The First Testament of Jesus Christ - Part 2

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Well, I don't know if you watched the news at all today, but one of the most powerful earthquakes in history hit Asia this morning. This morning at 7:59 AM, local time there, an earthquake of magnitude 8.9 struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The quake unleashed a tsunami, you see here in the waves that are represented on this chart, a tsunami that struck five Asian countries, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and the tourist isles in Thailand. A wall of water struck those areas nearest the quake, was 30 feet high. In Sri Lanka, where the death toll reached 3500, corpses, witnesses described, floated in waterways and floodways while thousands fled their homes. Cars floated out to sea. Beaches were turned into fields of debris and destruction. About a million people were displaced today, and more than 11,000 are already known to be dead, and they expect that number to rise dramatically. The death, the destruction, the human suffering are catastrophic.

Tourists report nightmare stories. For example, French tourist Philippe Gilbert, in his hotel in the south of Sri Lanka said, I've lost my granddaughter in all of this. I was swept away by an absolutely massive wave. I was lucky enough to get stuck in some trees and was able to hold my breath. A Swedish tourist staying in a hotel in Thailand on the beach said, I couldn't believe what was happening before my eyes. As I was standing there, a car actually floated into the hotel lobby and overturned because the current was so strong, amazing devastation, thirty-foot wall of water.

Now, in today's world, we understand the connection between these massive waves and the earthquake that caused them. But it hasn't always been so. It hasn't always been true that the relationship was understood. You see it depicted here on this chart, I found interesting. An undersea earthquake displaces huge amounts of water in a sudden jolt, and these large shallow waves rush through the ocean at up to 480 miles per hour. And then when they reach the gently sloping coastline, they condense and compress upwards. And so, waves come ashore and go far inland, creating massive walls of water and destruction. A couple of the areas reported that they didn't feel the earthquake, and so the tsunami was absolutely unexpected. Many were playing on the beach, were enjoying a holiday in the warmth of the Sun, and all of a sudden, a massive wall of water comes and destroys everything in its path. There was a time when people failed to recognize the major character in a tsunami. It's not the ocean. It's an earthquake that occurs miles below the ocean floor.

As I thought about this even this afternoon, it occurred to me that in the same way, many Christians read their Bibles and completely miss an important connection. Just as those people, if they had connected in years past and centuries past, had connected earthquakes and tsunamis, they might have understood. They might have put it together. They might have had their lives rescued and saved. But they missed it. And the same way, many Christians miss the clear connection that there is between the Old and the New Testament. Or can I put it this way, between Christ and the Old Testament. And the spiritual results are, frankly, every bit as devastating. They don't understand that the main character of the Old Testament was Jesus Christ, just as He is in the New Testament. So, I called last Sunday morning's message, "The First Testament of Jesus Christ", that is, describing the reality that the Old Testament is every bit as much about Jesus Christ as the New Testament.

And I want us to continue that tonight, and probably next Sunday night as well, as we look at this reality. I just think it's so foundational. Let me just review briefly with you what we've looked at so far. Several propositions. The first is that Christ is identified as God in the Old Testament. We've dealt with that on a number of occasions. We touched on it even last Sunday morning.

But the main thrust of last week's message was this point number two, that Christ is actively involved in Old Testament history. He is the main character in the history, not merely the prophecy, of the Old Testament. When you look at that, you see Him in creation, you see Him in preservation and providence, and if we had more time, we'd look in detail at how, even in the Old Testament, Christ is said to preserve and to direct the life of His nation, the life of Israel and the lives of the nations as well.

But also, He's active in His appearances, and that's where we concentrated last Sunday morning. And the most common appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is as this mysterious person called the angel of Jahweh, the angel of the LORD. And I gave you the arguments for why that has to be Christ. He's called (this angel of Jahweh is actually called) Jahweh in various passages, and yet He's also distinct from Jahweh. He's different. You find the angel of the LORD speaking to Jahweh in some of the passages that we looked at last time. And so, by process of elimination, He must be the Second Person of the Trinity. He's speaking to the Father. He's the only member of the Trinity to appear in bodily form in the New Testament, and the angel of the LORD no longer appears after the incarnation. In addition, both Christ and the angel of the LORD are sent by the Father, so by process of elimination, you end at Christ.

There are other arguments as well. Some I didn't mention, for example, the angel of the LORD receives worship. No angel ever accepts worship. In fact, when men bow down before them as does John in the book of Revelation, the angel immediately says get up. Don't worship me, worship God. But the angel of the LORD accepts worship and sacrifice. There are a number of other issues and reasons, but that sort of give you the big picture. The angel, this angel of the LORD appears throughout the Old Testament. We looked at many of these passages, but you can see through much of Old Testament history, this angel appears, from Genesis all the way to one of the last prophets, Zechariah, in the Old Testament.

So, we saw last Sunday morning that this person that we know as Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity is actively involved in Old Testament history. He was the main character in Old Testament history. But the next question that arises is, while it may be clear to us that that's who it was, was it clear to them? What did the people who lived before the New Testament understand about Jesus Christ? And that's what I want to spend tonight and next Sunday night looking at. And the first sort of proposition that I want us to look at tonight is, the Old Testament Jews eagerly awaited their Messiah.

Now, the other night, if you had a chance to watch the Larry King Live program with John MacArthur. There was also a Roman Catholic priest, father, whatever he was called. There was also my personal favorite, Deepak Chopra. How people can pay that man so much money for such worthless advice is beyond me. P.T. Barnum was right. But there was also a Jewish conservative political commentator, a conservative Jewish talk-show host on that night. Many of you are familiar with him, by the name of Dennis Prager.

Dennis Prager made a fascinating point, I thought, during the discussion. He said that while the expectation of a coming Messiah is part of the foundation of Judaism, in fact, he said it's one of the primary planks of Judaism, it is not practically speaking, a crucial part of the Jewish faith today. He gave himself as an example. He said that in fifteen years of Jewish schools, he had maybe heard about ten minutes discussion about the Messiah. So, while they believe a Messiah is coming, there's really no eager anticipation, no expectation. But that kind of low-level interest in the Messiah has not always been true. It was certainly not true in New Testament times, and that's what I want you to see.

Let's take a look at some of the passages that uncover the fact that Old Testament Jews, (when I say Old Testament Jews I mean those who lived before they were) they knew of the Messiah in Jesus Christ before they knew He had come, and before the New Testament was completed. When you look at these people, they eagerly awaited their Messiah. First of all, you find Genesis—and I do want to turn to several of these passages. We won't turn to all of them, but I want you to start in Genesis 3, because here, and I touched on this passage last Sunday morning. Here, you find what's called the "proto-evangelicum," that is, the first mention of the gospel, in very rudimentary elementary forms. Genesis 3:15, as we learned last Sunday morning, the person of Jesus Christ is speaking to Adam and Eve, who had just sinned. And He says this to the serpent, who He speaks to first. Verse 15, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel." Here is the first mention in Eve and Adam's presence to the serpent, that there's good news coming. And that good news is going to be found in whom? A person who is called the "seed of the woman".

At this point, we don't know all that Eve understood, but we do know that she understood that her salvation, and Adam's salvation, would eventually be accomplished through a person who would be born to a woman. And just to show you how ingrained this hope was, it's possible, when you come to 4:1 that this hope sort of springs out. There are a number of commentators who believe that you could translate verse 1 of chapter 4 this way. "Now Adam had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a manchild with the Lord."

It's possible that she saw in her first-born, whom she named Cain, or gotten one, that she thought this would be the one. This would be the seed of the woman that would bring salvation. What an incredible disappointment Cain turned out to be. Exactly the opposite is true. Instead of bringing life, he brought the first death. But from the very beginning (this is the point I want you to get) from the very beginning of the Old Testament, from the time of the first sin, there began to build an anticipation that a person would come.

Without question, Old Testament Jewish people, Jewish believers could read verse 15 and understand that there would be a person who would put an end to sin, who would deal with sin once and for all. That's true throughout the Old Testament, but I want us to focus primarily on the New Testament. So, I want us to turn to Matthew. So, from the very beginning this idea of a person, Messiah, was ingrained in the Jewish mindset. And when you come to the New Testament, when you come to the times of Jesus, you find that that expectation had only grown with the years. Notice in Matthew 2:4. You remember the flow of the story here. The magi from the East arrive in Jerusalem. We don't know exactly when they arrived. We know that Christ was not in the stable any longer. He's in a house here, so some time has passed. And we know that He was no older than 2 because Herod sends and has all the babies 2 and under killed. He probably, being an evil man, planned for a margin of error, so it's safe to assume that Christ was under a year old at this point. So, they come in verse 2, and they say, "where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and we've come to worship Him."

Now notice, all they mention at this point is, they're looking for this King of the Jews. But Herod, when he heard this,

he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. [and] Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them [now watch what he asks.] where … [is the anointed one (ha-mashiach) to be born. [And] They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet: AND YOU BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH, ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE RULERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU WILL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL."

Again, what I want you to see is, even on the part of Herod, who was certainly no Old Testament saint, but he was connected enough to the Jewish faith to understand that there was a person coming; a ruler, a king, ha-mashiach. And the scribes and chief priests understood it as well. And they even knew, based on the prophecy in Micah 5:2 where He would be born. There was this expectation of a Messiah. By the way, doesn't this highlight Herod's sin? There's every indication that he understands, not obviously that the child would be the second person of the Trinity, but he understands that this is Israel's Messiah he's trying to kill. This man was so gripped by the lust for power that he's willing to kill Israel's Messiah to keep his authority.

You turn to the gospel of Luke 2. You have Christ being presented at the temple. And first, in verse 25 of chapter 2, He has His interaction with Simeon, and we'll talk more about Simeon next week, but in verse 36,

… there was [also] a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of 84. [So, in other words, she'd been widowed early in life, and has now lived many years of faithful service.] … never left the temple, serving night and day with her fastings and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of Him [that is, of this baby, of Christ] to all those who were looking for the redemption of … [Israel].

There was (among the remnant of true believing Israel) a group of people who lived in eager expectation that a Messiah was going to come and bring redemption to His people. Not merely physical redemption, although certainly, for many of them that was included. And again, that was one of the misunderstandings we'll talk about next week, but for many of them, they understood. They understood that a spiritual redemption would come, pointing all the way back to that foundational text in Genesis 3.

In Luke 3:15 it says, "Now while all the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the … [Messiah]." John the Baptist comes along, and what are the people thinking? What's their immediate reaction? They say, I wonder if it's Him. I wonder if it's the Messiah. I wonder if it's the one that's been promised, the anointed One of God. The people were excited and hopeful that John was, in fact, the Messiah. There was this growing sense of eager anticipation of the Messiah. Now where are they getting this? Where are they understanding this from? They're understanding it from the Old Testament. They know that Messiah is coming.

You turn to John's gospel, and you find it no different. John has some interaction with the Jews, and they ask him in verse 19, "Who are you?" and he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, "I'm not the … [Messiah.]" Obviously, they had asked, are you claiming to be the Messiah? They asked him, so" if not the Messiah, what then? Are you Elijah?" "I'm not." "Are you the prophet?" (Referring to the prophecy in Deuteronomy of the prophet that would come.) And he answered "No." You know, it's 20 questions. So, okay, "who are you so that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" He says, "I'm just a voice, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Lord." Now, they had been sent from the Pharisees. "They asked … and said to him, 'Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the … [Messiah] nor Elijah, nor the prophet?'" Now here's what I want you to see again. The leaders of Israel were expecting a Messiah. And they sent to inquire if John the Baptist was claiming to be him.

John 1:41, Andrew finds his brother Peter and said to him "We have found the Messiah, which translated means Christ." So, on and on it goes. As you go through the Old--the New Testament. John 4:25 and 29, you find that even the Samaritans were expecting the Messiah. When you come to John 7:25 - 53, you find that the people were expecting (all of the people were expecting) the Messiah. And then to sort of jump back in time, you get to John 8:56 and Jesus says (and we'll deal with this text more next time) Jesus said, even Abraham looked for and eagerly anticipated My day. As the writer of Hebrews says, he saw it from afar. He saw that the Messiah would come. John 12. Notice John 12:34. The crowd then answered Him [Jesus here is foretelling His death] and "The crowd answered Him, [and said] We have heard out of the law that the … [Messiah] is to remain forever … how can You say, [that] "The Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?" So, they're trying to work out against the claims Christ is making, and what He's predicting about His death, how that can be (and He still claim to be) the Messiah. They were anticipating, expecting Messiah.

In Acts 2, again a sort of flashback just like Abraham. Here we're told that David looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah. David anticipated Messiah, and therefore all who read him, or I shouldn't say all, but many of the faithful anticipated Messiah.

Hebrews 6, turn there for a moment. This is a fascinating passage, Hebrews 6. Go back to 5:11 just to set the framework for you. I recently had the opportunity to teach this in the women's ministry as they're going through the book of Hebrews. But I want you to see in Hebrews 5:11, the writer of Hebrews wants to talk about Melchisedek. He's just mentioned him in verse 10. "He says, concerning him we have much to say and it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing."

And essentially, he chastises them, and he's not talking here, and I don't have time to give you the sort of full defense of this, but you'll understand and get the flow of the argument. He's talking here not to Christians, not to believers, but to Jews who have connected themselves to the church, who have heard the truth about Christ but have not yet fully embraced the truth that they've heard. And he gives them this warning. In verse 1 of chapter 6 he says,

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Messiah, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and of instructions about washings and of laying on of hands and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal … [punishment].

All of those things are part of Old Testament Judaism. Notice that one of them is the elementary teaching about the Messiah. He's warning them that the Messiah has come. They need to embrace Him. In fact, he goes on to warn them, if you've [verse 4] been enlightened, that is, you understand that He's come and you've tasted the heavenly gift in the sense that you've heard the word of God, and you've come to understand who the Messiah really is, then don't shrink back away from Him, or you crucify the Son of God and put Him to an open shame. But in verse 1, here's the point I want you to get. As he encapsulates Old Testament Judaism, in these points he makes in verses 1 and 2, one of the parts of Old Testament Judaism is the elementary (that is the foundational, can I put it this way, the ABC) teaching about Messiah.

I mentioned Hebrews 11 last Sunday morning. How Moses, again another flashback to an Old Testament figure, but how Moses lived in anticipation of the Messiah. And in fact, made (well we have to look at it again. I'm sorry.) This is one of my favorite passages on this subject. Hebrews 11:24. "By faith Moses, when he had grown up," and this by the way was what first started me studying on this issue. I came across this verse, and it doesn't fit what I had previously thought or considered. Because it says, "By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter."

As I've mentioned to you before, that was one of the most powerful women in all of Egypt, in all of Egyptian history. Her name was Hatshepsut. She was, at one time, actually the queen of Egypt. And at least two times during her life, her adopted son Moses could have become the next Pharaoh of Egypt. Instead of being called her daughter, he chose rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. How can you make a choice like that? Listen, you and I are faced with choices like that every day. How do you make a choice like that? Well, look how Moses made it. "[By] … considering the reproach of Messiah greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward." He had an eternal mindset.

Hey, listen, sin pays off. Young people, let me tell you. Sin pays off in immediate gratification. It's always sweet at the first bite, but it's always bitter in the end. Moses understood that. He understood that he could either take immediate gratification or he could live for the eternal reward, and he gave up everything he could have had as being the next Pharaoh of Egypt. You've seen the treasures of Tutankhamen and all the other treasures of Egypt. He gave it all up for the Messiah—because he had an eternal perspective. What an amazing reality. They lived in anticipation of the Messiah's coming.

The last passage I want you to see before we look at some implications of this is 1 Peter. Turn to 1 Peter 1. This is a passage that's often misunderstood; and therefore, the whole concept of Christ in the Old Testament is distorted. First Peter 1:10, Peter writes, "As to this salvation" [He's talking about verse 9, the salvation of your souls.] "As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied [now watch this] of the grace that would come to you, made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow."

Now, I want you to see several points in these two verses. First of all notice, that the prophets understood that salvation would come through the Messiah. Not physical deliverance here. We're talking about verse 9, the salvation of your souls. The prophets understood that their souls would be saved from divine wrath through the Messiah. That's an eye-opener in and of itself, isn't it? They made that connection. I think sometimes, in fact I know oftentimes, we sell Old Testament believers short. Oh, they didn't have the full revelation that you and I have, but they understood far more than we give them credit for, and it starts right here. They understood that a person would come. That person was the Messiah, and they understood that their soul's salvation would come through that person. What they didn't know, this passage says, is what person or time. They didn't know the full truth about the person who would be this Messiah, and they didn't know what time He would be revealed. But notice.

Another point that you see in these two verses is that the Spirit predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and His glory. That He would first suffer (the prophets understood that His sufferings would come first), and that His glory would follow. You understand, that means that Old Testament saints, (namely the prophets themselves) they understood that a person would come. That that person would be the Messiah, and in the Messiah they would find eternal salvation for their souls. And that He would come, and He would at first suffer, and then He would be glorified. They understood all of that. What they didn't understand was exactly who it was, and when He would come.

Old Testament Jews not only saw God in the person of Christ. We can see that Christ, or let me put it differently. Let me start over. Christ is identified as God in the Old Testament. Christ is actively involved in Old Testament history, and then as we just saw, Old Testament Jews eagerly awaited their Messiah. Now, next Sunday night, we'll trace how all those people came to anticipate Messiah. How did they know all those things? Is it there in the Old Testament, or was this some sort of revelation God gave them separate from the Scripture? Does the Old Testament teach about Christ? And the answer is, unequivocally, yes. And we'll see that next week. That's how they came to eagerly anticipate the coming of a Savior called Messiah.

What I hope you're seeing (as we look through these texts) is the clear relationship between the Testaments. That's what I want you to understand. But the question is, why does it matter? Why does it matter? What exactly are the implications of this truth? Well, I mentioned several last Sunday morning, but let me give you a couple of additional ones.

First of all, understanding this connection that appears between the Old and the New Testaments in the person of Jesus Christ validates our use of and the benefit we receive from the Old Testament. We really enjoy the Old Testament, but frankly, I think, sometimes believers are afraid to claim it, almost assuming that it's a Jewish book. Well, it is Jewish in the sense that God revealed it to His people. But it is the First Testament of Jesus Christ. And it's perfectly legitimate and valid for us as Christians to use it and to benefit from it.

Paul makes this point in 1 Corinthians 10. He goes through (in the first few verses), letting us know, as we discovered last week from the Old Testament, letting us know in the words of the New Testament that it was Christ, it was the Second Person of the Trinity, who accompanied His people from Egypt to the Promised Land, who ministered to them in the wilderness, who was that pillar of fire that led them, or as he puts it here in verse 4, the rock which followed them was Christ. Then he goes on to remind us of their sinful choices in verse 5 and following. He says, listen, God wasn't well-pleased with all of them. They were laid low in the wilderness. "Now, these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved". And then he applies the Old Testament story to us. Notice how he ends it in verse 11. "Now these things happened to them as an example. And they were written for our instruction [he says to Gentile Christians in Corinth] on whom the ends of the ages have come." The fact that Christ is the theme of and the central figure in both Testaments validates our use of and benefits you receive from the Old Testament.

There's a second implication, and it's related. This reality demands that we be students of the Old Testament. You know, there are people who ignore, essentially, the Old Testament. They just read the epistles, or they just read the gospels. Don't give me all that "law stuff", you know. And their response to the Old Testament is to basically ignore it. Paul didn't think so. He didn't think that was a valid approach. The passage that we quote so often in 2 Timothy 3. Listen to how it begins. Verse 15, 2 Timothy 3:15, "… from childhood [Paul writes to Timothy] you have known the sacred writings." That is, as I taught you when we went through the study of the doctrine of the Bible, that is a specific technical term for the Old Testament Scriptures. From childhood you have known the Old Testament, we could say. "… which is able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." There's another eye-opener. And then he makes this statement. "All Scripture" [and at this point, primarily, the reference is to the Old Testament. Of course, it's encompassing and including the New Testament because in another place he calls—in 1 Timothy 5: about verse 17, 18, somewhere in there, he calls the writings of Luke Scripture. So, it includes the New Testament, but the emphasis is on the Old.] "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable [Timothy, for you, a Gentile New Testament Christian,] for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work." That is an absolute demand that you and I be students of the Old Testament.

Another implication, and we won't turn here because of time, but I want you just to be aware of it. It prefigures, that is, this relationship that Christ had with His people in the Old Testament (with Old Testament Israel) prefigures and illustrates His involvement with the church. There is a distinction between Old Testament Israel and the church, but Christ was the Mediator with both. And it prefigures His involvement with the church. This revelation passage is that wonderful picture of Christ walking in and out among the lampstands. And the lampstands, John tells us, are the churches, Christ inspecting, dealing with His churches. And you see that in the letters to the seven churches there in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation. Just as Christ was in the center of Old Testament Israel directing, disciplining, dealing with issues, even so, He's present in His church.

And then, finally, the Old Testament believers eagerness for the Messiah's first coming should encourage us to live in anticipation of His second coming. Notice what the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 9:28. "so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin [in other words, He doesn't have to deal with sin again, He's already done that once and for all] to those who eagerly await Him." Listen, if the Old Testament Jew could live in such amazing anticipation that they would go to historical figures that come on the scene in their lifetime and say, "are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah, we're looking for Him to come." Then what a challenge that should be for you and for me to live in eager anticipation of His second coming. Is it going to be today? Maybe it will be tonight. Maybe it will be this week. I had a friend in California who made it the ambition of his life to constantly say, that Christ is coming tomorrow. And I think he believed it every day. That's how we're to live. We're to live in eager anticipation of His coming.

Next week, we'll look at how they came to know that the Messiah was coming, and what they knew about Messiah.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for this brief study in Your Word. Thank You for how clear Your Word is. And Lord, thank You for the continuity and the consistency that there is between the Testaments. Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ is forever and always the one Mediator between you and all men. Lord, we thank You for that testimony. We thank that You that there were brothers and sisters of ours who lived in Old Testament times who believed in You with all their hearts and whose confidence was in the person who would come, the Messiah who would come to provide salvation of their souls. And they eagerly inquired as to who exactly it might be and when He would come. Lord, thank You that He has come as Jesus of Nazareth. He is our Lord and our Christ.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to be students of the Old Testament as well as the New. Teach us to see how Christ interacts with His church just as He did with Old Testament Israel but in a closer and more profound, more spiritual way. And Lord, I pray that you would help those of us who love You and who love Your Son to live just as eagerly for His second coming as the Jews in the first century, and of the centuries before lived in anticipation of His first coming.

Lord, thank you for Christ. Thank you for the opportunity to study Him again. Help us to follow His command to search the Scriptures because in them we think we have eternal life, but they are those that speak of Him.

Thank You, in His name, Amen.