All right, 2 Samuel, chapter 22. 2 Samuel, chapter 22. Getting fairly close to the end of this book. Oh, before I forget, there will be no prayer meeting next Wednesday night. Bonnie and I, at this time, will probably be boarding a plane in Denver to go up to Great Falls, Montana. So, yeah, Bonnie gets to go with me, so that'll be kind of nice. Yeah, and yeah, we're going to go ahead. And actually, we're supposed to visit with Steve and learn the grind while we're up there. Yeah, they contacted me. What? No. Well, I talked to the pastor there and he has met them and they have some relative that goes to that church. But I know they I'm not sure where they live. They built a new house within the last year. But anyway, that'll be nice to see them again. She saw that I'd put it up somewhere that we were going to be there. So she said, hey, we can visit. And I said, OK. And I will have to get, I told her I'd get back to her once I've got tickets bought. So I'll need to do that. And OK, 2 Samuel chapter 22. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the beautiful weather we've had. We thank you for your Son, the Lord Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us. We thank you that we can know that our sins are forgiven and that we are without sin in your sight. Now, Lord, as we look at this portion of Scripture, may we see in it things that move our hearts to love you more, praise you more, glorify you more. In Christ's name we pray, amen. 2 Samuel 22 is the very same thing as Psalm 18. The same psalm is recorded twice in the scriptures. Now, if you look at the first verse, it says, David sang to the Lord the words of this psalm when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. Now, that was years ago. If you're trying to follow the timeline, that is, that was years before some of the events we've already passed through. But as I pointed out, these Old Testament histories are not necessarily written the same way we write histories. You know, we start at a point in time and just record the succession of events. God inspired these writers to write a series of stories. And sometimes the timeline overlaps. Sometimes one story over here really happened way back there. But the reason that the Holy Spirit inspired them to be in this order was that... Well, I guess we thought we needed a weather report right now, but it's all right. Even though we understand that these things didn't happen. chronologically, in the order that we find them, doesn't mean that we're not supposed to understand the Spirit had them put here so that we would recognize them within the context of whatever's just been written. Now, what have we just gone through? We have gone through, and I think you have to go clear back to I can't remember what chapter it is now, that begins with, you know, the events that begin to unfold right after David's sin with Bathsheba. And that's the infighting within his own household. It is the recording of Absalom trying to take over and actually being successful for a little while. And then we have that son of Micri, and we have Amasa, we have all these people that have tried to undermine David, and now every one of them is gone. And therefore, God inspired the writer of, writer or writers of 2 Samuel, to put this psalm right here. Because this song, as it said, it was a song that David sang to the Lord when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and the hand of Saul. Of course, we're fairly near the end of David's life at this point. But David had trouble all throughout his life. Troubles would rise and then there'd be a little bit of peace. But isn't that the way it is in the world now for any government, you know? I remember back in the 80s when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union started to break up. And right away, there were people in our federal government clamoring that, OK, we need to not spend so much money on our military. And they said, you know, we need to take advantage of the peace dividend. They call it. They just wanted to grab the money for their other projects. They had mine. It's not like they were going to take less money from us. We weren't going to get anything out of the peace dividend. But I remember thinking, well, that's just plain silly. Do you think that they're the only enemies? And how long? It wouldn't be any time at all. We realize how much danger then was coming to us from the Middle East. There's always trouble brewing somewhere. Why? It's the nature of man. And man always rises up and tries to overthrow others to take what they have. You know, when the Lord said, to the disciples, you know, they wanted to know when the last days were going to be. And he said, well, in those days, nation shall rise against nation. Well, he doesn't mean that it's going to start just before. Actually, all the things he mentioned there are things that are always going on. And that was his point. He said it'll be just like in the days of Noah, when people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah went in the ark. And I've heard people say, yeah, people now they're gluttons and drunkards and all kinds of marriage. No, all the Lord was saying was things are going to go on just like they always have gone until that day. And you know, that's what Peter points out in his epistle. when he says there shall arise scoffers who shall say where is the promise of his coming for things are happening now like they always have and that's the way it is all the time things just keep going on as they always have but this caught my eye in verse one it said david sang to the lord sang to the lord the words of this song Now normally when we think, you know, if we had in our mind to write a poem or a song or something like that, we'd think about singing it to people. It might be about the Lord, but we'd be singing it to people or with people or something like this, if David sang this song to the Lord. And you know, when we gather for worship and sing, that's what we ought to be doing. Now, David did say, singing to one another, not David, Paul said, singing to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual song. True, we sing to one another, or we're with one another, and all that, but our heart ought to be, this is a song unto the Lord. Sang to please Him. You say, well, my singing can't please Him. Well, remember the Lord There's nobody in earth that can sing like they do in heaven. I remember Henry once making the remark about those that try to put on a big show of their talent in their singing specials and stuff. He said, do you realize he hears angels sing? So don't think you're going to impress God with your musical talent, no matter how good you are. And anyway, the Lord is not looking at the outward appearance or listening. to the outward sound of our singing. It's what comes from our heart. And so here is this song that David wrote and sang, and he sang it to the Lord when the Lord delivered him. Remember in the book of Revelation, it says, and they sang a new song. Well, there was a deliverance. This is what causes our hearts to sing to the Lord. Now, here is the Lord, his song. He says, the Lord, this is verse two. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the whole of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge, and my Savior. From violent men you save me. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and am saved from my enemies." Now, whenever we read the Psalms, we keep in mind that these words can be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they can also be applied to us. Now, sometimes it's more easy to take a section and apply it to us than the Lord, and sometimes the other way around. But the life of our Lord Jesus Christ is so entwined in the life of His people that what happens to one happens to the other. That's why the Lord said, for as much as you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me. And likewise, when we look at what God did to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, we recognize that what the Lord did to Him is taken as though He's done it to us, and all the judgment against our sin has been satisfied. That's why Paul says, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. He's not talking there about the new birth. What he's saying is, in Christ, that person who had sin has been killed. And therefore, now that you think, well, I'm the same person. Yeah. And then again, no. Because you raised with Christ. And from God's viewpoint, you're a brand new person. All the old things have passed away. And what are the old things? Everything that has to do with this life, even things that have not yet happened, are old things, because though they had not yet happened, they had been laid on the cross and they're gone. Behold, all things become new. You say, well, I don't feel all that new. Well, you'll eventually catch up to what God has already done. Time will catch us up to heaven's timeline. But Excuse me, this scripture here, you can see, of course, how we might look at it, because we look at our situation, our troubles in this world, and most of all, our spiritual troubles in this world. Paul told us we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Our people, the people of this world, are not our enemies. They may be tools of the enemy, but they are not the enemy. Who is our enemy? Well, our true enemy is the devil. It's Satan. And all that all his minions, all his lesser demons that follow him. But primarily, our enemy is Satan himself. He goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And his enmity towards us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is, quite frankly, the only way he has to express his hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ. He tried to express it directly against Christ, and what happened? He got defeated horribly. And so he's turned his wrath against us. And this he knows, if he is able to destroy even one for whom Christ died, he has completely robbed Christ of all his glory. Christ's glory is wrapped up in this, that He's utterly successful in fulfilling all that His Father gave Him to do. He said, this is the will of my Father, that of all that He has given me, I would lose nothing but raise it up in the last day. What's going to happen? If that doesn't happen, what happens? Christ fails. But He says, You saved me, I'm saved from my enemies, and it uses several images of salvation and the way the Lord saves us. And of course, we've got to look at this from the viewpoint of a man living, you know, a thousand years B.C. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my delivery. Now, a rock, the scriptures often refer to God as a rock, and a rock to someone, particularly in the wilderness, provides several means of help. First of all, if you are being chased, or if you are in battle, rock is generally the high ground. And you're up on a rock, you're in a place of advantage. Or a rock may just provide cover. You can be behind a rock. you can actually burrow under a rock and then camouflage the opening. Or do you remember that when it talks about God and compares him to the shadow of a rock in a dry and thirsty land? Now, where I come from, there's shade just about everywhere because there's trees just about everywhere. If you were hot, you didn't have to go very far, but you could step out of the sun if you wanted to. I remember when I moved here, and the very year I moved here, it started a drought cycle and a warm cycle. And Molly and I arrived in November for at least 10 days. The high was between 105 and 110. It just plain didn't rain. And I remember thinking, you know, the sun comes up around here, 530 in the morning. It doesn't set till 930 at night, and there's nowhere to hide. I'm used to trees and, you know, mountains, you know, the sky will light up long before it comes over the top of the mountain, you know, same way in the evening, sun goes down behind the mountain, you got a long twilight and all that, but not around here. All you got is the horizon. Oh, the Lord is the shadow of a mighty huge rock in a dry and thirsty land. He is the one in whom we take refuge. He's the shield, it says, and the horn of my salvation. And the horn was always a symbol of strength, so he's the strength of my salvation. So in verse 4, he says, I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise. in doing some research on the subject of limited employment. You know, I go on the internet and one of the most well-known treatises on that subject was written by a man named John Owen. back in the 1600s. It's called The Death of Death and the Death of Christ. I do not recommend you read it. In fact, I don't really recommend you read anything from John Owen, because that man is so difficult to read. Find someone who can wade through that and has written it down in that version. But actually, the argument that he made is the argument that caused me to understand the theology of it. But anyway, I'm studying this. And I click on one of the links and actually it was called the death of John Owens argument. And this guy did all he could to unravel and undermine John Owens argument. And it was just plain silly. But I thought, you know, these people that want to present the idea that God loves everybody and is doing all he can to save everybody. Jesus Christ came with the intention of doing a work that he hoped would save everybody, and the Spirit is coming, and he's doing all he can to get people to believe. That kind of God is not worthy of praise. He is, for the most part, a failure. there are about 2 billion or so people that profess to be Christians in this world. And you know that the greater portion of them have no clue what the gospel is. Because that includes every, well, it includes the Roman Catholic Church, it includes all the cults. You know, that's the way, when they're doing these comparative religion things, when you say Christian, anybody who calls himself a Christian is getting included in those 2 billion. I don't have any idea for sure. You know, I can't tell you how many. It says the foundation of God stands sure the Lord knows them that are his. I don't. But I'm sure it's far, far less than two billion. And if the Lord is trying to save everybody, and he can't even round up a billion of them out of a world with seven billion, what's that say of God? But he's most certainly not worthy of praise. But that's what I like about this. He says, I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise. I remember someone putting up the objection. This was early in my years in believing in the absolute sovereignty of God. They said, God's absolutely sovereign, why pray? I read the perfect response. If he's not sovereign, why pray? If he's not in charge, what's the use asking him? I have, and as a young man, it never crossed my mind, the illogic of this. I've seen preachers stand in the pulpit, beg people to come forward, telling them that God's done all he can. The rest is up to you. And then say, let's ask that God will save sinners. You just told me He's done everything He can. Why pray to Him? It's time to pray to men, because evidently it's in their hands now. None of them. God is worthy of praise. It's a God that's in control. And therefore, we call to Him. He says, I'm safe from my enemies. Now, these next few verses, five through seven, the waves of death The waves of death swirled about me. The torments of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called to the Lord. I called out to my God. From his temple, he heard my voice. My cry came to his ears." Now, I suppose in some small fashion, We can apply this to us. We might compare our troubles to this. But the fact of it is, none of us has ever died yet. Torrents of destruction have not come upon us. And quite frankly, if we're in Christ, they never will. Not destruction, just the death of this body. We can most easily apply these to the Lord himself. death did swirl about him, and torrents of destruction did overwhelm him. The cords of the grave did coil around him, and the snares of death did confront him. And in his distress, and our Lord, you know, through the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah did say, look upon me, and see if there'll be any trouble, any distress like mine. I called to the Lord. I called out to my God. Now, in the recorded words of our Lord from the cross, and my understanding is there are seven sayings, seven things that he said that the Holy Spirit saw fit to record for us, seven things from the cross. Twice, he spoke directly to God. He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, you say, well, how do you fit that into this framework? I called out to my God. From the temple, he heard my voice. Well, actually, God didn't respond. That was, he cried those words while he was in the midst of that time when God was, faced him not as his father, not as his savior, not as his deliverer, but as a judge, and judged him for all the sins that he bore. Now, our Lord said that in the form of a question, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? but it's not as though he didn't know the answer. I just think it's a way and possibly the only way for the God man to communicate to us what he was going through. And those are some of the most awful words that have ever been uttered. I cannot, I mean, I've seen videos of people who've been confronted with disaster. You know, I've read about people confronted with just awful, awful tragedy. And your heart goes out for them, and if you do see a video or even hear the audio, oh, the heart-wrenching cries they let out. But it's nothing compared. What lie behind our words? What lie behind the words of our Lord? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? For all our troubles, from our conception till now, we have never been forsaken by the Lord. He may have hidden his face so he couldn't see it, but he was there. Our Lord Jesus was truly forsaken of God. David said, I was young, now I'm old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken. But on one day, it happened. Now, I realize, technically speaking, in the sight of God, he wasn't righteous, because he bore our sin. But we know that in his nature and in his historical record, he was a righteous man, and he was forsaken by God. so that you and I never need utter those words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But later on, just before he died, he said, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. He'd already cried, as I understand it, he already cried, it is finished. And what was finished? All the suffering. And so he said, I commend my spirit into your hands. And from his temple, God's true throne, in the most holy place, not made in hands, he heard the Lord's voice. And the cry of the Lord Jesus came to his ears. And now, Here is God's response. The earth trembled and quaked. The foundations of the heavens shook. They trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils, consuming fire came from his mouth. Burning coals blazed out. He parted the heavens and came down. Dark clouds were under his feet. Now, In one sense, this describes what God did for our Lord Jesus Christ. It also describes what he did to the Lord's enemies in response to what they did to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, all of these images are simply, you know, he's not talking literally. David knows that, you know, that smoke doesn't really come out of God's nose. you know, and coals don't really come out of his mouth any more than when John said, out of his mouth, go with a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations. These are the visual symbols, and all of them are given to picture God's unstoppable power. The earth trembled and quaked. You know, We live in the area described as Tornado Alley, and tornadoes are scary things. But when a tornado is coming, if you know it ahead of time, most of us, we have a place of relative safety we can go to. And there's a high likelihood we'll survive. I cannot imagine what it's like to be in a major earthquake. There's nothing to do about that. I mean, the earth opens up and swallows you. It just did. There's no place to go. And I remember way back, I think it was in the early 90s, when there was a pretty big quake over there in Los Angeles. And I remember seeing pictures of, you know, one of those where the interstates intersect and bridges and collapsed on top of each other. People were trapped under there for days. A lot of them had been mashed. You know, the earth trembled and quaked. The foundations of the heavens shook. They trembled because he was angry. And then it speaks about smoke and consuming fire and burning coals. In the book of Hebrews, While the writer there was writing to encourage them, he also realized sometimes we need a good warning. And after warning them from departing the gospel in order to avoid persecution, he said, our God is a consuming fire. And what was his point? In a fire, there's only one place of safety, and that's where the fire's already been. You've heard me tell the story about how they used to deal with prairie fires, when they were the pioneers crossing here. The prairie fire started up, and of course, the little boy was terrified, but they circled around and got behind the fire. And the little boy, excuse me, they quickly set a fire and burnt an area, and they all got in it. But there's that fire that's coming this way. The little boy was scared. He says to his dad, he says, how do you know that we won't get burnt? He says, we can't. We're standing on burnt ground. Fire can't pass over the same ground twice. Fuel's already been burnt up. And this fire, this consuming fire has already passed through Christ, He's the burnt ground on which we stand. We leave that, where are we? We're confronted with a consuming fire. And so His unstoppable power is mentioned. Then He says, He mounted the cherubim and flew. He soared on the wings of the wind. Now the cherubim, they're mythical creatures. But they're just symbolic creatures. That's why the Holy Spirit was not hesitant to use them in all of your ancient imagery. Cherubim, and they're like, they're the creatures that look like lions, but they got wings and things like that. That's what a cherubim was. And what it pictured was guardians of the firm. That's why You know the Ark of the Covenant? That was considered to be God's throne. That's why there were cherubim either side of it. And so they were symbols of authority, unrivaled authority. So he mounted the cherubim and flew. And then it said he soared on the wings of the wind. Now when our Lord Jesus Christ talked to Nicodemus and said, that man must be born again. Of course, that just, you know, Nicodemus couldn't understand that. And of course, that was exactly the Lord's point. You can't understand, you can't perceive the kingdom of God unless you've been born again. And so Nicodemus says, how can a man enter his mother's womb and be born a second time? The Lord said that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Now, the word spirit in both the Hebrew language of the Old Testament and the Greek language of the New Testament, the word can be translated spirit, breath, or wind. And so the Lord, when he was speaking to Nicodemus, he was using a play on words. He says, gotta be born with a spirit in there. He's using the same word. that normally they could be translated wind. And then he goes on and says the wind blows where it wants to. You hear it sound, but you don't know where it comes from. And you really don't know where it's going. You can't do anything about it. It's just there. And it comes through and does, goes where it will, does what it will. And the most we can do, if you think of it in terms of a destructive wind, is try to patch things up once it's passed through. That's what he's talking about. He's sold on the wings of the wind. We don't know where he's coming from. We don't know where he'll go next. But we know this, God goes where he wants to and does what he wants to. He made darkness his canopy around him in dark rain clouds of the sky. Here is a picture of the mystery of God's actions. You ever said, man, I just can't understand what God's doing. That's right. You can't. He doesn't intend for you to. The book of Ecclesiastes says he's put the vanishing point in our hearts so that we won't know what he's doing. You know, we live in this little slice of time, you know, well, Moses said 70 years, maybe 80, you know, medicine has given us a few more. And then some die long before they reach 70. But, you know, no matter how long a man lives in these days, it's just a blip in the whole of time. And to be able to make sense out of the world and what's going on simply by looking at that. We can't do that. We can't figure out what God's doing. That's why it says that we don't live by sight. We live by faith. We don't know what God is accomplishing. We don't know what his purpose is in all the details of our lives, but we trust him. We know what the end purpose is, is to glorify His Son through the salvation of His people. And if we're among His people, then we can know that in all these things He's doing, which don't make any sense to us, but we know this, He's weaving them all together for our good. But we cannot see how all these things are going to work out to our good. It doesn't make any sense. And it says, out of the brightness of His presence, bolts of lightning blaze forth. It is darkness in terms of us being able to understand what He's doing, but there is no question He's doing something. We've been given eyes to see the brightness of His glory by faith. And we see the Lord dealing with his enemies all the time. And we understand that that's what's happening. He raises them up. He puts them down. He gives them good days and they think they're prospering. And in one place, it says that they think the Lord never punishes sin because the Lord waits. I don't know if the scriptures ever put it this way, but he's just setting them up. That's all you're doing. Because time will come when like lightning out of the sky, boom. Now, what can you do about lightning? It's got you before you know it. Yeah. The Lord thundered from heaven, the voice of the most high resounding. He shot arrows and scattered the enemies, bolts of lightning and routed them. The valleys, in verse 16, the valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord and the blast of breath from his nostrils. Now, possibly, he is making reference to the Lord opening the Red Sea so that the Israelites could pass through. That's maybe the historical reference he's talking to, but he's applying that to his own experiences as simply a demonstration, again, of the Lord's power. And when it says the valleys of the sea were exposed, in other words, God pushed the waters back and you could see, you know, the mountains and valleys that make up the floor of the sea. And it says the foundations of the earth, the very bottom. You know, you've got to look at that from the perspective of them, you know. Now, I know that out in the Pacific Ocean is what is considered to be the lowest place. It's seven miles deep, you know. And so we're here standing on what we think is level ground. And then you look at a hole that's seven miles deep. That's foundations of the earth. Bottom of the ocean. And all this from the blast of breath from His nostrils, His Spirit. His Spirit goes forth, and He even, now we normally think of the Spirit of God going forth in terms of God's grace being applied, and that's true, but part of God's grace to His people is the destruction of His people's innocence. Now look at this, verse 17. He reached down from on high and took hold of me. He drew me out of deep waters. And so he's picturing his troubles as the waters of the sea. And he's at the bottom. This very much resembles the story of Jonah. The things that Jonah said, but then by his spirit, he blows the waters out of the way, lays bare the valleys of the ocean and the foundations of the earth, and reaches down and takes hold of his beloved one. And he did that. Now, here's one we can easily say both applies to our Lord Jesus and to us. For our Lord was encircled by death, by the tomb, by the grave. He was, as it were, at the bottom of the sea. And yet the Lord reached down and rescued him out of death. We'll find out why. Well, might not get to it tonight, but he drew me out of the deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy. Paul says the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Now, Paul said, I desire to depart and be with Christ. And therefore, anyone who is a believer does not need to fear the death of the body. But that does not mean that death is really our friend. If it were our friend, he wouldn't raise us from the dead, would he? Death's an enemy. Death's an enemy to us when it strikes our loved ones and friends and takes them away from us. I don't call that a friend. Death's an enemy. even as it, throughout our lives, it chases us with illnesses and all kinds of maladies and accidents and everything on its way to completely overwhelming us in our flesh. Anyway, it's an enemy. There's coming a day when God's going to destroy that enemy once and for all, and it'll never touch us again. That's why it's written in the book of Revelations, there is no more death. Not just that nobody dies from that point. It's even more than that. He will have redeemed our bodies, says the scriptures, raised us from the dead, and therefore there is no more death. Even what it did to us is undone. And then there is no principle of death at work in us after that. He said, he drew me out of the deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. I hear people say, God will never give you more than you can handle. I beg your pardon. He'll never give you more than he will save you from. He'll never give you more than he'll uphold you through. But he regularly sends to his people things that they can't handle. And one of the things He's going to send to you someday that you can't handle is death. It's just so. What are you going to do about it? Nothing you can do about it. But He will eventually do something about it. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, verse 19, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me because He delighted in me. Why did God raise Jesus Christ from the dead? Well, before, he said, this is my beloved son, and I'm well pleased. But for a time, God was his judge. But so worthy is the person of the Lord Jesus, and so meaningful is death. It actually put away the sins that he bore. Now, there's going to be a lot of people in hell, and hell will never end. Why? Because their death can never satisfy the Lord. But our Lord said it is finished. What? His death. He'd actually, really, completely died. And then, having died, under the full weight of divine wrath, he had no sin. Our sins have been laid on him, and the wrath of God burned those sins up in him. And he lived to talk about it. And then God not only delighted in him as his son, who did always those things which pleased his father. He delighted in him as the son who laid down his sonship and for the love of his people became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Now, we take special pride and satisfaction in delight when our children succeed at something, don't we? I mean, we like them. We love them regardless, because they're our children, whether they do well or not. And we like them and love them when they're being obedient. You know, that's particularly charming to us. But when they grow up and they're out of our house, there's a certain kind of joy. and delight that comes to us as we see them begin to flourish and to succeed. Well, who could be more happy with his son than the Father? Who could be more happy with his son than the Heavenly Father? For he not only, as a man, did always those things which pleased the Father, he went above and beyond what any man was required to do. Remember, the Lord said he didn't have to suffer. He said, all I got to do is ask my father, he'll send legions of angels and deliver me from this. So he went above and beyond the demands of his father upon him. And he did a work that no one else in all the universe could do, not even the father. Why? The father never became man. God the Son's the only one who could do what he did. Therefore, have God highly exalted him, says the book of Philippians, chapter two, and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. God delights in Christ so much that everything in this creation, which is capable of making a confession, is going to confess that His Son is Lord. And here's the wonderful thing. He delights in us with the same delight that He has on His Son. For He sees us robed in the righteousness and success of His Son. And we can scarcely, it's almost fearful to say things like that. We certainly wouldn't say it, were it not that the Scriptures declare it. But as He is, says the Apostle John, as He is, so are we in this world. Salvation is a bigger thing than even we think of it. And we can't make a bigger deal out of it than most people do. I think we've been given grace to see it as a greater thing than most people, but it's far greater. You know, when that woman came to Solomon, Queen Sheba, wasn't it? I think, yeah, came to visit Solomon because she'd heard about it. Heard about the temple he built. Heard about the palace he lived in. Heard about the glories of his kingdom. Says, I gotta go visit him. And so she came. And she said, I heard of you, but the half has never been told. And when we behold him, you can get some face-to-face understanding of all that He is, and all that He's done for us, we will also say, the half, yea, the tenth, the hundredth, has never been told. All right, we'll pick up there next time.