Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 4 as we continue our study in Matthew’s gospel. In chapter 1, we saw the identity of our Lord set forth through His genealogy. In chapter 2, we saw Him worshipped by shepherds and by the Gentile, the Magi from the east who had come to Him. In chapter 3, we saw His baptism, and in that baptism and in that baptism, God’s acknowledgment of His person and His ministry and His commission to Him to be the lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world. In chapter 4, in the first eleven verses, we saw our Lord enter into a contest with Satan himself in the wilderness. The very battleground of the covenant of grace. Reliving not once, but thrice the temptations of Adam, and yet being victorious every time. We said two weeks ago that when we began the study of Matthew chapter 4, verses 12 and following, that this was a new section of the Gospel of Matthew. The introduction runs up through the eleventh verse of chapter 4. Now Matthew turns his attention upon the teaching and proclamation of our Lord. In fact, next week, we will begin a study of the first great proclamation which Matthew records for us in detail. We have called it for about sixteen hundred years, the Sermon on the Mount. This great proclamation we will dwell on for many weeks, because the Lord explains clearly and powerfully the teaching of the kingdom in that passage. But Matthew in these verses, prior to chapter 5, records for us the jest, the summary of Jesus’ ministry. It is to that which we attend today. Look with me now at verse 23 in Matthew chapter 4. Hear the Word of the living God:
And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. And the news about Him went out into all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, taken with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them. And great multitudes followed Him from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.”
Thus ends this reading of God’s holy Word. May He add His blessing to it. Let’s look to Him in prayer.
Our Father, we acknowledge this to be Your Word. You have given it to us, by your servant, Matthew. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So that not only the thought of it, but that the very words of it are Your words. And yet we need the Spirit if we are to spiritually apprehend it. And so we ask for spiritual understanding. Help us not only to apprehend, to comprehend the teaching of this passage, but put it to work in our lives. For your glory and our good, we ask it all in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In this passage, Matthew give us a summary of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. For a number of months, Jesus would minister in Galilee, proclaiming the kingdom. Matthew gives you an outline here of what Jesus did and what the response to Jesus ministry was. And I would like to point you to four things that we learn about Jesus’ ministry in this passage. And the first thing is this.
I. The pattern of Jesus’ ministry: ministry in word and deed.
The pattern of Jesus’ ministry. Here in this passage, we see the pattern, the method, the form of Jesus’ ministry. His ministry was a ministry of truth in Word and deed. Christ ministered the Gospel of the kingdom in word and in deed. We see in verse 23, where Matthew says, “Jesus was going throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.” There we see a three-fold ministry. Three things are said about Jesus’ ministry. He went about teaching in the synagogues. He went about preaching about preaching the Gospel of the kingdom. And He went about healing all their diseases. This is the three-fold work of the ministry that Jesus was doing in Galilee. Looking closely at what He was doing, let’s take it one at a time.
Jesus was teaching in the synagogues. In other words, He was imparting more detailed instructions in the synagogues about the proclamation that He was making everywhere. Everywhere Jesus preached the message of the Gospel of the kingdom. But in the synagogues, He was able to teach about that message, showing how it was rooted in the Old Testament, showing how it flowed out of God’s covenantal promises in the Old Testament, and showing how is was consistent with God’s revelation which He had given by Moses and by the prophets. His purpose there was to instruct the hearts of the people that they might know that His message was a scriptural message. A message which came from God.
We are also told in this passage that He preached, He proclaimed, He heralded, He announced the good news of the kingdom. Jesus’ purpose in that preaching was not merely to inform the mind, or event o instruct the heart. His purpose was to exhort the will of men and women to commit themselves to Him. To commit themselves to God. To embrace the kingdom. To acknowledge God’s rule in their life. To repent of sin, to trust upon Him. He not only wanted them to learn something, He wanted to them to do something. As Wesley once said, “the Gospel is not only something that you believe, it is something that you behave.” It impacts the way that you live. When you have embraced the Gospel, you not only believe it cognitively, but it impacts your life, and it reflects itself in your life. And so Jesus went about not only teaching, not only instructing the hearts, but He went about proclaiming this truth. It was not a dialogue, it was not a discussion, it was an announcement of God’s saving plan. And He looked for a response of the will.
And we are told thirdly in this passage that He went about doing the work of healing. His healing showed God’s diving intervention in the experience of hurting men and women. One old Puritan used to say, “if you will preach to people’s hurts, you will be relevant to all ages.” Jesus not only preached to those hurts, Jesus ministered to those hurts with God’s power and divine intervention. Jesus’ healing ministry showed that God’s redemption is a redemption of the whole man. He does not say to us, I will redeem your souls, but everything else I am not interested in. God’s redemption ultimately will bring about a renovation of the whole world until there will be a day where there is no more sickness. We will be in body, glorified body indeed, but there will be no more sickness. There will be nothing to take our loved ones from us. God’s redemptive plan is a plan to renovate the entire world and to renovate you and me body and soul. And Jesus’ ministry of healing points out the fact that God is not only concerned with the saving of our souls but of the ultimate redemption of our bodies. Jesus, by this three-fold pattern of ministry, has provided the church with the example about how we should minister.
Why is it that we preach the Word? Why is it that the preaching of the Word is so emphasized at First Presbyterian Church? Because for over one hundred and sixty years you have had faithful elders who knew that the way that God works in the hearts of men in the extension of His kingdom is through the proclamation of His Word. Not through human ideas. Not through the latest fad. But through the Word of God. That is how men’s and women’s lives are changed, and so they have heralded the importance of the preaching of the Word in this place. Why is it that this church for a hundred and sixty years has catechized its children? Because they knew that the teaching of the word is to go along hand in hand with the preaching of the word. And so the Christian Education ministry of this church has been a matter of great emphasis. Why is it that this church is engaged in mercy ministry since its beginning? Because Jesus Christ has set us the example of teaching, of preaching, and of ministering to the needs of people. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus’ Word and deed ministry is matched by the officers which He gave to the church? Christ gave two sets of officers to His church: Elders and deacons. Elders to lead in the ministry of the Word. Deacons to lead in the ministries of mercy.
Isn’t it interesting that in the very way that the Lord Jesus equipped and organized His church, He put in force a pattern of word and deed ministry and He lived it Himself in His own ministry so that He is the greatest example of the ministry of Word and deed. By the way, as we look at this passage, distinctions from John’s ministry come to mind. You remember when we studied Matthew chapter 4, verse 12, we were at pains to say that Jesus’ message was the same message that John had preached. In John chapter 3, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And though there were many continuities between Jesus’ ministry and John’s ministry. But in this passage, we are reminded that there were certain things that Jesus did that John did not do, and certain things that John did, that Jesus did not do. Let me mention four or five of them to you.
First of all, we found out already in the Gospel of Matthew, that John preached in the wilderness. John preached in the open places. Perhaps he wasn’t welcomed in the synagogues, but he preached in the open places. Whereas Jesus, though He did preach in the open places, also taught in the synagogues. Jesus went into the synagogues themselves and did proclamation there.
Secondly, we are only told in the Gospel that John preached, we are never told anywhere that John taught. Jesus both preached and taught, we are told by Matthew.
Thirdly, we are told in the Gospel, that the emphasis of John’s preaching was preaching on repentance and preaching on the eminent judgment of God against sin. We are told that Jesus preached that, but that He also preached the good news of the kingdom. We miss it there in verse 3, because we are so familiar with the Word, Gospel, and with the phrase, the Gospel of the kingdom. But get Matthew’s emphasis. John had preached repentance and judgment. Jesus had preached repentance and judgment and the good news of the kingdom. That is there was a positive emphasis in the content of Jesus’ preaching. Where He showed the mercy of God in the Gospel of the kingdom.
Fourthly, John, we are told, preached and baptized. Jesus preached, but He Himself, did not personally do water baptism. You might imagine that if in Corinth in Paul’s day there was a debate over which families had been baptized by Paul and which had been baptized by Peter, and other apostles, you can imagine what it would have been like, if the Lord Jesus Himself had baptized certain disciples. What an opportunity for spiritual pride. So whenever Jesus and His disciples were doing water baptism, only His disciples baptized. But, as John reminds us, Jesus baptizes with fire. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. If you are Christian, you were baptized by Jesus, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. For water baptism points to the greater, the truer, the reality that is the baptism of the Spirit. Jesus preached, but He did not water baptism. And yet, in this passage we are told, that He also did something else that John did not do. And that was that Jesus healed. Did you know that John did no miracles. The Gospels, explicitly say that. John was a man filled above measure with the Holy Spirit. He was the greatest of them born of women. But he did not miracle. A lack of miraculous power is not a sign that God is not at work through the Holy Spirit. John did no miracle. And yet, Jesus did these miracles of healing.
Finally, John came, having taken a Nazarite vow. There were certain foods that John would not eat and John abstained from any alcoholic beverage. Jesus on the other hand, we are told in John chapter 11, came both eating and drinking and therefore there were some who made fun of Jesus and accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Jesus explained to His disciples, the reason later on why He differed from John in that particular area and perhaps we can look at it sometime. But one lesson we learn from those distinctions is that not every minister is given the same charge and the same gifts. John did not have some of the gifts that his Lord had. And the Lord Jesus did not exercise some of the responsibilities that John exercised. But both were faithful in the discharge of their ministry. And that reminds us that whenever we are in the Christian church, we will be served by men, with different kinds of gifts. And all we should ask of them is faithfulness in those gifts. Not all ministers will have the same or equal gifting. Some will be great ministers of the Word. Some will be great teachers. Some will be great preachers. Some will be wonderful pastors and shepherds of soul. And some will possess many of those talents. But those of us who have less of those talents and are called into the ministry should only remember that God requires us not to be equal with the great ones of the earth, but to be faithful. As our own, Dr. Miller, used to say to me at lunch regularly, “Ligon, the Lord wants us to be faithful, not famous.” God calls us to be faithful in the discharge of our ministry.
II. The people’s response to Jesus’ ministry: deceptive appearances?
The second thing that we learn in this passage is the people’s response to Jesus’ ministry. Matthew gives us an outline of how Jesus was doing ministry, and then he tells you how the people were responding to that ministry. And this response is very instructive itself. We read in verses 24 and 25, that the news about Jesus spread throughout all Syria and they brought to Him all that were ill. In verse 25, we read, large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. Notice three things that are said about the response to Jesus’ ministry. First of all, Jesus’ ministry was so noteworthy, that news about it spread all around, even north towards Syria. Everyone was talking about what the Lord Jesus was doing. There was no evening new broadcast, but apparently word of mouth traveled quickly and there was much discussion about the type of ministry that Jesus was doing.
Secondly, notice that people began bringing to the Lord Jesus their sick, and their diseased. And the Lord Jesus healed them. This is the second response to His ministry. And then we see in verse 25, that large crowds began and continued to follow Him in His ministry. They came not only from Galilee, but they came from the north of Galilee and the east of Galilee and from the south of Galilee. They came from Syria, they came from across the Jordan and the Decapolis and in Peria. They came from Jerusalem and Judea. So not only Galileans were coming to hear Jesus preach and minister. But people from all over Israel and even from the outside were coming to see and to be healed by the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
There is a great message in this for us. For though there were large crowds following our Lord at the beginning of His ministry, we know that at the end of His ministry, everyone had deserted Him, even His own disciples. And that reminds us friends that there were people in these crowds and perhaps people who were healed by the Lord Himself, who did not go on with the Lord Jesus until the end. They turned their back on Him for whatever reason. Perhaps in the crisis of their lives, they trusted in Jesus temporarily, and yet they forgot Him later. They did not go on with the Lord. On this day, a day where churches that celebrate the church calendar, speak of, as Palm Sunday, we remember the crowds which greeted our Lord as He entered Jerusalem in the week of His passion. Those same crowds which joyfully sang Hosanna, cried out “Crucify Him!” “Crucify Him!” at the end of the week. Crowds are not necessarily the sign of God’s success in the lives of those individuals. It may well be that those people are gathered for wrong reasons. God’s work is not done until our hears are brought under the Lordship of Christ. We must remember, we must remember my friends that seeking out Christ in a time of need, and forgetting Him after that time of need is over says something about our hearts.
I had the privilege of ministering in a church in another city once and we had a man in the church that I had never seen after a number of months of ministry there. And then he hit a crisis in his life. And he began coming to church during that crisis and I commented to one of the elders, that what a blessing this was, that God in His providence, had used this crisis to bring this man back and the elder very sadly shook his head and said, I have seen this man in four other crisis. He has come to church for a while, and then when the crisis subsides, we never see him again. There was an example of a person who used God to meet his need in crisis, but did not want to walk with God. Did not want to fellowship with God. Did not want to know the sweet fellowship of Christ. This is what people refer to sometimes as foxhole faith. We trust the Lord when the bullets are flying around, but when the crisis subsides, we are back to ourselves.
Perhaps some of these people stumbled at the Lord’s teaching. We know that those crowds at the beginning of the week, and Palm Sunday, praised the Lord and yet when they heard of His claim to be the one true Messiah, they stumbled. And they rejected Him. Perhaps you have stumbled with the Lord’s teaching. Perhaps you have wanted the blessings of Christianity and yet when you heard the requirements, when you heard to the requirement to accept the Lord Jesus as the very Son of God, and you heard of the requirement to acknowledge that you deserved everlasting punishment, but that had been paid for by the death of Christ. Perhaps you said no, I don’t deserve that. God shouldn’t do that to anyone. And perhaps you rejected the gospel teaching. You were initially drawn to the Gospel, and yet you turned your back on it when you heard of its specific teaching. These crowds which first flocked to Jesus’ ministry, are of warning to us of the danger of appearing to follow Christ, but in our hearts rejecting Him.
III. The message of Jesus’ ministry; the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The third thing that I would like to point you to in this passage is the message of Jesus’ ministry; Not only the form of His ministry, not only the response to that ministry, but the message of His ministry as recorded in this passage. In verse 23, Matthew tells us that Jesus was proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom. The Gospel of the kingdom of heaven was Jesus’ emphasis in His preaching. I want you to look at two parts of that message that Jesus was teaching. The Gospel, the good news, and the kingdom of heaven.
The good news, is good news to those who are repentant. Jesus had already preached that we must repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent because God’s rule is coming. Jesus knew that men had to acknowledge that they were in need of Christ of His own saving work, that they were condemned by their sins, and that enmity with God. But He also added that those who repent will find that God has done a work of grace in order to show His mercy to them. And so the first part of Jesus message, is good news. It is good news to those who have repented. There have been some who have said Lord, I am guilty of sin, I am deserving of your punishment, but I repent of that sin, I cast myself at your feet, because I apprehend that You will show me mercy if I will but repent. And to those who have repented, Christ says, God is not only to forestall judgment, but He is going to pour our undeserved blessing on you, the blessing of your kingdom. That is the first part of Jesus’ message. Good news to all those who have known the sin of their hearts. The Christian message is for those who have done their best and failed. The Christian message is for those who have found that they cannot earn their way back into fellowship with God.
The Christian good news, the Christian gospel, the gospel of the kingdom is for those who know that they are hopeless without Christ. Those who have seen the futility of their sins. Have you wrestled with a sin which has shown you the futility of your trying to earn your salvation? Have you looked yourself in the eye in the mirror and you have known something about your heart that no one else knows and you have known that you are absolutely hopeless. If you have, then Jesus has good news for you. God has done a work that you are incapable of doing. It is His grace, and this is the good news of the gospel.
Then Jesus preaches the second half of this message. It is the good news of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of God. Three terms are used for this in the Gospel of Matthew: the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. The phrases are synonymous. They mean the same things. They are different phrases used to speak of the rule of God. William Hendrickson says that “the kingdom of God means God’s kingship, His rule, His sovereignty recognized in our hearts and operative in our lives. It effects our complete salvation, it brings us into the church and in the end, it redeems the whole of the universe.” I want you to notice four parts to that message because that is a mouth full that I have just given you. Four parts to the message of the kingdom.
The first is this. Lordship. The Gospel tells you that God has saved you by grace, but the Gospel works grace out in us, by establishing God’s lordship in our lives. Gospel acknowledgment of God’s lordship is when we come to realize that we do not own ourselves, God owns us. Calvin once said, “we are not our own, therefore, let us live for Him, and die for Him. We are not our own. And so in so far as we can, let us forget ourselves, and follow after Him. We belong to God, so let us live for Him, and die for Him.” The first aspect of the Gospel of the kingdom is the recognition that those who embrace God for salvation, embrace Him as their Lord. He is the ruler of their lives, of their hearts, and He personally is to be acknowledged by them. This lordship which God establishes in our lives, leads to three things. It lead to our complete salvation, in body and in soul. God cares for us in things temporal and in things eternal. God provides for us everything we need. It lead to the formation of a community of people who acknowledge the Lord Jesus as their Lord, as their sovereign. And that community is called the church. It is the community where God’s sovereignty is embraced and acknowledged as our friend, Hal Jones says, the church is the fruit of the gospel. The gospel is worked in our lives, and the church results and this Gospel of the kingdom results in the redeemed universe. The final future realization of God’s redeeming power. This world is wracked by sin and misery. There will be a day when God will renovate this world and He will banish sin and misery from it. And the entire universe groans until that day of resurrection when God will change the world. And so Jesus’ message of the good news, of the kingdom stresses both God’s grace in our salvation, and the rule of God in our lives. It is as it were the teaching of both the law and the gospel. The good news of Christ sends us to God for mercy. The good news of the kingdom reminds us that we are under the rule of God. Samuel Bolton once said, “the lost sends us to the gospel that we may be justified. And then the gospel sends us again to the law to inquire what is our duty now that we are justified.” The good news of the kingdom. God’s grace is working out in His rule in our lives and so when God is ruling in our lives, we are changed people. Roland Hill, the old evangelist once said, “the gospel makes husbands better husbands. The gospel makes wives better wives. The gospel makes parents better parents. The gospel makes masters, better masters. The gospel makes servants better servants.” And He went on to say, tongue in cheek, “in a word, I would not give a farthing for a man’s religion, whose cat and dog were not the better for it.”
In other words, he meant when the Gospel works out in our lives, there is a change. God works sanctification in us. As we are justified, so also, God is doing a work of sanctification in us. Do we know that in our lives? Do we know the power of the Gospel in our lives? Do we know the forgiveness of sins? Do we know the assurance which flows from knowing that Christ has aid for our sins, and have we seen God’s grace working out in our desires, so that we no longer desire to do that which is wrong, but we earnestly long to do that which is righteous in God’s sight? And we are not left comfortable when we pursue wickedness. Do we know those changed desires, those changed behaviors? Are we convinced that we are lost without the gospel? Are we walking in the gospel? Have we begun with it? Are we continuing with it? Are we continually dependent upon God’s grace? This is the message of Jesus’ ministry. The gospel of the kingdom of heaven. God’s good news, and God’s rule in the hearts of His people.
IV. The proof of Jesus’ ministry: the power and extent of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
And that leads us to the final thing and that is the proof of Jesus’ ministry. In verse 23, we see that Jesus was healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. Jesus’ healing ministry showed the power and the extent of the Gospel which He preached. Notice Jesus’ miracles. Those miracles, those attesting signs confirmed both His person, and His message. You remember Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, the lamb of God, the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. His miracles were proof of His person. Proof of His claims. They were also proof of His message of divine stamp of approval on the truth of the Gospel message which He preached.
By the way, have you ever reflected on the different kind of miracles that Moses did in comparison to Jesus’ miracles? Moses’ miracles, were primarily miracles of warning, judgment and destruction. Think of the ten plagues. Jesus’ miracles were a display of God’s mercy. Moses’ miracles were a display of God’s power in wrath and judgment. Jesus’ miracles were a display of God’s power in mercy and loving kindness on those who were needy. What better way to display the power of the New Covenant, than the healing mercies and miracles of Christ. Those miracles confirmed that He was the Messiah of prophecy. The Old Testament in passages, like Isaiah 35 had told us that the Messiah would come, doing miracles. And so Jesus’ miracles proved His claims to be the Messiah.
They also proved that the kingdom had now arrived, because the Old Testament prophets told us that when the Messiah came, and when He established His new kingdom, it would be shown forth with power and miracles. And so Jesus’ healing miracles proved who He is and the truth of His message.
Notice also the universal character of these healings. Jesus heals in Galilee, a place where Jews and Gentiles were mixed and people come to Him to be healed from Syria, from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, from Judea and from across the Jordan. People from all over come to Christ to be healed. Jesus healed all regardless of race or nationality and so showed Himself to be the Savior of the world.
Notice also the types of healings that the Lord Jesus did. In verse 25, we are told that Jesus in His ministry healed every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. A general word is used. Various diseases and torments to indicate that Jesus healed all sorts of things. But three specific words are used in that passage that I would like to point your attention to: demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics. Jesus did not simply, like some latter day television faith healers, heal vague aches and pains, headaches, armaches, backaches. Jesus healed the most deadly diseases known to His time, and He did it instantaneously and irrevocably by the power of God and He did it in the presence of His enemies who more than anyone else would have like to have proved Him a farce. And even those of the Pharisees, such as Nicodemus would come to Him at night in John chapter 3, and say, Rabi, we know that you are from God, because nobody could do the things that you are doing.
Notice the two words, that we said just a few moments ago. Epileptics, and paralytics. Epilepsy was considered in Jesus day, to be the greatest disease of the mind that one could have. The convulsions, which one was thrown into was considered to be a disorder of the mind. It was considered to be a form of lunacy and no one knew how to treat it. And Jesus comes and with a word, treats those with epilepsy. Paralytics, paralysis, palsy was considered to be the greatest disease of the body in Jesus’ day. No one could cure it. Jesus comes with a word and cures it. Demon possession, devil possession, the demoniacs, what greater examples of the dominion of sin over a soul could one have. And Jesus comes and casts out demons.
In those three particular healings, we are being told by Matthew, that Jesus was doing a redemptive work of destroying the kingdom of Satan. No longer would Satan have sway over people, over their hearts, in the dominion of sin. But Christ would destroy that dominion, and He Himself would set up the rule of the kingdom of God. Matthew is telling you this is the Son of God who has come to release you from captivity. The Gospel’s power in our lives is displayed in Jesus’ healing power.
And it is a lesson for us, because there is nothing in our experience out of Jesus’ reign. There is no pit so deep that Christ is not deeper. Corey ten Boom once said, “the highest sin and the deepest despair together cannot baffle the power of Jesus.” C.H. Spurgeon once said, “if you are sitting here this morning in the midst of a despair that you think that Christ cannot reach, captive to a sin that you do not think that He can take dominion over, I tell you today, that the one who casts out demons, healed epileptics, and paralytics instantaneously is here for the healing of your soul.” Because these miracles of Christ, are to teach us His power, they are to teach us that He is a spiritual physician who know how to heal us, and they are to teach us that He has a heart of compassion. That even though you are in enmity with Him, if you do not know Him, He has compassion towards your misery. And if you will but trust Him, He will heal you body and soul. Our Lord and our Savior heals in different ways in these days. Even Jesus’ ministry of healing was unique in His own days. We must not get the idea from the Bible that people just went around healing people all the time in Bible times. That is not true. John did not heal, but the Lord Jesus was given this special power of healing.
The Lord Jesus heals in different way today. Sometimes the Lord answers us in glorious prayer, sparing us form disasters. Our dear brother, Mike Trammel, was spared from destruction this last week. I have no doubt that the Lord spared him by the power of His angels. Sometimes the Lord Jesus determines to call us home. And to heal our bodies in glorification. But He is the one who can heal body and soul. And I want to say to you this morning, that if you have never trusted in Him, if you have never rested in Him, do business with Him now. Trust in the only one, who can help you. Trust in the only one who has the power to take dominion over this world and dominion over your life. And to do you good, and not destruction. Jesus Christ, if you do not know how to do that, the elders and I are going to be meeting in Hutton Chapel afterwards, I would ask you, you come to Hutton Chapel, if you don’t know how to embrace Christ, and we will tell you. But come to Him. Do not put it off. This is the day of salvation. If you do not know Him, if you have not rested in Him, this is the day to do spiritual business with Him. Come to the one, whose message is the good news of the kingdom and who has power to bring completion to that message. Let’s look to Him in prayer.
Our Father, we ask that you would bless this Word, to the spiritual nourishment of our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
