We always enjoy the help that comes, and so thank you. Thank you for this opportunity, and it is good to be back. It has been a number of years since we have been with you, and thank you for the invitation. I'd like to just give you an update tonight, and then I'd like to look at the word of the Lord with you before we pray. Those of you that have been in New York know how strategic that city is. I would say that if Paul were alive, that would be one of the cities he would target. Culture flows downhill from the major cities. And unfortunately, New York City is a very morally corrupt, badly led place. And yet in the providence of God, he has his people there. And in the providence of God, he has allowed my wife and I to be there now for 17 years with a burden and desire to preach the gospel of God among the nations of the world that live there. If you've been there, you know a walk around the blocks will walk around the world. The whole world lives there. The whole world visits there. You have an opportunity not to only touch the continental United States because of all of the tourists that come to that city and you set up in a very strategic place and sing and preach and pass out gospel tracts, you're impacting the nation. But you're also impacting the world that visits there. And so I'm thankful for the opportunities God has given to us. We are currently located in the west side of Manhattan in the neighborhood called Chelsea. Chelsea is the gay capital on the east coast. And the leadership in that movement are my neighbors all around me. We were on the other side of town in a location, some of you are familiar with that, the Angel Memorial House. Spoke with me before the service about that. God in his providence moved us from that side of town. We went to New York, inherited a three and a half million dollar debt. I want you to know that many years later, we are out of debt. We're no longer on the east side of town. We're in a location that is two and a half times the size of the angel house that we were in. And the owners of that facility initially gave us 20 years use of their space. seven-person board that owns that building, and by the kindness of God, he put four of us on that seven-person board. And so we hold the majority voice in the stewardship of that incredibly strategic place. And I thank God for that. That is a God story. I don't have the time tonight to tell you all of the God stories, but we have seen so many things. Jill and I would say that The past nine years has probably been the most difficult nine years of our ministry life, and yet they've been the most rewarding. For we have seen God do things that only God could do. And it doesn't make any other sense apart from his hand. The New York Gospel Ministries had a desire when we went to the city to have an international gospel training center. And over the years, we have welcomed many mission teams to New York. Your church has come a number of times. Spend a week with us. We have sessions in the morning of prayer and training, the theology of the gospel. I love to train people on the message of imputed righteousness and the vicarious atonement of Christ. And so it's a place to train churches in evangelism and then get them out on the street corners of the world. Go into the parks. We were in Union Square Park just a few weeks ago and some of you might be aware of the fact that we have a third scale model of the tabernacle furniture. And we'll set that up in these parks and it becomes a magnet to draw people so that we can have gospel conversations. Other groups are skilled musically. Your church in the past has gone into parks like Battery Park, where the boats go in and out for the Statue of Liberty. You've been on other street corners. You've played music. You've given testimonies. You've read from scripture. You've preached sermons. And so New York is a tremendous place, and we have access with this facility to have a training center, but not only for churches. adults and youth groups, but we also have an internship program. And my wife and I sat down the other day and we just listed all the different interns that have come and spent either a summer with us or an entire year with us. And we had over 35 interns in the past 17 years who have come and spent time with us. And so they get into the city just like this brother and sister and Tim Martin And they're overwhelmed. I still am overwhelmed by New York City and the vast number of people that live there. But they have an opportunity to get their feet wet and to minister the gospel and to interact with people. You know, life's about people. It's not about things, it's about people. During COVID, we had two interns come. Whole city's shut down. So no, they don't even have an opportunity to see the city. You know, there's something that New York draws people from all over the world because of all the stuff that takes place in that city. So the whole city's shut down. There's nothing for them to do but hunker down and serve. And those two interns with my daughter, who was the last child we had in the house, They kept our beneficial deed ministry wide open. Picked up the food every day. Sorted the food every day. Repackaged the food every day. Distributed the food during the times of distribution. And Jill and I kind of stayed away from people. But those two interns, my hat goes off to them. The hat's got to go off to at least one of them. They married my youngest daughter. He came to me after he had watched her serve for months and months and months and months. He said, would you mind, could I start dating your daughter? He said, I love her servant's heart. That's what I'm looking for in a wife. Well, they ended up getting married. Now he took her out of the city. And they're in Iowa. So she went from the tall corn stalks of the Empire State Building to the Iowa cornfields. And he is a youth pastor in a church out there, and she's ministering alongside of him. But what a wonderful place for not only mission teams, but for interns to come and get a taste of city work. And this spring, we are test piloting an opportunity to work with the PRTS Seminary in Grand Rapids. And we have two young men, or her, in the midst of their ministerial training. They're working on MDivs. And they have a component that they're trying to add to their book learning, and that is practical, hands-on interaction and ministry with people. I'll tell you what, you don't get any more hands-on than what you get when you're working with us in the city. So we are going to have interns again, two of them this spring. And I look forward to that. And so that is part of the mission that we had when we left the church we were pastoring in Western North Carolina and moved to New York City. It's to have an international gospel training center. But we also have what we call the International Gospel Preaching Center. And every Wednesday, we have three different language groups. We have a service in Chinese at 11 o'clock in the morning. We have a service at 1 o'clock in the afternoon in Spanish. And then on Wednesday afternoon, we have a service in English. Now, I do not have the gift of languages, so I do not preach in Chinese, nor do I preach in Spanish. And so we're working with Sermon Audio and Stephen. Does anybody here know who Stephen Lee is? I'd like to introduce him and his family. We're working with Sermon Audio, and we have a pastor in Texas that speaks Chinese, preaches in Chinese, Mandarin. And so he videos his sermons and we are able to play a Chinese sermon in Mandarin. We also have discovered, Jill told me there were 52 people in that service today and we had to turn away people that were on the outside. We couldn't even get them in the building. We've discovered there's a lot of Cantonese speakers. And so we've been working with a Cantonese pastor in Hong Kong. And he pastors a church that one of our staff, Christopher Love's fiancee attends. And so we are seriously considering, after the start of this next year, adding another language service for the Chinese and Cantonese. And so we'll have those two dialects of Chinese. We have people that speak Russian that have asked us if we would have a Russian service. We have some Ukrainian people that have asked us if we would do something in Ukrainian. And so our passion is to preach the gospel in as many different languages or to provide a place where people can come and hear the word of God preached. So those three services are on Wednesday. And then we have two more English services on Saturday. One at one o'clock and one at three o'clock. And I do have the joy of preaching the English services. And when the interns get here, they will be preaching in some of those services. You learn to preach by preaching. Interact with people teaches you how to interact with people. And so we're thankful for not only an international gospel training center, for God's people, but we're thankful for an international preaching center to reach the people in New York City and touch the different ethnic groups that are in that great place. So pray for the training center, pray for the preaching station, and I look forward to the day when Faith Free is going to be able to come back up and spend a week with us. I hope that that can take place. And then there's another component to what we're involved with there in the city, We have a beneficial deed ministry. The New York Gospel Ministries works in a close partnership with the Covenant Mercy Mission. I'm also involved in that ministry. And we have been the recipients of donated food from three Trader Joe's stores in Manhattan. Last year during COVID, they donated $2.5 million retail food to the Covenant Mercy Mission. The year before COVID, They donated $3.9 million retail food to the Covenant Mercy Mission. Now thank the Lord it doesn't all come to me, okay? I couldn't bring it all to our location and so we built a network of other churches around the city that we donate to them from our mission. But we have, we are the recipients of enough food that we can supply everyone that comes to these evangelistic services with a pantry. And they'll show up with a shopping cart because they have a need. We are ministering in these evangelistic services to older people, widows, the poor, the disabled of New York. And I can't help but think of that verse in the Bible, which is really messianic about the ministry of Christ, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. The year before COVID hit, we have to keep a registration of the people that qualify for the pantry. You have to qualify for it in order for Trader Joe's to get the tax write off from the IRS. So you either have to have an economic hardship, you have to have a health condition where you're under constant doctor's care, or you have to have a minor in your home. And so everyone is qualified that comes to these pantries. And so we keep a registration. And the year before COVID, we had 2,000 different people that came and sat in at least one evangelistic chapel. And many of them have come to more than one. And so we have watched the Lord use a love of your neighbor. You know, what's the greatest command is to love our God with all our heart, with all our soul, all our mind, with all our strength. And the second greatest one is Love thy neighbor as thyself. Remember when the Lord said that in the Apocalypse? Well, Lord, who's my neighbor? You want me to love my neighbor? Who's my neighbor? And how'd the Lord answer that question? Remember? Told them the story of the New Good Samaritan. There's your neighbor. Someone who has a pressing need. And I'll never forget when we started this Beneficial Deed Ministry. Initially, I was really kind of against it. But one day, I just happened to be reading the Bible. And I came to Isaiah where the Lord said, this is the fast that I want. This is the fast that I want, God said. I want you to clothe the naked. I want you to feed the hungry. And I want you to invite the homeless poor into your house. And that beneficial deed ministry, the philosophy flows right out of Deuteronomy chapter 10. where the Lord says, I'm the God of God and the Lord of lords and I'm not a respecter of person and I show my love by giving food and clothes. And then God turns around and he says, show your love the same way too. And that is why Jesus said, don't be anxious about what you'll eat or wear because your heavenly father knows that you have need of these things. And that is why James, brother of Christ, writes in his little epistle that true religion, true religion in the sight of God is to visit the widow in her affliction, take care of the orphan, and your religion is worthless if you can tell someone to be what? You know this text? Warmed and filled. So those texts started working on my heart. Then I happened to read the book of Titus. You know, you learn so much as you constantly read the Bible. You see things you never saw before. If you've never seen this before, go through the book of Titus and circle or underline all of the references to beneficial deeds. Good work. And Paul is instructing Titus and he says this right in that little, the church of Jesus Christ needs to learn how to meet people's pressing needs. And so with all This teaching from the Word of God, we have seen the Lord bless that beneficial deed ministry in the love of our neighbor, and they have been coming to this location to get help, but the way we do it is you sit in the chapel while we're filling up your grocery cart. So they're getting the Word, and they're getting real help in their life. And so the The training center continues to operate. The preaching center continues to operate. The beneficial deed ministry continues to operate. And I also have the responsibility of being the pastor of Manor Community Church. They asked us to come in a number of years ago and help restart that little ministry. And so Sunday afternoons we have a worship service for people that we have invited to come to that meeting from the evangelistic services. So they're the ones that are attending Manor right now. They're the ones that are members at Manor. And we worship at 1 o'clock Sunday afternoons. Pray for us during that hour. You finished up your meeting here. And we've just begun ours at 1 o'clock. And then we've before COVID we followed that with a full fellowship meal every Sunday. And then we had a prayer service after that meal. Well, we've not had the full fellowship meal, but it's become like a coffee. and fellowship and finger snacks. And then we have our prayer meeting right after that. And so that's really a kind of a report on the ministry, what we're doing. We'd love to see you folks come and spend a week with us. We have the means to house you in our location. We have a room that we just finished off, beautiful room. It's got eight beds in it, bunk beds. And so either men or women can, I said men or women could sleep in there. Well, men always let the women sleep in there and they're back on the floor on air mattresses, okay. But that room will also accommodate families. And we have families that will come and they'll spend from a Thursday through a Sunday with us. And get involved in the ministry, see it with their own eyes. and then have an opportunity to see a little bit of the city. And so it makes for a wonderful getaway of ministry and relaxation for your family. So come. We'd love to have families come and churches come. And I trust that that might be an opportunity for you. So thank you. Thank you for the support that you've given to that ministry in New York City this year. And I'm delighted to be with you folks again and to just give you a recap on what's happening. But with the time that we have left this evening, I'd like to ask you to take your Bible and turn to the first page of the New Covenant, Matthew chapter 1. Pastor, I hope this is not the case here. On Sunday night, I was in a different church, and I invited folks to turn to this text, and I just noticed a lot of chuckling in the congregation. And I said, oh no, the preacher preached from this text recently. And sure enough, he preached from that text in the morning service. But as we think of celebrating the incarnation of Christ here in a few days, I couldn't help but think of this great text that's found right here in the beginning of the New Covenant Scripture. These two chapters, Matthew chapter 1 and chapter 2, and of course you have the account in Luke's Gospel, but the New Covenant Scriptures begin by saying this is the record the genealogy or generation of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Now why does the genealogy of Jesus begin by making reference to David and Abraham and then mentioning Abraham again in verse 2 and Abraham again in verse 17? Why these two men? And why is there a focus on David, and David the king in verse 6, and David again? And you come down to verse 17, David, David. Why these two? And then also, why the reference four times once in verse 11, once in verse 12, twice in verse 17, to the deportation to Babylon. You know these first 17 verses are the ancestral origin of Jesus Christ. This is the book that contains the origin of Jesus Christ. So you have these first 17 verses that deal with the ancestral origin of Christ, And then picking up in verses 18 and running through the end of chapter 1, you have the account of the physical origin of Jesus Christ, a text that we're very familiar with, the virgin birth of Christ, stuck right in here, taking us back to the promise in the Garden of Eden concerning the seed of the woman. And then picking up in chapter 2, beginning with verse 1 and running all the way through the chapter, Four different locations are pointed out. So he begins with the ancestral origin, he turns his attention to the physical origin, but then he looks at the geographical origin of Christ and he mentions Bethlehem. We know that great promise that the Messiah would be born Bethlehem, he references Bethlehem in verse 1, in verse 5, in verse 6, verse 8, and then he'll mention that again in verse 16, but he mentions Egypt. Egypt is mentioned twice, three times, excuse me, once in verse 13, once in verse 14, and once in verse 15, once in verse 19. Why Egypt? We're very familiar with the last, in verse 23, Nazareth, but there's a little town mentioned in verse 18, Ramah. Why Bethlehem? Why Egypt? Why Ramah? Why Nazareth? What is so significant? As you turn your Bible and open it to the first book, I like to use the term covenant rather than testament. The author of Hebrews chooses to use the word covenant as he describes the Bible rather than testament. And the author of Hebrews references that everything in front of the Gospel of Matthew is the old covenant and a shadow that contains the Mosaic covenant. But with Matthew forward, it's a reference to the new. One of the most influential, impactful studies that I've had in my entire life on an understanding of the Bible has been to look at the scripture for the book that it is. It is a book of the covenant promise of God, and our God wants us to know that he's a God that keeps covenant promises. And the greatest promise that he's made to us all was a promise he made in the Garden of Eden after Adam had sinned. God had told him that the day you eat, you're going to die. And yet he came along and he made a covenant promise, a promise that he was going to do what? Send a redeemer who would reverse the curse that Adam has brought to us all. He made a promise that he would do that. And to help us understand that it was going to be kept, that he's a covenant-keeping God, we start to read our Bible. And we come to the story of the flood there. And you know the story of the flood. Only one representative of the human race would be used by God to save. We wouldn't be here today if it were not for Noah. And you know the story of the flood. Eight people go on that ark. Noah's wife, his three sons, their wives. They come off the ark. He worships God and God comes along and he makes another promise. God eliminates two-thirds of the human race. Ham and Japheth. And he focuses on one of the sons by the name of Shem. And he says this, that God himself is going to dwell in the tents of Shem. The Redeemer is going to come through the line of Shem. And there's going to be an incarnation. And we continue to read our Bible. And we come to another covenant promise from God that God made to Abraham. And you know the story. Twelve chapters in. And in the first three verses of that chapter, we're brought face to face with God making this promise again, that he is going to send the Redeemer. The Redeemer would be a descendant of Abraham, and this Redeemer is going to be a blessing to the entire world. So look for him. He's going to be the seed of a woman. He's going to be the seed of Shem. He's going to be the seed of Abraham. And you read those chapters concerning Abraham in the book of Genesis. And he renews that promise with Abraham's son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob. Jacob has how many sons? Twelve. And he comes along and he tells us that the scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. And you start looking at the Bible and you discover that it's a book of covenant promises. And our God has given us this revelation so that we would understand that he keeps his promise. The curse of Adam will be reversed. There will be a return to where God dwells with his people again. He was dwelling in the Garden of Eden. You turn to the second to the last chapter of your New Testament and God promises that he's going to dwell with us again. I will dwell with them and they will be my people and I will be their God. Unless you think that's just a reference to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You read the Minor Prophets and God right there in the Minor Prophets says that many nations are going to come to me and be my people. So look for this Redeemer. The seed of the woman, the seed of Shem, the seed of Abraham. We continue to read our Bible. We have the story of how the descendants of Abraham, which God said would happen, go down into Egypt for 400 years. And then God says he's going to bring them back to the land. And that brings us to Moses. And there's the exodus. And God brings his people to Mount Sinai. And he enters in to the Mosaic covenant with them. You find reference to the 10 words in Exodus chapter 20 and in what other book? Deuteronomy, what chapter in Deuteronomy? Chapter 5, where God had to come again to the generation of younger children. Their parents couldn't enter their inheritance because of their unbelief. No individual will ever get an inheritance if they don't put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses, the great lawgiver, could not take him into the land, could he? He had to stand back on Mount Pisgah and overlook the Dead Sea and see the land, but Moses, the great lawgiver, could not take him in. But I'll tell you who took him to the land. It was Yeshua. Don't miss that. Everything that God puts into this covenant book is there to teach us a lesson. And these great people of the past were looking forward to, I was just thinking of this the other day, they were looking forward to the first coming of Christ. God had made the promise. Abraham was looking for Christ. Matter of fact, Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it. And the same gospel that we're preaching in New York, the same gospel that you're preaching here in South Carolina, was the same gospel that what Paul was preaching in the book of Galatians, right? And he says there's only one gospel, only one. And right in that chapter, he says that that gospel was preached to Abraham, and Abraham believed it. Any person who's ever been saved has been saved by putting their faith and trust in the Redeemer. They were looking for him to come the first time. But I thought of this, we're looking for him to come to what? The second time. We can understand their hearts anticipating the seed of the woman, the seed of Shem, the seed of Abraham. But that Mosaic covenant teaches us something about Christ too. It's all about law, it's all about obedience, it's all about righteousness, and it's all about sacrifice. It's all about sin and sacrifice, right? All of these pictures. No, this whole theme of God dwelling with his people was taught in the history of those people. I mean, God put a tabernacle right in the middle. to teach him that he would dwell with them, which later became a temple, that he would dwell with them. And then Christ dwelt among us. Can you imagine what it's going to be when we dwell with God again forever? That is ours. That belongs to us. But you look at this Mosaic covenant. It's not the last covenant. There's another one. But if you'll start reading your Bible, after you've read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, you come to Joshua, where they're taken into their inheritance. But what's the book after that? Judges, right? I want you to start doing something if you've never done it before in your life, is take a pen, when you start reading the Bible, and start with the book of Judges. You've got the second giving of the law, the book of Deuteronomy. God promises blessing for obedience, but what does he tell them will happen to the nation if they don't keep the covenant? Moses dies. He's on his deathbed. He looks to the people. He says, I already know you're not going to keep the covenant. But here's what's going to happen. If you do not keep the covenant, God says, I will scatter you among the nations of the world. Where are the Jewish people today? scattered around the world as the greatest testimony of the inability of man to keep the covenant. And so you start reading, judges, and I want you to note every time in the margin of your Bible where one of the Ten Commandments is being violated. And you will begin to see from the book of Judges all the way through the end of the Old Testament that this is the story of the inability of man to keep the covenant. It's a story of their covenant disobedience. And you get past the book of Judges, and you read 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and you start to read those major prophets, and those minor prophets, and what are they all preaching about? They're preaching about sin, for sin is the transgression of the what? The covenant law. It's a history of their covenant breaking. And as you read the historical pages of your Old Testament, you discover that there are two major events in Israel's history besides the Exodus. What two major events do the Old Testament scriptures just focus on in the history of Israel? Help me out here. I'll give you a hint. They take place after God comes to King David. And in 2 Samuel chapter 7, makes another covenant promise. And he comes to David, the king. And he tells David that you're going to have a greater son. And your greater son is going to be Messiah. He'll not only be the seed of the woman and the seed of Shem and the seed of Abraham and one who will fulfill the covenant demands. and then die in the place of covenant breakers, the Mosaic Covenant. But he's going to be a descendant of King David. He'll have an everlasting kingdom. One of the most famous Christmas texts is Isaiah chapter 9. And you bury your heart into that and you discover that this one is the wonder of a counselor, a God of might, the father of eternity, and the prince of peace. And of his kingdom, there'll be no end. And the government will be on his shoulders. He's going to be king. But he's going to be David's son. But David in Psalm 110 says he's not other than my Lord. The incarnation again. The promise to Noah of an incarnation. And we know from our Bible that Abraham believed the gospel, and David believed the gospel, and the very righteousness of Mashiach was credited to them, put on their account. But after King David's on the scene, the two major events in the history of Israel are recorded for us in the Bible. What are they? Kingdoms divided. And God is going to graphically demonstrate the inability of any human being to keep the covenant because he takes 10 northern tribes. And in 722, they are taken into captivity and scattered. Do you know what city they were processed in as they were being scattered in 722? There was a little town that separated the northern tribes from the southern tribes. A tiny little town on the border and that town was named Rama. Those 10 tribes are scattered. You know who's the lead preacher when they're being scattered? Who's the preacher? one of the major prophets, I'll give you a hint, okay? That's not fair, right? You've got Isaiah, you've got Jeremiah, you've got Ezekiel. There's Isaiah. And you read his book carefully, and it's all about their breaking the covenant, and now it's time to be scattered. But right in the middle of his book are those four servant songs They're being scattered because they cannot keep the covenant. They're sinners, they're being scattered. And yet Isaiah comes along, and you know that in chapter 42 and 49, he's talking about Christ, the portrait of Christ is right in those two chapters. We find it very clearly in Isaiah chapter 53, the fourth servant song, but stuck right there in chapter 42 and chapter 49, I'll never forget the day I saw it. Do you know how Christ is referred to in that text? You're getting hauled into captivity because you can't keep the covenant, but the covenant keeper is on his way. I will give him as a covenant for the people. What a promise in the midst of that tremendous need. But then in 586, The two southern tribes are going into captivity. Why? Because they can't keep the covenant. Who's the lead preacher in 586? I know you know this. I've eliminated Isaiah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, the one who saw the destruction and wrote the Lamentations, a little book we've got there. But what book of the old covenant do we find a reference to the new covenant? Jeremiah. That is not without significance. The final two tribes are being hauled into captivity because they can't keep the covenant. And yet in that book, God promises the new covenant. You see, our entire Bible wants to focus on this new covenant work of Christ. He is the covenant for the people. And all of these Old Testament covenants give us a little bit more information about who He is and what He'll have to do to redeem a people so we can dwell with God forever. And that is why with the covenant structure of your Bible, the new covenant begins with this is the book that contains the generation of Jesus the Christ, the Son of who? Abraham, he's the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. And he's the son of who? David, the king. Because this one who was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago is the promised seed of the woman, and the seed of Shem, and the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David. And he is the king with an everlasting kingdom. And the government will be upon his shoulders. And that is why in this genealogy, you have all of these individuals listed who are Judean kings. And if you read 1 and 2 Chronicles and 1 and 2 Kings, you discover how sinful most of them were and how during their reign they didn't keep the covenant. But some of them that were good discovered the covenant and read it to the people seeking to call them back to God. But here is a people, here is a people and tucked in this genealogy that contains the names of men are five women, And I don't mean to pick on you ladies, but one of them is named Tamar. She was a harlot. Ruth came from the Moabites, from an incestuous relationship. Bathsheba. David. Remember those stories? Rahab, the harlot. Then you even come to the fifth woman, Mary. And no, she's not the co-redeemer, she's not the co-mediatrix. Matter of fact, in Luke's gospel, you read a hymn that she writes and she says, I need God to be my savior. So a genealogy that contains what? Covenant breakers. And then you look at all the men and they're covenant breakers, they're sinners. And then we read of Hezekiah, what a wonderful king he was. But it's in Hezekiah's reign, you remember in 2 Kings 17 and 18, that the 10 northern tribes are being hauled off into captivity because they couldn't keep the covenant. But now you know why there's four references to Babylon. The inability of a Saul to keep the covenant. But thank God the text doesn't stop there, but I'm going to stop very soon. You come to verse 21, 22, and 23. Call his name Jesus, because he's going to do what? He's going to save his people, take a peek at his people. Here they are, men and women. He's gonna save His people from their sins. What a Savior we have tonight. All of us sinful, law-breaking people have a Savior, thank God, who kept covenant for us and then died as a substitute pictured in the Mosaic Covenant sacrifices. And he's the king. And we're looking for his coming again. And he'll come. And in the midst of all the darkness of this day, our blessed hope is fixed on what? The glorious appearing of our great God and Savior. Jesus Christ. You put your faith in Him? Have you believed on Him? Have you called out to Him to be your Savior? Thank God, in the kindness of God, His covenant promise is that if we will, we will dwell in His house. forever. Let's remember these dear things as we celebrate his incarnation.