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Ecclesiastes. Fun, fun, fun. That's not what people usually say about it. I did read a commentary this week though, that was I the the title intrigued me, and the title was what's on the bulletin. Ecclesiastes, the Philippians of the Old Testament.
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Does that strike anybody as odd? Because we know Philippians is all rejoice, rejoice, and again I say rejoice, but this he called it the Philippians of the Old Testament. So I started when I was telling you about nuggets a few weeks ago looking for those golden nuggets in Ecclesiastes, that's what we're gonna be doing. I thought this guy seems to have found them, so I read that and it it really did help shed some light on it. And hopefully after three different sermons on it where we covered basically the whole book of Ecclesiastes and each sermon we looked at it different ways though.
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The first week was the state of this church in light of Ecclesiastes and I asked particularly that morning like Mike mentioned for prayer for the youth and for this church as it serves the youth of this community. Because there's so much in there from Solomon about remember your creator in the days of your youth and the the things that you learn when you're small make a big difference later. So the state of this church and particularly how it relates to the youth and how we minister to the youth here. The next Sunday, last Sunday was no slides, it was more a conversation than anything else about the state of this society, not just Jackson but where we live and that existentialism is the predominant philosophical force that most people adhere to that you cannot know the difference in good and bad, you cannot know the difference in right and wrong and that there is no God. That's the way most people in The US live their lives today.
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And so we talked about that, so state of the church, state of society. Today I'm gonna try to explain Ecclesiastes a bit from a different, completely different line of things. I want to talk about the arc of a life, the arc of Solomon's life in particular. Every life has an arc and some of them build and you've seen the Hollywood movies where they kind of build build build then there's adversity and then they build build build and you hope for a happy end. But it's not always the case.
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We're gonna look at the arc of Solomon's life. I also want to mention that that movie is kind of about the arc of that guy's story, that home run. And we have here in Jackson Celebrate Recovery as a Christian 12 step program and it meets at Rearcrossing at 06:15 to like nine on Friday evenings and they asked me if I play that because it's featured in that film. Says not based on a true story, it's based on millions of true stories because Jesus is the answer for that particular problem. Most all problems.
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I'll start off with this. My first day of seminary, very first day of seminary, I got there early. Class started at eight. I got there well before seven, I waited for the cafeteria to open up. I was excited and anticipating what was gonna go on and I was prayerful and I ate my grits and I ate my eggs and I ate the associated pork products that they had to offer at my seminary in South Carolina And then I prayed, Lord help me to know what it is that you want me to know, to understand what you want me to understand so that I may do what it is you want me to do.
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And I opened up the Bible, and I took this Bible actually. Take it with me, and I opened up and this is the page that it fell on. You see the date, 08/21/2007, answer to my morning prayer. Right there, that's where my eyes fell. The words of the wise are like goats, and the words of scholars are like well driven nails given by one shepherd.
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And I thought this is appropriate for seminary. Then the next verse, I've heard of my son be admonished by these of making many books there is no end and much study is worrisome to the flesh. On the first day of seminary. That's fantastic. It's gonna be hard and it was.
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It was a pretty good pretty good ride there. That is the beginning of my story in seminary, but I started thinking about that's the end of the book. It's the very last page. If I had prayed and flipped one more page over, I'd have been in the Song of Solomon. So I was glad I landed right there.
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The what is Solomon's story? We hear about him in several places in scripture. Probably, I started looking and I just determined this week, you know, last week I said I determined like Solomon, I was gonna seek out all of the world's philosophies and kind of store them out. Well, this week I was gonna read everything that the Bible had to say about Solomon. So I looked it up and these are the places that it talks about him.
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Second Samuel twelve twenty four mentions him, that's his birth. First Kings 11 and there are some long quotes in there so we just hear about it. Don't just hear about it. We hear it from him in first Kings one through 11. First Chronicles 28 to 29 mentions and briefly say Chronicles goes into some detail.
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Nehemiah mentions them and Jesus refers to him and refers to his splendor and it refers to his wisdom when he says, Solomon and all of his splendor consider the littles of the field. Know Solomon was never arrayed as one of these. But Solomon's story is also told through what he wrote too. And so he penned under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it's holy scripture. He penned the song of Solomon in his youth probably.
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He penned Proverbs, most of Proverbs. There were a few others that were sayings of someone else but he admittedly in first Kings and the Chronicles that I think it both places mentioned that he collected Proverbs. He had over 3,000 of them that he used regularly. Can you imagine him while Solomon people are coming to ask him for advice and he's just throwing out little aphorisms and quotes? Proverbs to help drive the point home.
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So most of Proverbs in the Bible is written by Solomon and Ecclesiastes is written by him. So Song of Solomon, like I said, probably during his youth, most of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes was written near the end of his life. And and a lot of people you could read right through Psalms and not notice but Psalms 72 and Psalms 127 were both penned by Solomon. Psalms 72 is the last and there are technically three books in Psalms and the last one in the first book is written by Psalm seventy two and one twenty seven. I'll come back to those for then.
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So Solomon's reign, we're gonna watch and look over the ark of a life. This is what we're thinking about Ecclesiastes but more, I would love for you to read the content of it knowing that there are nuggets in there, not getting depressed or discouraged. The first week I mentioned that as compared to other biblical books especially like Ephesians or Philippians that Ecclesiastes may seem long and confusing and discouraging. Don't let that be the case. Get past the ore.
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Get past the rock and get to the gold. So we're gonna work on that today. Solomon's reign from second Samuel and first king, Bathsheba gives birth to Solomon. That's Bathsheba that gives birth to Solomon. Now that is the lady that David committed adultery with.
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Now he is Bathsheba's second son, David's second son by by Bathsheba because the first son, part of the consequence for his sin was losing that first son. As difficult as that was, there's a lot of family dysfunction going on there. And Solomon becomes king. I won't go into the stories, but he becomes king with a lot of family dysfunction that's worthy of any modern day reality show or soap opera or anything else. It's pretty crazy stuff.
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And that is in the first part of first Kings. David gives Solomon a solemn warning in chapter two. I think I'll go there. So we're gonna go to first Kings two one through five. I just want you to hear this because this is gonna come up again.
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Now the days of David drew near that he should die and he charged Solomon. He warned Solomon, his son saying, I go the way of all the earth, be strong therefore and prove yourself a man. And keep the charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways, to keep his statues, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies. This is first Kings two. Do you have a Bible like mine?
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It's on page 388. And keep the charge of your Lord your God to walk in his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies as it is written in the law of Moses that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. That the Lord may fulfill his word which he spoke concerning me saying, if your sons take heed to their way and to walk before me in the truth with all their heart and all their soul, he said, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. Moreover, you know, also, well, I'll I'll stop right there. One through four.
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We'll do it. Five kind of get off. So so David gives him a solemn warning to pay attention to God. Pay attention to his statue. Keep your heart on him.
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So Solomon, after that, prays for wisdom. I mentioned this the first week. He prays for wisdom, and God had told him that pray for what you would, and I will get it to And instead of asking for power over his enemies or instead of asking for great wealth, he asked for wisdom that he would rule the people well, that he would have great discernment and wisdom. And God gave that to him. And he gave it to him immediately.
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But it didn't stop there. He kept getting wiser. Solomon asked for wisdom and receives it. So wisdom, much of his wisdom, like I said, is recorded in Proverb. It's great.
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I know a lot of people in this church that read one proverb a day because there are 31 of them. You can read one each calendar day of the month and be filled up with wisdom from God through Saul. So, had wisdom. He was a wise ruler, an economic genius, absolutely an economic genius. He used his wisdom to political ends and he used it financially too and he understood how things work under the sun in this world and he made political allies and he filled up the coffers of Israel and his own personal.
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So, he built God's temple. You know, David had asked to build God a place, a set place, not just a tabernacle, a tent, but a set place for God to dwell, holy holy is the whole deal and God told David that he was a man with blood on his hands and that it would be his son that would get to build it. So Solomon actually built God's temple, and it was full of splendor, gold, and everything else. Then he built the royal palace. It's interesting to see if you read that study in first Kings that it took him twice as long to build the royal palace as it did to build the temple.
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Well, he had it says he had 666 tons of gold. 666 tons of gold. That's a lot of gold. And when people would come and ask his advice, they would bring gifts on top of all that. And he's just like, stack it over there with the rest of the stuff.
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He had so much. Well, Solomon's praying from second Samuel and first Kings. Still going on. Pretty detailed description of all this. He prays an absolutely beautiful, sincere prayer at the temple dedication.
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This is stated again in second Chronicles. We'll get to that in a few minutes, but he prays this prayer of dedication which is fantastic. He understood God's goodness. He understood man's sinfulness. In fact, I wanna read just one verse from that prayer.
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It gets rather lengthy, but I I read it a few weeks ago when I was talking about the to the stranger in the foreigner. Israel was to be a light to the nations. It's it's basically the great commission is in that prayer. He knew what it was he knew what God was all about. He knew God's goodness.
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He knew man's sinfulness. He said, then here in heaven, this is 45, then here in heaven, their prayer, their supplication, and maintain their case. He's talking about all your people, all of your people, Lord, here in heaven, their prayer, and their supplication, maintain their case. And when they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin. He knew.
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God is good and man is simple. That's just the way they are. He knew it. You get what I'm saying? He knew it.
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Over and over, it says that he was wise and he knew all about that. But what that says is that he knew about worship too. He understood God's goodness and he was in that prayer dedication. It says that he prayed, worshiped God, and asked for his glory to fill the presence, and the next chapter is about God's Shekinah glory coming down, burning up all of the offerings on the altar, and filling the place with the actual glory of God. Solomon knew what worship was about.
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He saw firsthand God's glory in the tomb. And in his life, he he appeared to him to give him that gift of wisdom early on. And then the next thing that we see is God appearing him after his glory has filled the temple. He has it in the same way. In fact, let me read that.
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Chapter nine. Chapter nine says, and it came to pass when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house. So he finished building the temple and he finished building the royal palace. And all Solomon's desire which he wanted to do. He had finished all his desire which he wanted to do.
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That's important too. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon when he asked him what he wanted and gave it to him. And the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication. This is the temple dedication prayer that he's talking about. I have heard it.
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I've heard your supplication that you prayed before me and consecrated this house which you built to put my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. Now, if you walk before me as your father David walked, an integrity of heart. He didn't say it was without sin, but he would've had a heart after God. He did admit it.
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To all that I commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever as I promised to you to your father saying, you shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel. But if you or your sons at all turn from following me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I've set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them. Then I will cut off Israel from the land which I've given them. In this house which I've consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight. Israel will be a proverb and a thy word among all peoples.
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And as for this house which is exalted right now, everyone who passes by will be astonished and will hiss and say, why has the Lord done this? Why has the Lord thus to this land and this house? Then they will answer because they forsook the Lord, their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and have embraced other gods. Did the thing just go bye bye? Yeah.
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I'll speak up. So they embraced other gods and probably just two AA batteries would fix this. So they turned away. Thank you very much. You're welcome.
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Oh, you're take it with you? Thank you. So he had echoed that. Did you notice that it was exactly the same as David's warning basically? He tells him to pay attention to that which he knows.
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He's been taught what's right. Yeah. That work. He's been taught what is right and he's just saying pay attention to it. So he got warnings.
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So far we have wisdom, wealth, warnings. Something about being a Baptist that you just have to put the alliteration in there. Solomon's reign continued. He ignores the warnings totally. Absolutely, totally.
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Not absolutely totally. He still worshiped God but he also worshiped idols. His sin has fled the kingdom. So, the story of him turning from God is in chapter 11. It says, now king Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Sidonia, Hittite women from the nations concerning, which the Lord has said to the sons of Israel, you shall not associate with them nor shall they associate with you for they will surely do what?
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Turn your heart away after their small g gods. Solomon held fast to these in love. He had 700 lives, for instance, 300 concubines and his wives turned his heart away. So if we have any doubt about what turned his heart away, Nehemiah tells us again. Was it not because of the marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned among the many nations there was no king like him?
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That is not the women's fault, It was Solomon going after the women's fault. He was loved by his God and God made king over all Israel but even he was led thanks very much to you. Even he was led into sin by foreign lavs. So what else did he have? Lavs.
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With an s. Multiple. 700 wives and 300 concubines. That's 999 too many. Lots with an s and a v.
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So since not all of them are wives, we'll say women with an e, not woman. There's so much in pro in Proverbs and there's so much in Ecclesiastes about the wife of your youth and enjoy the wife the your life with the wife of you. So what did he get from the warnings that he ignored about the wives and the women, he got woah. Woah. That's bad.
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So second Chronicles is kind of like the Reader's Digest version of first and second Kings. Second Chronicles lays out Solomon's reign this way. Prayer for wisdom, building the temple in his palace, great wealth, great wisdom, God's warning is mentioned but his failure never is. That was kind of the official record. I wanted to kinda cover that.
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First Kings had it covered though. So, worship. He did worship God first. We saw that at his dedication of the temple but then he turned his heart turned away to idols and it said that he built temples for those other small G gods and he began to worship them because he thought he loved his wives. And they turned his heart away.
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So, the ark of that life, things were going so well and then he did not heed the warnings. He did not go by what he knew to be right. GI Joe. I don't know how many y'all remember this from GI Joe. The GI Joe cartoons when I was a little kid, my brother was really into them.
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I'm not so much. I remember the public service announcements though. Every cartoon would have one right before the last commercial break that had a public service announcement about stop, drop and roll or if you're lost by the policeman, that sort of thing. The little kid would look up at G. I.
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Joe and he would say, well, I didn't know, but now I do, he'd say, and knowing is half the battle. That's true. Knowing is half the battle and Solomon had that part pretty well covered. Doing is the other half of the battle. Obedience to what it is that you know.
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Living true to that. Now, I will defend Solomon a little bit because back then, the Holy Spirit did not live within the spirit of God and he knows your heart he is pleading with you in a still small voice how you should live your life. You can't be either obedient or disobedient and if we're disobedient, it gets harder and harder to hear that still small voice. Solomon knew what was right but he didn't live life. He didn't live in life in accord with what he knew to be true.
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So, the wisest man ever, this should give us some comfort. It's not because we're not bright enough that we sin. Solomon was the wisest man ever and he fell into it multiple times over and over. He moved on from right. He was wealthy enough to carry out right.
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He still sinned, turned away from God, took treasures for himself. James says, to know to do right and not to do it, that's sin. It's not just getting caught with your pants down. It's not just getting caught stealing. It's not just getting caught doing something you shouldn't do.
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It's not doing what you know you should do. That is sinful. That's all of us are sinful. We all lie. Solomon said eight forty six, first Kings.
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He says, there is no one who does not sin. Jesus. To know to do right and not do it, that's sin, James says. So Ecclesiastes is looking back over this life that we've just looked over. Things were going pretty well and then using his great wisdom for the wrong reasons.
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He makes political alliances, marries Egypt, the pharaoh's daughter. That goes pretty well. Enriches him and the kingdom, so it seems. And then he starts saying, this is a pattern that we ought to take more and it starts getting worse and worse. So he saw when he looked back, misdirected wisdom.
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He had wisdom, but it was misdirected. He saw misused wealth. John said specifically a couple of things. Don't gather up horses. Don't gather up these things.
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He had 40,000 horses. Misused wealth against God's warnings, major warnings he had and multiplied forbidden wives. I'm not in any way a misogynist. I don't think that was a woman's fault. Don't take this as being the case.
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Solomon's looking back on his own life and seeing his downfall. He knew that his forbidden foreign wives were what led to his mixed worship of the one true God. He started worshiping pretty much every other god that we have listed in the Old Testament. He built a temple to him. So, do as I say, not as I do.
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I've read so many commentaries this week that said Ecclesiastes can't be taken seriously because it's a thoroughly simple man had all of this. If he says something about just having one wife, then that's ridiculous because he had, you know, a thousand, whatever. So do as I say, not as I do. That's hypocritical and we should just pay no attention to it. So these are pretty liberal commentators.
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That's a hypocrite. Somebody says do as I say, not as I do. That's a hypocrite. All of us would agree if you ask anybody on the street the reason that they are frustrated with organized religions usually, hypocrites. They're all hypocrites.
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What if somebody says do as I say, but not as I did? Not as I used to do. That's a teacher. That's somebody who's lived a life. They're looking back over and saying, oh, don't make the mistakes I made.
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And it's a wise person that can learn from the mistakes of others. That's what Solomon is asking for us to do. His story is one of great regret, but he writes with great purpose and fervency. He wants for his son Rehoboam who became the king of a divided kingdom. He became the king of just two tribes of Israel.
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10 other tribes split off and it all came about flat because of Solomon's sin. God told him what was gonna happen and did it anyway and it happened. So this is pretty heavy, but he's looking back over a life not so well lived and trying to get other people to to not follow that example. I I preach a lot from the New Testament. Y'all hear me most weeks in the New Testament.
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The Old Testament to me, I think that we take it the wrong way. A lot of times we teach it as moralizing tales and we we wag our finger when we say, don't do like Jonah. Don't do like so and so. This one is one of those where Solomon saved himself, don't do like me. It's not that I'm turning this into a moralizing tale.
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He's saying, I've been there, I've done that. Please don't do this. It's not gonna go well for you. Okay. There are probably two people in this room that think this is cool, but I'm one of them so I'm gonna do it.
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This is Hebrew. It's the very first part of Ecclesiastes. It's Ecclesiastes one two. And if you look at that closely and examine it, just looks like squiggly letters to me too. But if you look at it closely, that word, that word, and that word are all exactly the same word.
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I wouldn't even hazard a pronunciation of it. That word and that word are the same word too, but they're the plural form of that word. That word those two words right there say, the preacher said. Okay? So this whole sentence is nothing, nothings, or nothing of nothings.
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Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Nothing. Nothing. Vanity of vanities. It's a superlative.
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It makes nothing further nothing than it could ever be before. Nothing of nothing. It's like when we say king of kings and lord of lords. That's the highest superlative that we can give to any given thing. So nothing of nothing says the preacher, nothing of nothing's.
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Then there's one word that's not bad and it's nothing. So that is the interesting part of this sentence to me. It's that versus that. Can you tell the difference in those two? It is very subtle.
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There's not much difference. The first letter and the last letter are the same in both. It means it makes all the difference in the world though. That middle letter, that one little beagle right here, this, when when it says the jot or a tittle, not one jot or tittle of the level we changed, not of the word we changed. That makes the difference between everything and nothing.
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It's subtle, but that's it. Everything nothing. So it says, vanity of vanities or nothing of nothings, says the preacher. Nothing of nothings. Everything, nothing.
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Everything under the sun be followed up with under the sun. That's under the sun thinking. The difference is that amount. Like I said, his story is a story of great regret that he writes with great purpose. Getting back to my first day in seminary.
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The words of the wise and Solomon's the wisest ever are like goads. Y'all know what a goad is? Some of you Bob definitely knows what a goad is. Goat is like a cattle prod. It doesn't take much with a cattle prod, it's not abuse.
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You just give it a little poke with a sharp stick and the cow knows not to go towards the stick, they go the other way. Right? You don't ever see a cow pushing his way back into the prod normally. You give him just a little poke and they go forward. They don't kick against the goads as Paul would say, they go forward.
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The words of the wise are like goads. They're to push you in a direction. The goad is a spiked stick used for driving cattle to provoke or annoy someone as to stimulate some type of action or reaction, spur, stimulus, incentive, pride, impulse, induce. That's very very important. That's what the words of the wise are for.
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The words of scholars are like well driven nails, they can be trusted. This is a frame that can be trusted and who did it? It's given by one, capital s, shepherd. That is Jesus. It is God, the Lord, the shepherd, the good shepherd.
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Well driven nails given by one shepherd. Listen to this. This is just the last couple of chapters of Ecclesiastes starting about seven or eight, nine, 10, 11, somewhere in there. These are the imperative verbs. Y'all knew it couldn't go forever.
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I hadn't spoken about grammar in two whole weeks. Imperative verbs for believers in Ecclesiastes, these are the golden nuggets that we've been kind of talking about that we would eventually get to. There's a lot of ore, there's a lot of under the sun thinking, there's a lot of rock you gotta cut through, but listen to these golden nuggets. This is the message of Ecclesiastes. It is basically carpe diem, seize the day, live life fully engaged and without regret.
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And these are all of the imperative verbs from chapter seven to 12 that I noticed. Enjoy what God has given. Rejoice and enjoy life with your wife. Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Cast your bread upon the waters that will return to you in many days.
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Live generously. Rejoice in your youth. Enjoy it. Did y'all notice that in the bulletin we put in chapter 12 verses one through seven which is a poem about old age? It is fantastic.
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Remember your youth and joy. I'm sure I can get an amen from somebody. Walk in the ways of your heart. Go after it, he say it. Honor the Lord.
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Remember your creator in the days of your youth is what follows that up in all the days of your life. And of course, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. This was the very next thing in my little first day in seminary. The very next verses close this out. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter of all Ecclesiastes, all of the philosophies of life, all of the status of society, everything that he had considered up to that point, he says, this is the end of the whole matter.
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Fear God, keep his commandments, have a reverence for God, the Lord Almighty, and keep his commandments. Going back to our motto. With all we are loving God, loving people through Christ. God will bring every work in the judgment including every secret thing whether good or evil. Now, I said it not about Psalms.
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Psalms one twenty seven is very quotable. The first verse of it is this first verses. Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. Where we see Lord like that, it's Yahweh.
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And it is Jesus usually, almost always. In this case, I think it is unless Jesus is the one who established and built a house, the builders labor in vain. That temple that Solomon built, where is it today? It was rebuilt by area, knocked down again. Where was it?
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It was Jerusalem. Today, Israel is bombing in Syria. I do wanna pray for the peace of Israel, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and for their neighbors. But Jerusalem was sacked in seventy AD. Temple's completely destroyed unless the Lord watches over the city.
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Now, the Lord had already told him what his intentions were. God had already made his intentions known and they chose to go against it. This is one of those somewhere where unfortunately, it's not all about knowing, it's about doing. It's a but doing follows being. I wanna use Psalm 72.
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This is his name, capital N. That's referring to Jesus. His name, this is the true king of Israel. His name forever shall endure. Like the sun it shall, men shall be blessed in him and blessed blessed all nations shall call him Jesus.
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Psalm 72. So I've enjoyed really gotten a lot out of the study of Ecclesiastes looking through the actual book of Ecclesiastes but I think I've gotten more out of studying and in context of his life and thinking, this is a guy who really sincerely did not want for anybody else to go down the same path that he tried. When he says, enjoy that life of your youth. Amen. Amen.
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Don't get involved in all of that other stuff. That's it. That's the last slide. We're gonna go into a time of communion right now. So if I get the communion team to come on down forward, and Judy if you would play something pretty, we'll see Jesus paid it all after we do communion and we're gonna do it it may seem like an abrupt change but I know that Solomon was looking forward to the coming of the Messiah.
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He had no idea what to expect about how the Holy Spirit work. You remember David saying, the worst thing that he could think of happened when he sinned with Bathsheba. Psalm 51, he says, oh Lord, please don't remove your Holy Spirit from me. As believers, we don't have that problem. We don't have that problem that it might not lie upon us for now.
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We had that. I'm gonna ask you right now if you would consider your way just like Solomon's asked us to do and we're gonna pray and then y'all can distribute the better one. Don't we say amen and and just go ahead. God, thank you for loving us, for taking care of us. Thank you for wisdom, books, for songs, for Proverbs.
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Ecclesiastes, Lord. It's a bitter pill to swallow sometimes just like Job, but God, we wanna come before you and bless your name. We want to be a part of that says, we're not gonna hold you responsible Lord. Where we fall in obedience, we wanna come to you in repentance that we would have the right attitude. And so God, we ask you right now, individually, wanna ask everybody to ask you that you cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness Lord.
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Put us all to your way. Lord, we want you to open our ears to the still small voice. We wanna hear it again. So we cast all of our cares on you, all of our burdens, all of our sin. Call it what it is and just ask you that you wash it clean, Lord.
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And we also wanna say a blessing over this bread as we distribute it. Thank you. In Jesus name, amen. And on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, he broke it, and after he gave thanks, he said, this is my body. It's given for you.
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Take me. God, I thank you that it's not because we're not wise enough. It's not because we're not wealthy enough. It's not because we are wise enough. It's not because we are wealthy enough that we can come before you lord.
38:06
It's because you lived a perfect life, lived a sacrificial death. Lord, you made provision and atonement for our sins. That's the only way we can come before you. I thank you for your broken body and for your shed blood. As you bless this cup, Lord, as we distribute it, that we would consider the price you pay.
38:28
In Jesus name, amen. And in the same manner, he also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is a new covenant in my blood. Praise God. The new covenant. That old covenant was tough.
41:50
The new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me. Paul says, this often as we eat this bread and drink this cup that we proclaim Jesus death till he comes. And I want to proclaim what that death secured for us. So I'd like for you to stand with me, we'll sing one closing hymn.
42:14
We're gonna sing Jesus Paid It All. Guys thank you very much. All day long talking about the the law basically in Solomon. It is so good to know that we live in an age of grace and if you feel that this message has been condemning towards you, you got the wrong message. Okay?
45:24
The message is one of grace. In Jesus' blood, there's a message of grace and forgiveness, and the message from Solomon is, do what you know to do. Loving God, loving people. Bless y'all. Amen.
