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Jul 21, 2019

It's the End of the World as We Know It...and I Feel Fine?

Passage: Amos 5:1-9:10

Preacher: Tim Badal

Series:Amos

Detail:

Turn to the book of Amos this morning. Our message is one of doom and gloom. As I was driving here, I said, “Lord, it’s a beautiful day. The sun is out.” But then about ten minutes ago, it started pouring and I said, “Thank you, Lord. I need some gloom. Some thunder and lightning would make it even better.”

Seriously, it’s good to be in the house of the Lord, even when the text today is a difficult one. We’ve been studying this often-neglected Old Testament book. There aren’t many sermon series preached from it, yet I have been so encouraged by it, even when the passages are difficult.

I’m encouraged for a couple reasons.

  • First, we see displayed throughout this book the holiness and justice of God. As broken and flawed people, we need to see this.
  • Second, we also see God’s great regard for the disenfranchised and the vulnerable. So often we in American live in comfort and even luxury, which we often don’t even think about—until the power goes out.

We were in Hinckley the other night when the power went out and the heat index was 100 degrees. I thought the Lord of the Flies had entered the Badal home. It was chaos. As I was lying in bed, I asked Amanda, “How did they do it back in the hard days?” Amanda responded, “Well, that may have been why there were so many wars back then.”

In the midst of our comfortable lives, we need to remember that there are many vulnerable, broken and needy people around us. The book of Amos reminds us not only of that reality, but also that God deeply cares for those people. He is also watching to see how we who live in luxury are responding to their needs.

Another thing we learn in this book is how serious God is about His people’s sin. Although He loves and cares for us, He is a God Who demands perfection and holiness. In the middle of all the doom and gloom, thunder and lightning, showers and storms in the book of Amos, we see the immense mercy God shows to His children.

He will bring great pain and struggle to His people, but He doesn’t do this unexpectedly and without any warning. In fact, Amos was given a series of warnings. With each vision and harsh word, God was saying to the people, “Change, before it’s too late. Repent while there’s still time.” But as we’ll see, the people rejected the prophet’s warnings and as a result, Amos was given three visions of the doom and gloom that was coming to the people of Israel. Amos relayed these messages clearly to the people, without pulling any punches. Today we’ll see God’s final response to the sins of His people.

What were their sins in the days of Amos? There were three specific sins.

  • First, their material prosperity created in the people a false sense of security.
  • Second, the people had fallen into moral perversity. Instead of being a light to the world, they began to live the same way the nations around them lived, following their gods and their practices which brought about their third sin…
  • Religious hypocrisy. They still talked about how much they loved the Lord and how much time they spent worshiping and serving Him. But at the same time, they worshiped other gods. God called that hypocrisy.

Without being too dramatic, may I say those three sins are alive and well in American Christianity today? We too have material prosperity. We too have become part of a culture in which the holiness of God reveals how far we have fallen. And at times our religious experiences and church involvement incorporates real hypocrisy. Because of this, the book of Amos should speak volumes to us.  

Today we’ll be looking at the largest portion of Scripture that I’ve ever done in my 16 years of preaching. We’re going to look at Amos 5:1–9:10. Then we’ll finish the last part of chapter nine next week. Yes, there’s a lot in these chapters, including three visions. Yet all of these visions and all of these words point to one thing: the day of the Lord. God says the end for Israel was coming and they had better change before it was too late—because the end would not be pretty.

We’re going to see not only the importance of looking back to that past day of the Lord, but as believers we also need to look forward to a future day of the Lord that will take place. I’ll explain that as we go this morning. Let’s look at a portion of the Scripture first, Amos 5:1–7, then 5:14–17:

1 Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: 2 “Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up.” 3 For thus says the Lord God: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; 5 but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.” 6 Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel, 7 O you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth!...

14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. 15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: “In all the squares there shall be wailing, and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! Alas!’  They shall call the farmers to mourning and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation, 17 and in all vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.

Our culture is infatuated with the idea of the end of the world. Just within the confines of our movies, almost every year a summer blockbuster comes out that shows the end of the world is coming. They dedicate themselves to this theme. Maybe it involves sinister aliens like in “War of the Worlds” way back in the ‘50s, or more recently, “Independence Day,” where aliens come to destroy the earth. Or perhaps we’re going to be destroyed by a meteor or some other cosmic phenomenon as in “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon.” Still other movies point to meteorological catastrophes, such as in “2012” or “The Day After Tomorrow.” We are infatuated with the idea of the end of the world. In each of these movies, we are victorious, as if the world and the galaxies and maybe even a supreme Being has thrown everything at humanity and still we have found a way to win.

This gives us a sense of bravado, where we think no matter what comes, even at the end of the world, we’re ready for it. Some of the best-selling Christian books in the last six decades or so are books written about the end of the world. We’re infatuated with how history wraps up. Many of us may resonate with the group R.E.M. that said, “It’s the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine.” Well, God wants us to know that the end of the world is coming and it probably isn’t good for us to feel fine about it, for a number of reasons.

You see, back in Amos’ day, the people in Israel were looking forward to the day of the Lord. In fact, if we look at Amos 5:18–20, we read this:

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

God was saying, “Why are you so excited about the day of the Lord?” For the Israelites, the day of the Lord was when God would come down from His celestial throne in heaven and deal decisively with His enemies. What they were dreaming about and believed was coming was a day in the near future when God would destroy their enemies.

But as we see in Amos 5–8, God did promise to bring the day of the Lord, but it wasn’t a time when He would oppose their enemies. Rather, He would be coming against them. They had been sinful and had lived no differently from their enemies, so God promised pain would be coming to their houses rather than to their enemies’ houses. As a result, God’s word to them was, “Woe. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.” Why would they not want it?

The day of the Lord is a time of great destruction.

The Bible speaks of the day of the Lord more than 80 different times, and it always seem to refer to a singular event. But we can’t assume they’re actually referring to the same time. In the Old Testament, the day of the Lord referred to numerous days in the past when God brought destruction to His enemies and deliverance for His people. Therefore when the Old Testament speaks of the day of the Lord, these are different events and times when God acted on behalf of His people.

In Genesis we see a day of the Lord in the event of the flood. God looked at humanity and saw that the inclination of every heart was to do evil. He regretted creating men, so He decided to destroy them (Genesis 6:5–7). However, He didn’t just suddenly bring the rains and the floods. For 120 years, He gave the people the opportunity to repent in response to the words of Noah, who was preaching righteousness while he was building the ark (Genesis 6:8–9:17).

In Genesis 19—the story of Sodom and Gomorrah—God brought the day of judgment on two cities because of their serious sin.

In Exodus, we see the day of the Lord coming on the nation of Egypt. For hundreds of years they had enslaved the people of God. God’s people had cried out to Him to rescue them and God heard their cries. So He raised up Moses to be their deliverer. Moses went to Pharaoh to deliver God’s word, “Let My people go.” Pharaoh refused, then as a result God sent ten plagues. But as each plague came, Pharaoh continued to refuse God, until the day came when the firstborn children of Egypt were slain. This resulted in the emancipation of the Israelites, so they saw the day of the Lord as being something to rejoice in (Exodus 4–13).

Then there was another day of the Lord in Joshua 6 when God brought judgment on the city of Jericho. The men and women of Israel marched around the city, giving the city a chance to repent, but the walls were brought down.

The day of the Lord is seen in 2 Kings 18 and following when 185,000 Assyrians were approaching Jerusalem to destroy it. King Hezekiah prayed to God to deliver them and He did. An angel of the Lord came and slew the entire Assyrian army in one night. Over and over again, God delivered His people in dramatic ways.

Amos knew the people had heard these stories, so he told them, “A day of the Lord is about to take place, but this time it won’t be against your enemies. It will be against you.” We’ve seen that happen a few other times. Once it happened after the Israelites had left Egypt and were in the wilderness. They had begun to murmur about not having the food they used to have and they even asked Moses, “Send us back to Egypt; we had it better then.” But when they resisted Moses’ leadership, which meant they were resisting God, He brought snakes into their midst and many people died. That was the day of the Lord against them (Numbers 21). Another time we read about the judgment of God against the sons of Korah, who were also part of the people of God (Numbers 16). Yet in Amos’ day, they were only thinking about the times when God destroyed their enemies.

Let’s move now to what we learn about the day of the Lord in the New Testament. Here the Bible speaks exclusively about one particular time in the future, the singular day when Christ will inaugurate His Kingdom by coming in triumph to the earth. This will mark the end of the present age in history and the beginning of eternity. This time, Jesus will not be riding on a donkey, but on a white stallion, carrying a sword to destroy His enemies once and for all. He will then establish His rule over all creation and it will be something we see as clear as day.

So we need to realize that when Amos speaks of the day of the Lord and when someone like Peter speaks of it, they’re talking about two very different days. One was in the past and one is yet to come. But let’s look now at how the Bible describes these days.

First, let’s look at how Amos described it. In Amos 5:18 we read that it was a day of darkness and not light, a day when people would want to flee, but when they would flee from one danger, they would encounter another. Then in verse 20 he called it a time of doom and gloom. In Amos 6:3 it’s described as a day of disaster. In Amos 7:10 it was compared to a devouring hoard of locusts. In Amos 8:3, the only response would be shouts of wailing surrounded by death. Amos told the people this time of destruction was coming.

Isaiah also described it in Isaiah 13:9-10 this way: “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.” It will be a day of darkness and desperation according to Isaiah. The prophet Joel calls it a day of utter doom and gloom.

Then the New Testament speaks of a coming day, as though the Old Testament is giving prequels to what the coming day would be like. Peter says this in 2 Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” It will be a terrible day that we’re facing. Right away when we hear this, we ask, “How can a loving God do things like this?” In fact, we want to cut these passages out of the Bible. There’s a good reason why Amos is rarely taught in churches—people don’t like this kind of God. I’ve heard people say they don’t like the Old Testament God and they find the New Testament God more palatable. We should realize that the New Testament has plenty to say about the coming gloom and doom; we just choose not to read about it.   

Nevertheless, God’s indignation because of sin needs to be put in balance with what we focus on today, which is His love. It’s true that He is a God of love, but that doesn’t negate His other attributes of justice and righteous wrath. If we have a fully biblical view of God, we’ll realize that He is angry because of our sin and His justice will not allow sin to go undealt with. In fact, God will deal very harshly with the evil His creation has done. Amos wrote these words of God in Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” God is looking forward to the day when His righteous justice will be revealed in the final hours of history.

The day of the Lord is a time of great intercession.

Where then do we find God’s love and mercy? We need to recognize that the day of the Lord is not only a day of great destruction, but it’s a season of great intercession. Looking back at the days of the Lord in the Old Testament when God brought judgment, notice that in each scenario, God first calls someone to intercede on behalf of the people. He also creates an opportunity for them to be saved.

God used people.

Beginning with the flood, we see that there was no question it would come. But it did not have to happen, because we read that Noah found favor in the eyes of God. There was an option to being destroyed. Noah stood as an intercessor, warning the people that they did not have to die if they would listen to God and change their ways. Every hit of the hammer for 120 years was an intercession, saying, “Come to God and you won’t have to lose your life.”

Later in Genesis, we read about Sodom and Gomorrah. These were wicked cities and Abraham knew it. But his nephew Lot lived in Sodom. So Abraham said to God, “I know You hate the sin of Sodom and that You intend to destroy it, but if there are 50 good men there, would You spare it?” But there weren’t 50, so Moses eventually dropped it to ten. But we know the story—only one family survived and the city of Sodom was destroyed. There was an opportunity for them to change, because Moses was an intercessor for them.

God used Passover.

Next look at Exodus. After nine plagues, Egypt’s ruler Pharaoh continued to rebel against God. So God told Moses, “Because of the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, I’m going to send the angel of the Lord to kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt.” That’s righteous justice and God had every right to do this. But He also showed mercy by allowing Moses to warn Pharaoh before each plague. If Egypt would have released the people, there would have been no more judgments.

Moses also warned the people of Egypt that if they would put the blood of lambs over their doorposts, the Lord would pass over their household and they would be spared judgment, but they wouldn’t listen. Yet we know the Israelites listened and they were saved. So with each of these destructive events, God raised up an intercessor. Passover represented the great intercession of God.

God used prophets.

Third, we see that God brought prophets. Amos was used to warn the people that God was angry and would bring a day of destruction upon them. Amos told them that if they would only seek God and change their ways, they would live. Turn to Amos 7 for a moment where it tells of the vision of locusts. Beginning in verse two we read how Amos was an intercessor. He prayed:

2 “O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” 3 The Lord relented concerning this; “It shall not be,” said the Lord.” 4 This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. 5 Then I said, “O Lord God, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” 6 The Lord relented concerning this; “This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.

Not only was Amos a prophet who told the people about the doom and gloom that was coming, he also interceded with God, asking Him to spare them. We also see this kind of intercession being done by Moses. A number of times he came to God saying, “Don’t destroy Your people,” then God would relent.

We also see this kind of event in the book of Jonah. Through the prophet Jonah, God warned the people of the great city of Nineveh that it was about to be destroyed. Jonah preached a very short sermon, Nineveh repented, then again, God relented. God brought prophets to be intercessors.

We’re told in Amos 8 that there would be a coming famine, but not a famine of crops. Rather, the people would experience a famine of God speaking to them. We know that came to pass. After the word that came to Malachi the prophet, there was a 400-year break before God spoke again. But in Malachi 4:5, we’re told, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”  So the people knew that even though they were facing silence, God would eventually speak again. There would be another intercessor who would come before the final great and terrible day. Who would that be?

God uses the Prince of Peace.

There’s one more Intercessor Whom we need to recognize, Who wasn’t speaking about the past but about the future plans God had. In Hebrews 1:1–2 we read, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”  Christ is now interceding for us. Instead of the patriarch Abraham or the prophet Amos, it is now Jesus Christ Who is interceding on our behalf before the Father.

What does that mean? Do you realize God could destroy us at any moment? He could have destroyed us long ago. But Jesus is continually interceding, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Because of Christ’s work on the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, the Father is not eager to bring destruction. Rather, as 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, God “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

We might think this patience means God has forgotten about us or that He’s fallen asleep at the wheel, but God is actually giving us a long opportunity, because of Christ’s intercession for us, to repent before it’s too late. So we have a great Intercessor in the Prince of Peace. It is Jesus alone Who brings peace between man and God once and for all. For those who have peace with Him, He will not bring His wrath upon them. That’s why, as Hebrews tells us, Jesus is a far superior Intercessor to any prophet or angel, because He alone provides the intercession that brings complete peace between man and God.

That, by the way, is why we sing “Joy to the World” at Christmas. We sing, “The Lord has come; let earth receive her King.” Christmas is a time of celebration and joy because the Prince of Peace has come and the future day of the Lord will pass over you and me who are found in Him. As a result, we do not need to fear doom and gloom. We do not have to dread God coming to destroy us. Rather, we have the hope that the day that will be terrible for the world will instead be a time of great victory for us, all because of the Prince of Peace.

So we know the day of the Lord will be a time of destruction. Forty years after Amos wrote his prophecies, a massive army from Babylon flooded into the Northern Kingdom, Israel. It wasn’t a time of pestilence or insect invasions or locusts. God relented from sending those. Rather, He took them into exile. The Southern Kingdom wasn’t taken until many years later, but instead enjoyed great prosperity because they remained faithful to God during that time. But even though the Israelites were exiled in Babylon, Jeremiah the prophet spoke of God only leaving them there in captivity for 70 years. After that, God’s judgment was complete and He had future purposes for them—to prosper them and not to hurt them (Jeremiah 29:11)—after the great and terrible day of the Lord was over.

Today is a time of invitation.

So instead of shaking our fists at God for His judgments, we must remember that He always provided intercessors and warnings. And He’s doing the same regarding the future day of the Lord that we will face at the end of the age. Jesus is our Intercessor and now is the time of invitation.

Before any trouble came, Amos asked God to relent—and God did. In chapters seven through nine of Amos, we read about three visions which represented the last chance opportunities to change the course of God’s judgment. Nevertheless, the people did not listen. The majority of them continued in their sins. But God always calls out a remnant—a group of people He would protect in the day of Lord. So if we’re a part of that today, what are we to do? As those who are no longer under the judgment of God, who have no condemnation because we are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), what are we supposed to do?

We accept this invitation by praising God for saving us from that day.

When we understand the day of the Lord, with the wrath, punishment and destruction that is coming for sinners, and we realize we too are sinners, then we realize what Jesus has done for us and we need to praise God. Jesus left heaven and came to earth to die for us, so that God’s judgment might pass over us. Our response is to sing and pray and proclaim the praises of Him Who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

May we do this in a way that we’ve never prayed, praised or proclaimed before. We now understand that God is not a celestial Santa Claus who is just warm and fuzzy. Rather, He is an all-consuming fire Who will destroy His enemies, even after intercessions have been made, because they have continued to rebel against Him. Because He has now rescued us from this destruction, we must praise Him.

Do you think when the flood came and Noah heard the cries of those who were drowning, that they didn’t praise God? That could have been Noah and his family—and it could have been us. But God in His mercy and grace has saved us and for that we must praise Him. Philippians 1:6 tells us something very important and we need to think about it in this context. Paul wrote, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion,” then he adds, “at the day of Jesus Christ.”

For the Christian, because of Jesus, the day of the Lord is the finish line, not the time of destruction. On the great and terrible day of the Lord that the world will experience, that pain and sorrow and punishment will never touch the person who has given his or her life to Jesus Christ. Paul was confident of this.

So Christian, we should be praising God, because He has now plucked us as if from the fire, so we can have hope and confidence that the great day of the Lord will not impact us as it will the world. Praise God for saving you from that great day.

We accept this invitation by making God our true plumb line.

We should make God our plumb line. What am I talking about? The final vision in Amos 7 speaks of a plumb line:

7 This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them; 9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Jeroboam was their king. God was telling the people of Israel, “You have been comparing yourself with the wrong standard.” A plumb line is a string with a weight at the bottom. Builders to this day use a plumb line to determine the straightness of a wall. It shows them what it true and right. It provides the standard. God was saying to the people, “I must be your standard. I’m the One against Whom you are to judge yourselves.” Instead, the people of Israel were comparing themselves to the Amalekites, Persians, Babylonians and Assyrians. When they did this, they thought, “Hey, we’re not so bad.”

This is something we do today. We compare ourselves with our neighbors or coworkers. We hear their mouths, we know what they watch, we see how they live their lives, and we think, “Hey, I’m doing pretty well.” But when we do this, we’re comparing ourselves to a crooked wall. Even if we’re not as crooked as they are, all crooked walls fail to measure up against the plumb line of God. Because God is holy and just and righteous, we must set Him as our standard, not our friends or neighbors or anyone else, but God.

So we must ask, “God, how am I doing regarding Your standard?” Here’s what’s terrible: we never get this right on our own. We are sinful and need Someone to come and straighten our crooked paths. That’s what the prophets said Jesus was going to do; He was going to straighten out our crookedness. Because of Jesus, now you and I can exhibit the righteousness of God day in and day out. But  there is a choice we have to make. That’s His sanctifying work. We come to know Christ, He makes our way straight, then the question is are we going to live in that straight way? Are we going to live according to His standard? If we are truly freed from the fear of the great day of the Lord, we must make God our true plumb line.

We accept this invitation by praying for God’s mercy and longsuffering.

The day of the Lord is coming. Something that at times is disheartening to me is the church’s infatuation with the end times. We want the day of the Lord to come, in part because we want to be avenged. We want to be proven right. All those people who have mocked us for our faith will bow their knee to Christ and confess Him as Lord on that day. What we forget is that these people with whom we’ve lived life—people in our family or neighborhood or school or workplaces—will no longer have a chance for salvation. Eternity will begin and at that point God will throw sinners who have not repented but who have continued to rebel against God into the lake of fire. It will be a day of terrible weeping and wailing, because it will be too late.

Our prayer therefore is that the day will not come too quickly. You and I need to be praying for the people who are close to us and for people who are far off, that God would continue to be patient so that they might have the opportunity to repent. Even though we want heaven to come, what is good news for us is bad news for a lot of other people. So we pray, asking God to continue being patient and longsuffering, so that more people will come to repentance. That’s what God says He desires, so He gives them time.

In the case of Amos’ day, God’s judgment didn’t come until 40 years later. While I do want to see heaven sooner than later, I pray for not only my generation, but for my children’s generation, that God would be patient. Because when He comes, for billions of people it will be too late.

We accept this invitation by proclaiming the truth before it is too late.

The gospel is the only answer to alleviate the day of the Lord. The gospel tells us that Jesus came to pay our penalty and bear God’s wrath. We didn’t get off scot-free. In fact, the day of the Lord came for us on Good Friday, on that cross where God forsook His Son and poured out His wrath and indignation on Him. It was by the stripes of Jesus Christ that we can be healed.

We need to proclaim this truth, because that is the way we prepare people for the day of the Lord. We tell them the day is coming, pleading with them to repent. You’re thinking, “That sounds too much like a street evangelist.” Well, maybe there needs to be a little more street evangelist in us. We need to recognize as Amos did that that the day of the Lord is coming. So we go to our neighbors and friends and we say to them, “Before it’s too late, before the time of destruction comes, will you give your life to Jesus?”

Let me ask you here today, “Have you given your life to Jesus Christ? Have you made Him your plumb line? Do you realize that without Him, you will be destroyed on that great and glorious day?” Turn to Him. Seek God and live. The invitation is there. Before you leave this place, you can know that on that great day of the Lord you’ll be worshiping God and not thrown into a lake of fire. God is serious about sin and He will address it. Don’t misunderstand His patience to be something other than His loving and merciful response to give you and me as His creatures an opportunity to see Him and believe in Him, so His wrath can pass over us.

 

Village Bible Church  |  847 North State Route 47, Sugar Grove, IL 60554  |  (630) 466-7198  |  www.villagebible.org/sugar-grove
All Scriptures quoted directly from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
Note: This transcription has been provided by Sermon Transcribers (www.sermontranscribers.com).