to number 252, Thy wondrous testimonies, Lord. Number 252. Thy wondrous testimonies, Lord, ♪ Thy song will keep and greatly praise ♪ ♪ Thy word, my faithful, lives for fame ♪ ♪ To sinless minds the truth of grace ♪ ♪ I this, O I, a man adored ♪ ♪ And for thy mercy rest my pain ♪ ♪ But look on me and show thy grace ♪ ♪ This way to all who love thee ♪ my footsteps in thy word, from sins oblivion save my soul, from mental pressure set me free, that I may yield ♪ Thy face to shine on me ♪ ♪ And teach me all thy laws to be ♪ ♪ Because thy standards I despise ♪ ♪ With overwhelming grief I weep ♪ Eden. We have two scripture readings this morning, and our first one comes from Leviticus chapter 20. Leviticus 20. We'll be reading the first 11 verses of Leviticus chapter 20. There we read, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, you shall also say to the sons of Israel, any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will also set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given some of his offspring to Molech so as to defile my sanctuary and to profane my holy name. If the people of the land, moreover, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech so as not to put him to death, then I myself will set my face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him by playing the harlot after Molech. As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists to play the harlot after them, I will also set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. You shall consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my statutes and practice them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood guiltiness is upon him. If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If there is a man who lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness, both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. So far the reading from Leviticus chapter 20. Let's turn over then to our text, which will be the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. There Paul writes, it is actually reported that there is immorality among you and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles that someone has his father's wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are, in fact, unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, also has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or with the idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler and not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. So for the reading of God's word, let's bow our heads in prayer. Our Father, this morning we are confronted with hard truths. Truths about sin, truths about your holiness, and how you desire us to live as your congregation. Father, we pray that you would guide the one speaking that his speech would be wise and help us all that we may seek to love your word and obey your commands for father. They are good for us. We ask that you would be with us in this time that we would be able to understand by the power of the spirit. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, this morning, you may have noticed, if you read ahead in our sermon outline, we are looking at a difficult issue. A number of difficult issues, in fact. We're looking at sin, and we're looking at church discipline. And there are a lot of emotions that can be associated with the issue of church discipline. I mean, I'm sure there are people here who have friends who have been disciplined by the church, who have family members who have been put under church discipline. There are people here who have been hurt by people who have been put under church discipline. And we all know the pain that church discipline brings to the whole congregation. We've all felt that at one time or another. It's a hard thing to do, and that's why it's hard to discuss it this morning. But Paul in our text tells us that we as a church must talk about it. And we need to talk about it because we have to do it. Paul has to tell the Corinthians to do church discipline because he knows that we are so naturally reluctant to do it. Paul knows how hard it can be for us to discipline. And so this morning we're gonna see that because sin harms the sinner and the church, we must lovingly remove the sinner from the fellowship of the church rather than ignoring it. Because sin harms the sinner and the church, we must lovingly remove the sinner from the fellowship of the church rather than ignoring the sin. And we'll see that in three points. First, the Corinthians are arrogant with sin in their midst. Second, Paul commands them to remove the sin from their midst. And finally, Paul clarifies his meaning about removing the sinner. And so as we get into our text, we see in verse one that Paul has seen and heard about a serious problem in Corinth, that there is open sin living in the midst of the church. Verse one, it is actually reported that there is immorality among you, an immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. So the issue is there's a man in good standing in the church and he has his father's wife, probably not his own mother, it's probably his stepmother that's being referred to here. And we're not given all the details of this relationship. It may have been casual, he may have been, he may have even perhaps been married to his stepmother. It's even potentially possible that his father's still alive. We're not told explicitly that his father's dead, but that seems to be most likely. But whatever the case, he has an intimate sexual relationship with his stepmother. And this is a serious sexual offense. Because whatever the circumstances, the details that were not given, Paul is horrified that this could exist within the church. He says even the Gentiles in Corinth would not accept what this guy's doing. Now quite often when you hear reports about the sort of things that went on in ancient Rome, the more free-spirited were among the upper classes in Roman society. They didn't have nearly as many taboos, but your average citizen in Roman society was quite, could be quite conservative. You can sort of see that even in our own society, where there are different groups who push for different freedoms. You have university professors and politicians who want all these freedoms, but your average citizen may not want that. They may be more conservative than their own politician. So Paul says the average person would be disgusted to hear about what this guy's doing. And even more, as we read in Leviticus 20, this activity was contrary to God's law. You can find, this is not the only text in Leviticus 20 where God condemns taking your father's wife. In fact, there's probably four or five other passages that condemn this exact same thing. Even those who are brought into the family by marriage It's considered to be incest. And you may ask, well, why does God give laws against incest? Okay, maybe you don't ask why, but there is a reason why God gives laws against incest. And the reason is that he loves the family. God loves the family. And the family is a place where you come into contact so often. You live lives that are close-knit, especially in this time. And as children grow, they marry people who are outside, and people who are not biologically related to the family are brought in. And God does not want there to be a thought that someone could find a potential spouse within that family unit. God wants to make clear that even those people who are not biologically related to you are off limits. They are not potential spouses. They have become one flesh with your biological relative. They are now related to you. The home is supposed to be a place of safety. It's supposed to be a place of love, of protection. It shouldn't be a place that encourages other sorts of emotions, other sorts of desires that could break apart that family unit. God gives us these laws to prevent families from tearing themselves apart by adultery and other sins. And so this man here has broken this rule that everyone knows. And verse one, the sense is that it is sort of widely known. Everyone knows that this man is in the church and that he has committed this sin. It's known in Corinth. It's known in churches all across the land. It could even be that unbelievers know that Corinth is all right with this. And yet, Paul says, they are so arrogant. See, the Corinthians have been writing to Paul saying, we are kings. Look at how glorious we are. Without you, Paul, look at how great our church is. And Paul says, you write to me saying you're kings, and yet this sort of immorality is going on among you. You're boasting at your progress, and yet you have this man sitting in church in good standing. No doubt the Corinthians either weren't offended by this somehow, or probably they thought to themselves, sure this man's sinning, but he can't touch us. This sin can't harm us. We're too strong to be hurt by sin in our midst. But Paul says they should have been mourning so deeply that this man could be in such dire sin, such heinous sin. They should have been mourning so much that he would have felt too uncomfortable even to stay. That this would have been so hurtful that he would have felt that he could not any longer be in the congregation. How could something like this happen in the Corinthian church? that they allow a man like this to remain. Remember, the Corinthian church is focused on one thing, and that is gaining honor for themselves. The focus of all Corinthian society is bringing honor to yourself. And so Corinth has set themselves up as sort of a social club, the sort of social club that competes with high society in Corinth. that has great public speakers and has outward glory. And as a social club, they have high ambitions. They're competing with this high society lifestyle. And the fact is, social clubs do not do church discipline. Social clubs are always trying to bring members in, always trying to create links, always trying to create business connections. Social clubs say, look, come in, we all have similar interests. Come on out. Come meet. We'll chat with you. Let's get to know each other. We don't really care about your personal life. Let's get together around our common curiosities, our common hobbies or interests. We don't kick people out. We just want to come have a good time and keep things upbeat. The purpose of a social club is to be social. It's to build friendships. It's to serve other ends, other purposes, even that go outside the scope of the club. It's to build relationships. And so you don't do church discipline. And we can feel that sort of same pressure, can't we? The desire to become a social club. You know, to... there's always that pressure to become a church that just sort of gets together on Sunday, and we all have a great time, we all have sort of common interests, we all wanna hear about what the Bible has to teach, but we all come from similar backgrounds, and many of us are related, and so some of us, we come to church, and we just wanna see our friends again, and we just wanna see our family again, And so that when Jesus in Matthew 18 commands us that we need to confront each other about the sin in our lives, we feel uncomfortable. Because doesn't that sort of tear apart the social club? How can I tell my own family? How can I tell my friends that they shouldn't be committing this or that sin? How hard can it be to address the sin in someone's life who's been in the church for decades, who's sort of a prominent member of the congregation or who's related to a lot of people in the church? So what Paul's requiring Corinth to ask is are they a social club or are they a church? Is this the place where all your relatives go or does coming here make us all family? Is this a casual hangout where we see our friends, or is this the place where something happens that lays claim on our whole lives? That's what Paul is driving them to ask. And so we move on to our second point. Paul is going to show them the way that they need to deal if they are going to be a church with this unrepentant sin in their life. Now he says he's not present with them, but he is with them nevertheless. Verse three, for I on my part, though absent in body, but present in spirit. Now this is not just any spirit. This is the spirit. He has just been saying in the previous chapters that we as a church are the temple of the Holy Spirit. that the Holy Spirit is among us. And then in chapter six, he's gonna go on to say the Holy Spirit lives in us. So when Paul says that he is with them present in spirit, this is not some sort of greeting card sentiment that, oh, I'm with you in spirit. No, he's saying I am united to you by the Holy Spirit so that I am there with you. And with that in mind, Paul says he has received a full account of this situation, he's heard it from all over the place, and he declares that he has already judged that this man needs to be removed from the church. Because of the grievous, serious nature of the sin, they need to put him under discipline. They need to remove him from the congregation. And note how important that is. Paul is not doing this only on his own authority. In fact, he's commanding the church to take action on this issue. Verse 4. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Now, you'll notice there, if you have the same Bible I do, that those words, I have decided, are in italics, and that's because they're not originally in there. The translators put them in there, and I think it's easier if we understand if we look at the context Paul is actually telling them to deliver as a Congregation that's sort of the context of what he's saying. He says when you are assembled deliver such a one to Satan and This is a command that he's giving for the church to act on. And if you doubt that, you can turn to the end at verse 13. He quotes scripture and tells them, remove the wicked man from among yourselves. Paul tells them, you must remove this man in the name of Jesus. Because Jesus is the one who rules the church. He is the one whose name is being dishonored by this man's blatant sin. And so it is in the power of Jesus that this man must be removed from the church. And it's even more than that. It's stated even more strongly than just being removed from the church. Paul says in verse five, to deliver such a one to Satan. Now that sounds really harsh, that sounds really bad. But notice why he says to deliver them to Satan, or in other words, to put them out of Christ's kingdom. He says, deliver them to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Now what does that mean? If we look over at chapter 3 verse 1, we'll see Paul uses these same sort of terms. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. The problem that Paul identifies in this particular man is that he's living as a man of the flesh. He's living with fleshly values, fleshly priorities, rather than spiritual ones. So what Paul wants is not for this man's actual physical flesh to be destroyed, but he wants the fleshly values and priorities that he holds to be removed. that fleshly nature that he's living in. That's what he wants to be destroyed. And the hope is, notice, that Paul says, put him outside of the community, outside of the communion of the saints, because that is what God uses to show this person the seriousness of their sin. and to show this person that God takes sin seriously. And the hope is not that he will just be destroyed, but that his spirit may be saved, that he would repent from his sin, that he would be welcomed back into the community in the end. The hope is always when doing church discipline that the person will repent, that they will know how serious their sin is and they will turn from it and come back. God wants us to tell people when their lives are out of step with being a disciple of Christ. And God is telling us to tell other people when that's the case. And that doesn't only apply to the serious sins, that applies to the small things. God wants us, as we read in Matthew 18, to tell each other when we have something against them, when we see something in their lives that is out of step with God's commands. We need to do that. But particularly in these serious cases, God says, remove that person from your midst to show them how serious the offense is so that hopefully they will come back and repent. That's the second reason why we do church discipline. First of all, for the honor of Christ's name. Second of all, for the sake of the sinner that they could repent and come back. But thirdly, Paul says in verse six this, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? The third reason we do church discipline is for the protection of the church. So what is leaven? Some of you may know, but most of us probably have never used leaven. Leaven is a little bit of dough. And what would happen is you take some of the batch that you had made and you would put it aside. And as this dough sits, the different yeast that have gotten into it and the bacteria that get in there would actually ferment in this little bit of dough. And then you'd take that little bit of dough and put it in the next batch so that you would constantly be having yeast transferred from week to week. And that's how you would put yeast in your bread, using this little bit of leaven, this little bit of dough. And that's what they would do in Jewish society, except once a year, They would start over. They would begin fresh at the Passover. At the Passover, they would get rid of all their yeast, they would get rid of all their leaven, and they would start with a fresh batch of dough. They would start with an unleavened bread, as they did in Exodus chapter seven before the Passover. And that's what he references here in verse seven. Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump. just as you are in fact unleavened for Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Paul says in the same way that the Passover originally and the Passover celebration meant fresh unleavened bread in the same way Jesus, whom the Passover pointed to, means that we are unleavened. Because as the Passover shows us, Jesus' blood, Jesus' death on the cross, means that we are freed from our slavery to sin. Means that we get to walk through the judgment that is coming on dry feet. It means that we will be brought into a new glorious kingdom. All those things that were signified in the original Passover come true in Jesus. We are saved by his sacrifice as the Passover lamb was sacrificed. By Jesus, the unblemished Passover lamb. And once we are saved, once we've been washed clean from our sins, there is no longer room in our lives. We should not allow there to be room for that old man to rear his ugly head, for that old leaven to be present, working in us. There is no longer any room for the desires of the flesh. No, when we are washed clean from our sins, we are made into a new creation. We are made, we are begun again as fresh unleavened bread, as a result of Jesus' sacrifice. Verse eight, therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. As the Passover feast was not celebrated with that same leaven that was passed on from week after week, we gather at Christ's feast Not full of sin, not full of immorality, but Paul says, in sincerity and truth. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that we gather at Christ's feast, at Christ's table, at his Lord's Supper. We don't gather there in perfection. We don't gather there because we're sinless. But we come to the table of the Lord confessing that we are sinners, confessing that we do need his cleansing, and seeking to live lives in step with the gospel. But this in particular is referring to someone, someone who lives with that old leaven, who loves that sin and wickedness, someone who lives in sin and is unrepentant. And Paul says someone who is living like that, who loves the old leaven in their life, they must be removed because that little bit of leaven spreads through the whole lump of dough. How does it spread through the lump of dough? How does sin spread through a church? Well, think about it. You're sitting at the Lord's Supper table and you look across and you see someone who you know is living in serious sin. And you think to yourself, well, God commands that person not to be living in that sin, but obviously the church doesn't really care. So I can obviously get away with this smaller thing that the church certainly won't care about. Everyone knows what that guy's up to. How could anyone possibly judge me? This church, we could say, clearly does not care about sin. Sin doesn't matter here. We're just a group that gets together. And we don't care about God's commandments. We see, we know in ourselves how we would justify our own sinfulness if the church did not care about people living in serious sin. How sin would so quickly become acceptable. And many churches have fallen into exactly this problem, where they began by saying, look, we just need to love the sinner and hate the sin. And we can't put someone under discipline for the sin that they have because we love them too much. And how quickly do churches like that fall, take the step from loving the sinner and hating the sin to not really hating the sin so much anymore. To in fact, accepting both the sinner and the sin. It's a really small step to make. And so the reason Paul says we need to remove that old leaven is because it can so quickly spread through the church. And God loves his church. God doesn't want to see his church ravaged by sin. And so Paul commands them to be, to remove the sinner. Not because they're mad at him, not because they hate him, not because they want to take revenge on the sinner, or because it makes them feel good, but because it's for the good of the church. It's for the good of Christ's name, and it's for the good of the sinner himself. So moving on to our third point, what does this sort of removal or cleansing look like? Well, you may find it interesting that Paul wants to make something clear because obviously the Corinthians have misunderstood his intention. There's been this sort of dialogue between Paul and Corinth as they've written letters back and forth, and clearly they've misunderstood what he meant. They must have said something to him like, Paul, how can we get rid of the immoral person? Or how can we avoid immoral people? We live in Corinth. There's immoral people everywhere. But Paul says to them, that's not what I meant. Verse 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or with the idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. It's interesting that that is Paul's premise. It is unthinkable that a Christian could go out of the world. It's unthinkable that a church could become a commune or a monastery completely separated from the world. That is unthinkable for Paul. In order to fulfill the Great Commission, a church must be out in its community. It must be a light shining in the darkness. It must be salt of the earth. And the Corinthians have misunderstood this, so he's going to clarify. Verse 11, but actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. He clarifies, I was talking about a member of the church who is living in sin. It's that kind of person that you shouldn't associate with, that kind of person you shouldn't eat with them. Now, no doubt, some of your ears are perking up at this point. Well, what does that mean? What does it mean that you shouldn't eat with someone who is immoral? What does it mean, more specifically, what should you do and not do with someone who has been put under the discipline of the church? Now, certainly, I can assure you, you're gonna be disappointed with the answer. Because I can't spell out for you exactly what you should and should not do alongside someone who is under the discipline of the church. That's gonna take a lot of wisdom. It's gonna take wisdom to know, based on the sin that they are committing, to determine what sort of and how much contact you should have with that person. As we read at the end of Jude, there are some that we should have mercy on, but there are others whose contact can be poisonous to us. And we need to have wisdom to know the difference in the different cases. But scripture does give us guidelines for how we should and should not associate with people who have been put under the discipline of the church. If we were to turn over to 2 Thessalonians 3, we would see that Paul uses the same word. We can turn over there now. 2 Thessalonians 3. Verse 14. There Paul says, if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. So Paul uses the same phrase, do not associate, it's the same word. Now clearly what Paul is saying is that not associating with does not necessarily mean not having any contact whatsoever. It's possible to not associate with a person and still say, I don't have to avoid them, I don't have to ignore them, I don't have to sort of blank them as we walk across the street or walk on the other side of the road. No, we can still act with love towards someone who is put under the discipline of the church. We should always act in love towards everyone. And love in 2 Thessalonians can mean warning them about their sin and calling them to repent. So we can have contact with someone who is under discipline. But Paul places limits here in 1 Corinthians 5 on what sort of contact we should have. He says here that we should not even eat with someone who is a so-called brother but is living an immoral life. Certainly that includes the Lord's Table. We should not share the Lord's Supper with someone who is living in sin. But it means even more than that. Because if Paul was just to say, you shouldn't have contact with them or you shouldn't associate with them, that would already include the Lord's Table. That would be the first thing that you would get to. But Paul here adds something else. And even more, you shouldn't eat with them. So this must mean even having a meal at other tables other than the Lord's Supper. Now in the ancient Middle East, having that sort of contact, having people over to your home was a way to demonstrate friendship. Sharing a table with someone was a way to demonstrate this intimate and to build intimate friendships with people in your culture. And so what Paul is saying here is that when someone is put under discipline, things can no longer be situation normal. We cannot pretend that everything is okay when someone is under discipline, because they have broken those close ties. We can warn them as a brother, but we can no longer welcome them as a brother in the same way as we did before. Because the fact is that your true family does not meet around your dinner table. Your true family does not meet at family reunions. Your family meets here on Sunday and around the Lord's table. And the only way to avoid the church becoming a social club is to believe that this group here really means something. You see, we need to prioritize our church family, to declare that we value the church of Jesus Christ and our brothers and sisters who have been washed in his blood and who have been united to us by the Holy Spirit. We need to tell the person under discipline that they have rejected us and they have rejected our true brothers and sisters because they have rejected our Savior. They have broken that bond by their sin, and that's something that we should not and cannot ignore. So that means that ultimately, if you take the word shun to mean completely ignore and never talk to, we don't shun people. But we do need to make the people under discipline know that if we are to associate with them as we always have, they need to be reconciled with Jesus. They need to feel that from us. They need to feel that their standing with us has changed because their standing with Jesus has changed. And we need to encourage them over and over to repent of their sins. So that means, in plain speech, we can't be casual in how we relate to people who have been placed under discipline. And that means, as Paul says, that someone who rejects Jesus is different from someone who never knew Jesus at all. That those outside, we need to associate with them. We need to go out and call them to come in and believe in Jesus and to be saved. But those who leave must know that they have broken the fellowship that they had with us. And so he concludes, Paul does, purge the wicked man from among yourselves. Purge the unrepentant sinner from among yourselves. And in the Old Testament, that meant stoning with stones, as we read in Leviticus 20. But here in the New Testament era, it means that we put them under discipline. And we don't put people under discipline because we love doing it. And we don't do it because we enjoy it. We don't do it because we want to get revenge on the person. We don't want to do it because we want to scare them straight. We do it because God has commanded it. We do it because it's His way to call a sinner to repentance. And we do it because it's His way of protecting the church that He loves from the effects, the insidious effects of sin. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father. This afternoon, we've spoken of difficult things, of sin and its consequences. And Father, no doubt this brings up emotions in our hearts of people we love who have turned away from you. Father, we pray that you would take what was said that was true in this morning and that you would use it for the good of your church, that you would take that is said that was wrong and that you would protect your people from it, and that you would make us all wiser for having looked in your word this morning. Father, give us a zeal for those who have rejected you. Give us love for them, concern for them, that we may call them back to faith. And Father, please use your means here in this church to protect it from the sin that so easily infects our lives. Father, we pray that you would bless us in the rest of this day, and that we would worship you first and foremost in all that we do. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Our song of response, let's stand to sing from the Red Book, number 15, Who, O Lord, with Thee Abiding. Number 15, Who, O Lord, with Thee Abiding. Let's stand to sing. ♪ With thee abiding ♪ ♪ In thy house shall be thy rest ♪ ♪ And with these wings I am turning ♪ ♪ In thy holy hills shall rest ♪ ♪ Thee that ever walks on brightly ♪ ♪ Thou shalt ride without a fear ♪ He speaks, he speaks unkindly, but with truth and love sincere. In their son there's not his brother, there's no evil to a friend. ♪ He approaches all another ♪ ♪ He refuses to attend ♪ ♪ With every one his favor ♪ ♪ But the rude would be avoid ♪ ♪ On his bow he will not waver ♪ ♪ Though it bring him sad reward ♪ He took the knee, begging, of accessing us again, and He, ever so befriending, His eyes of praise awe-bear. During this and evil's turning, we shall never more be moved. This the land where things are turning, this the land by which we are proved. And now, brothers and sisters, go your way knowing that you have received the blessing of the Lord. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. you Almighty God, thy lofty throne has justice for its cornerstone, and shining bright before thy face are truth and love and boundless grace. With blessing is the nation proud, whose people love the joyful sound. They in their hearts shall live, the life thy fates and favor give. Thy name with endless faith confess, Angel, turn in Thy righteousness, And bring them high to Thee below, For in Thy favor they have scorned. ♪ All glory and to God be giv'n ♪ ♪ King of values I have been shewn ♪ ♪ All praise and honor we will bring ♪ ♪ To his house only one I'll be ♪