There is no man that hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit. Neither hath he power in the day of death. And there is no discharge in that war. Neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. Amen. This was Boy and the Word, a prayer as a people before God. Let us seek the Lord together. For, Father in Heaven, we come to Thee now to what is the most important part of a worship service, the preaching and the exposition of Thy Word. And, Father, we pray that tonight the Word of God will come to our hearts with freshness and with power. We pray, Father, that Thou would deliver us from sermonizing, that Thou would deliver us, Lord, from three-point sermons, that, Lord, Thou would give us Holy Ghost-inspired preaching. The Lord will go forth like an iron and will sear the conscience, will reach the heart, will deliver sinners from their comforts, Lord, and show them that there is great danger in delay. That there is, Lord, not only the threat of the law, but there is the reality of being brought unto the power of the curse of the law of God. Father, we pray in grace, Thou would have mercy. Help us, we pray, and blesses over these nights as each time we return to the Scriptures. What a privilege! What an honour to come and to preach. What an honour, Lord, to sit and to hear the Word of God read and preached. May thy people tonight be blessed. May they drink from the Word. May they fill their hearts with gospel truth that flows from the river of life. from the throne of God. Speak, we pray, for Christ's sake. Amen and Amen. Well, men and women, it's very clear that death is not a very popular subject amongst, I can say, both Christian and unchristian. It is true that the unsaved most certainly don't like to be reminded that they must needs die. And there is, in another sense, a certain fear within the heart of the child of God. Maybe not to the same degree, but God's people do shrink away whenever they hear sermons preached on death or when the news comes to them that they too must needs die. Many a believer has received news, maybe perhaps through an illness or maybe through a relative that has just tragically been given the same news. And it's news that we don't welcome. It's news that causes our hearts and our whole being to perhaps recoil in a fear. And yet, God's Word has much to say to us about that. Death, you see, is not something natural. I know preachers, perhaps through a slip of the tongue, may say it is the most natural thing for men to die. Death is the most unnatural thing for man. From the point of view, as we go to Genesis and the creation of man, we find that man who was made body and soul, or body, spirit and soul, he was not made to die. He was born with a body that had the potential to live and go on forever. I am not sure if you have ever wondered about that. But if you go back to Genesis 3, when God made man body and soul, He was not created to die. He was made to live and to glorify his Creator God. That's the way man was made. His body had, can I say, the potential to die. It had the potential to corrupt. But God made man incorruptible in his pristine state. That is something that we all must agree on. But nevertheless, there was that potential. as we now know, because man is a dying creature. But it, at the beginning, was not something natural. Adam was made to live. He was created perfect. But yet, through sin and with the entrance of sin, he became a man who began to die. Now, if you go back with me, please, to Genesis chapter 2, and you know these words so well, at least I trust you do. Maybe you've never heard these words before. Maybe you've never lifted a Bible before. I don't know. But Genesis chapter 2 and verse number 17. The command of God. This is the law of God. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, Adam, thou shalt surely die. So we can see right away here that Adam was not dying as a man. He was a living soul. Isn't that what we are told in Genesis? God made him a living soul. He was created living and he was living right up until this point. Until when he disobeyed that command, that covenant command, he took of the fruit given to him by Eve and he began to die. See, up until The point, right until when Eve took that fruit. And remember when Eve took of the fruit, Adam did not die. She was not the covenant head. Adam was the covenant head. Have you ever wondered that? Why did the fall? Why did the curse not come in whenever Eve took of the fruit and she tasted the fruit? Why did God not pronounce the curse on her? It wasn't until she gave her husband Adam, and then Adam took the fruit and he ate of that And then, in that very moment, his eyes were opened, his understanding took on a new dimension of who God was, of what sin was, of who he was, and he began to die. Adam was the covenant head. He was the one to whom the Word was given. Adam, the day thou weakest, thou shalt surely die. Death remained a curse. Death remained a threatened curse. At the very moment when Adam took of the fruit and broke the Word of God, broke the command of God, he as a creature began to die, but began to experience in his own heart that this curse of which my Creator spoke of is no longer a threat, but is now a present reality in every part of my created being. That is a very solemn truth, men and women. that whenever Adam or father died in sin, it affected every part of him which God had created. His mind was affected, his will, his footsteps, his speech, his hearing, what he heard, his very lips, how he saw his wife. Up until that point, he saw his wife as something to be loved, cherished, and adored. But the moment he felled, his attitude towards his wife changed. He blamed her. He treated her as an object of contempt. He talked behind her back. He gossiped about her. You know, God, it was my wife. It's not my fault. It was her fault. Blame her. Everything about him, that is Adam, was changed. But let's look at a number of things this evening. When God cursed Adam, when the curse of the law of God, thou shalt surely die, what did that actually mean for Adam? He began to die physically, yes. But with that, you know, men and women, let's understand this how the Bible explains it. The fall of man was not only death. The fall of man brought many things. One thing it did do, it deprived Adam of the image of God. He was no longer, like his Creator, consistent in holiness and righteousness. He was now a creature who possessed shame. He had a conscience that was full of guilt, full of shame. But here's something that God cursed Adam with, and something that remains with you, man or woman, whether you be a believer, whether you be a A Christian or not, it remains in your heart today, this night, and it explains why you have a fear of death. One of the parts of the curse was this, that Adam now possessed a terrified conscience. He knew the words of God, Adam, the day that you eat, you will die. And Adam heard those words, he heard them in perfection. How Adam fell, we don't know. We can't explain how Adam fell. How did a creature who was made like God, that is, in the image of God, possessing holiness, righteousness, how did he fall? We can't explain that. But we do know this, that Adam did fall. And one of the things that came with the fall was a terrified conscience. The curse is all that Adam can think of. What about the curse that my Creator spoke of? When will it be effected? When will I hear its pronouncement on me? How did Adam display his terrified conscience? He runs from the presence of God and he hides in the darkest part of the garden. You know how John tells us that man loves darkness rather than light? Adam demonstrated that right at the very beginning. Man loves darkness rather than light. Adam, who was created in light, he falls into darkness and he runs to the darkness part of the garden, terrified. Terrified because he knows that he must die. He must die. And God comes and He tells him that. Adam, and I know that we can't explain this, but I often think to myself that God who created Adam, who communed every day with Adam. Let's get this right, men and women. God loved Adam. God loved him. God came down and spoke with him. They walked together. They knew the presence. They enjoyed each other's presence as friends do. And yet here God must come to his friend, or who was his friend, and say to him, Adam, you must die. I cannot withhold the sword of justice. You must die. And Adam knows that. Their friendship is gone. And he has good reason to fear God. He has good reason to run from God. In the same way that men still run from God today. Because they know the curse of God is upon them. Why do you fear death tonight? And why in the Christian? To a lesser degree, why does the believer run, not like to speak about death? I don't cherish the thought of death. If I was to go to the doctor tomorrow and he says to me, Paul, you have six months to live, do I go home rejoicing and say, well, God is sovereign. Amen, He is sovereign. And that's how you cope with those kind of things, knowing that God is sovereign. But do I shrug it off as a believer and say, well, I'm a Christian. Those things don't scare me. No, I don't. I can tell you now, I will weep and I will search my heart and I will be afraid. Because I, as a creature of God, descending from my father, Abraham, or from my father, Adam, I have a terrified conscience. And you have a terrified conscience. Now, when we come here this evening to Ecclesiastes chapter 8, we find here that Solomon, the wise man, is actually bringing home to men these truths. Look at verse 7 again. Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse number 7. For he knoweth not that which shall be, for who can tell him when it shall be? There is no man that hath power over the spirits. That's not speaking about the Holy Spirit, by the way. I know that John tells us that no man can tame the Spirit. We cannot know when it blows or where it listseth. So is every man who is born of the Spirit. It is not speaking of that. It is speaking of the Spirit within us. The very breath of God. The soul of man. There is no man who can retain the Spirit or has power to hold the Spirit. He has no power in the day of death. There is no discharge, there is no release in the day of death. Why should you fear death? Solomon says there's why. For one thing you don't know when the day of your death is coming. Adam didn't know whenever he heard those words, you shall surely die. He now knows he must die. And he's thinking to himself, well, when will I die? That remains unknown to man. The appointed time of death is unknown, man and woman. Your future is unknown. Look again at verse 7. Solomon is saying to us here that the future, not one of us knows what it is. For he knoweth, that is man, he knoweth not that which shall be. In other words, we don't know what the future will be. Now many will attempt to read the future. Many will go to their stars or their horoscopes or the zodiac and they will try and predict what their future might be. And can I just say, That as God's people, you should not be engaging in that kind of behaviour. Reading your stars, lifting the paper, and wondering what your prediction will be for that day. There's no man knoweth what shall be on tomorrow. And Russell Grant certainly doesn't know that. At least that's who it was whenever I was growing up. Or any of these guys. You go to Deuteronomy 18 in verse 10 and Moses tells you very plainly that sorcerers, divination, astrology, there's nothing wrong with looking at the stars by the way, one of the greatest astronomers of all time was Charles Spurgeon. In fact we're told that a large portion of Spurgeon's library, remember there were tens of thousands of books in that library, that a large section of Spurgeon's library was actually consisted of secular books. And he had a whole section on the stars and astrology and Yes, he used to give lectures in London on stars. So, there's nothing wrong with stargazing if you have the time to do that, brother or sister. But what I'm saying is there is no place in God's Word for you to try and divine your way through life. Try to predict what will become of you this time by twelve o'clock tonight, or by half past ten, or even by nine o'clock tonight. No man knoweth what is in the morrow, and no man knoweth which shall Be. Now that is especially true in regards to the day of your death. That is what he is saying here, because you read through verse 7. No man knows which shall be, for who can tell him, look at these words very carefully, when it shall be. Nobody can tell you when it shall be. When what shall be? The day of your death. The day of your departure from this earth. There's no man. No man can say, there's the day I will die. There's the time. There's the precise moment. No man knows that. That knowledge belongs on to God alone. And it's a very sobering thought. I'm trying to say to you tonight, why should you fear death? And I'm not using that as a means to frighten you into a profession of faith. What I'm doing is I'm trying to bring you to see that God alone knows that. And you must prepare yourself in light of that. You must go to God and say, Lord, I know not when I shall die, when the day of my death is at hand, but Lord, I want to be ready and prepared for that time. No man knows when it will be. It might be you're one of these people who are keep fit fanatics. And you get up in the morning and you feel very good. And that may give you confidence. And there's truth in that, that when you exercise, you sleep better, you study God's Word better, you study work better, you function better. But there are many, you know, who would actually be confident enough in their own physique to say, well, you know, today is not the day of my death. I can give you many examples tonight of men and women who have got up in the morning and felt well in themselves. And by five o'clock that night, they're in God's eternity. I'm thinking, you know, you all heard the tragic story of Lorraine Stewart last week. the wife of Alfie Stern, I'm sure many of you know her or know him, the footballer, driving to Ballymena with her young children. Dropped a young man off for his sports, played for Ballymena United. Young woman of 42 years of age. And the report in the newsletter went this way, she got up that morning and she felt as well as she did every other day. There was no complaints, no signs of anything underlying her health. On the road between Ballymena and Randallstown, she just slumped over at the wheel and she was gone. You don't know the day of your death. You don't know when it shall be, but there's no escaping that day. I can remember so well last year, two years ago in fact, when our son was being born. At the very same time, my mother's cousin, a young woman who's probably a lady in her forties, was diagnosed with lung cancer at the very same time. My wife Kay was in one ward and this old lady was in the other ward. By the time my wife came home, I think two or three days, the young lady who played tennis taught her own children how to play it. One of the loveliest persons you could ever care to meet, a lovely woman. Yet by that time she was ushered out into God's eternity. She had the physical side, strong, everything going well. And yet the day of her death was unknown. No man can tell these things. The day of your death, there's no man can tell you, well here's the day when you can die. I was thinking tonight near Belshazzar. You know how his father Nebuchadnezzar was a great man for the astrologers. and how he loves to bring them in and have them protect the future. But do you remember that night in the city of Babylon when Belshazzar, when the hand appeared on the wall, pointing to the day of his death? He calls for the wise men, he calls for the stargazers, he calls for the readers of the stars, the astrologers, they all brought him, and yet not one of them can tell him when he's going to die. But God alone through Daniel says, Tonight, O King, your kingdom is finished. Your life has run its course and you must, like all men, you must needs die. Dear Unsaved tonight, I want you to understand this. Daniel tells you tonight that God holds in His hand your breath. And should God close that hand at any time, your life will come to an end. It all goes back to the day of creation. What was the final act of God in creation? It was the giving of the soul to man. God made Adam, but He made him a living soul, the creation of the soul. It is God's will. It was God who gave the soul. And it will be God who requires that soul again. Job 34, verse 14. If God sets His heart upon man to gather him unto Himself, His spirit and breath. All flesh shall perish together, and man shall return to the dust. That is what Job tells us. If God sets His mind to gather a man, to call His soul in, to take life from that man, and no man knows when that time shall be, but when it comes, that man's life, his existence as far as this life is known, comes to an end. So there's a reason why you should fear death. The appointed time of death is unknown. But look at verse 8 again, of Ecclesiastes 8. We also notice here that the appointed time of death is unavoidable. Completely inescapable. There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death. Why should you fear death? Because when that day approaches, and it may be a very slow death, it may be over a period of time, but in the very moment or the time or the period leading up to when you will be removed from this earth, there is nothing you can do about it. It is an appointment you must keep. It is an appointment that is unavoidable. No man, Solomon is saying here, has the power to hold on. He has the power to retain the Spirit. You show me one man on the face of this earth who can stand here tonight and say, I was dying, but I had the power to fight off death and retain my life, to retain my Spirit, and stay alive in the face of death. You just can't do it. No man has power to retain the Spirit. There is nothing you can present in the face of death as a reason why death should not take you. Death is no respecter of persons. It is no respecter of wealth. It is no respecter of position. The king cannot plead his position and say, look, I have a country to run. I have this to do. I must remain. No, the appointment must be kept. A preacher cannot say, I have a congregation to pastor. And I have session meetings to run. And I have a family to keep. I must stay. I, like no man, any man, can plead in the face of death and say, I have power to retain the Spirit. You know, what Solomon is also teaching us here is what he does say in chapter 3, if you turn back to chapter 3 and verse 2. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 2. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. That is a precise time. Do you ever consider the day of your birth? There was a time when you were born. It was a precise time. The very day of your birth, the very timing of your birth, and you all know when you go into that maternity ward and the nurse writes down the very moment, the hour, the time, the seconds. But even far beyond what the midwife can do, the very moment life begins in the womb, in that embryonic form, and life begins in that small, yet so insignificant, but yet so minute form, there was a precise time when life began. And at the very same time, there is a time to be born, there is a time to die. And when that time comes, Man or woman, it will be a precise time. That appointment will not be a few seconds late. It will not be a few moments early. It will be at the precise time. Turn, please, to Job 14 and the verse 5. If you turn back, please, to Job, just before the book of Psalms, and to Job 14 and the verse 5, here's what Job says. seeing that his days are determined." That is the days of man. The days of man are determined. The bounds are set. The number of his months are with thee, Job says. The very days are determined. That is what God says tonight. He says that the number of our months are with Him. Far beyond the months. We are looking here at days. Job goes on to say that thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. There is a timeline that belongs to your life. It begins and it ends. It doesn't run beyond that. You have no control over how long you live. God has set a bounds. Maybe ten years for some of the children. Maybe twenty-five years maybe 60 years, maybe 95 years. But irrespective of how long we live, the point is we are moving steadily towards the boundary. And when we make that boundary, there's no drawing back, there's no moving on. We cannot retain the Spirit in the day of death. There are other verses I'm sure you have heard before. Job 14 and verse 14 and 15. About the days of his appointed time. Job 7 verse 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon the earth? Are not his days like the days of a hireling? That's Job 7 verse 1. The days of an employed servant who is only hired in. You business men know that if you hire a man in for a day's work, You set the contract. You set the agreement and say, I will give you employment beginning on Monday, terminating on Tuesday. The agreement is set. The contract is drawn up. And that man cannot come to you on Tuesday and say, well, listen, I'm staying on until Thursday or Wednesday or Friday. You can't get rid of me. No, you can say the contract is there. The bounds are set and you must abide by the contract. That is why Job says that man's days are like that of a hireling. Like the man who is hired in, his agreement, his contract comes to an end. Like Paul in the New Testament, it says, it is appointed. It is appointed unto man once to die. But after this, the judgment. Look again at verse 8 of Ecclesiastes 8. When this day comes, There is no substitution. No surrogation. We all know what a surrogate is. One that steps in on behalf of another. There is no surrogation allowed on the day of one's death. My heart goes to David. My mind goes to David. You know, when David heard of the death of his son Absalom, he says, Oh my son, Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God that I had died for thee." But David could not die for his son Absalom. Absalom must die alone. And he did die alone. The father, you see, must leave the son at death. The wife must leave the husband at death. The parent must leave the child at death. There is no way that a man can take the place of another. So powerful is this deadly enemy death. Why should you fear death, dear man or woman? It is because there is no way that you can avoid this. It is a personal appointment. David realized that. Would God that I could die for thee. Yet he could not. And you must die alone. And you will die alone. I will die alone. I will leave my wife. I will leave my children. Or they will leave me, whatever way God has ordained it to be. Not one of us can say, well, you know, I can put that appointment off by means of strength or by any other means, physical ability. You know, Christ reminds us in His Word when He says So powerful is this enemy death that it is actually the very last enemy to be destroyed. The very final enemy that Christ will put under His feet. So powerful. Powerful above all other things. It is the last enemy to be destroyed. As I come to the end of this message tonight, I want you to go back there to chapter 8 and verse 8. And we see here that not only is there no power in the day of death, The death of man is unknown. It is unavoidable. But from the hand of death there is no discharge. There is no release. Solomon says to us this evening, there is no discharge in that war. It's a very interesting language that Solomon uses here. He describes death like a war. He really means there that there is no release in this war. There is no getting out of it. Now the language here is taken from the Old Testament. Way back in the books of Deuteronomy, where a man, if he had just been married or if a man had just built himself a new home and he had taken out debt on that home, a mortgage, he was to be discharged from going to war because he had a family to keep, he had a home to pay. He had just built himself a new home. And there were rules. There were rules allowing men to be discharged from their military duty. And yet Solomon borrows that language from the Law of Moses. And he brings it here to us tonight and he says, in this war there is no discharge. There is no pleading. I've got a home to keep. I've got a family to run. I've got a wife to keep. Children to look after. There is no getting out of this war. He describes it as a war. There is no release from the appointment In other words, there is no resistance to be offered. You can't resist the approaching foe. I could come to death with an army. And yet death comes upon that horse alone. He comes alone and he goes away alone. He goes away with those, that person, the soul of whom he has come. And he comes alone And we can go against him with all the power, all the might. But Solomon says, neither hath he power in the day of death. No power in the day of death. You go back to what I said in Daniel 5, verse 22. We are told there that God in the very hand of God is the breath of every living thing. God holds You are very heartbeat in His hand. God holds the very days, the number of your days in His own control. And yet when God closes that hand on your life and brings it to an end, there is no release from that hand. There is no discharge again. When a man dies, the effects are irreversible. You cannot come back to life. Now I know there are many who will debate that today. I was just reading a report this evening in the BBC, an online report about clinical death. When does a man die? What constitutes death? And I will not argue with the doctors. They will say, and actually how they define death now is that whenever the brain no longer functions, whenever the heart is stopped and the organs shut down, that may be acceptable. But if somebody comes back from that, from being pronounced clinically dead, and let's be honest, doctors do get it wrong. And I'm not against that profession. We thank the Lord for our doctors and those in the medical profession. But they make mistakes in the same way preachers make mistakes. I know that the old joke used to be that preachers try to fix their mistakes and doctors, they bury their I know there may be a bit of humour to that, but let's get it right here from the scriptural point of view. When does a man die? A man dies whenever his soul departs from the body. If you go with me to Genesis 35, verse 18, when you read there of a woman by the name of Rachel, and we are told that she is in the process of dying, she is giving birth to this young man, Genesis 35, verse 18, is a most vital verse for you to refute the Jehovah's Witnesses. And for you to deal with the Mormons. And for you to deal with men who will deny that there is a soul and that man lives because he has a soul. You live tonight, men, man or woman, because there is a soul in your body. You read here what you read. And it came to pass as her soul was in departing. That's Rachel's soul. It came to pass as Rachel's soul was in departing, for she died. It wasn't until her soul actually left the body that Rachel was pronounced dead. And what I want you to see from that is that when a man dies, and I'm looking at it from the point a man is dead, Whenever his soul has departed the body, there is no reversing. There is no release. There is no discharge. Go to Job 16 and verse 22. When a few years are come, then I shall go, Job says. I shall go the way whence I shall not return. Job was conscious that when he died, that he was not going to return. Job chapter 7 and verse 9. As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." There is no man that has gone down to the grave, no matter what Benny Hinn or any of these other charismatic fools will say. None of them have come back from the grave. It is absolutely against the testimony of God's Word to say that. When a few years are come, I shall go the way and I shall not return. Neither shall my place know me no more." You know, we go to that passage that is very soft in our hearts. 2 Samuel 12, verse 23. And you know how whenever David heard the news, a little child had died. When David heard the word that his son had died, his son, that he had to be a Sheba, He says, but now he is dead. His spirit has departed. Wherefore can I bring him back again? I cannot bring him back again. Death has taken him and there is no release for that child. There is no discharge from the day of his death. I cannot bring him back again. I shall go to him and he shall not return to me. It's a wonderful truth. A wonderful truth for parents who have lost loved ones, lost children, from whom they've been taken. We can't bring them back, though we'd love to do it. You can't do it. But the glorious truth for the believer is this, that I shall go to him. They shall not return to me, but we shall go to them. There's no release from the hand of death. There's no discharge. Death strips a man of all power, all authority. The power that the husband has over the wife, it is removed at death. Think of King David. All his life he is known as King David, King David, King David. But yet when he died, what is said of him? And David died. David died. No authority. No power. No regality. David died. That's it. He's gone. No power on the Day of Death. No argumentation in saying, I am the King. I am King David. No. There's no discharge. No release. As I conclude tonight and close, I do want to be seen as Dr. Gloom. We don't want to be interpreted as being a man who loves to speak about death. It's something that we don't enjoy preaching. It's something we don't enjoy dwelling on. But yet, it is God's Word. And so many times we are reminded we must not die. There's a time to be born. There's a time to die. No man has power in the day of his death. When shall it be? No man can tell him when it shall be. But thank the Lord. that the Gospel reveals that there is release, not from death, for we all will die, but there is release from the power of death that is found only in Christ. You know the old devil who was a murderer from the beginning? He brought in death. Jesus Christ has said, well, said of Satan that he is the power of death. Not that he can kill or destroy. but that he was, as I say, the first person to introduce sin to this world. He brought death into the world. But Christ has destroyed him. Christ has bruised him who had power over death. Christ, by the power of his life and by his own blood-shedding, has destroyed him who has the power of death. Satan has been disarmed. Death has been disarmed. and it has been disarmed by the cross. You know, John Owen, in his most famous work, wrote that book, The Death of Death. The death of death in the death of Christ. Where do we see death that brings about the end of every man? So many. Where do we see his death? We see it in the cross of Christ. When Christ says, I have destroyed him, instead of the power of death, and I can deliver them, who through, please listen to this, who through the fear of death, all their lifetime were subject to bondage. I began tonight by saying that man is a creature in bondage. He is a fearful creature. He is a terrified conscience. But Christ can deal with that conscience. He can deal with that fear. He can disarm that fear. He can remove that fear. But it's only through the cross. He can deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. You can leave this meeting tonight. And you can go out of here a man or a woman who fears death, and you will fear death. And you will die a man who fears death. And you will experience what it really is then, through all eternity, what it is to fear death. You don't know what fear is. But you read the Gospel of Matthew and Christ tells us what it is. What it is for a lost soul in the depths of hell to experience fear. We don't know what hell is like. Scripture tells us what it will be like in many ways, but no man has been there, and certainly no man has come back. For once a man goes that way, there's no return. But certainly the Scriptures and Christ uses... Have you ever wondered that Christ uses the most fearful language that will terrify man to describe what hell is like. The darkness of darkness. You know the young child? Darkness is something that instills terror into the life of any man, certainly the young child. But you picture that being in a dark room, bound by chains. Whether those chains are literal or not doesn't make the difference. Christ says is being bound by chains. A bottomless pit. Falling from a great height. Those are all things that instilled fear and terror into a man. Falling from a great height. Darkness forever. Being bound by chains. Knowing pain. Great thirst. You haven't even begun to experience what fear is like. But the Lord warns you tonight that He has the power to deliver you from that fear. And that is a glorious gospel, man or woman. That there's a Saviour to whom you can go. Flee to Christ tonight. There's a Saviour who can deliver from the fear of death. You're in bondage tonight. I look down at you and I know some of you. And I know you're not saved. And you know that yourself. And we fear for you. We fear that that fear of which Christ speaks and of which Job and Solomon speaks will, for you, become a reality. And yet there is deliverance to be had. Delivering you from the bondage I pray tonight that God will use his word to bring about deliverance in your soul. Only Christ can do that. I can warn you of it, but I pray that the Lord, by his mercy and grace, will see fit to do that this evening. Let us bow, please, in a word of prayer. We just want to conclude our meeting in prayer. I will be going to the door. If there is someone here tonight that would want to speak about these things, That a greater length will endure, you make that known. But you don't need a preacher, you need Christ. Flee to Him. Him who has the power to deliver you from the fear of death. Our Father in heaven, as we...