We're gonna see that this morning as we jump into looking at more concerning the children of Israel. Now, as I said, we're gonna break up what I thought would be all done this morning. Yeah, that's not happening. That's not happening. I had a whole different direction of putting this together. I thought the Lord was gonna have us go to kind of start into. We looked last Sunday, we kind of introduced ourselves last Sunday, looking at the fact that the entire account of the children of Israel Over in 1 Corinthians 10, we are told by Paul that it is there, it is given to us, it is shown to us to be an example or they are to be in samples for us. We're to be able to see what happened and learn how we today, are to live, and what we are to watch out for, and the traps that we can find ourselves falling for. And you say, well, how do you know it's for us today? Because Paul was in the church age, speaking to the church when he wrote the letter to the Corinthians there. And in 1 Corinthians, he's writing to them, telling them that this is for our example. This is for us to see. and to learn from. So we introduced the fact that we are gonna dig into looking at the children of Israel. And I told you, I don't know how long it's gonna take us. I don't know how long, I don't typically do series on Sunday mornings, but this one has just, on top of that, this is a first. Y'all are in new territory with me because we're not just doing a series on Sunday mornings, we're letting Sunday morning series bleed over into Sunday night as well. I don't normally do that at all. But there's so much to cover and I really don't wanna take a year to get through it. So I'm trying to double up and use the extra time to get more information in. But as I began to study and began to look and I had a layout that I thought the Lord was gonna have me to go in and then last night some things began to, You know those thoughts that creep into your head from the Lord that mess everything up? And I had some thoughts come into my head as I was reading, as I was looking, and all of a sudden I started seeing a picture that I had completely just kind of skirted around going a different direction. So I put the bus in reverse and backed up, and then this morning finished out putting some thoughts down, and the more I began to lay some things out, the more I realized we're not finishing the first half of this in the morning. Get this, this is the first half. We're not even gonna finish the first half of the entire message this morning. So we're gonna basically break it into four quarters. It's gonna be first quarter, tonight's second quarter, and next Sunday, yeah, again, all week for halftime. And then next Sunday will be the third and fourth quarters. And hopefully, I can't even count, I was homeschooled. But as a whole, we're, Lord willing, we're gonna tie this all together. And here's the entirety. Now our focus, as far as the series goes, our focus is dying in the wilderness, okay? Dying, and you say, Preacher, that sounds kind of morbid. Well, that's what's happening to a lot of people. They're dying in the wilderness. We looked at it last Sunday, between Sunday morning and Sunday night, why so many die in the wilderness. And we looked at the whole, the entirety of it, the final understanding of it is they die in the wilderness because they're not willing to cross Jordan. They get to Jordan, they get to that fork in the road, and they decide to go backwards instead of forwards with God. And so they die trying to survive in the wilderness instead of moving forward thriving with the Lord. And so we're gonna get back to the Jordan and all, it's gonna take a little while. We're gonna get back there. We got several things to do. We're backing all the way up to Egypt. And what we're gonna do this morning and this evening is we're gonna look at the first half of this thought. Delivered, but forgetful. Delivered, but forgetful. I need you to go with me to Psalm, the book of Psalms, go to Psalm 106, and look with me at verse seven and verse number eight, and then we'll pray and then I'm gonna, Dig in a little bit more. I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. All right. There are 10 areas to cover here. And my plan is this morning we're gonna get six of them because the latter end of this takes a lot more time and I want you to go with me to scripture so we can tie these things together. But when you begin to look at the children of Israel and you begin to look at the deliverance of the children of Israel, There's a lot more to what it pictures than just the surface understandings. We said last Sunday, yes, Egypt is a picture of the world. We'll revisit that in a minute. But then we talked about how the Red Sea being a picture of baptism. We'll get to some of that even later on this evening as well. Then we also talked about the wilderness being, as a whole, it is a picture of a timeframe of the early time of a child of God that maybe doesn't have a lot of knowledge, maybe doesn't have a lot of experience. They don't know a lot. They're in a very volatile timeframe of their new faith in Christ because they're not rooted and grounded. They just got in. And there's some growth that needs to happen, but it's in that early timeframe. And when we get there, we're not even there today, but when we get there, you're gonna find out that there were things that happened to them in that early timeframe before they ever faced the Jordan the first time. And there were things that took place in their life that were very detrimental, and there were things to try to stop them, and everything you face in the wilderness is all about trying to stop you from moving forward with God. Then we talk about, there's the Jordan River, and the Jordan River is that point of decision making, that point of surrender. If you wanna call it death, it is death, it's a final death blow to self. I'm saying that I have given my life to Christ, but now I am wanting to move forward with Him, and so therefore, I die to me so that I can live to Him. That's what salvation was about. I got what it takes to be able to live unto God when I got the salvation through Jesus Christ. We're gonna see some of that this morning. But I got what was needed, but now, now I'm able to say I want to follow Him wholeheartedly. Then we had the promised land. The promised land, we said, is not heaven. The promised land is not a picture of heaven. Everybody that says it is is wrong. Everybody who writes a song that says it is is wrong. We keep having fun with that one. The promised land is a picture of the potential victorious Christian life. There are still giants, there are still battles, there are still mountains to conquer. There are high points, there are low points. There is still the need to put God first. There's still the need to focus on His will. By the way, they found that out after Jericho. They got ahead of God and decided, oh, look what we did. Let's go take care of the rest of these small puny squirts. Let's go do all the rest that we gotta do. We've got the power. No, you don't. It's a reminder that even in the promised land, without the leading of the Holy Spirit, without the work of God in your life, you have no power in and of yourself to do anything. But I can do all things through Christ. The promised land is the picture of the potential victorious, and I say potential on purpose because everything when it comes to the Christian life is potential, it's not reality until you actually act upon truth. Then you get to experience reality. Until you actually experience reality, you're only looking at potential. And so the promised land is the potential for the victorious Christian life with God. But we gotta back up and we've gotta see how it all started and what it all pictures. If you look in Psalm 106, look at verse number seven and verse number eight with me. It says, our fathers understood not the wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. Nevertheless, he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known. So even the psalmist, looking back, rehearses what takes place with the children of Israel in the great deliverance and yet the great forgetfulness that they had of what all that God had done for them. And it didn't even take but a few miles of traveling. They hadn't even gone across the Red Sea and they already started facing forgetfulness. We'll get there tonight, not this morning. Actually, we won't get there tonight. Sorry, my bad. We'll get there next Sunday. We're gonna get them up to the Red Sea tonight, but we'll deal with going through and getting what happens afterwards next Sunday. But... When we see here in Psalm, we see another reference, and by the way, every time Israel is reminded of the goodness of God, this is where they get taken back to. Every time the children of Israel are reminded about what they have forgotten, it always comes back to the deliverance God gave them and the miraculous things he did to bring it about. and yet they keep forgetting. Let's pray and we're gonna look at the deliverance and I wanna show you half this morning, half of what happens and what it pictures in the deliverance of the children of Israel and how it applies even to what it teaches and shows us. this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the opportunity to open it up. I pray that You would open our hearts and our minds to understanding the truth that we've been given. Lord, would You help all these pieces tie together. Would You give us an understanding that only You can give And Lord, we'll be careful to give you the honor and the glory for all that you do in our lives and what you accomplish through our lives by your power. We ask it all in Christ's name, amen and amen. Well, before the children of Israel faced 40 years in the wilderness, there were several key events that they experienced. One, now here's the thing. One would think that seeing God bring an unprecedented judgment on Egypt would be enough to seal their hearts with the Lord. They saw every bit of it. They witnessed every bit of it. It wasn't hearsay. It wasn't a story told over the years. But the children of Israel that were there in the moment of the plagues, you would think that would have been enough for them to say, what a mighty God, we are serving him. but it's short-lived, constantly short-lived. To add to that, how about the miraculous way in which he delivered them and then destroyed their enemy? Boy, wouldn't that be enough to add on and say, boy, it's permanent, it's done, there's no turning back, look what God has done. And yet they still forget. In spite of all that God did for them, the children of Israel started early on what would be their continual undoing. Now here is the struggle. Now this morning is more of an encouraging thing, honestly, this morning and tonight, as we look at the deliverance side of things. But we have to remember that the children of Israel see all these things, and yet their number one problem, over and over and over and over again, from generation to generation to generation to generation, their number one undoing is their forgetfulness. Because before they ever act in sin, God is forgotten in mind. Before they ever move to finding other ways of explaining what has brought them to deliverance, that what God has done miraculously had to be extracted from their thoughts. They forgot, then they rebelled. They forgot, and they rebelled. By the way, just say it again, before we get all high and mighty about how awful they were, they are a perfect picture of what we do. God comes through for His people and we rejoice and we shout and we talk about the wonder of God's goodness and then let a couple of weeks go by and we're right back in our rut of doing things for ourselves. Then we get ourselves into a hole we can't get out of. Oh God, help us! And God does miraculous things to prove who He is and we praise Him for it and we're happy and excited about how God helps us through even the storm. till a storm passes by, he's still gonna handle it. God will take care of you. Boy, we get on the high mountaintops of how good God is, and then after just a little bit of time, we start taking a little bit back for ourselves, a little bit back for ourselves, a little bit back for ourselves, and we take a little more control, and we start off after God's, boy, we come to God for everything. Boy, we pray for everything. We pray about everything. It doesn't matter what it is. We pray about it. Everything, we're focused on what God wants, what God wants. We're on the spiritual high, and then as time goes on, we slip right back into missing this opportunity, missing that opportunity. Oh, next thing you know, I'm missing more than I'm actually following. Until I get myself in a situation again, and then it's, God, help! Because the depths of my despair reminds me there's only one I can turn to. We are exactly like the children of Israel. The church is an exact replica of the issues found in the children of Israel. You say, how is that? Because we all people. And as people, there's a reason why God refers to us as sheep, because we dumb. You can take a sheep, you can walk them around the building 15, 16, 17, 20, 30 times, and then say, all right, find your way around. They have no clue how to get there. Unless the shepherd's leading them, they'll get sidetracked and take off this direction. I mean, they can literally be in a trail that just goes round and round and round, and they're gonna see something and go, ooh. Squirrel, okay. We do that all the time. Why is it that following the Lord faithfully, is something you and I have to make a determined daily decision to accomplish. Because if it's not decided, I will, somewhere along the line, I will miss it. Somewhere along the lines, I'm going to slip off of the track God has me on and not even realize where I've gone until all of a sudden I hit a dead end in the road. And I'm like, whoa, what am I doing here? How did I, oh my, I've not been following the Lord. Eureka. And then you look back and you see all the different things that God was doing, trying to wake you up, wake you up, wake you up. It's like, why was I so blind? Because we have an adversary that if he lost the battle against your soul, he's now after your testimony. and he's after your effectiveness. And he wants to ruin your opportunity to be useful to the God who has forgiven you. If you have found the forgiveness through Christ, he cannot remove that, but he sure can hinder you in everything you try to do for Christ. And so it is a daily battle. I want you to go with me. Actually, hold on. Do two things. Hold your place in Psalm 106, okay? Hold your place there, and I want you to also turn, and I want you to have a place in Exodus 12, okay? And I'm gonna hit these things very quickly, and we're gonna hit one point where we're gonna look at Exodus 12 for just a moment, and that's gonna be the entirety for this morning. All right, so you have Psalm 106 and you have Exodus 12, and you can just keep on with that because we're gonna be back in those same two places this evening, okay? So if you got Exodus 12, you got it sealed there, you got it ready, you got something in there? Okay, now flip back over to 106, Psalm 106. Now you're prepared, we can run, here we go. Look at Psalm 106 verse nine through verse number 12 with me and listen to what the psalmist says concerning the children of Israel. And then we're gonna look at Exodus 12 from this point. So Psalm 106 verse number nine. Bible says, he rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up, so he led them through the depths and through the wilderness. And he saved them by the hand of him that hated them and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. There it is, saved them from the hand, redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And we're gonna tie all this together in a moment as to how it applies to us. Keep moving, verse number 11. Sounds wonderful, right? Just like us. When God comes through in ways that we never could, We sing His praise, we believe His promises, we share with everybody how good God is because in the moment of what He has done, our minds are tuned in to how great Thou art. but it's the afterwards that becomes an issue. We'll look at verse 13 on in Psalm 106 tonight. But up to this point in the book of Psalms, it talks about how God saved them, they tested them, they even gave some trouble there at the Red Sea, but he saved them nevertheless, he saved them for his name's sake. Verse number eight, we read that he might make his mighty power to be known. The Red Sea, the work he did, the drowning of Pharaoh's army, all that he did, not only to pull them out, but to seal them and to settle the question of whether or not they'd ever be back in bondage. to Egypt. It was done through the mighty power of God. And when it was all said and done, and they saw how God was going to do it, they praised him, or I should say, they saw how God did it. Now, when they didn't know how he was going to do it, they weren't necessarily praising. Matter of fact, when they were struggling with how God's going to do it, they were kind of the other way around. They were having more issues with, why did you bring us out here to die? All right? God didn't come through right away. God kind of put them in a place where they had no choice but to trust him, and they didn't like it. Anybody been there? When you said, I see how God can work, and he decides not to do it that way. I see what God's wanting to do, and we find out, no, you don't see nothing. He's doing something totally different, and it makes zero sense to me. God, I know how you can fix this and I know and I believe by faith you're going to do it just as you have revealed to my mind. And then he says, no. Let's see if you can be patient and wait while I do what I'm gonna do instead of doing what you thought I was gonna do. They struggled just like we do. But here's what takes place and let's just give you the introduction to the goodness of God and what he did because man, this gets really good. I'll give you the first five very quickly. You ready? Breaking down the picture of the deliverance of the children of Israel. We said the first thing is Egypt. Egypt is a picture of the world. Egypt is a picture of a lost world, okay? A world that is lost and completely in sin. The bondage The second thing there, the bondage that they are in is a picture of being in bondage in the chains of sin on a people who are looking for and wanting deliverance. Egypt, that picture of people who could care less about deliverance. They're doing what they do. They have what they have. They're not looking for freedom from sin. They're looking to enjoy their sin. They don't want a savior. They want to be left alone and to do what they're gonna do, okay? It's a picture of a world that wants no God. But you have now, you have a people who are looking for deliverance, a people that are looking for hope, a people that says, there's gotta be something better than this. I can't do this. I can't live like this. Where's the hope for life? And not just life, where's the hope for life after this life? Where is the hope for eternal life? The children of Israel in bondage is a picture of the chains of sin. They don't want it. They don't want to be there, but there's nothing they can do to get themselves free. They have to rely on another. Now here's where things get kind of interesting. What is Pharaoh a picture of? I believe, now some people might completely disagree with some of these I'm gonna give, and that's fine. I'll just stick with where I am unless somebody can prove it different. But I believe Pharaoh is a picture of the power of sin. Because he had all the power. He is the ruler of that which is the picture of the world that wants their own gods and wants their own life. They don't want a God, a one true God. He is the power behind their bondage. He's the one that has to be told, let my people go. Let my people go. Let my, and by the way, if sin could have its way, it would never let go of that which it has destroyed. Once sin entered into this world, death came because of sin. And due to death, all men are going to die. Sin is the separator from a holy God. And there's nothing about sin that would ever, if you were to give it a picture of being a controlling object, there's nothing about it that would ever want to let go of its control. over the eternal life of an individual guilty. Sin, unforgiven, separates from God, a holy God, which means sin that has not been dealt with and forgiven will cause eternal separation from a holy God. It has power to destroy. Pharaoh was the power resisting freedom from bondage. Who is Moses? At first, I was heading the direction that Moses is kind of a picture of Christ, but actually I'm gonna give you a different picture. You ready? Because Moses didn't deliver them. Matter of fact, they constantly said, why have you brought us? He didn't. He just followed in obedience to the one who sent him. He did not save them. He just showed them the way. If you wanna give Moses a picture into the New Testament timeframe, he would be John the Baptist. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord. Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. I believe Moses is the messenger of truth. Everything Moses does, he has been told to do. It is not of his power. It is the power of God working through the messenger. He's not the deliverer. He's just the one bringing the message of how we can be delivered. I believe he's a good picture of what you see with John the Baptist. So, I didn't put this one down. Add this one in. Who pictures Christ? Well, yeah, but not in this right here. Adam's not in here. So in this particular picture, he is the second Adam, yes, but in this particular picture, and what we see the children of Israel, where is Christ pictured? I'm gonna get, actually, hold on to that thought. I'm gonna get there. Because it actually is in here, I just didn't put it down in that scenario. All right, here we go. What about the plagues? What are the plagues, what do they picture? The plagues picture the deserving punishment of sin. That without forgiveness, sin brings death. Sin brings misery. Sin brings the deserving punishment from a holy God. Every single plague, by the way, was an attack against one of the false gods of Egypt. It was an attack against the false securities of the people of Egypt. A holy God sent punishment and judgment on unholy living. on sin. I believe the plagues are a picture of the deserving punishment of sin. By the way, the last punishment, the last plague was a death sentence. Very quickly, here's where we're gonna wrap up this morning. Told you we're gonna get there fast. And here's where Christ becomes pictured. What is the last plague? It is called the Passover. It is the Passover because of what is mentioned in Scripture. Now if you're, go with me to Exodus 12. Y'all got that saved, right? Exodus 12. Look at verse number one and verse number two to start with. Now get this, this is where it starts getting good. It's why I told you I don't know how long we're gonna be here because this stuff just, it just keeps growing. How many times you read through the book of Exodus, you read through the story, and I guarantee you, we start going through some of this, you're gonna say, I missed that. Oh, how did I not see that? You ready? Here we go. Verse number one and verse number two in chapter 12. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, now get this, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. What is he saying? This is gonna start the new beginning. Y'all ready for me to tie it together? 2 Corinthians 5.17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. The Passover, this last judgment that's gonna happen. By the way, the last judgment that comes does not happen until after there is hope given to survive the judgment. Y'all aren't with me, okay, you're not with me. Here we go. The last judgment, by the way, some of the judgments, some of the plagues that happened, the children of Israel experienced as well. A few of them, they did not, but this last one was across everyone. Oh, by the way, and I know I'll get some arguments from some people on this one, but by the way, The Egyptians were just as capable of following the commands of how to survive the last judgment as the Israelites were. The children of Israel had hope of surviving judgment, and so did the Gentile Egyptians. Again, take you all the way into the New Testament, and you have to the Jew first and also to the Greek, That which God brought to the Jews, He has now also made available to the Gentile, and it's always been that way. Just go all the way back to Noah, and when they got on the ark, I believe fully that anybody who wanted to could have gotten on with them, but they chose not to. Because where there is hope, there is hope for all who will believe. And here you have the Passover timeframe, the last plague. There is no judgment brought until first there is opportunity to survive judgment. Herein is your hope. I can see y'all still haven't got it. It's there, it's right there. We're on the cusp, but we're not excited about it just yet. The Passover, what is the Passover as a whole? Go with me, you're in chapter 12, look in verse number six. Verse number six says, and ye shall keep it up until the 14th day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it, and even, hold on a second, wait, wait, wait, verse number five, not verse number six, verse number five, your lamb, your lamb, here we go, here is Christ. Here is Christ pictured. Moses is not the picture of Christ. Moses is the messenger prior to the hope given. He is the messenger that there is deliverance. He is the messenger God has a way. He is a messenger God is going to provide. He is a messenger that if we will follow Him, Pharaoh, let my people go. Sin hath no more dominion over you. You can be freed. Pharaoh, you will let them go. The power of sin broken by God's deliverance. Moses, the messenger of what God would do. The lamb is Christ. Verse number five, not six. Your lamb shall be without blemish. This really eats people up. A male of the first year, like it or not, it's not she, it's a he. Just gonna leave it alone. It's not Mother God. Gracious. And by the way, there are some Southern Gospel groups right now and certain individuals that I am completely ashamed of. One in particular was raised in an independent Baptist church and now He speaks heresy while he still gets on stage and sings about Jesus. He used to be funny, now he's just a joke. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats. Ooh, do y'all get that? I mean, do y'all, mm, mm. I don't get a lot of reasons to wanna run, but that one's about mm. You shall take it out from the sheep. Doesn't matter all the other good ones. They still aren't good enough. There's a whole bunch of really good leaders, but they ain't Jesus. There's a whole bunch of really good people who help, but they ain't Christ. There's only one. There's a whole bunch of individuals that made up these ones we can trust in, Buddha and Allah, and a whole bunch of things they can bring about them, but they're not Christ! You're gonna bring them out from the sheep? Oh, and the goats. don't have time to go into what a goat looks like, what it symbolizes as a whole, but the goat, nope, okay? The goat doesn't get in. The goat is not a picture, by the way, when it comes to the people of God, there aren't sheep and goats, they're sheep, but there was only one spotless lamb. Goats, are pretty much the cousins to the wolves in sheep's clothing, okay? Goats, that's why I don't like goats. I can't stand goats, I hate goats. There's a reason why they destroy everything. They're a picture of what a goat's supposed to do, okay? A goat is not a sheep, but here's, I'm gonna move on, okay? I'm gonna get myself into a hole, I don't wanna get there. Here's the last one, okay? You're gonna take the lamb out from the sheep from the others, the perfect, the spotless, the chosen. You're gonna take the one that's worthy, and you're gonna remove that one from all those that blend in. You're gonna remove that one that is the chosen, and you're going to also remove them from the presence of the goats that are fake. They're not real. They're not part of it. They wanna try to be part of it. They wanna look like it, but they're always butting everything. Oh, God can do it, but. Yeah. Oh, I know he can save, but. Yeah, goats. Okay, but here, yeah, I'm doing it. Gonna take that sheep, gonna take that lamb, chosen one, and you're gonna kill it. Verse number 12, verse number 13, look there, and we're gonna stop right here. Verse number 12, for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood, what blood? the blood of the spotless, perfect, chosen Lamb that has been separated from all other. He is the only one that can do what needs to be done. And He is going to be a sacrifice. His life for your life. His blood for your blood. He's gonna be the one. He didn't deserve it. There's nothing he did to earn it. There's no reason other than the fact that something innocent, something pure, something unworthy of what it's going to receive must be the one to take on what you deserve. So that lamb is gonna die. And that lamb's blood is gonna be applied at the doorpost and the lentils. What is that? Above and the sides. It is a picture of the lamb that will be stretched for the sins of man. Because you're about to be freed from bondage in Egypt. You are in the world. You want out of that bondage. That bondage though has you held. It has you wrapped up. It has you entangled. And the power of that bondage of sin won't let you go. Because it doesn't want to let you go. But I'm going to make it let you go. If you will just pass through the blood. We're not even done yet. But he said, the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. Only through the blood. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. The children of Israel being freed from Egypt by the power of God is a picture of sin and the bondage we're held in, and the power of that bondage, and yet we desire to be free. We're looking for hope. There's a messenger who comes and says, God has said He's going to deliver. He has an answer. He has a Savior, and it's not me. I'm just the one bringing about the message of how we're gonna do it. But here's the thing. There's gonna be judgment upon sin. You're gonna see what sin costs. You're gonna see what sin does. And you're gonna say, we want to be free. And you're then gonna take your perfect spotless lamb, and you're gonna segregate that lamb, and then you're gonna kill that lamb for your help and that lamb is going to give its life for you and it doesn't deserve to die and you don't deserve to have it. but it's going to die. And you, through obedience, are going to apply the blood as you have been instructed. And when God sends the judgment, and He's looking who has been obedient to the command for forgiveness and for deliverance, when He sees the blood, He's going to pass over, and you will not be held in judgment. The guilt and stain and power of sin is gonna be broken. And you're gonna be free to leave. And God's gonna bring deliverance like you've never known before. Now that's the first half. It gets gooder and gooder. I told you, this is not the way I was going, but man, it started coming together. I'm like, woo, let's have fun, okay. Here's my question. Have you received the forgiveness that is offered by only Christ and his shed blood? When the guilt of the execution of judgment is brought about, will we be held in the guilt of sin or will the blood having been applied be what God sees and he says, I see the blood. I find your name written in the Lamb's book of life. The blood has been applied, my righteousness has been imputed, I see no guilt, I pass over. On to the next inspection. Have you received forgiveness through salvation and faith in the blood of Jesus Christ? If you haven't, this morning is the first and best time for you to step out and say, that's what I need. If you have, about time we start praising God for what he has done. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the power of your word, for the blood that has been shed for our forgiveness.