Our brother, Dr. Armageen, would you please open
God's Word at Genesis chapter 14.
Genesis chapter 14.
I'm going to take the time to read
all of this chapter and the first verse
of chapter 15.
Keep it fast in the days of Amrepl,
king of Shinar, Eriok, king of Elazar, Keterleomer,
king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Nations,
that these made war with Beera, king of
Sodom, and with Persia, king of Gomorrah, Shinar,
king of Admah, Shemeber, king of Zeboim, and
the king of Bela, which is Zohar.
All these were joined together in the Vale
of Sidim, which is the Salt Sea, as
which we usually know as the Dead Sea.
Twelve years they served Keterleomer, and in the
thirteenth year they rebelled.
And in the fourteenth year came Keterleomer, and
the kings were with him, and smote the
Reptium in Ashtaroth, Carnaeum, and the Zuthim in
Ham, and the Emim in Sheba, Kyriathaeum, and
the Horites in their Mount Seir, and El
-Paran, which is by the wilderness.
They returned and came to Enmishpat, which is
Kadish, and smote all the country of the
Amlekites, and also the Amorites that dwelt in
Hadith on Tamar.
Then went out the king of Sodom, and
the king of Gomorrah, and the king of
Admah, and the king of Zeboim, and the
king of Bela, the same as Zohar.
And they joined battle with them in the
Vale of Sidim, with Keterleomer, king of Elam,
the title king of Nazian, the Damraphel king
of Shinar, Ariok king of Alasar, four kings
with five.
And the Vale of Sidim was full of
slime pits, and the kings of Sodom and
Gomorrah fled and fell there.
And they that remained fled to the mountains.
And they took all the goodness of Sodom
and Gomorrah, and all their vittles, and went
their way.
And they took aloft Abram's brother's son, who
dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
And there came one that had escaped, and
told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt in
the plain of Mamre the Amorite, and brother
of Eshkol, brother of Aner.
These were confederate, or allies, with Abram.
When Abram heard that his brother was taken
captive, he armed his trained servants, born in
his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and
pursued them unto death.
And he divided himself against them, he and
his servants, by night, and smote them, and
pursued them unto Hobar, which is on the
left hand of Damascus.
And he brought back all the goods, but
also brought again his brother Lot, and his
goods, and the women also, and the people.
And the king of Sodom went out to
meet him after his return from the slaughter
of Keterleomer.
And the kings were with him at the
valley of Sheba, which is the king's dale.
And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread
and wine.
He was the priest of the Most High
God.
And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be
Abram, of the Most High God, possessor of
heaven and earth.
And blessed be the Most High God, which
hath delivered thine enemies into thine hands.
And he gave him tithes of old.
And the king of Sodom said unto Abram,
Give me the curtains, and take the goods
to thyself.
And Abram said to the king of Sodom,
I have lifted up mine hand unto the
Lord, the Most High God, possessor of heaven
and earth.
But I will not take from the bread
even to a few latches.
That I will not take anything that is
thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made
Abram great.
Save only that which the young men have
eaten, and the portion of the men that
went with me.
Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre, let them take their
portion.
And after these things, the word of the
Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,
Fear not, Abram.
I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great
reward.
Just about 24 hours now, the Lord willing,
we'll be meeting again in this chapel to
remember our Lord.
And I thought I would like to offer
a few things that you've taught this morning,
relevant to that most precious meeting.
Sometimes people, in talking about this distinctive of
our particular fellowship, and it is a distinctive,
that we remember the Lord from week to
week.
I'm told, of course, that there are other
bodies of Christians that do this also, but
I have observed that with them it's more
or less of a little supplement to another
kind of a service altogether.
In other words, it's not that it's a
main purpose for which they gather, to remember
the Lord Jesus.
Not to hear a sermon, not to have
a lot of prayers like a prayer meeting,
but to just remember Him.
And when you think of the number of
hours in a week, 168 of them, surely
this is little enough for us to give
to Him.
And I say this because very recently I
was in a meeting at one of our
assemblies up north, and a young brother got
up and read the 58th chapter of Isaiah,
and gave us quite a scolding as to
our lack of interest in the social needs
and so on of people around us.
And it was all out of keeping with
the meeting that we were in.
I couldn't help but think of that scene
as depicted in the 12th chapter of John,
where they made Him a supper, but Judas
rudely interrupts and says, why wasn't the money
that was spent for this alabaster box of
ointment sold for three hundred and tenths and
given to the poor?
The Lord Jesus says, let her alone, she
has brought a good one.
She gets the day of my burying, has
she done this?
And in the gospel according to Mark, he
adds these words, he says, the poor you
have always with you, and whensoever you will
you can do them good.
But beloved, this is one of those distinctives
that we have.
It's very interesting to find in this chapter
which we have read this morning, a little
foreshadowing of this, and a rather strange context
one would never have expected it.
Here are four kings and five fighting with
each other.
In that part of the world which is
yet going to see some of the bloodiest
battles that have ever been recorded in history,
I'm sure you've been thinking about some of
them.
As you and I hear these skirmishes from
day to day about the Arabs and the
Ukrainians fighting across the Suez Canal and on
the long Jordan and so on, these are
only just little skirmishes preliminary to the great
battle that is yet to be fought there.
And it may be that this battle of
which we've been reading this morning is also
a little foreshadowing of this.
But there are two persons involved in this.
One is of course Lot, the nephew of
Abraham, or Abram as he's called in this
chapter, for he has not yet yet been
given that larger name, and his nephew Lot.
There were these two men.
Lot, you remember, was given his choice one
day when his herdsman and the herdsman of
Abram couldn't get on.
Abram said, well, choose what you will.
You go to the right hand, I'll go
to the left, and so on.
And Lot chose him the well-watered plains
of Jordan.
He took the choice.
He didn't say, now, Uncle Abram, you're older
than I am, you take your choice.
No, he takes his choice.
And what a sad choice it was.
And how true is that little quatrain that
we quote so frequently?
He knows, he loves, he cares, nothing this
group can live.
He gives the very best to those who
leave the choice with him.
And that's exactly what Abram did.
But now after this battle, and Lot is
taken captive with his family and all of
his property as well, somebody comes and tells
Abram about this.
Abram is living over there in the plains
of Mamre.
If you've ever been over there, it's a
quiet, remote place.
I remember the day we went down to
Hebron.
It happened to be on a Friday, which
was a great mistake, because the Moslems make
a great deal, of course, of Friday in
that part of the world.
And so they didn't like it very much
that we drove down there on a Friday,
even though our driver was a Christian Arab
and certainly should have known about this.
But in any case, he said to us,
well, he said, as you can see, we're
not welcome here today.
They were jumping up on the running board
of the car, and they were shouting things
at us which we couldn't understand in Arabic.
But we were told afterwards that they were
actually threatening our lives.
This was in 1938.
So we retreated to the plains of Mamre,
where Abram is supposed to have lived, and
where the oak trees are still growing, which
are supposed to be descendants of the oaks
in his day.
That doesn't need to shock us here in
America, because we have trees growing in California,
which were saplings in the days of Abram.
So this is nothing unusual.
But here we were recounting some of the
scenes in the life of Abram, and this
wonderful thing, when one of these who had
escaped came and told Abram what had happened.
And Abram proves himself a great strategist here
when he takes his 318 servants born in
his own house.
That is, in his establishment.
He must have had quite an establishment of
318 trained servants born in his own house.
And he pursued them, and then actually divided
his force into three parts, and attacked them
by night, and came back victorious.
Now it is just at this juncture, beloved,
in a time of victory, that the enemy
would like to take advantage of that which
is so common to our hearts when we've
had a wonderful victory.
You know, this is probably the most dangerous
time in our lives, when we've had a
glorious victory.
And I'm saying this, beloved, because we come
to a conference like this, and God ministers
to our hearts, our souls, and I trust
to our consciences.
And many of us have come to a
conference like this, and we're on the mountain
top.
But now the question is, what about it
when we go down?
When we go back to the places where
we live, the places where we work, the
places where we're going to have to listen
to language which is quite different from what
we've been hearing here, and what we've been
using here.
That's going to be another story, isn't it?
And here's where our faith is going to
be put to the test.
And so we find here is a great
test in the life of Abel.
As he comes back from this victory, the
king of Sodom, whether this is the same
one who fell in the slime pits with
the king of Gomorrah, or whether they had
already appointed a successor to him, but in
any case we read here in verse 17
of our chapter, the king of Sodom went
out to meet him after his return from
the slaughter of Teter-Leomer, and the king
grew with him at the valley of Sheba,
which is the king's jail.
As I say, it may be a moot
question as to whether this was the same
king who fell in the slime pits.
If he did, he probably didn't have a
very good suit on at the moment.
In any case, he very quickly came out
with a proposition.
But notice how wonderfully broad it remains.
And here's one of those answers to the
question that's sometimes put to me when I
talk with people who do not follow the
practice which we have of remembering our blessed
Lord every week.
They say, doesn't this thing become commonplace to
you?
And isn't it likely to become very ordinary
when you do it this often?
Then I remind them of some of the
great spiritual advantages of remembering the Lord every
week.
You know, there's a great advantage to this.
I believe we've got a picture right here
in this 14th chapter of Genesis how wonderfully
God prepared his servants for what the king
of Sodom was going to present to him.
When this mysterious person here called Melchizedek, whose
genealogy is omitted in the scriptures, it's not
counted, he knows that he might be made
light unto the Son of God.
This is the way it is put in
the 7th chapter of Hebrews.
His genealogy was not counted.
He didn't have any genealogy from the priests
of the tribe of Levi.
And so he's made light unto the Son
of God.
I remember how one morning in a hotel
in Memphis, a maid came in to take
care of my room.
And she saw that I was still there.
She carried it back away and waited until
I vacated.
And I said, come right in.
I said, if you don't mind, I'll keep
on with my work here.
And when I'm in your way, just please
tell me and I'll move my chair.
So she did.
She picked up the vase, cleaned up the
bathroom.
Then I noticed that there was no further
sound of anything going on.
And I wondered whether she had walked out.
I looked around.
Here she was standing with her broom and
her bucket.
I said, is there anything I can do
for you?
Yes, she says, I see that you are
a minister.
You can see this by my Bible lying
on the desk.
I said, yes, would you like to talk
about the Bible?
She said, well, she said, yesterday our minister
preached us a sermon about Melchizedek.
And she says, I'm all in shock.
I don't know who Melchizedek was.
Was he Jesus or was he what?
Well, I said, now let's see what it
says in the book.
So we opened up to the 7th chapter
of Hebrews.
Would you like to do that?
Just a look at the passage that I
did with that here whole essay.
7th chapter of Hebrews, where we get the
writer of the Hebrews, and I believe it
was Paul.
Just simply indicates my ignorance.
But anyhow, he says here in chapter 7,
For this Melchizedek, king of Pharaoh, priest of
the most high God, who met Abram returning
from the flood of kings and left him,
to whom also Abram gave a tenth part
of all, first being by interpretation king of
righteousness.
That's what the name Melchizedek means.
And after that king of Pharaoh, which we
take as the Jerusalem of today, which is
king of peace, without father, without mother, without
descent, or without a genealogy, having neither beginning
of days nor end of life, but made
like unto the Son of God, a fighter
for peace continual.
And here's this girl standing alongside of me,
and look at this.
And I underlined these words for her, but
made like unto the Son of God.
I said, do you see this?
You know that girl standing there, she said,
you can't be made like somebody who you
already is.
She had a dream.
Melchizedek was a distinct personage, and he was.
But, he was a beautiful type of the
Lord Jesus, our high priest.
And you know, dear friends, I am really
distressed in the way that he puts a
little emphasis on this precious truth of the
priesthood, the high priesthood of our Lord Jesus.
Some years ago, I was in the state
of Florida, I'll not mention the naive place,
Dr. Barnhouse was ministering at a certain church
there, and he took up the seventh chapter
of Hebrews, and gave us a wonderful sermon
on the high priestly work of the Lord
Jesus.
I was thrilled with it.
And after this meeting, I met the pastor
of the church.
He looked at me, and he said, wasn't
that a daring thing for Donald to do
this afternoon?
And I said, what do you mean?
Well, he said, what do these people know
about the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus?
I said, are you the pastor of this
church?
He said, yes.
I said, and how long have you been
pastor here?
He said, 13 years.
I said, you have been here 13 years,
and you have never told these people about
the high priestly work of the Lord Jesus.
You know, that's a time when you're never
ashamed of your gray or your white hairs.
I said to him, shame on you.
To be deprived of a thing like this.
Beloved, this is something that should be the
joy of each one of our hearts.
It's a great thing to know the Lord
Jesus is our Savior.
It's a great thing to know Him as
our Lord and our Master.
It's a great thing to know Him as
our shepherd who leads us along.
But all to think of Him today as
the one who is in the presence of
God, seated at the right hand of the
majesty in the heavens, ever living to make
intercession for us.
Can you imagine it?
Someone who's constantly engaged in making intercession for
the likes of you and me.
My dear friends, this thing, it overwhelms me
when I think about it.
That I have one in heaven today who
knows all about the experiences of this world,
for he was tempted or tried in all
points like as we are, apart from sin.
Knows everything about the sorrows of death, what
it meant to part with loved ones.
He gives evidence of this fact when he
reached by the grave of Labrus.
He knew what it meant to be hungry.
He knew what it meant to be thirsty.
Yes, he knows all about the sorrows of
the way.
This is one of the purposes that was
in the incarnation.
He himself took part of flesh and blood,
that he might be able to succor those
who were being tempted.
Such in height we come about.
And here is this type, Melchizedek, coming into
the life of Abram, at a very important
point.
He doesn't bring forth anything in the way
of jewels or money or anything like this.
As though he was going to out to
soothe the king of Sodom.
Because if this man Melchizedek had any idea
of what was going to be presented to
Abram, he probably would have thought, well maybe
I've got to out soothe the king of
Sodom.
But no, he didn't out soothe the king
of Sodom.
He just brought forth these very simple things
of bread and wine.
That's all.
How simple it is, isn't it?
Yes, this only man who has decorated this
thing and made it mysterious, created a certain
priesthood who can take away from her hands
and turn it into the actual body of
Christ, and take the cup and turn it
into his actual blood, and all this sort
of thing, which of course is so foreign
to Scripture.
And here the Scripture brings forth these two
simple elements.
But somebody said, wait a minute, Virginia, you
don't need to tell me that Abram understood
all the significance of this, I don't know.
I don't know, but one thing I do
know.
That Abram knew a whole lot more than
we credited him with sometimes.
According to the eighth chapter of John's Gospel,
the Lord Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see
my day.
He saw it and was glad.
I'm wondering, as Melchizedek stood there before Abram
with the bread and the wine in his
hands, whether Abram, with that wonderful vision of
faith, could look forward to that day.
Because in the 22nd chapter of this same
book, you remember he speaks about it, it
says, in the mouth of the Lord it
shall be seen.
He looks ahead.
And so I'm just wondering whether he didn't
understand something more than we credited him with.
But in any case, beloved, you and I
understand today, in the light of the New
Testament, what these things stand for.
And I'm using this this morning, dear friends,
to show how that which we do from
Lord's Day to Lord's Day can be a
tremendous blessing to us in our spiritual lives
in preserving us from things which might be
our ruination.
Suppose that the King of Sodom had been
able to come right into the presence of
Abram with his proposition, without his fortification.
But, you know this, friends, God brings Melchizedek
into this form.
I want to suggest two or three things
that this did for Abram.
Of course, it would be a great refreshing
to him.
Not only physically, but spiritually.
And I'm sure all of us will agree
that this is one of the great benefits
that we have on a Lord's Day morning.
Is to come together for an hour of
worship and praise.
Oh, how relaxing it is, isn't it?
How refreshing it is.
It must have been that, after coming back
out of the heat of battle, and having
to use all the strategy of which he
was capable in order to bring back Lot
and all his group, all his property.
But I don't notice that Lot is not
in on this particular service.
It doesn't say that Melchizedek says, Well, now
let's bring Lot into this thing too.
No, he's not in on this.
He can't be a part of this.
This is for the man of faith.
Now, I'd like you to notice that it
says in verse 19 of our chapter, Genesis
14, verse 19, And he blessed and said,
Blessed the Abram of the Most High God,
possessor of heaven and earth.
Why should he have to refer to God
in that particular way?
You know, the Lord Jesus did this just
before he made that tremendous offer in the
11th chapter of Matthew that we were looking
at a few days ago.
When he paused after having pronounced judgment upon
those cities where his mighty works were done,
he says, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
I thank you.
How we need to remember this, dear friends,
in a day like this.
When man thinks he owns the whole show.
In a few days, he'll be taking off
for the moon.
But, he's still in full possession.
He's the possessor of heaven and earth.
And think of having a blessing from him.
Blessed the Abram of the Most High God,
possessor of heaven and earth.
You know, that in itself will prepare him
for any proposition that the king of Sodom
may make.
I say to myself, what offer could the
king of Sodom make that could match this?
It reminds me of the offer which Satan
made to our Lord Jesus.
When he showed him the kingdoms of the
world and all the glory of them.
You know, there's something ironical about that.
Because when you think of the kingdoms that
had already been on the earth, the empire
that had existed and fallen before this.
And doubt that their representatives were there on
top of that mountain.
When Satan displayed all these princes of the
kingdoms of the earth and the glory of
them, I think the Lord might have been
very sarcastic and said, did you say glory?
Where was the glory of Egypt when he
said that?
Where was the glory of Assyria when he
said that?
Where was the glory of Babylon when he
said that?
Where was the glory of Persia and Greece
when he said that?
And where was the glory of Rome which
was in existence at the time he said
that?
Yes, the Lord could have been very sarcastic.
He said as it's written, thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
thou serve.
Oh, he was a possessor of heaven and
earth.
Do you think Satan could tempt him?
As a matter of fact, he had the
promise, as you know, from the second chapter,
the second of the Psalms, where God said
to his blessed son, ask of me, and
I'll give you the heathens that I'm inheriting
from the othermost parts of the earth for
thy possession.
I know that verse is sometimes used in
missionary meetings, but we have no right to
that.
That was made a promise made to the
Son of God.
And the next verse shows that it's not
a missionary text, because he says, thou shalt
break them over a rod of iron, and
thou shalt catch them and keep them as
a part of his vessel.
That's not a missionary verse.
This is the day when the Lord Jesus
is going to take possession.
And here is his representative saying to Abram,
Blessed be Abram of the most high God,
possessor of heaven and earth.
Oh, I can almost hear Abram saying, and
certainly thinking it in part, is that so?
Nobody can tempt me with anything.
Whether he knew about the proposition that was
coming from the king of Sodom or not,
we don't know at the moment here.
But let's move on.
Verse 20.
This is also a worship meeting.
Notice this.
And he blessed the most high God.
And when you bless God, you worship him.
Yeah, this is it.
And you know, friends, a lot of people,
if they're asked for definitions of worship, they
really don't know what it means.
I heard a definition of worship some years
ago, which I've never forgotten, and which I
think is most satisfactory.
I haven't seen it in the dictionaries, but
it satisfies me.
That worship is the overflow of a heart
that has no request to make.
Worship is the overflow of a heart that
has no request to make.
He blessed.
Blessed be the most high God who shall
deliver thine enemies.
Notice how these kings are here identified as
the enemies of Abraham.
He started to deliver them into his hands,
and now he turns around and does something
else that we like to do at our
morning meetings.
He gives him an offering.
And mind you, fellows, this is long before
the days of the law.
Abraham didn't live under the law of Moses,
but he was a tither.
He gave him flies to eat.
See how these things here are foreshadowed for
us in our morning meetings.
Coming together, remember the Lord of these simple
emblems, the bread that speaks of his body,
the cups that speak of his precious blood
shed for our sins, the outpouring of our
hearts in worship and praise for him, and
then the offering.
He gave him flies that will...
Remember my dear old father telling about one
Monday morning, he was coming down the streets
of Winslow, Arizona, where he spent the last
years of his life with my sister, who
was a missionary there among the Indians, and
he met a very sour-faced man who
was trying to be a Christian.
And my father looked at him.
Dad was a happy Christian.
And he looked at him and he said,
Well, what's the matter with you, brother?
You don't look very happy.
I don't think that.
I went to church yesterday, and I'm in
it to preach a sermon on tithing.
What do you think?
Do you want me to give a ten?
Dad said, Don't let him hold you down
like that.
You give him two tens.
Dad was a double tither all his life.
That is, after he became the noble Lord.
This was his way of expressing his appreciation.
He came from a country where he had
been under the heel of a military regime,
came over here to America and enjoyed the
freedom of the country, but all above all
the blessed freedom of knowing the Lord Jesus
Christ as his Savior.
Dad never felt he could ever give enough
in appreciation for this.
Now, now we're ready for the proposition from
the King of Sodom.
Verse 21.
And the King of Sodom said, I wonder
if he was a spectator of all this.
Maybe.
He said to Abram, Give me the persons
or the souls.
You get that?
If this King of Sodom is what I
think he is, I think he represents that
law of sin of which my beloved colleague
was speaking a few days ago.
And you know, sin is presented in its
regal character there in that text of Romans
when it says, Let not sin therefore raise.
Yes, the King of Sodom may well be
an illustration of that.
And he's interested in souls.
And then notice the awful insult to Abram
in the next verse, next phrase.
And take the goods to thyself.
You're nothing but a materialist.
Is that the way they size us up?
Was this true in the case of Abram?
Let's go back to the 12th chapter and
we'll find he's a man who's anything but
a materialist.
When he leaves behind his country and his
kindred and everything, to go out in stupor,
faith, and not knowing whether it works.
As we read in the 11th chapter of
Hebrews.
Do you yet hear this awful insinuation?
Take the goods to thyself.
But I believe Elamite has a word for
us in this materialistic age in which we
live.
God forbid that any of us should ever
leave the impression in this world that we
are materialists.
That's what the world has done.
They want things.
They want to enjoy things now.
But God has given us a new set
of things altogether.
What things were gained through Jesus Paul and
Philippians 3?
Those I counted lost.
Yes, I counted them but few, for I
see.
And now he says, I press forth a
mark for those things which are ahead.
A brand new set of things.
Yes, we got things, but how different they
are.
Take the goods to thyself.
But he's been all prepared for this.
And this brings me, beloved, to the few
things I wanted to say about this thing
this morning.
Someone referred to this as the therapeutic value
of a proper observance of the Lord's Supper.
The therapeutic value.
The health-giving preventive power.
Oh, you can see, beloved, how if we're
in a proper state of soul when we
come to do this, what a wonderful preventative
it can be.
Yes, if you pardon me referring back again
to my boyhood days, I was just as
a lad, 11, 12 years of age, attending
a little Presbyterian church next door to where
we lived.
They celebrated the Lord's Supper once a quarter.
But on the Friday night before, they had
what they called a preparatory service.
They got ready for that great event.
I think they would put some of us
to shame.
It is said of the great Gretton Guinness
whose daughter I knew very well, Mrs. Howard
Taylor, she told me that her father would
simply isolate himself in his study on Saturday
night, he did without supper, in order that
he might prepare himself for the Lord's Day.
Oh, the therapeutic value of the proper observance
of the Lord's Supper.
It enabled him to say, nothing do it.
I've already taken my oath, I've lifted up
my hand to the Most High God, to
the Bethel of heaven and earth, that I'll
not take anything from a bread, even to
a shoelace, nothing that's yours, lest thou should
say, I've made a regret.
And notice how God honors this decision there
in chapter 15.
Oh, before I speak of that, let me
show you, just in a moment or two,
how considerate this man Abram is in this
last verse of chapter 14 of those who
weren't with him.
You notice he doesn't expect them to come
up to this level.
Let us be gracious enough to say, well,
if they haven't reached this point, let them
take their portion.
And no doubt these were honorable men, Ziner,
Eshcol, and Mamre.
These allies of Abram, but he said, let
them take their portion.
He's not deciding things for them.
This is a personal decision between him and
the Lord.
But then comes chapter 15, and the man
gets his eyes open and has a vision,
and he hears a voice that puts a
seal of approval on that wonderful decision he
made.
Fear not, Abram.
I am thy shield, and God has proved
that by sending Melchizedek out there with that
bread and wine.
I am thy shield.
Not only protection, but I am thy exceeding
great reward.
Oh, beloved, I know we're looking forward to
a day when the Lord is going to
say, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
And no one's work will be passed over
like a cup of cold water given in
the name of a disciple, telling no wise
man this reward.
But the greatest reward of all, be the
Lord himself.
This is what Paul meant in Philippians 3.
He says, thy may win Christ.
Shall we turn to hymn number 167?
Hymn number 167.
I journey through a desert, drear and vile.
It is my heart by such sweet thoughts,
beguiled of him on whom I lean.
My strength, my faith, I can forget the
sorrows of the way.
So on number 167.
Blessed Lord Jesus, we thank thee for making
thyself so precious to us.
Lord, we stand here before thee this morning
to confess to thee our unworthiness with such
grace.
But how wonderful to have as our beloved,
God's own beloved, that he should share thee
with us, calling us into the fellowship of
his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
O precious Savior, we pray that as each
one of us goes home from this conference,
we may indeed go with such sweet thoughts
beguiled.
We trust thee, Lord, to continue to bless
us as we move on into the closing
hours of this conference.
Bless those who have already left us and
are on their way home.
Grant them safe journeys to their dwelling places,
we pray.
And again, lifting our hearts to thee for
those who are bereaved and those who are
lying on hospital beds, particularly remembering our dear
sister, Mrs. Fish.
So we commit all these into thy hands
and ourselves now, Father.
In the precious name of the Lord Jesus,
Amen.