Hebrews, chapter 4, and beginning at verse 14.
Hebrews 4 and verse 14.
Seeing then that we have a great High
Priest that is fast into the heavens, he
is as the Son of God, let us
hold fast our professions.
For we have not an High Priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but was in all points tempted like
as we are, yet without sin.
Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need.
This afternoon, when it was my privilege to
speak here, we were looking a little at
one of God's invitations as given to us
in the book of Exodus, chapter 24.
We were pointing out that the Bible seems
to be full of invitations.
Remarking, of course, that that well-known invitation,
come unto me all ye that labor, and
our heavy laden and I will give you
rest, is probably one of the best known
invitations that we have in the Bible.
We thank God for the many thousands that
have accepted this invitation and found it to
be true.
Then we were looking at that invitation in
Exodus 24, where the Lord says to those
who know him, at least he says to
Moses who is representative of them, come up
unto me and be there.
God inviting Moses to come up into his
holy presence and to be there.
And we were noticing the number of things
which Moses allowed to hinder him and delay
him from accepting that invitation.
And we grew the lesson that many of
us in our devotional life, we put so
many things first rather than to give the
Lord the first part of each day.
To come up into the mouth with him,
that we may have that quiet time with
him.
I'm sure there'd be a great deal less
anxiety among the people of God, a great
deal more peace of mind and peace of
heart if we knew more about that.
Now tonight I'm looking at another invitation here
in this last verse of Hebrews 4, where
we have these words, let us therefore come
boldly unto the throne of grace, that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help
in time of need.
So therefore, in this verse of course, is
based on what you have in the previous
verses, where we are told that we have
a great high priest.
I don't think I shall ever forget, one
time I invited a little boy who lived
across the street from us in our hometown,
to come with me to our little gospel
service.
He told his mother about this invitation, and
she said, well if he'll go with you
to our church, then you may go with
him to his church.
So he came back and told me, he
said, mother says I can go with you
if you'll go with me to my church.
Well he was a Roman Catholic, and I'd
never been in a Roman Catholic church in
my life.
And so I spoke to my father about
it, and he said yes, he said to
go with him, he said, and then make
him keep his end of the bargain.
So I went with him, and I was
deeply impressed with the service, the pageantry of
it all, and the sweet incense, and many
genuflections, and all this.
I'd never seen anything like it in my
life.
I was just awestruck with it.
When I came out, I couldn't help but
express myself.
I said, well Bill, I said, that really
was wonderful.
I said, now you're coming with me, aren't
you, next Sunday night?
Yep, he says, I'll be with you.
So next Sunday night he came to our
place, which was certainly plain by contrast.
It was just a converted store for converted
people.
And we went to this store, and we
had little chairs there, chain bottom, and the
preacher that night was very simple, very plain.
They were straightforward gospel message.
When we came out, I said, well now
Bill, what do you think about that?
Well, he says, I guess it's all right
if you're used to it, but he said,
you ain't got no creed.
And you know, this bothered me.
Conversation stopped right there, and we went home.
When I got home, and my father said,
well, what did Bill say?
Well, he says, I said, it'd be all
right if you're used to it, but the
thing that bothered him was that we ain't
got no creed.
Well, dad says, but we have.
Well, I said, I've never seen him.
Well, he says, I'll show him to you.
So he took me to this portion of
scripture that we have here.
And this 14th verse of chapter, Hebrews 4
verse 14, seeing then that we have a
great high priest.
He said, you see son, we not only
have a priest, we have a high priest.
And we not only have a high priest,
we have a great high priest.
You know, I was really impressed.
And here it was, it's Jesus the son
of God.
He's the priest.
The one who's passed through the heavens.
There he is, seated at the right hand
of God in heaven tonight.
I, as I was dwelling on this, I
said, well, dad, what does he do for
us?
And my father turned me over to the
seventh chapter of this same book of Hebrews.
And here we have it in the seventh
chapter in the 25th verse, where he says,
wherefore he is able also to save them
to the uttermost, that come unto God by
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them.
I didn't know that word, intercession, for I
was only a boy about 10 years old,
10 or 11.
I said, what does that word mean?
Well, my father said, that means he's praying
for us.
Intercession is praying for somebody.
Well, I was fully honest.
So the next day I saw Bill Waters.
I said, Bill, I said, I found out
last night that we do have a priest.
He said, you did?
He said, and you've never seen him?
I said, no, but we've got one.
And I had a little testament with me,
and I showed him this verse.
And I did what my father did with
me.
I emphasized the adjectives, the high priest and
the great high priest.
He said, yeah, but what does he do
for you?
I said, now, I was ready for him
on that one.
So I said, well, my father showed me
another verse.
He shows that he's making intercession.
He's praying for us all the time.
You know, that little fellow about my own
age, and you'll excuse me if I quote
him verbatim.
He said, gee, it must be wonderful to
have somebody praying for you all the time.
Poor fellow, he, he'd been told he had
to pay folks to pray for him.
Yes, his parents, they were faithful in getting
people to pray for them.
I remember when his father died, the prayers
that went up for his father's soul and
how they paid to have prayers said for
his father's soul.
And I was just wicked enough to look
in his father's hand as you lay him
to test, and he had a 50 cent
piece in his hand.
And I said to my mother, what you
got that half dollar for?
She said, hush.
We got outside.
She said, that's to take him across Jordan.
I said, what?
To take him across Jordan?
50 cents.
The Lord Jesus Christ had paid to get
me across.
Yes, with his precious blood.
You can see, dear friends, that even though
I wasn't a Christian at the time, I
didn't really confess the Lord till I was
15 years of age, a teenager.
But this thing stuck with me.
One of the great truths that's been a
great blessing to my life has been that
the Lord Jesus is not only my savior,
but he's also my advocate for restoring me
when I've wandered from God, and he's my
high priest to keep me out of trouble.
And now this is it that the apostle
is straining, he is in this in this
passage of scripture here in Hebrews 4, and
he says in that last verse, let us
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace.
And there are two things here, to obtain
mercy, and find grace to help in time
of need.
Now I understand that mercy is something that
God bestows upon those who can't help themselves,
they're just objects of his pity, and he
bestows his mercy upon them at the throne
of grace.
The one who sits on that throne is
none other than the one who hung up
on Calvary's cross for you and for me.
That's the same one seated there at the
right hand of the majesty of me in
the heavens tonight, with a mark of his
passion stood upon him, and dispensing grace and
mercy to whosoever will.
But what does it mean to find grace?
You know, I was much puzzled about this.
How would I explain that?
I can understand the mercy being shown to
me, and a hell-deserving sinner, God saved
me, but what about this finding grace?
How do you find it, and what is
it?
So I took a concordance.
You know what a concordance is?
That's a book that has every biblical reference
in it, so that you know one word
in a verse in the Bible, you look
up that word in your concordance in its
alphabetical order, and you can find the location
where it is.
For instance, if you didn't know that verse
that God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting
life, you could take any verse out of
that, any word out of that verse, look
it up in a concordance, and it would
point to John 3 16.
A nice book to own.
I'm not in the book business, but my
brother is, and I'm sure he's got plenty
of them down there.
I hope you'll avail yourselves of them, because
one of the finest Bible study helps that
I know anything about.
Next to the Bible itself, the concordance, so
that I can find a passage which perhaps
otherwise I wouldn't be able to locate.
Many of them, thank God, we now know
from memory, because we've memorized whole chapters of
the word of God, and therefore we know
where those texts are, but then there are
some texts that escape you, and the concordance
is a wonderful thing.
So I took the concordance and looked up
this expression, finding grace, and to my utter
amazement I found out that it is really
an Old Testament expression.
And I could see the reason, because here
it's found in the book of Hebrews, which
of course is written to Hebrew Christians, you
see, or professing Christians, and naturally they would
be acquainted with the Old Testament.
And so we're going to the Old Testament
tonight to find out what this expression, finding
grace, really means.
Now there are several places we could go.
We could go to the book of Ruth,
for example, and we hear Ruth using this
word.
She speaks of Boaz as the one after
whom she wants to go and glean and
find grace in his sight, and so on,
the second chapter of Ruth.
But I'm going back earlier than that.
I'm going back to the book of Exodus
again tonight, to the 33rd chapter of Exodus.
Exodus chapter 33, and beginning at verse 12,
Exodus 33 verse 12, And Moses said unto
the Lord, See thou sayest unto me, bring
up this people, and thou hast not let
me know whom thou send with me.
Yet thou hast said, I know thee by
name, and thou hast also found grace in
my sight.
Thou hast said, I know thee by name,
and thou hast also found grace in my
sight.
Evidently God told him this one day, and
he never forgot it, that God knew his
name.
You know, it's a wonderful thing that God
knows our names, isn't it?
Yes, we're getting fast away from that in
the United States.
Instead of having names, we have numbers.
Of course, it works much better on the
IBM machine, you know, to have a number.
But we also have names, as we are.
Maybe you're just indicated by a punch hole
in the card.
I guess most of us are in the
places where we work.
But God knows us by name, and you
know that suggests acquaintanceship.
That suggests that there's been some relationship between
the two when God says, I know thee
by name.
I'm asking you tonight, my friend, does he
know you?
Is your name written down in his book?
You say, well God knows everything.
Yes, but I'm using the word know, not
in the sense of his omniscience, because he
does know everything.
But I believe the word know is used
here in the sense of recognizing.
You know, we use the word that way,
don't we?
People that go down the street, we know
who they are, but we don't recognize them.
Perhaps we don't want to recognize them, and
therefore we can say we don't know them.
Well that word is used in that way,
and I believe here it is used in
that sense, that God recognized Moses.
He recognized him as such.
He knew everybody.
He knows everybody in the world.
He knows you tonight.
He knows exactly what your spiritual state is.
If he didn't, he wouldn't be omniscient.
But I'm talking about this matter of acquaintanceship,
of recognition.
Does he really have your name down in
his book?
When you say, how can you get it
there?
Very simple, dear friend, very simple.
Once you come to the Lord Jesus Christ
as a poor lost sinner, and trusting the
Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal savior,
your name goes down in the book.
It's down in the book of life, and
there it is.
I had this illustrated to me when I
was just a kid in school.
I used to get into trouble so easy.
It just seemed like trouble was the easiest
thing I could get into in school.
We had a classroom down in the basement
of old number seven, and the bell rope
of the school hung right next to my
sheet.
Well, it was a great temptation when the
teacher was writing something on the board to
just give the bell a yank, which I
did in the afternoon.
Well, of course, immediately there was trouble upstairs,
and the principal sent down to find out
who was pulling the bell rope.
And, of course, I was discovered and sent
up to the principal.
He was an old-fashioned kind that believed
that the best way to cure those things
was to raise the temperature of a part
of your body, and he proceeded to do
that.
He had a little cane there that he
used for that purpose.
And these visits got to be rather frequent,
rather frequent, but we got very well acquainted.
And once in a while he said, what,
you here again?
Then, of course, a little note that I
carried up told the story.
The teacher would write a note.
So one day we were going down the
street.
I was going down the street with the
best boy in the class, Robert Draper.
He used to get a P.F. on
his report card, purpose.
I sometimes got a P, but the F
was missing.
So what happened?
Going down the street with this lad, and
we ran into the principal.
He ran his fingers through my hair, and
he said, hello there.
How are you doing?
Oh, I said, I'm doing all right, Mr.
Fitcher.
He said, who's your friend?
I said, don't you know him?
No.
I said, well, he's the best boy in
the class.
That's why I didn't know him.
But he knew me.
I was so glad to be acquainted with
him, because after a while it got so,
he used to say, well, now let's sit
down and talk this over.
And I was always so glad that I
had reached maturity where he could really talk
things over with me.
But you know, dear friends, this is part
of finding grace.
This is it.
It says so.
Thou hast said, I know thee by name,
and thou hast also found grace in my
sight.
Wonderful thing, that.
You don't pay anything for this.
You come to the throne of grace, and
God gives it to you as a gift.
But look, let's look at verse 13 in
that same chapter, Exodus 33, verse 13.
Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have
found grace in thy sight, show me now
thy way, that I may know thee, that
I may find grace in thy sight, and
consider that this nation is thy people.
Notice a number of things that Moses associates
with this finding grace.
It's not only a question of knowing him
by name, wonderful as that is.
But the first thing he says here now
in verse 13, if I have found grace
in thy sight, show me now thy way.
In other words, dear friends, Moses wanted something
more than to be known by name.
He wanted to walk in the way that
was pleasing to the Lord.
And this is all part of finding grace.
It's knowing what God wants you to do,
and where he wants you to go.
And this is so simple and so easy
that you wonder sometimes why we make it
so much of a problem.
Young people coming into our offices and schools,
this is another one of the great problems.
How can they know the will of God
for their lives?
How can they know the way that they
ought to go?
Well, bow down at the throne of grace
and say with Moses, show me now thy
way.
Show me now thy way.
Dear friends, having proved it down the years,
it's wonderful how God shows us his way.
In the first place, you may be sure
that if anything you're contemplating to do is
contrary to something that you've seen in the
word of God, that's not the way for
you.
That's simple enough.
We cover about 50 percent of our guidance
cases with just that.
People say, I'm thinking of doing this, but
I want to know if it's the will
of the Lord.
Well, let's see if this squares with the
Bible.
And you find the very thing that they
want to do is to put it in
the scriptures.
For instance, here's a young woman.
She wants to marry an unsaved young man.
She professes to be Christian.
She wants to know whether she really ought
to do this.
Would I pray with her that she might
be guided about marrying this unsaved young fellow?
I said, we don't need to pray about
that.
Don't need to pray about it at all,
because it says right here in the book,
be not an unequally yoked together with unbelievers,
right there.
When she said, does that mean then if
I want to get married and would like
to have you to do it that you
wouldn't do it?
I said, why no, I wouldn't do it.
Oh, she said, you wouldn't?
No, I wouldn't do it.
Well, why not?
I said, I wouldn't be guilty of joining
two people together in marriage, one of them
on a road to heaven and the other
one on his road to hell.
I said, I just don't do that.
That's not the will of God.
So you see, many of these things can
be settled right there.
God brings some text of scripture to your
mind, and there it is.
Show me now thy ways.
But of course, there are other problems on
which we do not have any direct scripture.
There again, we can ask ourselves, is it
consistent with the word of God that I
do this?
Do I have to have some specific text
of scripture bearing on this, or is there
something about the will of God, the way
of God, that shows me this wouldn't be
in keeping?
This wouldn't be consistent with my testimony as
a Christian.
You know there are lots of personal habits
which are never mentioned in the Bible.
For example, I don't have any scripture which
says I ought to not smoke cigarettes, but
I don't smoke them.
Is there a text of scripture bearing on
this, or is there something about the will
of God, the way of God, that shows
me this wouldn't be in keeping?
This wouldn't be consistent with my testimony as
a Christian.
You know there are lots of personal habits
which are never mentioned in the Bible.
For example, I don't have any scripture which
says I ought to not smoke cigarettes, but
I don't smoke them.
I don't smoke them, and it isn't because
I'm afraid of lung cancer.
I really believe there is a connection between
the two, but that isn't my reason, dear
friends.
I have several reasons for not doing that.
In the first place, I'd have a guilty
conscience if I were using the Lord's money
to burn up his tobacco instead of putting
it into his works.
I'd have a guilty conscience about that.
But on the other hand, how could I
be free to go into some sick chamber,
perhaps, and talk to someone about his or
her soul if this was offensive to them?
Hmm?
Hey, I don't need any scripture there.
This thing just doesn't fit, does it?
It doesn't fit.
And so, friends, we have these ways, you
see, by which we can know the way
of the Lord.
And then you'll notice something else he says
here in this 13th verse, the middle of
the verse, and I think this is very
precious, that I may know thee.
This was a prayer of the Apostle Paul.
Do you remember the third chapter of Philippians?
That I may know him.
You say, didn't Moses know the Lord?
Yes, he knew him, but I think of
something like people getting married.
I've been married over 45 years, and I
believe that in those 45 years we've gotten
very well acquainted with each other, but you
know it's wonderful to get to know each
other more and more each day, getting to
know the Lord better every day.
But you say, brother, how do you get
to know the Lord?
You get to know the Lord by reading
his words, spending time with him.
That's how you get to know him.
How did I get to know my wife?
Why, we've been together these 45 years.
That's how we've got to know each other.
Why, she knows exactly what I like in
food stuff.
She knows exactly the amount of salt that
I'll take.
She knows.
She knows how I like my coffee.
I don't like to drink too much water
to get a little coffee.
She knows exactly how I like it, same
way with the tea.
And those are just little things, and sometimes
people come and say, oh I've got a
brand new recipe.
I'm sure your husband will like it.
What is it?
No, she says, he just won't take it,
because she knows I don't like any stuff
that you have to put a lot of
goo on to make it go down.
I just don't.
And she knows that.
You get acquainted, and I'm using this crude
illustration tonight, dear friends, to show that the
way to get acquainted with him is to
really live with him.
That's finding grace, that I may know thee,
as he says here.
And then notice at the end of the
13th verse, he's not content with simply something
that the Lord will bestow upon him personally,
but he says, and consider that this nation
is thy people.
Oh friends, I think this is wonderful on
the part of Moses.
He's not content with merely getting a blessing
for himself, but he wants the Lord to
look down with favor upon this people of
which he is one.
Consider that this nation is thy people.
And now notice the answer.
And this 14th verse is another answer to
the question, what does it mean to find
grace?
Let's look at this.
And he said, my presence shall go with
thee, and I will give thee rest.
That's finding grace.
My presence shall go with thee.
Let me ask you a very pointed question
tonight.
It was asked by, asked me some years
ago, and it was a real challenge to
me.
And in one way it changed my whole
way of living.
When a brother put the question to me
one day, very pointedly, he said, Carl, how
long is it since you consciously enjoyed the
presence of the Lord?
Oh, that was a searcher.
How long is it since you consciously enjoyed
the presence of the Lord?
Friends, this is a privilege we can have
every day.
My presence shall go with thee.
And don't think that this is limited to
the Old Testament, because the Lord Jesus in
the New Testament made the same promise.
He said, lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age.
My presence.
My beloved friend here tonight, my Christian friend,
I hope you'll never have to live another
day without enjoying this wonderful privilege of sensing,
consciously sensing the presence of the Lord in
your life.
I would suggest, if you've never had that
experience, to get along with God in your
room, if that's possible.
Get somewhere along with him where you can
shut out the world, and just wait in
his presence, till he makes his presence felt.
It may take a little while at the
beginning, because, well, it's so strange, isn't it?
But let me tell you something, and I
may be accused of being a mystic because
of this, and if I am, I plead
guilty to the charge.
I wouldn't miss a day.
I wouldn't miss a day without having that
wonderful experience of sensing his presence with me.
It's tremendous.
He doesn't reveal himself in any visible form,
but there's something so heartwarming, so glowing about
the presence of the Lord when you're bound
in his presence.
You forget all about the cares of the
world.
You lay them all at his feet, and
now he draws nearer.
He says in his words, draw nigh to
God, and he will draw nigh to you.
I challenge you to try it.
It's tremendous.
My presence shall go with thee, and then
notice the effect, and I will give thee
rest.
Friends, in this day of turmoil, in this
day of bewilderment, in this day when everything
is topsy-turvy, what a promise is this.
My presence shall go with thee, and I
will give thee rest.
And you won't find this in a tranquilizer
bottle.
You won't find this in worldly pleasure.
You won't find this in some diversion that
you find in the newspapers.
This is something that you'll get alone with
God when you sit with his precious words.
You won't even need a commentary, and just
have that heart-to-heart talk with him.
O beloved, as one moves around, I think
I'm aware of this fact that a great
deal of the unrest that we see today,
even amongst our own assembly folk, is due
to this thing.
They've never yet cultivated the presence of the
Lord.
As I say, it's simple.
It'll take time, but it'll be time well
spent.
You'll never regret it.
You'll be saying to yourself many times, as
I said to myself after the challenge came
to me, why did I waste so many
morning hours?
You never enjoy this.
I'd rather do without an hour's sleep than
to miss this.
I say again, friends, this is tremendous.
This is fine and great.
But now let's notice verse 15 of our
chapter.
He said unto him, If thy presence go
not with me, carry us not a pinch.
Moses immediately sees how indispensable this is, and
how futile it would be to attempt to
go on without it.
He says, For wherein shall it be known
that I and thy people have found grace
in thy sight?
Is it not in that thou goest with
us?
See?
Notice the argument he's using here.
How simple, isn't it?
When you put this chapter alongside of Hebrews
4.16, you say to yourself, what fullness
of meaning there is in that coming boldly
to the throne of grace that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in
time of need.
And then you'll notice in the middle of
that 16th verse, So shall we be separated.
I think it's Mr. Darby's translation.
I don't happen to have it with me
this evening.
I had it all day this evening.
I left it behind, so I can't refer
to it just now.
But I do think Mr. Darby uses the
word here, distinguished.
So shall we be distinguished, I and thy
people, from all the people that are from
the face of the earth.
And do you know what this distinction is,
dear friend?
Let me just give you a little hint
as to what it is.
You know that no Confucianist could say that
Confucius is with him.
Couldn't say it.
So when the Christian says that the Lord
is with him, he's distinguished from the Confucian.
The Buddhist who bows down before the image
of the Buddha, who I was told by
an ex-Buddhist last week at a conference
in Cedar Lake, Indiana.
She gave her testimony.
She's now a firm believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
I said to her, I said, I was
in the city of Colombo in Ceylon, and
I noticed people prostrating themselves before the image
of the Buddha, and putting flowers down, and
actually thumping their heads against the pavement.
Yes, she said, but they don't really worship
the Buddha.
Well, I couldn't distinguish between the two.
But having stood before the image of the
Buddha in the city of Colombo, Ceylon, I
wondered whether those sightless eyes could ever do
anything for anybody.
Whether those deaf ears could ever hear anything
from anybody.
Whether that mouth which was dumb could ever
speak a word to anybody.
And it came away with a negative answer
in my mind, you can't do anything for
me.
But herein we are distinguished.
Our Savior is a living Savior.
He talks with me, he walks with me.
This is law and religion, that's distinction.
The Muslim can't say this of Mohammed.
We're distinguished from the, from the, from the
Muslims.
Islam has nothing like this.
Friends, if you're not sold on Christianity tonight,
I hope that you'll take another look at
this and say to yourself, why I've ever
thought of Christianity just being another one of
the religions of the world.
It isn't.
It's in a class by itself.
It's unique, it's unique.
People tell us it's obsolete.
Remember this, nothing is obsolete that's doing a
job that nobody else can do.
And the gospel is doing a job tonight
that nothing else can do, and therefore it's
not obsolete.
I challenge them to bring anything that will
do what the gospel will do.
Not only in taking a person from the
very depths of the gutter and the brothel,
but taking any sinner and saving him, no
matter what his station in life may be.
The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only power that will do it, and
there's no other name unto heaven given among
them whereby we must be saved.
It's an imperative.
Friends, this is unique.
And then to think that the one who
saves us is going to walk with us.
Oh, this is wonderful.
And Moses says, so we shall be distinguished.
We shall be distinguished.
But I must flow.
Verse 17, and the Lord said unto Moses,
I'll do this thing also that thou hast
spoken, for thou hast found grace in my
sight, and I know thee by name.
He goes right back to where he started.
He says, Moses, I know thee by name,
and I'm going to do what you've asked
me to do.
This to me, dear friends, is not some
special privilege extended to some particular person who
may perhaps serve you.
You consider much more faithful than you are.
Here is something that's within the reach of
every one of us here tonight who claims
to be a Christian, and as we said
earlier in the evening, we trust that you'll
not let another day go by without enjoying
it.
Oh, friends, this is the secret of peace
and joy in these days, these days of
trimentals, these days when all the news you
read upsets you, bound to upset you.
But how wonderful to come back to this.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, and that's not the
last few hours of your life, that's your
whole life.
If you've been in the valley of the
shadow of death ever since you were born,
you'll never leave it till you get out
of this world.
And yet the psalmist could say, yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will feel no evil, for
thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Oh, may God grant that every one of
us here tonight who claims to be a
Christian will lay hold of this.
You'll mark something from this conference in Oakland,
California, in this month of September 1962.
That may be a turning point in your
life, that from this day forward you consciously
enjoy the presence of the Lord and find
grace in his sight.
Let us pray.
Our gracious God and our Father, we thank
and praise thee again tonight, not only because
thou hast saved us, undeserving as we were,
and brought us into thy wonderful family, and
brought us into this wonderful fellowship that we
have with one another, but oh, to think
that thou, the infinite, wonderful, majestic God of
the universe, should condescend to walk with one
who is contrite of heart.
Blessed God, we pray that everyone here tonight
who claims to be thy child may from
this day forward really know each day, if
only for a few moments, but to know
at any rate each day what it means
to consciously enjoy thy presence.
To this end, bless thy word, we pray,
in the name of him who loved us
and gave himself for us, our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Amen.