Hear the word of the Lord. And he was saying to them, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Let us pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, as we consider these words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we ask that you would open our hearts and our minds. We depend upon the work of the Holy Spirit amongst us, and so we ask that he would come, that he would work amongst us, that he would help us to understand and to apply the beautiful truths of Scripture. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. It is truly an honor to be with you here in Moscow. I have been thanking you all weekend for importing Arizona weather for me. You did not have to do that. And I have never been a smoker, but might as well start now. In the few moments that we have together, it would be my joy to direct you to these few words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of John, chapter eight. And I want to do so to bring a challenge to all of us who believe in a sovereign God, in a God who is a perfect Savior, that we might be a people who with love in our hearts bring this message to a particular people group who need to hear it, to need to hear it from us. We have a message for them. So I want you to think of the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John with me for a moment. I always encourage believers as they come to understand the faith better, come to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to consider memorizing, for example, outlines of the major books of the Bible, especially books like Romans or the Gospel of John, so that when you encounter a text, you know exactly where you are in the flow of that text. It's sometimes an argument, sometimes it's various themes that are being woven together, especially that's the case in the Gospel of John. And this eighth chapter, as you probably know, is continuing the crescendo of conflict between Jesus and the Jews. It really kicked off in John chapter 5 when Jesus claimed the same prerogative of the Father to work on the Sabbath day to uphold creation. And the Jews understood he was making himself equal with God. Jesus did not deny that, but in those words in John chapter 5, went on to teach the harmony, the perfect unity that exists between father and son. That we are to honor the son even as we honor the father, and yet the son is doing exactly that which the father has sent him to do. He has given him the words to speak. And so there is a clear distinction made between father and son. There is no confusion as certain denominations try to teach. There's no confusion as to who the father and the son are, but there is perfect unity. so that to honor the Son is not to honor some separate God or distract from the worship of the one true God, but we are taught to understand their relationship and who they are in divine revelation. Chapter 6, the feeding of the 5,000 followed by the tremendous message that the Lord delivered in the synagogue at Capernaum, had over 5,000 excited followers at the beginning of John chapter six. At the end of John chapter six, 12 confused followers, one of whom was the devil. There Jesus began the original church shrinkage movement. And then in John chapter seven, unbelieving brothers. We get to John chapter eight, And Jesus begins speaking to the Jews, and he is emphasizing once again, he's pointing to himself, he's saying words that no prophet of Israel could ever have said. You put almost anything Jesus said, but especially what you have in John chapter eight, onto the lips of the greatest of the men of God, and it becomes blasphemy. Moses could not say these things, Abraham could not say these things, David could not say these things. These are the words of the Son of God. And he is speaking to the Jews, and we're gonna look specifically at verses 23 and 24, but I want us to remember the whole context of what happens in this chapter. Because after Jesus says these things, there's a bit of a break. And John tells us that some of the people listening, they like what Jesus is saying. These seem to be good words. And so it says that they believed in him. But it's interesting that in the original language, John uses a different form of the verb than he uses everywhere else in the Gospel of John when he's talking about true faith. He doesn't use the form that talks about an abiding, ongoing action, but a point action. And Jesus' response to them is, if you continue in my words, then you're my disciples. Indeed, you shall know the truth. And then Jesus demonstrates the truth is more important than the reaction of your audience. Because he says, and the truth will make you free. If you want to find out if someone has truly been the recipient of divine grace, talk about the fact they needed to be set free of their sin. Because these men are offended. Set us free? We've never been enslaved to anyone. I've always loved that text. It demonstrates the truth of total depravity. These men knew that if a Roman soldier happened to walk by and said, pick up my pack and carry it, all they could say is, how far, sir? They are under the dominion of the Roman Empire, but they have the incredible ability to, upon being said, if you continue my words, you will be set free to say, we've never been enslaved to anyone. And you must remember that by the end of that conversation in John chapter 8, those are the very men who are picking up stones to stone Jesus when he says, before Abraham was, I am. Talk about an example of a false faith. There you have it in those men there in John chapter 8. And so, in verses 23 and 24, I just want us to listen to what Jesus says, give some consideration to it, follow a few threads in the Gospel of John to equip us, and then make application to challenge you to be a people whose hearts are filled with love and a willingness to present this tremendous message of who Jesus is to a particular people. And so verse 23, and he was saying to them, you are from below, I am from above. Now how would they have understood that? He looked like us. Unlike some of the paintings, Jesus did not glow in the dark. There was not something that just, the disciples still had to get torches to walk in the dark because Jesus, only once did he glow brightly and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration. That was a specific and special instance. And so he looked like them, he spoke their language, and yet Jesus indicates that there is something fundamentally different about him. And he says to them that they are from below. They are of this world, and Jesus is not of this world. Literally, it's from or out of, as in origin and source, this world. He knew the character. He knew the spiritual nature of the men to whom he was speaking. And he was pointing them not only to their need and to where they are from, but preparing them to hear how he is able, because of who he is, to function the way the Father It's decreed for him to function. He had already said in John chapter 6, he had come down out of heaven, what? Not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, and this is the will of him who sent me. All that is given to me, I lose none of it, but raise it up on the last day. Jesus is very plainly pointing to himself again with words that you and I, we are used to hearing. grand and glorious words about Jesus. We have just finished singing hymns that extol his name. But we must make an effort to stand back and to listen to the scriptures and to realize how amazing Jesus's words were when he uttered them. To understand the reactions that come from the men, they don't understand. How can he say these things? And he is willing to point to himself. He is willing to make claims for himself that are very bold. He says, I am not of this world. Well, what does that mean? He's talking about having been sent by the Father. He's talking about his pre-existence. He's talking about where he derives his true nature. He is the one that was described in the first chapter as the one who is in the beginning with God. John chapter one, verse one. Therefore I said to you, verse 24, that you will die in your sins. Can we all agree that whatever else this might mean, you do not want to die in your sins. There are many religious systems that offer the concept of postmortem forgiveness or postmortem suffering. But there is no such concept within the Christian faith. To die in one's sins is to die separated from God under His judgment, and that judgment will be a true judgment. And in fact, Jesus is going to make it plain, He began to make it plain in John chapter five, that He was the one that the Father had chosen to be the one who will judge and judge justly on that last day. But he says to them, you will die in your sins. This doesn't sound like good news. This sounds like a word of condemnation. But just as in John six, Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. In the same way here, you have a negative, you will die in your sins, and then the light dawns. Then the solution is given. Four, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Now, most of your translations will have something like, I am he. There are some, I think, that say that I am the one. But here, take notes. Now, I know you can't take notes right now because you're using your notes to fan yourself. I realize it's very difficult to write upon a moving piece of paper. And I also did want to note something. I didn't bring it up here, but did you look in the booklet that you have at the fulsome notes and outline provided for the first service by Pastor Wilson? a tremendous wealth of information, and then you turn the page to mine. And you have the responsibility to take notes. Because there's nothing there. Well, everybody has their ways of doing things. And I'm one of those people that, outside of formal debate openings, I generally do not use outlines, notes, or anything along those lines. That's just one way of doing things. But there is room for notes. They're right beneath the section of this particular text. And I want you to understand, because this is not only usable on Saturday mornings, when you are awakened early in the morning by two people standing at your front door, one of whom has a tie on, they both have book bags, they have a strange look upon the face, and they want to share with you a Watchtower or Awake magazine. And I certainly hope, to be honest with you, you're prepared. to speak with such folks, though they probably have all Christ Church members' houses already marked on their service ministry maps. And if not, they need to, because we should be the people that bring a message to them as well. I say, seriously, theirs is a dark life. It is a sad life. I have attended their conferences. We need to pray for them, and we need to look for opportunities to introduce them to the truth. And here's the truth they need to hear. Because I've translated the original language as I am. The Greek is ego imi, and it is found in the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah and a few of the minor prophets, as a euphemism, another title, another way of expressing a name for God. And as such, it is translating the Hebrew term on a who. Now you might think, and a lot of your study Bibles will immediately reference you straight back to Exodus 3.14. And probably a lot of you are thinking the same thing. You go, ah, the burning bush. I am that I am. Tell them I am sent you. Well, yes and no. Yes and no. There is a connection, but that's not the immediate connection that you need to make. Because the Greek of the New Testament reflects the Greek of what's called the Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that the early church utilized widely and certainly by the time of John, the audience that John's writing to, he quotes from the Old Testament, from the Greek Septuagint. When you would look at what's found in Exodus 3.14 in the Greek translation, the emphasis isn't on ego, I, me, it's on another phrase, ha-on, the one being. And many Jehovah's Witnesses, believe it or not, are aware of this. So you need to be very careful when you utilize this information to utilize it accurately because many of these folks, they spend hours a week preparing to talk to you. Most of us don't spend hours a week preparing to talk to them, and so we need to be careful at that point. Instead, ego-ai-me, I am, the emphatic form of saying I myself am, is found especially in the book of Isaiah. And so that's in the background. And Jesus says, unless you believe. And the object of this belief is that I am. Now, that's not just simply a statement of existence. They know he's in front of them. They know he's not a ghost. They know he has existence. That's not what he's saying. There's something more here. And this is the first place in the Gospel of John where John begins to spin the thread of this particular beautiful aspect of what he presents about who Jesus is. So think with me for a moment. John 8, 24, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Now, at the end of the chapter, why do the Jews pick up stones to stone Jesus? Because he had said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. And they're like, Abraham didn't see your day. You're not yet 50 years old. And what is Jesus' response? Before Abraham was, I am. Prin abraham genesai, I am. Ego, I me. And what's their immediate response? They pick up stones to stone him. And so twice in one chapter, Jesus uses this phrase, and the first is to say, unless you believe this to be true, you will die in your sins. Secondly, they say, who are you making yourself out to be? How could Abram have seen your day? Before Abraham was, I am. So the same one who in chapter five claimed the prerogatives of the Father in upholding creation on the Sabbath day, now is applying this name, I Am, to himself. Now, keep thinking about the Gospel of John with me for a second. There's a real obvious example and a much less obvious example. What happens at Jesus' betrayal? John actually belabors it in John chapter 18. He actually repeats himself to make sure you catch what he's doing. Because when Judas comes, are you Jesus, the Nazarene? Jesus says, ego ai me, I am. And then John stops and it's almost like, I really need to make sure that my audience catches this. And so he says, so when Jesus said, I am, what happens? The soldiers fall back upon the ground. The soldiers fall back upon the ground. When he says those words, the very same words he uses in verse 24, they fall back upon the ground. Now, think about that incident for just a moment. I've debated a lot of Unitarians, people who deny the deity of Christ. It has always been amazing to me to ask them about passages like this and say, so when Jesus said, I am, why did the soldiers fall back upon the ground? And some of the explanations are like, well, it was the wonderful purity of Jesus's words. I'm not sure how many former military folks we have in here. But when you were sent to do something and someone said, I am to you, were you in danger of falling backwards even if they were really great people? Not really. Something special happens. Can you imagine what the soldiers, when they picked themselves up off the ground and looked at each other, what were they thinking? Who is this man? What just happened? But John belabors it to make sure we understand. So we make the connection, we see the thread that he's weaving through his narrative. When Jesus said, I am, they fall backwards upon the ground. He is giving himself into their hands. It is necessary that he do what he's doing. But there is clearly the indication given right there. that he is doing so under God's authority. God is in control in this situation. But then I told you there was another one that's not quite as easy to see. It's hidden away, and because it's hidden away, I think it's probably the most beautiful of these examples in the Gospel of John. It's at the supper, John chapter 13. And Jesus is speaking to the disciples and he is telling them about the betrayer. He's telling them about the betrayer. And he says to them, I am telling you beforehand so that when it happens, you may believe that ego I am. Now I remember Some of you are old enough to remember when a portable computer was the size of a Singer sewing machine and about the same weight. And I had a compact, portable computer. And that meant it had two floppy drives, a six-inch green screen, and no hard drive at all. I was using a program called WordStar. There's a few old people going, oh, he is old, yes. Yes, we need to respect this man because he used dot commands. The three of you who laughed, thank you very much for that. But I remember one evening, it was late in the evening, and I was looking at my Greek New Testament, and I'm looking at what Jesus said, and all of a sudden something struck me. I said, I've seen this someplace before. Now my first emphasis in ministry as a young person in apologetics was dealing with Mormons. We used to go up to Salt Lake City for the general conference every six months, stand outside the gates and pass out tracts. We did the same thing at the Mesa Easter pageant in Mesa, Arizona for years and years and years. And so anyone who is witness to Mormons knows that one of the verses that you will memorize to be able to speak to Mormons is Isaiah 43.10. But you're normally only using the last portion of Isaiah 43.10, before me there is no God formed and there shall be none after me. It cuts the eternal law of progression right in half. It's very relevant to the claims of Mormonism and exaltation to Godhood and everything else. But that's only a part of the verse. Before that, God is saying to Israel that you're my witness, my servant, I've chosen that you may know and understand and believe that I am he. Before me there is no God formed and there shall be none after me. Well guess what the Greek Septuagint has there? That you may know and understand and believe that ego I am. Before me, before the I am, there was no God formed, and there will be none after me. That's where I had seen it before. And so I got very excited. Unfortunately, it was late at night, my wife was already asleep, and I learned, we've been married almost 40 years now, and one of the reasons we're still married after 40 years is I did not wake her up to show her this. That's just a little bit of advice for you younger guys, okay? It can wait till morning, all right? Especially if you've got kids and they're finally asleep, mom's finally asleep, leave your deep spiritual insights for the morning. But I began looking at the Greek Septuagint and I began looking at John 13, 19 in the New Testament and realized that Jesus is quoting from the Greek Septuagint. He uses the same verbal forms and he's applying these words which were spoken about Yahweh to himself. in the same context, because in Isaiah 43, God's saying, I'm gonna tell you before it happens, so when it does happen, you'll believe that I am. Jesus is saying to his disciples, I'm telling you about the betrayer before it happens, so when it does happen, you'll believe that I am. I debated an open theist in Denver a number of years ago, and this came up in my presentation. And he specifically said, he specifically argued that Jesus's prophecy could have been falsified by Judas because Judas had a libertarian free will. Judas did not have to do what he did and Jesus's prophecy could have been falsified. You will always find that open theists will fundamentally say that prophecy is only conditional. It's never truly something that you can count on. Well, given how many promises we count on for Christ's kingdom and everything else, we can certainly be glad that the open theists have no idea what they're actually talking about. But there it was. At the announcement of the betrayer, Jesus is saying to the disciples, I'm telling you this so that when it happens, you may believe that I am. Now, I don't know, maybe everybody up here, maybe everybody is sitting here going, yeah, well, we already knew all about that. We've already, we're way ahead of this country bumpkin. But it's possible that maybe a few of you are going, I'm gonna need to remember this. That's why we gave you all the space to write the notes. Write that one down, John 8.24, 8.58, 13.19, 18.5-6, the thread of texts that John weaves together. Any one of them you might make an excuse for. Any one of them you might go, well, maybe, but when you see what John is doing across his book, And that is so vital for us. That's why we can't be people who just simply look at isolated texts. You have to see the flow of the argument in Romans, the flow of the narrative in John. You have to see those threads as they have been sewn together into this beautiful tapestry. And when you do, you can see exactly what it is. that John is communicating to us, so much so that a number of years ago, I debated probably the leading English-speaking critic of New Testament Christianity, Dr. Bart Ehrman, an apostate. That's a technical term, that's not an insult. He was a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College. He had made a profession of faith. He does not believe any of those things anymore. That makes you an apostate. And even Ehrman, who certainly does not believe in the deity of Christ, he believes he existed historically, that's at least one thing in his favor, but he doesn't believe any of those things anymore. But even he would say anybody who looks at the Gospel of John and doesn't recognize that John is presenting Jesus as a divine person is just not reading John. So even the unbeliever can look at the text and go, yeah, that's obvious. Here's one of the ways in which John does this. So now go back with me to John 8, 24. Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. What has been the great rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people? Well, certainly they reject him as being the Messiah. But when they made accusation against him later on, what do they say? He made himself out to be the son of God. He should die for blasphemy. They recognized that the claims he was making, and it's not just John, by the way. Some people say, see, this is just demonstrating John's doing his own thing, and he doesn't believe the same things as Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and you've got this progression and development over time, and all the rest of this stuff. Remember, it's in the gospel of Mark. allegedly the most primitive, allegedly with the quote-unquote lowest Christology that you have in Mark 14, you have that situation before the high priest when Jesus quotes from Daniel 7 and applies it to himself and says, this son of man who has people who worship him in the highest form of worship, that's me. And so the high priest tears his clothes as you've heard the blasphemy. And so it's all through the gospels. There's no gospel that you can look at honestly that does not present to you the full truth of who Jesus really is. It's there in all of them. But here in John 8, 24, for all those on the left Those in the old seminaries that still have the buildings and still have the endowments, but don't have anything left to teach. Those dead places, they don't believe that Jesus was the God man. They don't believe these things. And Jesus says, you will die in your sins. Oh, they may repeat the Nicene Creed. What an irony that is, isn't it? Can you think of anything sadder than to be trapped in a dead church that still says the words of life, but no longer believes them. What an amazing thing, how sad that is. Our prayer should be, in any church that we are seeking to serve Christ, may that never be here. May our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren faithfully proclaim the truth here even when we are long gone. Lord, protect your people. But Jesus' words leave absolutely no wiggle room. Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. There is no place for a lesser Jesus There is no place for Jesus who is nothing but a purveyor of kind words, useful insights, precious moments, inscriptions. That's not the Jesus who can save. Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. He said this to men who were much closer to him than any one of you in this room is to me right now. He was looking him in the eye. Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Now, in the few minutes that I have, let me make application. Over the past 15 years, the Lord has given me opportunity over and over again to bring this message to a people that I am convinced most of us who have solid churches, we have that beautiful heritage of Reformed theology. We truly believe all of scripture. We believe Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura and all the other Latin terms you can string together. We've got all of our ducks in a row. It's been my experience that it seems that people like me are fundamentally afraid of the Muslim people. There is a fear. And it didn't start in 9-11, but 9-11 didn't help. There is a fear, either of violence, or very often what it is, is we fear that we're going to say something that will be offensive and cause something to go wrong because we don't know enough about what they believe to be able to guard our speech. And as a result, opportunity after opportunity after opportunity is passed by. Because we all know that in conversations with people, very often there's that brief window that opens up. And you need to make a decision, and it's pretty often a quick decision, whether you're gonna go through that door or whether you're not. And it seems to me, that with our Muslim friends, if we even think of them as friends, there is great hesitation. I looked it up. Less than a mile from where I am standing is an Islamic center. Now it doesn't look like on Google that it's a big Islamic center. Looks like it's fairly small. And it's attached to the university, that's very common. there's probably not a large Muslim population, or there would be multiple Islamic centers, and you know why that is? Because when there's a small population in an area, the Sunnis and the Shiites will meet together. When there's sufficient to where that becomes uncomfortable, and you can now have two locations, they will divide. So it seems like it's a fairly small community. But on Fridays, you will find faithful Muslims there at the mosque. And in that little building, there will be something called the Qibla. And the Qibla points toward Mecca. Specifically, it points toward the stone in the corner of the Kaaba in Mecca. And you will have there the imam leading maybe a very small group, segregated by male and female, the men in the front, the women in the back, leading them in the prescribed prayers in Arabic. And so they will be worshiping Allah. Now again, I don't know how often you would run into these folks. It seemed when I was traveling overseas, that God decreed that every single time I got into an Uber or a cab, I got to practice my witnessing to Muslims. It was wonderful. I think a few of them took a little bit longer route so we could have a longer conversation, to be perfectly honest with you. Something you need to know, you may have outreach over at the university. And you may have to tackle people and put their arms behind their back to get them to talk about anything even semi-spiritual with you. You don't have to do that with the Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims want to talk to you. And they want to talk about spiritual things. They want to talk about why you believe what you believe about Jesus. They want to understand how it is that you can believe that you should follow Jesus' teachings in your life because they've been taught you really can't trust the New Testament. They have been given a tremendous amount of false understanding about what we believe. And guess which Christian group has absolutely the most consistent, biblically based, historically accurate, powerful message to deliver to the Muslim people? We do. We do. You and I. And ladies? There's a bunch of those Muslim women, especially if they're from another country or first generation, they will not talk to us men. They won't, it's just, it's not considered appropriate. If anyone's gonna present the gospel to them, it's gonna be you. And that means we need to know what we believe. We need to know what they believe. I don't have time this morning for that. But they believe that Jesus is a mere rasool, a mere prophet from God. very different than any other prophet, but still merely a Rasul. He is not the son of God. He did not eternally exist. He did not die upon a cross. Surah 4, verse 27 specifically denies that Jesus dies upon the cross. It's the only verse in the entire Quran that says that. I direct you to a book I wrote a number of years ago called, What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, if you want further information on that. But the point is, they don't have a mediator. They don't have a risen savior. And the result is tragic. Very briefly, because I'm pretty much out of time, but I, normally when I do a presentation on this, I show a video of an attack in, I think it was 2007, on the Glasgow airport. Two Muslim men drove a Jeep filled with gasoline into the doorway and exploded it. It didn't work right. They wanted this sheet of flame to fly in and consume the people that were checking in. The only people that died were them. But it took them two weeks to die. Horrible way to go. When I saw that attack, it meant a lot to me because only a few weeks before that, I had walked right through those very same doors, ministering at the Reformed Baptist Church in Annie's Land, which is a suburb of Glasgow. So I knew exactly where it was. But here's the thing to remember. Who were those guys? Who were they? Down and outers? Poor people just trying to find their way to heaven? They were national health system physicians. Trained medical doctors. Why would they do what they did? Because they have a holy God, they have a place called hell, and they don't have a mediator. and therefore they can have only one way of knowing that when they die, they're going to go into the presence of God rather than into eternal punishment, and that is to die in jihad. What a tragedy. What a tragedy. It's obvious to me that the author of the Quran did not have any type of first-hand understanding whatsoever of what the New Testament teaches, and yet we have a billion people in the world who have been given a lie, and many of us are afraid to speak the truth to them. My challenge to you, pray, now be careful, be careful what you pray for. Pray that God would soften your heart and make you love the Muslim people, not fear the Muslim people. You say, I don't know enough. Yes, you do. This sermon was enough to get started. Love them, pray for them. When the opportunity comes, be ready to be that light, to be that instrument in bringing the message of life to them. What a tremendous privilege it is that we have. Let us pray together. Indeed, our gracious Heavenly Father, this day, We have brothers and sisters who suffer in Muslim countries because of their profession of faith. And yet in our country, we have the opportunity in peace and in relative safety to proclaim your truth to those who need to know your truth. We know the one who was the incarnate I am. We know his word. Help us to be a people who not only know these things, but then present these things to those who walk in darkness. Make us bold, but make it a boldness that is built upon grace and mercy and love. We pray these things in the name of Him who taught us to pray in these words. The family unit is in tatters. Relationships are scarred by generations now of multiple divorces, and remarriages. The homes of our nation are fatherless, while an overweening maternal state coddles citizens like they were helpless babies instead of free men. Our churches have pulpits which are filled with women of both sexes. The educational halls of our nation are full of godless men and women intent on passing on their hatred for God to the next generation. What should we do in response? We should hold this bread and wine high as a beacon of hope for the world. This is a family meal. For all those who are in Christ, we commune with Christ and each other in this meal. Across all the world, across all faithful denominations, across all generations, the saints share mystic sweet communion. This meal bids loneliness be gone. This meal restores the true bonds of familial and national loyalty, because this meal is the strongest of bonds. Here, the redeeming grace of God unites us to the eternal love, which the Father, Son, and Spirit share. In Christ, the saint has houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands in abundance, because by the Spirit's power, you've been made a true son or daughter of the same Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus. Worldly men try to tie themselves together while floating in the sea of their wickedness, using the frayed tethers of coalitions, clubs, unions, and bureaucracies. Try as they might, man outside of Christ only drifts further into the isolation of his sin and sorrow. But in Christ, we are brought nigh, welcomed together, united as one. We have one head, and thus we form one body. This is the hope we hold forth to a lonely, fractured, family-less generation. Come to the Father through Jesus the Son. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. The charge today is twofold. If you want to be greatly encouraged about what God is doing in the world of Islam, there's a book called A Wind in the House of Islam. And it basically, in our generation, more Muslims are coming to Jesus Christ than at any time in the entire history of Islam. And it's happening all over the world. It ought not to be a terror or a fright. So be encouraged by a book like that. And secondly, pray for God's appointment. Pray for God's appointment to talk to someone about this. And that way, when it happens, you know it's an assignment. Lord, please give me an opportunity to talk to someone. And then when he does, there you are. So, in preparation for that, receive with believing hearts the benediction of your God. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.