Isaiah, Chapter 35

All right, we are now here in the book of Isaiah. We are finishing up this section, God's warning to all nations that began with chapter 24 and ends with chapter 35 here. We're going here starting next week into a new kind of section in chapter 36 of Isaiah.

And so we're going to be turning a corner, if you will. And that next section will have a different character. It will be an historical account and it'll begin a little scary. So I hope you can handle it. Now, we're going to be doing something a bit unusual today. I just want to prepare you for that. Not this unusual, okay? Not that one.

No. What we're going to do is typically we summarize a chapter or two, sometimes even three, and then focus on a particular passage. Well, we're going to do both, and that is because what you see in front of you and have in your handout is the passage. It's also the whole chapter, okay? All ten verses. That is chapter 35 there in verses 1 through 10. The timeline goes like this.

We're here, so this is looking at a time in front of us, a time yet to be fulfilled, a time that hasn't happened yet, is the picture there. So Isaiah 35 takes place in this future time called the millennial kingdom, millennium referring to the thousand-year reign of Christ upon the earth. And Isaiah then is writing seven centuries before the first coming of Christ about a time that is yet to take place.

The Lord knows the time. He has not let us know what that time is. So, at least potentially, this could be as soon as seven years from now. That quick. Or it could be some time yet to come. But it is at least 2,700 years ahead of Isaiah's own day. How about that? Now, remember the patterns we saw in Isaiah chapters 24 through 27. You remember that? Remember the patterns, of course, right? Uh-oh. Okay.

This is the way we did it. What we said is there's this mirror image kind of pattern in the Book of Isaiah chapters 24 through 27 made a pattern in which there was a rotation, literary rotation around the middle. And the first part of it and the last part of it were kind of a written mirror image, just like you see this picture with a reflection in the lake. And in a written way, it was like that. So that particular pattern we called a chiasm. The idea is the last half is a reflection, mirror image of the first half.

And one of the ways you see it is, for example, in the first part of the chapter 24 was harvest of a remnant from a destroyed world, or in the very last part, harvest of a remnant from a destroyed people. Rhyming the ideas, chapters apart. In this case, what we have is a chiasm within this one chapter, set of 10 verses, and it goes like this. starts off with rejoicing and gladness and shout of joy, there is at the end more joyful shouting and gladness and joy and in the middle a shout of joy. We summarize that for you in your handout so that you can actually see it and we've done that by just reducing it down to those parts that show the gladness and rejoicing. and shouting of joy. So here's this chiasm, this mirror image within the chapter. That pattern is there. You can see the turning point in verse 6, the shout for joy, and then the first couple of verses and the last verse repeating the same theme.

One of the other things before we go into the chapter is to recognize it's about the land. It's all about the land. What we'll find is that the 10 verses in this chapter are centered on the land given to these chosen people. It will talk about the conditions of the land. We will find that it is almost exclusively a completely uplifting picture and an uplifting passage.

It fits because, as we've mentioned before, Israel's earthly blessings will be in the land that was promised to them long ago. even though it's not apparent on your TV news this last week. Okay? And this is the amazing thing. When Israel will be shown these blessings, it will be at a time when it will be abundantly clear to them they didn't save themselves. God saved them. They didn't make this land the glorious place that it will be. It's because of what God did. It will be very clear to them. They will know it for sure.

Here in Genesis 12, 1-3, it says, Now the Lord said to Abram, later, chapter 17, Abraham, Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house, this is the city of Ur, to the land which I will show you. The focus here is the land. Key focus there. Abraham begins here at Ur, which is at the very southern end of what is now Iraq, very close to Kuwait. And he travels up along the rivers that go through what is now Iraq, and then down towards the area that is now the area of Israel. And that's the quick summary of his travels there.

So here's the land which I will show you, and then the promises, and I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great so that you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and then all the families of the earth will be blessed in you. Now, the focus here is the land, and that's what this passage is going to look upon.

It is a fulfillment of this very early promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Genesis 15 further describes that in 17 through 21 of Genesis 15. Now, what are we going to do? We're going to proceed through this two verses at a time and it looks like this.

In 35, one and two, here's the wilderness and the desert will be glad and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It will blossom profusely and And rejoice with rejoicing. Isn't that something? Rejoice with rejoicing. It's like you can't say it enough. And shout of joy. I've got to be careful about not doing that too much because it wakes up the kids in the nursery. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Now, is that an uplifting set of verses or what?

Isaiah was given this glorious and uplifting picture of what the things will be like in the land during this thousand-year reign of Christ. This passage doesn't tell us the thousand years. You can look for that in the first half of Revelation chapter 20. Six times it says the thousand-year figure.

This will be the reign of Jesus Christ upon the earth. Yes, Jesus Christ, the one who died on the cross. Jesus Christ, the one who was buried and resurrected. Jesus Christ, the one who was ascended and seated. Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are identified in all those things. That one. He will reign. He will come upon the earth. He will reign in Jerusalem. He will reign from Israel. He will, in doing so, express in visible form God's majestic glory. This will not be some minor event. This is big. This is major.

What is glory? Glory is the radiant essence of who God is. Radiant essence of who God is. So radiant, that the New Jerusalem needs no lights, needs no sun, needs no other light source, the radiant essence of who He is. This glory will be expressed through this person of Jesus Christ. He will serve as Israel's reigning king. Can you imagine when Pilate said, are you king of the Jews? He had no idea, not a clue. Jesus said, yeah, it is as you say, but not a clue.

He will be fulfilling the promise made to David that is now 3,000 years ago. 3,000 years the promise was made to David that was repeated by the angel Gabriel to Mary. Israel will be blessed with earthly blessings in ways that will be an expression of God's eternal purpose.

What we are reading about here this morning is the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose through Israel. Okay, we will be there during this time. So we're not reading about something that's irrelevant. This is something that it's good for us to look at. We will see how the Lord will be fulfilling his eternal purpose through the nation of Israel and we will witness it. And as the church, we will have our own assigned participation in that as the church, not as the Jews and not as Israel.

Here is what was promised to David, 2 Samuel 7 16, your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever and your throne shall be established forever. That's because when the thousand years has ended, it's not done. New heavens, new earth, new Jerusalem lasting forever. So it's just the start. How about a thousand years after that was said to David?

Here is Mary living in a small town called Nazareth. Archaeologists have figured out putting the pieces together. They had less than a hundred people in the little village, a little tiny town. Here's Mary in an obscure village off on the far end of the empire of the day, the Roman Empire, and she's a young woman. very young lady but one that the Lord has chosen and now the angel Gabriel says now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man named whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David and the Virgin's name was Mary and the coming and coming in he said to her greetings favored one that must have been scary The Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. Wow, what a thing to hear. Then, and this is the part that looks ahead to this time we're looking at here in Isaiah. He will be great, and He will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." Can you imagine telling that to a young lady in a little podunk town like Nazareth? Get ready. You're the chosen one. What a thing to say.

But what the angel Gabriel did was repeat the basic message of the promise that had been given to David. All it is is underscoring what is going to take place, and Isaiah is giving us a privileged insight into that time to describe to us what that will be like at a time when you and I will be there in resurrected bodies.

It won't be a matter of saying, boy, that's a really beautiful valley, but boy, my knee hurts. That is one gorgeous, spectacular city. But boy, have I got a headache. None of that. This will be a time in resurrected bodies, no disappointments. A time with the Lord.

A time where we will see His glory expressed through His chosen people, the Jews, and we will be there as the Church, a different body of people expressing God's eternal purpose in a different way. Let's talk about this idea of throne, because remember, the three things that David was promised, a house, a throne, and a kingdom, and what Mary was told about, a house, a throne, and a kingdom. In almost all the biblical references, a throne isn't about the chair. We have a picture of a fancy chair. It's not about that. The throne is about the position and the domain of authority.

That's what David was told. The position and the domain of authority will be continued. and the one who has the sole right to be seated on the throne. Scripture places huge emphasis upon the spiritual and moral character of the person sitting on the throne. The continuity of the authority was also a primary concern.

So David could rest assured, don't worry David, we've got you covered. The thing you're worried about, the continuity, we've got somebody who's going to sit on that throne and it's never going to end. So don't worry about it. I'm going to take care of it. It was probably not imagined, I'll take care of it through a young peasant lady in a little podunk town called Nazareth. That probably didn't enter his mind, but the Lord had it well figured. So here we have this first couple of verses that mentions wilderness in the desert, in the Ereba.

Now translators have a bit of a head-scratcher at this point, okay? They've got to figure out what's going on. And the reason is this. There's a reason why they're wondering. and that's the Hebrew word for desert is Ereba. So you're a translator. Do you translate it with desert or do you translate it with the name of the desert, which is the Ereba? So which one do you do? So what they do is they look in context and figure that as he's writing kind of poetically, he's probably meaning both and so they alternate.

It's the area specifically south of the Dead Sea. That's the Ereba proper. and just the Hebrew name for desert. Either way, what's happening is Isaiah is making it abundantly clear that this place that has been dry and desolate, like the area that Nancy and I used to live just east of there in Carson City, you go across there, dry desert, like that.

Every once in a while it rains, every few years. That kind of thing, okay? It will blossom and bloom unimaginably beyond anything we have ever seen. That's what's going to happen. There will be phenomenal fertility, amazingly lush in this desert place. Now, it's about the land.

Here's the wilderness and here's the Arabah. And as we look at that, these are areas, you see the satellite photo, which is something Isaiah couldn't do very well. Here's the satellite photo. Notice that the area that's west of the Dead Sea and the Sea of Jordan is fairly green, and it's the area that he's describing, the wilderness and the araba that are dry. He's saying those areas will be incredibly fertile during this time. Here is the araba. Can you imagine that being fertile? Imagine that being just lush with all sort of vegetation? That's what he's talking about. Now, is that a miracle or what? Here is the Ereba. Look at that. Dust devil out in the very dry desert.

Now I'm not going to hold this picture in front of you. You'll all be terribly thirsty. In fact, I'm sure you are now. I'll give you some water. Here. Okay. Now, here he talks about the crocus. It will blossom profusely. He doesn't say it'll be full of crocuses. He says like that. It will blossom abundantly out here in the desert. Okay? So let's take a look. This is what he's picturing as the example of what that desert will be like. Beautiful examples. That's what he's saying. The whole Ereba, the whole desert will look like that.

Blossoming profusely. Astoundingly gorgeous. Amazingly gorgeous. Have you ever walked into some panorama and just gasped because of how gorgeous it is? How beautiful? Just wow, this is cool. He's saying that's exactly what every breath will be like. Breathtaking at every breath. Now we have a Hebrew poetry pattern and you know what that means, don't you? You know what's coming, don't you? Have you been here before? You know what's happening next, okay? All right. Okay.

No, this is, we've nicknamed this a Howl-Fil-Fil, just so you can stick the acronym in your head there. We have a Hebrew poetry pattern, and what happens is this. We have the glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon, and then what do we see again? They will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

So there's a repetition there And while there is a repetition, there is also a difference between the two. And that is the first line, or a couple of lines if you will, are about the land. That's focusing on the glory and majesty in the land. And we'll take a closer look at what that means. And then the second part is about the Lord, the glory of the Lord and the majesty of our God. All right.

He shows about the glory of Lebanon, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. These are places that were then, and we will show some pictures shortly, because you'll want to see it. They are now places that are fertile. They are now places that are beautiful and green. He's saying the rest of it, even the Arabah will be like that. It will be places that will be astoundingly gorgeous, places that you can hardly stand right now, because they will be beautiful.

Here is Lebanon and Lebanon is that area. Well, matter of fact, you've seen it on the TV screens. That's been a tough place, but there are some gorgeous places in Lebanon. There's some examples quick to the right there. Let me show you some samples of some of the glory of Lebanon that Isaiah was talking about. Some beautiful places. Places that are most certainly lovely. He says that will be Even the desert places now will be like that. Lebanon has all sorts of beauty and gorgeous landscape. That's what he's saying, the desert will be like that, a great place.

Now how about Carmel and Sharon? What this is, is here's Carmel on this little point here. This is in a little point south of Haifa, the harbor city right now. and just south of that and visible from Carmel is the Plain of Sharon that extends to the south in that area. Those areas are examples, as Isaiah gives them, of great beauty, physical beauty. Here is from Mount Carmel looking toward the Plain of Sharon. A lovely view up top there and you can see the vegetation that's lush in the mountaintop.

Now, So what we have, we will be with the Lord there in glorified bodies as the land becomes gorgeous and beautiful. We will have worshipped the Lord for seven years already, earth time, by earth measure. Before Christ's coming, before this happens, we will have worshipped the Lord at that time. We will have spent seven years with the Lord. Revelation records four different times that we, the church, will be worshipping the Lord and the heavenlies. Certainly longer than that, because a lot of the verbs are given as a repetition. But worshipping the Lord.

We will come with the Lord, with His angels, with Old Testament saints, Jew and Gentile, with Tribulation saints, Jew and Gentile, and us, those of us in the church. All those resurrected saints will be with the Lord and His angels, innumerable angels is what Hebrews says. He will reign upon the earth, centered in Jerusalem and in Israel. That will be laid out. And finally it says, and they will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

Why don't you put your things down and stand with me. Let's sing majesty. We'll sing it Acapulco style, acapella, okay? Majesty, worship His majesty. Unto Jesus be all glory, honor, and praise. Majesty, blessed authority, flow from His throne unto His own, His anthem raise. So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus. Magnify, come glorify our Savior above. Majesty, worship His Majesty, Jesus who died, now glorified, the Son of God's love.

All right, please be seated. Now he says, "...encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, take courage. Fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, and the recompense of God will come. But He will save you."

This verse is to look at encouraging those who look upon the earth and see things just aren't right. Imagine people on Isaiah's day, they're looking at things and saying, man, this place is messed. This place is a mess. This place is all messed over. If you look at that and say, this isn't right, it ought to be different. Isn't that funny how we as human beings, don't we have an almost puzzling sense of things ought to be some other way? Why would we think such a thing? I think it's been placed within us to recognize, this isn't the way things are supposed to be. They ought to be some other way. And what he's saying is, encourage him, that's coming. The Lord's going to take care of things.

There will be a time when every single injustice will be dealt with. Every single one. And this time will come upon them. The nation of Israel will be the center of justice. It'll be the center of everything's right. It looks forward to a time with the Lord coming and His angels, the resurrected saints of Old Testament times, Jew and Gentile, of the time of the coming tribulation, us in the church, we will return with the Lord, and the Lord will set things right on planet Earth. Justice will be done.

This verse, however, like Israel's blessings, it does look at fixing the earthly circumstance, doesn't it? Now, do we have to wait for that time? How about our place in the church? Do we have to wait to be encouraged and strengthened? and to deal with anxiety? Oh, just wait until the thousand years begins. When's it going to start? I don't know.

No. We have 1 Thessalonians 3, 2, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the Gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith. The Lord indeed will use other believers in our lives to strengthen and encourage us. Is He going to say, don't worry, you won't have any problems? No. He's going to strengthen and encourage in the midst of those, in the faith. Here's Philippians 4, 4-7 about the anxiety question.

First of all, he starts off with lots of rejoicing. Sounds like Isaiah 35. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. The Lord has in mind that we in the church have the strength and encouragement and the dealing with anxiety by means that he has prepared for us and provided for now.

Just exactly as it's spelled out in here. Here's Isaiah 35, 5 and 6. The Lord is going to restore many of the people having physical illnesses and handicaps during this time. There'll be a number of different kinds, of course, and he lists several of those different kinds of physical handicaps. There was a prior glimpse of this during the time when the Lord was on the earth at first.

And here are disciples of John the Baptist. They're coming because John the Baptist has been imprisoned and he's kind of, I guess, losing sight of how things are. And so he's saying, are you the one? What's supposed to happen here? And so the Lord, at the very time when John the Baptist's disciples come to him, at that time he starts curing a number of people right there in front of them. And then he tells them, go back to John the Baptist and tell him what you've seen.

So that he will know, yes, this is indeed the one. This is a prior glimpse of what will happen during this coming millennial time. Physical problems, handicaps, the Lord will deal with those as he is fully able to do. Isaiah 35, 5 and 6, the last part of verse 6 returns to this fertile land theme, the lush wilderness and the Arabah. where the Lord will reign upon the earth. It will focus on the abundance of water sources the Lord will cause to spring up.

Now notice in this opening of eyes and making blind eyes see what the Lord had written for us in the church, Ephesians 1.18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, or as we looked at the Greek more closely, can be conveyed, or having been enlightened, that the Lord indeed has designed that we believers have our eyes open. So he's looking at a spiritual restoration of sight for us in the Church, whether these things work or not. And mine don't work as well as they used to. So the Lord is looking for us to see spiritually and places that as the priority in the Church.

There's also this, Revelation 2.7, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. There is a seeing spiritually. There is a spiritual hearing. That's what the Lord is focusing on for us here in the church.

Now, the scorched land would become a pool and a thirsty ground that springs the water. And the haunt of jackals is resting place. Grass becomes weeds, excuse me, reeds, and rushes. Here is the Arabah, here is that dry land that he mentions. Here's the jackal roaming this land for a little tiny morsel to eat, hopefully a few of them.

Instead he will make it like this, he'll make it lush, he'll make it a place of abundant water and plenty of water supply. This verse 7 continues the theme from the end of verse 8, here telling of the suddenly abundant water sources where the desert had been before, where things were dry for miles. Now, I need to tell you, and this you'll have to humor me, okay? Can you handle that? You'll have to humor me.

This is about the population of the Millennial Kingdom. Now, I was looking at this. There's a formula for that. And the way this works here is P sub Y is the population at the end of the Yth year, okay? And X is the rate of population growth, which is a constant percent per year. If you plug those numbers in, let's make some reasonable assumptions here. 10 million people go into the millennium, 1.3 percent growth rate, the longevity being extended and all that. At the end of a thousand years, you've got 4 trillion people. You're going to need some lush land.

Okay? All right, that's a bunch. Okay, enough of that. Okay. One more thing to point out. Highway of Holiness, that doesn't refer to the street out here. This is over in Israel in a time yet to come. Not right now. Not right here. This is not the Highway of Holiness. This is just Holly Street.

Travel along this Highway of Holiness will be all about pursuing an awesomely privileged presence with the King who will sit on David's throne. People on earth will say, I'm going there. Man, I am headed there. That is the place to be. He will sit on David's throne.

It is the Lord Jesus Christ. Gee, I wonder who else has an awesome presence with the Lord right now? Us. We'll be there then, but even more amazingly, we have an awesome presence now. By Jesus Christ, we have the privileged presence. That's the last half of Ephesians chapter 2. We have privileged presence with the Lord right now as part of His household.

See, we're not coming from afar along a highway. As part of His household, we're right there. And our relationship isn't, Oh Christ my King, can I... No, it's Abba, Papa, Father. We can be right there in the Lord's presence of His household. Familiarity, part of the family.

That's a wonderful thing. We'll see this, yeah, but we don't need to wait. We're there right now. We're seated with Him. That's major cool. Here's Ephesians 2, 4-7. God raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So we're now seated with the one Isaiah wrote about, who will be the reason that people will come for miles along this highway of holiness.

This ages to come, just so you know, that isn't God's promise that you'll have really cool birthdays. His ages to come is the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth and all the ages after that. It's not about birthdays. Apologies to Abby. Now, last couple of verses there. It turns out that this song here is the last verse and it's also almost verbatim in Isaiah 55, 11. So it goes like this.

Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head. Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head."

Look what won't be there. That's what's amazing to me as I look at this. Here we have an elaboration. If you put verses 8 and 9 together, which we've kind of separated except for this slide, look how much he emphasizes what will not be there. All the things that people say, oh no. All the things that people are concerned about.

The unclean, spiritually and morally, will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way. And fools will not wander on it. And by the way, fools is not just someone of low IQ. In the biblical sense, a fool is someone who is spiritually or morally lacking. It's not just an IQ assessment.

No lion will be there. It's not a place of physical danger. It's not a place where, gee, I was just going to see the Lord and He just took me out. No, not that. Nor will any vicious beast go upon it. These will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk there. That's who will be there.

Look at this theme coming again. Joyful shouting. Same thing we saw at the first couple of verses. Same thing that was echoed again right in verse 6. Joyful shouting. Can you imagine people walking? Why are they shouting? It's gorgeous here. Why else are they shouting? I'm going to see the Lord. That's cool. That's why they're going to shout. And because of the nursery, I won't shout quite as loud as I might.

And then, look at this, everlasting joy. Have you ever been to something, and maybe it's a comedy or something, and maybe you just had a great time with some people, and you left, and you say, that was a good time, and then you walk away, and you've got to go do something else?

How about if that doesn't stop? How about if you say in your mind, But you know, there's no disappointment after this. It doesn't fade. I'm not thinking, that's really cool, but my car is still wrecked. That's really cool, but my family member is homesick. This is a time when I'll say, that's really cool, but nothing. Really cool, and really cool, and always cool. Everlasting joy. Joy that doesn't go pew! everlasting joy. They will find gladness in Jarl, and look at this, sorrow and sighing will what? Doesn't fade away, they will what? Flee away. Gone. Sorrow and sighing will just out of the picture, quickly. For us, here, do we have to wait for that time?

No. Galatians 5, 22 and 23, the fruit of the Spirit, and earlier in that chapter it talked about the walking in the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and on for the rest of those fruit descriptions. How about James 1, 2 through 4? Now this one might be a little bit of a head-scratcher.

The ultimate joy that's described in Isaiah 35, guess what James calls ultimate joy? Oh, oh, look at this. He just gets through saying, Hi, my name's James. And what's the next thing he says? Consider it, this says, all joy. My brethren going through this was translating, and he translated it, ultimate joy. Now, what do you think of as an ultimate joy? Weddings, or having a baby, or something like that. Consider it, ultimate joy, my brethren, when you what? Encounter various triumphs. You're kidding! No, he's not! Ultimate joy. Ultimate joy. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfectly complete, lacking in nothing.

Here's Paul riding chain to a Praetorian Roman guard. And we have from another record from a Christian who was chained to a guard, they said, this guy is like a wild beast. It's like being chained to a beast. So in that condition, here's Paul, and he writes to the church in Philippi, Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I will say rejoice. As we look at this passage, it's describing a time that you and I will be able to enjoy for a thousand years. That's a long time, by the way. for a thousand years earth time, but it will only be just a start. For the ages to come, the Lord will be showing.

And by the way, that word in Ephesians 2.7 is demonstrating. Physical, visible demonstration.

You're going to see His grace. The wealth of His grace for eternity. That will be wonderful. But, we're seated with Him now. at this very minute, right this second. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage. What marvelous things are ahead, but it is just a glimpse. And yet, Lord, already what marvelous things you have done. We have unfathomable riches, a wealth of grace, riches of grace. by your grace, Lord, by your amazing grace.

And Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the things that we can count upon now because of what you've done and who you are and who we are in you. We thank you for that. We give you praise for it all. We praise your excellence and glory and majesty. In Jesus' name, Amen.