Well, hello church. If you would open to Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12. We'll start reading. Verse 22 and read through 32. This is the word of God. Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons. Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come. Let's pray. Father, we acknowledge two kingdoms in this passage. A kingdom that the devil has some rule, and the kingdom in which Christ rules. And we pray that You would give us wisdom to see which kingdom will stand. To see which king and ruler and judge will have supreme authority. Lord, we pray that Your Son would be exalted to the preaching of Your Word. And all other principalities and powers put down to their place. We pray that You would do this through the preaching in our hearts, in our lives, and for Your glory. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I'm going to be interrupting every few weeks for the next few months, Pastor Kent's Expositions in Second Timothy. And I'm going to be doing in three different places. I'll be in the Psalms a little bit. We'll be getting back into our Doctrine of God series. And then for the next two weeks, I'm going to be dealing with demonology, the devil and demons. One theologian said, there can be no sound theology without sound demonology. And so demonology is essentially a balancing of not making the devil too small so that we underestimate him and not making him too big so that we overestimate him. We want that biblical balance. So today we're going to not underestimate, or I'm sorry, overestimate him. And with the sermon that I'm calling the devil is God's devil. The devil is God's devil. My argument, my premise, will be that in the garden, when Satan rebelled against God so that he would not have to be under the authority of God, he still is. He still is. And so I'm calling him God's devil. He's a dog on a leash, permitted to go only as far as the Lord allows. He exists to serve God's purposes and nothing more. God promises in Genesis 3.15, he, that is the Messiah, will crush his head, will crush your head, an ancient promise given to the serpent. The whole rest of the Bible is an unfolding of that ancient promise of Satan's demise. Next week, I wanna come on the other angle of this and talk about how there is a threat. There is a threat. There is spiritual warfare. There is temptation. We need to know how to deal with the devil kind of on the ground, day-to-day warfare. And here's the biblical basis for studying these things, or at least one of the main passages. 2 Corinthians 2.11 says, do not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. So how do you not be ignorant of the schemes of Satan? You study the schemes of Satan. What army goes into battle against an enemy army that they know nothing about? What fighter prepares for a fight and doesn't study the strengths and weaknesses of his opponent? And so that's what we want to do for the next two weeks. Now, I was looking back over some notes earlier this week, and it occurred to me that the last time I taught at least a few weeks on the demonic or spiritual warfare was back in 2016. And when I was preaching that series of sermons, there was a weird, explicitly demonic thing happening in our home, or what I deemed to be. Unusual events. So every night at 3.29, this happened for the course of numerous days, even into weeks. 3.29, one of the children would wake up crying and they would say they saw something in their room. This never happened before or after this time. But only at this time, this season, 3.29, every time I would look at my phone, Same exact time, on the dot. The cries would happen, they would say they saw something, and I asked the church to pray about this. All of that went away as soon as the church prayed. About two weeks later, came back again, 329. Same thing. Happened for a few more days, asked the church to pray, then it was all gone again. A few days later after that, my oldest son was converted. Nobody had to preach a sermon to our family in that season that the devil existed, that there was such thing as the demonic, or that God had power over him. And I could stand here and share many stories about the demonic, personal things, and I think I will share one or two more later. But what we need is not experiences of what people have or have an experience with the demonic. What we need is a more objective, solid word from God. which supersedes all of our experiences and opinions. And that's why we turn to Matthew 12 today, a very important passage on demonology. I want us to see five things about the demonic in this passage. And the first is this, the reality of the demonic. Jesus and the Jews, as we know, didn't agree on a lot. Here's something they agreed on, that the devil and demons exist. So we see in our passage, verse 24, the Jews said, Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he casts out demons. Jesus in verse 26 says, Satan casts out Satan. If I cast out demons, so they're both talking about demons and Satan. There's no argument whether they exist. They both agree, demons, the devil exist. That may seem basic. It is, and we need to start there because of the day in which we live. We are a modern culture that's been very influenced by Western rationalism. Therefore, we factor the devil into almost nothing. Now, if you're from charismatic background, you might say, well, charismatics factor the devil into everything. And that they might over factor the devil in. But in reform circles, we tend to think everything is human sin, or has some natural cause, and we don't factor the devil into enough. historic Christianity before the Enlightenment knew that there were dark spiritual forces at work in the world and they were able to identify and call out some of these things not because of their lack of intelligence but because they were more in tune with reality than we are. I think the reason, well, I think Western rationalism, that kind of philosophical belief that denies the supernatural, that has kind of natural causes for everything, is losing popularity. Even among really secular people, it's getting harder and harder to deny that there aren't dark spiritual forces at work because of the accelerated rate in which explicit evil is happening. It's getting harder and harder for people to deny that there isn't something beyond what is natural and observable And as Christians, when we look at the cultural evils in the world, I believe there's a threefold diagnostic test that we could kind of lay over all evil that we see. We would say there's human sin, that human sin brings about with it God's judgment. And when you have a culture that is experiencing accelerated rate of human sin and God's judgment, you have also principalities and powers, demonic forces at work. So sin, judgment, and the devil, or to use the Apostle John's categories, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Most historians I think would agree that back in Jesus' day, there was more demonic possession than previously in Israel's history. I think that my opinion is that that's because of the increased corruption in Judaism at that time. Many of Jesus' most faithful disciples were women, formerly demon-possessed. that he cast the demon out and it became his disciples. We know there was a big movement of Jewish exorcisms in the time of Christ. Well, why would there be a ton of Jewish exorcists? Because there were a lot of demonic activity in the time of Christ. As Christ resurrected and Christianity begins to spread from the first century onward into the early middle ages, we see very little in terms of demonic activity in church history up until the Middle Ages and as the Catholicism began to corrupt more and more, we see the demonic increase. This is why Martin Luther, who came about this time, talked about the devil more than any of the reformers. He was a first-generation reformer. and saw much demonic, but as the gospel and the kingdom began to advance in the reformation, even the second generation reformers didn't speak of the devil much. Because as the kingdom of Christ moves forward, the demonic moves out. and His kingdom takes rule and reign. This leads to a second point I want to bring out here. The demonic can affect human sickness. Look at verse 22. A demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to Him, and He healed him. so that the man spoke and saw. So you can't deny there's a connection here between the demonic and physical sickness or disease. Not always is there that connection, but sometimes Satan causes sicknesses and diseases. you remember there's a story of a woman who was bent over she couldn't stand upright and Jesus healed her and he was criticized for healing her because he did it on the Sabbath and Jesus said this ought not this woman a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for 18 years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day So she just can't stand upright. She has a disease that she can't stand upright and he heals her of a demon that bound her for 18 years. Acts 10.38 describes Jesus as one who went about healing all who were oppressed by the devil. That's the phrase, healing all who were oppressed by the devil. So I do think illness and diseases, or we could even put in this category mental illnesses, could fall in this category. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that every mental illness is a demonic thing, but I am suggesting that some are, and that especially in a culture where evil and paganism and many things are coming to the surface more and more, we will see, I believe, a connection between mental illness, as we have, greatly increasing, as darkness and sin increases. What I'm saying right now about mental illness and the demonic, that's not even a controversial thing. It's really not. The DSM-5, the Diagnostic Standard Classification for Mental Disorders used by health professionals in the U.S. has a category for demon possession. And it's called Transpossession Disorder, TPD. They give certain protocol for people who have, that they can't explain what's going on with them neurologically, medically, biologically, genetically, they're not on drugs, there's no causality they can accredit to it other than this might be demonic. And so they call it Trans Possession Disorder, TPD, look it up, DSM-5. Last week, we were in New York, my family, and we were riding the subway, and we wanted to give our kids that experience. You're like, why would you let your kids on a New York subway? Well, we got more than we bargained for on that, immediately regretted that decision. When a certain man entered into our little subway car, sits right directly in front of us and just started yelling at the top of his lungs the worst vulgar things that I've ever heard in my life, looking directly at myself and my kids. It was terrifying. We immediately got off the subway as soon as we could. Like, what was that? Mental illness? A demon-possessed man? Yes. Both. I think both. It brought to my mind something that happened early on in this church. There was a man who was visiting the church at that time. And we would have sometimes we would just stop in the middle of the service. We'd all kind of like all of y'all break off and pray over there. Y'all pray together. Y'all pray together. We just have a little prayer time in the middle of the service. And this guy would just start yelling and interrupting the whole service. He did this on numerous occasions to the point where I'm like, this is not normal. I tried to minister to him later one night. I went up to meet with him. It became very apparent he had been living down at the Bluffs, down off Scenic Highway, and he was demon-possessed. There's no other way to say it. I didn't realize to the extent until I began to pray over him. laid my hands on him and in Jesus' name began to cast out. And I ask every demon to identify themselves. And then in the name of Jesus began to seek to cast out these evil spirits in the man. He began to shake violently, uncontrollably, screaming at the top of his lungs. His eyes were rolled back and he was sweating profusely. And this happened for about 30 minutes. He finally fell back and was at peace. and seem to be normal after that. I share that to just say, that's not common, is it? For ministers of the gospel. That's one time in my ministry have I had something like that happen. However, ministers of the gospel in this country at least, do encounter the demonic at another level often. And that leads to the third point. the demonic control of the unbelieving world. Listen to how Paul speaks to Timothy. 2 Timothy 2.24. The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, that God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. Listen. And they may come to their senses, escaping from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. So many churches may not be doing exorcisms, but they are dealing with the demonic at the level of truth. People captured by lies so that they are enslaved to them. And through the proclamation of the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are freed from doing the will of Satan. That's what it says. So we're not just talking about some sort of liberal extremists doing the devil's will, but conservative extremists, at least in Jesus' day, were called Pharisees. And in John 8, 44, Jesus said this about them. You are of your father, the devil. and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies." This is why, guys, when Christians speak about things like abortion, we're not leaving the Bible to get into a political discussion. It's not merely a political matter when someone's will is to murder. They are manifesting the will of their father. When you codify into law the murder of the innocent, you're proving to be someone's children. Doesn't sound like a child of God. When you lie and you lie and you lie with no regard for God's truth, you're not seeing someone passionate about their ideology that may be different than our ideology, or their sexual identity, or ideological worldview that might be different than ours. There's somebody imitating their father who is the father of lies. These things are deeply spiritual. Whenever you see lies and murder abound, you're seeing the work of the devil occurring through His offspring. Jesus didn't say to these Pharisees, hey guys, you're doing evil because Adam's your father. He said you're doing evil because Satan is your father. Now there's another thing to notice about Satan's work among the unbelieving. 2 Corinthians 4.3 says this, If our gospel is veiled, so if somebody can't see the good news of the gospel, it's veiled to those who are perishing, in their case, the God, little g, okay, little g, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. This is why, as a church, we believe only the Spirit of God When the word of God, the gospel of God goes forth, only the spirit of God can open someone's eyes so that they can see I'm a sinner. I need Christ. And they can call upon him. These are all spiritual things. So what I'm saying is when we see evil around us, we can't simply conclude it's just sin. It is sin. And sin that brings upon at a cultural level, God's judgment on that culture. You can look at the explicit evils happening in our culture. You look at Romans 1 and you see that is the wrath of God on a culture. And all these things are deeply embedded in demonic principalities and powers. Now, if that's true, what's the cure? I would say we have to conclude the cure is spiritual. This is why, brothers and sisters, we must be urgent in wartime in our praying. We must seek the Lord in prayer and pray with some reality to these things. Remember Matthew 17. This desperate father brings his son to Jesus. He's having seizures. He's suffering terribly. He's falling into the fire and the water, the father says. And he says, I brought him to your disciples and your disciples couldn't heal him. And Jesus said this, faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon. I thought the kid was just having seizures. I thought he was just suffering terribly, but he rebuked the demon and it came out of him and the boy was healed. The disciples said privately, why could we not cast it out? And Jesus said, because of your little faith, for truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it'll move, and nothing will be impossible for you. Guys, there's not a doubt in my mind that we don't see more of these type mountain moving miracles in Reformed circles, not because God doesn't still do these things, but because of the little faith that we so often put on Christ to ask Him to do these things. Where the church is rapidly growing in other parts of the world and people are being genuinely converted through the gospel, we are also seeing that accompanied oftentimes with miraculous healings. They'll go to their co-workers at work and say, what can we pray for you about? Well, my so-and-so is sick. And the church will gather and pray, and a miraculous healing will happen, and then that person's now open to the gospel. Or this person is demon-possessed, and the demon's cast out in Jesus' name, the person listens to the gospel and is converted. The gospel working with signs and wonders. So hear me, I'm not talking about spiritual gifts. I'm not talking about spiritual gifts. I'm talking about a childlike faith in Christ's work over sin and suffering, which leads to the fourth point here. The demonic tactics explained. Jesus understands demonology. We need to learn from him. Here's what's happening in this passage. He's being accused of doing evil by evil, doing supernatural by supernatural demonic powers. And Christ's response, look at verse 25. He said, why would Satan cast out Satan? Why would Satan work against himself? He's not divided against himself. Now, let me bring this down and help us understand what he's saying. Sometimes Christians say, why doesn't the media or our culture pick on Muslims? Why do they pick on Christians? And my answer is because Satan's not divided against himself. Why would he work against himself? Why would secular media attack Muslims and LGBT? Satan's not divided. Why is he going to take down his own? That's not how he works. Jesus understands that those who defend evil and not Christianity aren't defending Christianity because they're not on the side of Christianity. This is necessary to understand. Jesus says in verse 25, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. No city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he's divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? Satan is intelligent. I'm not glorifying him to say that. That's reality. He's not omnipresent. He isn't omniscient. But he's not unintelligent. He's been around a while. He's not going to work against himself. If something he's doing works to keep the mass of society or an individual doing his will, he'll keep doing that. He doesn't need to change strategies. One of my sons mentioned to me at one point, we were talking about some of these things and he said, dad, I think the reason we don't see more supernatural demonic stuff in the US is probably because the devil knows that if more supernatural demonic started happening, people who don't believe in supernatural would start believing in supernatural and they might turn to Christianity for the answer. And I think my son was right, that if Satan can keep someone doing his will and ignoring Christ through entertainment, general busyness, work, sports, money, sexual immorality, just an atheistic modernism that denies the supernatural, why would you change strategies? Why would you change your tactic? If the things that typically cause people to ignore Christ are working, no need to possess someone with a demon. The strategy is effective. Remember 2 Corinthians 11-13 says Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. He doesn't always come out in the open. And if he can disguise himself and work under the radar, he will. If he can influence someone to do his will and doesn't need to possess them, he will. If he could feed them lies and deception, And they take the bait, no need for more explicitly demonic things. This is why Paul calls false Bible teaching the doctrine of demons. They're talking about Jesus. They have views about the Bible that aren't pagan. They're kind of Christian sounding and he calls them doctrine of demons. Satan's behind it. 2 Thessalonians 2 warns of a time coming when Satan will be active with powerful signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing. Because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Guys, Satan isn't faking supernatural things that he does. They're real. Some people think that Satan can only fake something. That's not what happened in Exodus when Pharaoh's magician stood up and mimicked all the miraculous signs that Moses was doing, and they actually did some of these. That was not fake. That was real. Jesus said in Matthew 24, 24, false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. And so however real these things are with the demonic, Christ's sovereign authority over them is more real. And that leads to the fifth and final point, that the demonic are subject to the authority of Christ. The demonic are subject to the authority of Christ. I think the most clear place to see that the demon must submit to Christ is Job 1.8. Satan's roaming the earth. God says to him, have you considered Job? You love messing with people. You love doing all this. Have you considered Job? There's none like him on the earth. A blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. And what does Satan say? Does Job fear you for no reason? He essentially says, he fears you because you bless him. Stop blessing him and he'll curse you to your face. And then God says to Satan, go for it. Just don't touch him. And he draws the line. God draws the line and tells the devil, you can go this far and no farther. He gave instructions for Satan to obey. He drew the line in the sand of what he was allowed and not allowed to do. And Satan couldn't move or do anything apart from God's permission. He can't touch a hair on your head apart from God's permission. Jesus said this hours before his death. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. Matthew 12, Jesus begins talking about this binding of a strong man. This puzzles people. He says, the strong man must be bound in order for his house to be plundered. Verse 29, how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house. I believe Jesus is saying Satan is the strong man. He must be bound in order for his house to be plundered. I think that's confirmed in Revelation 20 where it says this. He sees, that is Christ, sees the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and he bound him for a thousand years. I don't take that literally. I think that is the church age from the time of Christ's first to second coming. He threw him into a pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not..." What? Do any evil? No. "...so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended." Say, where's Satan right now? He's bound, unable to deceive the nations regarding the gospel. So the gospel is able to go to the Gentile nations, to any whom Christ wills, and Satan can't stop one of them from coming to Christ. He has no power or authority to stop those who Christ calls to Himself. This is what I think Jesus meant, or what it means in 1 John 3.8, that the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. Hebrews 2.14, Christ took on human nature so that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, the devil. Colossians 2.15, he, Christ, disarmed the principalities and powers, putting them to open shame, triumphing over them. And so he bound the strong man in his dying and rising so that he could plunder his house. What's his house? The Gentiles. so that he can bring in and forgive the sins of the Gentiles. Satan has no power to stop Christ from building his kingdom. A man named Erwin Lutzer wrote a book called God's Devil. I want to just read one quick portion. He said, Lucifer was already defeated the moment he sinned. He was defeated strategically since as one of God's creatures, he would be forced to depend on God for his continued existence. Notice that phrase, the devil's one of God's creatures. He's not another God. Any power that he would exercise would always be subject to God's will and decree. Thus, moment by moment, he would suffer the humiliation of knowing that he could never be the ultimate cause for his existence in power. I'm not saying that for every move Satan makes, God makes a counter move. No, he cannot even make his own first move without God's express will and consent. End quotes. So this is why, guys, I said in the middle of a sermon series on the doctrine of God, we need to study the devil. Because if we want to understand God's sovereignty, we have to understand Satan falls under that. And he is himself subject to the sovereign will of God. One pastor said, we can only have a proper theology of the devil if we have a proper theology of God. and that the greater that our God is, the smaller that our devil becomes. Now, I wanna end by doing two things from this passage. Some of y'all will notice I didn't hit on things that you're gonna walk away wanting to think through. I wanna give a warning and a promise here. If you'll look back at the text, verse 31, we'll look at the warning about the unforgivable sin. Jesus says, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come." Now, many of you wonder, what is that? I don't want to do that. Whatever that sin is, I don't want to commit that unforgivable sin. And Jesus is very clear. We don't have to walk out of here confused as to what that sin is. He says, it's blasphemy against the Spirit that will not be forgiven. Okay? Very, very clear here. But then it raises the question, well, what is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Because I don't want to do that. Ed Welch says this, blasphemy against the Spirit is any hardened and consistent stance against God. So think of who Jesus is speaking this to. He's talking to people who know the Bible. In fact, I would dare say these are Jewish leaders. Many of them have studied the Bible since they were young. Hearing sermon after sermon, after lecture, after teaching, after teaching the Word of God, doing what to them? Hardening their heart so that they are continually rejecting the work of the Spirit of God in their life, hardening themselves to the work of the Holy Spirit, It is these type people that Jesus warns about blaspheming the Spirit and not being forgiven. So you say, well, can a true Christian blaspheme the Spirit? No. Because a true Christian doesn't settle into a lifestyle of hardening their heart against the Spirit's work through the Word. Christians don't continually deny the work of the Spirit in their life. When we hear the Word of God, we obey the Word of God. We receive it. We believe it. And therefore, we're not guilty of this. Another way we could say this is a true Christian has the power of the kingdom at work in them. Jesus says in verse 28, the kingdom of God has come upon you. And look at this promise. The kingdom of God has come, has, present tense, ongoing, come upon you. Some people speak about the kingdom of God as only this future reality. No. The kingdom of God is not just something that is merely future. This is a present reality, a present ongoing language that's being used. Listen to how Jesus started his ministry saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Luke 17, Jesus is asked, when will the kingdom of God come? And he said, the kingdom of God is not coming in a way that can be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is, or behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst. He says, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. And then in Matthew 12-28, it is by the Spirit of God that are cast out demons, and the kingdom of God has come upon you. And so church, understand, please, the kingdom of God has come. Christ has arrived. His kingdom is putting down all the little kingdoms and kings that rise and fall on this earth. Psalms 2 says, all kings and kingdoms will be accountable to the risen Christ. They are to bow and pay homage to the King of kings, or else they will feel the full fury of His righteous wrath. not only kings and kingdoms, but demonic principalities and powers. Colossians 2.15 says, he disarmed those in his death. And he has authority over the principalities and powers. Then we ourselves must be delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son. Church, you must enter this kingdom. There is no salvation apart from the kingdom of Christ and his kingdom has come. Think of it as a, imagine a foreign enemy arriving on our coastal shores and their king demands complete allegiance. Complete allegiance from anyone in this kingdom to His kingdom that He is bringing to our shores, and all who do not bow and pay Him homage and obey His orders will pay an ultimate price. That is what Christ has done. He has come down from heaven to earth and said, is what you must do. You must come under my rule and reign. You must fully surrender to my commands, to my will, to my gospel, and enter this kingdom. By faith, we humble ourselves and surrender ourselves to Jesus as our Lord and King and as our Savior and sin forgiver. And Christ grants us pardon and forgiveness and cleansing and righteousness, and the devil has no claim on us. nor does the death that He brings." Put simply, do you want to win? Do you want to lose? You can lose with Satan. You can win with Christ. You join yourself to Christ by faith. You enter His kingdom. And you will reign with Him forever. Matthew 24.14, Jesus said, this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. May God give us ears to hear and to flee to Him as our King. I want to bring us to the table with this thought. It's not disconnected from what we've just studied. Christ prepares this meal as a preparatory meal. for that wedding feast that we'll have with Him in His future final kingdom when He's rid this earth of all other kingdoms. And He gave this meal to His disciples, and that's why we believe that those who come and take this today should be those who have submitted to Christ, who believed the gospel. who've been baptized in His name and are living out that reality in the church. If that's you, please join us today. If you'll be refraining, I would encourage you on page two of your bulletin, there are some very meaningful prayers that you can pray in this time. Let's turn to the Lord Church and prepare to come to the table. Father, we We are so prone to wander, to be deceived, to fall for the lies of this evil one without even realizing it. Lord, we know that there are some here who are held captive to these lies, and to the ultimate lie, that it is better that they be their own king than to bow to the king of kings. And so, Lord, we pray that we would not live for our kingdom, that we would not seek to be enthroned over our own lives, but Lord, we would ask that You would help us, grant us the grace to repent and to bow before the King of kings and to give our whole selves to You, Lord. And Lord, we know You promise that You give us life and forgiveness and a kingdom to come. Lord, would You help us as we go to the table to rejoice in these things. And we thank You for them in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.