Stand on God's Promises

After looking at Aaron and his role in the golden calf incident in our previous study, we now shift our focus to Moses. Is it really true that in this chapter, Moses is able to convince God to change His mind? What's really going on? And what can we learn form it?


Transcription (automatically-generated):

Last week, we looked at Aaron's failure in Exodus Chapter 32, a catastrophic failure of leadership, which we learned was driven by the fear of man, if you missed our last message, make sure you go check it out on the website for the next couple of weeks.

We're going to take a look at Moses. We're going to look at Exodus 32 again today and then Exodus 33 next week and focus on Moses and his interactions with God after Israel was caught in the act of worshiping an idol of a golden calf with a feast and all kinds of wicked pagan religious rituals. You'll recall the scene from last week. Moses is up on Mount Sinai meeting with God. It's been almost six weeks since anybody last saw him, and nobody knows when or if he's going to return.

The Israelites start panicking and decide that what they really need is a God who is among them, a God that they can worship and sacrifice to like the pagan cultures around them do like they did back when they were slaves in Egypt.

So let's jump into the text in Exodus 32 at verse one again, we'll read straight through the verses that we covered in detail last week. And then we'll stop along the way and look more closely at all the other verses in this chapter.

It says now, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to air and said to him, Come make us gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in your ears and the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.

So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf. Then they said, this is your God of Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt. So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.

Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Go get down for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. Dads of sons especially. You're familiar with this kind of language. Your kids are acting like buffoons and your wife smacks you when she says, look what your children are doing verse 8 they have turned aside quickly out of the way, which I commanded them.

Your wicked people have gone back to paganism, Moses.

Yes.

Already they've made themselves a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it and have said, this is your God o Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And the Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people. And indeed it is a stiff necked people. Stiff necked is a Hebrew idiom for being stubborn. God says there are stubborn people, Moses. They're slow to change. They're slow to trust me. They cling to their pagan ways even after all that I've done for them.

First 10 now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, God says, step back, Moses, I'm about to lay the smack down on these stubborn, rebellious children. I don't know how you were raised, but in my childhood, this was the moment when my mom reached down and started taking off her flip flop, that was the moment that I always knew I'd push things a little bit too far and I was now going to pay for it.

I know today's younger people can't relate to that story at all because our culture is so soft right now.

If a parent did that in public today, someone would call the police who would then call child services. But when I was a kid, a parent could do that literally anywhere. And if another parent saw it, they just give a thumbs up, which was kind of code for nice job, not raising a total brat. And of course, the scariest thing about my mom's flip flop was that it was always with her. It was always with her.

She didn't always have a wooden spoon, but she always had a flip flop.

But I digress. The point is, this is the moment God starts taking off his flip flop and says, Stand back, Moses.

There's another truth on display here, and we mentioned it last week, we cannot worship the true and living God based upon our personal preferences.

God is to be worshiped according to his preferences and his commands. God didn't look at Israel and say, well, I mean, they're kind of still worshiping me. God's reaction here shows us that when we reject God's commands and worship him, however we choose, it's not actually him we're worshiping, it's ourselves. We're worshiping ourselves and our preferences. For us, this means that we can't read something in God's word and say, I don't really like that part, so I'm not going to make that part of my expression of Christianity.

We can't say I love Jesus, don't really like the church, though.

The church is kind of messed up. So I'm going to leave that part out of my faith. We can't say, well, you know, I I love Jesus, but I don't buy what the Bible says about sexuality and sexual purity.

And so I've created a version of Christianity where, you know, doing those things that the Bible says I shouldn't is actually, in a way, part of my expression of worship.

Can't do that. God looked down on Israel and said, I don't care that they're referring to the idol as yours.

It's not me. It's not me they're worshiping. First, then again, God said now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. That just means destroy them. And I will make of you, Moses, a great nation. This is a big deal. God is saying, Moses, I'm done with Israel, I am done. Let me just wipe them out and then we'll just start this whole Israel project again with you, and I'll do it all through you and your descendants.

Then Moses pleaded with the Lord is God and said, Lord, why is your wrath burned hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Do you see what Moses just did there? He played the reverse card and gave Israel right back to God, my people, you mean your people, Lord, whom you brought out of Egypt.

They're your kids to Verse 8 12.

Why should the Egyptians speak and say he brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth, turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people.

Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and all the land that I have spoken of, I give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever. So the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would do to his people.

And what is going on here was God really about to destroy Israel, did God change his mind because of Moses's appeal? No, not at all. Listen, the Lord knows the future, nothing, nothing takes them by surprise. Check out these verse is there on your outline. Malikai three six declares For I am the Lord, I do not change.

Therefore, you're not consumed. Oh, Sons of Jacob. So when God made those promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he knew what the future held.

Numbers 23, 19. God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. That means change his mind. He doesn't change his mind because he's not a person. He's not bound like a person is to not knowing the future, has he said. And will he not do or has he spoken and will he not make it good? So what's going on? Why does God do this and why is it in the Bible?

Well, our brother Paul tells us this also on your outlines, whatever things were written before.

In other words, all the Old Testament scriptures were written for our learning, for our learning, that we threw the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

So the question is, what does the Lord want us to learn from this portion of scripture? And I suggest the answer is your first fill in. The answer is that we can petition the Lord.

That means we can make requests of the Lord, we can petition the Lord and intercede for others based on his promises.

We can bring our request to the Lord and we can pray to the Lord on the behalf of others on the basis of the promises of God. And when you take a step back and look at Moses conversation with the Lord, you can see that God is is teaching Moses that he's a God who keeps his promises. He's teaching Moses that he can come before him on the basis of the promises he's made in the past. He's teaching Moses that he's a God who's faithful to his word.

And you can stand upon his promises as a sure foundation.

And I can tell you this, if you haven't learned this truth yet, God is working on teaching it to you right now. He's working in your life to prove to you that he's faithful and that he can be trusted.

It's one of the most foundational truths of the Christian life because it opens your eyes to the reality that God is a firm foundation. You can build your life upon him.

He's the rock of ages. Verse 8 15. And Moses turned and went down from the mountain and the two tablets of the testimony were in his hand, the tablets were written on both sides, on the one side and on the other, they were written.

Now, the tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. These, of course, are the two tablets of the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God himself, verse 17.

And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, There's a noise of war in the camp. But he said, It's not the noise of the shout of victory, nor the noise of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing, I hear.

So it was as soon as he came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing, so Moses, his anger became hot and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Then he took the calf, which they had made, burned it in the fire and ground it to powder. And he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it.

Moses comes down the mountain and he finds the children of Israel amid this massive pagan party engaged in pagan worship rituals that were really just an excuse for all kinds of perversion, worshiping the idol of a golden calf.

And Moses is he's furious.

He slams down the two tablets of the law, breaking them on the ground. Moses, his reaction, whether he realized it or not, was a prophetic act that showed what Israel had just done. They had broken the law of God in a catastrophic manner.

There's a parenting angle in here that really craps it cracks me up to get that out. OK. And there's a parenting angle in here that that really cracks me up. It's like when when somebody else is telling a parent about their child's poor behavior and the parent is like, well, you know, just don't be too harsh on them. I mean, remember, kids are going to be kids. They're going to do dumb stuff.

But then when that same parent actually catches their kid being a little jerk, their reaction becomes, I am going to murder you when we get home.

It's easy to be gracious and patient when you're not face to face with your child's own wickedness.

Right. That was Moses. When he's up there with the Lord, he's like, oh, Lord, don't don't let your Rathburn hot. But then when he saw what Israel was doing with his own eyes, we're told that Moses, his wrath burned hot and he was furious.

I'm going to kill you guys. Verse 8 21.

And Moses said to Aaron, what did these people do to you that you've brought so greatest sin upon them? So Aaron said, do not let the anger of my lord become hot. You know, the people that they're set on evil for, they said to me, make us gods that shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Aaron's response is to blame, get this.

His response is to blame the culture. His environment. The people around him. You see, even today, thousands of years later. Our culture believes the most ridiculous thing. It believes that people are inherently good and the only reason everybody isn't good.

The only reason anybody has any issues is because their parents weren't good and their parents had issues. Their culture wasn't good, their community wasn't good. But if we could just get people to be raised in a good environment around good people, then people would be good.

What's the problem with that reasoning? Well, in the words of our brother, Paul, here's the problem. There's none righteous, no, not one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God, they've all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none that does good. No, not one. The only truly good parent is our heavenly father, the rest of us, no matter how hard we try, are going to pass on some junk to our kids.

We just are we're going to mess up and slip up in ways that are going to profoundly affect our children, no matter how hard we try not to.

Yes, how and where you're raised makes a huge difference in your life. Huge, I'm not debating that. I'm just saying it's not the only piece of the puzzle and it's not the only reason for our issues and problems.

And I'm saying that even if you had perfect parents and were raised in a perfect world.

You'd still send. You still said, how do I know, because Adam and Eve did. And when Jesus reigns on the Earth for a thousand years during the millennial kingdom, there will be generations who are born into a world where things are right and Jesus is king.

But at the end of those thousand years, a group of those people who were raised in that environment are still going to side with Satan for one final rebellion. Aaron says it was the people, it was the people. To be a Christian. To be a follower of Jesus and receive the gospel. Means that we have to to humbly raise our hands and say, it's me, it's me. At the end of the day, it's not my parents that are making me send.

It's not my community that's making me send. It's not my past trauma that's making me sick. The issue is that I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner and I need a savior. And the beauty of the church is that even if you had the most awful childhood imaginable. If you look next to you. You'll see someone like me who had a wonderful upbringing, but I'll be raising my hand to. And I'm right next to you also saying my issue is that I'm a sinner.

And I need a savior. And the good news is that Jesus is a savior who forgives our sin, washes us clean of our sin. There's also a savior who heals. And Jesus can do what no one else can. Jesus can heal the soul. He can give you a new spirit. He can give peace to a troubled mind. And rest to a weary soul. Like Aaron. We love to blame everyone else for our issues and when we do when we refuse to take ownership of our own sin.

We give up the opportunity to be forgiven and we give up the opportunity to be healed of our sin. So if you're Aaron right now. Let me encourage you to stop giving other people power over your life. Give Jesus power over your life, you'll be astounded by what he can, he'll. You will be astounded by what he can restore, even if you feel like you're starting 10 laps behind everybody else, you will be astounded what God can still do in your life.

Verse 8 24. And I said to them, whoever has any gold, let them break it off, so they gave it to me and I cast it into the fire and the scarf came out. We talked about the foolishness of that last week.

Now, when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained for Aaron had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies in the Septuagint, the word scattered or unrestrained sorry, the words scattered is used instead of the word unrestrained or even naked. As some of your Bibles will say, the idea is that children are misbehaving and then mom or dad walks in the room. Moses arrived back at the camp and suddenly, instead of naked revelry, they were all frantically grabbing something to cover themselves up and scurrying back to their tents in shame.

And however it happened, word of all this reached the surrounding pagan communities who thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Instead of being the feared nation who had your way on their side, Israel was the laughing stock of the whole region, at least temporarily. Verse 8, 26, that Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, whoever is on the Lord's side come to me, and all the sons of Leevi gathered themselves together to him and he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, let every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp and let every man kill his brother, every man, his companion, and every man his neighbor.

So the sons of Levi did, according to the word of Moses, and about 3000 men of the people fell that day. The Old Testament is packed with physical pictures.

Of spiritual truths, physical pictures of spiritual truths, you see, we read something like this and we think, oh, that's that's terrible.

But here's the sobering reality, it's justice. And I know that some of you are thinking, well, that doesn't seem like justice, Jeff, but what are we saying when we say that? What are we saying when we say that doesn't seem like justice? We're saying that we don't believe the punishment fits the crime, right? We're saying the punishment is disproportionate to the offense. What's the offense in this instance? It's rebelling against the God who miraculously freed you from slavery in Egypt.

It's going back on your promise to follow him that you made only a few weeks ago. It's spitting in the face of God whose very presence is visible in front of you at that moment in the form of the cloud upon Mt. Sinai.

That's the offense. This is God we're talking about. It's got. Sinning against man is in no way comparable to sinning against God. The God of all creation, your maker, your savior, sinning against God is is deadly serious and we're seeing that pictured here physically in Exodus 32. I please hear me on this because I know this is still difficult for some of us to grasp, but if this seems harsh to you, then you have not yet grasped the seriousness of sin.

How serious is sin? Well, just look at what it took for us to be forgiven of our sin. It took the life of Jesus, the son of God. So, yeah. Sin serious. Uncomfortably serious. Eternally serious. Deadly serious. This being a physical picture of a spiritual truth. What else are we to learn from it? I'd suggest that, yes, while it's a reminder of the seriousness of sin, it's also a picture for us that sometimes we must endure the pain of going to our close friends, our family members, our brothers and sisters, and confronting sin.

In truth and love, because love does what is best for the other person, even when it's painful. How did they deal with sin in the camp in this story, with the sword, with the sword?

I think what the sword is a picture of Hebrews four 12 declares The word of God is living in powerful and sharper than any two edged sword piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow. And there's a discernable of the thoughts and intense of the heart. That's how we deal with sin. That's how we confront sin by using the word we don't say, you know, I think that or well, I just feel that we say the word says the word says.

Because every believer is to submit themselves to the authority of God's word. This is huge, really understand this. Every believer is to submit themselves to the authority of God's word. If someone confronts us with the word of God about something in our lives, we don't get to say, well, that's my business. We don't get to say we're not good enough friends for you to do this.

We don't get to say I'm an elder, I'm a pastor. We don't get to say, oh, you're a woman or I'm older than you or I've been a Christian much, much longer than you have. It doesn't matter who the person is approaching us if they do so based on the word of God. We are obligated to listen, and if they are rightly pointing us to the scriptures, we are to respond and repent. We don't get to ignore it just because we don't approve of the messenger that God used.

It's not about the authority of the messenger. It's about the authority of the scriptures. It's not about your authority, it's about the authority of God's word, and if you love a brother or sister in Christ, you will not allow them to walk further down a path of sin and destruction. Without confronting them with the truth of God's word, in truth and love, write this down. The word of God has authority over all Christians. The word of God has authority over all Christians.

The Old Testament shows us life under the law, life under the Old Covenant, the New Testament shows us life under the gospel, life under grace under the New Covenant. And the difference is laid out clearly in the events of Pentecost. Pentecost was the Feast of Israel that marked the time when God gave the law to Israel at Mount Sinai.

The time we're studying right here in Exodus, each of the feasts of Israel given by God has either been fulfilled or will be completed. Every feast points ahead prophetically to future works of God.

For example, most obvious example, Passover pointed ahead to Jesus, who fulfilled the feast by dying as our Passover lamb.

Pentecost pointed ahead prophetically to acts Chapter two, when God would give the Holy Spirit to the church.

So Pentecost has also been fulfilled. And here's what I love about the difference between the first Pentecost and the last Pentecost. Pentecost. Pointed ahead prophetically to Acts Chapter two and on the first Pentecost, which we're reading about an Exodus 32, when the law was given, three thousand people were killed.

On the last Pentecost, when the spirit was given, and that's Chapter two, three thousand people were saved. That's the difference. After receiving the Holy Spirit, Peter stands up and boldly preaches the gospel to the same men who had called for the crucifixion of Jesus.

Let me just read to you from the end of Peter's sermon in Acts Chapter two. He says, therefore, let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.

And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all who are afar off as many as the Lord.

Our God will call.

And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day, about three thousand souls were added to them.

Our brother Paul sums it up with these words in Second Corinthians three six, the letter that is the law, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. And John wrote, The law was given through Moses. But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Write this down, God's spirit changes us from the inside out. Our attempts to change our heart by changing our actions will always end in failure.

God's spirit changes us from the inside out. Our attempts to change our heart by changing our actions will always end in failure.

An exodus, the people heard the law and said all that the Lord has said we will do. Weeks later, they're in the worst kinds of sin. They can't follow God with just their sheer willpower. They can't change their heart by changing their behavior acts. Chapter two different story. God gives his spirit to his church and their change from the inside out and the spirit inside them. The living God inside them produces different actions on the outside never works.

When we try to change ourselves by changing our behavior, we have to be change from the inside out. Verse 8 twenty nine. Then Moses said to the Levites.

Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord that he may bestow on you a blessing this day for every man has opposed his son and his brother. From this moment on, the Levites become the only tribe involved in the priestly ministry.

So who did God handpick for the priestly ministry? Those who feared God more than men, those who were willing to obey God even when it was very difficult and would have made them very unpopular. Now, it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, you've committed a great sin, so now I will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. You see, unlike Aaron, Moses doesn't play down their sin or excuse it.

Moser says we need to deal with your sin. Perhaps I can cover for you Verse 8 31 than Moses returned to the Lord and said, Oh, these people have committed a great sin and have made for themselves a god of gold. When seeking forgiveness, whether from another person from the Lord or on another's behalf, there is such power in naming the sin.

If you're married, you know this saying, hey, babe, I'm sorry for whatever made you mad is good because apologizing is hard, but whenever possible, especially when there's deep damage inflicted, it is so hopeful and so much better when the offender can show that they understand what they've done by naming the sin. But ladies, especially, please note this, God also told Moses what sin Israel had committed, even though it was obvious God made sure that Moses understood what the sin was Verse 8 32.

Yet now, if you will forgive their sin. But if not, I pray blot me out of your book, which you have written. I don't want to get sidetracked here. So I'm just going to give you the bottom line. What Moses is saying at the end, there is just God if you won't forgive Israel.

Just kill me now, take me out of this Exodus story. He's not saying take my name out of the Lamb's Book of life so that I spend eternity in hell. He's not saying that. But Moses's heart is also reflected in Paul, who did say that he would be willing to spend eternity separated from God if it meant that his Jewish brethren at that time would be saved.

Paul wrote in Romans nine, I tell the truth in Christ, I'm not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were akehurst from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen.

According to the flesh who are Israelites, Moses bound himself to the Lord, but in love. He also bound himself to God's people, the Israelites. Moses bound himself to the people that God gave him to care for. It's not a small thing.

They were not an easy people to lead. They were incredibly frustrating and difficult to lead. And God said to Moses, Moses, just let me kill them all and I'll start again through you. There were a whole lot of reasons for Moses to say, that sounds fantastic, lord No. One, he's done with these troublesome people and all of God's promises now become centered and focused on him and through him.

And his family becomes one of the most important families in Israel's history, a place of prominence. But Moses doesn't take the offer because he's bound himself to the people that God has given him to care for. And where to do the same? We are in a bind ourselves to our spouses, our our children, our parents, our church, our brothers and sisters in the church, if they make a huge mistake, we don't say good riddance.

Assuming there's repentance, we we join them on that journey of repentance, we walk with them on that journey, and if they won't repent, we pray for them.

We intercede for them until they do. Because that's God's heart for us. God bound himself to us, his creation. And when we went astray. He didn't abandon us. He laid down his life for us. He died for us. Because the moment he created us, he bound himself to us collectively. There are some who speculate that perhaps Adam did exactly this for Eve, his wife. Because if Adam hadn't joined even her sin. It's a pretty safe assumption that God would have just dealt with Eve and created a new wife for Adam and started that over again.

Perhaps Adam chose to bind himself to Eve so that whatever her fate, he would be joined to her in it. And that's not scriptural, by the way. That's just an interesting hypothetical for those who enjoy discussing the scriptures, verse 33. And the Lord said to Moses, whoever sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book again in this case, meaning I'll kill them, I'll end their earthly lives now.

Therefore, go lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angels will go before you.

Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin. So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf, which Aaron made.

Scholars tell us that when the is when the Levites killed 3000 men in the camp of Israel, it seems that those three thousand men were likely involved in priestly duties in some way.

They were the elders and priests who are mentioned in scripture before Aaron and his sons were consecrated as the Lord's priest. And these 3000, it seems, were killed for leading Israel in these pagan rituals.

This would explain why the Levites were consecrated as the exclusive priestly tribe immediately afterward. The second judgment, this plague affects all Israel who participated in worshiping the golden calf. So for the sake of time, we're going to wrap it up here.

But this is really sort of halfway through a scene in our story, because Moses is not yet done interceding on Israel's behalf. He's about to enter into an incredible conversation with God.

And we're going to dove into that next week in Exodus 34. Church, listen. We serve a God who keeps us promises, we serve a God who keeps his promises. And here's the good news. You are not the one exception to that rule. You serve a God who keeps his promises to you. The day came when Israel finally reached and conquered the promised land and Joshua, twenty one 45, declares at that time, not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the House of Israel.

All came to pass. All came to pass. One day, those who love the Lord will find themselves looking upon him face to face. And in an instant. We will understand every twist and turn that our lives took. We'll see the full picture, will see the hand of God that was upon our lives from the moment we were born. And we'll say. Bless you, Lord, you were always good, you were always faithful. And all your promises came to pass in my life.

Let's pray. Would you buy your head and close your eyes? Lord, thank you for your word and thank you for the example of our brother Moses and the lessons laid out for us in the scriptures, which are for our benefit. Thank you for the glorious truth that we serve a God who keeps his promises, and for those of us who belong to you, not one of us is the exception to that rule.

You're faithful to your word and you keep your promises to us. So, Father, I prayed just right now for for any among us who need to be reminded of your promises. Lord, would you just bring scriptures to mind right now that have been stored up in their hearts? And for those who are not deeply familiar with your word, would you lead them today, even tomorrow, Lord, to the place in your word that contains the promise that you want them to be aware of right now?

Thank you, Lord, that your word is just packed full of promises that reveal your character. They reveal your faithfulness.

And so, Lord, we just want to pause right now and thank you for your faithfulness to each of us. Thank you that you've got you're a goddess who's proven himself over and over and over again. So, Lord, we just want to stop and say thank you. We look back and we see your hand all over our lives. And as we look ahead, we are absolutely confident that you will continue to be with us till the day we arrive in your presence.

We love you, Jesus. It's in your name. We pray. Amen.