Overarching Theme of the Word of God

The Bible: A Unified Message in a Mini-Library

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, June 7, 2009, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now this book, that we call the Bible, that I hold in my hands, is a very large book by any measure. I took out a pen and recorded the number of pages that are found in my copy of the Scriptures, and totaled up the Old and New Testament, and it's over 1,200 pages, a very large book by any evaluation, and it has double columns, so it is a very, very large book. In fact, it's really not one book. It's a mini-library, a library composed of 39 books that together we call...

1:05 the Old Testament, and 27 books that we call the New Testament. And among those books, some have as many as 150 chapters, one of them 66 chapters, whereas in the New Testament we have several books that have only one chapter. And within those books of this mini-library that we call...

1:35 the Bible, we have some fascinating history, some very intriguing biography, some very unusual poetry, and we have some very decided, right-angled, moral and ethical instruction, and many other forms of literature, all contained within the covers of this book that we call our Bibles. But, in all of these books, with the manifold literary genres, that is, types of literature, there is both an undergirding and an overarching theme that ties the whole thing together. It's not a collection of disjointed snippets of history, of biography, of poetry, of ethical and moral instruction. Many authors writing over a period of 1,500 years, and yet there is an overarching message

2:54 and an undergirding thematic unity from the first verse of the book of Genesis in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, all the way to the final prayer in the last book of the New Testament, even so come Lord Jesus. And if you start reading the Bible in dependence upon God, asking Him for light and understanding, you would eventually discover that overarching theme, and you would eventually discover that overarching theme, and you would eventually discover that overarching theme, and the undergirding unity of the whole book, or this mini-library, this collection of many books. However, God has been very gracious to us. We don't need to read it from cover to cover in order to discover the very heart of its message. Along the way, both in what we call the Old Testament, the 39 books of the Old Testament, and the 27 of the New, God has given us these wonderful little capsule statements

4:16 that give us the heart of the whole message of the Bible. And those statements become like a door into this marvelous, panoramic, overarching message of the Bible. And if you can grasp those particular texts, those particular portions, you have a handle on what the Bible is all about. So that the more you study it, and the more you understand it, what you see is those little mini-capsule distilled statements flowering out and blossoming out, but like a blossom on us. A flower, you're not seeing something different. You're just seeing the closed reality open more and more and more into its full beauty. And so this morning, what I want to do, is I want to turn you to one such statement, that if you grasp what's in this text of the Word of God, you have grasped the heart of the message of the Bible.

Isaiah 53:6: The Heart of the Bible's Message

5:33 And it's found, just about halfway through the Bible, in the prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah the prophet, and chapter 53, and verse 6. I read now from Isaiah, chapter 53, and verse 6. All we, like sheep, have gone astray.

6:01 We have turned, every one of us, to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Within the compass of these few words given to us by God, we have two basic units of thought. Two things.

6:27 Number one, we have the bad news of our desperate condition, in sin. The bad news of our desperate condition in sin. And secondly, the good news of God's amazing provision for sin. Now, is that too difficult to grasp?

6:54 We have bad news and good news. The bad news has to do with our problem of sin. The good news has to do, with God's gracious provision for our sin. So, let's begin to unpack what's here in this text.

The Bad News: Our Desperate Condition in Sin

7:15 First of all, we have the bad news of our desperate condition in sin. And already, I can get inside the head of some of you, you say, Pastor Martin, surely, surely you're in touch enough with what's going on all around us to know, you don't stand up. You don't stand up on a Sunday morning and use the word sin. The word sin assumes that there are absolutes of moral responsibilities.

7:47 The word sin usually means that you're talking about a God who sits in heaven and looks down upon His creatures and sees their thoughts and their words and their actions, and He calls some of them no-nos. He calls them sin. Well, I'm not at all embarrassed to say that my text demands that I speak about the issue of sin. For when the text says, all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one of us to his own way, this is the prophet's way of declaring the universal condition of sinfulness that applies to every person. Every single one of us. Now think with me for a minute. Twelve years ago, in the month of March, I sat in the office of a local, well-respected, board-certified urologist by the name of Dr. Schlecker.

8:56 He had read the result of two series of biopsies on my prostate gland. The report, the report that came back from the pathology lab was clear. Carcinoma of the prostate. Cancer in my prostate, in my abdomen.

9:23 A wretched disease that took my 82-year-old father, who up until this wretched disease took hold of him, was as virile and vigorous as the average 40-year-old man. And I knew that I was genetically programmed for a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. Now what would you think of Dr. Schlecker if looking at the pathology report that was unmistakably clear, they had identified grade 6 on the Gleason score, carcinoma of the prostate.

10:06 But he said, you know, this guy, Mr. Martin, has come into my office a number of times for other concerns. He's a nice guy. I don't want to upset him.

10:17 I mean, he's just 63 years of age, and he's got a lot of life hopefully yet ahead of him. And I mean, this is just going to just turn his life upside down. To be told that one of the options is to go in him and dig out that prostate and maybe render him to have to wear diapers the rest of his life and never know. You know, again, the joys of sexual intimacy.

10:42 I mean, that's too much. That is such negative stuff. I just can't bring myself to do it. So you know what I'm going to do?

10:48 When he comes in for his consult, I'm just going to tell him he's got a little bit of an enlarged prostate and will just suggest an herbal remedy that hopefully will shrink his prostate a little bit and a proven medication and send him on his way. What would you think of that man that claimed to be a man of his dreams, that claimed to be a man of his dreams, that claimed to be a true physician concerned about the well-being of his patients if he didn't have the guts to tell me I've got prostate in my, I've got cancer in my prostate gland which if not arrested or removed will take my life? What would you think of him?

11:32 Well, let's switch it. He's a good doctor. And as much as he doesn't like to give bad news, he's determined to be honest with me. So he's as gracious, as gentle, as tactful as he can be.

11:47 But at the end of the day, he's determined when I come for my visit to tell me the truth. But between the time he's called me and said, I want to see you, Mr. Martin, I determine in my mind, well, I don't know what Dr. Schrecker's going to tell me.

12:04 I don't know what's going on in the pathology lab, but one thing I know, I am not going to hear any stuff about having a heart attack. I'm not going to hear anything about the possibility of surgery that may render me like a little child in diapers the rest of my life. I'm not going to hear about the possibility of surgery that will render me a eunuch. Never again to know the joy of sexual...

12:32 No way am I going to listen to that kind of junk.

12:37 So I go in the office and Dr. Schrecker begins to tell me and I see where he's going. I said, Doc, Doc, stop it. I don't want to hear about prostate cancer.

12:48 I don't want to hear a thing. And he says, but I said, Doc, I don't want to hear about it. But Mr. Martin, if you don't hear it, I said, Doc, I don't want to hear it.

13:01 Any more of that talk, I'm out of here. What would you think about me? You'd say you're a fool. And you might even put another word in front of the word fool.

13:14 And that's what I'm going to do. And that's what I'm going to do. And that's what I'm going to do. And that's what I would be.

13:18 You see, when you've got a deadly disease, you want to have an honest doctor and you want to have a compliant patient who's willing to face the reality of his condition.

13:36 Dear people, I'm committed this morning to being an honest doctor. And I'm going to tell you from the words of God embodied in Isaiah, Isaiah 53, 6, just how bad and deadly your condition is. My question to you is this. Are you going to be a stuff-the-finger-in-the-ear patient?

14:04 Or are you going to be a compliant patient willing to hear what Almighty God says your condition really is?

14:18 Because it's not my opinion. I'm not going to stand up and say, stand up here saying, well, I think and I observe. No, no. We're going to look at what this passage says about the bad news of our desperate condition in sin.

14:36 And I plead with you. I beg you. With all my heart, I entreat you. Hear me as I give you God's diagnosis of your true condition.

Sin as Straying from the Shepherd and Self-Will

14:51 Let's look at it together. What is it? The prophet viewing the entire human race says two things concerning our desperate condition in sin. Here's the first.

15:04 All we, like sheep, have gone astray. Here he likens the entire human race to a vast flock of sheep. And he says that vast flock of sheep without exception have gone astray. Now in this agrarian setting, everyone would understand the point of the simile.

15:33 All we, like a simile, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. They would have seen a flock of sheep that had strayed from its true shepherd. And they would have known the implications of that simile. All we, like sheep, have gone astray.

15:57 What was in the prophet's mind? Well, at least two things. When sheep go astray, they leave their attachment to the person of the shepherd.

16:10 From John chapter 10 in the New Testament where Jesus likens himself to the good shepherd, the relationship between sheep and the shepherd is not a professional agrarian relationship. It's a very personal relationship. True shepherds are willing to risk their lives for the well-being of their sheep. There is a deep bond.

16:34 The sheep know the shepherd's voice. The voice of strangers they do not recognize. A true shepherd goes before his sheep and he leads them and he guides them and he protects them. So when the prophet says, all we, like sheep, have gone astray, he's saying, we have left the person of our true shepherd.

16:59 This is the very essence and tragedy of human sinfulness. That man who, unlike all other creatures of God except the angels, was made to know God, to live in intimate communion with God, to find his greatest delight in fellowship with God when, sin enters, man leaves his true shepherd. And we find this in the very third chapter of Genesis. When sin enters the human race through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, what's the first external indication that they have sinned? Apparently, God had a pattern of coming to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day for a season of unusual face-to-face, voice-to-ear communication and fellowship of the most intimate kind. But after Adam and Eve sinned, disobeying God by partaking of the forbidden fruit, when they heard the approach of God in the cool of the day, the scripture says this, they ran and hid themselves in the cool of the day. They ran and hid themselves in the cool of the day.

18:25 They ran and hid themselves in the cool of the day. They ran and hid themselves in the cool of the day. Among the trees of the garden.

18:29 If we understood what that means, it would make us all weep.

18:35 Think of it. This marvelous creature God made in His own image with a capacity to know Him, to enjoy fellowship with Him, to disclose one's heart to Him, and to have God in turn disclose His heart to man the creature. God approaches Him and what does man do? He says, He says, He turns His back and He runs from His God.

19:05 That's the first sheep that went astray. And because we were all piggybacked on Adam, we fell in Him and with Him and we are born with a disposition of the turned back instead of the upturned face. That's true of you and you and you and you and me. All we like sheep have gone astray and in going astray we've left the person of our rightful shepherd so that the Scripture says by nature there is none that seeks after God.

19:50 They are all gone aside. There is no fear of God before their eyes. We have become a godless people who don't know who don't want God to intrude into our lives.

20:07 But then a second thing happens. When we go astray like sheep we not only leave the person of the shepherd we leave the gracious government of the shepherd. You see the shepherd governs his sheep so much is that true that in the Old Testament the word for shepherd in Israel a king in Israel is used interchangeably with king and governor and leader for the shepherd guides his sheep into what? Into paths that are good for the sheep.

20:43 He leads them beside waters of quietness. He takes care of them in places of danger. He governs them with a gracious government but when we go astray from that shepherd we not only leave communion with the shepherd but we also we go into a path of stubborn self-will and self-determination so much so that the Bible says the carnal mind that is the disposition of mind and heart that all of us have by nature is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can it be. God's thou shalts become our I will not and God's thou shalt not become our I will. That's what happens to sheep that go astray from the shepherd and here is a statement this bad news of our desperate condition in sin all we like sheep have gone astray but then notice secondly what the prophet says the bad news comes not only in terms of a statement of our unreasonable

Sin as Turning to One's Own Way: Self-Termination

22:12 straying but then he gives an assertion of our fundamental orientation and what is it he drops all figures of speech he moves from the generic and the broad all we like sheep have gone astray no images no figure of speech and now we're going to and now we're going to now he focuses in individually look at the text we have turned every one to his own way it doesn't say we they have all turned to their own way it's singular it's individual we have turned each and every one of us to his own way here is a description of our fundamental orientation of our in life and what is it it is self terminating we live unto ourselves that's what Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 15 and that he Christ died for all that they who live should no longer live unto themselves that's the statement of what has happened to us self will self gratification self pleasing becomes the fundamental

23:41 orientation of life rather than God's will God's purpose God's design God's desire no it's my will my purpose my ambitions now in some cases that produces ugly people given genetic predisposition and environmental factors domestic influences and a host of other things some people who turn to their own way become very ugly people they become prostitutes and whoremongers and lecherous vile lustful men they become drug addicts and murderers foul mouthed ugly people some become very , very refined culture educated admired in the community for all the contributions they make to the social life and perhaps even become philanthropists and they take their wealth and they gladly give it away in order to raise the standard of community concern etc but what's the common denominator between the hooker that's out on the street tonight

25:09 plying her trade the junkie looking for his next fix and the polite culture educated upright person sitting here this morning who is a stranger to God's grace what's the common denominator just this they're both living to please themselves that's it we have turned each one of us to his own way I have a good mind I'm going to get a good education and I'm going to I'm and what's the bottom line you're living to yourself God never gave you that mind to make a God of it and bow down and worship it you've got ability to organize gather together a team of men and women to produce a given product to market a given product and you're going to crash that given area of enterprise and be a successful person why because that will give you a wonderful sense of accomplishment no higher goal no desire that God who made you and gave you those endowments be glorified in their employment within the boundaries of his word to the praise of his glory you do it all for yourself and when you're stroked and when

God's Serious Attitude Towards Sin

26:39 you're praised oh how you suck it into your soul you are living unto yourself that's God's diagnosis of every one of us generically in the big picture we're part of this vast flock of Adamic sheep who've gone astray we've left the shepherd we've left his government and we have turned every one of us to his own way now my question is this what's God's attitude to all of this does he have the attitude of that indulgent grandparent who's seeing a grandchild do something naughty pulling one of its siblings pulling the braids or kicking them in the shins kids are going to be kids is God's attitude well human beings flawed none of them perfect kids will be kids you open this book up and you start reading way in the beginning in Genesis and you read all the way through to the book of the revelation with that question in mind what's God's attitude to sheep that go astray that turn to their own way and you know what you'll find God takes sin very seriously right in the beginning he banished Adam and Eve from the garden a few

28:08 chapters later it says he looks down upon the people earth and the imagination of the thoughts of the hearts of men was only evil continually God says it grieves me I ever made them I'm going to blot them out and start all over again with one family and God sent a flood and bloated bodies on the face of the cresting waves are God's voice saying I take human sin seriously a few chapters later we get a window into the cities of the plains where sexual preference had become the thing of the day and aggressive homosexuals determined to rape visiting angels God says I've had enough and he rains down hell out of heaven upon the cities of the plains he says I take human sin seriously you read on and you read how God established a nation blessed it until under Solomon its influence extended to the whole existing world and people came from all over the world to see the wealth and the beauty of the temple that was built a few chapters later you read God says I've had it they keep turning back to idols they keep worshipping themselves

29:37 and worshipping the work of their own hands and he sends them into captivity he allows their temple to be raised to the ground you come on into the New Testament you open up the book of Romans Paul's great letter explaining the gospel and how does he begin he says the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness God's wrath is revealed and all the way through to the last chapter of the last book and you read these words whoever was not found in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire my friends hear me hear me just as sitting in that doctor's office I had better take cancer seriously I couldn't think it away I couldn't rationalize it away it was there in my prostate gland waiting to spread out through the rest of my body and invade my skeletal system like it did my dad and take me to an early grave I had better take it seriously and you had better take seriously your true condition you're a straying sheep

31:05 who's turned to his or her own way and almighty God is incensed he's incensed who are you the creature of the dust to whom I give life and breath you cannot uphold and sustain your own life for a moment I gave it I sustained it who are you to say to me I want nothing to do with you I want to live my own life by my own standards to my own ends in my own way almighty God is incensed and you better take seriously that reality have you ever taken that seriously or have you just been bopping through life once in a while a nagging thought what will happen when I die oh put that out of my mind I'm not going to die yet and God will come up in God and everything will just turn out alright what have you been doing have you ever stood for a moment sat for a moment and contemplated this fact the God who spoke those vast galaxies and we know how vast some of it is since Hubble was stuck up there and we'll know even more now that he's been repaired

The Good News: God's Amazing Provision for Sin

32:34 that God who gave me life and sustains my life could crush me in a moment with one thought have you ever been sobered by the bad news that you're part of a flock of sheep that has gone astray and that you've turned to your own way now if that's all I had to say what a miserable task would be mine but I'm so thankful that I can move to the last part of the verse for it not only contains this bad news of our desperate condition in sin but good news of an amazing provision for sin and I want you to see just two things about this good news look at the text if you have a Bible in front of you Isaiah 53 and verse 6 all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one of us to his own way but now notice the contrast and the Lord and the Lord someone is introduced that hasn't been there yet when the focus is on us it's all bad news

34:02 but now we learn that the author of the good news is none other than God himself the incensed God who takes our sin seriously we are told the Lord has done something and there is the window of hope and of blessing if you want a good little litmus test of any professed religion whatever its name may be ask yourself this question does it tell me what I do to reach up to God to do something to make myself acceptable to God to think some thoughts that will make me pleasing to God does the arrow go upward or does it go outward to my fellow men or does the arrow come down from heaven to man save truth and saving religion is the downward arrow for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son here in his love not that we loved God but that he loved us

35:30 and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins the author of the good news is God himself and then secondly and here I want us to park for the remainder of our time this morning the focus of the good news look at the passage the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all now who is the him of this pronoun well if we keep looking backwards to find the antecedent to this pronoun him we go back to verse five verse four more hymns but no identification until we get all the way back to the end of chapter fifty two and verse thirteen and then we find him God says behold my servant behold my servant and here in the prophecy of Isaiah there are what men have loved to call and I think it's wise to call them there are servant songs beautiful songs about this one called the servant of God and when Jesus Christ was here in the days of his earthly sojourn

36:59 he took several of these servant songs and said they are fulfilled in me I am the servant so when we come to Isaiah fifty three six and we look at this good news of an amazing provision for sin not only are we to understand that God is the author but the focus is the suffering servant of the Lord even Jesus Christ that one whom we learn from the rest of scripture was God's eternal fellow the eternal word who was with God himself being God and as John says that one became flesh and dwelt among us the servant of the Lord is none other than what the theologians like to call the big word the theanthropic person the God man as much God as though he were never man as much man as though he were never God and he's not a mixture of them two distinct natures joined in one person forever and why is this so oh hear me it's only such a person that could come to our rescue our condition is such that we need the spotless purity

38:28 of God head to stand in our place we need the omnipotent arm of deity to reach down and break our chains and rip out that self-centered self-willed disposition and give us a disposition that loves and longs to please the one true and living God this one must bring to his work as savior all the virtue and power of deity but as we see from this passage because he must stand in our room instead he must come to our condition and in our condition as a true man committing himself to do the will of God perfectly live a perfect life under the scrutiny of the eye of his heavenly father and then be willing to undergo death not just physical death but as we shall see in a few moments something far more horrific than physical death he had to be exactly who he was to do what he does to rectify our problem of sin Jesus Christ is able to do what he does because he is who he is and that's why the devil hates the biblical teaching on who Christ is if he can somehow

The Substitutionary Sin-Bearing of Jesus Christ

39:57 make him something less than truly God he's undercut what he does as the savior of sinners if he can make him something less than truly man he does the same thing but the servant of the Lord is none other than the God man and in a very special way if you look at our text God's provision for sin focuses on the substitutionary sin bearing of the servant of Jehovah and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all and the Lord God has taken what our sins deserve of his wrath and of his judgment and he's picked it up and he's made it to rest upon his son and when it rests upon his son and his son as it were stands before the father in the courtroom of heaven and the sentence goes out do you stand in the place of the Lord in the place of sinners yes father I do do you know son what their sins deserve yes father I do their sins deserve your unleashed fury the full outpouring of your wrath unmixed with mercy

41:27 my son are you willing to bear that for sinners and the son answers father you heard me in the garden when you held to my lips that cup that I would have to drink everything in me drew back my father and I said oh my father if it be possible let this cup pass nevertheless not my will but yours be done father in the garden I settled the question yes I am willing to drink to the last drop that cup filled with your righteous wrath against the sins of those whom you've entrusted to my care my son everything in me would desire another way but if I'm to remain God in the integrity of my holiness and justice my son I must put the cup to your lips and I must turn it up and you must drink and drink and drink and drink and drink until there enters into your soul all the bitterness of hell itself and the son says father I will drink and in a special way in three hours when God

42:56 shrouds the heavens in blackness the son is drinking and drinking and drinking until toward the close of the three hours he cried out in words that eternity will never end will never exegete for us my God my God why have you abandoned me Martin Luther sat at his desk for three hours meditating on those words and at the end of three hours Martin Luther like he pushed himself back from his desk and he exclaimed God forsaken by God who can understand it we can't understand it but this is the good news of God's gracious provision for sin because because the same one who cried my God my God why have you forsaken me before he gave his final cry father into your hands I commit my spirit he said one more thing with a loud voice you remember what it was it was it comes to us in one Greek word tetelestai it stands

A Hymn of Substitutionary Atonement

44:24 accomplished Jesus was conscious in his soul that everything divine justice demanded as payment for sin was paid in full and so he cried it is finished and three days later because God wanted everyone to know he was really dead dead dead when he rose from the dead and he was Joseph's empty tomb was God's amen from the throne of heaven yes my son it is finished and the scripture says he was delivered up for our offenses raised for our justification that's what the prophet is telling us though he gives us the bad news of our horrible condition in sin he gives us good news of God's provision for sin in the person of his servant the God man Jesus Christ and the method is substitutionary sin bearing by that servant some years ago I came across what to me is the most clear comprehensive profound hymn that captures this reality and the

45:51 and I want to read it to you there are six stanzas in the hymn and the imagery is this in the first stanza Christ is set before us as having a burden laid upon him when he died for us in the second stanza I've already alluded to it he had a cup set before him filled with the wrath of God against our sin in the third stanza there's the picture of God lifting up a rod and bringing it down with all of his fury upon the back of his son and in the fourth stanza there's the picture of an unleashed tempest that breaks upon Christ and in the fifth stanza there's the image of a sword that God takes and plunges into the breast of his son and the sixth stanza tells why what happens when by the spirit of God we behold the suffering servant and we embrace him by faith what happens to us oh Christ what burdens bowed thy head our load was laid on thee thou stoodest in the sinner's stead didst bear all ill for me a victim

47:21 led thy burden blood was shed now there's no load for me death and the curse were in our cup oh Christ t'was full for thee but thou hast drained the last dark drop tis empty now for me that bitter cup love drank it up now blessings draft for me Jehovah lift it up his rod oh Christ it fell on thee thou was sore stricken of thy God there's not one stroke for me thy tears thy blood beneath it flowed thy bruising healeth me the tempest awful voice was heard oh Christ it broke on thee thy open bosom was my ward it braved the storm for me thy form was scarred thy visage marred now cloudless peace for me Jehovah bade his sword awake oh Christ it woke against thee thy blood the flaming blade must slake thy heart its sheath must be all for my sake my peace to make now sleeps

Call to Repentance and Faith in Christ

48:50 that sword for me for me Lord Jesus thou hast died and I have died in thee thou art risen my bands are all untied and now thou livest in me when purified made white and tried thy glory then for me that's the good news of God's provision for sin and that Christ who underwent that horrific baptism and that of the unleashed fury of God is alive went back to the right hand of the Father and he will one day break through into this present world in glory and power and usher in the new heavens and the new earth and my plea to you is have heart dealings with him I close with this one point of emphasis and you will find it if you read on in the prophecy of Isaiah where he goes on in the 55th chapter and says seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake what his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord all we like sheep have gone astray turn to our own way

50:20 God says get out of the God business turn to God through Christ forsake your own way and he gives us this promise for he will have mercy and to our God for he will abundantly pardon the glory of the gospel is this hear me now that in gospel faith the sinner in all the nakedness of his need and the savior in all the plenitude of his saving grace and power come together in the embrace of faith no wafer no water no priest no minister no nothing between sinner in all the nakedness of your need the savior in the plenitude of his power comes riding to you in the chariot of his gospel lay hold of Christ and you'll have all the saving benefits that he purchased with his own precious blood they're all in him peace with God forgiveness the gift of the Holy Spirit the hope of eternal life a resurrection body his promised presence you've just got oodles of blessing but they're all stored up in the savior and he is yours if you will have him by faith

51:49 this morning let no wafer no water no minister no priest no nothing say Lord Jesus I am what your word says I am I'm part of that straying flock I've been a self-willed self-centered sinner and I'm ready to get out of the God business Lord Jesus take me take me forgive me cleanse me break the chains that bind me make me yours for now I'm going to and forever and he will do that he says come to me all you that labor and are heavy laden I will give you rest him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out God grant that this day those two little simple categories of truth have found their mark in your heart bad news of your desperate condition in sin the good news of God's amazing provision for sin God grant that you will embrace the Savior let us pray our Father how we pray that you would

53:17 take the simple declaration of these elementary truths and make them effectual to the salvation of some even this day we pray Lord that none will go on playing Russian roulette with their never dying souls but oh that they may stack arms and turn from sin and embrace your beloved son seal then your word to every heart we pray in Jesus name Amen