Jesus, Our Healer

We're looking at health and healing this morning, and as I was referring to this, I do believe that a health trial is one of the more unique ways that God tests and purifies our faith. All trials have their certain anxieties, but a health trial says, I now am going to have to live with limitations that I didn't have before. or a health trial says, I'm going to have to expect a shorter lifespan. Health trials are very personal, and they have significant implications, and I believe that's why God brings them to us, because they awaken us in a unique way. It's hard for us. We insist on our rights. You know, we have the right to life and happiness, life, liberty, and happiness. One of the things we really insist upon sometimes is our right to health. Do you believe you have a right to health? It's one of the more difficult rights to surrender. Now, I don't want to say we should avoid medicine. I don't want to say you should avoid trying to seek health if possible. But I see sometimes folks who are so insistent that God wants me to be in right health that they go to all kinds of crazy measures seeking to get health. We have to realize that health, perfect health, is not promised to us on this side of Christ's return. Well, when He returns, all things will be made new. But it's not a promise. So it's not something we can really claim. My wife has been my teacher here. In prayer for many years, right after we first got married, there was a significant health issue. We prayed for healing, we pursued doctors, we pursued all kinds of things. We heard all kinds of crazy, just painful diagnoses, possibilities. As the doctor hypothesized what might be wrong. And after a few years, we finally came to the point together, after prayer, this is what the Lord has for us. We had to adjust expectations, we had to change the way we lived. And what the Lord did there was he did not bless us with health, he blessed us with happiness. That's what Jesus promises. Jesus promises joy. That is a clear promise. He does not promise that you will always be healthy. I mean, the best odds are you've got five good years of real health, right? Almost like 25 to 30, that was the good years. Health. It's something we're longing for. It's something we hold on to. And it's very discouraging when we start losing certain parts of our health. As we look this morning, we're actually going to see that Jesus is a healer. Jesus is going to heal sickness. He's going to heal a young man from a demon. He's going to heal a woman from a sickness. He's going to heal a leper. And I wanted to see here, there's one main theme that runs throughout all these different stories. There's a lot of different little stories we're putting together here that Mark puts together. It's this. Jesus has amazing authority. That's our one big takeaway from the entire passage. I'm not even gonna, we're not even doing an outline. We're just gonna walk through each of these different stories, and we're going to draw out the amazing authority of Jesus. He has authority in his preaching and his power to heal. He has authority in his preaching and his power to heal. If you were hearing as Patsy was reading, there's really two longer stories. There's more details. Verses 21 to 28, that's the longest story. Verses 40 to 46, that's the second longest. And in between there's some, there's some other little details. And we're going to look as to why that is. First, let's look back and how did we get here? How did we get here? Mark chapter 1, verse 1. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark is setting aside here, this is the good news. This is, we're heralding that a victory has come, and it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God's only Son. This is new news, but it's not a new promise. It's not a new story. John has been sent to prepare the way as promised. Jesus is baptized with John to identify with sinners who confess their sins. He then gives a sample of his preaching. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. He then calls his first disciples and then he gets to work. Now there's a series of miracles. They're all tied together. And when you consider, what is a miracle? A miracle is something that doesn't naturally happen. It's something that's outside of the realm of the norm. Miracles are stumbling blocks for many. Maybe they're a stumbling block for you. The naturalists, they have a hard time with a miracle because the Bible attributes sickness to demons. Most doctors don't see that connection. We have a selling block for Christians. Sometimes Christians wrestle with miracles because we don't see them. We ask, is there something wrong with my faith? Is there something that God is not doing for me? Does God not love me? Maybe it's not real if we're not seeing the same kind of miracles that Jesus in the early church saw. This is where it's very important that we see the purpose of these miracles. The purpose of the miracle is never to demonstrate the faith of the person asking for it. This is why I love Mark 9, and I can't wait to get there, where the man who's asking for the miracle says, I believe, help my unbelief. That's his prayer. It's not that his faith is so strong that he gets the miracle. No, it's he's praying, help my lack of faith in the midst of this. No, the point of the miracle is to point to the power and authority of Jesus Christ. That's where we saw Luke 4, Isaiah, reading, when Jesus reads Isaiah 61. Or we'll see later, Jesus sends the leper who's been healed in the very last story we're looking at to the priest to testify. The healing testifies that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Now, let's just be clear. We should praise God that miracles stump people. Right? If Jesus can't do things that we normally don't do, he can't help us with a problem we can't solve. We should praise God that we see Jesus doing things that aren't normal, because we have to look to a God who can actually do what we can't do. If He's just another ordinary human being, He doesn't have power from on high. He can't actually help us, and He's not worthy of worship. So the fact that the, the miracles here are somewhat difficult, that's, that's good, because it leads us to faith that this man is not a normal man. He's the Son of God who can help us, and is worthy of our worship. Let's look to our first miracle. Jesus removes an unclean spirit. And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching. Now, if you're familiar with the Gospels, we already know something good's gonna happen because Jesus is acting on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the New Testament equivalent of kind of like the cage match. You know something big's gonna happen. It's literally gonna be a royal rumble. Jesus is always pushing and pressing things on the Sabbath. Look at verse 22. And they were astonished. Look down to verse 27. And they were all amazed. Who's they? I believe it's the crowd. The town folk. It's not the religious leaders. It may not even be the disciples. It's the crowd gathered there to hear this teacher. And notice they are astonished. They can't believe what they're hearing. They're amazed. They can't believe what they're seeing. Now, the setting here is he's in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he's teaching. And notice the description here. They're astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority Not as the scribes. Now, most likely, with a gathering in the synagogue, a scribe is present. Okay, he's in the background here in this story. The main focus is Jesus, the crowd, and the demon-possessed man, the man who has an unclean spirit that's gonna come in. But a scribe's here, and it seems as if everyone is acknowledging Jesus is teaching unlike the scribes. Now, the scribes are those who are supposed to be the experts in the scriptures. They should be hearing who is teaching and recognize who he is over the crowd, even before the crowd. But something tells me if they're hearing this, they're probably not that encouraged by that. But here he is, he's teaching with authority, not like the scribes. You see, when Jesus spoke, He spoke of what He knew personally as the Son of God. He spoke of the kingdom of God as His own kingdom. He spoke of God as His own Father. The scribes, they did research. They used footnotes. They described things that they had studied from outside, but Jesus is speaking of something that He knows and loves personally. He's speaking of truth that is His own. You know, it's kind of like, do you want to hear about the Grand Canyon from somebody who read a Wikipedia article about it? Or do you want to go and hear about it from the person who's visited and gone through the canyons and seen it with his own eyes? The scribes are like the person who reads an article and tries to tell you what they've heard. Jesus is like the person who's seen it and knows it. He speaks with his own authority. Because he knows. Now the people are astonished, and that's not quite enough. Look at verse 23. And immediately. We've got that phrase five times in this section. That's a catch word for Mark. Whenever you see immediately, something's about to happen. And immediately, there's an intrusion. So it's not just enough that we hear that Jesus is teaching unlike the scribes. Now we've got an event. Within the synagogue, a man came in with an unclean spirit. Now, we can only assume this is a demon. We need to kind of back out and do a little reminder in theology. So there's a hierarchy of being. The hierarchy of being goes God, angels, man. angels, spiritual beings, they're mightier than us. They're greater than us in many ways. However, they were not made in God's image. When you remember there's a hierarchy of being and that they're spiritual beings, not like us. And here, an unclean spirit, that seems to be one of the angels that rebelled against God and is now impure. Now the synagogue is not quite the temple, but it's where religious practice takes place, and so a male with an unclean spirit would be at a place here. Fairly odd. And notice, that unclean spirit, he cries out. Now we're not sure if this is the demon using the man's mouth, or if this is the demon himself speaking apart from the man, but whatever it looks like, it's the demon speaking with his own authority, and his will. And notice he, he makes two assertions and asks two questions. He makes incredible assertions and, and asks good questions. What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? That's, that's a key question. He asserts he's Jesus of Nazareth. And he says, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Now Jesus is of no real fame yet. This is the beginning of the miracles as far as we know, and his name hasn't gone about as to who is this Jesus. He's Jesus of Nazareth. This demon knows where he's from, humanly speaking. He knows he's from really nowhere. He knows of his mother Mary. More importantly, he knows of his heavenly origin. That he's the Holy One of God. We can appreciate here that the demon perfectly aligns with the Chalcedonian Creed that affirms that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. That the demon has good Orthodox theology. The demon knows who Jesus is. He's God incarnate. And that's why he's asking, what do you have to do with us? What are you going to do? Destroy us. I wonder if here he's realizing God has made promises that the Messiah, when he comes, he's going to crush the head of Satan. Are you going to destroy us? You know what's interesting is God has always been making promises to man that we have hope, that we can be saved, that he will redeem us. There's no such promise for demons, for Satan. The rebellion seems to have left them condemned forever, whereas for us, God has given us salvation. And so this demon is asking, is this the time you're going to come and fulfill the promise to destroy us? Notice what Jesus says, verse 25. Jesus rebukes this demon. He commands him to be silent and to come out of him. Now throughout Mark, Jesus is going to command demons and the people that he heals, we're going to see that later in the leper, to be silent. They call this the secret Messiah. We kind of wonder, why doesn't Jesus want his fame to spread? Why would you want to be silent here? As we go through, this is a key theme through Mark. If you go to Mark 4 with the parables, Jesus makes it clear. The kingdom of God is a secret for the people. It's a secret that only God reveals. And Mark 9 and 10 is the high point and the turning point of the Gospel where the Father reveals that Jesus is the Messiah. It's not until then that they're blind. But why the secret? Why wouldn't Jesus want the demons to let other people know who He is? A good theory, I actually appreciated this interpretation, is because Jesus doesn't want to be known like all the other charlatans. He doesn't need the testimony of demons. He doesn't want people to be confused that these demons are testifying about who he truly is, even though they know who he truly is. He declares, come out of him. The spirit must obey. The spirit appears to leave quietly. That's it. The unclean spirit convulsing him, crying out a loud voice, came out of him. And that's it. Verse 27. Notice we pan back out to the crowd. They were all amazed. He teaches with such authority. He teaches as one who knows specifically exactly what he's talking about, and now even the, even the spirits obey him. Notice that the emphasis here is on his authority. Jesus has the authority to teach us who God is, what the kingdom of God is, and he even has the authority to remove demons. Now before we move on to the next story, I want to point out something here that the demons, they, they have really good theology. They knew exactly who Jesus was, and that wasn't enough to help them. It reminds me of James 2.19, where James challenged us, the church. Even the demons know that God is one in shudders. And the challenge there is for the church to realize faith without works is dead. Acknowledging Jesus intellectually is not true faith. Faith is demonstrated in obedience. Having really clear theology where our T's are crossed and our I's are dotted, and being able to then accurately accuse others, that just makes you like a good demon. No, the call, the call is to follow Jesus Christ in love and obedience. What James calls us to here is to have better than just good theology. It's to be able to trust Him and to follow Him with good works. Let's continue on and see how Jesus has great, has amazing authority in these other passages. Verse 29. Notice immediately twice in this passage. It immediately, he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, and James and John. Those are our four basic closest disciples. Those are the ones we've already seen called. And Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And this is Jesus not just having authority, but really having a love and a care for people. He came, He took her by the hand, and He lifted her up. This is a small, short miracle story. It takes place in one of the disciples' homes. The mother lost Simon, and we see here it's a very personal and private miracle. I believe there's a beautiful picture of Jesus' love and care for people. What we see here is His power to reach His hand out, to hold her up, pick her up, and immediately healing power goes forth. And then notice the response. This sounds like my mother-in-law. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and fever left her, and she began to serve them. Immediately she just gets right back to work like nothing ever was wrong. She goes about the business as if everything is fine now, and she just gets back to work helping serve the company that's in her son-in-law's house. He has authority, and it's a beautiful picture of his personal love. Verse 32. There's a healing of many at Andrew's house. This is redundant. At evening, at sundown, They brought to him all who were sick and oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered. All right? So, so, so people have been talking what happened in the synagogue. People have been talking about what happened, maybe at someone's mother, to someone's mother-in-law. They found out where Jesus is. And the whole city is gathering at the door. And He healed many of various diseases. He was casting out many demons. And He would not permit the demons to speak, because He knew Him. So that first miracle story, verse 29 through 31, that's a very personal and private miracle. Now we see this public in general. All kinds of people are all coming to the door, and Jesus is healing them as they come. The next section pans out the next day. Jesus rises very early in the morning while it's still dark. He departs. He goes out to a desolate place where he desires to pray. He wants to get away because this is getting quite a bit much. This is one of the reasons I think he actually tells people not to talk about him, because he wants people to go about his, his day preaching and healing. And as his fame grows, people swarm him. And so he gets out. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him. And they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you. And he said to them, Let us go into the next town, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out." They went through all Galilee, preaching their synagogues and casting out demons. Now I believe the reason we have this here is Jesus isn't seeking to build up a little kingdom right here in his hometown, or the hometown of the disciples. He's going to go about. He's going to keep moving about. He's going to keep spreading the Word of God as much as he can. Everyone is looking for him, and therefore he has to go and not try to build up this kingdom where everyone's getting healed and everyone's enjoying and amazed at his teaching. He wants to spread the good news as much as he can. Now before we go on to this last story, I want us to pause here and just ask our most basic questions. we've studied Mark. First, who is Jesus? How do we respond? Who is Jesus and how do we respond? The first thing we see about Jesus is He has authority. When Jesus spoke, He wasn't just speaking as a scribe who had done a lot of research and could tell you what the Bible talked about. Hebrews even says He isn't a prophet who has a message from God. No. He's the very Son of God who speaks because, as Jesus says in John 5, I'm telling you what I've heard directly from my Father. I am doing in front of you what I've seen directly from my Father. He has authority from on high because He's the Creator. He's able to heal us. He's able to destroy the work of demons. Now, as we look at the people who were coming with demons, as we look at the man who had an unclean spirit, the key word there is demonization. It's some kind of regular spiritual torment and physical torment from a demon. And what Jesus says is, I have a claim on these powers because I've created them. That they're stronger than you, but I'm stronger than them. And if you turn to me, I will help you. Now, if you're a Christian, I don't believe you can suffer under this kind of oppression. However, I do believe we need to realize that demons still accuse. The goal for Satan in the spiritual attack is to make you feel so guilty for sins that you've actually committed, is that you're no more spiritually useful to the kingdom. What does a guilty person do? Nothing. You're overwhelmed with the burden of guilt, and so what Satan wants to do, what demons want to do, is accuse us. That's a way of tormenting us with guilt. That's why it's important to trust Jesus' Word. He declares we're forgiven. He doesn't say you've never done any of that. He simply says you're forgiven. You've been declared righteous. My blood was sufficient to declare you are no longer counted guilty for those sins. The other thing demons do is they tempt us. They want to torment us by tickling our flesh, by seeking to lead us away to forsake God for sin. This is why that obedience is so important. Submitting to Jesus as the one who not only saves us from sin, but the one who frees us from its power to tempt us. Jesus has great authority. Authority to forgive us, authority to free us, authority to command us. So how do we respond? It's not enough just to have right doctrine. No, it's faith. We need to be amazed by God. We should be looking to Jesus and asking God, what are you doing right now? Notice the response of the crowd is the response we're supposed to be having. You don't get to be Jesus in the story. You're supposed to be like the crowd, looking and saying, wow, this is, Different teaching. What Jesus says. This is amazing what He's able to do. Eric, when I first became a Christian, I was reading the Bible, and there's two things that came very clear to me. I was always the fool when Scripture described a fool, and Jesus was amazingly wise. The words dripped like honey. We should be looking to Jesus and sitting under His teaching regularly by reading His Word, being amazed at what He says. What He says is God's Word for us. We should also be looking around and saying, God, let me see what You're doing. God, let me be constantly thankful for how I see Your blessing. We should be eager. The folks here, they're eager to see God at work, or at least Jesus at work. We should be eager. Now let's go to our last section. The last story, at least. The last major story here is a leper. It's not a demon. A leper came to him, imploring and kneeling him. A leper is someone who has a skin disease. The nerves no longer work. The body doesn't have that protective agency. And so they would also oftentimes harm themselves. They would become sometimes physically deformed. It was a very contagious disease. And so they were oftentimes outcasts. They would not experience physical touch. They oftentimes could not even experience it in terms of feeling it if someone did touch them. Most societies cast them out. That goes on today. When I was in India, we had to travel a great distance to go visit a leper colony. In this day, nothing helped them. There was no balm for the symptoms. There was no cure. There's still no cure, even though there's some balm for the symptoms. So a leper, someone who would be considered an outcast, physically deformed, physically unfit for normal life because he doesn't have that sense of feel, a leper came to him. And notice how he comes. He's imploring and he's kneeling. He comes humbly and he makes a plea to Jesus. If you will, you can make me clean. If you will, you can make me clean. Now, he's got a request and he's got a statement. This leper fully believes in the authority and power of Jesus to heal him because fame, his fame has gone out abroad. So the leper believes he has the power to heal him. He's, he's just questioning if, if he wants to. And that may come from the fact that no one's ever really cared anything about this leper. He's been isolated for his entire life, or ever since he's had leprosy. Notice what Jesus does. Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him. Almighty God who has taken on the form of man. He sees this man who has been unloved, unwanted, cast out, physically deformed. He's moved with pity out of this request. He's a caring Lord and Savior. He stretches out his hand, and he touches him. Now Leviticus says you're not supposed to touch a leper. Because it's so contagious. But here is God Himself. He is not afraid of being defiled because He Himself is perfect. He cannot be defiled. He Himself reaches out to touch the one who has not been touched. Who cannot basically feel it until this very moment. And says, I will be clean. And there's that mark phrase. And immediately. at the touch of Jesus, with the power of God Almighty, with the pity of our Lord and Savior, reaching out his hand in a very clear gesture of love and care, his leprosy left. Now most likely, we can hypothesize that his fingers would be maybe rubbed down to shorter nubs. He would have physical features of deformity on his face, and immediately all that left. He's perfectly renewed at that moment. Because God Himself has taken the burden of having pity on him and reaching His hand out and says, be clean. This shows his great authority over sickness. That this shows his great authority over uncleanness. Now what happens next is kind of odd. Verse 43, and Jesus sternly charged him. The word there could actually be barked at him. All right, so we go from pity and lovingly touching Him to heal Him to barking out at Him. Don't say anything. He barks at Him and sends Him away. See that you say nothing to anyone. Now, let's pause there. Again, we have this secret Messiah theme. If you look at what happens at the end, Verse 45, but he went out and began to talk freely about it. And to spread the news, look at the consequence of his disobedience. So that Jesus can no longer openly enter a town that was out in desolate places and people were coming to him for every quarter. Jesus can no longer be in the public towns. He has to go out into the wilderness. The consequence of this man's disobedience is a hindrance to Jesus's ministry. It's actually interesting that they kind of switch places. The man who had to live out in the desolate places comes to Jesus, gets healed, and then because of his disobedience, because of his disobedience, Jesus now has to go out to the desolate places. This man is brought back into society because he passes the test. See to it that you say nothing, but go, verse 44, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them. So Leviticus 14 has a number of different sacrifices that would be made. It talks about the different ways a leper, if he were cleansed or if he were healed, would be analyzed and diagnosed, and then certain sacrifices and ceremonies would go about to assure that he is cleansed, he would be brought back into society. And Jesus was this form, but most of all, notice the purpose, the very last phrase there, for a proof to them. Jesus wants the priest to know that the king is coming their way, and they need to be ready. There's proof. This man who was once a leper, his family's come with him, assumingly. They've testified that he was a leper. He's now been made clean. It's Jesus who cleansed him. They now have to deal with this. And what's kind of odd about the whole thing is it doesn't lead them to faith. Most of them. Most of them will work with the Pharisees to bring about the death of Jesus eventually. This kind of proof doesn't lead to faith. It is astonishing. If we think about who this leper is, we seem to see some faith. You can make me clean. He believes in Jesus, the Wonder Worker. Who doesn't want to believe in Jesus, the Wonder Worker? Everybody loves Jesus who heals people. But his faith, I don't believe, is a saving faith. His faith means the works of God is no better than the demons before him. He doesn't trust Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He doesn't submit to the most basic command of Jesus. Don't say anything. He does not submit to him as God who has an authority over him. He only wants to submit to him as a God who can help him with his illness. The demons at least obey Jesus when he says, be silent. This man does not. As we conclude, let's ask again, is Jesus. It is an accurate statement. He is the Holy One of God. He is God Himself who has come down to be with us. He is God Himself who has come down to teach us. He is God Himself who has come down to heal us. He is God Himself who has come down to forgive us. He is worthy of all worship. Secondly, He has authority. He has taught us authoritatively who God is. He has taught us authoritatively who we are, and how to approach God, and how to know God. He is now at the right hand of the Father. And he said, before he left, to go to the right hand of the Father, all authority at heaven and earth is mine. Go, therefore, and make disciples. I am with you always. He has all authority over the church. He has authority with His church. He empowers us to obedience. Third, we need to see He has pity on the hurting. This is the sweet gentle Savior that we see here. He has pity on the mother-in-law of Simon. He has pity on the leper. He stretches out. He touches them. It's not an impersonal healing. It's a personal touch. He's personally present and cares. This is the Lord and Savior that invites you to come to Him. The one that sees and knows you're hurting. The one that understands the trouble. This is such good news because this world is full of disappointment and hurt. Here we have the God who comes in and cares. Fourth, Jesus touches the untouchable. Jesus touches the untouchable. If we want to wonder what hell is like, I believe it's when the holy God comes in contact with our filthy sin. The Bible uses flames to describe that. I believe it's much worse than we can imagine with flames. The holy, glorious God coming into full contact without grace with our sin. That happens either at our judgment or it happened on the cross. The Holy One of God came into direct contact with our filthy sin by taking the consequence of it on Himself so that we can be forgiven and free. He touches the untouchable. We shouldn't be able to come into the presence of God, but because He reaches out and takes our sin upon Himself, we're no longer outcasts of the Kingdom of God. We're welcomed in. He touches. The untouchable. You're not too sinful to come to Jesus. Finally, if you look at the Lord's Supper before us, He welcomes us. All who will confess our sin and trust in Him can come and participate in the table of Jesus Christ, rejoicing in His death and resurrection. So how do we respond? I want to challenge us this morning that it's with obedience. When someone with authority speaks, it should be met with obedience. Jesus commanded the demon to be silent, and the demon obeys. Jesus commands the leper to be silent, and he goes and tells everybody. That's troubling. Today, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father with all authority, and he tells us to go say something. He tells us to go tell our neighbor, our coworker, our family member, that Jesus Christ is the only way they can be forgiven of their sins. That Jesus Christ is the life of God who has come down to save us. Jesus Christ commands us not to be silent, but to share the good news that people can be saved from their sins. Are we obedient to what Jesus is telling us to do? Jesus commands us to speak the truth in love, to build up another, to make disciples with our words. Finally, how do we respond? I hope it's with amazement that God would do this. We go back to that desire for health, and there's a false prosperity gospel that says you can have all the health and wealth you want. And that isn't ever promised in the New Testament. But Jesus does make a very clear promise. In John 15, He says, My joy will be in you, and your joy will be complete. I am coming to give you joy. You don't need health to have joy. You need Jesus. That's kind of hard, especially with folks who have difficult health issues, or family that have difficult health issues. But the main teaching of Jesus is you don't need health to have joy. It's Jesus. This is a promise we can claim. I want to ask, are we striving for the joy of Jesus Christ? Are we longing for and stirring one another up into the joy of Jesus Christ? That is a powerful way to live, because if we're grumpy and grumbling Christians, we're being bad witnesses. If we're joyful Christians, we're actually telling people who Jesus is. As the Lord suppers before us, I'm going to apologize to my wife and children. I was one grumpy Christian yesterday, and it was a bad testimony. I'm sorry. It matters how we live. The kids are watching. Her neighbors are watching. We should be striving to have joy because that's what Jesus purchased for us on the cross. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for the lyrics of the next song that summarized the book of Hebrews so well for us. Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears. Before the throne, my shorty stands. Before the throne, my shorty stands. My name is written on his hands. Forgive us, Father. Lord, I pray we would study your word and know who you are. We thank you that we have access into the depths and the truths and the wisdom from above. Lord, help us to submit to it. Give us the grace we need to submit to that truth, to have our minds transformed and lives renewed so that we might rejoice in Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen.