Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Desire the unadulterated milk of the word like a newborn baby that you may grow thereby. His divine power has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world. Jesus prayed to the Father, Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. Before we open up the word of truth this morning, let's bow our heads and go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we're so thankful that you have given us your word that it is truth. It is absolute truth. It is the same for us today as it was for those who were the original intended audience. It is the same for us in the United States of America as for those in Britain or in Zambia or in Kenya or in Russia or in China. For whatever the culture, whatever the background, whatever the historical era, your truth is true for everyone at all times and does not change. So Father, we are thankful for that because this defines reality and we must conform our lives to reality as you have created it, not as we would desire it. And we thank you above all for our Savior who came as a light into the world. that he might illuminate us as to who you are, that it is through him that we come to understand who you are, for he is the one who has revealed you. So Father, as we begin this study on our Lord Jesus Christ, our Messiah, we pray that you would help us to have a greater appreciation for your plan, for who Jesus is, and for what he did, and that we might be strengthened in the inner man And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. All right, this morning we are going to begin a Christmas series. I had not intended to start with a Christmas series. I had intended to continue just teaching in Ephesians this year. Sometimes as a pastor, year after year after year, you've got to come up with a new way to say the same old thing. Everybody knows the story. Everybody knows why it's important. And one of the elements that I was thinking through was because in the passage that we're beginning in Ephesians 5, we are told to walk as children of light. And it occurred to me, the starting point is to understand who Jesus is, who says he is the light of the world. But one thing led to another. And Friday night at sundown, Hanukkah began. It's an eight-day Jewish festival that is mentioned in the Bible, Jesus observed Hanukkah, but it was not one of the feasts laid out in the Mosaic law. So why is Hanukkah significant? So we're going to look at this over the next three weeks, Jesus, Hanukkah and the true light, that we are to walk by the light. So as we talk about Jesus and Hanukkah, I'll just lay out the organization for today. And that is that, first of all, we'll look at a passage in John 10, 24 to 26. What is going on here in relation to the observance of Hanukkah at the time of Christ? And second, why is Jesus taking the time to come to Jerusalem at the time of Hanukkah since this is not a mandatory festival that was established by God in the Old Testament? In fact, that which it celebrates didn't occur until after the close of the Old Testament canon. So then we have to look at the origin of Hanukkah. Where did this come from? What's the historical background? So we'll take a look at Alexander the Great and the prophecies in Daniel chapter 8 that specifically prophesied the coming of Alexander the Great and why that's important. And with his death, the division of his kingdom, and that brings us to an understanding of one of the four Divisions ended up being called the Seleucid Empire, and one of the Seleucid emperors was Antiochus IV, who was called, I think he came up with the name for himself, Epiphanes, which means God manifest. He's making a messianic claim in sorts. He is a type or a picture of the coming future Antichrist. So in this we have history, we have prophecy that's fulfilled in Jesus, we have prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled in terms of the coming Antichrist. The revolt that came as a result of the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes called the Maccabean Revolt, the so-called Miracle of the Lamps, which is what Hanukkah sort of celebrates, but above all it celebrates their independence from the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes. And then we will look at John or at Jesus at Hanukkah in John chapter 10. So we will work our way through this. So we're opening with a look at John 10, 24 through 26. It is at this time that Jesus is in Jerusalem And it is specifically stated in the text that he is there for the celebration of the Festival of Dedication, the Feast of Dedication. And at that time, there's been this ongoing confrontation with the Jewish leaders. Actually, whenever you read in John and it says the Jews, that has come to be taken as somewhat anti-semitic. John's a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. The disciples were all Jews. He's not picking on the Jews. Actually, the best thing to understand in this is that he's talking about the Judeans, because Jesus and his disciples were from the northern part, which was Galilee, and they are referred to as Galileans. So they are all Jewish. They are all the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they are not being singled out as some sort of evil group and just called the Jews, but they are the Judeans who were led by, in many ways, by the Pharisees and other religious leaders who rejected Jesus' claim to be the Messiah. So then the Judeans surrounded him and said to him, how long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, they're asking, are you the Messiah? If you are the Messiah, when we talk about Jesus Christ, there's some people out there who think that Christ is his last name, that his parents were Mary and Joseph Christ. They don't understand that Christ is the anglicized form of the Greek word Christos, which means the anointed one, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Mashiach, or Messiah, the Anointed One. So in Hebrew, it's Yeshua HaMashiach, He is Jesus the Messiah. And so that is clear. So they are saying, if you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them and said, I told you. and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you." Now, one of the things that we should, just a couple of observations here, is that Jesus has already plainly stated a number of things about who he is. He has made it very clear that he is making specific claims to be the promised and prophesied Messiah. They just don't want to believe it, but many others have and have already believed that. So when we get down to this section, following 22, what we must recognize, I'll come back to this at the end, is just prior to verse 22, which says, it was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, there was a debate that was taking place among the Judeans because of what Jesus said. Some said, well, he has a demon. He's mad, he's crazy. And others said, these are not the words of a madman. It's not the words of a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of a blind man? So Jesus has come to celebrate Hanukkah. There's this division introduced in the verses just prior to this, between those who have accepted his claim to be the Messiah and those who don't. It's a predecessor to the argument C.S. Lewis made famous, and that is that you cannot fall back on the idea that Jesus was just a good man or a religious innovator or some kind of moral philosopher. Jesus is making claims that He is the only way to heaven, that He is the Messiah that God sent, and that it is through Him that sins will be paid for. If those words are not true, then He is either lying or He's crazy. If He's lying, then He has deceived millions, hundreds of millions of people through the centuries, and therefore he is an evil man because he has deceived so many into thinking they can have eternal life. His words are not the words of a deceiver, they are not the words of someone who is intentionally lying, neither are they the words of somebody who's just had a psychotic break and thinks he's God. he would be the first one to think he was Jesus, I guess. But he doesn't have that kind of, he doesn't speak like that, or neither do his works seem to indicate that he is like that. And so today we have the same issue for people. You cannot fall back on the claim that Jesus is just a good guy, a good teacher, a good moral innovator. No, Jesus is either who he claims to be the eternal Son of God who became a man to die on the cross for our sins, or he is an absolute greatest deceiver of all time, and therefore evil, or he's a lunatic. Those second two options just don't work. It's hard to run away from the bold truth. So we're told that it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Now Hanukkah is the Hebrew word for dedication. So it is primarily a feast of dedication. It is in memory of the rededication, the re-cleansing of the temple after Antiochus Epiphanes had committed a great act of blasphemy by sacrificing a pig on the altar in the Holy of Holies and scattering pig blood, which was unclean and prohibited to the Jews, was scattering pig blood all over the Jewish temple. And so after there was the Maccabean revolt, then there had to be a cleansing and rededication of the temple. It was also known as the Feast of Lights because at that time, basically what happened is that as they were lighting the menorah in the, and this is the claim, so we're gonna have to ask is this true or not, as they were lighting the menorah at the rededication over a period of eight days, nobody knows why it was eight days. Question. So over the period of eight days though, they would light one night, and then light two, and then three, and then four. And when they came to the eighth one, oops, we're missing, we're running out of oil. And they had run out, actually, they had run out of oil earlier. And miraculously, there was always just enough oil for the next night. Now that's probably a myth, but we'll look at that a little later on. But that's why it was known as the feast of lights. Now, I'll readdress this as we get a little further on, but if you go back to John chapter 7, we have what is called, we have a different festival there, and this is the festival of, some call it tabernacles. It's a Thanksgiving festival, and it occurs a little bit earlier, but in Jewish tradition, they had come to be closely connected in their thinking. So one is about a month earlier than when this occurred. This occurred in the last part of the month of Kislev in the Jewish calendar, which is roughly equivalent to our December. And so at this earlier festival, Jesus begins to have a conflict in John 7 with the Pharisees. And this goes through John 7, 8, 9, and 10. By 10, we're about a month or six weeks later, and this is now the Feast of Dedication. Regarding why Jesus would be there in Jerusalem, why he would be observing this feast day when it's not a Mosaic feast day, it's not commanded by God. Arnold Fruchtenbaum makes the following observation. He said, although Moses did not inaugurate this feast, its observance is valid for two reasons. First, Daniel prophesied the events that brought about this holy day in Daniel chapter 8 and Daniel chapter 11. Second, Yeshua authenticated the feast by going to Jerusalem to observe it. Yohanan, which is the Hebrew for John, Yohanan mentioned that it was winter, for the end of the month of Kislev is usually in December. So this is a time when it is cold. It can get cold in Jerusalem in December. I've seen it. reported in my lifetime several times just in the last couple of decades where they've had big snowfalls at the end of December in Jerusalem. And it can get down into the 20s and sort of like Houston, occasionally it even gets down into the teens. So it can be a pretty cold time. The sun sets early. And because of that, it gets dark early. And if you live in an era where there was no electricity, then it got pretty dark at night. And what you would see at the time of the festival of lights is that people would have lit their little oil lamps and they would have those in their windows. And so you would have these, you would have hundreds if not thousands of flickering lights all over the city of Jerusalem in that cold, cold winter night. So three things we must observe is that in the historical background to Hanukkah, Antiochus Epiphanes, who called himself God Manifest, he's making a claim to being the incarnation of a deity, but it was not the God of the Hebrews. He was claiming to be the incarnation of one form of Zeus. So the Pharisees, who developed after the Maccabean revolt, are hyper vigilant for anyone who comes along and claims to be God in the flesh. And so they are predisposed to being extremely hostile to anyone who claims to be the incarnation of God. A second thing is that Ezekiel warned of false shepherds in Ezekiel 34. Now, It makes sense as to what Jesus is talking about from the beginning of chapter 10. He is making the claim that he is the good shepherd. Therefore, those who are not following him are the false shepherds. And they're making a connection that what Jesus is doing is identifying them with the false shepherds of Ezekiel chapter 34. That's not going to make them very happy. Third, Jesus has been making claims to be the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah, and he claimed to be the light of the world at the Feast of Tabernacles just a few weeks earlier. What a profound claim, making he is the light of the world. So all of these claims and statements, everything that's going on between John 7 and John 10 are all related to these two key feast days. Now let's look at the origin of Hanukkah. How did this begin? Well, first of all, we need to go back to the 4th century BC when Alexander the Great was born. Alexander the Great is going to die. When he dies, his kingdom will be divided between four of his generals, one of whom is Antiochus, and one of Antiochus' descendants is called Antiochus Epiphanes. He's Antiochus IV, described in Daniel 8 and 11. Then there's the Maccabean Revolt, which is not covered in the Bible, but it is covered in part of the Apocrypha. Now, the Apocrypha is not divinely inspired and it's not scripture, but it is good history. And so to get background, it's encouraging to read some of the Apocrypha. 1 and 2 Maccabees describes these events. And so that's always helpful to get that background information as a, teacher, instructor of church history for Chafer Seminary. I've always had a love for the history of Christianity, but the reality is that most Christians don't have a clue about the history of their own church, much less the history of Christianity. But when it comes to understanding the intertestamental period, the period between the close of the canon with Malachi, And the New Testament period, which is a period of about 400 years, often referred to as the silent years because there's no revelation from God. But that doesn't mean that God is not functioning during that time. And so this is the intertestamental time. So reading 1 and 2 Maccabees helps you to understand that period. And then the miracle of the lamp. So these are the four things that we're going to I'm going to talk about very briefly. During this intertestamental period, God is working. God is arranging history so that the world will be ready for the coming of his son. Much happened during that time to set the stage so that, as Paul reports in Galatians 4.4, it was the fullness of time. Galatians 4.4 Paul writes, So it's in the fullness of time. So God has arranged this. So we look at Alexander the Great. He's born in 356 BC and died young in 323 at the age of 33. He conquered Greece and then Turkey, then modern Syria, all through the Levant down to Egypt, and then he headed east and conquered the Persian Empire. He died drunk at age 33, and his kingdom was then split between four generals. The two that concern us are Seleucus, and Ptolemy. Ptolemy was the king and was given Egypt. Seleucus was given the area around Syria and Turkey. So here is a map showing the extent of Alexander's conquest. Alexander wanted to rule the world. He also wanted to give the world one language. He was a globalist in the ancient world. He wanted one empire. So he took the various dialects of Greek that existed at that time, and they sort of merged them into a new dialect of the Koine Greek. Now, he didn't invent Koine Greek. This was the process that developed at that time. And this became the common language, or the lingua franca, of the world, of the Greek empire, going all the way from Egypt and Greece, all the way through Persia. Everyone spoke Koine Greek, and that's the language of the New Testament. So God used his globalism for good. Man often intends evil, but God brings about good. He is predicted in Daniel chapter 8. Now this is one of the reasons that liberals come along and say that this couldn't have been written when it's claimed to have been written, which was around 550 or 540 BC, because Alexander hadn't come on the scene. This division into four empires had not happened yet. They don't believe in predictive prophecy that God can foretell the future accurately. And so they reject Daniel as living in the sixth century B.C. But Daniel predicted the details. He has a vision. And I'm skipping the first part of the vision of the coming of the Babylonian kingdom and then the Persian kingdom, which was a combination of Medes and the Persians. And so there is this description of a ram with two horns, the Medes and the Persians. And then he says, and I was considering that suddenly a male goat, this is going to be Greece, the male goat came from the West across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. like a unicorn, one horn. Then he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing beside the river and ran at him with furious power. And I saw him confronting the ram. He was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram. He's attacking the ram with two horns, media Persian empire. He attacked the ram, broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him. But he cast him down to the ground and trampled him, so Alexander defeated the Medo-Persian empire. Verse eight we read, therefore the male goat, Alexander, grew very great. But when he became strong, the large horn was broken. That refers to his death, 323 BC. And in place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. That's the division of the kingdom. And as I mentioned earlier, the Seleucid Empire, the Ptolemaic Empire, the ones we're concerned with. Now in this map, Egypt is covered up by this inset here that's put in there that shows the rectangular red box. I'm not concerned with that. I'm just showing you the extent of the Seleucid Empire. It's what is today Syria, Asia Minor, or Turkey, and goes east to Persia. So that was the Seleucid Empire. And there's always this battle that went on through several generations of the Seleucids fighting the Ptolemies in Egypt. And what's in between? Israel. So Israel just gets, for a while, they're under the Ptolemies. For another part of the time, they're under the Seleucids. And at this time, that is in the prediction, they're under the Antiochian tyranny, under Antiochus Epiphanes. So then we read on in Daniel, and out of one of them, one of those four empires, came a little horn. Now he is a type of the future Antichrist. And so some people will say, well, the little horn is a title for the Antichrist, but that's because Antiochus Epiphanes is such a pattern for the Antichrist. He grew exceedingly great towards the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land, that's Israel. And it grew up to the host of heaven. That is a description of Israel and the Jews. And it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them. And that's picturing the fact that he became a tremendous persecutor of the Jewish people. He did horrible things. What Hamas did on October 7th was similar to what the Syrians did to the Jewish people during this time. There was mutilations and murders and rapes and everything that you can imagine. Absolutely horrible. And he comes to establish himself in the temple. which is what is then predicted in the next verses. Verse 11, he exalted himself as high as the prince of the host. The host is a term for Israel, sabbah, which is still part of the name of the host of Israel, the armies of Israel. So the prince of the host is God. He says, and by him, the daily sacrifices were taken away. So he cancels the sacrifices and all of the rituals in the temple. He makes it illegal, punishable by death if anyone sacrifices to God. If anyone's in possession of the Torah or any Hebrew scripture, if any of the parents have their male sons circumcised, any of these practices that are Jewish, if any of them are observed, then they will be punished by death. They will be executed. So he then, he says, because of the transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifice, and he cast truth to the ground. Truth is often said to be the first casualty in war. He did all of this and he prospered. Verse 13, then I heard a holy one speaking, that is probably an angel, Some translations say saint, but it's literally in the Hebrew, it's Holy One speaking. And another Holy One said to that certain one who was speaking, how long will this vision be? How long is this persecution going to take place? The answer is in verse 14, for 2,300 days. And that was fulfilled in the time of Daniel. Not in the time of Daniel, but in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and it ended with the Maccabean revolt. then the sanctuary shall be cleansed." It's the cleansing of the sanctuary, it's the dedication of the sanctuary that's the basis for Hanukkah. In Daniel 11, there's more information given about the forces and armies of Antiochus Epiphanes. They defiled the sanctuary fortress, taking away the daily sacrifices. All of these things also prefigure the coming Antichrist. And then in verses 34 and 35 we read, now when they fall, they shall be aided with a little help. So when Syrians fall, when Antiochus fell, they're aided by, there's aid that comes from the Maccabees and the Jews to rebel against him and to be victorious. And some of those of understanding shall fail. to refine them, to purify them, and to make them white until the time of the end because it's still for the appointed time. So God's in control. That's the importance of appointed time. So the Maccabean revolt occurred. When Antiochus comes in, after he sacrifices a pig on the altar at the temple, he then begins to go out throughout the land searching out anyone who is still observing anything related to Judaism. And so he comes to a village, a village named Modin, and there is a priest there by the name of Mattathias. And so he is one of Antiochus' generals, wants him to sacrifice a pig to desecrate the altar. Mattathias refuses, but another person, another man, another priest in Modine is going to come forth to do it. So Mattathias steps forward, grabs a spear from a soldier, spears the fellow Jew who was going to commit an abomination, and then he killed the Syrian officer. And that began the Maccabean revolt. His third son was called Judah. Judah Maccabeus, Judah the Hammer, and he is the one who leads them to victory over the Syrians. So that is the source of the Maccabean revolt, and today you will hear and read that the Israelis are referring to the IDF soldiers today as modern Maccabeans. because they are seeking revenge against Hamas, just as the Maccabeans sought revenge against the Syrians back in the day, and that they are going to deliver them and bring them freedom from this. So that's an interesting thing that's going on there. They're referring to them as the modern Maccabeans that will bring them freedom from this terrorist threat. The miracle of the lamps is probably something that did not occur. We don't know exactly when that began, but the oldest reference we have to it is found in the Talmud in the Megalith Ta'anit. And so it's very unlikely that this is something that is historically accurate. That brings us up to the time of Jesus. And the Hanukkah was one of the fall feasts. Excuse me, we start off with Jesus and the Feast of Lights. So Hanukkah came after the Feast of Tabernacles. And as I said earlier, they're closely tied together. That's the framework for understanding and interpreting John 7, 1 through chapter 10, 21. The issue at question is what I raised at the very beginning. The Jews or the Judeans surrounded him and said to him, if you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Well, Jesus has already made it clear that he is the Christ, that he is the Messiah. So we look at what the context is just physically, and John 22 tells us it's the Feast of Dedication, John 10.23 says, Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch or Solomon's portico. This colonnade here that surrounds the outer wall of the temple precinct was called Solomon's portico or Solomon's porch. On the opposite side, which this is the north side, but on the south side, that would be where the money changers were, those who were selling the various animals for sacrifices and changing whatever foreign money came in and charging a high exchange rate, that was where they operated. What's important here is that on this northwest corner, this is actually a picture of a model of the first century temple area in Jerusalem that whenever we go on a take a tour there, we always go and visit this model because it really helps you understand the whole layout and what's happening. So here you have the Antonio Fortress, and that's in the background. And the Roman legion here, they had soldiers and sentries up there watching everything that was going on inside the temple. to make sure that there was no kind of insurrection taking place. There was a popular song that had been written earlier called a Psalm of Solomon with song to the king. And this song, which was composed during the mid first century BC, so about a hundred years earlier, a Pharisee wrote this and it is about the future Messiah, the King, the Son of David, and future King, and that it was sung by those who were praising what the Maccabeans had done. And by the time it was written, the Romans were there, so it was considered to be a song promoting insurrection. So in the course of that, this Pharisee would pray that the Lord would raise up his son, raise up the son of David to rule over Israel, and that when the Messiah would come, he would purge Jerusalem for the Gentiles. Now you can understand why the Romans didn't look with favor on that. And that he would drive out sinners, smash the arrogance of sinners, and destroy the unlawful nations. So they weren't real thrilled with this idea of a Messiah. So in John 10, 24, the Judeans are saying, if you are the Mashiach, tell us plainly. Now, Jesus really doesn't wanna answer that question directly for a couple of reasons. Number one, they're just, you see this in debates, they're just asking questions to create debate situations. They're not really seeking the truth. But on the other hand, he's not going to claim to be the Messiah in so much language because he doesn't want to stir up the Roman soldiers who might come to arrest him and get the timetable ahead of schedule. So that is part of what is going on there. Now he goes on in this section We see that he is claiming to be God, but he's also made a claim to being the true temple. This takes us back to John 2, verses 19 to 21. Jesus answered and said to them, that is the Pharisees who were saying he claimed to destroy the temple, he said, destroy the temple and in three days I will raise it up. Then the Judeans said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, thinking he's talking about the physical temple. And will you raise it up in three days? John 2.21, but he was talking about his body, the temple. Now, Jesus was talking about his body, the body of Jesus, the body of Christ as the temple. Remember in Ephesians 2.19, Paul writes, now therefore you, that is you Gentiles, are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, that is, the early Jewish believers in Acts 2-9, and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. And Ephesians 2 earlier referred to this as the body of Christ. So it's interesting how these connections begin to come together. In John 10, 25 through 27, Jesus continues his claim to be the true shepherd. He said, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. In Jewish law, you had to have two witnesses. He's a witness, the Father's a witness, and the works are a witness. He's got three witnesses. He said, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. Earlier he had said, my sheep will hear my voice and follow me. And in verse 28 to 30, he says, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. And no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. And then he says, I and my Father are one." That is a claim that Jesus makes that he is God. He says, I and the Father are one. Now you say, well, maybe he has some other sense. Well, probably not, because in the next verse the Jews pick up stones to stone him. They understood what he was saying. They understood that he claimed to be God, and that is why they claim to stone him. And in this previous section earlier in chapter 10, Jesus claimed to be the good shepherd. He said in verse 14, I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known by them. So Jesus has been making a claim to be the new temple. He's making a claim to be the good shepherd as opposed to the evil shepherds predicted in Ezekiel. And as the good shepherd, he said in verses 17 and 18, Therefore, my father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. Jesus understood he was going to the cross, and there he would pay the sin penalty on our behalf. He goes on to say, no one takes it from me, but I lay it down myself. So they don't like this. The Pharisees do not like this. Some of these Judean leaders could not decide if he was crazy, demon possessed, or what. But some understood, verse 21, these are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? So the question is, who do you say that Jesus is? Is he demon-possessed? Is he crazy? Is he just a liar? Or is he who he claimed to be, one with God, the eternal Son of God, and the Savior who came to die on the cross for our sins. So when Jesus comes into Jerusalem at the Feast of Lights as the Feast of Tabernacles, following the Feast of Tabernacles, he is continuing to make this claim that he is the Son of God. And that is why he was born. So in this series, we're going to now look at how you would recognize the Jewish Messiah. The question is, is he crazy? Is he demon-possessed? Is he a deceiver? Or is he the eternal Savior sent by God? How would you know? And so that's what we will look at in the next two Sundays, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to study these things this morning, to be reminded that Jesus is not just someone who was born who had some vision of being a messenger for you or being someone to lead people to you, but he was fully conscious of who he was as the God-man and of his mission that he was sent into this world. He took on a human body in order to be able, as true humanity, to die on the cross to be one with us so that he could die for us and pay the penalty for our sins. And that by the fact that he has died, we have forgiveness of sins. There is complete cleansing from sin. We are made a new creature in Christ, a new creation, a new identity. And that through this, You have blessed us with eternal life, a free gift, not something we work for, but something freely given. So Father, we pray that anyone here, anyone listening to this would come to understand that salvation's a free gift, and that it depends on whether we will accept it or not, understanding who Jesus is and what he did for us on the cross. We pray that you will make that clear to anyone here who has never trusted Christ as Savior, or anyone listening to this now or in the future. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.