In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the Apostle Paul's prayer for the Ephesians. He highlights three main requests that Paul makes in his prayer. Firstly, Paul wants the Ephesians to understand the hope of their calling, which will encourage and uplift them. Secondly, he wants them to grasp the riches of God's inheritance in the saints, which will enrich their lives. Lastly, Paul desires for them to experience the exceeding greatness of God's power towards those who believe, which will energize and empower them. The preacher emphasizes the importance of these three requests and encourages the audience to delve deeper into the latter half of chapter one in the Bible to gain a better understanding of Paul's prayer.

Well, as I looked out over the lake this morning, I think I saw some Canadian geese heading north. I think they looked a little shocked and surprised that the temperature would be like this in Florida. This confirms in my feeling that people ought to live south of Daytona Beach and never get this cold as this in South Florida. You know that. And if it did, it would be in headlines in the Miami Herald. But Floridians enjoy this special kind of cool weather, don't they? Especially after weeks and months of hot, muggy kind of weather that we get here in Florida. So this is an enjoyable and wonderful change. Now, there's a book in the New Testament in which I think is unfolded God's marvelous provision for our new life in Christ Jesus. And I'm going to ask you to turn to that book with me for these sessions. A very familiar book, of course, and I refer to the book of Ephesians. Now, you might be saying, what in the world can there be fresh or new from that epistle of Ephesians? We have studied it many, many times before, and I suppose that of all the portions of the Bible that are marked, if you mark your Bible, this book may have more underlined words and phrases than maybe any other book in the New Testament. But perhaps we can find a fresh or a new approach to the epistle, and I shall do my best to work that approach a little bit. First of all, let me remind you that here is found probably the highest and the richest of truths concerning Christian life and experience to be found anywhere in the New Testament. There is nothing in this epistle that is derogatory in terms of faults among the saints. You know, most of the other letters that Paul wrote were addressed to some problem or some situation in the various assemblies that needed some correction or some attention, and we're aware of that fact. That doesn't appear in the Ephesian letter. He seems to be intent on just doing one thing, and that is lifting the sight, the vision, and the hearts of God's people in that difficult place. And it was a difficult place. Ephesus, as you know, was a possession of the Romans, and we know from ancient history that they say perhaps as much as 95% of the Roman populace were slaves. They had been captured by the Roman Empire, and that was true at Ephesus. It was a pagan place. Recall Paul's experience there when a riot began as he preached, and it was the headquarters for the worship of that licentious goddess Diana. And you remember how in the book of Acts it records how the crowd shouted by the space of several hours, "'Great is Diana of the Ephesians!' And Paul soon discovered that when he came into a place like Ephesus, he actually caused a riot almost everywhere he went as he preached the word of God. But the people of Ephesus were, for the most part, slaves, the Romans, and one can well imagine what life must have been like as a slave under the Roman Empire. You were owned body, soul, and spirit, if you please, by your slave owner. Life was cheap. It was possible to buy a man or a woman much cheaper than it was to buy some animals in the marketplaces, and one can well imagine the depths of immorality that that created, so that the believers at Ephesus needed a great deal of encouragement. Now, they must have gotten it under the ministry of the apostle Paul. Maybe that's why the book of Ephesians contains so much high and lofty spiritual truth, because these people were able to take it in. They were able to comprehend it. They were probably more mature than many of the other saints. They had enjoyed the ministry of Paul for a space of three or three and a half years, and it's difficult to imagine what it would have been like to have sat at the feet of a pastor like Paul. When I first became a pastor as a young seminary graduate, I came out knowing everything. The older I get, the less I know, and at that point, however, I just knew everything. In this, my first, well, it was not really my first church, but it was the church where I spent so much time of my life, 33 years as a pastor, I thought, well, now, on Wednesday evenings, we'll just run through the book of Acts in a sort of a running commentary. That'll eat up 28 weeks anyway, and that helps. So, each week we would take a chapter and we'd read it, and I would make some comment here and there. And I recall that when we arrived at the chapter that tells about those first deacons or elders of the church, it described them, men filled with the Spirit and so on, and I made the stupid remark. I said, oh, what I would give to have a board of deacons like this one. Now, I didn't know, I mean, it came out, you know, in a way that I did not intend, and we had a man in our church who was a former funeral director from Texas, big tall man, and when he whispered, it was a booming voice. And so he leaned over to his wife in the back row and whispered, and oh, what we would like if we had a pastor like Paul. It was a well-deserved rejoinder, let me tell you. Well, at any rate, here they are, these Ephesian believers living under these difficult, difficult circumstances. And Paul thinks about them from his prison cell in Rome. His heart goes out to them, and it begins to unfold for them some of the deep and wonderful truths concerning God's purpose and God's plan in their lives, what God has planned for them. And the epistle is intended to lift them and to encourage them, and so it does. It encourages the saints and has done so down through the long centuries since. Now, someone has said, I do not know whom or else I would give credit, someone has said that the book of Ephesians is the Alps of the New Testament, or the Switzerland of the Scriptures. And by that imagery is meant that here in this book you will find the Matterhorns and the Jungfrau and the Eiger and the Mont Blancs, the great high towering peaks of spiritual truth. And that is really so. Perhaps as in no other epistle do you find that true. We are on high ground when we are reading and contemplating and studying this portion of Scripture. And it is not intended merely to increase our apprehension, our comprehension of divine truth, but these truths are intended to work down into our daily life, making life in Christ significant, rich, full, and victorious as well. And as I've studied this book and what we'll plan to do in the few sessions we have together, I would like to select from each of the chapters. We're not going to do a verse-by-verse exposition. I'll not give you an outline. I'm merely going to select what I think is the highest peak in several of the chapters, inasmuch as we won't have, I think, six sessions. We can't cover each chapter. But in the chapters that we do consider, I want to select the highest peak in that chapter. And we'll call it by, if you please, one of the names of some of the mountains of Switzerland. For instance, in this first chapter I think we have reached, or we do reach here, the Matterhorn of the book of Ephesians. Here is the highest peak of truth, the highest level of divine truth, I think, to be found anywhere in the epistle. Now, some of us may say, oh, that's great, that's fine, I enjoy hearing that. But it's really not for me. I'm an ordinary kind of a person, and I'm beset by many weaknesses of the flesh. And I have tried hard over the years of my life and experience to live the richer, the fuller, the deeper, the victorious Christian life. But, you know, I guess I just have to be an ordinary kind of a person. All of this is not really meant for a person like me. Now, you've made a great mistake, if that's what you think, because no matter how high is the level of truth here expressed, no matter how tall the mountain peaks may appear, at the bottom of the mountain, at each of these great peaks of truth, there is a sign that assures us that what is to be gained, what is to be seen, what is to be obtained from the mountain peak, is rightfully yours and mine. This is what the sign reads. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. That's his promise. That's the guarantee. That's the sign that assures us that what is there on the mountain peak is ours. He hath already blessed us with all these great spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So now, this morning, we are going to scale one of these peaks. By the way, don't get worried. I'm not a mountain climber. I have been to Switzerland so many times it seems like my second home, and I admire and I stand in awe of those Swiss kids who climb these mountains. But you know, the average Swiss child is born with mountain climber boots on his feet and skis in his hands. And so, almost from babyhood, they learn to climb and to ski. Well, I'm a mountain climber too. I love mountains, but I like to climb a mountain a la helicopter. You know what I mean? They lift you up there and drop you off and come back for lunch and take you down. That's the easiest, nicest way I know to climb a mountain. So, we're going to climb a mountain or two, but I won't tire you, I hope. Now, I ask you, therefore, to turn with me to the latter half of chapter one, and we're going to look at this great truth here expressed through the window of Paul's prayer for the Ephesians as found in the latter half of this chapter. I'm going to read it, and I shall read it probably a little differently than you have heard it read before, but bear with me. And I want to say also that I'm reading from the King James Version of the Bible. I don't know what version you may have on your knee, and I appreciate all these other paraphrases and versions and whatever, but I'm just old-fashioned enough to still love and work with the King James Version. No matter what help I find in the others, this is the tool that I'm accustomed to using. In fact, I'm trying to teach Christians all around the country new words to an old hymn. My hope is built on nothing less than Ryrie's notes and moody press. I dare not trust the NIV, but wholly lean on KJV. Now, that's an interesting new slant on an old hymn. If you don't have the KJV with you this morning, this reading will not seem quite so significant, but I am reading now from the KJV, beginning with verse 15. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all periods." Now, you may be saying to yourself, what's that all about? Why all that? Well, at least I hope you caught this. This is one sentence, one single sentence. It has in it 199 English words by actual count, before you strike a period. Now, that seems to me to be somewhat significant. First of all, it is a complicated sentence. Can you remember back in your school days, if there are some former school teachers, if you tortured kids like this for shame? You remember when we used to have to go to the blackboard and diagram a sentence? You would draw a line and cut it in half, and everything on the left side was the subject, and everything on the right side was the predicate, and then you got all the clauses, dependent, independence, and all those clauses, and built them like staircases. Oh, that was the bane of my existence as a kid. I always wound up with a dozen words left over, wondering where should they go, and feeling foolish at that point before the whole class. Then she would call on another student, usually a girl, who'd come up and take a piece of chalk, and when she was finished, there wasn't a and, an if, a but, or a is left over. She had every word exactly where it belonged. I've often thought about that teacher, and I'm sure she's dead now, but if she were alive, I would like to have sent her this sentence and said, do what you can with that. I want to see what it looks like. Diagram, 199 words. Well, beyond that, that's a mere peccadillo of thought, but beyond that, there's something else here. When this man begins to pray, when he reaches out to touch God on behalf of these, his dear children in Christ, it seems to me as though all the fountains of his soul are broken open. It's like turning on a faucet, and he doesn't bother too much about turning it off. Let it gush, let it flow. And if diction, or grammar, or whatever gets in the way, that's just too bad. He's pouring out the intensity of his desire on behalf of these believers. Now, when you analyze the prayer a little bit more carefully than this, you will notice that really and truly there is but one request, out of which grows three lesser requests. That one request seems to be here, in verse 17, that God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of Glory, might give to them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of their understanding being enlightened. That's the great request. Oh, that God would give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Theology is, in Greek, you know, it's the combination of two words. Logos, the Greek word for word, or science, or knowledge. There are other words for knowledge. And theos, the word for God. Theology is the science, or the knowledge, about God. And it used to be called, by the old divines, the queen of the sciences. And so it is. The knowledge of God. There is nothing more important than knowing God. Mark Twain, it is said, once, in a world around the world trip, he had his little girl with him, and they had met all the royalty of a dozen nations in Europe, and the little girl said, Papa, we've met everybody in the world. There's nobody we don't know, except God. And, you know, really, if you don't know God, you don't know, you don't know, really, anything. The knowledge of God is the most important knowledge of all. The pursuit of God, the knowledge of Him, it begins here in the kindergarten of life. It will proceed even into eternity, where we may even enjoy some postgraduate courses in the knowledge of God, ever increasing in the knowledge of Him. So his prayer is that you may grow in the knowledge of God, and that the eyes of your understanding may be opened, enlightened, so that you will understand three things. And those three things are indicated by the word, what. Notice it? That you may know, first, what is the hope of His calling? And, secondly, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And, thirdly, what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe? In other words, there are three things that he wants them to enjoy or understand. He talks about something that will, first of all, enhearten them, that they may know the hope of His calling to us. In the second place, he wants them to understand and enjoy something that will enrich them. So, he wants them to understand what are the riches of God's inheritance in us. And then, he wants them to enjoy and experience something that will energize them, so that they will understand the greatness of His power toward usward who believe. Now, let's consider those three lesser requests that grow out of this main request of the apostle. First of all, he wants them to enjoy or to understand the hope of His calling. The eyes of your understanding be enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling. Now, it's a great and wonderful truth. I used to think in earlier days that the Bible words, predestination, foreknowledge, election, calling, I used to think they were Presbyterian words. You couldn't understand them unless you were a Presbyterian. And I was a Baptist, and so I gave up. I said, I guess they're not meant for me. They're Calvinistic words. If you're not a Calvinist in your theological bent, well, then these are beyond your ken. No, they're neither Presbyterian words nor Calvinistic words. They happen to be biblical words. They are biblical truths, and we ought to find great solace and great comfort in understanding what they say to us and what they mean. Take this question of the calling of God. Do you know, this morning, I said, no, K-N-O-W, do you know that you're one of God's called ones? If you have any doubt about that, if there's the slightest doubt about your election and calling, then you ought to get it settled before this day has ended, if possible, before the hour is first. There is nothing so comforting, so assuring as to know for a fact that you are one of God's elect, that you're one of his called ones. It's great to know that. Peter says we ought to make our calling and election sure. It's a wonderful thing to know that we are called of God, and that this action on God's part occurred before any of us were born, even before that, before the foundation of the world. Can you imagine the excitement and the thrill of a miner who would be digging into the bowels of the earth, a half to three quarters, even to a mile below the surface of the earth, and pursuing a virgin vein of ore, whatever, of whatever kind, and there in the bowels of the earth where no human had ever been before, he pecks away at the ore to get it out, and by the flickering light of his miner's cap, he suddenly discovers that his axe has struck a rock, a fair-sized one, and he recognizes that he'll have to perhaps use explosives to get it out, and yet as he smooths it a little bit and gets the dirt and whatever around, he suddenly notices something, for there on that rock buried in the bowels of the earth are, of all things, letters, neatly chiseled letters, not just scratched in a clumsy fashion, but neatly chiseled, and upon further investigation he discovers that the letters spell out his full name, first name, middle name, last name. I want to tell you, if he has any hair on his head, it was standing straight up by then, because he would recognize the fact that his name had been chiseled by the finger of God in the rocks and buried in the bowels of the earth when the earth was made. No less is the thrilling, exciting truth that before the foundation of the world, we were chosen in him, in love. I don't know how to explain it, I really don't, but I believe it. I know it's true that thou shouldst love a wretch like me and be the God thou art. Is darkness to my intellect, but sunshine to my heart? I don't know how to explain it, but I know that I'm one of God's called ones, and it's an exciting thing to know that. But, wait a minute, is the burden of Paul's prayer for these believers that they should be able to comprehend the mystery of God's sovereign election and selection of them? Nope. A little closer examination of the prayer you will notice reveals this. It states not that you might understand the fact of your calling, not that you might be able to explain it, not even that you might hope that you're one of God's called ones. No, but that you might understand what is the hope of his calling. Whose hope do you think? The believers' hope here? No, God's hope. What was it God hoped for when he called us out of darkness into his marvelous light? Well, maybe it's not as clearly expressed in the Ephesian letter as it is in the Colossian epistle, where he says this, that you might know the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. What is it God is hoping for in your life and mine in this very short span of time, loaned to us and invaded in our experience by the sovereign grace of God that called us out of our darkness of sin and blindness and brought us to Christ, and now we have just a little time between now and eternity? What is God hoping for in your life and mine? It seems to me it's all summed up in just one thing. He wants to form in us something that will reveal the likeness, the very image of his own beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God's after. That's what God's hoping for. Any of you who are parents, you know how you puff up with a little pride when somebody comes to you and we use certain expressions? We say, do you know John will never be dead as long as Bill's alive? What do they mean by that? The boy is so much like his father, he betrays his father's characteristics, he walks like him, talks like him, thinks like him, dresses like him in such a fashion that he reminds everybody of his father who may well have gone home to heaven. I was born in a very poor family in a very tough neighborhood and we had different kinds of expressions. They're not so nice. We used to speak about somebody being the spitting image of his father. Now, I don't know what that really means, but we used it constantly and it meant merely that this boy is just like his father. That's what God wants. He hopes for this. This is the hope of his calling to us, that Christ might be formed in us now. Now, he will be one day. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we'll be just like him, for we'll see him as he is. But God is now perfecting, trying to perfect in your life and mine something of the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do people see it in you? Do they now, honestly? Are you a nice neighbor to live with or are you a kind of a cantankerous, mean-ornery cuss? They're glad that you're home and not out in the street. Do people detect that you're his child? Well, that's what he's saying. Do you dare to climb to this part of the first peak and see what is the hope of his calling to you? Now he goes on, and furthermore he says, And what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? We are God's purchased property, and the price which has been paid is a staggering and awful one. We are his inheritance. Now, it's nice to think about our inheritance in Christ. I mentioned just a moment ago that I was born into a very poor family. We knew many times, in the early days of my boyhood, we would often go to bed without having full stomachs, and I knew that, and we had a shabby kind of a life. We lived in a very poor neighborhood. They called them now ghettos. I didn't know what the word meant then. And that's why, you see, I have such a warped personality now, because I was deprived of all those things. It surprises me how we ever grew up and made it somehow. But anyway, my father used to tell us, you can detect from my name, Anderson, that I'm Scandinavian in background. My grandfather was born in Sweden. And so my father used to tell us over and over again about an uncle we had that was very rich over in Sweden, and he had no other relatives but us, and when he died, he was going to leave all of his money to us. Now, as a boy, I began to dream about that. I want to tell you, I dreamed about when all that money would come. When we'd get a letter from overseas, I used to say, Oh, I hope Uncle Olaf is alive or something. Or something. And a little disappointed when he was still alive. I found out that those old Scandinavians live a long time. They're tough. And when I was contemplating what I would do with the money, I'll tell you, in my time, I once owned 18 houses. That's a fact. There were mansions, too. I spent my money like a prodigal. I bought the most silly things and expensive things. In fact, once upon a time, I built a house of my own. I wanted it just my way. This house had several features in it. For instance, in my bedroom, whenever I opened the closet door, I would be knocked down by a whole torrent of pennies. I don't know why I chose pennies, but they came out, just thousands of them, and knocked me down. How nice that is, to be able to open your closet door, and every time you did, you were knocked down by an avalanche of pennies. Now, I never worried about who put them all back, but when you've got that much money, you never worry. There's always somebody you can hire to do it. And then the bathroom that I built, it was something else. The bathtub was made out of chocolate. I filled it with soda. When I took a bath, I drank the soda and ate the tub. But now, if you were as rich as I, would you not have done some things just as silly as that? Then one day, one awful day, awful day, there came the bad news. No uncle, no inheritance, no riches, and I came back to life in its grim reality with a thump, with a terrible day of disappointment. Never inherited a thing, never had any inheritance, nobody ever left anything to me. But I'll tell you something, when I found Jesus Christ, I found, to my utter amazement, not only that I had been forgiven of my sins, justified in the eyes of God, given eternal life, and the assurance of eternity to be spent with him, but I also came in, I was an heir, and I had come into a rich inheritance. And that inheritance is in Christ Jesus. It is reserved and kept in heaven for us, and we're kept for it. Isn't that wonderful to know that? So you Ephesians, life is tough, and you're poor, and you're slaves, and your master is a tough taskmaster, but that's all right. Just remember that when you die, you're going to come into your inheritance, and life will be different then. Is that what he's saying? Because if he is, it's not a very practical truth. I like to think about my inheritance in heaven, but I wish now and again, when things get a little grim, that I could get a little drawdown from some of that, you know, and be able to pay a couple of bills down around here with the interest, at least. Just to think, oh, don't worry. When you die, you won't have any more bills. Isn't that nice? I know, but between now and then, those bills bother me. So to know that we have an inheritance in heaven is a delightful, delectable thought, but really it's not too practical. Is that what he's praying that they may experience? No. Please, no. Look at it once again a little more carefully. And what are the riches of the glory? Not of your inheritance in him, but his inheritance in the saints. Did you ever realize that you are God's purchased possession? You're his inheritance? He's invested something in you. Right after the war, my plane landed on a little Pacific atoll, and the pilot said, We're going to refuel here. Don't walk too far. Don't be gone too long. Well, he was telling the truth. A quarter of a mile in any direction, you're in the Pacific Ocean. But I took a little walk nonetheless, and I got about as far as I could get away from where we landed, and there I saw, right on the beach, the remains of a plane, an airplane. It was rusted, and the waves would come up and sweep over it and bring it farther up on the beach. And so I climbed over that broken fuselage and I found something interesting. I'd been on a campaign in Japan with the Pocket Testament League for three months on my way home on this occasion. But there I found lodged up underneath that fuselage this water log now swollen four or five times its original size, a New Testament. I still have it at home. I don't know whether that pilot was alive or dead. I don't know whether he was a Christian or no. I only know that somebody on that plane was carrying God's Word with him. And it was a delightful thing. I stood that day and I said, Oh God, this little piece of atoll here, this worthless chunk of real estate out here, what did we have to pay to get it? Rich, warm, young American blood. How many died in order to buy that island? I do not know. And maybe it isn't worth a thing. We could have bought it with surplus money from the United States Treasury. Instead, we paid a horrible price to buy it in human blood. And though it may be a worthless piece of real estate, perhaps our nation thinks it's worthwhile, and the price was worth it, someday it may be vital to the defense of our nation there in the Pacific. At any rate, the price they paid makes them feel that it's a worthwhile piece of real estate. Now, we're not worth much in ourselves. The longer you live, the more you realize how worthless you really are. Martin Luther said, I never knew how sinful I was until I became justified in Christ. How true. We're not worth much in our eyes or anybody else's. But in God's eyes we are. He paid a tremendous price to purchase you and me. He's made an investment in us. We are his inheritance in Christ. And he's expecting some dividends from his investment. Are you yielding them? Are we giving them to him? Is he satisfied with it? Oh, how this must have encouraged those believers, and heartened them, and enriched them. Now, one last thing. And, furthermore, I pray that you may understand what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power. Friend, let me tell you that in that one single verse, 19 of Ephesians 1, is jammed nearly all the words found in the Greek language for power. There are four distinct different words indicating some phase of energy or power. It's as if when Paul was trying to say what he wanted to say to these Ephesians, you need energizing, you need empowerment, you need strength. Let's see. How can I express what God now provides for you? And I can just envision him reaching into the bins of words. Here they are, all tucked away neatly in their little cubby holes. He reaches into the power bin and seizes upon a whole handful of words and jams them down into this verse in order to somehow expand our understanding of what God has provided for us in Christ Jesus. We hear a great deal these days about people needing counseling. The whole business of psychology and psychiatry has become a very expansive business. Some people even brag about the fact, oh, I see my psychiatrist twice a week. Oh, well, I need to see mine three times a week. Oh, when I'm getting better, I only have to go once a week, as if we ought to be bragging about that. I can understand. I really can understand unconverted people who have no hope in Christ needing desperately expert counseling and advice on how to get life back together again somehow. I can understand a little bit of that. It is very difficult for me, however, to understand why a believer in Christ must have expert counseling and help and guidance when God has provided so much for us. Now, I don't totally eliminate it, but I'm saying that all that you need for living, for living day by day, what you need is here provided in Christ Jesus. God places at our disposal power, energy, strength, might in order that we might be able to live above and beyond the ordinary. There were two men who made a great impression upon my life and my early Christian experience. One was Isaac Page of the then China Inland Mission. A little short man, bald as he could be, very humorous, but a very effective communicator. And one day at America's Keswick, I saw him as one of the main speakers, and another man from Britain, Captain Reginald Wallace, who was the exact opposite physically of Isaac Page. He was tall, military in bearing, handsome, and they were talking to each other on the path. I wish I had had a camera. Here was Captain Wallace looking down at Isaac Page earnestly, and Isaac Page was looking up just as earnestly. And right about then, a little boy came along, and he tugged on the coattail of Isaac Page, and Page was so absorbed in his conversation with Captain Wallace that the boy had to pull two or three times, and finally Isaac Page, in his characteristic manner, whirled about and said, What do you want? And the boy said, Please, sir, I've lost my Bible. What's the name? And the kid said, Holy Bible Illustrated, sir. That night we got a magnificent message on the need of the world is for holy Bibles illustrated by victorious Christian living. It was great. It was great. And that's what the world needs. That's what it's looking for now. Can you live it? Can I live it? Is it a life within our reach? Oh, yes. This mountain peak of truth is accessible to every believer because blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. What's there? An appreciation of the hope of his calling to us, the thrill and wonder of the fact that we are his inheritance in Christ, and that place at our disposal is all that we need by way of strength and power and might and resource to live for him. It's all ours. That's why I think Amy Carmichael's prayer is so significant when she says, from prayer that asks that I may be sheltered from winds that beat on thee, from fearing when I should aspire, from faltering when I should climb higher, from silken self, O Captain, free thy soldier who would follow thee, from subtle love of softening things, from easy choices weakening, not thus are spirits fortified, not this way went the crucified, from all that dims thy calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me. Give me the love that leads the way, the faith that nothing can dismay, the hope no disappointments tire, the passion that will burn like fire, let me not sink to be a cloud, make me thy fuel, O Flame of God. Can't pray for anything, I think, more significant than that. Let's pray. We thank thee, Savior, for all that is in thy heart toward us this morning, and we want to enter into it.