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Peter and Apostle Jesus Christ To the strangers gathered drug haunted, Galatia, Pappadocia, Asia, and Pathinia elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit, and to obedience and springing of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Let it be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the dead.
To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled from the state of not away reserved in heaven, for you who are kept by the power of God through faith and the salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein you greatly rejoice. So now, for a season if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
That the trial of your faith is to be much more precious than a golden heritage, though if he tried with fire, which might be found in the praise and honor and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen he loved, and whom so now you see him not yet believing, he rejoiced with joy, unspeakable and full glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired in search, diligently prophesied of the grace that should come unto you.
Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them to signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that you followed.
And to whom it was revealed, that not of themselves, but unwested units of the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the holy gold sent down from heaven, Which thinks the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought into you as a revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust and your ignorance, But as he which has called you is holy, so be equally in all manner of conversation.
Because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. And if you call in the Father, who without respect to persons, judge it according to every man's word past this time of your sojourning here and here. For as much as you know that you were not the game of corruptible things, as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by position from your Father, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lion without blemish and without spot, who barely was forward named before the foundation of the world.
Manifesting these last time for you to by him to believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory. That your faith and hope might be in God, seeing he have purified your souls. And obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unseigned love of the brethren, see that he loved one another with a pure heart, Conservatively being born again, not a corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever for all fleshes of grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass Withers, and the flower thereof falls away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
But in this first epistle of Peter.
He mentions the sufferings of Christ in each chapter.
And he speaks of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow.
In the second epistle he tells us about that excellent glory.
In The Night of Luke, where they saw it, the three of them, Peter, James and John.
We find that Jesus had been rejected as the Messiah in that early part of that chapter and.
They are not to speak of him as the Christ. Or he does speak of himself as the Christ. He speaks of himself as the Son of Man, and then he shows him that glory.
But those who saw it? Peter.
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James and John.
Peter is the only one that wrote about the glory, and he didn't write about it until he got to his second epistle.
It's the order of the path for every believer, suffering and the glory.
We're always headed for the glory, but were tested down here.
Peter writes here to the stranger scattered throughout upon this Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Virginia, and he says elect chosen according to the Punisher, God the Father.
I'd like to go to the second episode and notice how he introduces that one.
In the first verse.
He adds Simon Peter he he takes himself and thought back to himself as a man in the place appreciating what he had been brought into.
I think it's a lesson for all of us. We started out as children of Adam by grace, were saved through faith, and we kind of get a new name and a new position.
Simon Peter. A servant, he says, and an apostle. He'd taken up ServiceNow of Jesus Christ.
I'll notice to them that have obtained light, precious faith with us.
I hope we can all enjoy what he says there, Peter.
Those who have obtained light, precious faith with us now that's the apostle.
The Faith of the Apostles. You and I have lived on Jesus through the word of the Apostles.
And it brings us into the fellowship.
Of the Apostles Doctrine, The Apostle doctrine and Fellowship in Acts 2.
They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and breaking of bread and prayers.
So when Peter says like precious faith with us, I think it's the position the gathered Saints whole today gathered to his name, enjoying the apostles, doctrine and fellowship and then the breaking bread and prayer.
Another thing that Peter mentions, the lock is great. We go back to that night to look and look there for a minute.
There was something that they.
We're learning.
I'm living in the 9th of blue for that virgin says he know not what manner of spirit you're of. It's the 5th, 5th verse.
They had seen the glory.
The three of them that come down from the mound and failure comes in because they were not praying as dependent like the Lord was. Instead of that they were having a struggle among themselves, reasoning which of them should be the greatest. That's the 46th place. It's a failure of the three in at least comes out there after they come down from the mountain.
And they have to learn, and we have to learn. And Peter had to learn what manner of spirit he was of. That's the 55th verse.
He turned and rebuked them and said he know not what manner of superiority for the Son of Man is, not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. They went to another village just to go over this, to bring us to Peter and his writing.
And he begins in our vessel with.
Elect.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, I say. That would bring us in.
All saved ones chosen, chosen of God.
And to learn what Grace is, Peter had learned, and he never forgot the cross either. The cross is the basis of everything. So in our epistle he mentioned the cross, the suffrage, in each chapter.
Then in the second epistle he takes up the glory that should follow. But all through each epistle I think you'll find grace. Just notice in the 5th chapter of the first epistle and he speaks of gone. This is Peter. He has learned what manner of spirit he was of.
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He was a great and we're in the Age of Grace. What does he say in this tenth verse?
The God of all grace who has told us unto his eternal glory By Christ Jesus. There's a story. Grace and glory. That's I guess the 84th or the 85th Psalm. He will give grace and glory. That's the order. Grace comes first. We have to learn that. Peter had to learn it. He did that. He seeks him. God is the God of all grace who has called us.
Unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus.
Just one more word on the first one.
Of our chapter.
Three things in the second verse elect according to the four knowledge of God's the Father.
Romans 8 brings that out.
But how does it come to us? Through the sanctification of the Spirit. This is the age of the Holy Spirit, and that sanctification that's setting apart of the Holy Spirit is an actual work in it. If you're saved by grace, the Spirit of God has set you apart. Sanctification of the Spirit is an actual work of the Spirit in US.
And then?
Orderly, sanctified, too were to obey. We have to learn how to conduct ourselves as believers and to obedience.
And the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, the obedience of Jesus Christ is that you and I are to obey as Christ obey He obeyed as delighting to do His Father's will. Now when we get saved, we got a spirit that can and does do that with us.
So we're set apart.
Marked out to obey his Chrysler buyer. Obeyed. When there. Then there's this sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the that's the application of the blood. That's what blend us from our sins, these three things.
Sanctified. And then the obedience of Christ and the way, Olivia, the blood of Christ.
Then he began to embrace it.
In order to really understand the force of this passage.
We have to turn back, he's writing to the says to the strangers scattered throughout Panasonic murders of the It's really writing to to Jews that were dispersed in these different places.
In the world to turn back to Exodus 24, I believe it is.
Exodus 24.
When they got the law.
In verse 3.
And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice, and said all the words which the Lord hath said, Will we do? So they committed themselves to obey, to obedience to the law. And then it says, Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar.
And you read on a little.
And.
Verse seven he took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of the people, and they said all that the Lord had said, Will we do?
And be obedient. Verse 8 Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord had made with you concerning all these words. And here you have these same two things We have obedience that they commit themselves to having heard the law, And then the blood is sprinkled on the book and also on them as a sign of death.
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To the disobedience, should they not obey, they would pay with their lives and.
So you have these two same things, except in a very different sense. They committed themselves to a legal obedience, failing in that the result was death and judgment signified by the blood.
Blood speaks of the death, but here they're sanctified to the obedience of Christ, not their own obedience, which they failed in, but to the obedience of Christ. His Clem has just told us to obey as he obeyed, and not to judgement. Should we fail in that obedience, but to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ which sets us before God in perfect acceptance.
Even if we fail in the obedience, and we know we do so, it's an entirely different thought. It's the result of grace, isn't it? We are sanctified to obey as Christ obeyed. And should we fail in that we know we all do. We're sanctified to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That doesn't speak of judgment, that speaks of salvation. So we have the same two things, but used it in a very different sense from what Israel committed themselves to when they heard the law.
Thank God we're not under the law.
But we're under grace. This is what Peter is bringing out here.
So he says at the end of verse 2, Grace unto you, and peace will multiply.
Well, the.
Living hope in verse three, with a different hope from what Israel could take up under fleshly Lockheed. They would have lived if they kept the law, but that didn't work.
What would you say about Begotten again?
Wouldn't you say he took them up once?
On the ground of law, that is. They had committed themselves to that and failed in it, but now he's taken this, he's taken these to each other.
By grace.
Taking them up by grace.
And that produces, through the work of God and the Spirit in them and in us, a living hope, a hope that can never, ever change. God tested the first man, and it turned out quickly to be a dead hope. He couldn't do it.
And it's according to his abundant mercy.
How they needed mercy. They were guilty, were they not. They had failed. They had not kept the law. They were guilty. They were deserving only of judgment and death. But His mercy is abundant mercy.
That's Ephesians 2. But God, who is rich in his mercy, who is great lover with his love, and we were dead in trespasses and saying lawbreakers, guilty, helpless, who wants to do nothing.
But the mercy of God comes in and does everything for us, so we have a living hope now.
By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we have one man who is already reached the glory. He came down in grace and walked in perfect grace.
Dying under the penalty of a broken law occurred for the curse, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel and has reached the end of the course. There is a man in the glory.
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In Romans 9, we are called vessels of mercy.
Vessels of mercy and trophies of His grace, to have a sense of that in our souls, that it's nothing we have done.
It's all the work of Christ. Christ obeyed even unto death, and that the death of the cross and that has secured our eternal salvation through His precious blood shed their cross. And it's an abundant mercy that has been bestowed upon us.
Nothing we have done. It's all His work and it's all His mercy and grace that has brought us into blessing.
The strangest thing is a proud Christian. Because in order to become a Christian, we have to give up our pride, don't we? To give it up completely and hold our We're lost and guilty and sinners, and we're the only of judgment.
The hope that the Jew had had he obeyed the law, was an earthly hope.
Was blessing here on earth. But he's talking here about the heavenly hope. Yet we got this again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled. And that fate is not away reserved in heaven for you. It's not an earthly hope. It's not something that can fade and perish and become corrupted. It's that which is eternally secure and sure and certain.
That is ours now in Christ.
They had hope for in the mind of the Israelites, they had hope for glory on earth, and they're going to, and that nation is going to have it in the coming days. But in the meantime, this church period.
There is what?
Paul refers to as the Israel of God, that is a little remnant.
Who presently believe in Christ and have been added to the assembly preserved there, But it is mercy, and so.
Paul says that in room 11 That they would be partakers of York, That is the Gentiles.
We have been brought in by the mercy of God, and Israel would be brought in in a coming day by the mercy of God. But here presently there were these Jews who were scattered throughout because of their disobedience. And that's what Moses had promised them, that if they disobeyed God, or God had promised them, he would scatter them. But if in those distant lands they turned to the Lord, he would gather them again.
But all of that is future and on hold, but for the present. The Lord had saved this company of Jews, Paul says, the remnant of the Jews. And they're given a hope before them now in heaven. But the principles apply to you and me, even as Gentiles, you know, wouldn't say of us has begotten us again or in the next chapter.
Year Return to the Bishop and shepherd of your souls. We We never had a relationship with the Lord at all, without God and without hope. But God has come in and on the same principles, and He has given us a future hope. We're saved in hope Our salvation isn't realized in this life, though we have it now. So this epistle will be of real interest to us because.
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What it makes us here on earth as those who have no country and we're just pilgrims and strangers, We don't. We no longer. There's nothing down here that we belong to. And so this chapter and this epistle is of real interest to us because it will affect how we hold things down here. So you might say this Jew.
The Jewish believer here, he could be quite discouraged.
Because having put his faith in Christ, all that it did was complicate his life and bring additional sufferings. It was bad enough being a Jew, but now being a believing Jew, not only was he suffering from nation, but from his own countrymen. They hated him for having put his trust in Christ. So down here our faith in the Lord adds affliction to trials to our lives that we never supposed would be.
No, We came to the lawyer. We thought, well, it's going to be all well now. We've put our trust in Christ. Everything's going to be OK. But oftentimes, and characteristically, just the opposite is true. So the epistle is written to encourage faith to wait because we have something eternal into heavens. It was read a little bit ago, the eternal glory.
Before the present, we should just expect.
Suffering and be content with it.
In the second chapter, in verse nine, Peter says to this the leading elect.
Company of Saints among the Jews, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people. And that's what Israel was to be. If you look at Exodus 19, I think it is.
He had chosen them to be that well, they had failed completely in that and forfeited it because of their disobedience. And now he's find those very things to this company that had received the Messiah, the Lord Jesus as the true Messiah. He says that you should show forth the praises of him who had called you out of darkness in his marvelous light, which in time passed were not a people. Many apply that to the Gentiles. I think it's referring here.
To the fact that on the nation of Israel Lo am I not my people was written upon them. And so he says in time past you were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy. Long Mohammed not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. That's still future for the nation. But the remnant of Jews who believe in this present day, as Henry was just saying, come under this now.
And they are now his people, and they're the ones that have obtained mercy. Well, of course we Gentiles enjoy that too, but not quite in the same sense that it applied to the Jew. To be a Jew was to be persecuted for being a Jew and also a Christian now. And so they got double persecution.
Henry, you mentioned the Israel of God. I believe that expression is in Galatians.
Six and verse 16. I'd like for you to enlarge upon that a little bit more because I think it fits with was what's being said.
There is a verse that's helpful to me in.
Profit my acre into.
Chapter 5.
And it speaks of, I believe, the present Israel of God, and her position before God and.
And that's the remnant of from amongst the Jews who trusted Christ. All of the figure of them pre trusted in Christ, but in the mic of chapter 5.
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In verse three it says Therefore will he give?
Them up until the time that she would travail at her brought forth.
Now Israel is going to have to go into travail to bring forth and that will answer to the tribulation period before she is brought into her proper hope. That is the millennial blessing of Christ. But there is a rim that it says she would feel it. That's all. For then the remnant of his brethren shall return to the children of Israel now.
Again, at the hands of their own countrymen.
Because of their true faith in Jehovah. But at the present time that remnant is in the assembly depicted typically as a city of refuge where the man Slayer could flee. So Paul takes advantage of that passage and says albeit I obtain mercy for I did it in ignorantly and in unbelief. So he identifies himself with that remnant at the present time from a monster Israelites.
Who have been placed into the church and their preserves until such a time when the Lord will take the nation up again, and a little remnant will return to Israel. Now you might say, take it out of the assembly. I speak only as what they represent, and identify again with that nation, but simply arrive there.
So that verse in Galatians 616 read it as many as walk according to this rule. That's the rule of the new creation.
Peace beyond them and mercy and upon the Israel of God. That would be the believing Jews in this present day. You get that also in Romans chapter 2.
Romans chapter 2 verse 28. For he is not a Jew, which is 1 outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is 1 inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and in the letter. Whose praise? That's what Jew the Jew means. Jew comes from Judah, which means praise, not a little in the letter, but whose praise is not of men but of God.
So the true Jew today, the true Israel of God, are those that believe Jews, that believe. And that's what they're rights to, isn't it?
To the Jews that believe the elect.
You have that feather Chuck in again. I'm going towards the Millennial day in Chapter 30 of Deuteronomy.
Says in verse 6, the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart. Well they promised to do that under the law, but they had no heart capable of doing it. But the Lord will. Peter uses the expression in our chapter being born again.
He will cause that remnant to be born again, and they will have a heart capable of loving it. It will be a circumcised heart.
And it will be by mercy.
That's mentioned in the chapter of League 2. The Lord will have mercy on them and gather them out of the nations from which they have been scattered. But.
Then when it says peace be upon thee and upon the Israel, Christ shows that we move in the same on the same principles. And so we can learn from this, if this, so that the Lord is looking for a response from our heart.
He is interested in.
Simply correctness in outward form, and for taking up things in the way of a duty. But he is looking for in our lives the outflow from our hearts that bring us into obedience, The obedience of Christ the Lord never with his obedience to God. It was an obedience of joy.
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I delight to do thy will, O God, it was something that he delighted to do.
Not something that was exacted from him. Well, the same thing is true for you and I as believers. He has been given a heart that he likes to do the will of God and so we can take up this chapter and see the pentacles.
So the subject is that remnant from amongst Israel.
The principles, Paul says they would be saved by your mercy, and if they mercy that faith them that save the Gentiles save them. And so it's a great interest to it isn't.
You mentioned their heart in Deuteronomy 5, where the law is given.
After he he gave the law.
Verse 28 The Lord heard the voice of your words when he spake unto me. And the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken unto thee. They have well said, All that they have spoken, they have said, All that the Lord has spoken, We will do and obey. And then he says in verse 29 all that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always.
That it might be well with them and with their children forever. He knew they didn't have the heart. He knew that the old nature which they had was not capable of keeping His word, his law. And they were self confident. They thought they could do it in their own strength. They could not. And when we think we can do it in our own strength, we do not know our own hearts.
And we haven't really learned the sense of mercy and grace.
He brings up the inheritance next and when they could not and did not get the inheritance under the law.
God comes in.
And immersion. Grace saves them and keeps them. And us who are brought in under the same principles, mercy and next, we get here.
To an inheritance incorruptible, you've begotten us under living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead verse 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you. So God tells them, I'm going to keep the inheritance, I'm going to have a people there to have it.
So in principle, he keeps us too. He saves our souls and keeps us, and he will bring us into that inheritance too. It's kept for us. We're kept by the power of God through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed in the fifth verse.
That's the salvation through the desert journey.
In contrast, already verse nine, we have the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls.
Gentile Jews get the salvation of the soul and God takes care of the inheritance too for us.
When salvation is mentioned in the Old Testament, it almost always refers to deliverance from their enemies. Israel's deliverance from their enemies. It had to do with an earthly deliverance. The salvation of the soul. The He talks about in verse 9 is Christian truth.
Not Jewish truth. Don't believe they had that truth. In the Old Testament, salvation of the soul was If you were born in Israelite, whether you were born again or not, you were part of that favored nation of Israel. That is, the issue of new birth as such was not raised then. The Lord Jesus taught Nicodemus about that, that being a Jew was not enough. And if you notice in the New Testament when he talks about the new birth being born again.
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He always uses it.
Being born again is always used in dressing Jews.
Because their tendency was to trust in their first birth. We have Abraham for our father. The Lord said no, that won't do. You must be born again. Now the gentile doesn't have to be born told he needs to be born again because he wasn't trusting in his first birth like the Jew was.
He needed to be quickened. He needed a life, a new life. Of course, it's the same operation of the Spirit, just put in a different way. The quickening of the spirit and new birth are one and the same thing, but it's the being born again that's applied to Israel, to the Jew, because he was trusting in his first birth.
And he needed to be told he needed a new birth, a new life, a new beginning altogether.
I.
It's a wonderful thing. How God.
Orders what he tells us here.
Speaking about strangers and pilgrims, as the Jew was, and in a spiritual way as we are as well. And what is it that is going to draw out our hearts to follow him and to look on? And the Lord gives us right in the beginning of an epistle that takes up a lot of suffering. He gives us at the very beginning those things that would set our hearts and establish us in a way that.
Would have us to go on.
1St is to whom we have the relationship is blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it's important to know whom we are related to that we might go on. And then he brings before us this living hope that is ours, and it's founded on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Almost every hope, if not every hope of man, that he really strives for, ends with death.
Man always looks for things, but if you tell them you're going to die tomorrow, what does that do to his host? In most cases, that's the end of them. In fact, he might say, I'll give anything I have or can accumulate if there's a way to save me from death. And yet, what is it that encourages us? We have a hope which is based upon the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, we have a hope that is beyond death, and that death has already been conquered for us. And then it brings before us the wonderful inheritance that is to be ours.
And we need to remind ourselves of that because whenever present difficulty or trouble of the way of life comes in, then the heart tends to get discouraged and down and give up sometimes and say, well, it's not worth it, it's it's too hard, it's too difficult and so on. So it's a gracious provision for us that in the very beginning of this epistle we are given those things that would attract our hearts, that we might respond, that we might go on.
And continued the journey to the end in faith and confidence, until the Lord gives us the full realization of our hope, which is to be with Him and like Him in his very presence.
Oh, it changes our lives, brother Don. If if Christ is our life and we can set our minds on things above how it affects the way we live for the present. Because.
As natural men, the earth is our natural habitat and it takes the energy of faith and virtue. Peter Peter speaks of later.
To overcome our natural tendency to live down here. And for the present time. It was doubly hard for the Jew because he had a little piece of land over there that he could say this is mine. We speak, and rightfully so, of this is our country, but we don't have this isn't our country, but they do have a little country over there, but they had to put that all in the backs of their minds.
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And realize that they were going to now live for the future.
That's what the Lord would have each one of us to be exercised. What are we living for, today or for the future?
The question in that.
5th verse who are kept by the power of God through faith.
Unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Verse 9 talks about receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. But isn't verse five looking on to?
That which is still future.
I'm asking the question. I'm just thinking we don't have time to turn to it, but.
In Loop 2, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist prophecy and he said raise up a horn of salvation. Believe it's coming in the line of David and Jesus Christ. Inform them.
And he is the only one that can bring the Jews into the fullness of everything, and us too, that we're going to get. So I would suggest that salvation, ready to be revealed, is the whole thing. Perhaps he always looked down. The grace praises the end of prophecy. And the end of the House of Light of David is in that chapter too. That's the truth. That's Jesus.
He's the one that's going to restore all that he didn't take away the salvation To be ready to reveal, I think is the full thing that Christ gets at the end.
For the salvation of the body is the first thing we want, isn't it? We'll get that pretty soon.
I.
#10
Grace is the sweetest.
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One that falls can't swallow and jump to the ground.
Floor and creation of our Creator.
Father and our Lord Jesus.
Thank you for what we have indeed, Lord Jesus.
We thank you while we presently enjoy the salvation of our soul, that there is coming a time manifestation of the sons of God, where they will be shown to all that salvation that we have, But as we wait for it a full blessed Savior, We pray that we may even know about ourselves and our sons of God in the midst of appropriate and perverse generation.
Help us, our God and Father.
And strengthen our faith to go on and confidence in Thy word and entrusting indeed and or Father that do not have any way dishonesty. We thank you for what thou hast done saving us and calling us with the heavenly calling our Father we get nice and precious being our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen, Amen. Amen.