You begin to imagine a world in which there are seasons, spring time, summertime, harvest time,
seasons, but no meaningful sense of progress of time, time moving from one point to another point with a sense of progress. This book, The Gifts of the Jews, how a desert tribe of nomads changed the way everyone thinks and feels. Historian Thomas Kale writes at the Bible, a particular story of when God called Abraham out of Sumeria to Canon. It's the Bible beginning with Genesis that called the whole world into time and history. Kale says that before that, before Abraham, the world had no concept of time as we think of it, everything was just part of the great circle of seasons and they just revolved one after the other, year after year but no sense of progress from one thing into another. That idea of progress just simply did not exist. Our text this morning is Daniel chapter 12 verses 1 through 4 and this is just a slice of redemptive history showing life is not a meeting with cycle. It's not moving from nowhere to nowhere but that life has direction and purpose and a definite destination. So really with me if you open Daniel chapter 12 verses 1 through 4, at that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will rise. There will be a time of distress such as not happened in the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people, everyone whose name is found written in the book, will be delivered. Multitudes of sleep and the dust of the earth will awake, some day everlasting life goes to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. But you Daniel close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge. You pray with me. Father we thank you for this word of God. We thank you for the fact that down through the centuries you put your inspired word into the minds and the hearts of men who took care then to faithfully transcribe it on the stone, on the parchment or that they were careful to safeguard the word of truth. And now we have it. We benefit from it. Now Lord that you would take this word and that you would use it in our lives we pray. That you would use it to help conform us more and more into the image of your son Jesus to a break us where we're stiff necked and proud and arrogant and blind to our own spiritual pride. That you use us to heal us and to mend us in this place where we have been broken already. That you would use this word to cause us to be more and more like Jesus the living word. So I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well I guess I need to tell you all this I guess is going to be my last service with you all. Not quitting, not resigning, haven't been fired. I just found out this past week. Harold Camping of Family Radio Ministry says Jesus is coming back this Saturday at 6 p.m.
I don't know why you're laughing. It's on billboards. It's on vans rolling across the country. Harold Camping of Family Radio Ministry has been teaching the Bible on the radio since about the time Marconi made the wireless connection. He says that he's worked it all out and Jesus is coming back this coming Saturday at 6 p.m. The rapture of all God's all true Christians are going to disappear. So I won't be here next Sunday but I haven't worked out a few sins. I'm going to commit on Friday night. A few things I've been meaning to get to. It looks like the right time. I've got a few emails. I'm going to send about 545 on Saturday afternoon but because I'm a pastor and I care for those who will be left behind. I'm going to leave a list of instructions here on this card and I've just jotted out the names of those I think might you know might want to be the ones to take care of these things okay. Oh thank God for people like Harold Camping. I don't know much about the man but this is not the first time he's done this and you know I'm saying these things and I was appropriate that we laugh but you know there are people around this country who are taking him very seriously and they'll probably do very foolish things this week because some guy who talks like he knows the Bible has worked out the timing for the rapture. So and I also thank God he did it this week while I'm in Daniel chapter 12 talking about things that have to do with eschatology with the end times. And last week I gave you such a long passage I felt bad about it so I repent and I've just given you the four verses today. I've heard the cries of my people. I want you to think this morning of the story of redemption as a journey. Now like any journey it's got a definite beginning. It's got a definite route. It's got a definite destination point. Let's talk first of all about a beginning to the journey. Look back at verse one with me if you will. At that time Michael the great prince who protects your people will arise. Let's just stop there at that time. Well what time Daniel what are you talking about here? As I've been telling you all in the last several months as we've been studying through Daniel about the telescopic or telephoto lens nature prophecy. There are aspects of this prophecy that certainly look like the aim toward the time of a Greek conqueror named Antiochus Epiphanies get 168. 167 BC. Some of these prophecies certainly look like they refer to him. Some of them look like they maybe were more appropriately fulfilled in the time of the seizures. Or maybe even after the Jesus at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, the 7080. Some of these look like they're talking about the very end of time, the very end when Jesus comes back for good. God says that's enough. So which is it? My best answer is yes. It's a telescopic nature of prophecy. It may be Daniel himself as he saw through the prophetic lens. Maybe he could even tell exactly which one was which. Maybe those images kept coming and going for him. As I told you of course like skipping a stone across the body of water. There's a fulfillment here and then one here and then an ultimate fulfillment in the end times. At that time, Michael, the great prince, who protects your people, Michael. Michael whose name means one who is like God. Michael is a warrior angel. Three with you from Revelation chapter 12, verses 7 and 8. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war. And they were not strong enough. And there's no longer a place found for them in heaven. Michael is a warrior angel. They didn't have to take names because they're already written in the book. You don't want to mess with Michael. And Michael is the one who's going to rise to take the part of his people. We're not told again exactly when these things will take place. And unlike Mr. Camping, I'm not going to make any predictions for you, but that they will happen is the clear indication of this text. And folks, we've got to look here. Remember, he does not deliver his people out of their difficulties. He gives them the strength to persevere through their difficulties. Let me say it again because it's important. He does not deliver the people out of their troubles. He gives them the strength to persevere through their troubles. It's war, folks. There will be casualties. We shouldn't be so stunned. We hear the spiritual casualties in the ranks of the high and the mighty and the people whose names we know. We have big ministries who really were for real and then something happened along the way. And detour them, distracted them, diverted them, what God called them to do. Whether it was the money or the women or the fame or whatever it was, it's war. There will be casualties. Don't be so surprised. Our Texas morning, it's just part of the great story. It shows that we're beginning at one point. We're moving towards something else. You may be familiar with the story of the beginning. Genesis 1, 1 in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1 and 2 goes on to describe the creation of everything that exists. The heavenly bodies as well as the earth, the water and the land, the different kinds of animals, and then up to the creation of the first man and the first woman and of their earthly dwelling place. The place the Bible describes as the garden in Eden. It's interesting to me. I love this kind of writing. Arno Penzius, you don't know his name, but he was the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was one of the two who's a co-discover of the microwave radiation that exists throughout the universe. It exists everywhere at all points, the same, and it's expanding and decaying at a steady rate. From that, these two physicists, are you staying with me? There's going to be a quiz on this. These two physicists were able to mathematically roll the clock back and determine that the universe did have an exact beginning, an exact place and point in time. Before that, people had thought the prevailing minds that was at the universe was eternal. They'd always been here, always would be. They said, no, this tells us that there was a specific starting point. They thought about 4.5 billion years ago, who knows? Arno Penzius, one of those two men who discovered that for Bell Labs, writes this, the best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on, but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole. I love that kind of stuff. A scientist who was honest and humble enough to know that we're in the presence of divine revelation. Eden, back to Eden, the earthly paradise, everything in perfect harmony, the plants, the animals. I'm talking about how the lion did lie down with the lamb and the eagle and the bunny were comfortable next to another, the great white shark and the guppy. They swam alongside together with no fear. Even the man and woman got along perfectly. I mean, this was quite a place. Everything in perfect harmony in this earthly paradise called Eden. Nothing you could desire in Eden was wrong, except it's one thing. There was this tree in the middle of the garden, you know? The tree of the knowledge of good need, when God did say, don't touch it, guys. Don't eat it. Don't eat the fruit from that tree. Well, you know how well that worked out. At that point, sin and death entered the world,
and we've been at war ever since. That's when the war began. It's been going on and it will culminate one day. When God says, that's enough. That's enough. Sin and death entered the world of that point. At that time, Michael, the great prince who protects your people will arise. There will be a time of distress such as not happening for the beginning of nations until then. But at that time, your people, everyone whose name is found written in the book will be delivered. It's definitely starting point to the journey, folks. Daniel's part begins a little before 600 BC, and then it moves to 536 BC when he's receiving this revelation. That's the beginning to the journey from Daniel's perspective. Now, it's looking at the warning for the journey. The Old Testament does not have a lot to say about life after death. There are sort of hints and rumors, but the Old Testament doesn't say a great deal about what life might be after death. Talks about the grave, about sheol. But it doesn't say a lot specific. Here are a few things that says, Job, chapter 19, Job who suffered so much. I know that my redeemer lives. That in the end, he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God. I myself will see Him with my own eyes. I am not another. How my heart yearns within me. Job's one of the oldest books we have in the Bible. We don't know how old it was. Job saw that time when he would see his redeemer. And then Isaiah writes, we do know Isaiah's timetable. He's writing about 740 BC. Isaiah writes, but your dead will live, Lord. Their bodies will rise. Let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning. The earth will give birth to her dead. Hints and glimpses of what might be, but the clearest indication, the most explicit indication of what life after death might be like, that there is life after death is right here in Daniel chapter 12. You want to know what eternal life is like from the Old Testament vantage point? Here it is. Verse 2, multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some day everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. My dear old friend, Doc Chastain. Some of you might have known Doc Chastain. Here's a pediatrician in Coral Gables. At one point, I do believe at least half of the children who were born in Coral Gables in South Miami probably had Doc Chastain as their Doc. And I got to know Doc fairly late in his life. Doc asked me when Doc was an old school Baptist. And I said with a great deal of respect and affection. Doc asked me one time. He used to carry two canes around with him helping with his walking point. He said, do you ever preach on judgment and hell? I said, only when I'm in a Baptist church, Doc. Only when I'm with the Baptist. I said no, Doc. I do. I said, I don't like it. I don't enjoy it at all. I find talking about judgment and hell horrifying. But when the text clearly calls for talking about judgment, talking about hell. Well, that's when we talk about it. That's when we preach on it. Charles had the Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers in England and the 1800s. Spurgeon taught his students and he had many that he said, when you're preaching on heaven, there ought to be a smile in your face and a gleam in your eye. Your whole countenance ought to glow as you preach on heaven. We preach on hell, your ordinary face will do just fine. This passage tells us clearly that it's appointed on the man wants to die. And after this, there is an afterlife. Multitudes who sleep in the dust will wake some never lasting life and some others to shame and everlasting contempt. Probably not too many of you here, but I do have other people who say, come on, come on heaven and hell, really heaven, pie in the sky. Do I need that to be a good person? Hell, do I need to be, do I need fear of hell to avoid doing certain things? I don't really need those things. Come on. It's 2000 feeling of blank. It's 2008, 2011. Come on, we don't need that stuff anymore. Well, I said this to you before. I said to you again, if there is no ultimate judgment, there is no ultimate day of reckoning. That would challenge anybody here to give me a reason that will hold up to more than three or four questions while I don't live a life of complete, unadulterated self-centeredness and hedonism. That's something I said, well, I mean, that's not the way that people aren't going to like you, people aren't going to want to be around. I don't care. I'm going to use people. I'm going to get whatever I can for them, whatever I want from them, and when I'm done with them, the heck with them, take them. I don't care. I'm for me. What do I care about? What other people think? Somebody else said, well, yeah, but come on. Society doesn't work like that. If everybody acted like you do, then society would break down. Hello, I don't care about society. I want to get what I can for me, and as long as I get mine, society can go to hell. And once I'm gone, it can all burn down. I do not care. And so the conversation will go until you come to a point where you can say to me, because one day you're going to stand before God Almighty, the holy and righteous all-knowing judge of your life, and you're going to give an account for your life. Well, now I care. Now I might care, because I am for me, and me is going to be in a lot of trouble when I stand before that God. Now, that's not all there is to the gospel. Folks, we know that. The gospel is so much bigger than that, as I alluded to with the young people. The gospel is the story. God looked at the race of people he created in his own image. He looked at what we had done with that image, how we had defaced it, and how we had distorted it and martyred and vandalized the very image of God, and how we brought shame and ruin upon his image. Glorious ruins, the GK Cheston described this. And God, who could have been completely justified in saying, I said, I'll strap this experiment and start all over. Instead of that, he said, now I'm going to do what I have to to save him. And though he had planned this before the foundations of time, Jesus packed his bags and headed for Jerusalem, headed for Bethlehem. That's the gospel story, folks. The gospel story is how God looked upon. We just said in our affirmation of faith, looked upon us while we were yet sinners, and yet Christ died for us for the end of time. The biblical doctrine of hell is terrifying. Frankly, it's nauseating. I hate to think about it for very long at a time, and I would not address it at all, but the text did not require it. Tim Keller calls, a relation that calls hell, the freely chosen, the eternal skid row of the universe. So I said, freely chosen? That's right. People who go to hell, go to hell because they have freely chosen to worship another God, other than one true God. They've chosen to worship other gods, whether it's money, or fame, or sex, or power, or influence, or fear, or whatever, people who have chosen to worship other gods, false gods, lesser gods. They're the ones that go to hell. Instead of worshiping the one God who could actually do something for them, the one God who could actually keep them out of hell. CS Lewis calls hell the greatest monument to human freedom. That's why I said, why would anybody freely choose to go to hell? Let me ask you something. Would you ever freely choose to go into a mental institution? Would you? Here's a revelation for you. The vast majority of people in mental institutions in this country today check themselves in. They check themselves in because they simply cannot deal with guilt, or the pain, or the anxiety, or the fear, or the anger, or the depression, or whatever it is. They cannot deal with whatever is the root cause of it. So they turn to a doctor, or a bottle, or a pill, or a bottle of pills, or an institution of some kind. And no, I'm not saying there's no place for what modern psychology has brought us. I'm not saying there's no place for what modern medicine has brought us. I'm not saying that. But I am saying that people freely choose going to mental institutions for what can be considered mental or emotional instability or even insanity. You need to see hell as an institution for the spiritually insane. Hell as an institution for the spiritually insane to freely choose to go another route rather than face their own sin and the one who died on the cross to free us from their sin. Hell is also perhaps the greatest measuring stick for the love of God, the suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross, the physical afflictions as horrific as they were. We cannot comprehend the suffering that man, that God men went through the night of the trail, the arrest, the beating, the crown of thorns, the squirging, the crucifixion said, we cannot comprehend the physical sufferings of that man. As horrific as they were, other human beings suffered somewhat the same fate. But only Jesus on the cross, the second person at the Son of God, the Son of God who with his father and the Holy Spirit had been incomplete, unbroken, unending, harmony throughout eternity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the three of them always together and on the cross at the moment of his greatest need. Jesus had to look up and watch his father turn his head and turn away because he couldn't look at him because of what he had become for me and for you. And that's hell, ladies and gentlemen. And that's what Jesus experienced on the cross. You know, we say that when do the apostles creed? First we confess our belief in the Father that it was saying in Jesus Christ, the only son our Lord was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, who was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. And on the third day it was again for a bit. Do we really believe that? Do we really believe that? I do. And that's the message of the cross. An army chaplain was asked by a private. Sir, do you believe in hell? The chaplain who been at his job quite a few years said, hell is one part of my beliefs that I've discarded along the way. I no longer feel a need for belief in hell or for me to do my job as a chaplain or for me to believe what I believe about God. So no son, I don't really believe in hell anymore. The private said to him, you should design because if there is a hell, we don't need to be in a sled. And if there's no hell and we don't need you, folks I don't like talking about hell. I really don't. But to me it's like a doctor has to look at the patient's got cancer and just can't quite bring himself to use the word. They may have all good motivation, but it's not much of a doctor. I don't know how much of a preacher if I don't tell you that the Bible is quite clear in this doctor of hell. There's a beginning to the journey. There's a warning for the journey. There's a promise for the journey. Look at verse three. This is one of those beautiful verses in all scripture. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. What a beautiful image. Who are the wise? Well throughout the scripture, the wise are those who attend faithfully indiligently to the word of God. The wise are those who study God's word, who embrace God's word. The whole God's word in their heart and then they live their lives in accordance with the word of God. Would you like to be wise or at least wise or I know I would. I know a lot of really smart people folks. I've had the privilege of being around a lot of really smart people. They've got freakishly high IQs. I don't know that many truly wise people because intelligence and wisdom are two different things. You can be a rocket scientist and blow the tops off of any IQ test. If you don't know God, then you're not wise. Proverbs 9-10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you don't fear the Lord, you haven't even started on the path toward wisdom. Throughout scripture, the wise person is the man, the woman, the young person who attends to the word of God, embraces the word of God, holds and hides God's word, his or her heart. And here they also lead many to righteousness and they shine like the stars forever and ever. What a beautiful image. Who knows exactly what Daniel was seeing there, prophetic lens. But I like to believe, as you've seen those stars, one of my favorite lines, one of my favorite songs of a rich moans. God rests his soul sometimes by step. He says, sometimes I think of Abraham. How one star he saw had been lit for me. Abraham is great vision of all the stars in the sky would be like his descendants. One of those had my name on one of those had you name my. You were looking at a man who yes, I did about 12 years ago. I did that cheesy international star registry thing. You know if they start advertising every Christmas, wherefore I think at the time it was like 45 bucks, you can name a star after someone you love. Yes, I did it. And that Christmas, 1999 was a particularly meaningful Christmas for me with my family. And so I named a star after each one of our kids. So if you got a really high power telescope and you can record it's just right up over Orion's right hand shoulder. You got to look really hard. You'll see a Christine Hope and an Andrew Joseph and Alison Savannah and a Christmas shell Keller. God, I got them all right. Sometimes I, you know, I have to remember, get those middle names right. Stars. Name for each one of my kids and you say, can't what a way? Ask them if they can even remember anything else I gave them for Christmas that year. Over the last 10 years. This one they remember. And yes, we've gotten the telescopes. Not not. We don't have one powerful enough, but with the Southern Cross Star Society and the stargazing thing that we do from time to time, we've seen our kids stars. Verse three again, those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens. Those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. I want you to contrast God's way with the many easy and seductive roads that will lead you to hell. There's moralism. Be good. Don't be bad. Try hard. It's just moralism. A lot of people think it's Christianity. It's not heard in a cloud. Say one time, I know what a three point sermon is. God is good. You are bad, try harder. That's not the gospel message, folks. That's moralism. If you can be good and if God's good and you're bad, you have to try harder. You don't need Jesus for that. He certainly didn't need to be on a cross. Now, did he? You can do that all by yourself. So can I. Moralism. There's spiritualism. I'm really not into organized religion, but I am spiritual. I have no idea what that means. I need to do most of the people that say what they mean is I'm not going to be a church guardian. I'm not doing that. I'm not going to do the Bible stuff, but I do have this sort of vague awareness. There's a higher power and I'm supposed to do good things. That's usually what that means. Spiritualism. There are a lot of offshoots as well, but that's kind of what it means in our culture on time. There's universalism. Everybody goes to heaven. Everybody goes to heaven. Is that maybe Hitler? The Psalm have been live. Everybody goes to heaven. Why sweat it? Or even those within the ranks of Christen them, they'll be going to say that. I need to at least mention because some of you would be aware and wonder why I didn't at this point. There's a book out right now by a pastor of Michigan named Rob Bell. The book is called Love Winds. I have not read the book. A couple of friends of mine who are sincere Christians have asked me about the book. So I haven't read it. I've read some articles about it. I've read some reviews of it and so forth. I don't want to comment on the book itself because I don't know. But if, as is reported, Rob Bell's point is that, yes, there is a hell. He doesn't deny there's a hell. But it's temporary. It's kind of a waste station. And everybody gets out of the end. If that's the case, and I would say again, what was the cross about?
Why did Jesus go through what he went through? If God was going to make it all right in the end anyway? I'm afraid what Pastor Bell has done. And again, don't know him. Don't know much about him. I've heard of this church. It's a great big church. Maybe he feels, no, I don't want to say. But what he's doing is basically what Richard neighbor said 67 years ago, his definition of liberalism, a God without wrath bringing men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the administrations of a Christ without a cross. A God without wrath bringing men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the administrations of a Christ without a cross. Folks, that's not Christianity. Call it something else. Call it whatever you want. That's not Christianity. It's certainly what the Bible teaches us. There are a lot of roads and they're wide and they're easy to get to the lead to eternal torment. There's one that leads to life everlasting and it runs by an old rugged cross. It's not what I think. Jesus himself said it in Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 and 14 in the sermon on the Mount, which many people profess that they love. Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road the leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road the leads to life and only if you find it. There's a beginning to the journey. There's a warning for the journey. There's a promise for the journey and there's an end to the journey. You know I began this morning by saying that our idea of time, the progress of time, began with the book of Genesis. Concept of time having a beginning in a middle and an ending. That's a biblical concept. There are a lot of other world views out there but they basically boil down to an Eastern view and a Western view. The Hindu view of the world, which is the oldest of the Eastern views. The Hindu view of the world is the wheel of karma. The life is a never ending cycle of birth, suffering, death, rebirth, more suffering, more death and that you simply continue to repeat the cycle of the wheel of karma and once you have paid off by your sufferings for all your sins from past lives, once you've paid it all off and you've balanced out your karma, you attain Nirvana. Nirvana is not heaven. Nirvana is literally a place of nothingness. You cease to exist. Aren't you encouraged? It's not an accident that the East is marked by so much despair. Why the much wretched cities in the world are those that have been built on a Hindu foundation. It's not my opinion. That's a simple fact. Then there's a Western view which basically is the view of the Bible and that is that the world and our lives as individuals, they have a definite direction and a purpose. They have a definite beginning and a direction and a route and a definite ending. The Bible teaches that life, I love it my old friend Al-Lakur used to like to say about this. He said, you know, this whole thing begins in a garden but it ends in the city, the city of God. I don't know what your impression of most cities is. There are a couple of cities I'd dearly love to be in. This is one of them. This thing ends in the city of God. You want to be encouraged today? Go read Revelation 21 and 22. I thought about reading them to you. It's not like you're going anywhere but I won't read them all to you. Read Revelation 21 and 22 today about what the city of God is like. It's marvelous. That's a city everybody's going to want to flock to. Instead of reading to you, instead of reading what all the Revelation 21 and 22 has to say about the city of God, I'll just reiterate that life has a direction and a purpose that before we were born, God knitted us together in our mothers' wombs, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that He knows us and He calls us by name. That the purpose of our lives is to know Him, to glorify Him, and to enjoy Him forever. Can you put up with me if I read you one part of another sermon by one of the great black? He's not really a preacher and the James Weldon Johnson did not really preach but He wrote sermons in verse. Let me read you just a part of a sermon in verse by James Weldon Johnson. It's called Listen, Lord, a prayer just beginning in the end. Oh, Lord, we come this morning, knee bowed and body bent before the throne of grace. Oh, Lord, this morning, bow our hearts beneath our knees and our knees in some lonesome valley. We come this morning like empty pictures to a full fountain with no merits of our own. Oh, Lord, open up a window heaven and lean out far over the battlements of glory and listen this morning. Lord have mercy on proud and dying sinners, sinners hanging over the mouth of hell who seem to love their distance well. Lord, ride by this morning, mount your milk wide horse and ride this morning and in your ride, ride by old hell, ride by the dingy gates of hell and stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge. And now, O Lord, this man of God who breaks the bread of life this morning shadow him the hollow of thy hand and keep him out of the gunshot of the devil. Take him, Lord, this morning washing with his up inside and out, hang him up and drain him dry of sin, pin his ear to the wisdom post and make his words sledge hammers of truth beating on the iron heart of sin. Lord God, this morning put his eye to the telescope of eternity and let him look upon the paper walls of time. Lord, Turpentine is imagination for perpetual motion in his arms. Fill him full of the dynamic of thy power and anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation and set his tongue on fire. And now, O Lord, when I've done drunk my last cup of sorrow, when I've been called everything but a child of God, when I'm done trailing up the rough side of this mountain, O Mary's baby, when I start down the steep and slippery steps of death, when this old world begins to rock beneath my feet, lower me to my dusty grave in peace to wait for that great getting up morning. Amen. Let's pray together. Lord God, we thank you for the truths of your word for the instruction we find in their Lord, make us wise people, or at least make us wise people, help us to keep these truths of your word, keep them in our hearts and order our steps accordingly. Let me try again, Father, that you would wrap this congregation in your mighty and loving arms. The two would remind us this day that you care for us a great deal so much that you send our Lord and Savior Jesus. We might know you, might one day spend it eternally with you, with him, my prayer and Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you again for being here with us this morning. We ask that you receive the Lord's benediction now. Go now on the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God the Holy Spirit, and live the life. Amen.