I don't have the advantage that you do,
hearing the voices blending, going that way, but
I certainly enjoyed that and I thank you
very much for your ministry and music.
This has been a refreshing week for myself.
For some reason or other, the believers in
Houston are not very melodious and it's just
pleasant to hear.
I almost hate to say this, but I
attribute it really to all the Scotties that
are out there.
There must be a good number of us.
And I thoroughly appreciate that nice singing.
Why don't you turn in your Bible to
the book of Ephesians.
The book of Ephesians and chapter 3.
We've been thinking about the place of prayer
in the Word of God and the importance
of prayer and the treasured privileges that it
is for us to be able to come
into the presence of our gracious God and
Father, unburdening our hearts and being so mindful
of the exhortations, the opportunities, the vast spectrum
that there is provided for us for fellowship
with God.
And one of the very treasured portions of
Scripture is the prayer that the Apostle utters
on the behalf of his believers that he
has come to love and enjoy and from
whom he has been separated for four years.
He is now in prison and he has
written a prayer in this letter in chapter
1 and you might remember that in chapter
1 his prayer was for enlightenment doctrinally and
his heart soared and lifted us along with
him into the heavenly places for the rich
blessings that are available to us.
At the end of the book, in chapter
6, his prayer is for encouragement and there
the encouragement is at a very personal level.
But here in chapter 3 his prayer is
for enrichment spiritually and one very specific avenue
of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to
create the mind, the life, the attitude of
Christ in the hearts of his believing children.
A lovely goal for us to have as
well.
You might remember in chapter 1 the prayer
that was designed for enlightenment doctrinally, it had
a climax in it, the grand conclusion of
the prayer and one of the last objectives
was that we would be able to comprehend
the tremendous power of God that is operating
to effect the purposes of God on our
behalf.
Back in the book of Joshua, chapter 4,
the nation of Israel were told to pile
some stones in the river bed and then
up on the far side of the river
Jordan and whenever the children would come by
and say, what are these stones for?
The parent would be able to say to
their child, it's a demonstration and a reminder
of the power of God who brought us
through the Red Sea and also brought us
into this land.
In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 23, the
prophet says that there is a new day
coming and when that day is operative in
the future, the nation of Israel will be
told that God would no longer be the
God who delivered them through the Red Sea
and through the river into the promised land
but he would be the God that would
be known as the God that drew them
from all over the world and brought them
into their promised land.
Well, in Ephesians, chapter 1, the demonstration of
the power of God today, for the Jew
it was passed through the Red Sea, in
the future it will be for his time
when the people, the earthly people of God
are drawn from every nation, tribe and tongue
and reassembled.
That will be the demonstration of his power
and that will be the testimony and for
us, the exceeding greatness of his power to
us who believe was wrought when he raised
our blessed Lord Jesus out from among the
dead and seated him far above principalities and
powers and all forms of dominion and names
and titles in this age and in every
age and every name that ever will be
named.
He will be supremely the titular head over
all things and somehow, by the grace of
God, you and I are drawn into that
august company and welded to be the filling
out of him that fills all things.
With those kind of goals in mind and
that kind of blended declaration of the power
of God strong on our behalf, the Spirit
of God moves the Apostle to plunge into
some beautiful statements all the way through chapter
2.
New positions, new truths, affirmations of closeness and
unity.
Into chapter 3 he begins to be moved
by the Spirit of God to declare his
great apostolic appointment and this unusual, unique message
that is his.
That the Jew and the Gentile, all those
barriers have been dissolved in the body of
Christ and now there's a third society, a
spiritual company of people drawn from every walk
and climb and tongue and welded together by
an indwelling Holy Spirit sharing the very life
of Christ.
That head of that spiritual organism is in
the glory.
But you and I have this special privilege
of being drawn together if indeed you have
been quickened by God.
And you will know if you have been
quickened by God and you will know if
you have been given spiritual birth and life
because you will have believed that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God and that at
Calvary's cross he died bearing the guilt of
the sin of the world and your personal
individual sin.
You will gladly acknowledge him as your personal
Savior, taking that open step by an open
confession and baptism you will announce to the
world you're part of his great kingdom.
And you will then have a confident assurance
of your sins forgiven and upon your confession
of Christ and having believed in him, we
are taught earlier in this very book, that
after you believe that gospel message the Spirit
of God sealed you.
He came within you and sealed you, making
you permanently his own.
Anything less than that needs to be questioned
whether you're really a part of the body
of Christ or not.
And if you're not really sure that you
have those blessings, and if you're not confident
about that this evening, I urge you don't
leave the auditorium.
When others are leaving, give me the privilege
and the pleasure of showing you from the
word of God how you can be sure
that you are a child of God and
have been quickened and born of him.
Look at the apostle, his heart is so
filled with this remarkable message, a divine revelation,
and he announces that he was made a
minister of this in verse 7, a servant
according to the gifts of the grace of
God given unto me by the effectual working
of his power.
Unto me who am less than the least
of all saints is this grace given, that
I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ, and to make all men
see what is the fellowship, the stewardship, the
new economy of the mystery, which from the
beginning of the world hath been hid in
God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.
To the intent that now, unto the principalities
and powers in heavenly places, might be known
by the ecclesia, this called out company of
believers who have been quickened by God, indwelt
by the Spirit, and live a spiritually attuned
life with him.
By that company of people might be made
known the manifold wisdom of God, according to
the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ
Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness
and access with confidence by the faith of
him.
Wherefore, in view of these things, wherefore, I
desire that you faint not at my tribulations
for you, which is your glory, and for
this cause, for this cause, this truth that's
been given to me, this ministry, for which
I am gladly suffering, that you do not
think that your faith has been placed in
the wrong thing just because I am in
a Roman prison.
That you will not be disheartened or discouraged
or disappointed that this is not an ongoing
thriving thing the way you might have anticipated.
For this cause I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth
is named, that he would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory, to be
strengthened with might by his Spirit in the
inner man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith.
That ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth and length and depth
and height, and to know the love of
Christ which passeth knowledge, that you might be
filled with all the fullness of God.
Now unto him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that worketh in
us, unto him be glory in the church
by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without
end.
Amen.
This is a prayer for the realization of
the things that he has been speaking of
and has taught the believers.
In chapter 1 there is a great work
of grace to the glory of God.
God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Spirit operating concurrently, each with a threefold
work, and each effecting this grand purpose of
God.
Then he prayed that they come to the
enlightenment of this great doctrine.
Now he pours out his heart to these
beloved spiritual children, and he comes to the
spot where he realizes there is a tremendous
need that all of this becomes real.
Not just theory, but personal enrichment at a
deep spiritual level.
And the only way that can be effectively
operated within us is through prayer.
At the very outset then, I am reminded
that if my physical children, or my spouse,
or those for whom I have affection, or
any for whom I seek to serve in
the body of Christ, if they have spiritual
needs and seem to be in any way
deficient from the beautiful program that is laid
out in this epistle, then it is important
that I pray that something dramatic be realized
in their lives.
And that dramatic activity is a unique empowering
and effective enabling by the Spirit of God.
We're going to observe in these words, when
we look at them in a little detail,
that there is a provision for this realization
made.
The provision is the Father of every family
in the earth, the ministry of the Holy
Spirit, and a sense and a presence of
the indwelling Christ.
That's the provision that's made.
Hopefully, the purpose of this realization for which
he is praying now, the prayer, is to
realize in a practical experience these things that
have been stated.
The provision is the deity, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit operating together to
effect this.
Now, the purpose is to establish Christ's presence
in the life of the believers of Ephesus.
And not only that, to enhance his personal
preciousness to us.
And then thirdly, to ensure the plentitude of
God in us.
Now, this seems beyond our human comprehension.
And indeed it is.
Just as Paul wrote to the saints at
Corinth, to the things of God are not
perceived by the natural man, and certainly not
the carnal man who is walking just as
the men of the world.
But if we're going to be spiritual men
and women, and we're going to soak our
souls in the word of God, there is
something that becomes yours by the activity of
faith.
Our Lord Jesus urged those that were thirsty
to come and drink of him.
And he said, Be coming to me, and
be drinking of me.
And if you do this, you will be
believing in me, and out of your being
shall flow rivers of living water.
This, he said of the Spirit.
A unique ministration of the Spirit of God.
That when I begin to make real my
personal appropriation of the Lord Jesus, mentally, spiritually,
with the activity of my will, when I
embrace spiritual things, there is that which is
potentially supernatural about our Christian faith.
And there can flow from us rivers of
living water, that we can be a source
of blessing to others.
Well, that goes beyond our comprehension, but we
understand that if I believe it, it will
be effected.
If I accept these things, we were told,
the exceeding greatness of his power to those
of us who are believing ones, in a
nominative case.
If we are those who are the believing
ones, if we practice reading and accepting the
truth, and allowing it to have its effect
upon us toward the ultimate effect of God's
end, there shall be, really, a dramatic work
wrought in us that goes beyond our human
faculties.
Now, this is exactly what he is praying
for here.
A most remarkable enabling.
And he knows that God is able to
do it.
And he uses some superlative statements at the
very end, in verses 20 and 21, and
they are designed, in effect, to say, and
blessed God, you are able to do it,
if we will allow him.
That's what's implied in the statement at the
end of verse 20, according to the power
that worketh in us.
We shall be as Christlike, and entering into
the spiritual blessings, proportionate to the degree to
which I allow the power of God to
operate within me, by my own human acquiescence
to truth.
My own acceptance of facts.
My own willingness to yield to the things
that are said in the word of God.
It's a remarkable secret, and yet such a
simple, blessed joy for any who can embrace
and accept it.
First, he says, I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is in verse 14.
Remember, in chapter 1, he was called to
pray to the God of our Lord Jesus,
because he was seeing the Son as a
man, as a representative man, who had experienced
certain things on our behalf, as the titular
head of a new race of people, and
because God was able to do that in
him, he shall effectively operate in us, who
are part of his spiritual children, his new
race, the people that are found in Christ,
in spirit, in this new condition, as a
result of God's quickening power.
Now he turns to the Father, and he
says, for this reason, or for this cause,
these things that we have mentioned earlier, we
see, firstly, the posture of prayer.
I bow my knees unto the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom, and I
think if you have a revised Bible, or
your margin would say something that's an improvement
on the authorized version, every family in heaven
and earth is named.
He is not speaking embracively and in generalities,
like he is the general Father of all
families, but it is every family, every individual,
it's a genus, it's a generic term.
He is the Father of every family named,
every existing kind, not Mr. Jones and Mr.
Smith, but man, angels, demons, animal life, every
family.
He is the Father of every family, and
every family that is in existence, that has
ever been named, he is the Father, the
paternal leader, or creator of this.
And actually, in the Greek language, there's a
little play on words, because he's making a
statement using the term patria and pater, and
he is saying, you are the Father, and
this is the family, every family.
Now, why such a broad statement?
Because the things that are being dealt with
in this prayer, he recognizes, or I assume
that he is directing his prayer to the
Father of the Lord Jesus, who is our
forebear, our spiritual life communicator, the Lord from
heaven, the last Adam, the second man that
has created spiritual life and quickened our souls,
and we have become part of a family
as believers.
But this one, who is the Father of
every family, has certain potential powers latent to
himself that he can convey to us, and
he bows his knee to him.
King Solomon bowed publicly upon a scaffolding so
all of Israel could see him, and he
knelt down and raised up his hands.
We cannot legislate that we can only pray
on our knees, but it's suggested throughout the
word of God, Daniel, three times a day,
even though it imperiled his life.
Peter chose to move over into the quietness
and put everyone else out of the room
and kneel by the side of Tabitha to
raise her from the dead.
Our Lord Jesus Christ took a stone throw
in the dignity of his unique person into
the garden, just a stone throw away, and
knelt down to talk to his Father.
It's a position of humility, of dependence, of
a sense of weakness, and yet of reverent
communication.
Do you remember the apostle when he met
with the saints at Ephesus, and there they
knelt to pray together.
In the very next chapter, with the believers
and the disciples at Tyre, there in the
sand on that beach, they knelt down in
the sand and prayed together.
A picture of man humbling himself before God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that you can
measure a man by fabric, the fabric in
front of his mirror and the fabric in
the knees of his pants, which is worn
the most.
Jonathan Edwards, in his little pastoral room where
he spent much time in prayer, it is
frequent for all who go there to come
to that little pastoral study and have drawn
to their attention by the side of a
hard wood-framed bench, right into the oaken
floor, two spots, grooved out, where the man
spent time on his knees in prayer.
Certainly not to impress anyone, but for the
thought of meekness and humility before a great
God, I bow my knees unto the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of every
family of the earth.
What a great source of life and power!
To him I bow, and he has a
purpose, that he would grant you, the believers
at Ephesus, with all of their weaknesses and
frailties, according to the riches of the glory,
or the riches of his glory.
How do we understand, according to the riches
of his glory?
If Mr. Rockefeller, with his wealth and reservoir,
had been given some kind of service, and
he reached into his pocket and took out
a one-dollar bill, and gave it to
the man who rendered him service as a
tip, he gave out of his riches.
But, if he reached into his pocket and
took out a hundred-dollar bill, he was
giving according to his riches, proportionate with, consistent
with, in harmony with, and this is what
the prayer is, that God would grant us
according to the riches of his glory.
In harmony and consistent with this great wealth
that is his, he is petitioning that his
children over there at Ephesus would be given
something, that God, our Father, would grant you,
according to the riches of his glory, to
be strengthened with might by his Spirit in
the inner man.
Actually, literally, you cannot take the language out
of the Greek language and say, to be
strengthened with might.
It doesn't make grammatical sense to be empowered
with empowering, and that's what it is.
It's a superlative statement, and it has to
be changed in some way to make grammatical
sense in our English language.
And I think it's Bishop Moule that delights
to develop in his exposition on this portion,
and he has some delightful meditative things to
say about the power of God's latent spiritual
worth, the riches of his glory, to be
strengthened with might, how?
By his Spirit in the inner man.
Down into the inner person.
The essential you.
What you really are as a person.
Down deep in there.
Not just in our mind.
That wouldn't be adequate to translate the expression.
It's locative within our person.
Now, there's many things that I have in
my head that do not affect my person.
There's many things that I have learned and
have retained ever since I was a child
that do not really influence and control me.
But this is the concept.
Though my outward man perishes, for all reasons,
the inner man, that real essential you that
God is working with, down deep inside, what
you really are, is the arena in which
the Holy Spirit operates.
And Paul is saying, according to the riches,
inconsistent and in harmony with the riches that
are yours, by your eternal Spirit, do a
work deep in the heart of the people
of Ephesus.
And, of course, for you and me.
Now, what is the work?
To be great preachers?
To be dynamic missionaries?
To be faithful servants?
To be effective in the gifts that God
has given?
No, far greater than any of those.
To be strengthened with supernatural power by the
Holy Spirit in the inner man that Christ
may dwell in your heart by faith.
Now, in the text, and being very careful
or selective, it is perfectly possible for you,
as a child of God, to be indwelt
by the Spirit and not have Christ in
your heart.
The evidence of it is our impatience, our
selfishness, our self-assertion.
He was meek and lowly of heart, and
he urges us to take this yoke and
learn of him.
Our blessed Lord Jesus wants our inner person
to be more and more accommodated to project
him, and that requires a divine supernatural intervention.
The old flesh in myself, that old nature,
those sinful propensities, the principle of sin, although
having been judicially dealt with and assessed to
be crucified by our God, who says, I
have been crucified with Christ, but nonetheless there
is that principle that is operative within me,
and all too often it asserts itself in
my life.
I become impatient, traces of willfulness, indifference to
God's directive, willfulness in disobeying the Lord, which
I have to constantly come back and confess
to.
And Paul is praying for a deep inner
enrichment in the light of everything that God
has done for us, that we might be
empowered with empowering by the Holy Spirit, that
Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith.
Now, there's no doubt that the Holy Spirit
is in every one of these persons, and
to affirm that we see in chapter 1
verse 13, Jesus Christ, in whom you also
trusted after you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, in whom also,
after you believed, you were sealed with that
Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance of the redemption of the
purchased possession.
They were sealed.
In chapter 2 and verse 18, through him
we both have access by one spirit unto
the Father.
All of those believers.
In chapter 4 and verse 30, whereby you
are sealed unto the day of redemption.
There's no doubt that they have the Holy
Spirit of God.
That's not the question.
The fact that they do have the Holy
Spirit of God is the opportunity that we
may have Christ in our hearts.
The character, the life, the person, the gentleness,
the obedience, the graciousness, all of those blessed,
gracious characteristics of our loving Savior, whom having
not seen individually each of us in some
degree, we love him.
And now Paul says all to the Father
of our Lord Jesus, and the Father of
every family named in the earth, if you
would graciously, kindly, according to the riches of
your grace, empowered by the Holy Spirit that
deep in the inner man, Christ might be
formed.
How is it possible?
By faith.
We believe that the Spirit is there.
You're not looking for him.
You're not looking for something extra.
You're not looking for some phenomenon.
You believe the truth that he is there.
He must need the only freed and enabled.
And so we feed upon the word of
God, and we practice believing the things that
were taught from out of Holy Scripture, and
yield to the impulses, and more and more
we are offending him less, grieving him less,
and giving grace to him less.
We give greater freedom to him.
The Apostle Paul says, you are in Christ.
You are no longer in Adam, but you
are in Christ.
We are no longer natural men, we are
spiritual.
We are no longer in flesh, located in
the realm and the sphere of flesh.
You have been moved out of that.
You and I are now in Spirit, inasmuch
as the Spirit of God dwells within us.
And because he dwells within us, there is
the potential to yield to his impulses, and
he can create a Christ-likeness in us.
Firstly, that Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith.
That, you think, well that's supremely.
Oh no, it goes further than that.
There's another objective now for which he is
praying.
Notice in verse 17, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith, that you, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able
to comprehend with all things what is the
breadth, and length, and depth, and height.
That's impossible.
That's four dimensions.
So we can see we're not talking about
physical, temporal, external things.
But once Christ-like character is being created
within us, there is made available for us
who are simply believers, people who hear and
accept the truth of Scripture.
And there's potential for us, for the Spirit
to be freed.
And when he is freed, to begin to
create a Christ-likeness within us, then the
next step becomes a potential possibility, being rooted
and grounded in love.
And the metaphor here is a tree in
a building, something that has life and something
that's been constructed.
And we have this blending of sorts.
We have been rooted and grounded in love.
We will be able to comprehend.
Cata lumbanio, to lay hold, to seize upon,
to take possession of.
At Christmas time, the little children run down
and they see that which has their name
on it, and what do they do?
That's right, they lay hold of it, seize
upon it.
That's the word.
That we may be able to comprehend with
our intelligent person.
Remarkable statement here, with all saints.
That doesn't exclude any one of us, because
it's still the operation of faith.
And I may be able to say, well,
I've never had an education, and I'm not
a very good student, and I'm not an
omniscient, and that's just playing.
And that's pretending.
Because every one of us are believers, and
the power of God is operative for the
believing ones.
And by faith, spiritual things are made real
and relevant to my life.
And I am given the capacity to lay
hold of and seize for myself height, depth,
length, breadth, the fourth dimension, infinity, understanding the
infinite and the immeasurable, the plans and the
purposes of a holy, eternal God.
And they become mine.
Not in my intellect only, but for me
as a person.
I embrace these things.
And you know to some degree that's been
yours.
You believe in the coming of the Lord.
You believe that he's going to raise you
up from among the dead.
You know you're going to see your loved
ones.
You have a clear conscience before God because
your sin has been dealt with.
Some people in this room cannot say that,
but those of you who are believers know
it to be true.
You've embraced it, and you've made the invisible,
the infinite, the eternal your very own.
And you're living in the light of it.
Now he says, go further and allow Christ
to be created in your heart, and these
things will become yours that we will be
able to know, gnosis, acquired, learned, understanding.
We will be able to know the love
of Christ which passes comprehension.
He seems to contradict himself, but there's something
deep in the heart of the child of
God who understands because of his great, eternal,
deity character, he loves us.
We are his, and we love because he
first loved us.
And we bask in the sunlight of that
love, and it's such a deep assurance that
even through the father-disciplined, child-training experiences,
where there's weakness of body and financial pressures,
we look beyond it and we believe that
it's still just child training that hasn't affected
our relationship with him.
We know that eternal things are real.
We've made them.
We have laid hold of the knowledge of
the love of Christ.
And we begin to bear those peaceable fruits
of righteousness, the details of which are in
Hebrews 12, 5-18.
Why isn't it a delightful thing to be
a child of God?
To have these exercises, to step out and
be in contact with the infinite, the immeasurable.
You can remember Mr. Gibbs telling me one
time, taking a walk with him, and he
said, laddie, and he pounded me upon the
back.
If you know him, he's a very burly,
strong man, or was.
And he said, lad, get into the depths
and swim.
You can't swim in the shallows.
And his thought was, we must abandon ourselves
spiritually to the grandest concepts we could possibly
imagine of God, and enjoy them, and appropriate
them, and give elasticity to our spirit and
soul, to make things that are eternal real
in our lives.
And that's exactly what Paul is praying for.
Enrichment, spiritually.
Enjoy eternal spiritual things.
First, that Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith, and, being rooted and grounded in
love, be able to lay hold of and
make yourself your own, length, breadth, depth, and
height, and to know the love of Christ
that passeth knowledge, that, you mean there's more?
Yes, indeed.
That you may be filled with all the
fullness of God.
We must never think of filling and fullness
in the term of a vessel, a glass
with water.
That sometimes is given to us, but that's
not the concept of the word.
It's not a commodity that brings us to
maximum.
But it's rather what the Lord said in
John chapter 16.
He said, because I have told you I
am going to way, your hearts are filled
with sorrow.
What did he mean?
Overtaken.
Mastered.
Completely overwhelmed with the thought that he was
going to leave.
There wasn't any degree of filling, but it
was just that the thought just, they were
filled with sorrow that he was going to
leave.
Now, he says, in the same way, the
thoughts of God can fill.
The comprehension of God by the Spirit of
God can fill us with all the fullness
of God, the pleroma, the supreme adequacy, all
sufficiency, and that can become very part and
parcel of our persons.
And if you're anything like myself, I sit
and think, well those are words, but is
it possible?
And the apostle knows that that's how we're
going to respond.
And he says, now unto him that is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that
we ask or think, according to the power
that worketh in us.
That power is the indwelling Spirit.
That power is our faith, giving way to
his instruction, his impulses, his joys, his feelings,
and there is little or nothing for us,
in a certain sense.
There's nothing for us to do and there's
no way for me to back away and
say I'm unable.
So, the thought is, if I can believe
the truth, there is an opening for the
Spirit of God to come in and to
enlarge my soul.
Now remember, this is a prayer.
This is a prayer for spiritual children.
How do we pray?
During the week we've been thinking about the
beautiful opportunities to intercede for others, and how
very Christ-like it is to address our
Father on the behalf of others.
How do we pray?
Here is a valuable little lesson, that Christ
might be in the hearts of the believers,
that they might comprehend eternal things, that spiritual
things would be so real and vital that
we would be filled up, proportionate to the
degree to which we are able to allow
him to work in us.
My, it's a wonderful thing to be in
the body of Christ.
And as a result, Paul says back there
in verse 10, that the whole purpose of
this truth, this concept of the mystery, was
that unto principalities and powers in heavenly places
might be known by the church the manifold
wisdom of God.
And so in verse 21, unto him be
glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout
ages, world without end, or unto the generations
of the ages of ages.
Great praise will come to God, and the
wisdom of God, if I will but yield
to spiritual things, making them free and real
and genuine in my heart.
How is that going to be when you
start praying for me, and when I start
praying for you, and when we together begin
to intercede in such a manner that these
are the kind of things that will be
wrought in our lives.
God will get the glory, we shall be
enriched, and there will be some kind of
reward for those of us who have learned
to pray.
Our gracious God and Father, we are truly
very thankful for thy word.
And there are portions of truth that just
stagger our comprehension, and yet we realize a
portion like this has been carefully preserved and
accurately and detailedly brought over into our language
that we might be able to read and
believe.