Episode Transcript
It's ten o'clock.
I'm more reliable than one of those old cuckoo clocks.
You all remember those?
Every time.
Ten o'clock.
And we are in Second Kings chapter twenty-three and verse twenty one.
2 Kings 2321 is our text today.
And that's a good-looking sight back there.
We've got the recent graduates from the Building on Jesus class.
Glad to have you all in here.
And welcome also to some more verse-by-verse study.
We do the same thing in Sunday school as we do in the 11 o'clock hour.
Not any difference, just a different speaker.
And same word of God.
And so I hope you're ready to eat some of that sheep food this morning.
Last week, We read about King Josiah's command to all the people to keep the Passover unto the Lord your God.
And for those of you who are new to our class, we are at a place in history where the nation of Israel, which was one nation, under David and then under King Solomon, has been torn into two nations, the northern kingdom, which is called Israel or Samaria you'll hear those interchanged and the southern kingdom called Judah.
And Judah consists of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and then the northern kingdom is the other ten tribes.
And I think you were probably exposed to some of those Things as far as the tribes of the children of Israel and those being the sons of Jacob and all that.
So We are in King Josiah's reign over Judah, and he is a good king, a very good king.
And we've learned so much about him, but Judah is in a lot of trouble right now.
God has pronounced his wrath, he will execute it on Judah.
And he promised King Josiah that Josiah would go to his grave in peace, that he wouldn't have to see all this.
And so Josiah has spent.
Several verses in our study warning Judah about what's to come, but mainly cleansing Judah from these false priests and prophets. and all the idols that were being worshipped there.
And he knew that Judah's and Israel, in fact, he took care of both nations here.
That was wonderful to see.
He knew their only hope Was the keep the Passover of the Lord their God.
Neither military might nor economic prosperity Nor fame were the answers to Judah's and Israel's problem.
In Israel, as also known as Samaria, as I mentioned, Has already been overtaken by the Gentile enemies of Assyria and Babylon.
They are the Gentile enemies.
And Judah, on the other hand, still had a king.
In the person of Josiah.
And they hadn't been conquered yet, but that was on the horizon.
And it's quite instructive. to us that keeping the Passover was the answer for a nation that was already in bondage as well as the answer for a nation that was not yet in bondage.
It's the same command.
And so you think about today the people of North Korea.
They're in my opinion in the worst bondage of any people on this earth.
They're oppressed.
They're starved.
Their Fed propaganda that their dictator is a benevolent leader when he's actually a very cruel person, a psychopath.
And you think of the people of Haiti.
It's a war-torn country.
And anarchy rules the day there.
But then the United States, on the other hand, is a powerful nation, the most powerful nation in the world, at least right now it is.
And as our economy goes, so goes the world's economy.
But we are a lot like Judah.
We're doing all the things that Judah did that brought them to the place where it was in Josiah's time.
And because of that, we too will be conquered by the enemy, whatever form that may take.
Whether it be North Korea or Haiti or the United States, the answer for all these nations is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb.
The fulfillment of all these Passovers that Judah kept.
That's why this command was so important when Josiah said, keep the Passover.
And they were to keep the Passover based upon what?
Look back in your text, please.
And we're in 2 Kings 23, verse 21, if you've just joined us.
Keep the Passover unto the Lord your God.
As it is written in the book of this covenant.
Now, the book of the covenant is the authority by which Josiah gave the commandment.
If I tell you something that's my opinion, then the authority is me.
Well, that's not much authority.
It only is authority to my children when they were growing up.
To my grandchildren when they visit my house.
But I don't carry much weight with my word.
But if I tell you the Bible says Well, that's all the authority you need.
You don't need to know what some other source says about whatever you're asking.
And the book of the covenant.
Is the word of God.
So that's just another way of talking about the Bible.
And it's the motivation by which anyone should keep the commandment.
If you hear or if you read yourself something in the Bible and you say, well, the Bible says to do that, then you ought to do it.
That ought to be enough for you right there.
Be sure you understand what it says, and then you do it.
And the book of the covenant, the word of God, is both the authority and the motivation.
By which we preach the gospel, and by which we command all men everywhere to repent.
And that's right, it is a command.
And speaking of this command, in Acts chapter 17, verses 30 through 31, if you're taking notes, write that down.
Acts 17, verses 30 through 31.
The Bible says, And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he raised him from the dead.
He is talking about Jesus.
God gave this command to all men everywhere to repent, based upon the authority of what was written in His word concerning the resurrection of His Son.
And that's both God's authority and ours when we preach the gospel.
In fact, that's our reason for preaching it.
That's our motivation for preaching it.
And it should be your reason for believing it, because it's written in the book of the covenant, the Bible.
Now look down in verse 22, and by reading the first few words, we're going to be able to conclude that the Passover was kept.
He said, keep the Passover.
Verse 22 says, Surely there was not hold, and that means held, such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel.
Nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah What a statement And immediately I was taken back to the Passover God instituted when he delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage.
And that Passover happened before the time of the Judges, way before that time.
And you notice our text did not say Surely there was not holding such a Passover before this time, only from the judges through the kings.
Because the Passover by which the Lord saved the children of Israel and delivered them from the bondage of Egypt was the greatest Old Testament Passover.
In fact, since that one, there was not a greater one held until the fulfillment of that Passover.
But the Passovers that followed the original one God instituted.
Every one of those Passovers served two basic purposes.
One, they reminded the children of Israel of the deliverance God provided for them when he delivered them from Egypt.
And the second purpose was that those Passovers pointed forward to the greatest Passover, the one of which we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 7 through 8.
1 Corinthians 5, verses 7 through 8, where Paul wrote, Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven.
Neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Now, there's a lot you can teach from that verse, but I wanted you to see Christ, our Passover.
And so for that reason, not only did our text not say there was never held a Passover before this, that was as great, because when God delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, that was the great Passover of the Old Testament.
But it also didn't say that there was not held such a Passover after this.
Because the greatest Passover was the Lord Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb, as that text I just read, you said, was sacrificed for us.
But for the time from the judges through the reign of the last earthly kings thereof of Judah and Israel, the Passover in Josiah's day was unmatched.
Now, look in verse 23.
But in the 18th year of King Josiah, wherein this Passover was holding to the Lord in Jerusalem.
Now, this is just a continuation.
Of the sentence there in verse 22.
You have a sentence that's broken up into a couple of verses, and it gives us the specific time in Josiah's reign.
Where in this great Passover was held.
Now let's move down to verse 24.
Moreover, The workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem.
Did Josiah put away?
Now, this reminds us that the cleansing of a nation also has two parts to it.
One, that the people may turn to God, and two, that the people may turn away from sin.
To allow the workers with familiar spirits, and without going too deeply into each of these words.
These are witches, these are false prophets, false preachers, the priests of Baal.
It just encompasses a lot of people.
But They're rebels.
You can dump them all into one class, and they're rebels.
And to allow them To continue to practice their rebellion would have been a half-hearted repentance on the part of Josiah and the people.
So they had to be put away.
And the Hebrew word for put away is normally translated as the word burn.
Does that give you an idea of what was happening here?
So we can conclude, based upon that translation of the word, that those wizards and the workers with familiar spirits were burned.
The images and the idols and all the other abominations, all of the other things that were against God were put away too.
Now, earlier in this chapter.
We saw both the images and the wicked priest burned.
And their ashes were burned on their ungodly altars that they had built, or that the kings before them had built, too.
And to leave any of those things in their places. was to give honor to them.
I was working the other night, and one of the things I was assigned to do was to move a camera trailer.
To the old courthouse in anticipation of the Charlie Kirk prayer vigil that a group held in Rockwall County.
And as I was pulling it into its place, my instructions were to put it where the statues are.
And we have two or three statues there at the courthouse.
I don't even know who they're of.
I'm not really interested in statues at all.
And I don't think anybody ever built one of me.
But if you're thinking about it, don't do it.
Won't you do it?
Save the money and give that to my wife, and we'll do something else with it.
But those statues give honor to the people whom they represent.
And I don't like that thought.
But anyhow, that's what leaving these things in their places would have done.
It would have given them honor.
And so again, we learn that repentance is a change of mind that turns you from the power of sin to the power of God.
That's ultimately what it does because we're not saved in our sin.
We're saved from our sin.
Huge difference.
And Josiah wasn't about to tell the people, hey, keep the Passover, but you can leave your idols up.
That's fine.
That's not repentance.
And if you look back in your text now, he did this.
It says that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.
So, Josiah burned all of these images, these wizards, these people with familiar spirits, these rebels, and all of their idols.
He burned them out of obedience to the word of the Lord.
He didn't have these priests killed and burned into ashes because he enjoyed killing.
He wasn't some kind of psychopath like Jeroboam or King Herod.
And in fact, He very likely had some colleagues and friends and maybe even family members killed because they were wicked and led the people of Judah into idolatry.
That's kind of a tough pill to swallow, isn't it?
But it is the truth that God is no respecter of persons.
It doesn't matter who you are.
He doesn't say, Well, I better think again on that.
This fellow right here is the mayor of Maybank.
He's pretty popular.
No, it doesn't matter.
And we've learned how Josiah, the king, was a type of Jesus Christ in several ways during our study of his reign.
Let me read you some sobering words from Ezekiel chapter 9, verses 9 through 10.
Ezekiel chapter 9, verses 9 through 10.
Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel in Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood.
And the city full of perverseness.
For they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.
And as for me also now this is God speaking to Ezekiel about Israel and Judah.
He said And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare.
Neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.
When God judges iniquity, his eye does not spare.
Once he pours out his wrath, he doesn't hold back.
He holds his wrath back.
He's very long-suffering and gracious to us.
Giving us that opportunity to repent, commanding us to repent.
But when he pours his wrath out, he pours it out.
And Josiah's performance of these words that were found in the book of the law that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. were to remind us that God will fulfill every word of prophecy that He proclaims in His Word, every single word.
And if you believe that, if a person believes that, in fact, if you took somebody who's an unbeliever, but they're otherwise a very logical person.
And they were to read about God, whom they do not know, and see that he prophesied of a certain thing, and it came to pass.
And he prophesied of another thing, and it came to pass.
They would begin to give credibility to this figure, this person they call God.
And so the more prophecies that God gives and that come to pass, the greater the credibility He has to this person who was otherwise a doubter.
And then at some point, that person would have to admit, you know, these prophecies that haven't been fulfilled yet, I bet you they come to pass.
God's got a lot of credibility with me, even though that person may be an unbeliever.
And To believe otherwise, to believe that God will not fulfill every word of his prophecy, is either to paint God as a liar.
Or to paint God as not powerful enough to carry all that out.
And amazingly, most of the children of Israel Did not believe God was who He said He was.
They were unbelievers for the most part, just like the world is today.
And as they said in the Ezekiel passage I just read you, these were their words.
God said, This is what you're saying about me.
The Lord has forsaken the earth.
The Lord seeth not.
In other words, God can't see what we're doing.
He doesn't see what we're doing.
Boy, that's blasphemy.
And it's typical of the spirit of Antichrist that's in the world today, too.
Now, look at the next verse in our text, verse 25, speaking of Josiah.
And it says, and like unto him there was no king before him that turned to the Lord.
Now, that doesn't mean that no king before him turned to the Lord, but there wasn't one like him.
And that included King David, by the way, who was a great king.
And the word turned here is normally translated as the word return.
And in this sense, a sinner who has strayed from the Lord returns to him in repentance and in faith.
And for mankind as a whole, Adam's race has wandered away from God in sin.
And for him to return to God or turn to God He has to be reconciled by the application of the gospel to that unbeliever.
By faith.
That's how it's applied.
If you're a believer, that's how it was applied to you.
You took God's word and said, I believe that.
That's for me.
And you may not have used those exact words, but that's the truth that you accepted inside.
And we can't know all about Josiah's faith only what we read in scriptures, which is a lot.
But when God said, There's no king before him who was like him in turning to the Lord.
Then we know it's God who rightly inspires these words, and we can say it with great confidence.
What if it were man who decided The title of the greatest king.
You know, Muhammad Ali back in his heyday, he used to say, I'm the greatest.
I'm the greatest.
And he was playing with people.
That was his psychological ploy.
And that was his opinion.
At one time, he was the greatest heavyweight boxer in the world.
But guess what?
He got replaced, didn't he?
And somebody else was the greatest, and then another was the greatest.
But what if man were to decide the title of the greatest king?
Well, many may say, well, it had to be Solomon because of his wisdom and his riches and the Proverbs that he wrote.
And his reign of peace in Israel when he ruled.
Others may have said, No, no, no, I think the greatest king was David, because of his military prowess and all the enemy that he slay and the psalms that he wrote.
You know history written by man will we say history is objective, but it's rarely objective.
It's written from a viewpoint.
And it doesn't always report only the facts.
I mean, you think, okay, well, Wikipedia should be a good place to go.
Get on there and look at their liberal slant.
Get on there and pull up a conservative figure and see what it says about him.
If you're reading between the lines there or even the plain writing, you'll see that that is Liberally written in many cases.
So I'm glad man's not deciding who the greatest king was.
You have to be careful about what you read.
Don't you?
You scroll or you go look for some source, you have to be careful about what you read.
I tell my young deputies who work for me If you don't know the answer to a question about the law, don't just Google it.
Be sure you find the most current version of the law because you'll pull up an old Version of the law, or even worse, use AI to find your answer to a question that is a matter of statute.
It's a matter of law, and you've got to apply it right.
And that's why I do that.
But when you read God's Word, the only thing you need to be careful about is that you believe it.
That's what you need to be careful about.
You don't have to wonder if it's true.
You don't have to say, well, that's just the point of view of another person.
That's God's point of view, and that's true.
If you can't believe God, Why would you think you could believe man?
And Josiah believed God's word wholeheartedly, and he acted accordingly.
Even unto the death and destruction of these popular religions of Judah, and you know he took a hit in the press for that.
Well, in what ways did he turn to the Lord?
Look back in your text.
It says, with all his heart.
With all his heart.
Not the organ that beats in your chest, but the mind, the understanding.
In fact, in Job chapter 34, verse 34.
Job 34, 34, we see the word for heart translated as the word understanding.
It says, Let men of understanding tell me, and let a wise man hearken unto me.
So Josiah's heart was his understanding.
It was his wisdom.
And he turned to the Lord with all of that.
He submitted his heart.
He submitted his own understanding.
To the Lord.
And it says he also turned to the Lord back in the text with all his soul.
Now the Hebrew word that's translated soul means a breathing creature.
It has to do with the breath.
And in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, you'll get the idea very clearly.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.
And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
It's the same word in our text.
So Josiah turned to the Lord.
He turned to the one who gave him life in the first place.
The one who breathed the breath of life into Adam and continued that breath of life all the way down to Josiah.
And back in the text, it says, with all his might.
So he's turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might.
And the word might here is, if it's used as a noun, means strength or force.
As an adverb, it means exceedingly or very or greatly.
So, with all he had, Josiah turned to the Lord.
He wasn't concerned about what the world thought about him.
He wasn't holding.
Something in reservation.
He was sold out to God.
If you've heard that before, that maybe makes sense to you here.
And he turned to the Lord with all his heart, and soul, and might.
It says, according to all the law of Moses.
Now we find that very commandment.
In the writings of Moses, they're in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 through 6.
Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 6.
Where he tells Israel, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.
So Josiah Didn't consult the newest commentary or the popular preachers of his day, and I'm sure there were plenty.
He didn't consult the false religions of Judah, trying to get along with the people and just believe what they believed.
He went back to the old landmark, which was the book of the law.
And by returning to the book of the law, he testified to us of his turning to the Lord.
He did what was written in the Proverbs, in Proverbs 3, verses 5 through 6.
And I know I give a lot of scriptures, and so.
If you're new to the class, I always encourage you to write those down.
Don't try to find them in your Bible unless you're really quick.
You've got to be very quick.
But you write them down and then I'll read them out loud and that'll keep you from getting lost in the pages.
But that proverb says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Lean not unto thine own understanding.
And that's what we see Josiah doing: not leaning on his own understanding.
And he was a great king, and he surely had a lot of wisdom here.
The very fact that he turned to God's word, the very fact that he cited as his authority and his motivation the book of the law.
Tells us he was wise if we knew nothing else about him.
And then it says in our text there in verse 25.
Neither after him arose there any like him.
Now we already read there was no king like him before him that turned to the Lord and now we see there was no king like him after that.
And of course, this is limited to the earthly kings of Israel and Judah because none of them can hold a candle to or tie the shoes of the king of kings.
He's the greatest king.
But we're talking about earthly kings.
That's what the Bible's talking about here.
Okay, look down in verse 26 now.
Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath.
What God said he would do, he would do.
And notwithstanding, we don't say that much.
I think we should start, but we usually say nevertheless, or even so, or anyhow.
This good king himself, Josiah, as good as he was, would not be the salvation of Judah or Israel.
Even though his heart, his soul, his strength were fully turned to the Lord, and even though the false priests And the wizards, the workers of iniquity, the sodomites, the idols, all the abominations had been destroyed by Josiah.
God Would execute his fierce wrath, notwithstanding all that.
And God promised Josiah peace in his days.
Not peace for all the land, but peace in his days.
And that he would go to the grave in peace.
And I'm backing up to chapter 22, verse 20, where to remind you of that, where God told Josiah.
Behold, therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers.
That means you are going to die.
And thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace.
And thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.
And they brought the king word again.
So God instructed Josiah about three chapters ago that, in spite of all he was going to do for Josiah, He was still going to bring evil upon Judah.
He was still going to execute the fierceness of his wrath.
And in the Hebrew word for wrath, we have a powerful image.
The word has the meaning of breathing through the nostrils.
And that act is associated With wrath.
In fact, this Hebrew word is also translated as the word nose and the word nostrils in the Old Testament, to give you that idea.
And the idea that some people have about God is that He wouldn't really send anyone to hell.
You know, there are people who believe that, that God wouldn't, He wouldn't send anyone to hell, He's too loving.
That he wouldn't send anyone to the lake of fire.
That he wouldn't let anyone suffer the full weight of the consequences of their sin.
There are people who believe that.
But that's not what the Bible tells us.
And that's why why would I warn anybody?
Why would I preach the gospel to anybody if it were true that they could skate?
With their own righteousness.
That as long as they weren't as unrighteous as Brother Doug or as me or someone else, they'd be fine.
Why would I waste my time?
Well, because that's not the case.
The case is that God hates sin, He absolutely hates it.
And I said Wednesday night, thank God he doesn't hate the sinner.
I'm glad he loves us.
But his great wrath is fierce.
Now, picture the angriest man you can imagine.
You got him?
Got him pictured in your mind?
And he's breathing loudly through his nostrils.
I'm not going to do that.
I'll blow snot all over this place.
But I just want you to imagine it.
He's breathing loudly through his nostrils, and he's got a frown on his face.
Now, that man and his wrath pale in comparison to God and his wrath.
It's not even close.
And he says in the text, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah.
Now Judah was the specific target of God's wrath in this case.
And we know this about Judah from Hebrews chapter 7, verse 14.
For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which the tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.
Now, the genealogy or the family tree, the earthly family tree of the Lord Jesus Christ runs from Abram through Isaac through Jacob and through Jacob's son Judah.
And for that reason, There are many religious scholars, including Jews, who believe that the Jews get a pass when it comes to God's wrath.
I remember hearing John Hagee, who's a very popular preacher, has been for decades, say that there's another way that Israel is going to be saved.
And I shut the TV off.
And I didn't know that much about the Bible back then when I heard him say that, but I knew that wasn't right.
He was pandering what he was doing.
And so the passage we're studying make it very clear that's not the case.
He's about to pour his wrath out on Judah, the very nation named after the tribe from which his son would come in that birth process.
And he said, now this is interesting.
Look back in the text.
He's doing that because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.
Now, Manasseh was Josiah's grandfather.
Manasseh's father was Amon.
He was a wicked king.
And his father was Manasseh, who was a wicked king for the majority of his reign.
But then toward the end, he repented and put his trust in the Lord.
But in Manasseh's case, most of his 55 years on the throne were spent angering the Lord.
And to refresh your memory about that, I want to read from 2 Kings chapter 21 verses 11 through 12.
This is chapter 21 verses 11 through 12.
Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols.
Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.
And even though Manasseh repented at the end of his reign, the majority of the people in Judah did not.
And his reign was followed by that of his wicked son Amon, who gave God no reason to withhold his wrath.
And even though Josiah was a good king, God still had a score to settle with Judah, and he promised he'd do it even back in Manasseh's day.
He was ready to clean the house, even though he would spare Josiah.
You know, that reminded me a lot of the way God dealt with this sinful earth.
On which Noah and his family lived.
Genesis chapter 6, verses 5 through 8.
Genesis 6, verses 5 through 8.
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing. and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
So even though Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and he had many extended family members and friends on this earth.
All but six of them mocked him and refused to heed the message of God's judgment that was coming.
And rather than sparing the whole world because of Noah, God spared Noah in spite of the world.
Because if you took that one crucial sentence out of the passage I just read you there in Genesis chapter 6, if you took out, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, God destroys the whole thing.
And everybody in it.
Nobody makes it.
And like Josiah Noah was used by God to warn the people whom God knew would not repent.
Now, that's a strong witness against those people, isn't it?
We don't know who's going to repent.
And Noah didn't know who would repent.
And Josiah didn't know who would repent.
But that didn't change their message.
After Moses commanded the people to take heed lest they forget the covenant with God, he said this to them in Deuteronomy 4, verses 25 through 26.
Deuteronomy 4, verses 25 through 26.
When thou shalt beget children, and children's children. and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of anything, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it.
Ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
What a great place to learn that there are two purposes for witnessing.
And when we come back next week, we'll see what those are.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for all who came.
And Lord, we're very thankful for the ones who have finished the Building on Jesus class, but we know they're not done Building on Jesus, and neither are we.
And we appreciate your word.
We thank you for how the Holy Spirit takes truth, applies it to our hearts, gives us cause to meditate upon your goodness, and also, Lord, upon your wrath.
And we thank you that Jesus took that for us on our behalf, that we may now meet as a church and proclaim that gospel and all that pertains to it to those who will hear.
And I ask that you give our pastor the same grace and liberty during the next hour to do just that.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
