King Ahaziah's sickness and his inquiry of Baal-Zebub instead of God reveal his spiritual rebellion and the consequences of following his wicked parents. When Elijah confronts Ahaziah's messengers and then the king's captains, he demonstrates God's power by calling down fire from heaven, ultimately leading to Ahaziah's death as prophesied. The sermon contrasts Ahaziah's defiance with King Manasseh's repentance on his sickbed, highlighting that affliction can lead to humility and salvation. It concludes by emphasizing that while the Old Testament law brought judgment, the New Testament offers grace and salvation through Christ, urging listeners to accept God's mercy.
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Wanting to notice the patient we have before us this morning, I'm going to read the last two verses of the previous chapter, chapter fifty-two and fifty-three of the last chapter of first Kings, and then we'll get into chapter one of second Kings. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father. No notice that. He walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother. that was Jezebel and the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, for he served Balaam. He served Balaam and worshipped him and provoked the anger to anger the Lord God of Israel according to all that his father had done.
Now verse one. Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. And Ahaziah, that's the one we've been reading about, who replaced and went to the throne after Ahab died, and Ahaziah fell down to a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick. And he sent messengers and said unto them, Go inquire of Baal-Zebub, the God of Echbon, whether I shall recover of this disease. but the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the fish-fight, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the King of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because it is not a God in Israel that he go to inquire of Baal-Zibub, the God of Echron?
Now therefore, thus saith the Lord. Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art drawn up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed. For when the messengers turned back unto him, that is to the king, he said unto them, Why are ye now turned back? He expected them to be gone longer than that. And they said unto him, There came a man up to meet us, and said unto us, go, turn again unto the king that sent you, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that thou sendest to inquire of Baal-dead, not the God of Echron?
Therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art drawn up, but shall surely die. And he said unto them, What manner of man was he which came up to me to and told you these things? And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girted with a girdle of leather about it loyal. And he said, He said, It is the light of the fish-buck. And this made the king man. Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty, and he went up to him, and behold, he sat on the top of one head. And he speak unto him, Thou man of God.
The king hath said, Come down. Elijah answered and said to the captain of the city, If I be a man of God, his captain seemed to have said contemptuously, If thou be a man of God, Elijah said, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume me in thy victory. and there came down fire from heaven and consumed him in his riches. Yet also the king sent unto him another captain of fifty with his riches. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly.
And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee, and thy fifty, and the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him, and his fifty. He set again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty, and the third captain of the fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and the shawthian, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee. let my life and the night of thee shifty thy servant be precious in thy sight behold there came fire down from heaven and burned up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight and the angel of the lord said unto eliza go down with him be not afraid of him and he arose and went down with him unto the king And he said unto him, That is, Elijah said unto the king, Thus saith the Lord, For as much as thou hast sent messengers to inquire of Baalty above
the God of Ecclain, Is it not because there is not no God in Israel to inquire on his word? Therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shall surely die. So he died. according to the words of the Lord which Elijah had spoken, and Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because he had no son. Now the rest are the acts of Ahaziah, which he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. And this wicked king only lived two years after that sad sentence was what?
There are a number of bed-bidden cases in the Bible. I'm going to mention them just briefly. I think one time we spent all our time on some of these characters, and I'm not going to do that this morning, but I want to get into the message that I have definitely before you are in the major. And these are cases of bed-bidden, patient. First one, you'll find is over in Job. And I'll just read the two or three verses, very brief, in Job thirty-three. Here you have a careless sinner. For God speaketh once, yea, Christ, and yet man, perceivereth not, in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, and slumberings upon the dead, then God openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their destruction.
Here you find a man, as represented in Job, and he was very careful, and yet God was speaking to him. In a vision, in dreams of the night, God is trying to reach the conscience of this careless man. And that's true of many today. They're just careless about spiritual things, careless about eternity. Right awake about other matters, you can discuss maybe sports and they're very alert. You may talk about the war and politics and they're very keen on these subjects. But when it comes to the things of God, they seem to know nothing. They're passed to sleep about spiritual things.
quite awake about other matters. That was true in another speech concerning Galeo, the deputy of Achaia. What happened to him? Why, the persecutors brought a man, a Christian saw feelings before this man, and they beat this Christian right before Galeo, the deputy. And also he had heard the testimony of the Apostle Paul, but this is what it says concerning him. Galio cared for none of these things, and he caused them all to leave his court. I'm not interested in anything religion. If it's something of legal importance, I'll listen to it, but nothing religious.Galio cared for none of these things.
Then you have the case of Jonah. Here is Jonah fast asleep, down in the bottom of a ship. He was running away from God. And chips in those days are not made like they are today. There was just one plank between Jonah and eternity. He was asleep down in the bottom of the ship. Just one plank, Jonah, between you and me, J. God. And he was fast asleep, unconcerned, indifferent, unconscious of his perilous state. And friend, there's only one thread between you and death. The brittle thread of life And so many of them today, in spite of these things, they're so careless and so indifferent.
And like Felix, he says, when I have a convenience season, I'll call to you. I've got other matters of more concern. Or like a grifter, he says, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. I've got other matters of state that I've got to look into. And so here's the careless man, the indifferent man, strict to make a dollar. Oh, yes, they're very interested in that. Just snatch some opportunity to get rich. But when it comes to spirit of some matter, they don't want to listen. They're not interested in material things, tangible things, technical things, all that seems to interest them.
But remember this man, God put him on his bed, on his back, Job, until Job had a change of heart. One could speak of the man now that we read about, this fellow Ahaziah. I gave you his background, and it's quite a bad background. And what happened to him? He got excited, evidently, when he heard that the Moabites were going to come and invade the country. That's one way that God had all whipping his people. He sent other nations against them. And so God is sending this other nation against Ahaziah. Was he all excited? Anyway, he fell down to the lattice and hurt himself quite badly, and he was on a bed.
He couldn't attend to the affairs of state. He couldn't go forth to the battle to try and defeat the enemy. Here he is on a bed of affliction, a bed of affliction. What did this man do on his bed of affliction? Well, it tells you what he did. I read this story. He sent some of his messengers to go to this false God, to bear. And by the way, that means the God of flies, some God. The God of flies. And he sent his messengers to this God, to ask this God that really didn't exist, just the poor, senseless, lifeless idol, ask that God if I'm going to get well.
Well, when he did that... God said to Elijah, you go and meet those messengers, and the king has said, and tell them to go back and tell the king, he's not going to get well, he's going to die, and he did, he only lived two years. And so when Elijah met these messengers, and he gave them the message, you go on back, and you tell Ahaziah, he'll not rise off that bed, he'll die. So they went back, The king didn't expect them back so soon. Everly this god of Baal that they'd gone to inquire of was quite a distance. Oh, when the king saw them returning, he couldn't understand it.
And these messengers must have been impressed by Elijah. Because when men get a command from the king, they've got to carry it on. But there was something about this man that caused them to listen. And they turned around and went back to the king. And the king says, how is it? We've got back to the king. Well, a certain man met him, and he told us to come back and tell you that you're not going to get well, you're going to die. What kind of a man was it? And they said he was a hairy man, and he had another girdler on his way. He said, that's Elisha the Ishmael. I wonder how he knew.
Elisha had a reputation because Ahab his father and Jezebel, his mother. had heard all about Elijah. And this King Ahaziah was so mad, he sent one of his captains and fifty soldiers to go and get Elijah on Bethlehem. And so this captain was dispatched with fifty soldiers, and they went to where Elijah was, and he was Elijah sitting on the top of the little hill. And this captain said, Man of God, the king wants you to come. Come down. Elijah knew God revealed it to Elijah.
No, he's not speaking the truth. He doesn't believe you're a man of God. He has ill ideas. He'll likely kill you. Elijah said, all right, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, destroy you. And before the captain of his men could pull his swords, the fire could soon go into a thinset. Quite a short judgment, wasn't it? And the king heard about it. The king sent another captain with fifty more swords, and the same thing happened. This second captain came up and said, The king says, Come down quickly.
I am lied to say, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you in your fifty, and the fire fell, and it became stingy. The king is the turner. I'm going to get that man a light. Send another captain and fifty more men. But this fellow had a change of mind. In present day language, it was day he chickened out. The first two got burned up. This first fellow, this third man, he saw what happened and he chickened out. Well, friend, you better chicken out if you're not a Christian.
you better fear this God who answers by fire and this captain came along and evidently had a talk with his fifty men something like this men there's no use us fighting against this God we've never had a God act like this our idols they don't bring down fire from heaven but this man he tells the king he's going to die why he demonstrates something about his God And you saw what happened, how fire came down from heaven, and destroyed the two previous captains and their two groups of fifty men. Let us seek this God.
And so this captain of men, they came and they fell on their faces, and they begged for mercy. They begged for mercy. God said, Elijah, go with them. Go with them. And Elijah went, no fear now of being killed. And when he came into the king's presence, the king could have ordered him to be killed right then. But he didn't. I guess the king thought, well, maybe I better listen to this man. And so Elijah didn't back down. He said, King, you're going to die. Thou shalt die that you're evocable. No need you plead mercy. You're going to die.
And he did. Two years later, the king died just as Elijah told me. So here's this story of this careless sinner and this afflicted sinner. You know, people today can be afflicted, and they don't seem to think. I visit them constantly in the hospital, men and women, and they're all available. And it seems that this illness or this affliction doesn't seem to worry some. Some it does. But a lot don't even think about that this could be the messenger of God. One better think, God has many ways of dealing with many women, and this is one of the ways he deals with.
But you know, there's another case I thought of when reading this yesterday. Another afflicted king. The one I've been speaking about, Ahaziah, he died in his sins, but there's another wicked king, and he was put on the bed of a cliff. And I'm going to read that to you. You'll need to turn to it. I'll just read it in second Chronicles thirty-three, ten. And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not conquer. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the hosts of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns and bound them with fetters and carried them to Babylon.
And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before God, the God of his sons, and prayed to him. And he was entreated. God was entreated of him and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem, into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was lost. Now what a difference. Two wicked kings, one defied God, had he died in his sin. The other softened up. He humbled himself, and he was a wicked king.
This man, Manasseh, if you read the story, by how he sinned against the Lord. pour down all the altars of God, and he put idols in their place. He had idols put in the very temple of God, which was an abomination unto God, unto God, and he called some of his children to be offered in sacrifices unto Paul's God. Imagine that, could you offer your child a son or a daughter, unto a uncle of God, that couldn't speak, it couldn't hear, just an idol, some great being out there, in man's imagination. Yet this King Manasseh offered more than one of his children unto his God.
And yet he was a Jew, he was a Hebrew, he knew something about the living God, and yet he turned from the living God, and he offered his children unto this idol. He engaged in witchcraft. He engaged in spiritism. He went just about as far as approaching to go, for in the Old Testament, God hated witches and he had them put to death and he hated spiritism. But here you find this king engaging in these. And he made Israel sin more than the heathen sin. That's what your Bible says. And it says he would not listen. Verse ten, as I read you. He would not listen to God until God put them on a bed of affliction.
And he had been reigning fifty years. He must have been an old man. Now he's on the bed of affliction, and he chipped off. He said, oh, this is food. I'm an old man. I haven't long to live. What's the use fighting against? Yes, God. He's the God I heard about when I was a child. I turned from him the God of my fathers, and I worshipped Dale and these other gods. And now I'm God. Now I'm God. I need the God I heard about when I was in you. I need the God of my Father. Then you may find it easy to live without the Lord Jesus Christ.
You will find it all very hard to die without the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be a dark, bleak valley. You will travel it alone. But here is Manasseh. He confessed. He humbled himself. He acknowledged he was lost. And he called upon the living God, O the mercy of God. Here's a man who turned his back on God and lived such a wicked ungodly life and called so many people to suffer. God could have said, Well, you're not worth saving. Look at the innocent life you've taken. And you worship another God for fifty years.
And in your dying hours you turned to me. God knows the value of the soul. It's so precious. And he knows the torment to which that soul is going. But God says, I'll save everyone. The turns, even as it says last hour, I'll save all who call upon me. And God saved Manasseh. What a wonderful thing. And it says at the close of that verse, I read verse three. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was gone. A nice thing to know the Lord. The Lord is gone.
I know the living and to God. Now, I have a lady I don't see in the audience for. But I better one day this week. She said, I'm coming out the chapel. She said, I don't want anything of your religion, but I want to probably hear you. You might as well stay away. One might as well stay home. If you don't come out to hear the message that I've got to preach, then don't come. If the message, I want men and women to hear that. And the message is that God loves you. He gave us some to die for you, that you might be saved like Manasseh was.
And so we have this remarkable incident of one man who died a king, an afflicted man. The other also afflicted Manasseh. and he turns to the Lord. We haven't time to go into other men on bed. The sickness is one over in Isaiah twenty-eight and twenty. And it says, For the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower than he can wrap himself at it. What kind of an uncomfortable situation is it? On a cold night, and the bed's too short, you can't stretch out, and the blanket's too narrow, you can't cover yourself. You turn over, you get closed on one side.
You turn over, you get closed on the other. It's kind of miserable, isn't it? And the bed's too short. People today are trying to cover themselves with a blanket of good news, a blanket of stump righteousness, a blanket of doing the best you can. It won't get any comfort out of that. Now they've come up the last number of years with these electric blanks to keep you walking. Man come up with all kinds of ideas and gadgets, how to get you warm spiritually that you can't get warm. The blanket won't cover you, the blanket won't give you warmth in your soul. Only God's blanket, which is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Ah, you know something of that blanket.
It's wide enough, but it's long enough, but it'll cover you, and you can be tucked in as snug as a bug in a rug. And you'll have the warmth. of the spirit of God in your heart. This poor fellow is trying to go to sleep on a bed too short and a blanket too narrow. Some are trying to get some rest out of the Ten Commandments. It's awfully hard to sleep on stone, isn't it? The Ten Commandments were written on stone. You want to try to get rest out of stone? It's kind of hard. And stones were cold. What you need is Christ. Christ is the one that covers you completely.
Christ is just as comfortable as can be. He says, come on to me and I'll give you rest. You know what David said? David said, and here's a saved man that I laid me down and slept for the Lord to stay. This is a Christian. I laid me down and slept for the Lord to stay. You know, there's a remarkable passage. Now I'm going to turn to... back to our chapters. Remarkable passage over in the New Testament of the Lord Jesus Christ quotes it. And strange to say it contradicts what we've read about Elijah calling down fire upon these two captains and their men.
I'm going to read you this. It's over in Luke nine and verse forty nine and verse sixty two. The Lord Jesus said on this occasion, and John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we prevail, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbidden not, that he that is not against us is for us. And it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up. He said fastly, set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face, and they went. and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him, and they did not receive him.
They wouldn't permit the Lord Jesus to come into their town, because his face was set to go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did? What did the Lord say about that? Games and John wanted to do what Elijah did when these people, Samaritans, wouldn't allow the Lord Jesus to come into their town. Let's burn them up. Let's consume them. Let fire come down and destroy them. What did the Lord Jesus say to them?
He said in verse thirty-six, For the Son of Man are verse fifty-five, but he turned and rebuked them and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another city. How are you going to explain it? In the Old Testament, Elijah commanded fire from heaven, and it was God who said that fire to destroy these two captains and their victims. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus rebuked James and John for wanting to destroy these people who wouldn't let the Lord Jesus come into their city. That shows you the difference of the Old Testament dispensation of law and the New Testament of dispensation of grace.
I think it's a beautiful thing when you see that. Elijah was of one dispensation when it was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That was Elijah's dispensation. You sin and you die. But we are of another dispensation, law and grace. Law and grace. This is very remarkable. It says right here, the Lord Jesus came not to destroy a man's life, but to save. In the day of grace, God sent his Son into this world, not to destroy the world, but to save all who would come unto him. Sinai, you couldn't get near to Sinai.
The fire on Sinai. And the lightning and the thunder, you couldn't have quoted God like that. A bound was put around to prevent anyone, even a beast from approaching God as revealed in Sinai. But in Calvary, oh, here's something different. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Love draw. Law repels. Love is hard. Law is hard. But love is soft. Yes, law. puts you in a distance. Make you stand the way up.
You've broken the law. You deserve to die. Love says you've come. Christ will draw all men. If I have ever lifted up on the earth, I'll draw all men unto me. You can come close to the Lord Jesus. You can come right up to the Lord Jesus. You can touch his garment. You can touch him. You couldn't do that with law. You'd have been stricken dead. You see the difference in the truth? Christ said to James and John, you don't know what spirit you are. You're in the spirit of another dispensary. You're in the Old Testament spirit. That's not what I want. I come that you might have a new spirit, the spirit of grace.
So we can judge James and John. Now after what the Lord Jesus said, we can judge them on the basis of what they said. Let's call fire down from heaven and destroy these Samaritans. How are you going to judge James later on when he became a martyr for Jesus Christ in Acts chapter seven? Between the time when the Lord Jesus was starting out with his disciples, they were young, they still had a lot of the Old Testament in them. They still had a lot of the law in them. And so when Christ was not permitted to go into the city, they wanted to destroy the city. But as they grew... And accompanied with Christ for three and a half years, they got to learn something of grace.
Especially it must have been when on the cross. The Lord Jesus was crucified. Wicked hands nailed into the cross. Yet he says, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. This must have started, James. This is grace. This is sovereign grace. This is abundant mercy. Instead of killing people, he's praying for guilty people. He wants to save guilty people. And so James learned a whole lot. He became a martyr for that kind of salvation. He became a martyr for Jesus Christ.
He laid down his life. He was saved by grace. He lived by grace and he died in grace. You can judge John on the basis of this incident. In Luke nine when he was like James, he let Paul fire down. Why I want to change from John who wanted to destroy these people from fire out of heaven. So that John who wrote John's gospel, he wrote the first, second, and third John, and he wrote the book of Revelation. And John's gospel in the first, second, and third chapter of John is all love. Love. No one of the New Testament writers speaks of love more than John.
In his epistles he's talking about loving one another. By death shall all men see and know that you are the children of God if you love one another. And love, love, love is the language of John. He had a change, isn't it? From the day when he wanted fire to come down out of heaven and destroy these Samaritans, he still looked at things in the light of the Old Testament when the law was given. But now he sees it's all of grace. God wants to save us by grace. Not a work, lest any man should vote, but on the basis of sovereign grace. You repent, confess your sin, and God will save you.
For he that called upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Like the publicer, God be merciful to me, the sinner, and God will be merciful, and God will save you. Then you'll notice how the Lord Jesus Christ went on in this passage. He rebukes them for their pride, for their intolerance and their vindictiveness. Christ rebukes all three. And then you'll notice three men in verses fifty-seven and sixty-two of that chapter we read you in Luke. Fifty-seven. And it came to pass that as they went in the way a certain man said unto him, Now notice this. Here's a volunteer. Lord, I will follow thee.
with us, whoever thou goest. He was a volunteer. But notice the next one in verse fifty-nine. This fellow says, And Christ said unto another, Follow me. Now this fellow is not a volunteer. He's a recruit. He's invited to come. He's invited to come. Then you come back to the third character in this passage in verse sixty-one. And here's another fellow. And what did it say concerning him? And another said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee. But let me first go and bid them farewell which are the gold.
Here's another volunteer. A volunteer. Then you have the next one was invited by Christ, and then another volunteer. You know, the Lord explains all these. The first fellow, when he said, Lord, I will follow thee. Will us whoever thou goest. What did Christ say concerning that? Christ said unto him, Fox that bulls and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head. In other words, you know what means to follow me. I don't have a home. I don't have a place to lay my head.
And you're volunteering to follow me? Do you know what's going to cost me? is going to cost you giving up all earthly comforts. If you want to really follow me, it means a sacrifice. Then the second man, Christ invited him. Christ says, Come, follow me. And what happened to this man? This man, Christ said unto him, this man said, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury the dead, but go now and preach the kingdom of God.
So this fellow wasn't really ready to follow the Lord. He had something else to do. And the third one went, he said, Another said, Lord I will follow thee, but let me first go and bid them farewell, which are the foes. Quite a different bunch of characters, aren't they? The first one you've got a volunteer, and the second one you've got somebody invited, and the third one you've got a volunteer. The first one was impulsive. He was impulsive. I will follow thee with us wherever thou goest. The second one was unready, when Christ invited him to come and follow. What did he have to say? Suffer me first before and bear in my heart.
The third one, he was self-taught. He says, Lord, let me go and bid them farewell unto Him. Then again, the first one was too fast. The second one was too slow. Third one was too soft. Here is light, the Lord, pointing out the difference in these three men. The first one wanted to go anywhere. The second one anytime. The third one anyhow. And Christ rebukes all to it. And the way he rebukes him is this. Conquer cost, he said to the first one. And the second one, he said, Put me first.
And the third one, forsake all. And this is how the Lord summed up. These men who began, first of all, wanting to destroy these men that refused the Lord Jesus, they wanted to have him burned up. Then when he laid down the terms of discipleship, They all flunked the tests, every one. Oh, it's so easy to talk. It's so easy to say, Lord, I'll call it to the servant, I'll go. I lay down my life advice. And then when the test comes, oh, I'll tell you they'll flunk. Then, what the Lord wants, he wants reality.
He wants reality. I think, closing, I go back to the story in the Old Testament. Why was it the first two men were killed and their soldiers? The third one was scared. It's very simple. God sees the heart of all men. The heart of the first two captains and their men was a failure, resentment. We've got our religion, we've got our God, and we'll not give him up for any God. We've got our ideas of what religion is. I will oppose anybody that tries to tell us anything different.
We didn't even put it in the deck. The third man repented. God knows the hearts of all men. He only does. He saw the hearts of the first two men and murder was in their heart. They were hard. And God says slid. The other man, he softened up. He became repentant. He fell at the peak of Elijah. He begged for mercy. And he liked the sermon. Friend, if you have the picture, hearts here this morning. There are those who are harmed. They're not going to soften up.
They're not going to repent. They're not going to come to Christ. They may be satisfied with what they've done. It's little for you. in the gospel story. But oh, how God loves to see a man or a woman run. Lord, I see I've been wronged. I want reality. I want something that's certain. I want something that's secure. I want something that's safe. I want something that's satisfied. And Lord, I'm coming to you this morning as a guilty, lost sinner. I can't save myself. But you gave your son to die on that cross for me, and the swarming I'm going to receive.
I want to be saved. I see the folly of fighting against you in those two first captains and their men. There's no use fighting against a living God, who can steer you in a moment before you can draw the sword to defend yourself. You're gone. You might as well give in. Lord, I'm lost. I tremble in your presence, for I've sinned against you. I want to be saved. I want all my sins to be forgiven this morning. I want everlasting life. And Lord, I want to say something else. When you save me, I'm going to live for you.
I'm going to be a true disciple. That's what God wants. Will you accept Christ? Will you trust him? Jesus, shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come before thee. We ask thy blessing upon thy holy word. How wonderful is thy word. How comprehensive it is. It meets all our needs. Disabled Father, to search out everyone. We thank thee, it can apply to every human heart in the world and every human life. So we trust with the Lord here this morning. We'll come to be repentant, desiring salvation, and those of us who are saved.
May we see the price that must be paid to be full disciples, completely geared and controlled by thee, lest then my word of each and every one of us, that thine own glory we ask in our Savior's precious name. So he's singing those in four hundred and two hundred and forty-three.