And if I said 48b, then that means I'm quoting the second part of it, which may be the second half or the middle part.
And here's what was written in this parable Jesus taught.
And that servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself.
Neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes.
Now that's bad news, isn't it?
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.
Now that's not good news, but it's not as bad as the bad news that was before the word but.
That servant gets beaten with many stripes.
Now I'm not going to teach the parable, but I wanted to show you the difference there.
So, knowing you'll be beaten with stripes is bad news, with many stripes.
Knowing you'll be beaten, but not with as many stripes as the guy before you, that's bad news, but it's not as bad.
We wouldn't call it pleasant news, but it could be worse.
Now, in our text in 2 Kings 22, what Hol the prophetess said before the word but was bad news.
And therefore, knowing these principles of the use of the word but, we can pres that after that After those words, which is what the message to the king was going to be, the words will either be worse or better or just not so bad.
Let's look at it.
She said, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, as touching the words which thou hast heard.
So we know one thing: this message to the king, this message this prophet is said to give to the king, and it's from the Lord.
Was about the words that he read from the book of the law that was found in the house of the Lord.
And we've studied that for several weeks now.
So the words the king would hear were not going to be some kind of mystery out of nowhere.
But it was going to be a direct response to what Josiah heard and what he read.
From the book of the law, the Bible is what they had in those days, that much of the Bible.
And here is that message concerning Josiah himself.
Verse 19 because thine heart was tender.
All right.
So, what we are about to learn here is that the applic of the truth of God's Word.
Involves the king's inner man.
It says, because thy heart was tender.
It's not talking about the organ, the size of your fist that's tucked away behind your sternum and your ribs.
It's talking about your inner man.
Your spirit, and so the response from God Was going to be part based upon the condition of the king's heart because it was tender.
And that word tender means soft.
That's not so strange, is it?
And I'm sure there were people then and now who would mo such a king.
Saying, well, he's soft-hearted and weak.
And only when we see what comes after this phrase.
Are we going to understand why it's good to be tender the way Josiah was?
Job chapter 23 verses 13 through 16.
Job that's J-O-B like Job, but we say Job 2 Verses 13 through 16.
Speaking of God, Job writes this: But he is in one mind, and who can turn him?
And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.
For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with him.
Therefore am I troubled at his presence when I consider I am afraid of him.
For God maketh my heart soft.
There's your word tender right there.
And the Almighty trouble me.
If your heart is soft toward God, then it's tender toward God.
And if your heart's tender toward God, that means your heart is not hardened toward God.
That's very important for us to know.
Josiah's heart was tender.
God's word troubled him.
They didn't anger him.
They troubled him.
And Josiah believed them.
He didn't harden his heart toward them like most of the kings of Israel and Judah had done.
In fact, like most of the children of Israel and most of the priests of Israel had done.
And look back in the text there in verse 19, because thine heart was tender, and it further says, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord.
Now that's the result of a tender heart.
If your heart is hard toward the Lord and toward his word, And you're going to find out that it's easier than you might imagine to have a hard heart toward the Lord.
If your heart is hard toward the Lord, it will not be humble toward the Lord.
And we've studied at great length this word humbled in prior studies.
But let's touch on it again.
To be humbled is to be subdued or to be brought low.
In fact, one of the ways that God taught his people to be humble was when they were on the other end of his punishment.
In Leviticus chapter 26, God details what would happen to the children of Israel if they disobeyed him.
And I'll read a portion of that.
It's in Leviticus 26, verses 39 through 42.
Leviticus 2, verses 39 through 4, where it says And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands.
And also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they have trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary to me.
And that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies.
Listen to this.
If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, And they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land.
The children of Israel, as we've studied just in the book of 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, where we are now, we've made that one continuous study over the last Few years.
We've seen enough times where the children of Israel forsook the Lord.
It's almost like a broken record in your head.
And when they forsook God, as they did in our text in 2 Kings, God often brought them into the land of their enemies.
And even when they confessed their iniquities and their trespasses against the Lord, even when they admitted walking contrary to the Lord.
That wasn't an immediate ticket out of punishment.
Now, you know, there are people who think that it is.
They'll be in dire circumstances that they brought about by their own sorry living.
And they'll think, well, I'll just ask God to get me out of this.
And they'll say, Lord, please help me to get debt free.
And they expect that tomorrow they'll be debt-free.
Lord, please help me to get out of jail.
No, you don't get to get out of jail immediately.
You may have to sit there a while.
And so they have this notion that as long as, no matter how deep they get, if they just confess to God, God will get them out of all the consequences.
And that's not true.
Because he didn't do that with the children of Israel.
He required their uncircumcised hearts to be humbled.
Which meant they would accept the punishment of their iniquity.
That's exactly what it said in that passage I read you from, Leviticus.
Here's an example.
Most parents have a rule.
That their children are not to leave their property without permission.
And that is a very reasonable rule.
It's for their safety.
Now remember, their brains aren't fully developed, so they don't embrace that.
They just have to tell them to do it and say, This is This is for your safety, but if that doesn't work because I said so, that ought to be good enough.
But most parents have that rule.
And let's say a child and his friends are playing.
Football in the backyard, and they decide there's a better football field several blocks away from the house.
It's a bigger field.
It's got smoother grass, and so they just decide, well, we're just going to go down there.
And they don't ask the parents' permission to leave the property.
And before long, the parents began looking for their child, saying, Have you seen him?
They were out here playing football, and I don't see him anywhere.
And they begin to get worried.
So they check with the neighbors and call the other parents, and nobody's seen their child.
And now their worry turns to fear.
And they begin to fear the worst, afraid maybe their child has been taken.
So they call the police.
And a manhunt's conducted, and the children are found.
And the parents are so glad to see their little child is safe.
So they hold him tightly and take him home.
But for the child, there's still a price to pay for disobeying his parents.
For leaving the property without permission.
As much as they love him and as glad as they are to see him, he's got to pay the penalty.
And that child may say, But, Dad, I thought you were glad to see me.
Why are you punishing me?
The dad tells the son, Yes, I I love you, son, and that's why you will still be punished, because I love you.
And as painful as it may be, a humble child, and most ain't, by the way.
But a humble child will accept that he's done wrong and that he has to accept the punishment of his iniquity.
And that's what God wanted the children of Israel to do.
Is to accept the punish to humble their hearts and to accept the punishment of their iniquity.
And some people think, well, if I'll just say I'm sorry, then everything will be pardoned.
And that's not the way it works in God's system of justice.
Did you know that?
Iniquity or sin must be punished 100% of the time.
The guilty have to be punished.
And when they're punished, they should humble themselves both during the punishment and by the punishment.
And this passage from Leviticus that we read a moment ago was already written.
In the book of the law that Josiah had read, it was available for the eyes and ears of the people.
So Josiah knew, because he had just read the book of the law, he knew that Judah and he faced a national punishment for their transgressions against the Lord.
So God said, but your heart was humbled.
Well, in what way did Josiah humble himself before the Lord?
Well, let's look at the next part of verse 19.
He said, When thou heardest what I spake against this place, And against the inhabitants thereof.
He humbled himself because of what he heard.
You know our ears are not just for listening to music or singing birds or casual conversations.
The most important use of our ears is for hearing God's Word.
I learned about how important everything on my all the holes on my head were other than my mouth when I was a I wasn't even a trooper yet, I was in the academy.
And I was just gabbing away to this veteran trooper while I was out driving.
And at the end of the trip, he said, I've got something to say to you.
And I said, What's that, Mr.
Ward?
And he said, you need to keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open.
And of course, I said, yes, sir.
Inside, I was thinking, wow, who are you telling me?
But he was exactly right.
I've got two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and one mouth.
Seven holes in my head.
And that means that only 14% of the time should this be operating. 86% of the time.
I'm just doing the math for you here, but the ears are very important.
And their primary use for us in glorifying God is to listen to His wor.
And to listen with an attitude of doing it, by the way.
But when God made Adam, he put ears on him.
Ears come in all shapes and sizes, but they have something in common, don't they?
They're designed to receive sound and transmit it to the brain.
And barring a birth defect or an illness or injury that can destroy someone's hearing, a properly functioning ear can hear God's word.
We had a couple of men and at least one woman in our church, and they had some hearing problems for different reasons.
And they benefited from the use of the headphones that we supp them because we wanted them to hear God's word taught.
And even if a person can't hear, God's giving them eyes to read God's wor.
And what if he can't see or hear?
Well, he may have to learn Braille to read God's Word.
Helen Keller did.
She learned how to communicate without being able to speak or hear or see.
And in this text, Josiah was humbled by what his ears heard.
Let me ask you a question and just silently answer it in your own heart.
You know the answer.
Nobody has to tell you.
When you hear God's word teaching that you have sinned, Does it humble you?
When you hear God's words telling you that the soul that sinneth, it shall die, does that humble you?
I read from Genesis chapter 4, verse 5 a while ago, but I want to use it again to make this point about hearing and being humbled.
I'll read it again.
But unto Cain and to his offering, he had not respect.
So God said, no, that is unacceptable.
And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
That means Cain got angry.
God said, I don't respect that offering.
And Cain got angry at God's words.
Now we don't know exactly what God's words were.
It just says he had not respect to his offering.
It doesn't tell us what God actually said to him.
But what we do know is whatever he said.
Whatever words God used, Cain did not humble his heart like Josiah did.
His heart was not tender toward God's words.
When he heard those words spoken against what he had done.
Instead, he became angry.
Now, by God's grace, I've taught his word for about 30 years now.
And I wish you could see some of the expressions, some of the glares that I've gotten from people in various congregations.
As I told them what God's word said.
And to all those who've given me the stink eye for telling you the truth, I've just got one thing to say, I have a lot to say, but I'll just say one thing about it.
If you've given me the stink eye for telling you the truth, I was just reading the mail.
That's all I was doing.
I was carrying the water, passing out the bread.
And if I speak my own words to you, and they're unkind, they're mean-spirited.
Or you disagree with them, that's understandable.
But when you hear me, or you hear Brother Fult, or your own best friend, tell you what God's word says about your sin.
You need to humble your heart.
Don't get angry.
Don't take your anger out on the one who spoke God's word to you.
God gave us ears to hear, and some people who have perfect physical hearing are spiritually deaf.
They have ears, but they don't have ears to hear.
Jesus said, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
He doesn't mean people who are able to physically hear, he means the ones who are able to physically hear.
And will receive what they heard.
Let them hear.
And looking further at this phrase.
In verse 19, not Josiah's heart was humbled.
Not just for himself, but for the inhabitants of this place.
And that place was Judah.
In fact, it was all of Israel, the north and the south.
And as we learned in prior lessons, he had the northern kingdom of Israel, which had been separated during Rehoboam and Jeroboam's time.
Into two nations, and it never should have been that way.
It should have always been one nation.
And in Josiah's mind, we've seen this before, he still saw it as one nation that would one day come back together.
So he's concerned not just about himself, not just about what the wrath of God on him would mean, but what it would mean on all of the inhabitants.
Of that place, and as far away from God as they were spiritually, as helpless in captivity as they were.
Israel, the northern kingdom, was still Judah's brethren, still their brothers and sisters.
And you know, we ought to feel that same way about our fellow man.
As wicked as he may be, and as far removed from spiritual things as he chooses to be.
We ought to have that concern that the wrath of God is going to be poured out upon our fellow man if he does not come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
It's going to happen just as sure as the wrath was going to be poured out on Judah.
And to those people who are like that, we still bring them the gospel.
We bring them the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, the Bible says.
Josiah humbled his heart because of what the Lord spake against Judah.
Now, what was it?
That he spake.
Look back in your text in verse 19: that they should become a des and a curse.
Now, the word desolation means waste.
Judah would become a wasteland.
And that would become a curse, which is the opposite of a blessing, isn't it?
Wow, how far the children of Israel have fallen just during the times that we have studied.
Let's go back to the covenant that God made with their forefather Abraham.
All the way back in Genesis chapter 12, verse 2, and I'll read it to you if you'll just write it down: Genesis 12 and verse 2.
God said this to Abram, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.
To the children of Israel in Moses' day, which was many years after Abram.
God gave these promises.
This is in Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 16 through 20.
Deuteronomy 30, verses 16 through 20.
And remember, these are also words that Josiah had at his disposal.
He could read them, and he read them.
It says, In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments.
That thou mayest live and multiply, and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
If thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them.
I den unto you this day, that ye shall sure perish, and ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you: that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.
Therefore, choose life.
That b thou and thy seed may live, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice. and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is th life, and the length of thy days.
That thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD swear unto thy fathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give them.
Did you know if the children of Israel, from the day of that covenant To today had obeyed God and kept his statutes, they wouldn't be in the shape they're in today.
Spiritually. economically.
Oh, they're a very prosperous little pie sh nation, about one hundred fifteen miles from north to south, sixty from east to west at the widest point, and they're pinched in half.
On one side by the Gaza Strip and the other side by the West Bank, of people who hate their guts.
Now, that's their own doing.
And Josiah also had read these words in the book of the law that I just read you.
And he knew the promises God made to his father were good promises.
But they were both promises of blessing and promises of cursing.
And Josiah knew they weren't empty words.
That they weren't vain threats from God.
Because God had not only said them, which is good enough, but he had also performed them upon Israel or Samaria to the north.
And because of these words, Josiah's heart was tender.
Because he humbled himself before the Lord, and because his heart was tender toward the Lord's words, we see.
Josiah, look back in your text.
It says, has rent thy clothes.
So this prophetess said, Your heart was tender toward the Lord.
Because of God's wrath that was going to be poured out upon the inhabitants.
And what you've done as a result of that is you've rent your clothes.
He tore them away.
That's what the word rent means.
And we don't use that word in the same way today.
But he tore his clothes away.
Now, don't lose sight of the fact that Josiah was a king.
And he was wearing king's clothing.
You can't order king's clothing on Amazon.
And that clothing had to be among the most expensive.
In the whole land, but at this time that we're reading about, that clothing was worthless to Josiah.
What do clothes do?
Well, they keep the credit card companies in business, but that wasn't in my notes.
Clothes cover our physical nakedness.
They cover the shame of nakedness that we inherited from our father Adam and Eve.
When they sinned in the garden and they knew they were naked and tried to sewed aprons of fig leaves and tried to hide themselves from God It was a way of trying to hide from God who they really were: naked, helpless, shameful sinners.
That's what they were doing.
And God rejected their attempts to hide their nakedness, their sh, their sin.
Because that apron of fig leaves was just like what Cain would do when he offered The fruit of the ground.
When he offered an offering of his own imagination, he said, Oh, this will do it.
I ain't worried about what God told my brother Abel about all that blood.
This is a lot less messy.
I'll just bring that.
But God shed the blood of those innocent animals and clothed Adam and Eve with skins.
And as sinners naked before God, we cannot hope to be accepted by him.
And so when we clothe ourselves with the fig leaf aprons of man-made religion, that's what the religion of Cain was, too.
When we do that, God knows who we really are underneath all those fig leaves.
And until we shed those fig leaves, and we're speaking spiritually here, until we shed those fig leaves and accept that garment of righteousness.
Through faith in the gospel of Jesus, then we're just naked sinners who think wearing fig leaves will reconcile us to God.
Now another thing cl do is they tell people what position we hold.
When I go to work, And I just got off work at 6 o'clock this morning.
Hello, don't have much sleep, but God's good, gives me the ability to do this anyway.
But when I go to work, I wear a distinctive uniform.
That lets people know that I'm a law enforcement officer.
That sets me apart from somebody who's a mechanic or a cashier or works for the highway department.
And on my sleeves are patches that tell people that I'm not just any law enforcement officer, I'm an employee of a sheriff's office.
And below those patches on my sleeve are three stripes, three golden stripes, that tell people I'm a sergeant.
Now That's not as important to the public as it is to the people who work for me.
They rec the authority of those stripes.
Just like I recognize the authority of a bar on each collar of my lieutenant's uniform, and so forth.
But my uniform is important to the public because it lets them know that I'm the one they need to run to when they're in trouble.
When they need help, when somebody has committed a crime against them, or when their wife is stranded on the inter with a flat tire, I'm the guy who can go make that situation better in most cases.
And my stripes are important to my deputies because it reminds them who's in charge of the shift.
But when I go to the Lord in prayer, listen, when I go to the Lord in prayer, I don say, Lord, it's Sergeant Shepherd talking to you again.
No.
I don't say, Lord, I thank thee that I am not like the bailiffs in the federal courth.
Spiritually, I rend my cl because I'm nothing more than a naked sinner before God.
However, even though my outward uniform Means nothing in my relationship to God.
There's another garment that I wear.
That means I no longer stand naked before the Lord.
I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and I'll take that robe over a sergeant's uniform every day.
And with that, we'll close and come back to that thought next week.
Father, thank you so much for the good crowd we had this morning and for the online presence, and most of all, for your word.
And for how your Spirit teaches us.
And I pray, Lord, you'd make the proper application to our hearts.
And that as we leave here, all of us can say, we know more about our Bible than when we got here.
And may it draw us closer to you.
May it drive the sinner who is unforgiven to the cross of Calvary so that they may have the robe of righteousness by faith in Jesus and His finished work.
And it's in His name we pray.
Amen.
