In this sermon, the preacher focuses on a single verse from the story of Abraham's servant finding a bride for Isaac. The servant introduces himself and explains how God has blessed Abraham with wealth and a son, Isaac. The preacher then transitions to Psalm 2, discussing God's appointment of a king and the rejection of His word by the people. He emphasizes God's persistence in sending prophets and ultimately His own son, Jesus Christ. The preacher also highlights the importance of repetition in preaching and the need to hear and repeat what the Lord is saying.

I'm with you again. This is becoming sort of almost a regular now, and I always do feel very much at home with you, so thank you for your welcome. And I don't want to say anything different to what the Lord is already saying. I think it's a great key for all preachers to hear what the Lord is saying and just repeat it. We need repetition, don't we? Do you know the old story of the old country preacher who was a very powerful and effective preacher? And someone once said to him, what is your secret? What methods do you use in your preaching? And he said something like this, he said, well, first of all I tell them what I'm going to tell them. Then I tell them. Then I tell them what I told them. So, repetition is a great thing. I'd like to tell you what I'm going to tell you. I want to talk about Jesus Christ as the heir, the heir. And I want to unfold, if I can, some of the implications of that. There are lots of places that we could go to. Let's take, this is just a place to start. This is Genesis chapter 24. This is the story way back in the Old Testament of Abraham. Father Abraham, that we had reference to earlier on. I was tempted to preach about Father Abraham. You have to become a son of Abraham before you can become a son of God. That's the Bible teaching. You have to have the faith of Abraham before you have the faith of God. But that's not our topic now, this morning. This is Abraham. And Abraham's an old man at this point. And he has the son Isaac. And he's making preparation now for the future. And he sends his servant to choose a bride for Isaac. And it's a very wonderful picture. And if we had the time, we could go through lots of different parts of it. But I just want to pick up one single verse. When the servant is explaining to the family just who he is, and why he's there, and just the way in which he introduces Isaac. This is how the story goes. This is verse 34. They prepare a meal for him. But before he eats the meal, he's got something that he needs to get off his chest. And he says this, verse 34. He said, I am Abraham's servant. And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly. And he is become great. And hath given him flocks and herds and silver and gold and menservants and maidservants and camels and assets. And Sarah, my master's wife, bare a son to my master when she was old. And unto him hath he given all that he has. You see, that's all he says, actually, about Isaac. He doesn't tell the bride-to-be how tall Isaac is or what colour eyes he has. And doesn't tell him about his sense of humour or his temperament. Just this one point is the point he wants to get across. To Isaac, Abraham has given everything that he has. And he's just expressed something of the physical wealth of Abraham. But we know that Abraham wasn't just wealthy in spiritual things, in physical things. We know that Abraham had a spiritual wealth as well. He had things that had been entrusted to him by God. And there's a truth along this line as well. To him, Abraham has given to Isaac all that he has. Now here's a simple kind of logic question for you. If Abraham has given everything to Isaac, what is there left? Not a trick question. Absolutely. If he has given 100% to Isaac, there is nothing left for anyone else. In fact, the only way that anyone can have any blessing, and this is my key point, is if they are in right relationship to the heir. That's the one point I want to make all morning. The only way we can have any blessing, any wealth, any spiritual wealth, any holiness, any power, anything at all, is if we are rightly related to the one to whom the Father has given everything. Nothing in the Christian life is detachable. Nothing is detachable. You cannot take your own spirituality away and maintain it and polish it and make it better than it was. You didn't have what it took to start it off and you don't have what it takes to maintain it. You couldn't pay the capital costs and you can't pay the maintenance costs. Alright, maybe this isn't Bible language, but this is Bible truth. Do you want the Bible language? As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. There's your walking. How did you receive him? What contribution did you make in your receiving of Christ? Well, he had a hundred percent and if he has a hundred percent, what do you have left to contribute to it? And the same is true of your walking. The way you begin is the way that you go on. The way that you began was one hundred percent dependent upon Jesus Christ. There's a strange thing that happens to Christians that although we know that and we could get all the theological questions right if we're asked, we somehow stray and drift away to dependencies on other things. On other good things. You know that I'm very pedantic and I'm difficult to live with at times because I'm pedantic. I can remember many years ago Margaret saying to me on one occasion, she said, well we should do this and this and this and we should pray, she said, because I believe in prayer. And I said, oh I don't believe in prayer. I will not put my faith in prayer. Do you understand what I'm saying? I will not put my faith in any means that God uses. I must put all my faith in him. He is the heir. And to him God has given everything that he has and there's nothing that's outside him. Nothing that's outside him. And your relationship to the heir is the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters except your relationship to the heir. Now this young woman who was hearing this was going to come into a wonderful relationship with the heir. She would have nothing that was her own by right, but she would have everything because she would enter into the inheritance of him who was the heir to whom the Father had given all things. Are you following me? The church is a glorious church, says the Bible. But she has no wealth of her own. She has nothing to give. All that she has is the right relationship with the one who is the heir. And because she has the right relationship with the one who is the heir, she is a joint heir. She shares his inheritance. Let me read you, there's a couple of places in the New Testament, but let me read to you Ephesians, the first chapter. The letters of Ephesians, when it refers to the church in here, it's almost certainly not referring to the local church, but to the whole church of Jesus Christ. The church that stretches out throughout the whole world horizontally and down through the generations. The one church that Paul wasn't a part of and you and I, by grace, are part of. And those who follow will be part of. This is Paul's letter to the Ephesians. And he addresses it, not actually to the church in Ephesus, but to the saints in Ephesus. Church really means those who are called out and saints means those who are cut out. Did you know that? Did you know that you are cut out for something special? We use that kind of language, don't we? We say, well he's not cut out for this because he can't add up, or he's not cut out for that. It's an interesting kind of use of language. I often think that in our ordinary languages, God has put these little gems. Well, do you know what you are cut out for? When God put his hand upon you, when he called you to himself, this cut out is the old Hebrew word for sanctify. That's what it means. It means to cut out a portion for a specific use exclusively. So, what are you cut out for as a specific use exclusively? Well, you're cut out to be God's man, to be God's woman. That's what you're cut out for. You're cut out to be, or the Bible wouldn't be using a saint. It means just that. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. I want you to notice, and I know you know this anyway, but I want you to notice that everything Paul has to say of any relevance here is only addressed to people who are rightly related to the air, to people who are in Christ, to people who are faithful in Christ. This is where it starts off. It's all about relationship. You know, the whole Bible is about relationship. One old Bible teacher many years ago used to say, the greatest truth of the Bible lies in its prepositions. Now, if that frightens you, don't let it frighten you too much. Prepositions are these little words that explain the relationship of one thing to another. I am behind, there's a preposition, the microphone. I am by the side of, Tony, that all these are prepositions. And because prepositions speak of relationships, it's inevitable that all the greatest truths of the Bible will lie in its prepositions. Because this book is all about relationships. It's about what God created man and woman to be and what went wrong with the relationship and how God set about to restore the relationship. That's what it's all about. We were without Christ, now we are with Christ. We were afar off, now we're near. These are all prepositions. And this wonderful one, comparison that the Lord Jesus used when He spoke to His disciples in His last days, speaking of the Spirit, and He said, You know Him, for He has been with you, but He shall be in you. There's one of the greatest truths of the Bible in two simple prepositions. The difference, the contrast between with and in. So, let's read on here a little bit and notice just how everything has to be rightly related to the air. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Notice where all the blessings are. Notice where every spiritual enabling is. Notice where holiness is. Notice where power is. Notice where everything is. It's all in Him. He is the air. The Father has given to Him all that He has and I'm thrilled to bits that that's the way it works. Because if He gave it to me, I would make a mess of it. I'd lose it, Jackie. And I would not know where it was. And I would work myself to a frazzle trying to find out where it was or try to do something to get myself back into it. But God has given everything to the air. This is what Jesus said. He said, The Father, all things are given into my hands. All power is given to me. All authority in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore. The only reason that He could say go is because they would be rightly related to the one who had the authority. We'll talk about authority in a moment when we look at something that the Lord Jesus said again towards the latter part of His life upon the earth. But let me read with as few interruptions as I can bear going through Ephesians. But don't miss these in Christ things. He's blessed us with all it says. Even better is every. He's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved. I can't. I'm sorry. I've been good. I've done two or three verses. You'll notice that you are accepted in the Beloved One. Don't change this so that it says you are acceptable. That isn't what it says. It doesn't say you are acceptable. It doesn't say you are qualified to be accepted. It says you are accepted in the Beloved One. You have been accepted. You have been gathered into the embrace of God. You've been made part of the family. You've been taken into God's home and God's love in Him. Everything is in Him. All you and I have to do is to get into Him. That's all you have to do. And everything else is His responsibility. In whom we have redemption. You don't have it anywhere else. It is not detachable. Your salvation is not detachable from Jesus Christ. Let me go to another thing that was mentioned earlier on, another verse. This wonderful one from John's letter. Where John says so plainly, so clearly for us, this is the record that God has given to His eternal life. And this life is in the Son. He that has the Son has life. And he that has not the Son of God has not life. It is not detachable. In whom we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace wherein He has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself. I don't want to get into too deep waters here for this time on a Sunday morning. But I think Jesus Christ is the predestinated one. He has a destiny. He has an inheritance. All that matters is that you get into Him. You can leave the rest with Him. Do you remember what it says in Romans when it speaks about predestination? It says predestined to be conformed to Him. That's what it is. Okay, we're going to leave you lots of things for you to pursue on your own. And having made known unto us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in Him. In whom also we... My AV here says we have obtained an inheritance. I don't think it's really that what it says. In Him we are His heritage. In fact according to this verse, if you look at it carefully it's not concentrating on the fact that we have an inheritance. It's concentrating on the fact that we are an inheritance. We are an inheritance that someone else has inherited. Psalm 2. Come with me to Psalm 2. Perhaps we'll just touch on Psalm 2 now and we'll come back to Psalm 2 perhaps to conclude if we can. There's a wonderful verse in here that's a great blessing to Christians and a great source of prayer at different times and a great target and a great claim that may be really... We can use it as that, but it's used here in a different way. Why do they even rage? And the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Christ saying let us break their bands of thunder and cast away their cause from us. In other words, let's break loose. Let's not be tied to God's apron string. Let's do our own thing. Let's be our own men. Let's be the captains of our own faith. Let's do what we want to do and not what anyone else wants to do. It's the ancient lie that was fed into the human race in the Garden of Eden. You do this and you can be as gods. You can rule your own life. You can make your own decisions. Let us break their bands of thunder and cast away their cause from us. He that setteth in the heavens shall last. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord hath said to me... Now you're going to hear what the son is recording that the father has said to him. The Lord hath said to me thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the world for thy possession. That's a word from the father to the son about the inheritance. He says, ask of me and I will give you. One of the things it refers to about the Lord Jesus and His death on the cross in Psalm 22 it says He was heard. He was heard. As He hung on the cross and paled on the horns of the oxen to use the language of Psalm 22 He was heard. Let's turn to Psalm 22. We're now on a detour off a detour, off a detour. We may never get back to where we were going. That's where most of my time lost. Psalm 22. I don't want to start all over again now. But Psalm 22 divides very sweetly into two halves. In fact, there's a real watershed right in the middle of it. The first half of Psalm 22 is dark and brooding. It's the gathering storm. You can feel it. Every part of it is dark and heavy. And then you get through to this part. To verse 21. The prayer. Save me from the lion's mouth. And then this. You can miss out those four. It's not really there. It's the statement. Thou hast heard me. It's an exclamation coming from the Son of God upon the cross. His prayer is heard. Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn. I will declare Thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will I praise Thee. And for the rest of this psalm now, you come into glorious light. It's amazing. And the turning point is this one verse. You have heard me. And it comes from this heavy, burden-bearing darkness into this glorious light. And you're into all the full flow of what's coming to be the church. This is the kind of psalm that Peter would have had in mind when he spoke of the Old Testament and he said that those Old Testament saints spoke of the sufferings and the glories that shall follow. And here you've got in this psalm, the first half is the sufferings and the second half is the glories that shall follow. The children that are His, the church that's His, the brethren that are His who stand with Him in service of God. It's all part of this same thing. Ask of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance. The uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Let's go back to Ephesians for a little while. Verse 11 In whom also we have become a heritage, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. That we should be to the praise of His glory who first hoped, trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also having believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit promise. Now this is important because it tells us the kind of people that Paul is writing to when he writes the things that he has to say in Ephesians. You understand that these are not just general letters to be broadcast to anyone. They are letters with addresses on them. And the address is of certain kinds of people who stand in certain kinds of relationships with God. You can't just randomly take someone else's letter and take a few sentences out of it and claim them for your own. If I write to one of you asking you to come to our house for tea, if someone else gets the letter you cannot take that sentence out of the letter and all turn up for tea at our house and say I'm claiming the promise or standing on what you said. Because I would say well you didn't read all of it. You can't stand on a single verse. You've got to see who the thing was written to. It's true of so much in the New Testament. Beware of claiming obscure verses. Go to see who was this written to. Do I qualify? Am I the kind of person this was written to? Well I'll tell you the kind of person this was written to. It was written to people who had heard the word of truth and had believed and people who had been sealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit. That's who it was written to. If you are one of those kind of people then this is all about you and you should embrace it and enjoy it with great gratitude and live in the fullness of it. But don't claim it just because you see the verse. Let me read you again in case you've forgotten what it says. He says verse 12 that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ in whom you also trusted having heard the word of truth. Ok, work it through now. Give yourself a little tick box and see if you can tick me through as you go through. You've heard the word of truth. Has the word of God come to your heart? Not just that you're joining a group of people who believe good things. John Wesley's followers, one of them once said it's much easier to join yourself to a sect than to join yourself to God. Much, much easier. Have you heard the word that God has spoken to you? Faith is right response to what God says to you. It's not right response to an idea, to a belief system, to a moral code. That isn't faith. Faith is response to what someone says to you. Have you heard God speaking to you? Have you heard the word of truth? The gospel of your salvation in whom also having believed. I don't want to labor each one of these points but do my friends, my brothers and sisters be sure that your faith is in a person and not in something else. In whom you have believed. This isn't saying put your faith in the cross. It's not saying put your faith in the power of the Spirit. It's not saying put your faith in prayer. It certainly isn't saying put your faith in faith. As some people would like us to do. It's not saying put your faith in peace. It's not saying put your faith in assurance. It's speaking about putting your faith in Him. You are totally dependent upon a Him. Do you remember when Paul writes to the Galatians and he rebukes them strongly, soundly, because they have turned aside from Him. Not from a what. It isn't that they've gone from one theology to another theology. They've turned their back on a person. When you turn your back on a person inevitably you move on to things. You begin to put your confidence in things. Good things. Fellowship. Prayer. Bible reading. Witness. Living a good moral life. You put your trust in all the wrong things when you turn your back upon the one in whom you put your trust. This is written to people who have heard the Word of Truth who have believed in Him. They have put all their trust in Him. I love this. The old English thing. I know we have lots of folks here who don't have an English background and you know that the English are very cautious people by nature. And they've invented lots of proverbs to make sure you don't do anything exciting or outrageous. Things like don't put all your eggs in one basket while faith is putting all your eggs in one basket. That is what it is. The one basket you put your faith in is not a biblical truth. It's a person. Your salvation does not come from a verse. It does not come from a truth. It comes from a Saviour. And when you're rightly related to the Saviour you enjoy salvation. And when you're not it's not salvation. It's not. In whom having believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. This seal. You know how they used to use these signet rings of old. It was a ring with a something engraved in it so that when you put a blob of wax onto a document you could impress it with your seal. And that was you putting your imprint upon it. You putting your authority on it. You saying this is mine. I agree with this. This is my document. This is my will. These are my words. Are you sealed with the Holy Spirit? Has God put His mark on you and said this is mine? We concentrate so much, don't we, on what we get. This is all about what God gets. This isn't about what you get. As long as God gets what's rightfully His, you can be sure that you'll get what God wants you to have. But if you concentrate on trying to get what you think you should get, you may be in danger of obscuring what really matters. Which is that God gets what He should get. The Holy Spirit comes to put God's mark on a man or a woman to say this is mine. That's why Paul says in Romans anyone who does not have that mark, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ, is not His. It's really very, very logical. It's not at all complicated. Are you His? Not because you believe the right things, but because you've gone through a series of evangelical steps that were somehow guaranteed to get you somewhere. But have you heard the word of truth? Have you put all your trust in Him and has God said Amen? This is mine. Who is the earnest of our inheritance? If there is an inheritance for you, and the Holy Spirit is the earnest of it, the guarantee of it. If there are any Greeks here, you will know this word because it's used in modern Greek as well. The old Greek is Arabone, and if there are any Greeks here you know that modern Greeks use the word Arabone as well. They use it for an engagement ring. Isn't that wonderful? So the Holy Spirit is the engagement ring. That's a combination of old Greek and new Greek all wrapped up together and pronunciation coming from those statutes, so don't kind of depend on any of the pronunciation. But it's God's way of saying this is mine, and there's an inheritance in me that is to be shared with this one too. And then He goes on, He says, Wherefore also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, I 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 to 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. Don't worry about your calling. Don't worry about your calling. There are all kinds of experts who will tell you what your calling is. What's His calling? That you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. What has He inherited in you? Are you all His? Really? That's what the seal says. It says this is mine. This is all mine. Do you live like that? Do you live in the consciousness, in the knowledge that all you have is not only accepted by God, but is constantly yielded to Him? And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us all 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 heavenlies. Far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that's named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and has put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head over all things of the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all and all. You discover as you read these passages of Scripture and the letters of Paul that He is constantly He is obsessed if that's the right word to call it with the person of Jesus Christ. He's not obsessed with salvation. He's not obsessed with evangelism. He's not obsessed with the prayer ministry. He is obsessed with the person of Jesus Christ. He lives for Him. He'll die for Him. The only thing that matters is that He should be glorified. The bottom line is not that everyone thinks it's wonderful. Not do I fulfill my mission and my calling. The bottom line is does it glorify Him? We are to be to the praise of the glory of His grace. The only thing that matters is that He should get the credit. I don't know whether I just might be ever thought I wonder if I can do credit to Him. I wonder if I can be the kind of person, well I'll tell you this is one of my greatest stimuli to being the man that God wants me to be. I want to be a credit to Him. One of the tragic things that God had to say to the people of Israel, He said you've made me to serve with your sins. And because of you my name is blasphemed amongst you. I don't want God's name to be blasphemed. I don't want to be dragged down. I want my whole life to be to His credit. Let me show you really an amazing passage of Scripture. This is Matthew chapter 21. This is a chapter which has a lot to do with authority. The scribes and the priests of his day were questioning where he got his authority from. And he immediately began to focus in on the whole nature of authority. This would make a really valuable study for us all to do sometimes. The whole nature of Biblical authority. Where it comes from. How it's exercised. Who we are answerable to. How the whole thing works. And this whole chapter is all about authority. And he talks here about authority of some who were told to do something and some said we'll do it and they didn't. And some said we won't but they did. And really authority is vested in those who are doing the will of the one who has the authority. It's not a detachable gift. I said some weeks ago in a meeting that Tony was in and it baffled one or two people but I'm willing to explain it if you want me to. I think leadership in the Bible is not a role. I think it's an event. I don't think it's a role. I think it's an event. I think it is the outflow of people who are rightly related to God so that at any time God can lead his people through that one and then that one and then that one and then that one. So we're not stuck with our focus on one person who happens to be standing out here at the front. So that we move towards God. Anyway let me read you these stories. This is Matthew chapter 21 and verse 33. I just finished reading in my own Bible at quiet times the events of Jeremiah and the ending of the kingdom of Judah and as I've been reading I've been getting this feeling of the build up, the darkness, the gathering storm. Everything is descending into chaos. It gets worse and worse and people are speaking and they're doing wild outlandish things and you can see they're losing it. It's going, it's going, it's going. When I read this passage I get exactly the same feeling that I got as I was reading Jeremiah. Things are becoming very dark here. Listen to this. Jesus says verse 33 Hear another parable. There was a certain householder who planted a vineyard and hedged it round about and digged a winepress in it and built a tower and let it out to husband them. It was really very important for the people of Israel to understand that what God trusted to them He let it out to them. He rented it out to them. He did not give it to them as their inheritance. He trusted it to them for them to act as tenants. And the whole old covenant as we call it was really the tenancy agreement between God and His people. So they let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country and when the time of the fruit drew near He sent His servants to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruit of it. I've been reading Jeremiah and Jeremiah and the accounts, the narrative accounts around that time. Use this language and it says God kept on rising up early and sending them His prophets. It's a wonderful picture of God's diligence. He kept on sending people with the Word. They rejected it. They imprisoned Him. They took Him hostage and God kept on sending the Word. He kept on rising up early and sending the prophets. Here it is. He sent His servants to the husbandmen so they might receive the fruit of it. And the husband took the servants and beat one and killed another and stoned another. And He sent other servants more than the first and they did unto them likewise. But last of all He sent unto them His sons saying they were reverent, My son. But when the husbandmen saw the son they said among themselves this is the heir. He is our champ now for us to get hold of this thing for ourselves. Not this is the heir. Let us bow to Him. Let us acknowledge who He is and be rightly related to Him. Let us destroy Him. And I want to say something which may seem very dark for us Sunday morning. But understand there are really only two responses that men and women can make to God. You either crown Him or you crucify Him. There's no middle ground. You may not use that strength of language but you either bow your knee to Him or you fight Him. Either you become part of that conspiracy we read of in Psalm 2 of all people who are saying let's cast off His yoke and of His Christ. Let's be free. Let's do our own thing. Or you do what it advises us to do in the end of that Psalm and we'll turn to it in just a moment. This is the heir. Come let us kill Him and let us seize on His inheritance. And they caught Him and they cast Him out of the vineyard and slew Him. I can't read any more of that but turn over a couple of pages. It gets darker and darker and you get to Matthew chapter 23 with this great cry that comes from the heart of the Lord Jesus about Jerusalem. Although Jerusalem was imperfect and although the temple was imperfect the Lord Jesus always maintained God's right in the temple. He said this is God's house and this is how you should behave in it. You shouldn't make it a house of thieves. It's God's house. It's to be used in a certain way. And He kept on reminding the Jews of His day that it was God's house and they should use it properly. But look what happened here in chapter 23. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets and stillest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathers her children under her wings and ye would not. Behold your house not God's house now your house is left to you desolate. The last thing He said about the temple the last thing He said they had rejected the air they had refused to be rightly related to the air and the consequence was that they didn't get for their own right and use that that they thought they might they lost everything. Turn with me briefly now quickly back to Psalm 2. Nearly finished. We've read the first half of that. The conspiracy of everyone agreeing together meditating together, joining together. Verse 6 I have set my king upon my holy hill I will declare the decree the Lord has said unto me thou art my son this day have I begotten thee ask of me and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession thou shalt break them with a rod of iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel and now a word of God to all kings of the earth that each one of us is a king in his own right serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling kiss the sun Do you know what that means? That's not the kiss of affection that's certainly not the kiss of romance that's the kiss of loyalty that's the kind of kiss that the Queen received from the Duke of Edinburgh and others too when she came to the throne people bowed the knee and they said you are my liege lord from this time on I bow to you and you are the heir I am your servant go here These are the options you either remain part of the conspiracy that seeks to break this band of thunder and says we will not have this man to reign over or you bow the knee and you kiss the sun and you become a co-heir with Him of all that the Father has trusted to Him it's all in Him I have not told you anything you don't know it's all in Him don't examine and don't try to maintain the relationship don't try to maintain the salvation don't just be rightly related to Him come and He will never turn you away but you come to Him understanding who He is He is the One in whom the Father has put all power you come rejoicing but with trembling you come to kiss the sun on your knee and you put your life into His hands as part of the Father's prayer one of those that the Father is giving to the son as part of his inheritance let's pray