We're here to have friends with us this
morning who were not with us previously this
week.
We just say that during the last week
we were studying some in the Book of
the Acts, and I had thought perhaps that
I would do something else this week, but
it just seems impossible to pull myself away
from this wonderful Book of the Acts.
So I'm going to ask you to turn,
please, to chapter 5 of the Book of
the Acts.
You know, of course, that this is the
inspired Church history.
Every man who attempts to write the history
of the Church must, of necessity, consult this
first Church history book which we have included
in the New Testament in this Book of
the Acts, beginning at chapter 5, verse 29.
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and
said, We ought to obey God rather than
men.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus,
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
Him hath God exalted with his right hand
to be a prince and a savior, for
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sins.
And we are his witnesses of these things,
and so also is the Holy Ghost, whom
God hath given to them that obey him.
One cannot read this Book of the Acts
without being impressed with the courage of these
older Christians.
There seems to have not been one coward
among them.
Perhaps the nearest we would come to that
would be a man or boy called John
Mark, who in the later chapters of this
book returned from the work and went back
to Jerusalem.
There has been a good deal of conjecture
as to why John Mark left the work.
Some thought maybe he left it because the
going was pretty hard.
He was with a veteran like Paul, who
apparently took all kinds of hardship and thrived
under it.
Others again have suggested that maybe John had
a sweetheart back in Jerusalem and he just
could not stay away too long, and so
he decided he would go back again.
But we are glad to note in the
later writings of Paul that once again he
looked upon John Mark as a faithful and
profitable servant of the Lord.
He said, Bring Mark with you, for he
is profitable to me for the ministry.
Probably with this one exception, we could say
all of the characters that are brought before
us in the book of Acts are courageous
men.
In the first part of this book, Peter
is prominent.
In the second part of the book, Paul
is prominent.
But this morning we want to talk about
Peter and those who were immediately associated with
him.
They had been in prison before this for
their preaching, and once again they are thrown
into prison, and now they are called upon
to give answer to those who had thrown
them into prison.
And if there was any such thing as
a Shakespeare in the days of Peter, for
I believe it was Shakespeare who gave us
that wonderful aphorism that brevity is the soul
of wit.
And here is a man who in less
than sixty words gives to us what I
think is one of the choice sermons or
sermonettes.
I do not like the word sermonette altogether.
My friend Herbert Lockyer in England has kind
of spoiled it for me.
He said these sermonettes are preached by preacherettes
to Christianettes, and he did not like that.
But we do have here a wonderful little
sermonette of less than sixty words in the
original language preached by this man Peter, given
in response to the accusations which were leveled
against him because he preached Jesus Christ and
him crucified.
You will notice in the opening verse of
our lesson this morning, the first thing that
Peter expresses here is the fact that he
just simply cannot do otherwise, because he says
we ought or we must, as another translation
puts it, we must obey God rather than
men.
Here is a man who had the courage
of his convictions.
It did not make any difference how high
the office was which these men occupied, how
glorious their titles might be, how wonderful their
financial remuneration might be.
Peter has none of this in mind, quite
different from his present-day successor so-called.
But he is here to tell us that
he is to obey God.
And I rather like the word ought as
we have it in our King James Version,
for I understand that our word ought is
a contraction of two words.
We owe it.
We owe it to obey God rather than
men.
And here is a great word for any
one of us who would witness for the
Lord Jesus.
It is not a question only of a
man who stands up in the public platform
as a recognized minister of the word of
God, but this is something which we believe
applies to every true believer in the Lord
Jesus.
He needs to remember that he is subject
to one authority only, and this is a
tremendous thing.
It takes one sometimes to places where he
did not think of going otherwise, but he
goes because he is under authority.
And this is the thing that needs to
be stressed in a day like this.
You know, people are rebelling against authority, and
they are choosing whatever laws they think they
would like to obey, and they wind up
by obeying none of them.
But this is the idea today.
And not only that, but we seem to
have a repetition of the early days of
the Church in the opposition which there is
to Christians in particular.
You find as you look into some of
these things that are going on in the
world today, men and women are being put
to death not simply because they are Americans.
It is true that the American is hated
in many places in the world today, and
I have been made painfully conscious of that
myself in my travels around the world.
And some of this hatred, I think, is
perhaps well-earned, well-deserved, because we have
been, shall I say, rather obnoxious in some
places, so much so that sometimes one was
almost ashamed to recognize fellow Americans by the
way they behaved in foreign countries, the spectacle
that they made of themselves.
But today I find that the opposition is
not so much against a particular nationality as
it is against a person who believes in
the Lord Jesus.
And you know it is not so many
days ago since the report came to us
over the radio about six missionaries being put
to death in Vietnam, missionaries connected with the
Christian and Missionary Alliance, and how many others
may have been done to death of the
believers in Vietnam, this is a question which
probably will only be answered at the judgment
seat of Christ.
And as I have reminded you in a
previous talk last week, a report that came
out of West China years ago, issued by
the United States Press Agency, which of course
is not a religious agency at all, telling
us of 175,000 Chinese put to death
for no other reason except that they believed
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And as one who is connected with the
old China Inland Mission, now known as the
Overseas Missionary Fellowship, we have reason to believe
from sources that we cannot name in particular
this morning, we have reason to believe that
there are somewhere between two and three millions
of Chinese that have been put to death
for no other reason except that they believe
in the Lord Jesus.
So that we are beginning to see a
repetition of these early days of the Church.
And the statement which we made last week
I think is well supported, that there have
been more martyrs to the Christian faith in
this twentieth century than in all the previous
nineteen centuries.
And the thing isn't going to get any
better.
And the question is, how shall we behave
under such circumstances?
I believe the scripture which we have just
read this morning is the answer to that
question.
You know, to me it's remarkable how relevant
and how meaningful the scripture becomes when you
look at it in the light, shall we
say, even of present day events.
And here is a man who begins by
telling his captors, his enemies, we ought to
obey God rather than men.
That's where he starts.
Well then the second thing he brings forth
is that this God is none other than
the God of their fathers.
It wasn't as if he was bringing some
strange God to them.
But you notice he says in verse thirty,
the God of our fathers.
Because his audience was probably largely made up
of Jews.
As a matter of fact, those who had
put him and his fellow apostles in prison
were Jews.
The Sadducees, to be sure, but they were
Jews nevertheless.
High priests.
And so he could speak to them about
the God of our fathers, which of course
would be what he called them in the
third chapter of this book.
The God of our father Abraham with Isaac
and Jacob.
Yes, the God of our fathers.
Here is something that this one has done.
And what has he done?
He has raised up Jesus.
Now this does not refer to the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus here.
This refers to his being brought into prominence.
We have this same expression used right in
the same book of the Acts in connection
with David, whom God raised up.
He put him into a place of prominence.
And in the ninth chapter of Romans we
have the same word used of Pharaoh, where
God says to Pharaoh, For this cause have
I raised thee up, that I might show
my power in thee.
And so God raises up a man called
Jesus, whom we've been looking at in his
varied characters in the early chapters of this
book.
In the first chapter we saw him as
the man who was taken up.
The man who is seated at the right
hand of the majesty of the heavens today,
ever living to make intercession for us.
Then in chapter 2 we saw him as
the man approved or accredited of God with
miracles and wonders and signs.
In chapter 3 we saw him there as
the prince of life, whom they had put
to death and so on.
Chapter 4, we saw him as the stone
which had been disallowed by the builders become
the head of the corner.
Oh, the varied ways in which the Spirit
of God brings our Lord Jesus Christ before
us.
But here he is, the man Jesus, whom
God has raised up with his right hand.
God has exalted him with his right hand
to be a prince and a savior.
And what did they do with him?
Oh, Peter doesn't pull his punches here for
a minute.
He says, Whom ye slew and hanged on
a tree.
Whom ye slew.
You notice he doesn't try to shift this
blame off onto the Romans, as so many
people are trying to do today, to be
sort of conciliatory toward a certain racial group.
But Peter doesn't do anything of the kind,
even though he has a relationship with them.
He says, Whom ye slew and hanged on
a tree.
You know, it's interesting that Peter uses the
word tree here instead of cross.
Paul uses the word cross usually.
There's only one place where Paul uses the
word tree, and that's in the epistles of
the Galatians, where of course he refers back
to a passage in the book of Deuteronomy
where he says, Whosoever hangs on a tree
is cursed.
But Peter was using the word which was
common among them for this mode of execution,
a tree.
But we have two words for tree in
the original language of the New Testament.
We have a word dendron, which some of
you will recognize a part of the word
rhododendron, that beautiful shrub that grows in so
much in the eastern part of our country
here, and which we enjoy so much.
Well, dendron is the Greek word for a
living tree, a tree that's growing.
But we have another word, zilon, which means
a tree that's been cut down.
And yet remarkably, this is the word which
is used in the book of Revelation for
the tree of life.
In both the second chapter of Revelation and
in the 22nd chapter of Revelation, this is
the word which is used for the tree
of life, a tree which has been cut
down.
How suggestive this is, isn't it, of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the one who was cut
down, but who has now become the tree
of life to you and to me, of
whom that tree of life way back in
the Garden of Eden was a picture.
And the Lord Jesus speaks of himself again
and again in the New Testament as the
life.
In him was life, and the life was
the light of men.
I am the way, the truth, and the
life, says he.
Yes, he is the life.
He's the living one.
And yet they slew him and hanged him
on a tree.
Suggestive, I say, that they should hang him
on that which is going to speak so
eloquently of him as the one who died
and rose again.
I think there's something really designed about these
choice of words.
I'm such a firm believer in the verbal
inspiration of Scripture that the selection of every
word here has meaning for me.
The fact that there were two words from
which he might have chosen, and he might
have chosen the word dendron instead of the
word zilon, but he didn't.
He chose the word which the Holy Spirit
wanted to put here.
And this does not minimize for one moment,
dear friends, the fact that this is known
elsewhere as the cross.
This is what Peter is preaching, Christ and
him crucified.
To the Jews, a stumbling block, and to
the Greeks, foolishness.
But unto us who are saved, it's the
power of God.
I know people sometimes say, oh, you mustn't
talk about that horrible thing.
It doesn't fit in our present philosophy of
life.
But, dear friends, it fits in the word
of God.
And this is fundamental to our Christian faith.
And so, as I said a few minutes
ago, Peter here, in this very brief sermon,
bringing out this wonderful fact of Christ crucified,
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
But says somebody, yes, but you know, this
is 1968, and that occurred way back there
nearly 20 centuries ago, and now you want
me to admit that I had a part
in that?
Well, I have an illustration which I think
will make that clear.
You know, I wasn't living in this country
in 1776, when 13 colonies were built against
His Majesty King George III.
I wasn't around then.
But I was born in these United States
many years after that revolt against King George
III.
And as I grew up and read the
story of that revolution, I had opportunity to
take sides with the other party.
In fact, I have lived eight consecutive years
under the British flag, long enough to have
qualified as a citizen.
I've not only lived in Canada, I have
lived in New Zealand.
I've spent some time in England itself.
I've lived there long enough to have requested
citizenship in these countries.
Three years in New Zealand, welcomed by them
in New Zealand.
They never held it against me.
I had an American passport.
And you know, if they'd known history, they
could have said, so you're one of those
that rebelled against His Majesty King George III
in 1776.
And you'd say, well, I wasn't there, but
I'm siding with it just the same.
See?
My dear friend, you didn't have to be
present 1900 years ago to be guilty of
this.
The question is, where do you stand this
morning?
Are you taking sides with those who declared
themselves and said, away with him, away with
him, crucify him?
You might just as well have been there.
It's just as serious as that.
These things have not changed, dear friend.
The line is clearly drawn in the word
of God, we're either for or against.
And so this morning, let me press this
upon you, dear friend.
If you're not a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, you're on the side of those
who said 1900 years ago, away with him,
crucify him.
In other words, you would have stood charge
as if Saint Peter himself were standing here
this morning and saying, and ye slew him
and hanged him on a tree.
Just as direct as that.
But now, what does God do about it?
They thought they had him secure.
Yes, they thought they had him dead, he's
gone, he's buried.
They even went so far to put a
seal on his tombstone there, the great big
round stone that rolled in front of the
door.
As some of us have seen, there's a
groove in front of the tomb which we
claim was the tomb where our Lord lay.
And in this groove where they rolled a
great big stone which had one flat side
on it, and once rolled into position, it
was very difficult to move it out again.
That's why the women said, who shall roll
us away the stone?
But in addition to the weight of the
stone, there was the seal, and there was
the watch of soldiers.
The stone, the seal, the soldiers, they keep
him there till that resurrection morning.
When he said he was going to rise
again, they'd break the seal, roll the stone
back and say, there he is!
But he wasn't.
Friends, I admit to you that the empty
tomb is what people call negative evidence.
But there was plenty of positive evidence in
the tomb as well.
Everything was in perfect order.
The grave clothes was there, the napkin that
was about his head lying in a place
by itself, all folded up.
And you know that's significant too, because the
word for napkin is the word for a
sweat cloth.
As much as to say the Lord had
finished his work, he'd mopped his brow, he
wrapped up the cloth and laid it aside.
It is finished.
Oh, this is a tremendous word, friends.
It is finished!
I tried one time to impress this on
a man with whom I was working.
I was in charge of the engineering department
in this particular firm, and I came into
contact with the machinists out on the floor
who were making the things which I had
designed on the drafting board.
I talked to one of these men so
frequently about the finished work of the Lord
Jesus, there was nothing left to do.
This man would admit, oh yes, Jesus did
a wonderful thing when he died on the
cross, but you know I've got to do
my part.
So one day he told me, he came
in the office, he said, Mr. Armerding, I've
got a piece of work ready for you
to inspect.
I said, I'll be right out, John.
Got out there and had the blueprint, looked
over this piece of work, it was beautiful.
From a mechanic's standpoint, it was admirable.
I stood there and looked at this piece
of work, I took all the measuring instruments,
the calipers and whatnot, and measured it all,
and it was just right up to scratch.
We used to measure things within the one
thousandth part of an inch, and he had
carefully made his piece of machinery just exactly
right.
He was waiting for me to put my
initial CA on the little paper inspected.
I said, John, get me a two-pound
hammer.
He got a hammer out, a ball-peen
hammer, two pounds.
Let me have a cold chisel, John.
He got a cold chisel.
I held the cold chisel over this piece
of work and the two-pound hammer.
He said, hey, what are you going to
do?
I said, I'm going to finish it.
He says, it is finished.
I said, John, you've refused to believe that
about the work that is finished.
I said, but John, what would happen now
if I was to do this?
He said, you would finish it then.
Yes, I say, and if you were to
do anything to the work of Christ, that's
exactly what would happen.
You'd spoil it.
Oh, friends, God has put his seal on
the work of the Lord Jesus.
It's right here in this text.
Look at it, please.
In verse 31, him hath God exalted.
Oh, I love that word.
He not only raised him from the dead,
but he exalted him.
And Peter's careful to tell us about this.
Peter doesn't very often go beyond the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus in his presentation of
Christ, but he does on this occasion.
He says he's exalted him to be a
prince and a savior.
You know, this is bringing two wonderful things
together.
As the prince, we think of him as
the originator of life.
This word is only used four times in
the New Testament, and every time it's used,
it's used of the Lord Jesus.
Twice in the book of the Acts, and
twice in the epistle to the Hebrews.
And it not only means a prince in
the sense of a place of dignity in
the line, but it means that he's the
originator of life, the originator of life.
He's the one who brought everything into being,
the originator of the old creation as well
as of the new.
All of that is included in the original
word he translated, prince.
But when you talk about a savior, you
talk about one who came down from this
high position and went down low, so low,
that as we were reading, hearing read this
morning in an earlier meeting, I'm a worm
and no man.
The reproach of men and despised of the
people to be a savior.
Oh, friends, this word savior has taken on
dignity, I know, with you and me as
Christians, but oh, what it cost the Lord
Jesus to take this name, a savior.
This is the first time he's introduced in
exactly this way, in this combination, in this
book of the Acts, a savior.
Yes, this is the name which was given
to him when he was born.
You remember?
Unto you was born this day in the
city of David a savior who is Christ
the Lord.
This is he.
Don't use that term lightly, dear friends.
It cost him too much.
A savior, a prince and a savior.
Now, this prince and savior is giving three
gifts, and I want to talk about these
three gifts in the minutes that remain of
my time.
The first gift is repentance.
You notice that?
He says to give repentance to Israel.
What is repentance?
I heard a definition some years ago which
has stuck with me.
I know we get the usual definition that
repentance is a change of mind, and literally
that is so.
But I think I have a better definition
this morning.
In fact, it's more of an exposition than
it is a definition.
It's this, that repentance is taking sides with
God against yourself.
Think about it.
Repentance is taking sides with God against yourself.
The prodigal son furnishes us with a pretty
good illustration.
First of what is not repentance, and then
what is.
You know, as long as the prodigal could
say, Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in
thy sight I'm no more worthy to be
called thy son, make me as one of
thy hired servants.
He hasn't reached bottom yet.
A lot of people think he's reached the
turning point.
No, he hasn't.
As long as you talk about being made
a hired servant, you can still work for
what you're going to get.
No, he hasn't reached the bottom.
But when he was in his father's arms
and his father's kisses were rained upon his
neck, then what did he say?
Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in thy
sight I'm no more worthy to be called
thy son, period.
There it is.
No talk now about hired servants.
Repentance, taking sides with God against yourself.
If God says I'm a sinful, undone sinner,
a man who can not save himself, I
take sides with him.
And I say everything that he would pour
out in his wrath upon a sinner, I
would deserve it.
I take sides with him.
But this brings me to the second gift
here.
You notice this second gift, and forgiveness of
sins.
That's a great gift.
And it's a gift.
It isn't something you work for.
It isn't a reward.
It isn't wages.
If you want wages, we've got a verse
for that.
The wages of sin is death.
I remember standing in an open-air meeting
in St. Louis many years ago.
A dear friend of mine, who is now
in glory, was conducting the meeting.
And he was very faithful in his presentation
of the gospel and also the need of
men, that they were sinners who needed to
be saved.
And he had a heckler in the crowd
who said, well, he said, if the wages
of sin is death, what's hell for?
I thought to myself, that'll take some doing
to answer that one.
But my friend was equal to it.
He said, the wages of sin is death,
and hell's a place to spend your wages.
I've never forgotten that.
Think about it.
But now in praise of this, God gives
me, not as wages, not as something I've
earned, but as a gift.
And you know, once again, this word forgiveness
is a big word.
We use it so easily.
We think we've forgiven somebody when we say,
oh, let's forget it, but we talk about
it nevertheless.
That's not forgiveness.
When God forgives, He also forgets, dear friends.
He says, their sins and iniquities will I
remember no more.
That's the way God forgives.
But what does the word forgive really mean?
Well, in both the language of the Old
Testament as well as the New, it really
means to take away, put somewhere else.
And when God forgives your sin and mine,
He takes those sins of mine, He took
them and He laid them on His beloved
Son.
That's what forgiveness implies.
That's what it includes.
God taking my sins that I deserve to
answer for and to die for, He takes
them and puts them on His beloved Son.
And He bore them as if they were
His own.
Oh, some of the language of the Psalms
can't be understood in any other way.
For example, when our Lord talks about His
iniquities in Psalm 40, what's He doing there?
He's certainly not talking about His own sins,
for He had none.
He's talking about yours and mine that He
took to Himself.
He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree.
And we've pointed out repeatedly that when they
put an accusation over His head, they didn't
accuse Him of breaking any one of the
Ten Commandments.
They didn't accuse Him of going back on
something He said in the Sermon on the
Mount.
The only thing they could put over His
head was, This is Jesus of Nazareth, the
King of the Jews.
Not one sin could they lay to His
charge.
Which of you says He convinced me of
sin?
In Him is no sin, He did no
sin, He knew no sin.
But He bore our sins in His own
body on the tree.
And God, in forgiving them, takes them from
Me and puts them on Him.
And He bore them for Me.
All of this is involved in this word
forgiveness.
Friend, I ask you solemnly in the presence
of God this morning, I'd just like to
assume that everybody in this chapel this morning
is a born-again believer in the Lord
Jesus.
But you know, sometimes happens we have one
guest present or more, who have never known
what this means to trust Christ as a
personal Savior.
You know, we just long for you to
have this same blessing.
We're not here, dear friend, to try to
uncover something of your past and make you
feel uncomfortable and embarrassed.
We're here to point to you, point you
to one who can take everything that you'd
be ashamed of in a coming day and
take it away and take it away forever,
washed away in His precious blood.
That's it.
That's how God can forgive, because His righteousness
and holiness have been perfectly satisfied in the
sacrifice of Christ.
There was no simply passing over things at
the cross.
Everything was dealt with in a righteous way.
And so God now gives Him the privilege
from the throne to give repentance and forgiveness
of sins.
This is a gift.
But there's a third gift here.
You notice as we come down in this
thirty-second verse, we are His witnesses of
these things, and so also of the Holy
Ghost whom God has given to them that
obey Him.
You know, this is remarkable too, isn't it?
That those whom God has forgiven in His
marvelous grace on the basis of what Christ
did at the cross of Calvary, now God
gives them a gift.
And this is not something special to a
certain particular group of people who've gone through
some remarkable experience.
This is the birthright of every true child
of God.
For if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of His.
If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus
this morning, you have the Holy Spirit.
You have Him.
He's God's gift to you.
He's come to take up His residence in
your body.
Our bodies are the temples of the Holy
Ghost.
Oh, friends, if we realize this more, we'd
have no difficulty with rules and regulations as
to what we could do and couldn't do.
Do you think, dear friends, if I was
fully conscious of the presence of the Holy
Spirit within that I would go to some
place over which even I would have a
question mark?
Or do something over which I would put
a question mark?
Oh, no.
Not if I believe in the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit.
And the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that
what?
That we're the children of God.
And how remarkable this is as we travel
around the world to find those who, like
ourselves, born of the Spirit.
We find a kinship that is superior to
any national kinship.
Anything that you can mention today is the
kinship of those who've trusted the Lord Jesus
Christ as a Savior.
In 1938, after a month's visit in Palestine
and Egypt, we came to England.
I came to England, and I went over
to the continent to visit in Germany with
some of my relatives whom I had never
met.
They lived in the north part of Germany
in the city of Rostock and Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
And in the course of our conversation, they
said to me, Well, Carl, where have you
been?
Where have you been traveling?
Well, I said, We lived in New Zealand
for three years.
We came by Australia.
We ministered there.
We stopped in Ceylon.
And we came to Arabia, Aden.
And then we came up to Egypt at
Port Said.
And we got off the steamer there, and
we spent a delightful time in Egypt looking
around.
And then I said, From Egypt, we took
the train through Qantar, and we came up
to Lydda, and changed trains, and came up
to Jerusalem.
And who did you stay with in Jerusalem?
Well, I said, We stayed with some of
the brethren.
And this, in German, sounded as though they
were my flesh-and-blood brothers, you know.
It's a breeder.
I said, They didn't know that you had
brothers in Jerusalem.
And mentioning my father, they said, Well, Uncle
Ernst must have been a wonderful man to
have such a big family, to have children
in Jerusalem.
I said, No.
I said, They were not my earthly father's
children.
They were my heavenly father's children.
And they had never heard of such a
wonderful relationship.
Friends, this is wonderful.
It is wonderful to think that we are
the family of God today, born again.
Every true believer in the Lord Jesus, no
matter what the color of his skin, no
matter what the language he speaks, no matter
what his racial origin, if he's born again,
we're one with him in the body of
Christ, the family of God.
This, dear friends, some of the things linked
with these three gifts, oh, if you don't
get anything else out of this fifth chapter
today, I hope you'll get this.
First of all, that these men were subject
to an authority that was divine.
Secondly, that they came to present a person,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thirdly, to show what he's done for
us in giving us repentance, forgiveness of sins,
and the Holy Spirit.
Friends, all of these things are based on
the word of God.
And no matter what the attacks on this
old book this morning, we thank God that
these truths remain.
There they are.
I've believed them now for more than three
score years.
I'm getting pretty close to the four score
mark now.
And friends, the more I see of it,
the more precious it becomes.
Instead of losing my faith, it's getting stronger
and stronger.
This old book, which our brother Willie held
up for you a little earlier this morning,
this old book, the word of God, more
precious to me today even than the night
when I first came to know the Lord
Jesus as my Savior.
In keeping with this, I'm going to have
you sing a grand old hymn of the
faith, written by a man who knew what
it meant to suffer for Christ's sake.
Hymn number 254.
254.
And those of you of Teutonic origin will
remember, I'm festivur his undergut.
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark
never failing, our helper he amid the floods
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe doth seek to
work us woe.
His craft and power are great, and armed
with cruel hate.
On earth is not his equal, but as
the hymn goes on, we'll see.
Number 254.
You can't sing this sitting down.
You have to stand up.
254.