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Welcome to the Grace Church Messages Podcast! These are the weekly Sunday messages from Grace Church in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area. Listen to biblical teaching from our weekend services to help you understand Scripture, follow Jesus in your everyday life, and grow in your faith. Perfect for the morning commute, the treadmill, or wherever life happens.
Well, good morning, Grace Church. How are you? How are you? man, y'all sluggish all that turkey stuffing Andreessen from Thanksgiving. Let's try this again. Good morning, Grace Church. How are you? How about we just give the Lord some praise this morning to set it off? Amen. Praise his name. Yeah. I don't know. You get so full a turkey stuffing and dressing.
You can't wait to get into the house of the Lord to get filled with the spirit. Amen. That's what we really need ultimately. Well, also, for those of you who don't know me and you thought I might be Pastor Jonathan, sad mistake. Sorry. I'm Pastor Kareem Smith. I'm privileged to serve over the forever young senior adult ministry here at Grace Church.
And for those of you who don't know about Forever Young, it's a ministry to those 50 and up serving the population here. And we have lots and lots of fun. You know why? Because every month we have Thanksgiving in the form of a potluck. And so there's more that we do than just that we we also worship and we enjoy one another's fellowship.
And so I want to invite you out on December the ninth of this this next month, we're going to have a wonderful time of house of worship. We're going to have Christmas Carol and going on with the Cleveland Pops course. If you don't, you don't know anything about the Cleveland Pops chorus. This is a 60 person ensemble That would be situated right here on this platform.
Wonderful voices they're going to worship. Then we have the youth orchestra. This part of Pops as well. So tickets for that are $10. This is my shameless plug. Hurry and get your tickets Right away is for Grace Church as well as for the community. This is going to be a wonderful time. How many you remember growing up in churches and we sang Christmas carols and we had choirs and all of that.
It was a very festive season and time of celebrating the the birth of the savior. And, well, we're going to be doing that for the next several weeks in this new series of messages that'll be focused on the Advent season of Christ. We're pretty much journeying through select prophetic sections of the Old Testament to explain how certain messianic prophecies were fulfilled in the New Testament, and that also applied to our lives today.
And today, I get the honor of beginning that series with a message with with a theme of hope. And we're going to draw your ticket. I'm a draw your attention to Micah chapter five for that as we talk about actually to advance the first and the second coming of Jesus. And so would you pray with me right now and just ask that the Holy Spirit will join us as I preach the word of God?
Father, I do thank you so much for this privilege and the honor to get to share your word with your people. And Lord, I admittedly, I'm weak today and just ask that you would give me strength where I'm weak and show yourself strong mainly so that you would get the glory. Lord, help me to hide behind the cross.
Hide behind my Christ, that you might be glorified and lifted up Jesus, and that only people would hear from you and not me. And so, Lord, I've provided the sacrifice with study and research and the agonizing, grueling process of sermon prep. Now, Lord, I ask that you would provide the fire right now with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Again, Micah, Chapter five. We're going to dial into this Minor Prophets message to the people of Israel. Micah, Chapter five And we're going to begin the reading at verse one, Micah Chapter five, verse one The texts reads Marshal your troops. Our City of troops for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod.
But you, Bethlehem, am f wrath, though you are small among the clans of Judah. Out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, get this whose origins are from of old from ancient times. Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when C who was in labor, gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites.
Verse four He will stand and shepherd his flock and the strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord His God, and they will live securely. For then His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth that ought to make somebody happy right there. I want to title this message this morning. The best is yet to come.
The best is yet to come. It was spring 2010. 16 year old Abby Sunderland set out to accomplish a feat that had never been done before. On January 23rd, she became the youngest person to ever attempt to sail around the world nonstop. But her trip took a turn for the worse when conditions at sea became perilous. And one of her recorded logs, Abby described a rough few days at sea, with winds becoming treacherous and 30 foot waves pummeling up against the base of the ship.
Abby soon found herself facing a crisis, and as the boat continued to sustain damage from the rough winds and the waves, her predicament grew even more dire as she lost all communication with her team. And about an hour into her last reported communication, Abby's family was notified that her emergency beacons had been activated, signaling the need for rescue.
Abby was lost at sea after several days of search and rescue with the State Department and the US Coast Guard Abby and her tattered vessel was discovered in the cold Indian Ocean, 2000 miles away from shore. She was unharmed, but certainly shook up. This is the tale of one person's plight. What began as an adventure into unchartered territory wound up being a trip by the tribulations of life.
But the reality is, all of us from time to time, find ourselves trapped by perilous situations. Life storms have a way of tossing us to and fro and the waves of doubt in the of fear and the waves of uncertainty at times leave us with a sense of hopelessness and sometimes despair. It could be the unfavorable diagnosis that you just received from the doctor's office last week.
Or maybe it's the unexpected news of a layoff. Or maybe just simply the uneasiness we sense from the everyday anxieties of life. And it really doesn't matter. And as you look out into our world, it don't get no better. The world today seems hopeless. There's the threat of terrorism. There's the crime and violence increasing in our towns and in our cities.
And now it's as if things couldn't get any worse. There's the war with Israel and Hamas, and it seems to be a threat of global, worldwide instability. I think it's safe to say that you and I are living in perilous times. As we turn our attention back to this text, we happen to see that there's nothing really new under the sun because the prophet Micah served God during one of the most turbulent times in Israel's history.
The land happened to be infested with sin. Folks were just living lives of rebellion. They were corrupt kings and judges who were accepting bribes, and there were false prophets spreading lies and delusions, and there were inhumane acts of injustice rampantly happening, increasing. There were land grabs and violence against the poor. All of this was going on during an already divided time in Israel's history.
As we glimpse back at their past and first kings, we noticed that Israel at one time was a unified kingdom. It was unified under the reign of King David, and David died. And after David died, he was succeeded as king by his son Solomon, who reigned on his father's throne for 40 years. Well, immediately after Solomon's reign ended, another king stepped upon the throne of Israel and a dispute happened to break out between the northern area of Israel and the southern area of Israel, which at the time was Judah.
This dispute led to a schism and a fracture in the land that pretty much divided the kingdom. In two you had the upper northern region of Israel, which existed with ten tribes and then you had the two tribes of Judah in the south. Israel occupied the north, Judah, the south. Now, by the time Micah steps up on the scene, both of these kingdoms had failed to keep their covenant with God and as a result of their breach of God's covenant and because of their rebellion and their pride, both kingdoms invoked the the judgment of God.
Both kingdoms were under His discipline. And so Micah's task is an important one. It's an important responsibility. And it's unlike his contemporary prophets and his partners at the time, namely and the prophet Amos, who more or less focused their message on a particular nation, neither one of them focused on Israel or one of them focused on Judah. But Micah came together and he gave a message to both nations, and Micah's message was pretty clear.
Micah's message to the nation of Israel is this because of your rebellion and because of your pride, because of your injustices and your apostasy and and your lies, God's judgment upon Israel would be imminent. God holds nations accountable that profit from injustice. But out of the darkness of this looming discipline comes an array of bright hope. Because the prophet Micah peers through the tunnel of time and his eyes lock in on something great.
Because what the what Micah saw was a glorious kingdom that was far superior than any corruptible kingdom on earth. And it's in this kingdom that he sees the reservation of a right as the preservation of a righteous remnant, redeemed and restored under the rain and rule of the Messiah. And so there's hope for Israel, is what Micah's saying.
But the question for Israel could be the question for you and me this morning. For people of faith who live in toxic times, we have to wait on Christ coming where you're in an environment that's unstable and you have a future that looks bleak, how do you maintain hope in seasons of uncertainty? How do you maintain hope? Well, as you follow me in the verse one, Micah shows us exactly where hope is found.
But first he says to Israel, Jerusalem will be punished. Jerusalem will have to suffer some disgrace. And verse one, Marshal, your troops are city of troops. For a city is laid, the siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel's ruler with a cheek on the cheek, cheek with a rod, he says. Israel is going to be punished.
And so this opening scene is anything but hopeful, right? Because Micah warns that in just a short time God's judgment would be invoked and carried out upon this nation. And we know from hindsight that this judgment was carried out at the hands of the Babylonians. This prophecy was fulfilled about 150 years after the time of Micah's first. Speaking of, this prophecy is fulfilled in Second Kings chapter 24 through 25.
There you find Jerusalem was under siege and in great need of deliverance. As this King of Babylon, the Babylon Babylonian forces had surrounded the entire city and the entire nation. They were going into exile. And so you have to understand that when when a city was under siege, it wasn't the pleasant of circumstances and experiences because a military siege in biblical times was horrific.
It usually lasted for months on end, sometimes even years. Through this prolonged pressure campaign, citizens under siege would have to be squeezed out, and the squeezing out would take a lot of time, and eventually they would even be starved into submission by a prolonged period of pain. And maybe I'm talking to somebody this morning and you come in the church this morning from a prolonged period of pain and you may feel like your life today is under siege.
Maybe I'm talking to somebody. Maybe it's not necessarily a massive army, but maybe it's massive stress. This weighs on your heart. Perhaps you're a single mom and you're taking care of two kids all at home all by yourself. And there's no child support. The father is absent. The school's notifying you every single day of disciplinary issues with your child and now the job's working you overtime.
You feel like your life is under siege. Maybe I'm talking to a college student today and you're juggling assignments and an exams are around the corner and you barely have time to sleep, and you're constantly stressed out about your grades and you're stressed about finances and your future. And you feel today as if your life is under siege.
Perhaps your senior saint lives alone and you're suffering with a chronic illness, and it's tough to live alone, let alone deal with a chronic illness. And nobody seems to care about you. Nobody calls you, nobody checks upon you, and you feel like your life is seized today by loneliness. Well, I want you to know that there's hope for you.
There's hope for a world that's filled with distress. You see, all you got to do is ask the prophet Micah where he found hope. And Micah tell you that hope can be found in a little town called Bethlehem. Notice what he says in verse two. But you, Bethlehem, everything, though you are small among the clans of Judah. Out of you will come for me, One who will be ruler over Israel, whose orange ends are from of old, from ancient times.
There's your hope right there and the future reign of a messiah. Admittedly, this section gets a little bit technical here because taken together, you have to understand what Micah is doing here. He kind of looks at verse one and realizes that he's prophesying, dooms a doomsday scenario, and then he comes to verse three any issues? The word, But he uses this conjunction.
I don't know about you, but I love the buts in the Bible because after every but there's usually a reason to praise, ain't it? And you know it's coming. You know it's coming now. So taken together these verses essentially say this, Micah saying to Jerusalem Jerusalem will be under siege. Their kings and rulers will suffer disgrace, which is that's exactly what happened.
And you got to read about that. And second Kings chapter 25 and you'll notice they suffered great disgrace. I love the message version of the Bible because it kind of paraphrases it like this. They said Israel's rulers will be slapped around like rag dolls. I mean, I mean, you're talking about disgrace. So this is the worst of it.
The ultimate and humiliation. But just when you thought it was all over, Micah contrasts this doomsday prophecy with deliverance by declaring to them that their salvation is on the way. There's another king coming, and this king won't be like any other king that Israel had dealt with in the plot in the past. This king won't be like the proud, self-serving, egotistical kings know this king will come from a humble beginning because his birthplace, number one, is the town of Bethlehem.
Bethlehem? Why Bethlehem? You think about Bethlehem? Bethlehem at the time of Micah's prophecy was pretty small and in signify account. It's five miles south of Jerusalem today is situated in the West Bank of Palestine, surrounded by nothing but war. Imagine the irony there. Here's a town this is prophesied to be the very birthplace of the Prince of Peace is now a city surrounded by war.
One on the night where Micah prophesied this, he's saying that this is going to be the town where our savior would be born. Of all the cities where the King of kings could be born, why would God sovereignly select this town? I mean, it's only claim to fame was that Ruth and Naomi had visited this town under a famine.
They were running. They were trying to flee from a famine, and they ran to the town of Bethlehem. You can read about that in the Book of Ruth. The only other thing I know about Bethlehem back then is that it was the town of King David. This is where King David was born. But aside from that, at the time of Micah's prophecy, Bethlehem was a city that was largely ignored.
It was pretty much insignificant. There wasn't nothing going on there. Was kind of like Pittsburgh. Good. You see, I got to redeem myself after Ohio State lost last night. So. But why would God subject the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to such a lowly place of obscurity? The answer to that question is quite simple because God specializes in using unlikely means to accomplish His will for His glory.
And I'll say that again because somebody needs to get it. God specializes in using unlikely means to accomplish His will for His glory. In other words, God doesn't always pick the best among us. His first choice are people that's broken. God doesn't always pick from the glamorous pile. He calls some of us from the gutter. Come on, somebody I know.
Y'all wasn't always this pretty and cute. Some of y'all was unsaved and who all if our if you could just tell your testimony. Your shame, the devil. It's the first Corinthians says it best, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are why.
So that no one may boast before him. Hey, man, this should give somebody some hope today. Maybe you and your sixties and your newly retired and you feel like your life is over. There's no hope for you. All your dreams are now in the past and they're all in yesteryears and you feel like your life is useless and of no, don't believe that life God's best for you is still to come.
Maybe you're kind of like I was at one point in time. You had a criminal record and you can't get it expunged and people discriminated against you and and they're judging you for having a felony on your record. And you can't seem to get ahead and you can't seem to shake the shame. I want you to know that you're a prime candidate for the manifest power and presence of God to be revealed in your life.
Yes, because God specializes in using unlikely means and sometimes unlikely people to accomplish his will for His glory. So Bethlehem, though small and seemingly insignificant, is nevertheless the birthplace of greatness. Because out of Bethlehem comes the one who will rule over Israel. This is known as a messianic prophecy, yet to be fulfilled. It's a promise given to the Jews at the time, but they had to wait 700 years to see its fulfillment.
For 700 years, the Jews had waited for the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem. For seven centuries they had this longing, this, this eager expectation. Even in the New Testament, you see that there was this hope and this expectation as revealed in Matthew chapter two, The Wise Men who were traveling to the birthplace of Bethlehem, they follow the Eastern Star like it was a G.P.S. until it landed directly at the scene of our Savior's birth.
In verse 11 says, On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they what? They bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh and other words. They gave him gifts that would be suitable for a king and for priest and for profit.
And so it was well anticipated that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Even to this day, Jews from around the world, all anticipate a savior and a messiah to be born in Bethlehem, completely denying the fact that Jesus is that Christ. They wait in vain for another hope, said today that in Israel there's about 7 million Jews that live in the promised land, and out of 7 million Jews, only 20,000 of them would be considered messianic Jews who will believe in Jesus the Messiah.
That's sad. That's sad. But Jesus must be the Messiah. You know why? Because Jesus exemplified and proved his divinity while He lived here on Earth. Notice the text says, and it prophesies about his divinity and his personality. It says that he will come to Bethlehem, having arrived from eternity. Notice in verse two, the second half out of you will come for me.
One who will be rule over Israel. Get this whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. You know what that means? He's from eternity. He is eternal. This Messiah who we worship and adore on Christmas is more than just a man. He's got a man. He's got. The Scripture says that he's the alpha and the Omega he's the beginning and the end.
John Chapter one says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Hebrews Chapter 13 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and and, and forever. There's more versus John. Chapter eight. We don't even need to read anymore. All this is to say that the Messiah that you and I know and love and who would come to this mundane town called Bethlehem is more than just a man.
He's from everlasting to everlasting. He's God. I like the song by Philip Brooks. We sing it at every Christmas, a little town of Bethlehem. How still we see the light above your deep and dreamless sleep. The silent stars go by. Yet in thy darkest streets shine of the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met.
Indeed tonight, that should encourage somebody that as we launch into this season called Advent, we're not just celebrating the birth of a mere child. No, he's not a mere mortal one. A mere man that he is. He's fully God, but he's fully man. Yes, but Jesus, he lived, always sees from eternity past. He ain't got no birth date.
He's always existed. And so we worship a messiah who the Bible calls the king Eternal, immortal, invisible. The only be honor and glory forever and ever. And the church said, Amen. Jesus is eternal and so is real. Getting back to the text, Israel is in need of a savior in Micah five Our world today is in need of a savior.
And what Micah does is he directly connects the advent of Christ first, coming to the people's ultimate need of redemption and he says yes, the judgment looms for you. Israel and exile is on the way. Don't give up hope just yet because hope is going to be found in Christ our Savior, your Savior, Israel, your Savior Church. Hope is found in Christ The Savior.
Hope is not found in material gain. Hope is not found in this world. Hope is not found in raising a godly family or a godly home, or finding the perfect spouse. Hope can only be found in Jesus Christ who leads us from a life of despair. Jesus gives hope to a hopeless life, and I encourage somebody this morning to trust them.
If you've yet to place your faith and trust in Jesus, now is the day of salvation. He gives you hope and it's not just a temporary hope. It's hope for eternity. He's a good guy. Israel's given the promise of hope. But notice the greater purpose and plan. There's a greater sovereign plan at work in verse three. Therefore, Israel will be abandoned until the time when she, who was in labor, gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites.
This is where things get a little technical because you need to understand this estrangement and division and this hostility between Israel and God has an expiration date. It's not going to always be the case for them. In fact, what this text is pretty much saying is that the end of Israel's abandonment by God will be signified by two events.
There's the birth of a ruler and the gathering of a remnant. I want to suggest that these verses actually cover two coming. There's two advance mentioned in this text. There's the first coming of Christ the Savior and the second coming of Christ as king, warrior ruler and is yet to come. See, the Bible says there's coming a time and a day when the Son of God returns to this earth with blazing power and great glory.
And what's he going to do? He's come in to claim that which is his own. And I believe this coming coincides with the rapture of the church, the resurrection of the dead, and the day of the Lord judgment, which is the wrath of God, all of which precedes what the Book of Revelation describes as a literal, physical, thousand year reign of Messiah directly from the land of Israel.
This is called his Messianic Kingdom. Now, some of us might disagree on the timing of these events, and and some of us may disagree on the nature of the kingdom. Some may view the millennial kingdom as more allegory, and it's just a figure of speech and in all that. So there's a little bit of disagreement within the body of Christ regarding some of the attributes of this kingdom.
But all of us agree to one thing Jesus is coming back. He's coming back. And the more you analyze, the more you realize that that coming is sooner than later. It's like the little boy who had learned to tell time by listening to the time on his grandfather's clock. So if the grandfather's clock chimed six times, granddad say, What time is it?
A little boy said, Well, it's 6:00. Grandpa chimed ten times. What time is it? A little boy said, Well, it's 10:00. Well, one day the grandfather decided to play a trick on a little boy. He program the time to go off 13 times. And so it went off 13 times. And they called the little boy downstairs, said, What time is it now?
Well, a little boy thought for a minute and says, All I know, Grandpa, is that it's later than it's ever been. It's it's later than it's ever been. And I want somebody in here to know that it's later than it's ever been. Look at these wars and the rumors of war and look at the sin going on in our land, the violence and the chaos and all of the evil that we're surrounded by.
I want you to know it is later than it's ever been. Christ is on his way back. There's coming a time in the not so distant future. Well, Christ will literally come to this planet. And the presence of his name, the presence of His glory, will crack the sky. And riding on a cloud with great glory, He comes as a ruler and a conqueror, as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
And we await that to happen. We for that to happen. And His plan will be to bind the forces of evil, including the Antichrist and Satan, and to take his rightful place of rulership on the throne of King David while simultaneously fulfilling the covenant promises that are reserved for a rebellious and obstinate nation. So if you look back at the text, Micah says Israel is going to face a temporary abandonment, temporary discipline until C, who is in labor, gives birth.
Now, some some disagree on this and they say, well, this is referring to Mary and the birth of Jesus. Another say, well, the C in this text is referring to the nation of Israel. And I don't think any one of those are as important as the fact that it's referring to the event of Christ first coming this referring to Jesus's birth.
And so Jesus is told to be coming back by the Messiah, by Micah to his to Israel. He's telling them Jesus is coming back the first part, first time. But next he says there's a partial abandoning that's going to take place until the rest of his brothers return to Israel or to the Israelites. The question is who are the rest of his brothers and where are they returning from?
I believe the Bible makes it clear, as the Bible says, that in the last days there's going to be a mass re gathering of Jews back to the promised land. Promised land of Israel. Some say, Well, I thought the Jews were already in the promised land. And you are very smart and correct to suggest that because that is true.
The Jews are in the promised land today. But there's coming a time in the last days when there's going to be another exile, and this exile will be the calls of the great Antichrist persecution in the country. If it's in the nation of Israel, it's going to be the great tribulation. There's going to be a mass scattering of Jews exiled from the land of Israel just prior to Christ Second coming.
The Bible says there be gathered together. Arabs is coming, as it says at the from the four corners of the earth, and they will reign together with Christ, together with a glorified church as well. And together we will reign as priests. Michael suggests this in chapter two of his book in chapter two, verse 12, he says, I will surely gather all of you.
Jacob, I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen micah Chapter four. And that day. Well, what day? Well, he's talking about the end of days just prior to Christ Second Coming. And that day declares the Lord, I will gather the lamb, I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief.
I will make the lamb my remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever. What a promise to behold and to believe in. The Apostle Paul backs this up and supports it by talking about the remnant and Romans Chapter nine, he says. The Apostle Paul says this and he's quoting Isaiah.
He says, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though a number of Israelites be like the sand on the sea, only a remnant will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality. And then Paul goes on to say in Romans 11, I asked then that God reject his people by no means I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin.
God did not reject his people whom he for knew So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. Now, what in the world is Paul talking about what Paul's doing as he's reminding us all that of the many promises that declare that God will preserve and protect a remnant of believing Jews in order to fulfill His covenant promise to Abraham that time is yet to come.
It's still future. Some of us going on right now, we're seeing Jews come to Christ, but there's still a future time when God will call. a huge amount of Jews awakening. What happened? A revival amongst the Jewish nation that were See, the Messiah comes in their place, their faith and trust in him, and they'll be regathered in the land.
And so now going back to verse three, we see how this all ties together, that hidden within the mystery of God's redemptive from eternity is a plan to send Jesus not just once, to provide salvation to the whole world. It's to send Jesus twice in order to unify a covenant people together in one kingdom in order to rain on earth.
And his millennial reign call the Messianic Kingdom of Christ. And he will rule when he comes and he will reign when he comes with all power and all authority. And the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. What a glorious day that's going to be as we anticipate this coming, I want you to know you can have hope because we get to participate in with Jesus under the canopy of his love and under the canopy of his protection.
This second Coming provides us all the greatest hope imaginable. So what you worried about today? It's nothing to worry about. There's nothing really to fear. God's got this whole thing figured out and the best is yet to come. And so you don't have to worry and you don't have to fret. The Bible says weeping may endure for a night.
But joy, all it comes in the morning. For those of us who place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we know that there's a coming dawn of a new era where there'll be no more war, no more pain, no more hunger, no more sorrow, no more tears, Micah says as a shepherd, Jesus will protect us and strengthen us in the Lord.
And so we don't need to stand here worried today because our greatest hope is still to come notice this period of protection. As I close here, just describe that Jesus is our shepherd. In verse four, He will stand and shepherd his flock during his reign in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God, and they will live securely, for then His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, my time is up. But I want to I want to leave you with this last point. Bottom line to this message is the hope of any age is the coming kingdom of Christ placed your faith and trust in him. Today while there's still hope left. Amen. Amen. God bless you, Father. Thank you so much for your word.
And more importantly, thank you for the greatest hope alive and imaginable, which is Jesus as soon coming. Laura, we love the fact that you sent him once to provide the world salvation, but we anticipate with great hope in the second coming the soon to come Lord in our redemption as a people, as we gather together in this cloud of your glory and meet the Lord in the air with other saints from all around the world and from centuries past.
And what a marvelous day that's going to be. We anticipate your coming along for it. Even so, come Lord Jesus. And for that person came to church today who's yet to place trust in Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would minister to their heart by the Holy Spirit. Even right now, and they would find it within their heart to say, How can I be saved?
What must I do? And they will surrender their lives to Christ. Today, in Jesus name that I pray. Amen. Amen.