In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of staying connected to God's power and grace in order to live a fulfilling spiritual life. He uses the analogy of trolley arms connecting to electric pylons to illustrate this concept. The speaker also highlights the need for believers to be constantly aware of God's love and to draw from His life-giving power moment by moment. The sermon focuses on the apostle Paul's exuberant praise and excitement over the blessings and grace of God, which should inspire believers to have a similar fervor in their faith.

Our theme tonight has been advertised as Blessing the Blesser, and you will find our text in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the first chapter and the third verse. Blessed be God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. This letter has been called the Queen of the Epistles. Whether that is a proper designation, we shall not assume to judge, but one thing is evident. It has been so called because its content is of the richest variety and of rarest quality. Within its six comparatively brief chapters we have a goldmine of spiritual truth. No man who is prepared to spend a few hours in this remarkable document will be quite the same again. If you would know spiritual truth, that leads to spiritual power and spiritual transformation and moral, I counsel you, spend a couple of hours a week in this wonderful letter penned by the Apostle Paul. Now, our text is the first of many expressions of praise and of gratitude woven into the texture of this document. I say it is the first of many. There are quite a number here, interspersed throughout the six chapters, but it is a very remarkable key in a phrase. I seem to imagine the Apostle taking the stance of a soloist, and yet a soloist who wants every man and every woman redeemed by the blood of Christ, every man and every woman in the church that received this document soon to join him, and to praise and adore and worship the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and through whom every redeemed is redeemed, and from whom comes our every saving benefit. It's this tremendous enthusiasm of the Apostle. You know, my friends, it seems to me that it's a great test of a man's genuine faith. Have you ever felt your soul running away with you in prayer? Do you really know what it is to be fired in your soul? It's not when people are listening. Oh, we need to praise God when we're together. It's wonderful to have singing which is really praise. But I'm not talking about that. It's easy to join with a multitude in the song of praise. What I'm asking is this. Have you ever felt your heart running away with you, ablaze with joy and gratitude to God when you're on your own, contemplating the glories of his grace, the immensities of the divine benefits and blessing? Our opening hymn was one such hymn, When all thy mercies, O my God, my rising soul surveys. Transported. That's it. I take wings. Transported with a view. I'm lost. You've left everybody behind. And you're entranced with the realities of the spiritual life, with God and his Son and his Spirit and his grace and his goodness and his mercies to men and to your self-believer, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus. Well now, we're going to try to follow in Paul's footsteps tonight, in the steps of his thought, if we may so speak. And it's almost impossible. This man takes flight. And we can only follow afar off. But oh, that the Lord would give each one of us such a sense of his grace, such a knowledge of his peace, such an experience of his salvation, that somehow or other we shall feel our souls leave the body and sense ourselves not only to be one with him, but with a redeemed of the Lord in every age, lost in wonder, love, and prayer. Well now, we begin this with the song upon the lips of a saint. The song upon the lips of a saint. Blessed be God. The one word which Paul used to express this sense of praise, this blessing of God, is one which very obviously exposes the pent-up emotion of his heart. Gratitude and praise are felt bursting forth here, like a mighty river in spate. You can almost sense it, gushing out of his great soul. He's not writing these words just because they ought to come at the beginning of a letter. He could have begun otherwise. He's penning this word, this one significant, this one pregnant word of praise, because his big soul is ablaze with fire and gratitude. It's no mere duty, it is a delight. Now, one word about this. First thing I want just to say is that biblical religion has always been a religion of praise. Not only praise, but it has been a religion of praise right back from the beginning. I don't think this is commonly realized among us. If we read through our Bibles oftener, we should notice that you very rarely go through a book without praise. You never do, actually. In fact, it's difficult to turn over many pages of the Bible without coming up against this note of praise. God must be praised. Job says that at the creation, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, right at the beginning. You come to the book of Exodus, and you hear of the song of Moses and others. Deborah in the book of Judges, she's only an illustration. Solomon not only uttered three thousand proverbs, we are told in the book of Kings that his songs were a thousand and five. Ah, don't become concerned about the number, but see the principle behind it. There was a song in his soul, too. We read in Chronicles, these are the men whom David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the Lord, after the ark rested there. I'm not concerned with the details. I'm only concerned about this. There were men that were put in charge of the song of the Lord in the house of the Lord. We tend to think of Old Testament religion as a boredom. It was not. Men that really knew their God in Old Testament times were men who had to express it in song, in praise. Elihu speaks in the book of Job of God as one who gives songs in the night time. The Psalter is not only the product of Old Testament religion, it is the hymn book of Old Testament saints. I need say no more. My first point in relation to the praise on the lips of a saint is this. It was evident in Old Testament times. Biblical religion has always been a religion of praise. But when you come over into New Testament times, praise is even more evidently the product of the evangelical religion of the New Testament. The product of the good news brought to us in Jesus Christ and received by men and women out of every kindred and tribe and people and nation, simply by faith. When this gift of God in Jesus Christ has been received and the grace of God is known, men begin to sing. The whole atmosphere of the New Testament is charged with such emotions as joy, love, peace, hope. And I defy you. You can't have love and joy and peace and hope in the soul without somehow or other beginning to sing. These things, these things ignite. You can't keep them in. They've got to be expressed, and this is song. No, no, New Testament saints need not be cajoled to sing. They don't need a conductor. They don't need a choir for that matter. They don't need an organ for that matter. Put them in prison and they must sing. Let me remind you, Paul and Silas did not simply sing at midnight in a Philippian jail. At least four of our most precious New Testament documents that speak of joy and of grace were written in prison. Why did Paul write his prison epistles in prison? Was there a taskmaster standing above him and say, Now, Paul, you get on with a job. You've got a job to do? Not at all. But his great soul was so full of it, and his heart was so enthralled with the Saviour, and God was such a living reality to him in prison. Well, he just had to write. The churches needed to know more. Paul had the knowledge of him, and sometimes with the chains on his wrists, he wrote the epistle. It is not surprising, therefore, that every evangelical awakening results in a new pill of praise. You always have a wave of hymnology following upon a wave of revival. I've got no time to try to prove that tonight, but I don't think I need. If you know anything about the history of revivals, you will know that in the train of a real spiritual awakening, men and women always come to life in praise. And you have new additions to your hymn books. And that spirit of praise is evidently and eloquently illustrated in our text. Blessed be God, says the man. Blessed be God. No sooner has the apostle penned the fairly normal Christian greeting that we have in the first two verses, and just begun to think of the theme that is going to occupy his mind, he has to praise God. I don't know whether I need to continue. Let me say this much. Paul is so full of praise that it upsets his style. Now, writers are very careful about their style. Of course, you must have everything right. And this man was a scholar. And I suppose, all things being equal, Paul would have liked to have the rhythm and the momentum of the Greek language, everything in order, you know. But when a man becomes obsessed with God and his grace, he even forgets his style. Do you know, in the Greek language that Paul wrote, you only have one long, meandering sentence from verse 3 to verse 14. And it comes out almost like, like dashes of water springing up, or allowed out of an overfull dam. One writer expresses it in this way. I wrote it down. I thought it was so significant. The sentence begun by blessed be rolls on like a snowball tumbling down a hill, picking up volume as it descends. Its 202 words and the many modifiers which they form, arranged like shingles on a roof, or like steps on a stairway, are like prancing steeds pouring forward with impetuous speed. Do you know, it's true. You read verses 3 to 14 again and you will see Paul just like a prancing steed, a horse in gallop. And you can't stop him. So fully of the sense of the glory and the greatness and the wonder of God's grace. My friend, have you got anything that makes you sing? You know, it's a real test of a man's faith. Again, let me repeat. I don't mean publicly. We will sing publicly. But what I mean is this, in your soul, when you write to men who are in difficulties, is your soul ablaze with a knowledge of the grace and of the glory of God that you are on fire and passing it on, as sung at the lips of a saint. But now, what is going to occupy us particularly tonight is the substance of the boom that excited such praise. Why such excitement? Why such praise? What conceivable blessing can make a man sing so lustily or praise God so ardently? Well, now, the reply to that question will not only disclose the composition of the benefits received, but it will also expose the transformation of the sense of value of the beneficiary. Because, you see, when a man has really received the grace of God and proved it and lives by it, even in a prison, that man's sense of value soon changes. All the glitter of material things pale into insignificance. Everything that once glittered is now tawdry in comparison with the grace of God and the God of grace. Come then with me, and let's try to examine this just a little. Will you note, first of all, the composition or the nature of the blessing that elicits Paul's praise? Let me read again. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. The blessings that gladden Paul's soul are spiritual in their composition or in their nature. Paul specifies them as spiritual, has blessed us with all or with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. They're spiritual. This word spiritual describes their texture, if you like, the texture of God's blessing. They are positively spiritual, spiritual as opposed to carnal, spiritual as opposed to material, spiritual. I'm quite sure that many of you who read the Bible will have noticed quite a difference of evaluation between what we have here, for example, and what we often encounter in the Old Testament. There, in the Old Testament, in the days of shadows and of types, the material was often symbolic of things beyond itself. So that in the Old Testament times, people prized material benefits and material possessions, not just for what they were, but they were symbolic of something. You find an emphasis upon material possessions in the Old Testament that you don't have in the New. Why is that? Well, because those were the days of the types and of the shadows. And when a man had material benefits, when he had a lot of children, when he had a lot of cattle, well, it indicated the divine favor and spoke of God's blessing. In other words, material benefits were symbolic of certain things beyond themselves. They were prized not only for themselves, but for this. Canaan was not simply so much land to be possessed. Not at all. We shall see later that Abraham saw something far beyond the land of Canaan with its hills and its valleys, its deserts and its fertile crescent. He saw much beyond that. Oh, he saw that. But it was also symbolic of something bigger and greater. The tabernacle and the temple, they were not only appreciated for what they were and what they contained, they contained some very precious instruments. There was much silver and much gold that went into the temple, for example. But they were prized not as material possessions, but they were symbolic. They spoke of something beyond themselves. God was among his people. And this was the real thing, you see. God was there. This was his place. And he'd come to dwell. Now, in this connection, it is interesting and instructive to me. I've already hinted at it, that though Abraham was given the promise of land for an eternal inheritance to his children, his seed, the New Testament tells us something that the Old Testament doesn't about Abraham. In the light of the fact that Abraham was given land as an inheritance for his seed forever, you would expect Abraham to get exceedingly excited about the land. But when you come to the epistle to the Hebrews, you find that nothing is mentioned hardly about this. Abraham was on the lookout for something different. What was he looking for? Well, let me read to you. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land. Oh, he had a good look at the scenery, and he took it all in. He didn't minimize the value of the land, but he was there. He was there like a foreigner, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. Well, why did he treat it in that insignificant way? For this reason, he looked forward to the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Abraham was on the throat. He didn't want to settle down here, significant as the land was. This is not the ideal. This is not the ultimate. He saw something beyond it. Oh, blessed is the man, blessed is the man that has grasped the vision of the city of God. The land was not the goal. His eyes were beyond its rugged hills and fertile crescents. He looked for the city full of square, whose builder and maker is God. Now, here in Ephesians, the material has receded more and more into the background. We are in the New Testament ethos and atmosphere and outlook. Everything is spiritual. You see, New Testament saints, since Jesus Christ came, we are living in the days of reality. The Old Testament saints were living in the day and in the period of signs and promises and signals of things yet to come. But when Christ came, the end came, in one sense. We have now the firstfruits of what we will have in heaven. You know, heaven will not be so different from the sense of God. We shall have the same quality of life there. Oh, we shall be perfect. We shall have a new body, like unto the glorious body of our Lord. No sin shall enter. But fundamentally, the Christian is given the life of God to live here upon earth. He has the Spirit of God, the Spirit of heaven, right in his heart now. We are living in the times according to the Bible. This is the last hour, says John, he goes so far as that. Not just the last times, we are living in the last hour, he says. And when once we see and recognize this, we begin a life where values are altogether different. Once we see that God's ultimate is spiritual, we shall hold material and carnal things in perspective. Not until then. Now, lest there be anyone who will doubt the supremacy of God's spiritual gifts over his total material benefits, I want to say one word about it in passing, and I'll put it in this way. Whereas God could bring the vast, complicated cosmos into existence by the word of his mouth, God could not give one spiritual benefit to a sinner apart from the work of his Son. All the universe sprang into being by the word of his mouth. But no mere fiat of omnipotence could bring pardon of sin for sinners into existence. Christ must needs die. Let me put it to you like this. The difference between the costliness of material and spiritual blessings, on the one hand, and the expenditure involved in our salvation, on the other, is the difference between the expenditure of God's breath in creating the former and Christ's blood in procuring the latter. The breath of God, a word of his mouth, brings creation into being. Nothing less than the blood of Christ brings pardon of sin and the hope of glory. Spiritual things in the Bible, spiritual things in the New Testament, are everything. As sure as the word spiritual has reference to the texture of the divine blessings, however, so also does it refer, according to quite a number of New Testament expositors at any rate, to the agent of its transmission. Now, I feel I must say this in order to be honest and fair with the text. And it's the preacher's main business to be fair to the text. It is one of the main considerations for us who stand in the pulpit and preach the word. It's to be honest with the text. And there are those who tell us that we do not simply have here a reference to the texture of God's blessing as spiritual, but to the mode of its transmission. In other words, they tell us, and there are some great names among them, that Paul also wanted to imply by this word that these benefits, these blessings, are ours only by the Holy Spirit. And the name of the Spirit is right at the heart of that word spiritual. These imponderable spiritual treasures must be handled by one whose expertise matches their value and their nature. And in all the world there is only one such expert. Who is it that can bring the things of God and the benefits of Christ's redemption? Who is it that can bring them to me? My dear people, let me speak to you of the inabilities of preachers. I can't bring the grace of God to you. And you may have an archangel in the pulpit, he couldn't either. Men can't convey the grace of God to men. If there is a man or a woman to be blessed by the grace of God in this service tonight, it's only the expert handling of the Holy Spirit who can bring of the things of Christ and impart them to a believing heart. You can only be spectators of divine grace apart from the ministry of the Holy Ghost. This is why, you see, ultimately the preacher of the gospel has to send all inquirers to the Lord. If ever you hear a minister of the gospel who says, come to me, come to me, come to me, tell him to go. No man is indispensable. The only indispensable in a work of grace is God the Holy Ghost. The Father has planned salvation, the Son has procured redemption, and the third person of the blessed Trinity is the only expert who can take of the finished work and bring it to a lost, destitute, needy sinner. Therefore, if you have need of grace tonight, I'll tell you what to do. Pray that the Spirit of God will impart it to you, such as the composition or nature of the womb that makes the apostles so full of praise and marks these opening words as so utterly remarkable. Now, next, I want you to notice that matching their composition is their comprehensiveness. I don't know whether you tend to believe that the Apostle Paul must have made a little slip here. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in thy heavenly places in Christ? Yes, we may well hold our breath as we take in the significance of that gigantic statement. Some may be tempted to question as to whether he's made a slip. How is it that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, every spiritual blessing? Doesn't matter how you translate it. Is this true? If so, if you do doubt and have some sneaky notion that the Apostle Paul made a slip, well, let me remind you that Peter must also have made a slip, because Peter tells us in his second epistle, chapter 1 and verse 3, his divine power, he said, has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. Did you catch it? Has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness everything? Startling as it is to read of our being blessed with every spiritual gift, I want to tell you of something here which makes it even more startling. The Apostle Paul puts the verb in the past tense, and it is a special verb. It indicates that the thing has been done once for all and forever. It's the aorist tense. And what it means is this. Paul tells us that God has already blessed his people, already blessed believers in Jesus Christ, already so blessed them that they've got every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, every solitary blessing. Now, my friend, let's get our breath back. What he's saying is this. He's saying that if you are a child of God, if you're redeemed by the blood of Christ, if you're born again, if you're a child of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you, if you're a true Christian, God has already put in your account every conceivable spiritual blessing that you will ever, ever, ever need. And he's done it. Paul says that by one solitary act, God has finished giving, in a sense. He's put everything there. He's given. He's bestowed. He's blessed us thus. No spiritual blessing that we shall ever need is omitted, not one. The composition of the blessing, or of the blessings, but now somebody will ask, surely that's too much to take in. Here am I tonight sitting in Knox, or preaching in Knox, for it's as true of the preacher as of others, but I have spiritual need. How is it, then, that God can have once for all blessed me with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ? How is it so? The thing must be false. Well, now, look at the location of the blessings with which we have been blessed in Christ Jesus. He hath blessed us, says Paul, with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. Two things need to be said by way of exposition of these words. Speaking generally, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Now, I know that there are different, there are people who understand this differently. I'm not going to attempt to expand in detail now, but I'm going to say that I, for my part, accept what the King James Version tells us, and understand Paul's word, which is a vague word, as unto spiritual places, not spiritual things. Blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now, you say, what does that mean? Well, I think you see what it means when you go on. In the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The general statement becomes clearer and more meaningful when we link it intimately with this particular, this personal location of our blessings. Blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. Our blessings, our inheritance with which God has so richly blessed us, are localized in one person. And that person is big enough, and great enough, and good enough, and wise enough to contain all the spiritual benefits and blessings that any lost sinner will ever need to gain the glory of God's presence. He is the Alpha, and he's the Omega. He's the fount of every blessing. He's the treasury of divine grace. He's the reservoir of all our needs. And, says Paul, everything that you'll ever need has been deposited for you in the heavenly places in Christ. Christ is in the heavenly places. Every spiritual benefit, let me repeat, that you can ever need is there in Christ Jesus. Now, here lies the secret. Here lies the open secret of salvation and of the Christian living. It is to get into touch and to keep in touch with the one in whom all the fullness dwells. You see, God does not come to us like this. Will you pardon an illustration like this? The principle by which God sets us a going with life eternal in us and keeps us going is not the principle operating and driving a car. I'm sorry, it's not the principle of getting 10, 20 gallons of petrol and then go for so long and do what you please. It's rather the principle of your trolleys. You have some of them here. Saw them the other day. I don't, not quite sure whether I noticed this much, but when we had trolleys in England, they had two arms stretching upwards to the electric pylons above, and I thought it was a very symbolic picture. And, you see, these went moment by moment in touch with the power above. That's how they started off and that's how they kept going. And when they were severed from the power, they could do nothing. Without me, says Jesus, you can do nothing. And that's the principle. This is the secret of life. This is the secret of possessing eternal life and this is the secret of living it. It's to keep in touch. It's to be able to draw. Moment by moment I'm kept in His love. Moment by moment I've life from above. Moment by moment. My friend, are you in living vital touch with Him in whom all the fullness dwells? Oh, how gracious God is. Just imagine what would be the case if He had put a so much grace in a Buddha, so much grace in a Muhammad, so much grace in this, some that, and you and I would have to travel round the world, have a little bit from Him and a little bit from Him, and where would we be? God has deposited all the treasures of His grace in one, and that one is on the throne of the universe. And we may come to God in Him and find mercy and grace to help in every time of need, wherever we are. Is it any wonder, Paul sang? Hallelujah. I tell you, my friend, if you know what this means, you'll want to sing a little tune. Anywhere in the universe, by day and by night, alone and in company, in summer and in winter, in youth and in age, in life and in death. My Lord has all, and God has put everything in Him. Do you know, it reminds me of the picture of Joseph in Egypt of old. Some of you know that Joseph is a favorite character of mine. Do you remember, do you remember how the Pharaoh said, when the days of need and poverty had come and there was no food in Egypt, by this time Joseph had got all the provision necessary, and the Pharaoh had put the key in the hand of Joseph, and Joseph was in charge of all the grain. And you read in the book of Genesis that what Pharaoh said to everybody was, go to Joseph, go to Joseph, go to Joseph. Do you want food? Go to Joseph. You're rich? You've got to go to Joseph. Are you poor? You go to Joseph, just the same. Where have you come from? It doesn't matter. But you've got to go to Joseph. He holds the keys to the granaries. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Why? Because God has appointed one Messiah, and in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, and we, says Paul, or you Christians, are complete in Him. There's nothing missing there. A song on the lips of a saint. The substance of the boon that kindled such a song. I can only mention the closing thought, though it locks up the hole, and you can pursue it as you go. The source of such substantial benefits, and the real inspiration of Paul's song and gratitude. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us. You see what he does now? He traces the river of divine benefits. He traces the flood of divine blessings. He traces them all, or he traces it in its totality, right back to its source. And the source of every good and perfect gift is ultimately in the heart and mind and will of God. Blessed be God. But then he goes on to designate and to define. He says, blessed be God, yes, yes, yes, but, but, but, but, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I suggest to you we had a very special reason for putting it like that. The source of our every spiritual blessing is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ as man looked upon God as his God, and he looked upon God as his Father, as man, and as Son of God. Now, I have to be brief. When Paul spoke of God as the God of our Lord Jesus, what did he mean? Well, the God that Jesus worshipped, and the God that Jesus served, and the God that Jesus obeyed and trusted in life and in death, his God, the God that sent him forth in the beginning, the God that was with him all the way, and the God to whom he went to the end, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, God as revealed in his coming, God as manifested in his life, God the trustworthy one to whom he could go at the end, even via the cross and its shame, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, we Christians do not worship and follow a mythical deity. We follow a God who has been revealed, who has been revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ, and we see him also in the relationship of Jesus as man with God. He knew him. He exhibited him. And in his relationship with the Father, he showed us what kind of a God he was. Yes, and let me hurry to the other, what kind of a Father? I'm going to preach on this one day, so this is only an introduction. I don't think there is any theme in the New Testament which is quite as precious as this. The fatherhood of God as exhibited in the life of his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ so acted in his relationship to the Father that he made it evident that he was a real Father, not just an omnipotent and almighty God, a sovereign deity. He is there. Oh, of course he is, and I'm not taking away from that. I'm not suggesting that Jesus said or did anything to detract from the almightiness of God, not for one moment, but along with his almightiness and his omniscience and so forth, he was Father, my Father and yours. As Father he was with him right at the beginning. You read in the New Testament where our Lord refers to his God as his Father, and they're very significant. The only thing I want to say now is this, that right through his life, whenever he spoke of his Father, his Father was always to be trusted. He could never contemplate his Father saying or doing or demanding anything that was wrong. Read, for example, Matthew chapter 6. And he's telling the disciples, why do you fuss and bother sometimes about what you should eat or what you should drink or what you should put on? You know, the world doesn't change very much, does it? This is what we all fuss about, what we should eat and what we should drink and what we should put on. Well now, he says, all the Gentiles, all the pagans are looking for these things. Why should you worry? Look at the sparrows, he says, look at the birds. There's not a sparrow that falls without your Father, notice, your Father knowing. He's not a father to the sparrow, but he's your Father. He cares for the sparrow, not a creature, but he's your Father. Your Father, man, if you're in Christ Jesus, he's your Father. But he cares for the sparrow just because he's the sparrow's creator. And can you add one cubit to your statue? You're going to try and add to your height. Poor fools, so to say. Don't be so stupid, you can't do it, you can't care, you can't do anything for yourself anyway. Take a good look around if you want a suit of clothes, look at the grass. And the grass are closed today, tomorrow they're cast into the earth. You seek first of all the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. And the context and the background is the background of the fatherhood of God, the fatherhood of the King, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He must be praised, but he must be praised above all because in his Son Jesus Christ he becomes and our. Now, my friends, I'm going to close very simply like this. Permit me to ask the question. You don't have to answer me, but the very response of your soul to the question is indicative of your true soul's state. Do you know God as your God, my God, my Father? Now, you see, this is the meaning of the gospel. God has ordained that the gospel should be preached here enough tonight because he wants you to know the God of our Lord Jesus as your God, and the Father of the Lord Jesus as your Father, and all the grace that is necessary, and all the provision is all wrapped up in one parcel, and the name of that one parcel—may I be forgiven for putting it thus—is Jesus. He's everything. He's the beginning, and he's the end. And if Jesus Christ is yours, you have the grace to begin and to enter into the Cayman, which is God, and the secret of going on until in eternity. What now you possess in part, you will then possess in whole. I commend Jesus Christ to you, and to those of you who have received him and who've got a little bit stale by the way, don't think that God has anything at all outside of Jesus Christ. I think this is one of the great sins of the Church today. I have heard people say, I have heard people say that there comes a moment in a supposedly Christian experience when you leave Jesus Christ behind, and you begin to live on another level. My friend, that's not biblical Christianity. Here is a well that is so deep, the waters will fill it for all eternity. Bring your little cups. When you and I are drunk and quenched ourselves for many a long year, the ocean will be as full as it ever was. Don't you want to praise God? Blessed be God. Blessed be God. Blessed be the God and Father of all others. You see, he was Paul's God and Paul's Father, as Jesus Christ was Paul's Savior. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. And if you have any questions you think we could help you about in relation to him, we shall only be too pleased to be of service. But ultimately, it's the Spirit of God alone who can bring of the grace and of the things of Christ, and give them and impart them and make them all to you and to me. In these closing moments, then, let us bow a moment before God in prayer and commend ourselves to him. Let us pray.