Address—C. Hendricks
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I have upon my heart tonight.
Of course, to preach the gospel.
But before we get to that.
I would like to dwell a little together.
From God's precious book.
The only revelation that we have.
In this sinful world of ours.
Of who God is.
And what he is?
The greatness, the majesty, the glory of His being, God.
I heard recently of a young girl that was saved.
And she asked the question.
What is Eternity?
That word eternity.
Did not convey a meaning to her.
And yet.
These are words that the book uses.
Eternity everlasting, all knowing.
I'd like to dwell a little tonight upon God Himself.
And then as we go from that truth.
That which is actually beyond the creature's comprehension.
Who he is?
But all that we know of God.
Basically all that we know of God.
We know something in the creation.
But is in this book.
This book.
Inspired.
Of the Spirit of God who authored it.
And it is for us.
To learn.
I want to make this statement. I want it to sink down deep into your ears.
The sum and the substance of all blessedness both in this life.
And in that which is to come.
Is to know God.
To know God.
And our Lord Jesus said.
I am.
That they might have life.
And that they might have it.
Abundantly.
And he also said this is life eternal, that life which he came to give.
That we might know God. This is life eternal. That we might know Thee.
The only true God, He was speaking to his Father.
The only true God.
There are a multiplicity of gods in this world, false gods, idols.
False religions which worship.
False gods.
But there is one true God.
The only true God.
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
Because you see, the only true God can only be known in Jesus Christ, whom he sent.
No man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.
He hath declared him.
They said to him, Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
And he said, have I been so long time with you?
And hast thou not known me, Philip?
He that hath seen me.
Had seen the father.
And this is the.
Stupendous, the magnificent truth of the Gospel.
That God.
Became a man.
And as man, he revealed to us.
All that God is we know God.
In the person of him.
Who was God and became a man?
The Lord Jesus Christ turn please with me to 1St John.
Chapter one, the first Epistle of John, not the Gospel of John, which is at the beginning of the New Testament, but this is at the end.
First John chapter one, verse 5. This then is the message.
Which we have heard of him.
And declare unto you.
That God is light.
And in him.
Is no darkness.
At all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, With whom? With him who is light.
And walk in darkness.
We lie.
And do not the truth.
You cannot know him who is light, the true God.
The infinite, the inscrutable, the eternal.
The all knowing, the all wise, the all powerful, the ever present God.
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Who is called light here?
God is.
And in him is no darkness at all.
Turn back with me to First Timothy chapter 6, please.
One Timothy.
Chapter 6.
Verse 13.
I give thee charge.
In the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus.
Who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession?
That thou keep this commandment without spot unrebukable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality.
Now here is this being God who only has immortality.
No creature has immortality, only God.
In the essence of his being has immortality.
He only has immortality.
Dwelling in the light which no man can approach, unto no creature.
No one.
Not just man, but angels all created intelligences in the universe. Here is a being who dwells in unapproachable light.
Whom no one can approach, unto whom no man hath seen.
Nor can see.
God, in the essence of his being, is beyond the creature.
To fathom.
To see.
To know him.
And unless he come out from that intrinsic, unapproachable light in which he dwells in his essence.
Unless he comes out of that.
He S unknowable.
He is unknowable and he is unapproachable.
I am talking about a being who is so infinite.
So majestic.
So beyond our.
Finite minds to grasp.
This God.
This infinite God.
Who has such an interest in you and me? This is where the gospel message is.
That this infinite being.
Who has all power?
He dwells in this unapproachable light.
Whom no one hath seen nor can see.
God, in the essence of His being an unapproachable light, is not knowable, and he cannot be seen.
Cannot be approached.
Is that?
Majestic.
You know we've lost that.
We've lost that holy awe and reverence.
As creatures.
Of who we have to do with.
The creator.
The Upholder, the sustainer of the universe.
If you turn back to Genesis.
Chapter 17.
Verse one.
And when Abram was 90 years old, And 9:00.
The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the all.
Mighty God.
Walk before me.
And be thou perfect.
I am the omnipotent God.
The all powerful God.
The Almighty God and in the next chapter Abraham got a hold of that truth.
So just turn over to the next chapter.
Chapter 18.
Verse 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be.
After the.
Manner of women.
Therefore Sarah laughed. You see, in the verse 10, the Lord had said to Abraham, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life. And lo, Sarah, thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.
And they were old and stricken in years, and she was past the time of bearing children. And he too.
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Verse 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure in my Lord being old also?
And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I have a surety, being a child?
Bear a child which you mold.
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
He who is the Almighty God, is there anything that he is incapable of doing?
Nothing.
That's the first thing I want to dwell upon. We Passover these words, these descriptions, these words in human language, which try to convey to us a concept that we can't grasp. I can't grasp the concept of almightiness, all power.
All power.
Let's just trace a few scriptures that bring this out.
Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11 will just touch upon a few scriptures.
Hebrews 11, verse 3. Through faith we understand.
We can't possibly understand this any other way but by faith, believing what God has told us in His Word.
We can't reason it out. We can't come to it by any process of.
Thinking this is something that we can only lay hold of by faith. Through faith we understand that the world's were framed by the word of God.
So that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Now turn back to the 33rd Psalm.
Psalm 33.
Where we have that so graphically described in such majestic language.
Again, I say we Passover these verses so often too quickly.
Psalm 33, verse 6.
By the word of the Lord.
Where the heavens made.
The heavens and all the hosts of them, by the breath of his mouth.
Here is a being who is almighty.
For whom nothing is too difficult, he spoke. The world's into existence.
The worlds were framed by the Word of God.
By the word of the Lord, where the heavens made, and all the host of them, by the breath of his mouth.
He gathereth the waters of the sea together as in heap.
He layeth up the depth in storehouses.
That all the earth.
Fear the Lord. Let all the earth fear the Lord. We're talking about this being, this infinite being of God.
Who could just speak?
And it was.
You say I can't fathom that. Of course you can't fathom that. None of us can understand the creation.
How could there be nothing but God? And he spoke, and there was the.
Universe.
The billions of stars and galaxies and nebula and all that exists.
Verse 9 Here it is. What language? What majestic language?
You'll never read another book in all the world that has such majestic language. For he spake. And it was done.
He commanded.
And it stood fast.
He said let there be and there was.
And to think of puny, insignificant.
Man.
Daring.
To affront that being.
To speak irreverently to that being and of that being.
This infinite God who spoke the universe.
In a moment of time.
Into existence.
Let the whole earth deer before him.
As we consider who he is.
He spake and it was done. He commanded.
Let's go back to Genesis 1.
Verse one.
In the beginning.
This is the beginning of everything that had a beginning.
For everything that exists that you and I see, everything that our eye can rest upon in this room.
Everything that we can touch and feel and sense and hear and smell.
Had a beginning.
There is nothing eternal.
Except God.
Only God.
Can you grasp?
Can I grasp, can any of us grasp the concept, the idea of eternity?
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We're coming back here, but turn to Psalm 90.
Psalm 90.
Lord verse one, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth.
Or ever thou hast formed the earth.
And the world that is before Genesis 11. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now this is before that.
Even from everlasting.
To everlasting.
Thou art God.
Even from everlasting, Even from eternity.
To eternity thou art God. There's a lovely hymn that we sing.
And it says about the cross of Christ.
It says center of two eternities, which look with wrapped adoring eyes onward the past eternity, looking onward to that point in time.
That separates these two eternities. It's only one eternity, but I can't fathom that, and none of us can fathom that. How can there be two eternities? But it says from eternity to eternity, and in the midst of those two is time.
Time.
Where events won after another take place. That's what time is.
Time. One has put it this way very simple. Time is God's way of not having everything happen all at once.
Time.
Can you fathom eternity where there is no time?
Where there is no sequence of events, you see to God who is this eternal being?
Whoever was and ever will be who had no beginning and had no end time has no.
Meaning to him.
Every event that will ever take place in the future or that has ever taken place in the past.
Are all one and the same to him, so he can speak of the future as if it were already done.
Whom He has justified them. He has glorified both. For us that is still future, but not for God.
Because there is no past and future for God. He is the I am.
Turn to Exodus Chapter 3 please.
Exodus.
Chapter 3.
Verse 11.
And Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh?
And that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt.
And he said, certainly I will be with thee.
And this shall be a token unto thee.
That I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt.
Ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers had sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name?
What shall I say unto them?
And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. Notice that's in all capitals in our Bible.
It's the name of God that is the meaning of the word Jehovah.
The unchanging, unalterable God. He is who he is.
He does not change.
He cannot change. If he could change, he wouldn't be God.
Because if he could change, that would mean he would either be getting better or he would be getting worse. And he can't get better because he's perfection itself. And he can't ever get worse because he's perfection itself.
He is unchangeable.
He's the same. It was pointed out today in the reading that the title the same.
Is a title of deity, and it is because all creatures change. We change, He changes not.
We're talking about this infinite being who dwells in unapproachable light, whose name from himself is I am, that I am the unalterable, the unchangeable God who is the same.
Jehovah.
And then he goes on to say, And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am.
Hath sent me unto you.
The one who lives in an eternal present.
The eternal one I am the equivalent to. That is the eternal. You could translate it the eternal.
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I am that I am could be translated.
The unchangeable 1.
He is eternal and he never changes.
He is just the same tonight as when He gave his beloved son on the cross of Calvary for your sins and mine.
He is just the same tonight. He loves you just the same tonight as he did when he expressed that love and the gift of his beloved son and the Cross of Calvary.
When he sent him into this world to die for poor guilty sinners who are in darkness.
And here he is in that light, and He is light, and He wants us to enjoy his presence forever.
How could he possibly enjoy he who is light and in whom there is no darkness at all? How could we who are nothing but darkness and at a distance, and alienated from God, having the understanding?
Being alienated from the life of God for the ignorance that is in US on account of the hardness of our hearts. Ephesians 4.
How could we? How could man who is in such a state?
Ever come into?
That most blessed of all blessednesses to know God.
This eternal being.
Is the same.
He is also everywhere.
He is omnipresent.
He is unchangeable.
He S eternal.
From eternity to eternity, I am God.
He is almighty.
He can't ever have any more power than he has, because he has all power.
He can't ever have any less power than he has because he's unchangeable.
He can't have any fellowship with darkness because he's light.
So he has to bring us out of darkness. And Peter says it this way, God, who has brought us out of darkness into his marvelous light so that we could enjoy his presence.
Friend, are you in darkness tonight? Are you still in your sins tonight?
Are you still alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that's in you because of the blindness of your heart?
Who, being past feeling, Paul says, describing the gentile world, have given themselves over unto greedy.
Unsatisfied.
Such is the state of man.
You are living in this speck of time between these two eternities.
God, in that speck of time, sent his Son.
As an expression of his love.
I did not read it in 1 John chapter 4. Two times we read the expression God is love.
God is love.
God is light.
In the essence of his inscrutable being.
God is love.
In the activity of his nature.
He loves you.
He loves you.
He loves me.
Poor wretched, guilty, hell bound Sinner.
Deserving of nothing but eternal banishment from the presence of that infinitely holy God.
Whom I have offended.
But he loves me.
He even wanted me to spend eternity with himself, and he wants you.
And so he sent his son.
The darling of his bosom.
No man has seen God at any time. John 118 the only begotten Son.
He who is in the bosom of the Father, in the hiding place of love.
He hath declared him.
He's told us what God is like.
Infinitely holy light.
Infinitely loving.
His love.
Can you ever get away from him? Turn with me to the 139th Psalm.
The 139th Psalm.
Verse one.
O Lord.
Thou hast searched me.
And knowing me.
Now notice my down sitting.
And mine uprising.
He knows when you sit down, he knows when you get up.
Now understand this my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path or searchest out my path.
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And my lying down.
And Art acquainted with all my ways. He knows every detail of your life and mine. He knows everything you've ever thought.
Everything that you've ever done, every place you've ever gone.
He is God.
The all knowing God, He is omniscient.
For there is not a word in my tongue.
But lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together.
Before you speak it.
He knows it.
He knows your thoughts.
You can go into a dark room and shut the door and commit some heinous act of sin or crime or whatever it might be, and you think no one sees you.
Thou hast beset me behind him before, and laid thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. No, we can't attain to this knowledge.
We can't fathom who he is. The being that we're talking about, God. God.
This infinite being.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Can you go anywhere in his universe and get away from God anywhere?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.
If I make my bed in hell or shield, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me.
Thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, no one's going to see me. I'm in darkness.
Even the night shall be light about me.
God sees us as well in the darkness.
As he does in the light.
Yeah, the darkness hideth not from thee.
But the night shineth as the day.
The darkness and the light.
Are both alike to thee?
You know, in this room right now, there are millions of.
Radio waves.
Television waves.
In this room, none of us can see them.
Because our eyes only see a very small fraction of the total.
Range.
Of waves that exist, God has created our eyes just to see a certain.
Small fraction, there's X-rays, there's infrared rays. We don't see any of those and many, many others. Radio waves, ultraviolet and all this.
God sees it all. He created it all.
He ordered it all. There isn't anything that's past his scrutiny.
And we have to do with him. You have to do with him, whoever you are.
Wherever you are, He knows all about you. He created you. He upholds you. He sustains you.
You have to answer to him.
And he loves you. He loves you.
He loves you.
Turn to Psalm Isaiah 40.
Please Isaiah 40.
How great is he?
Verse 13.
How all knowing is he who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him.
Think of all the knowledge that exists, all the knowledge that man has acquired with his computers and with his advanced science, and the next generation will negate much of what the present generation is boring in, as it has negated what much of the previous generation gloried in because man.
Doesn't know? Absolutely.
We know in part.
And we prophecy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.
None of us knows anything.
Properly.
None of us.
No creature knows everything.
Thoroughly.
We just know a little bit of it.
At best, the best of us, the distance between the most intelligent man and the most ignorant man is so insignificantly small compared with the tremendous vast scope of knowledge that there is.
That it makes us feel extremely puny and insignificant.
Who hath taught him?
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As his counselor.
Can God acquire one bit more of knowledge? If he could than the one that imparted that knowledge to him would be his superior and God wouldn't be God.
No, he knows everything.
He knows everything.
And he can never know less than everything.
The all knowing.
The all wise God.
Verse 14 With whom took ye counsel, and who instructed him?
And taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding. Who did it? No one.
This is the being that knows everything.
And man with his insignificant acquired knowledge, just a scratch on the surface.
It's all puffed up and proud with what he knows. Knowledge puffeth up. Look at me. Look at all I know.
And we know nothing yet, as we ought to know. At First Corinthians 8 we know nothing yet as we ought to know it.
First Corinthians.
Only God knows.
Verse 15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket. Now we're reading the inspired word of God. This is not just loose language. The nations, as far as God is concerned are just like a drop in a bucket.
All the nations.
Sometimes even the way we Christians talk as though God is going to have a difficulty to resolve the Eastern crisis.
The nations are as a drop of a bucket.
And are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the Isles is a very little thing.
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as.
Nothing.
And they are counted to him less than nothing.
And vanity.
We are talking about God now.
This infinite being.
The nations are counted to him as less than nothing.
Oh this chapter is so thrilling. The whole chapter to read. I recommend that you read it. Isaiah 40.
I want to read a verse at the end, verse 28. Hast thou not known, Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding.
Those of you who have read the book of Job see how well Job did in defending himself against his three friends who were accusing him wrongly.
And then Elihu, and finally the Lord.
Spoke to Joe and after the Lord got through with Job, Job said I have spoken once ye twice, but I will speak no more.
I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear.
But now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Job finally got into the presence of this infinite God.
We're talking about.
We're just scratching the surface of who he is.
The Almighty God.
All power is anything too hard for him, no?
Is there anything he doesn't know? No.
Is there anything you can't do? No.
Is there any place where he is not? No, He created the universe.
By the word of his mouth, he spake it into existence, and you think you're going to hide from God?
You think you're going to go into the darkness and commit some sin which he does not see.
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth.
Thou God seest me.
The Lord knows.
All About Us.
Well, I've dwelt quite a while on who he is.
And I've just barely.
That's the surface.
One more passage, two more passages. Isaiah 57.
One of the most majestic verses in the entire Bible.
Isaiah 57.
Verse 15.
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For thus saith the high and lofty 1.
That inhabiteth eternity.
Whose name is holy?
I dwell in the high and Holy place.
With whom does he dwell?
This infinite being, the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, it doesn't say inhabits heaven. Other verses say that.
Heaven, we can grasp that. I used to ponder this verse. I can't fathom that verse. I don't understand what it means. He inhabits eternity. Well, from everlasting to everlasting, He is God. There isn't anything. He's timeless here. He inhabits eternity. He's a timeless being who never had a beginning and never had an end. You can't fathom that. None of us can.
I dwell in the high and holy place with him also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit.
To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
The reason the gospel is so hard for you to accept?
Is because you are so proud of your little righteousness, your fancied righteousness.
Your good works, your good deeds, whatever they might be, and you have forgotten your hundreds and hundreds of sins.
One sin is sufficient to shut you out from His holy Presence forever.
But he wants you.
And so he's working in your heart tonight.
To bring you to see who he is and that he loves you with an everlasting love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
The greatest expression of divine love, He Himself, being the infinite being that we've been dwelling upon, could not go beyond this. He gave His only begotten Son.
He gave all that he could give. He exhausted himself.
In the gift of gifts, His only begotten Son.
I speak reverently in saying that.
He could not have given more. He would not give less.
To save the likes of us.
Whosoever hears our part, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
What must we do that we might work the works of God? They said, And he said, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the most wonderful truth of the gospel is.
That this God.
We haven't dwelt upon.
Who he is?
My brother shared this with me and I'll share it with you tonight.
Number one.
Speaks of.
The fact that he is.
#2 speaks of what he is. God is light.
God.
And #3 tells us who he is.
The Father.
The Sun.
Holy Spirit.
Three persons.
One God.
The father sent the son.
To be the savior of the world.
The son became a man.
That you and I might know God.
The only way we can know Him, the only way we can know is love. The only way we can know is holiness. The only way we can know is righteousness and His truth.
And his grace and his mercy, his compassion.
His love.
Through the.
Do you know him?
The sum and substance of all blessedness, both in this life and in that which is to come, is to know God, and He can only be known in the Person.
Of his beloved son.
Do you know him tonight?
If you don't, you are missing.
The purpose for which he created you.
You're missing everything.
And you have nothing.
In fact, if you don't know him, you are poor and wretched and miserable.
And blind and naked.
But you can have as a free gift he offers to you eternal life, he said. Again, I quoted.
I am come that they might have life.
That they might have it abundantly.
And so he went into death, he died, and then God raised him from the dead and gave him glory and set him at the highest pinnacle.
In heaven.
I remember once in Chicago we had a tremendous snowfall and all transportation except the elevated wasn't working and I went to work on the elevated.
And there was a dear old black man on the.
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Trained and I sure enjoyed what he said.
He said well.
We didn't think we were going to get any winter this year. It was kind of late. It was in February and January had been very mild. But he said the man upstairs showed us.
Man upstairs, well, he met God.
But God isn't a man upstairs. There is a man upstairs. That's the Lord Jesus. And that man is God, Yes, but when we talk about God, he is.
Spirit.
The invisible God, whom no man hath seen nor can see.
But he's come out and become a man.
And now we can see God. The first time the angels ever saw their Creator was when he was born in Bethlehem's.
Manger.
The creator of the universe.
The invisible became visible.
The omnipotent Almighty God became.
A baby.
Where he needed to be carried from place to place.
The one who is all knowing, who could not learn anymore, nor ever lose any knowledge.
Acquired knowledge as a man.
He grew in wisdom and disfavor with God and men.
Proper for a man.
He did never, he did never do anything over from himself. It was always independence on his father.
And yet he was the infinite God.
That's a mystery that eclipses even the others that I've been talking about.
The mystery of the Incarnation.
God was manifest in the flesh.
This infinite, this all knowing, this all powerful this.
Ever present God.
Became a man and he could only be in one place at a time as a man.
And he hungered, and he grew weary.
As a perfect man.
He loved you so much. He became one of us. He's been apart.
To win your heart.
As an old brother used to say, if God hasn't won your heart, what more could he do to win it?
What more could he do to win it?
Is given all he could give.
His beloved son.
That your sins might be effaced, wiped out.
Under the precious blood of Christ.
That you might have a life which makes it capable for you to enjoy fellowship.
And for me to enjoy fellowship with this.
Infinite God.
And that one, the one person of the Trinity, the Son.
Who became a man?
Will never cease to be a man.
Will be in eternity around himself, we who know him.
As our Lord and Savior.
Will be an eternity around himself, never ending.
And he will minister to us.
Of his fullness.
And he'll make us eternally happy. I've had so many say to me, what are we going to do in heaven?
What's it like in heaven? We're not told.
About all we're told is that there's no more pain, no more sorrow, no more suffering, no more death.
All the things that grieve us here, that are undesirable here, will be absent there. But what will it really be like?
We're not told.
Because we couldn't fathom it in our present mode of existence.
But he's going to make us eternally happy.
Impossible to be happier.
Then we will be in heaven.
And he's left us here just for a little while.
To represent him.
Are you saved or lost tonight? It's one or the other. Are you darkness or light tonight?
We were once darkness, where now light in the Lord walk as children of light.
God has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Why? Because he is love.
He could have left us in the darkness.
We'd all have gone to hell.
That's what we deserved, you know. That's what I deserved most assuredly.
I deserve nothing but hell.
But now I'm sure of heaven.
Because God loved me.
God loved you so much.
And he gave his son to die for you.
To shed his precious blood, to cleanse every sin.
Make you fit for His holy presence.
00:45:03
Let the whole earth.
Praise the Lord.
Give glory to Him.
Let's pray.