Gospel—Bruce Conrad
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Welcome to the Gospel meeting.
Gospel means good news.
We have good news tonight.
Let's start by singing a hymn in the Echoes of Grace hymn sheet. Hymn #25 will just sing the 1St.
And the last verses verses one and four of 25.
Time.
13 years old wandering boys, say the Lord your hath destroyed, and I don't have been crowned.
Take him from thy name come from God has been through life from nowhere until the prominence from what I want to make started before you're having to give him a lot of money and giving him anything giving him anything in his life.
Embarrassed and you're crying because you may be in time.
Let's pray.
For God our Father, we thank Thee for this opportunity to have thy word before us. We thank Thee that.
Are still interested in the lives, the souls, the destinies of men and women. Children, we thank Thee for sending Thy Son from the glory down into this world to make a way whereby lost sinners might be recovered, might be redeemed, might be returned unto Thee in righteousness. And so we ask Thy help as we would seek to open Thy word.
And read passages from it that would tell the great, great story.
Of thy great love, and the wondrous things that thou hast done for the children of men. So we ask thy blessing our God and Father, and the worthy and precious name of our God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Let's start by turning to the 33rd Psalm, please. If you're new to the Bible, I.
Remember being told that you just hold the Bible up and split it right down in the middle. You come into the Psalms.
Sometimes you preach in places where people are opening the Bible for the first time.
I want to speak in the time that we have tonight.
Really about.
Seven things. I know, it sounds like a lot of things.
It says in the word of God that wisdom is justified of all her children.
And I am one of Wisdom's children.
And I want to justify God tonight. I want to speak on his behalf and make a defense of him.
I want to speak about man's responsibility to God.
I want to speak about man's ruin.
I want to speak about God's love for you and for me, and the provision God has made in love for you and me.
I want to speak about the work of Christ, about God's purpose in Christ.
Then I want to speak at the end about the destiny of those that accept God's offer of salvation.
And those that reject it, if you were counting, I think that's about 7. We'll see if we get through them all.
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But to start with, I'd like to read Psalm 33, just a part of it.
Verse 6.
By the word of the Lord, where the heavens made, and all the hosts of them, by the breath of his mouth, he gathereth the waters of the sea together as in heap.
He layeth up the depth in storehouses that all the earth.
The Lord let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect.
The Council of the Lord standeth forever the thoughts of his heart to all.
Generations.
Particularly had in mind that eighth verse, Let all the earth fear the Lord, Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
I sometimes marvel when I read in the New Testament about a coming day when those in the favored western lands especially, who have been exposed to the light of the Word of God.
And have rejected it that receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved.
We will be given over to a strong delusion.
The Word of God, you'll notice. Never.
Exaggerates or overstates anything.
If there's something you know about specifically and then you read God's testimony or explanation of it, you know that if anything, He understates the things that you've seen and experienced in your life.
When God says it's a strong delusion, it's going to be strong.
And what I marvel about is the illusion that men and women are under today, because this one that we're under right now.
Seems to me very very strong.
We read in Romans chapter one.
That God designed man with the innate ability.
To look upon created things and to know that there was a God.
Romans chapter one.
He created you with that innate sense and ability.
And he created everyone that way. And what has man done?
I the older I get, the more I marvel almost every day.
That people don't wake up in the morning and go outside and look around at a tree.
Or an apple. Or a frog, or the sun. Or go out at night and see the stars.
And acknowledge that there is a God who is all powerful.
And all wise and is beyond our wildest imagination of what?
Has been put together around us and what we're a part of.
In the engineering business, people invent stuff and design stuff. I think Robert used to do that for a living.
And if you're I don't have an exalted.
Livelihood like that, we've just built things that people drive on and things like that. But in order to build those things, you need to build like tools and and, and like things to build other things. And, and that's where the real challenge is, is building these these temporary structures in order to get so you can build something.
And we carry budgets to design and build these things and anybody with any Gray hair at all, the young guys come in and they got it all figured out and they got it all the tonnage and all the bolts and all the everything. And and then a guy like me looks at us as checks their work and their take off and says, OK, that's very good and I'll double it.
And then we double it and then we spend more than that usually because there's a lot of failure.
And if a person designs something that's really necessary or unique to do something necessary and unique, you fail more than you succeed.
Have you ever seen in the universe that there's a failure around anywhere?
Is there an animal? Is there a planet? Is there a star? Is there some part of the natural creation?
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That shows the slightest bit of failure or lack of perfection.
You won't find it.
Look at your hand.
You know, I I dropped something in my vehicle and.
It's really tight in that down there and I can't see it.
And I'm just trying to feel it.
And I got to thinking about your hand. It's just So what a design just the human hand is.
The other day in the meeting room, we broke some glass shattered in the in the dishwasher and I'm trying to clean it out and I thought I got it all and I just put my hand in there just ever so lightly. And your finger can feel the slightest little thing. A slight little bit class will stick to it and you can brush it off. What up? What up?
And then you can make a fist and hold onto a rope or a cable or something and you can pull.
Or you can push and you can hit.
Or you can caress.
On and on and on. It's just a hand.
And you could go through the universe like that.
And you go to school and you learn science. True science.
And you learn about everything goes from a solid to a liquid to a gas, except one thing, water.
Water is the only thing that changes its density in the opposite way.
When it goes from a liquid to a solid and you stop and think about why is that? Well.
You know if the.
If it was the normal way everything else is, then as soon as the ice froze it would get heavier than the liquid and it would sink and it just pretty soon. No fresh water in most of the world.
The northern world and things like that, there's just thousands of things like that.
And what has man done?
Has ignored the plain testimony of God instead of, as it says in this Psalm, let all the world stand in awe of Him.
So I tell you, I don't know how this strong illusion is going to be.
But right now?
An intelligent human being.
With a graduate education or a pH DI, have some pH D's are working around us and they can walk out. And I said how did you get here?
Did God create you or did you evolve?
And they think they evolved.
I don't know. I hate to keep harping about evolution. You know, even before I saved, I thought it was ridiculous. How could that happen? Nothing ever observed in the in the world of nature or science. Thermodynamics goes up. It goes the other way.
If men you know if you run for political office, I have some friends that are in the political world from my childhood.
If you decide to run for office and most of this country and you say.
And they they find out you're a Christian and you say they start to quiz you on your beliefs.
Yes, I believe the Son of God came and was born of a virgin.
And you say, well, do you believe in evolution? No, I don't believe in evolution. I believe that God created me. You are branded an absolute kook and a nut in this very sophisticated world that we live in. It's amazing to me. I marvel at it almost every day.
That we are considered such crazy kooks and all we've done is act normally and stand in awe of Him who created you and me and everything.
It seems to me that men deny.
God is creator. It's almost as if they know where you're going with that.
Because if you say, if I say OK, I acknowledge that God created me.
Boom, there is a God. Hmm. If there's a God, what's the deal with me?
What's my relationship to this God? And things start to flow from there.
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And so I want to turn now to Daniel chapter 5 and read about a man.
There's a man in a high position, Belshazzar.
OK.
Daniel chapter 5 and verse 5.
In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand and wrote.
Over against the Candlestick, upon the plaster of the wall of the King's palace.
And the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the King's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loose, and his knees smote one against another.
The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers.
And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet.
And have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the Kingdom, and so on.
The Queen instructs King Belshazzar that there was a wise man in the Kingdom who had performed a similar function for his father. Maybe it was his grandfather. I'm not sure whether Nebuchadnezzar was the father or the grandfather.
And so they called Daniel, and Daniel comes in.
And Daniel?
In verse.
21 And in that part of the chapter begins to relate to Belshazzar.
That something had happened with his father.
That his father had been given great responsibility and given the headship or leadership of a great Kingdom not very long before. And then he had become lifted up with pride, and God humbled him, made him and made him like a beast, made his heart like a beast, and he was out in the eating grass and so on like an animal until God restored him.
So in verse 21 he recounts this and says He was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beast, and his dwelling was with the wild *****. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the most High God ruled in the Kingdom of men, and that the he appointed over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Balshazar, hast not humble thine heart, though thou knewest all this.
But thou hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven.
And they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy Lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them.
And thou has praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, ironwood, and stone, which see not.
Nor here, nor no. And the God in whose hand thy breath is.
And whose are all thy ways? Hast thou not glorified? We'll stop there for a moment if we were to read there in Romans chapter one, which we didn't, and I will just quote it for you in Romans 1.
I quoted the part which says in verse 19 that which may be known of God is manifest to them.
God has showed it unto them.
And then in verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
Neither were thankful. That became vain in their imaginations. Their foolish heart was darkened.
They glorified him not.
I doubt I'm speaking to anybody in this room that's a king.
And maybe there's no one in this room that has these kind of special responsibilities.
But all of us had the same responsibility in general that our duty.
Our responsibility to the One who made us as God, the Creator, to glorify Him.
The general statement in Romans one about the world at that time was that they have not. They did not glory, they glorified him, not when they knew him.
And so Belshazzar here is in the same boat.
He ought to have known better. He had a clear testimony in the life of another.
Verse 24 Daniel says then was the part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written, and this is the writing that was written meaning.
Meanie techo farson, but this is the interpretation of the thing meaning God hath numbered thy Kingdom and finished it.
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Tackle Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Perez, thy Kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
As you read in the next few verses you you find that life indeed was very brief for Belshazzar.
I believe he died that night. His life was required of him.
And I'm not trying to scare anybody tonight and say that you're going to hear the gospel for the last time and you're going to go out that door and your life will be taken from you. I don't know that.
But God holds you accountable for what you know, and you know in your heart what you know, that there is a God in heaven.
In whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways?
Have you glorified him? He said. I never really thought about glorifying God.
Maybe you gave some thoughts about being a little good.
Or a little better. But you never thought about glorifying God. I wouldn't have thought about it really either.
Except from reading God's Word.
And I've learned that that is God's standard.
When God wants to measure man, and that's what he's done here. It's interesting meaning meaning, I think it means as it says here.
Numbered and numbered. Why does he say that twice? He says it twice Numbered, numbered or weighed.
Numbered. Numbered.
Weighed and divided.
I think the reason maybe this is that God is profoundly careful.
When it comes to the destiny of a soul.
I learned a lesson when I started out working. I worked as a Carpenter at times.
And once in a while, in the residential line of things, you have to cut something.
Commercial line of things that's very expensive and it makes you a little nervous.
And you know a piece of walnut or something, You know that, right? And.
I wish our guys would be more careful sometimes that way today, but so I it's pretty confident, you know, I read a tape measure.
And sure enough, I've measured it out and I cut it like 2.
Couldn't add anything to it.
Cut it too short and I couldn't add anything to it.
And so the older carpenters have this saying, I'm sure they have it today, measured twice, cut once, right? You've all heard that. Measure twice, cut once. And to this day, I don't think I cut hardly a piece of junk if around the house, but I don't measure it twice to check myself or measure it from another direction.
And God is serious about the destiny of a soul, because the soul lives forever.
You are going to be you forever.
You're either going to be you and outer darkness by yourself in hell.
Or you're going to be you in the presence of the Lord Jesus and all the redeemed in the bright light of glory with Christ.
It's forever.
Velshazar went out, probably into a lost eternity.
Numbered.
Numbered measure twice weighed gone.
What about you? How do you measure up?
The gospel message says in Romans chapter 3 that all have sinned and come short of.
The glory of God.
That's the measuring standard.
God has nothing less than that. God has God like standards.
Excellence in everything and perfection.
Come short of the glory of God.
And just as Belshazzar was weighed by the testimony of God, you and I are weighed too.
Man, woman, child, everyone, everyone shall give account of themselves before God.
And to save you all the homework and introspection and evaluation and hand wringing.
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God says you've come short of the glory of God. He not only says you're a Sinner.
Or that you have sinned but that you are a Sinner.
You've got bad fruit on your resume.
And you're a bad tree. And you've been like that since you were born.
Man is born unto trouble like the sparks flow upward.
And then he drinks iniquity like water. That's man from the top of the head to the sole of the feet. Wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
And when man tries to be righteous, he puts his own righteousness together and tries to present that to God. It's an obnoxious, odious thing to God.
All your righteousness is prophet, Isaiah said. Are like filthy rags. They are menstrual rags, to be blunt.
That's your condition. You have a problem if you're outside of Christ.
And it's only going to get worse.
Some years ago, maybe 20 or 30 years ago.
Maybe longer 35.
I was visiting my father, I think my wife was with me and I asked to speak to him.
He was not saved and is still not saved today unless it happened today.
And we sat down in the living room. I can remember it. And I said, Dad, I want to talk to you and I.
I said.
You know, I lived far away and I said I don't want to hear you just keeled over, you know, at work or something.
Where you got hit by a car.
And are laying there with you and you'll take in your last breaths.
And you don't know how to be saved.
So if you don't mind, I'd like to tell you how to be saved right now.
So if that happens, I'll know that you know.
And I won't have to wonder.
And so I didn't take 45 minutes like we have tonight.
But I tried to put before him methodically.
The gospel of the grace of God. And he listened very politely.
And has always been that way.
But his real problem is, he says, I can't imagine myself being a Christian and liking to do the things you do.
I can't imagine enjoying that.
I'm not sure how I answered that.
I don't remember how I answered it. I'm sure I answered it.
If that's your feeling, I would say today that is the least of your worries my friend.
In your sins if you've ever seen somebody thrashing around.
On a bed trying to get their last breath.
They're not going to ask the composition of the gas that the nurse brings to their mouth or somebody thrashing in the water is not going to care whether it's a hamper or a nylon rope.
I'm going to say help me.
And cry out.
To be saved.
Don't worry about being a Christian. Worry about the fact that right now you're guilty before God.
And that God looks upon you right now and not in a neutral zone between being a saved person and eventually a lost person.
You're in judgment already. He that believeth not it says in John chapter 3 is judged already.
You're like a person walking around with that dark cloud over you, judged.
Just waiting to fall upon you. Why will you live that way?
That your life is in the balance all the time.
And there's a step between you and a lost eternity.
My mom said to me later on, I wish you wouldn't speak my mom, I believe.
Was a believer. I believe she's with Christ right now.
Absent from the body and present with the Lord, she said. I wish you wouldn't speak to your father that way. It hurts his feelings.
I was in a construction meeting one time.
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Where we the project was so chaotic I got parachuted in trying to bail the situation out.
And uh, we had a large staff and I'd meet with the staff every afternoon. I don't know if like 5:00 or something and just.
Get everybody's status and update.
And then they there's a night shift and all that stuff. And so I'm trying to process.
Where we're at and.
Maybe 60-70 staff people and my boss comes in.
And he's a little upset and he listens to part of the meeting and he listens to the guys responding to my inquiries and my questions.
And uh.
This has been 20/21/22 years ago now and I'll never forget he just in a natural context.
He stood up and he says, you know, tired of listening to all these excuses.
Says you guys ought to be ashamed of yourself.
This is in our company. There's no excuses.
In Romans chapter one I think it's three times or Romans chapter one and chapter 2 it says that they might be without excuse.
You might be attempting to offer excuses right now in your mind, or you may think that you have an excuse that you're going to use in that day before the great white throne of God.
Before you're cast into the Lake of Fire.
There's no adequate excuse. There is no excuse, Belshazzar. No excuse.
My boss stepped forward and he said.
He said.
I don't care about your feelings. I don't care if I hurt your feelings.
He says I care about you.
And I care about your families.
I care about this company.
I don't care about your feelings.
I never forgot that.
I wish I had had something.
Wise and prudent to say to my mom, I don't think I had a good answer. I was disappointed.
And I hope I haven't. Well, let me back up.
I don't intend to hurt your feelings tonight.
But I care about your soul.
And I'd rather have your feelings hurt.
And you get right with God.
And bow the knee and accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
Even if it means it hurt feelings for a little while.
That's man's ruin. Against the backdrop of man's ruin, God comes in.
Is put very nicely today.
The gospel is concerning his Son. That's what the gospel is about. It's about God's Son. Romans chapter one, The gospel concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, it's about him.
And it's not a contingency plan. It's not a response to something unanticipated.
It's part of His eternal purpose and His counsel.
That the 1St man would fail.
In his independence.
And the second man, the last Adam, the Lord from heaven.
Would accomplish.
All for God's glory.
And so God, as we know, so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.
And God sent one into this world.
His own son that took humanity into his person.
And as a man here, he displayed everything that God.
Is nothing left out?
In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And if that that would have been.
The greatest blessing and display for mankind that ever would have would have been if he had lived 30 or 33 years here and displayed that and gone.
Still the greatest thing, the greatest 33 years the world would have ever seen.
But not only did he display God in his own person, he could say, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
I and my father are one.
But then he proceeded, as you know, to Calvary's cross.
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The wages of sin is death.
And it costs to himself he proceeded into that place where God would judge sin.
And the wrath of God was poured out upon the only sinless man on Calvary's cross.
Everybody was fussing around about watching the eclipse traveling.
Miles and miles to see it where we were. One of my daughters had the little thing.
Saw the little.
I'm sure probably everybody in this room thought about a different eclipse that happened.
During those three hours of darkness.
When in divine respect.
For the man Christ Jesus.
The sun didn't even shine. There was darkness over all the land.
Christ died for my sins.
Shed his blood.
To put away my sins.
And I can tell you on the authority of this book without even knowing anything about you.
I can say, based upon the authority of this book, that God loves you.
I don't know if my wife loves you or my kids love you or my or Robert loves you. I don't know.
I can tell you that God loves you. God loves you.
I can say that Christ died for you and he gave himself a propitiation for our sins. And what's that? And what that means is.
That he accomplished on Calvary's cross.
A work to address the question of sin that is such a foundation.
That God can now bless the vilest Sinner who puts his trust in him and still be just in doing it.
That's the part of the mystery of the gospel.
And so, on the authority of God's word, I can say God loved you.
That Christ died for you.
But I cannot say to each and everyone of you that he bore your sins.
On Calvary St.
I can say he bore mine. He bore my sins because I put my trust in Him.
He was my substitute.
But I can't say he's yours. You have to decide that. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thou shalt be saved, the work is done, all things are ready, and to think that God himself invites you now.
To come.
Does it say go a worldly religion, say go do this, go do that?
He says come.
Luke chapter 16 is sometimes called a parable.
Luke 16 and verse 19 There was a certain rich man clothed with a in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.
There was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate, full source desiring to be fed.
With the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.
And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abram's bosom.
The rich man also died and was buried and in hell were Hades.
The unseen place.
He lifted up, his eyes being in torments.
I'll stop there.
You die in your sins.
You're not going away. You're going to be you.
Death is the separation of you from your body.
It's temporary.
There is such a thing as the resurrection of the unjust.
You die in your sins, the Lord Jesus says. Whither I go, he cannot come.
Your fate will be determined where the tree falls. That's where the tree lies.
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You die in your sins. You end up immediately according to this verse.
In Torment.
And sometime in the future, you will be.
Resurrected resurrection has to do with the body, and there's such a thing as a resurrection of the unjust.
The resurrection of judgment.
And you'll stand before a great white throne.
And God will check.
You'll review your works.
And then he'll make a second check.
To see if your name.
Speaking reverently, maybe there's a mistake.
See if your name is in the Book of Life.
If your name is not in the Book of Life, you'll be cast in the Lake of Fire.
That hurts your feelings. I'm sorry. That's your destiny.
If you continue to reject the love of God.
The Lord Jesus came and glorified God.
And he, in so doing, has made provision for you.
Don't go on in your sins.
Let's turn to Luke 23.
A well known story by many.
Of the two thieves that were in crosses on either side of the Lord Jesus, when they were put up there, they pierced their hands and their feet.
And they were both cursing him.
But one of them had a change of heart, and he turns to the Lord.
In verse 39.
Verse 40.
The other answering rebuked him. He rebuked the other thief, saying.
Dost thou not fear God?
Seeing thou art in the same condemnation, and we indeed justly.
For we receive the due reward of our deeds. What this man hath nothing done nothing amiss.
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee.
Today or this day, thou shalt be with me.
In paradise.
He was there today.
He was there yesterday.
Is there last week?
It's there right now. It's in paradise.
And it's going to get even better.
When that special moment comes.
And the father.
Gives the word to the sun. The sun will arise again from glory.
Come down into the clouds of heaven.
And the dead in Christ will be raised from the grave.
In their changed resurrection bodies.
We which are alive and remain shall be caught up with them, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. You'll be you, and I'll be me.
But we're going to be like Christ.
We're going to be like Christ.
Let's close by turning to 2nd Thessalonians Chapter 2.
We mentioned the strong delusion from verse 11 to 2nd Thessalonians 2 verse 11 for this 'cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. It did not receive the love of the truth.
But then dropped down to verse 14. I'm sorry, verse.
Verse 14.
He called you by our Gospel to the obtaining of the glory.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There's so many of us that got saved, we didn't know what was in store for us.
We thought to be spared from the judgment of God would be.
Priceless.
To have a new life, how wonderful.
I don't know about you, but I never signed up.
In my first days of salvation at the slightest clue.
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That I would be.
Obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That I would be brought, as we had in a reading meeting today, into a place like, into a position like that with himself.
Never signed up for that, but it's true. There are glories that the Son of God had.
Before the worlds were made. That will always be his and his alone.
The glory which I had with thee before the worlds were made. He has it still, and always will.
But he added to that as a man glories that he acquired down here.
As the victorious man over sin and death and hell.
And he stands, going to stand before God in that day, the first born amongst many brethren, and be able to say, Behold, I and the children which God had given me.
You'll see of the fruit of the travail of his soul.
Be satisfied.
You and I are going to share in that place. Why?
Because we heard the call.
We responded to the call. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
So tonight you've heard, perhaps one more time, a gospel message.
I hope if you remember nothing else, it will be implanted in your mind.
That God loves you.
That he sent his son to die for you, and that his hands are outstretched even tonight.
Wanting you to come and to receive eternal life and peace at such a time as now. Let's just bow in prayer.
Our God and our Father we.
Thank thee that we are understanding has been open to.
Take in these wonderful things, my love for us, despite all that we were and had done.
I was pleased to send thy son to deliver us from so great a death.
And to bring us into fellowship with himself.
You feel so inadequate. Our God and Father to.
Be able to express adequately the love, the glory that belongs to thee and to thy Son.
But we ask thy blessing upon thy precious word in the gospel invitation that has.
Gone out one more time.
We pray for each one that has been under the sound of Thy word tonight here and in every other place.
And asked that by word would not return unto thee void, but bring forth fruit.
For thine own eternal glory we ask thy blessing. We thank thee for all thy love.
And for the unspeakable gift of thy beloved Son, we give thee thanks in his worthy and precious name. Amen.