As we've been working our way through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, we've had the opportunity to think quite a bit about eschatology, that is, end times. 1st Thessalonians 4 and 5 are packed with information about what happens to believers when they die, as well as a vivid description of Christ's glorious return at the end of the age. And then in 2 Thessalonians chapters 1 and 2, Paul picks up on those themes and explains that at Christ's return, he'll bring vengeance on our enemies, excuse me, on his enemies and ours, and that they'll be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. And then he introduces us to the great apostasy and the man of lawlessness, who's the Antichrist. So Paul's providing us a considerable amount of end times teaching. And it's been my desire to fill out some of this teaching by looking at other places in scripture. And what I want to do is take a few weeks to look at Revelation chapter 12 through 14, which is a really important vision cycle. in the book of Revelation, because it gives us a lot more detail about Satan, about his Antichrist, about the false prophet, who's actually instrumental in the great apostasy. And then it gives us this intense picture of Christ's great defeat of Satan. So with the Lord's help, what we're going to do this morning is we are going to go to 2 Thessalonians again, chapter 2. And we're going to read verses one through nine. And I want to briefly draw out a few things from that passage that we'll be expanding on significantly when we come back to the book of Revelation. I want this to sort of whet our appetites for what's to come in the next couple of weeks and make some initial connections between what the apostle Paul teaches and what the apostle John teaches. And then after we look at a couple of those connections this morning, we're gonna turn over to Revelation 1 and take a few minutes to give some thought as to how we ought to interpret the book of Revelation. And then next week, God willing, we'll get into this mini series of Revelation 12 through 14. So once more, let's seek the Lord's face and then we can get to work. Pray with me. Our great God, as we just sang, speak to your servants. We listen. Amen. Let me ask you to turn your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians 2. We're going to read verses 1 through 9, but as I said, we're going to be turning back to Revelation in a few minutes, so keep them Bibles handy. We're going to read 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 1 through 9. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ has already come. Let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed. the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that's called God or that's worshiped, so that he sets as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. He who now restrains will do so until he's taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. The grass withers, the flowers fade. The Word of our God endures forever. May it bless it to our hearts this morning, dearest congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, let me remind you what I want to briefly accomplish here in 2 Thessalonians 2. I want us to see a couple of the connections between Paul's description of Satan and his Antichrist and John's description of these same characters in Revelation of 12 and 14. I want us to see how closely they're connected. So first off, in verse three, we're told that Christ's coming, his parousia, will not take place until there's a falling away. Remember, that's the great apostasy. And the man of sin is revealed, that is, the Antichrist. Now let's look at a couple of the things from Paul's description here in 2 Thessalonians that will be elaborated on in our Revelation text. First up, notice the apostle tells us, the mission of the man of lawlessness, the mission of the Antichrist is to establish worshipers. Glance here at verse four. Paul says, he's the one who opposes and exalts himself above all that's called God or that's worshiped, so that he sets as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he's God. So Antichrist will replace God as an object of worship. And I want you to listen how John says something very similar in Revelation 13 of the beast who is the Antichrist. All who dwell on earth will worship him whose names have not been written in the book of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. You put these two texts together, you can see how closely they're aligned and they tell us that the Antichrist will be focused on destroying and perverting and redirecting the worship of God to make himself the object of worship. And we're gonna see that Satan will use his Antichrist to create a singular religion that adores the devil. And of course, this is what the devil has longed for all along, to have the glory and worship that belongs to God and His Christ. That's why Lucifer fell from heavenly splendor. He wanted the glory, he wanted the worship that was being offered to God. And he still wants it. You may remember when we did a series on worship several months back, I said Satan was actually the first one in history to pervert the true worship of God. And he'll continue that mission until Christ returns. And that's a fundamental plank in the devil's platform. anyone, anything other than the true God. And let me say, dear ones, those who think that it's fine to play around with the way God's worshipped or to seek to implement man-made ideas into corporate worship or man-centered priorities into corporate worship, or to worship in any way that God's not prescribed in His Holy Word. You have to understand what's happening. They're making the devil's work easy. And one has to wonder how many professing Christians decided not to worship today. in the house of the Lord so they could participate in that massive corporate worship service taking place in Las Vegas, which is appropriately called Sin City. I would imagine they justify it by saying, it's only one Super Bowl Sunday, but it's one Sunday professing Christians are making the devil's work super easy. Well, the second thing that Paul teaches us is that Satan and his Antichrist will engage in deceptive counterfeiting. This will become a major theme, particularly in Revelation 13. Deceptive counterfeiting. Look there in your Bibles at verse 9 and the first part of verse 10. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception." Now, there are several ways right here that it actually describes deceptive counterfeiting. Let me mention a couple of them. First, notice that the lawless one flows out of the initiative of Satan. In fact, on its surface, it almost seems like a father-son relationship, doesn't it? The devil to the Antichrist. And notice that Satan will validate his Antichrist with miraculous but lying wonders. And listen how Revelation 13 describes these very events that Paul has in mind. This is Revelation 13, verses 2 and 3. and to it, to the Antichrist, the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. So Satan's giving all power and authority to his Antichrist. Doesn't that sound familiar? Isn't that what God gave his son in Matthew 28, the throne and all authority and heaven and earth? And isn't it interesting that our God gave his son to die for our salvation and then validated that saving work by way of a miraculous resurrection? And the dragon's antichrist, He seemed to have a mortal wound, a mortal wound that's miraculously healed so that the whole earth will marvel because the Antichrist lived and died and rose again. And that's what's going to precipitate the worship of the beast. He's a counterfeit Christ. Worse, he's an Antichrist opposed to Christ. The Antichrist is a grotesque counterfeiting of God's work in Christ to save his people. And the world will by and large fall for it and follow the beast. I suspect in that world, as it consummates in pure evil, people will go to sporting events they'll have an anti John 3 16 sign the devil so hated the world that he gave his only antichrist that whoever believes on him shall not live but shall perish forever he's a counterfeiter brothers and sisters and when we get to Revelation 13 in particular We'll have an occasion to work out some of the ways that Satan is incredibly wily and counterfeiting the things of God. But know this, anything that sets itself up as a kind of savior for mankind is grounded in the purposes of Antichrist. Whether it's environmental pursuits, scientific pursuits, political pursuits, if those things are presented as a needed savior, they are not benign enterprises. They are demonic activities promoting the work of the Antichrist, nothing less. And just as the Antichrist is opposed to Christ and his people, we have to be opposed to those godless ideologies. Well, I'll tell you what, let's, I wanna zero in one of the thing that Paul says about Christ and antichrist and use this as a bridge to revelation and thinking about eventually how we're gonna interpret revelation. And this actually connects to the idea that Satan and his antichrist and ultimately his false prophet will be preeminent counterfeiters. Glance back in your Bible to 2 Thessalonians 1 and let's read verses six and seven. Again, this is chapter one. I know we didn't read that a few moments ago, but chapter one, I wanna read verses six and seven. It is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. Now the word revealed is the word apocalyptic. It's where we get the word apocalypse, and it means to fully disclose, to reveal, to bring to light. And when Christ returns, he will be fully revealed. He will be fully brought to light in the splendor of his glorified holiness. But now glance back at chapter 2, chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians. And if you were to glance at verses 3 and 6 and 8, it tells us that the man of sin is going to be revealed. So there's going to be a revelation of Antichrist as well. Now let me ask you to turn to the last book of the Bible, which is the revelation of Christ. Again, I'm just setting the stage for next week as we start to think about counterfeits There's the revelation of Christ. There's the revelation of Antichrist. So turn to Revelation 1. Revelation 1. And again, just to remind you, it's not my intention to exposit this text in a sermonic way. What I want to do for just a couple minutes is think about how we're going to interpret the book of Revelation. So let's read Revelation 1, verses 1 through 3. the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place and he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus to all things that he saw blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is So this is a book that reveals Jesus Christ. It's going to unveil, it's going to disclose his mighty works in history. And Jesus has been entrusted to give this revelation to his bond servants. Now I want to begin with this. There are basically four ways that people interpret the book of Revelation. And I want to give you a little bit of information on those. And again, within these four general categories, there are subcategories, but I can't go into all those. But there are four basic ways that people interpret the book of Revelation. First, there are futurists. Now, futurists believe that essentially after the seven letters that you find in Revelation 2 and 3, Chapters 4 all the way through the end of the book, chapter 22, all of those events happen in the future. That's why we call them futurists. So they describe events, they're describing, Revelation 4 through 22 are describing the events immediately prior to Christ's second coming at the end of history. And this is a view that's generally held by premillennialists and dispensationalists. I've critiqued that view before, so I'm not going to go into detail. But I do want to say one of the problems with that view is it tends to make the book of Revelation of little comfort to the believers who actually received this letter who were being egregiously persecuted in the first century. And that's the purpose of this book. This is a book to give persecuted Christians hope. You know, and not just the few persecuted Christians who are alive before Christ returns. It's to give them hope in all epics of history. So it's hard to imagine that this book is really only relevant in a meaningful way to those who are going to be alive in the final days of history. That's kind of the futurist view. Another view is the Praterist view, and that's the exact opposite. They see the book of Revelation as primarily referring to events that occurred in the past. In other words, just about everything in the book of Revelation, that's already happened. That's a done deal. And so basically what they say is the book of Revelation, it's describing the events that led up to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. And again, I'm not going to go into the weeds on this, but those who hold to this preterist view, They have to make the writing of the book of Revelation before 70 AD to have that view. And I don't think that's the case. I think it was probably written in the 90s, but that's a different issue. So for example, because these things all happened in history, they've already identified the Antichrist. They've already identified the beast. And by the way, they identified the Antichrist as a particular Roman emperor. Anyone know who it might be? Nero, of course, right? But again, you deal with the same sort of problem. That would mean the book of Revelation was really only relevant to the first generation. So one view says, sorry, first generation, you're out in the cold. This view says, sorry, the rest of the church, you're out in the cold. And here's really the dig on both the futurist and the preterist view. If the future's view is right, then they end up trying to discern current events. Why? So they can figure out who the Antichrist is. And you know what? I can give you a clue. Inevitably, you know what futures will say? The Antichrist who's ever president of the other party. Always, that's who it is. On the other hand, the Preterist requires a knowledge of history to know who the Antichrist is. So if a person was ignorant of history and they didn't know who Nero was, they would never rightly understand who the Antichrist is. So think about this, that would mean Futurists and Preterists, they're gonna need something outside of the Bible to make sense of the book of Revelation, to simply figure out the identity of the Antichrist. So they have to admit the Bible's not sufficient. Then there's a view called historicist, a historicist view. According to this view, Revelation is basically divided up into seven historical epochs. It's typified in the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, and that sort of gives sort of the program for the rest of the book. Each of those churches represent a different epoch from the Roman Empire up to the day, and then after those churches, the various epics, the trumpets, the bold judgments, the different judgments, they all happen at different epics in history, once again, tending to make the book of Revelation valuable in unique ways, I'll say, for unique periods in history. Historicists recognize that some of the visions in Revelation do refer to events that were occurring in the time of its original writing, so we can be thankful for that. But again, it assumes that there's a simple chronological sequence in the book of Revelation that really is hard to wrap your mind around as being legitimate, because you read through that book, you're going to find a lot of information repeated over and over and over. And then finally, the fourth view I would introduce to you is the idealist view. And I just lay my cards on the table. That's the view I hold to, which of course is right. No, it is the view I hold to. And it's probably been the most prominent view in much of church history. And the idealist view says that most of Revelation, to include the churches and all the various vision cycles, They're all describing the church's struggle between the first and final coming of Christ. Now, I'll explain this more in a moment, but I do think that lines up best with scripture. We're saying there are the churches and there are seven, actually seven vision cycles. And those vision cycles that you see in Revelation are actually all talking about the same period of time between the first coming of Christ and the final coming So those are the four basic views. Now in our day, the most common way it's interpreted is the futurist view, but that's relatively novel. And when a futurist comes to the book of Revelation and they talk about how they're going to interpret it, they will usually lay out their strategy in a way a strategy to interpret this book that sounds something like this. You should read Revelation as literal as you possibly can. And if you have to interpret it, if you have to interpret it symbolically, that's okay. But literal interpretation has to be your starting point. And I want to push back and say, nope, that's exactly backwards. I want to say the book of Revelation should primarily be understood symbolically. And when the apostle gives us specific information that grounds it in literal history, we take it that way. Now, why would I say that? Well, it has to do with the language, particularly in Revelation 1. It says that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ is sent and, oh, I'm sorry, Verse 1, it says, this is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants. That's interesting. He didn't say tell his servants, show them. And then verse 1 goes on to say that the revelation of Jesus Christ is sent and signified by his angel to his servant John. Now, in both cases, the word that's interpreted to show and signify, they're indicating that the testimony of this book It's going to be in the manner of a pictorial display. So that seems to give us a program for understanding the book. Revelation is not abstract, it's pictorial. And we should start with the idea that, okay, there's going to be a lot of symbolism here because we're not being taught something didactically, we're being shown visions, pictures of fantastic images. And one of the reasons I would say this is not simply in the words that we find in Revelation 1, but the fact that Revelation 1 draws on the language of Daniel 2, And the combination of words that you find in Revelation 1, the only other place you find this combination of words is in Daniel 2. And in Daniel 2, you have this scene. where Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and if you're familiar with Daniel 2, the whole passage is symbolic, right? It's filled with symbolism, and Daniel interprets the symbols. Again, and it's the same word used there in Daniel 2 that's used in Revelation 1. So this tells us we have a book of the Bible that's apocalyptic. It's highly symbolic. And even as I mention this, this tells us another important, well, in terms of the symbols, look there at verse five, because we immediately get introduced to something that's symbolic. And again, this ought to really convince us that this is the way that we ought to interpret it. Look at, Verse 4, John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead. Now, this is a Trinitarian greeting, isn't it? Greeting from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But did you notice what it says? There are seven spirits who are before his throne. How many Holy Spirits are there? One. The number seven means completion, fulfillment. So right off the bat, this first number is symbolic to tell us something that's not meant to be read in a wooden, literal way. So this is important. Now, in terms of interpreting the book, as I said, I am an idealist, and what that means is I believe that if you read through the book of Revelation, you find there are basically seven visions that start with the churches, and there are seven visions that work through the rest of the book, and they're all describing the same epoch between the first and final coming of the Lord. The first vision is of the church on earth. You have Christ amidst his people. That's Revelation 2 and 3. The second vision begins in chapter 4, and it's of God's throne, and we encounter the teaching of the seven seals. The third vision, by the way, seven spirits, right? Seven churches. In the second vision cycle, chapter four, God's thrown in the seven seals. The third vision begins in chapter eight, and it's concerned with the seven trumpets. Now the fourth vision, the one we're gonna look at, that's a little bit different. It's actually the middle vision, and so it's really, really helpful in some ways that I'll bring out next week. But it depicts the woman and the dragon. The fifth vision begins in chapter 15, teaches us about the seven bowls of judgment. And then the sixth vision, beginning in chapter 17, deals with the fall of The harlot and the victory of Christ, and then the seventh and final vision is about the new heavens and the new earth. Now think about that. Do you hear a number constantly being repeated? Seven, seven, seven, seven. That's not arbitrary, right? And each of those seven vision cycles, they are describing the same epic. Now what will happen, and I'm trying to say this because I won't have time in my ministry to ever go back and preach on Revelation, and I want you to have this information. If you look at the churches, clearly that's speaking about that epoch with a focus on the earthly side. By the time you get to chapter 20, it's mostly focusing at the end. So those different epochs vary. But think of it this way. Those seven vision cycles are the same time period all looked at from a different camera angle, right? But the same vision cycle. As I said, People have interpreted this as chronological, but it doesn't make sense. These visions aren't epics in history. They're the same epics unfolding, and we're allowed to see it from different perspectives. And by the way, you may wonder, where does that come from? This sort of, it's called progressive parallelisms. Who first did that? This must be something new. No, Augustine interpreted the book of Revelation this way in the city of God. So again, it's a historical way to do it. The reason we're unfamiliar with it is because pretty much if you grew up in the evangelical world in the last 60 or 70 years, all you know is the futurist view. That's not really the historical way that it's interpreted. So why do I hold to that? A couple reasons, to these seven views. First, in each of the seven visions, you're gonna find scenes that ultimately end with a consummate judgment of God and end his salvation for his people. If you look through each of them, they all end with a consummating event. Each vision ends in some way with God's wrath poured out on his enemies and salvation provided for his people. Another reason I hold this, again, is the way the number seven is used. It is a profoundly symbolic number in the book of Revelation, as is the numbers four and the number 12. But the number seven is used no less than 54 times. Even verse three, that benediction, that blessing, there are seven benedictions in Revelation. It's seven, seven, seven. And here's an interesting tidbit that I just don't have time to explore. But if you remember, not too long ago when we were learning about the Sabbath and the beginning of the book of Genesis, that the whole early chapters of the book of Genesis is structured around the number seven. There's seven words in Genesis 1-1. There's seven paragraphs in the first chapter. All of that to say, Genesis saying seven leads to Sabbath. Genesis leads to Sabbath. You get to the final book of the Bible, it's gonna bring us home to the Sabbath, right? Well, man. Let me make a couple other quick comments about interpreting this. As I mentioned in Revelation 1, that language that speaks of symbolism is found in the book of Daniel. And one of the reasons people struggle greatly with interpreting the book of Revelation is they're somewhat ignorant of the Old Testament. And in part, that's because If you're a futurist, you've probably spent most of your ministry teaching God's people from the New Testament rather than the Old. So all these images are somewhat foreign. Most scholars estimate there are over 500 Old Testament allusions in the book of Revelation. 500 Old Testament allusions and 404 verses. And those same scholars tell us if you look at all of Paul's letters, there's about 200. Old Testament illusion. So you see my point? You're not going to get the book of Revelation by reading the newspaper or the history book. You're going to get the book of Revelation reading the Old Testament. Again, we're going to come back next week to Revelation 12. We can't make sense of that if we don't understand Genesis 3. We can't make sense of Revelation 12 if we don't understand Genesis 37. And as we move forward into Revelation 13, you're not going to be able to understand that if you don't understand Daniel 7 and Daniel 10. And then eventually as you move through chapter 13, you need to know Ezekiel 39. And if you don't have that knowledge, you're going to come up with some really, really fanciful interpretations. So, all that by way of saying, we're going to come at this book and assume that we should begin with the premise that it's highly symbolic and the opening chapter of the book gives us that as a guide to interpret it. And we're gonna use the Old Testament to understand what's being said in the book of Revelation. Again, not the newspaper, not the history book. And if we do that, I think we can make sense of it. And most importantly, this is the purpose. It'll give us a very vivid picture of what the devil is doing in this world, in his power, the power of his Antichrist, and the power of the false prophet. I do want to close. You can turn forward in your Bibles to Revelation 21. I simply want to read this because this morning this has been mostly instructional, and I want us to end with an incredible portion of hope. As I said, this book was written to comfort men and women who were being brutalized under Nero and then Domitian. And it was meant to say, God is sovereign and your hope is secure. And Revelation 21 gives us this beautiful picture of how that wraps up. Revelation 21, beginning in verse one, Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God Himself will be with them and be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." What a moment that will be for the redeemed. when the full Bride of Christ is assembled in resplendent glory and for the first time in glorified bodies we can look into the face of our Master and our Husband and fully delight in Him and to know that our relationship will be consummated forever and ever. And now this morning, we come to the Lord's table. And you know what this is? It's our rehearsal dinner. So let's pray and ask the Lord to bless us. Father, we thank you and bless you for your word. And even in difficult apocalyptic literature, we're thankful that it is a comfort, a hope for your people, that you're moving history according to your purposes and your plans. and that for your people, history consummates in unimaginable joy and glory. As we prepare to come to this table, this pointer to our ultimate supper, we pray that it will fill our hearts with delight, strengthen our union with our master, and fill us with the desire to love you more and more and more. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, as you know, when we celebrate the Lord's Table, which is every Lord's Day, the invitation to participate in this holy sacrament is extended to those who are trusting solely in Jesus Christ, crucified, for their sins. Men and women who don't think their good works merit salvation, who aren't depending upon just how nice they were this week. The fact that you didn't yell at your wife or kick the dog doesn't mean you get to come to the table. Acknowledging you're a sinner who's utterly dependent on the grace and mercy of God and Christ, that's the one to whom the invitation is extended. So if you are a repentant sinner trusting in Christ And remember, in good standing of a Bible-believing church, then please do come and sup with your master. Now, as we come to the table, we also confess with the historic church what we believe using the Apostles' Creed. You can find that on page 851 in the back of your hymnal, page 851. So Christian, what do you believe? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven. and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. I'm gonna read John 6, verses 47 through Last week, we heard a meditation from Calvin. I thought I would use Calvin for three or four weeks to give us a brief meditation to prepare us to come to the Lord's table. But first here, God's Word. This is from John 6, verses 47 through 58. Jesus said, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. Of course, Jesus is actually talking there about receiving him with the empty hand of faith. But listen to what our dear Geneva Reformer teaches us. This is printed in your bulletin if you want to follow along or you can simply listen. God has received us once for all into his family to hold us not only as servants but as sons. Thereafter, to fulfill the duties of a most excellent father, concerned for his offspring, He undertakes also to nourish us throughout the course of our life. To this end, though the hand of his only begotten Son he has given to his church, this sacrament, that is a spiritual banquet wherein Christ attests himself to be the life-giving bread. The knowledge of this high mystery is very necessary. First, the signs are bread and wine, which represent for us the invisible food that we receive from Christ the flesh and blood of Christ. Christ is the only food of our soul, and therefore our Heavenly Father invites us to Christ that, refreshed by partaking of him, we may repeatedly gather strength until we shall have reached heavenly immortality. Godly souls can gather great assurance and delight from this sacrament, in it they have a witness of our growth into one body with Christ, such that whatever is His may be called ours. As a consequence, we may dare assure ourselves that eternal life, of which He is the heir, is ours, and that the kingdom of heaven, into which He has already entered, can no more be cut off from us than from Him. Again, that we cannot be condemned for our sins from whose guilt he's absolved us since he willed to take them upon himself as if they were his own. This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us. That becoming son of man with us He has made us sons of God with Him, that by His descent to earth, He's prepared an ascent to heaven for us, that by taking on our mortality, He's conferred His immortality upon us, that accepting our weakness, He's strengthened us by His power, that receiving our poverty unto Himself, He's transferred His wealth to us, that taking the weight of our iniquity upon Himself, which oppressed us, He's clothed us with his righteousness. And so from the physical things set forth in the sacrament, we are led by a sort of analogy to spiritual things. Thus, when bread is given as a symbol of Christ's body, we must at once grasp this comparison. As bread nourishes, sustains, and keeps the life of our body, so Christ's body is the only food to invigorate and enliven our soul. When we see wine set forth as a symbol of blood, we must reflect on the benefits which wine imparts to the body and so realize that the same are spiritually imparted to us by Christ's blood. These benefits are to nourish, refresh, strengthen, and gladden. Indeed, O God, we confess with Old Calvin that as we come to this table with the empty hand of faith and take these common elements by Christ's own appointment and design, they nourish, refresh, strengthen, and gladden our hearts. So work powerfully in the administration of this sacrament that we again might taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen. Well, receive the Lord's benediction. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever. And all of God's people said, Amen.