In this sermon, the speaker focuses on Galatians chapter 4 verses 4 to 6. He emphasizes that God sent His Son, Jesus, at the perfect time to redeem those who were under the law. Through Jesus, believers receive the adoption as sons and daughters of God. The speaker also highlights the importance of recognizing Jesus as Lord and being willing to prioritize Him above all else, even our closest relationships. He references Luke chapter 14, where Jesus speaks about the cost of discipleship and the need to be willing to give up everything for Him. The speaker explains that when man sinned, he not only experienced physical and spiritual death, but also transferred the authority of the world to Satan.

Will you turn please to Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 to 6. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that thou wilt speak to our hearts during this time together. Touch our minds, our spirits, speak through the speaker, bring what thou wilt bring, and listen through the listener, but in all and through all, open the eyes of our heart to see the Lord Jesus Christ, the King, in all his wondrous glory and power. We do worship and adore thee, thou God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and ask that these lives, redeemed at such an awful cost, will count for the greatest possible glory of Christ. And may our time together this morning help to that end. In Jesus' name, amen. I think we have at least endeavored to answer the question, why did God make man? And the answer that I've submitted to you is this, that man might be the object of his love, that he might be loved by God, and that all that love means might be experienced by man, and that he would love God in return, so as to satisfy the ancient longing in the heart of the Father for children and the bridegroom for a bride. Why did he make man so that he could sin? And the answer is, if he had made him in any other way than having the power of choice, man would have been a machine, an automaton, and would therefore have been incapable of fulfilling that purpose that God had for man, to be the object of his love. Why did he put man down here on earth, if this was the place where he had cast Satan? Because his beloved would in due course have to be exposed to God's ancient enemy, and should his beloved succumb to that exposure and to that opportunity for rebellion, so it would have to be. But he could not exclude from man the contact with that ancient foe, without again bringing man into that bondage of being an automatic machine. What happened when man sinned? He died in those four ways we saw, but in addition he transferred the government of the world that God had made from his hands to where God had placed it, into the hands of the ancient foe, into the hands of Lucifer, who became the prince of this world and the god of this world. Now, I want to slip over into that period of time that is indicated by the text that I've read, when the fullness of the time was come. This goes all the way from the garden, clear back down to that time when Mary conceived and then bore the Lord Jesus Christ. The text tells us, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law. Made under the law. God had stated the whole of the law in that one statement that he gave to that first pair, thou shalt not eat of the fruit in the midst of the garden. Implicit in that are the Ten Commandments, and all the commandments of the Holy Ghost, that are given in the scripture. But, by rebelling against that one commandment, they then fulfill that statement which says, if we offend in one point we are guilty of all. And so it was that, in the fullness of time God had to give the law, which he did on Sinai through Moses. But, that law was but an amplification of what was given in that first commandment to the pair in the garden. The one who gave the law on Sinai, again, was, I believe, Jehovah. The Jehovah of the Old Testament being the pre-incarnate Jesus of the New Testament. It was, if you please, his finger that inscribed the tablets of stone. He was the law giver. He's the one who spoke in the garden, and he's the one who codified it and put it into the commandments. Now we are told that God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law. Here is an amazing thing. The law giver, by the miracle of incarnation, has become the law keeper, so that he can provide redemption for the law breakers. He's the one who gave the Ten Commandments. Now he's the one, God the Son, who has come into the world made under the law. Perhaps you can see it from the heavenly point of view. When the fullness of time has come, the Father says, Son, are you ready? And the Lord Jesus lays down the scepter of his power and authority that takes off the diadem of his glory and the robes of his majesty. And the next moment is joined to one cell in the body of Mary. And that which is born of her, nine months later, is Emmanuel, God come in the flesh. And we are told that he is indwelt by the fullness of the Godhead bodily. All those years of life, he is Emmanuel. Oh, there have been heresies that attacked his humanity and said he had what seemed to be a physical body. And there were other heresies that attacked his deity and said that he wasn't God yet. But those who know and love the word accept the truth that he is, from his conception and his birth, Emmanuel, God come in the flesh, indwelt by the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And we are told in Luke 2.52 that Jesus increased in wisdom and knowledge and stature and in favor with God and man. Here he is, God who has become flesh, accepting the limitations of our humanity, growing up as an infant, as a child. At the age of two or earlier, we don't know for sure. But we do know that the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and said, take the child and flee into Egypt. And how marvelous it was that the kings had brought gifts of such value, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, that it could support the refugee family in Egypt for all those years, probably until the Lord Jesus was 12. When again the angel of the Lord said, it's safe to bring him back. And Joseph brought Mary and the Lord Jesus back to his hometown of Nazareth, where he went to that house, which perhaps you've seen. Have you ever been in Nazareth and seen the house, which was considered the house of Mary? Well, it's very interesting. Marjorie and I were there in 1965. It's a house above ground, but when you go inside, in the center of the house is a cave. It's a two-story cave dug in the ground. And on one level, there's a certain household interest on the lower level, others of them, and kind of a tunnel down. It was a house made, according to archaeologists, by the Nabataeans, which had preceded Israel, the ones that had been the inhabitants there, even before the Canaanites came. So there is every reason to think that the house to which the Lord Jesus came was similar to that. And adjacent to and attached to that dwelling that's over the caves is the little carpenter shop. And it would have been there that our Lord Jesus learned the trade of a carpenter, an apprentice at 12, a journeyman at 20, a master carpenter at 24, and continuing as a carpenter there in Nazareth until he was 30. He was as a root out of the dry ground, and of him it was said there was no beauty we should desire him. All of the apocryphal stories about the things that Christ did in those years are, I believe, apocryphal. They're not true. I believe that he was there, living under all of the opportunities and pressures and problems that confronted any young man in Nazareth. At the age of 30, he learns that there is his cousin, whom he knew to be Elizabeth's son, dear friend of his mother and relation of his mother, is down at the Jordan preaching. And so our Lord Jesus goes down there and listens to John preach and goes out into the water when the call comes for those who would be baptized with John's baptism, which was a baptism unto repentance. Now, repentance usually means a change of mind from pleasing ourselves to pleasing God or from sin to obedience. Shortly after this time that he comes to the water, the heavens are going to open and the voice of God is going to be heard. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. In him there was no sin. He was made under the law, but he kept the law. The only person reaching the age of 30 in all of the history of man that God ever could have said, I am well pleased, was the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as he goes to the water, the question we have to ask is, why would he be baptized with a baptism to repentance? Well, repentance means a change of mind or a change of intention or change of purpose or the baptism would be the evidence of a commitment. To what would the Lord Jesus make a commitment? Well, in Philippians, the second chapter, that so-called emptying or kenosis chapter, we are told, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so our Lord Jesus goes into the water of baptism to indicate that he has made a commitment. What is it? The commitment is to accept the limitations of his humanity. Now he knew that he was God come in the flesh and he knew that he had the right to act in his essential deity as son. But he knew that if he performed his ministry in his essential deity as son, it would be totally unlike anything that his followers would ever be able to do. And so in order that he could subsequently say, as the Father has sent me, so send I you. And also to fulfill and please the Father, by his baptism our Lord Jesus is saying, Father, I relinquish, oh listen carefully, I relinquish the right to act in my essential deity as son. I accept the limitations of my humanity, a body you've given me. Now Father, I give you back this body. I present it to you as a living sacrifice. And at that time, John said he bore witness and said, I saw the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove descend upon him. And of that event the Lord Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He hath anointed me. And F.B. Meyer in that marvelous little book, Moody Colportage, number 37, and it's still available, it's a record of the addresses given at the Carnegie Hall Bible Conference in New York City in 1887, I think that's the year. And in it he says, We must remember that everything done by Christ in the three years of his public ministry was done by the Father through the Spirit and not by him in his essential deity as son. Did he not over and over again say, I do not speak of myself, I speak as I receive commandment of the Father. I do nothing of myself. I only do what I see the Father do. Over and over again. One man said that there were 47 times in the Gospel of John. I haven't counted them, but I know that repeatedly the Lord Jesus said that he only acted as he was directed by the Father. Now, he has kept the law for 30 years just in his ordinary circumstances of life. Now with the Spirit of God epi upon him, didn't say in him, upon him. For the Holy Ghost had been in him in his nature from the time of his conception and birth. But this was not a matter of nature, this was a clothing upon so that he could be like his brethren and everything done by Christ would be done by the Father through the Spirit and not through him in his essential deity as son. Now, with that in mind then, you realize that our Lord Jesus has a function in this three years ministry. He has come, I said, a root out of the dry ground. No publicity efforts were made to kill him, but he has survived and God has protected him. He had, you recall, after his baptism at Jordan 40 days of conflict with whom? With his ancient foe. The one that he had made before the foundation of the world, Lucifer. And here they are in face-to-face confrontation as Lucifer is trying by every means that he can to seduce the Son of God, who is man as well as God, and induce him to submit. And he is saying, look, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you the nations of the earth. Why could he say such a thing? Well, because he controlled them. Adam had given them to him and they're his. And he says to Christ, if you'll worship me, bow down to me, I'll give them to you and you won't have to go here through the cross and all the agony that has. And he said, well, if you won't do that, then let's speed up this thing. You're hungry. You've had 40 days. Look, here, turn these stones to bread. Well, this would have been contrary to the Father's will. And so the Lord Jesus says, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. And he rejects that. And then he said, well, look, to shorten this time you're going to have, cast yourself down from this mountain and an angel will catch you and you won't bruise your foot. He said you'll never bruise your foot against stone. Do that and that'll shorten the time. The Lord Jesus says no, no, no, no. Every time there's a seduction by his ancient foe. And he submits to the same kind of pressure and temptation that Adam and Eve had had. And he doesn't yield. He is the God-man, but he is there and he has now vanquished the foe in terms of refusing, as the man by the spirit, refusing to listen to the blandishments and the enticements of his ancient foe. From there to Cana where he honors his mother by doing that which she asks of him. And then really back to Nazareth where he begins his ministry, going into the synagogue with those people that have lived with him and worked with him for 30 years. But the only problem with the people of Nazareth, they were so familiar with Jesus that they didn't know him at all. That's the problem a lot of people have today. They've gotten too familiar with the Son of God. They're so familiar they don't know him. Well, they didn't in Nazareth. And they hand him the scripture, the role, and he turns to that portion and says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He hath anointed me. He hath sent me. And he says, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. And they knew what he had said, that he was Messiah, that he was God come in the flesh, being honorable Jews. They did the only proper thing in their eyes. Now, it was awfully hard for them to throw stones at him. But they thought if they could get together and they could take him out to that cliff at the edge of Nazareth, they could push him over and they would throw him against the stones and it would be the same thing. And so they walked out with him and he was in the center and the elders were going to push him over because the scripture said if anyone claimed to be God, they should be stoned. And they didn't want to throw stones at someone they'd lived with for 30 years. They'd rather throw him at the stones than to throw the stones at him. And the Lord Jesus just turned and by the power of the Holy Spirit walked through them and began his ministry. Now, that was the beginning of three years of ministry. He'd gone back to his people, he'd told them who he was and they rejected it. Now, I want you to turn to Luke chapter 14. In the 14th chapter of Luke, beginning with the 25th verse, we have our Lord Jesus speaking in a street meeting to the unconverted out in the street. It's a very interesting thing here. He had been in with the Pharisees and I won't take time, but he had lunch with them. They were trying to hire him, I'm sure, to work on the state Pharisee Evangelistic Committee and he had exposed their hearts to them and he wasn't just about in any way to succumb to that. And so as he came out of this luncheon meeting the last words of which had been none of these men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. When he came out, there were in the streets a great multitude who were there with him. Boy, they'd gathered. They'd heard he was there with the Pharisees and they were going to be on hand. I tell you, they weren't missing a trick. A great multitude who didn't know anything about him and he turned to this multitude. Now, I want you to get it clear. What he's about to say is not being preached at a deeper life conference up at Camp Perkins or somewhere else. No, this is a street meeting. This is what he's saying to the unconverted. Did you hear? I think you heard me. This is what he's saying to the unconverted. And I'll explain to you why it's so important. He turned to this multitude. He said, you're following me? Let's get something straight right now. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. How's that? How is that? Years ago, I had a friend. I guess he was a friend. I like to think he was. I don't know if he was or not. Anyway, I called him. And he wrote a book. And in that book, he made a statement. And because he was a friend, I thought maybe I would repeat the statement. And the statement was this. It's easy to be saved. All you have to do is accept Jesus. But it's hard to become a disciple. Well, man, that sounded good. And I began to repeat that. Until... Until I went to the Scripture to find out what the Scripture had to say about disciples. When I say that, I'm reminded of a dear woman down in Augusta, Georgia. Some of her... She did a lot of laundry and housecleaning for friends there. And she learned to read, but she could only read the Bible. And that's what she claimed. God gave her a neighborhood to read, but only read the Bible. Well, they got her a one-volume commentary on the Bible. And they said, Well, Annie, why don't you try to read that? And she found she could read that, too. And after she'd had it a few weeks, months, someone says, Well, Annie, how do you like that book we bought you, that commentary? Oh, she says, I likes it just fine. But you know, the Bible sure do throw a lot of light on that book. Well, the commentary's supposed to throw light on the Bible. But Annie found the Bible threw a lot of light on that book. And I found the Bible throws a lot of light on a lot of books. And so nowadays when I get a book, I like to read it in the light of the Word of God. It's like eating chicken, you know. I never ate a chicken whole in my life yet. You cut them and you pluck them and you draw them. And then you don't eat what's left. You pick the meat off the bones. And sometimes when you finish with all that, there's more chicken you didn't eat than you did eat. And sometimes when you read a book, I've often said if you get one good idea out of a book, it's probably worth the price you paid for it. But a lot of it isn't. Well, at any rate, this friend of mine wrote this book. And in that book, he said, It's easy to be saved if you just accept Jesus, but it's hard to be a disciple. And I went to Scripture to find out what it said. And you know what I found out? A disciple means learner. Did you hear me? Learner or student. That's all it means. And then I went over to John 6, 53, and I read where Christ is talking to a lot of people who call themselves his disciples. Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And these disciples say, We're Abraham's seed. We don't eat anybody's flesh. We don't drink anybody's blood. And we're done with you, and we're leaving you. And the Lord Jesus turned to his disciples, and he said, Are you guys, you fellas going to go away too? And by inference, they didn't say it, it's not in the text, but by inference it was, Yeah, Lord, we've been thinking about it, but we don't know where to go. Thou only hast the words of eternal life, so we're going to hang around for a while yet. But Lord, that was a hard saying you gave. And then it says, And from that time forth, many of his disciples followed him no more. Well, don't tell me being a disciple means a cut above being saved, because I think that's nonsense. Disciple means learner. These folks got into the first grade. When they found out how to have eternal life, they became dropouts. They quit school. They didn't want anymore from that teacher. So when we're talking about disciple here, we're not talking about a cut above being born of God, we're talking about learning how to be born of God. We're talking about basic minimal kindergarten, not college graduate. And so here in verse 25, he says, If any man come to me, and he does not understand that my sovereignty transcends all human relationships, even his love of his own life, he can't be my disciple. Talk about how to win friends and influence people. That ain't it. Believe me, that's not how to do it. But that's the way the Son of God did it. Why? Because back in the garden, Mother Eve chose to eat and gave it to Adam. And he loved Eve more than he loved God. And so the Lord Jesus comes and said, Now get this straight. If any man comes to me, he has got to understand that my sovereignty transcends all human relationships. I don't want to fool you. I don't want to mislead you. I don't want to con you. I just want it perfectly clear that when you come to me, you're coming to God, and your family, your friends may think, interpret what you do out of your commitment to me as being hatred of them. So be it. So be it. Let it be so. That's what it means. I was asked to go out on our truck from Maloot into the Dinkaland to bring back the boys for the school. The vacation period was over. We went into one village, and they said there was a boy there by the name of Ding. Every third boy in Dinkaland is called Ding. And so they went in, and there was Ding, had his reed basket, a little basket made with reeds and plastered sort of inside, and had his things in it. And he was waiting there, but his mother was there, and his grandmother was there. And I know what they'd been doing because there was blood on their breasts and blood on their cheeks, and they had a piece of broken pot shirt, a broken piece of a pot, and they were scraping themselves and causing the blood to run as an evidence of their grief. And they were saying, Oh, Ding, you can't leave us. You can't leave us. You hate your mother. You hate your grandmother. You hate your family. And this young man, who at school had opened his heart, the Lord Jesus Christ, reached down with one hand, picked up his basket and handed it to the boys already in the back of the truck. And then he took his mother's hand and his grandmother's hand, and he held them in his strong young hand, and he said, Mother, I love you. Grandmother, I love you. I love you more than you'll ever know. But I love Jesus Christ more than I love you. I love him with all my heart and life. You say I hate you. I don't hate you. I love more you more than I ever could have loved you before. But I love Jesus Christ more than I love you. And he reached, put one foot up on the tire, took ahold of the top iron of the rack on the truck, held his mother and grandmother's hands in his hand, swung up, let go of them, dropped in the inside of the, and tears streaming down his cheeks as down theirs. And it was the most complete illustration of any man come to me, and his love for me and his commitment to me is not so complete that his family, mother, father, brother, sisters are going to interpret his love for me as being hatred for them. He can't be my disciple. That's just a risk you have to take. My sovereignty transcends all human relationships. That's tough, but that's what he said. And then in the 27th verse he said, And whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. When you come to me, said the Lord Jesus Christ, and you commit yourself to me, my sovereignty has to transcend all plans, all ambitions, all programs you've designed for yourself. When you come to me, you have no more right to choose what you shall be, what you shall do, where you shall go than does a person who is nailed to a cross. I think you'll agree that being nailed to a cross cramps your planning a little bit. When you're nailed to a cross, you aren't going to say, I'll meet you down at the cafe, Harry, at 5 o'clock. You're nailed to a cross, and you have abandoned by that fact all right to choose. And Christ said, When you come to me, you understand that my sovereignty transcends all right to personal plans. You're not your own. You're bought with a price, and you're to glorify God in your body. And he said, Unless you understand this, you can't even get into first grade to find out the first lessons about how to know me. And then, down a little later, he tells them he's going to go to war with 10,000 to defeat a foe that had 20,000, and he's going to build a temple. And since he's paying for the material in the temple, he's deciding what kind of material goes into it. And it's not going to be tar paper marble. It's going to be real marble, because he's buying it. And so he says, So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. My sovereignty transcends the right to all personal possessions. When you come to me, and you call me Lord, you can never say my in a proprietary sense again. You can't say my talent, my time, my ministry, my treasure. You can't say my. It's gone. It's out of your vocabulary. You owe nothing. You're only a steward of what's his. Oh yeah. Sounds like a deeper life ministry, doesn't it? Except it isn't. That's what he's saying to the unconverted. Is there any wonder they left him? Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot be my disciple. You can't have eternal life. You can't do it. Except. Is it any wonder that from that time forth, many of his disciples followed him no more? But let me ask you a question. What if he had changed the word his father gave him? What if he hadn't given it? What if he'd have looked at that crowd out there, and he said, now fellas, would you like to go to heaven when you die? Come up here and shake my hand, sign a card. What would he have done with them when he got them? What good would they have been to God or to man? Do you understand? He had to say what the father told him to say, or he'd have gotten a totally different crowd that even God couldn't have done anything for. I've gone as a pastor into a church and looked out at the people and asked myself, oh heavenly father, are these people that sit there and face me my force to help me, or my field? How came they, them, to be here? Who led them? What's the grounds of their testimony? No. The Lord Jesus Christ had this to say to that unconverted bunch. Get it straight. I'm God. I'm God. Only God has the right to say your commitment to me has to be so complete that your family may interpret it as hatred. Only God has the right to say you don't have any more right to your own plans than when you're nailed to a cross. Only God can say that. Only God can say if you don't forsake all you have you can't be my disciple. Only God. And by what he said, he said, I am God. And you submit to me as God. And God come in the flesh. And you don't bargain with God. And you don't try to wheedle God. And you don't wait until he has a sale on eternal life where you'll get it 50% off. God never changes his conditions. Never. Remember when that rich young ruler came to him and said, what good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord Jesus said, why do you call me good? Only God is good. In other words, do you recognize that I am God? And then he proceeded, there was no response. He said, well, Moses said, and he had told Moses what to say. Moses said, thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not lie, and so on. And the young man said, all these things have I done since my youth up. And the Lord Jesus Christ said, didn't argue with him. He simply said, you don't realize that Moses was speaking for God. And you don't recognize the God that Moses recognized. But I'll give you one more chance to know who I am. You sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me. The one thing the young man lacked is he never knew God. And when God stood before him in the person of Jesus Christ, he didn't recognize him as God. And therefore, he went away. And according to the apocryphal version, the Lord Jesus said, oh, come on back. I've been trying for 10 years to get somebody like that on those terms. But I'm going to just, we'll take care of that later. Is that what he did? Never. Never. Because he could not change the word the Father had given him to declare. Because if he had changed it, he would have gotten a totally different company of people that even God couldn't have done anything with. And so he let him go. He watched him go, but he was sorrowing. Not because he didn't have the young man with him, but because the young man had been so near, and yet so far. He didn't recognize that Jesus Christ is God. And God, who has the right to control. Then you will recall in Luke chapter 13, verses 3 and 8, where Christ said twice in three verses, Nay, I say unto you, nay, but except you repent, you'll perish. And repentance, therefore, was the message that he gave. And repent means to turn, renounce the right to rule and govern one's life. And to submit to God. And to obey God. Now, he was sent, therefore, to them that were under the law. And he gave to them the message that had been given in the garden and through Moses. And he declared it. God speaking to the hearts of men. He is indeed under the law. And his purpose, therefore, is to redeem them that were under the law. But in order to accomplish that redemption, it was necessary for the Lord Jesus Christ, who had been the lawgiver, who became a law keeper, to vindicate the holiness of the law and to open the door for pardon and eternal life to the law breakers. And so in the fullness of time, his ministry was complete. And after the supper, he went into the garden. And there he reached out. This God-man, God come in the flesh, he reached out to you and to me. The scripture tells us that he identified himself with us so completely that he not only was crucified for us, but he was crucified as us. We were crucified with him. His reaching out to the garden, in the garden, to you where you are in time and me, and drawing us back to himself, meant that he, the eternal son of God, had to identify himself with us to the end that when the father saw him, he saw us. We were the ones that had broken the law. He was the just one, we the unjust. But if there was to ever be a way by which God could be gracious to men and pardon their sin and justify them and receive them, it was going to be necessary for his law to be vindicated and upheld so that God could be just and the justifier of them that would believe in Jesus. And so he went to the cross, but because he was there as you, he submitted to being bound. Because he was there as you, he submitted to being buffeted and to being crucified. Because he was there representing you and representing me, the eternal son who has now identified himself with us. He's on the cross from nine until twelve. At twelve o'clock, the earth is shrouded in darkness. The Psalms tell us that the hell came around the cross. Now because the Lord Jesus Christ is there in our place instead, he's representing us there, he becomes vulnerable to what his ancient foe can do. Now remember what his attributes are. Love and light and truth and life. And at twelve o'clock, all of hell surrounds the cross. And against love comes hate. And against light comes darkness. And against truth comes a lie. And against life comes death. And now at long last, since that battle that had begun back there before the foundation of the world, when Satan was cast out of heaven, now it has come to its culmination. And here the eternal son, on the cross, is vulnerable to everything that the enemy can do. And against love does come hate. And against light comes darkness. And against truth comes a lie. And against life comes death. Now when there wasn't anything more that God could do to vindicate his holiness and uphold his law, when there wasn't anything more that Satan could do against God, when the last arrow had flown, the last spear was thrown, the last arm that raised a club to buffet the Son of God had fallen in exhaustion, the Lord Jesus Christ said, It is finished. And he gave up the ghost. And he died of a broken heart. But three days later, that God-life that could not die returned again to that body. And the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Leading captivity captive. Having vindicated the holiness of God. Having opened the door so that God could pardon repentant sinners. And having finally defeated his ancient foe. Once we understand then that God's purpose in salvation is as it now, as it was then, then we're going to realize that this so great salvation was to the end of remaking us into his image and likeness and bringing us into union with him that his eternal purpose can be fulfilled in and through his people. Father in heaven, seal we ask thee thy word to our hearts. Let it accomplish in us all that thou hast planned and purposed. And grant, Father, that as we've thought together and listened together today, in the hours that come, we'll return again to what's been considered. To try to comprehend as best these mortal minds of ours can the significance of these marvelous events. And grant, Lord, that in the days to come the implications of it shall become clear to our hearts. As we see what thy purpose and grace continues to be. We ask it with thanksgiving in Jesus' precious holy name. Amen. You're dismissed. Thanks for coming. We'll see you tonight and I trust again tomorrow morning.