I do want to thank my father for the privilege of bringing God's word to you this evening. It has been a joy and a privilege to be connected with IBCS already. The students have a heart to learn, and that has been a delight this past semester. I was given two courses. They said, you know, we'll give him a light load for his for his start We'll give him just two courses and so on the graduate level I got to teach a two-hour course that was surveying the entire Bible in two hours 14 class periods so we had 28 hours to cover the whole Bible with tests and quizzes and Discussions and papers and all those kind of things and the other course was exposition of Romans Which doesn't really require a lot of study in preparation does it? and So, but what a privilege to open God's Word to people who have a heart to learn and to bring it before them. And I do want to remind you that in this ministry, you yourselves have an opportunity to take classes at IBCS. Maybe that goes without saying, but I think sometimes maybe we forget. You're thinking, I don't need another degree. Well, that's fine. There are the opportunities. The pastoral staff from here, others, are able to give us those kind of opportunities to learn and to grow in our understanding of the Scripture. So, on your way out this evening, if you are interested, there is a list of the classes that are being taught this semester. Now, a week of classes has gone by, but drop-add period is not over. And so, some of the highlights, these are classes that I want to take. Pastor Nathan, Going Through the Life of Christ. Two days a week, one hour, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Or Pastor Jeff, teaching a class on apologetics. Or Mr. Stephen Shumate, The Theology of Sin and Salvation. Two days a week, one hour. Or if afternoon doesn't work for you, we have a couple of evening courses. I'm teaching a course on the church, angels, last things, and Mr. David Krekke is teaching a class on acts. Those are just a few of the classes that IBCS is offering this semester to not only train men and women for full-time Christian service, but to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. You say, I can't get out. I don't think I can get over to campus. Well, in person is the best. But if you can't, we do have online options for those who are unable to travel in. So please don't let that stand in your way. So there's a brochure with the current offerings. If you're interested in the full core Bible program, we do have a certificate program that's available. And again, these are available for you. The classes do no good for you if you never take them. And so if the Lord would lay that on your heart, we wanna be a blessing. And I know that you would be a blessing to us, because my students are a blessing to me, and by God's grace, we can study God's word together. You know, during this month, we have been exhorted to read the Bible. Not just read part of the Bible, but to read through the Bible, the entire Bible. So whether you're reading the Bible in a year, or in two years, or as Dr. T did, in three months, we can look at all of the scriptures. We need to incorporate all of God's words as part of our spiritual diet. But sometimes the objection is raised that the Old Testament's not quite as applicable, or not applicable at all. Some believers are tempted to omit the Old Testament from their reading altogether. Or if you do read in the Old Testament, you might find yourself spending most of your time in the last 20% of pages in your printed Bible to the neglect of the first 80% of your pages. Now, in some ways, this emphasis on the New Testament is justified. One of the recommended Bible reading programs for this year is Robert Murray McShane's, in which he is providing a plan for you to get through the New Testament twice, along with Psalms and Proverbs twice, while you go through the rest of the Old Testament once. That is a wise pastor seeking to shepherd his people through a plan that would give them an appropriate exposure to the word of God. But I want you to ask yourself this question. How well do you really understand your New Testament reading if you're unaware of the Old Testament background? How well would you understand New Testament concepts like sacrifice or atonement or holiness if you didn't know the Pentateuch? How deeply would you appreciate God's long-suffering and loyal love if you never heard of his patient, persistent faithfulness to Israel in the historical books? How seriously do you think you would take sin if you had never heard the warnings of the prophets? How significant would you understand Jesus' own claims to be if you didn't know that the good shepherd in Ezekiel is Yahweh himself? that the Messiah is God's anointed son of David the king, that the Son of Man receives all authority from God himself in Daniel, or that the suffering servant of Isaiah bears the iniquities of us all. How superficial might your worship and your wisdom be if you didn't have the writings of David, or of Solomon, or of Ezra? See, the New Testament itself assumes or incorporates Old Testament background for much of its writing. So tonight, I would like us to survey Paul's use of the Old Testament in Romans, and then to hone in on one particular passage in Romans 4 with application to our own perspective on our salvation. And I would like us to look at Scripture. So if you have your Bible, please open it to Romans. If you don't have a Bible, grab the Pew Bible in the seat in front of you and you can turn to page 485 so that we can look at the text that we have before us. I will put a few verses on the PowerPoint, but primarily the PowerPoint will help us keep an outline while we look at individual texts right from our printed Bibles. First of all, I want us to look at Paul's use of the Old Testament in Romans as a whole, as a book. And first of all, this is obvious, but let's start here. Paul sometimes signals direct quotations. Something like, it is written. That occurs in chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter 10, chapter 11, chapter 12, chapter 14, and chapter 15. Paul wants us to know that this has been written. If you look down at verse 16 of chapter 1, this is often called the thematic statement of Romans. He says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, that is in the gospel, in this good news, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. Have you noticed that in Habakkuk recently? That's where that comes from. Paul is quoting one of the prophets. Paul doesn't always say it is written, sometimes he'll say scripture says, or it says, or he says in chapters three, four, nine, 10, 11. So you see, there's a lot of quotation in Romans. But sometimes he's incorporating quotations or allusions just throughout his argument. Sometimes he'll quote a phrase. Look at chapter two, verse six. where Paul says God will render to each one according to his deeds. That's a quote from Psalm 62 or Proverbs 24. Drop down to verse 22. Paul says, you who say do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? Exodus chapter 20 verse 14. So he quotes individual phrases. So just grab a phrase and drop it in. Sometimes though, he's quoting an entire passage or set of verses. So if you turn to chapter three, we see one of these as it is written statements in verse 10. Verse nine, he's trying to argue that everybody is under sin. We are all under the curse of our sin. And he says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one. There he's quoting from Psalm 14, verses one through three. But this quotation in chapter three is also a good example of what some people will call pearl stringing, or if you like Latin, catena, a chain, where Paul is putting together multiple quotations to make a point. So if you keep reading there in Romans chapter three, you see their throat is an open tomb. Their tongues have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. the way of peace they have not known." He concludes, there is no fear of God before their eyes. That's from Psalm 14, Ecclesiastes 7, Psalm 5, Psalm 140, Psalm 10, Isaiah 59, Psalm 36. And in that chain of passages, Paul quotes from the three major sections of the Hebrew Old Testament. He quotes from the Law, he quotes from the Prophets, he quotes from the Writings. In fact, he quotes from the three most often quoted books of the Old Testament. He quotes from Deuteronomy, he quotes from Isaiah, and he quotes from Psalms. In I'm sorry. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Hold that statement. That is for Romans 15, and I apologize. I'm getting you confused. The first string was indeed from Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Isaiah. But if you turn to Romans chapter 15, so we're going to flip to the back of the book, and then we'll work our way back forward. Romans 15. This one is significant. He's quoting from every section of the Old Testament. He's quoting from Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy. And if you look down at verse nine, Paul says, as it is written, okay, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written. And he pulls all of these quotations together. And his point is that the Gentile inclusion in God's plan of salvation has been part of the plan from the beginning. We sometimes think when we turn to the New Testament that all of a sudden there's this brand new thing on the planet called Gentiles, and it was just for the Jews beforehand. But Paul was pointing out that God has been planning this all along. Look at Deuteronomy, look at Psalms, look at Isaiah. Look at 2 Samuel. We get to be included in God's plan of salvation. Sometimes, Paul is just alluding to something in the context of the Old Testament that he will bring in. So, for example, he might use a phrase like circumcision of the heart from Deuteronomy 10. Or an illustration. If you look back in chapter nine, verse nine, Romans 9, verse 9, Paul talks about the potter, one who is molded by God. Surely you have turned things around, God says back in Isaiah. Should the potter be esteemed as the clay? Should the thing that's made turn to him who formed it and say, why did you make me like this? Paul is pulling an illustration. So when Paul talks about the potter in Romans, you ought to have in the back of your mind what Jeremiah saw when he went to the potter and the vessel was wrecked in the potter's hands and he remade it into something new. Paul is borrowing from these things. Paul also alludes to history. So I had you turn to chapter nine, verse nine. This is the word of the promise. At this time, I will come and Sarah will have a son. Paul alludes to the narrative of the Old Testament. When he's alluding to biblical history, Paul does sometimes allude to just the general situation, right? Life under the law. Sometimes he's giving you specific events. In Romans, you will see references to Adam's disobedience, to Isaac's birth, to Egypt's plagues, to David's sin with Bathsheba, or to Elijah's flight from Jezebel. You will also see specific people who are mentioned. Moses, Hosea, David, Abraham, Hagar, Rebekah, Pharaoh, Jacob, Esau, Adam, Elijah, Isaac, Ishmael, and Isaiah. Paul references a vast array of books. These are the books from the Pentateuch that Paul references. These are his historical books. These are the poetic books. These are the major prophets. These are the minor prophets. Paul has woven all of this into this brief treatise, this brief epistle to the Romans. But Paul is employing the Old Testament with purpose. There's a reason that Paul does this, and this is why we need to grasp it. We need to understand what's the significance of all of this? Why does he take so much effort to connect his writing to the Old Testament scriptures? Well, first of all, he's grounding his message in God's revelation. He wants the Romans, he wants you to know that Paul's message is based on God's truth. When Paul's message came to the Romans, they knew the Old Testament was God's truth. They could compare. They could do like the Bereans and search the Scriptures to see if these things were so. And so we can have confidence that this message is based on the Scriptures. But we also know Paul is illustrating how the Old Testament connects to your life as a Christian. How should you use the Old Testament? You are a New Testament believer after all. We are not living under the Old Covenant. So is there any relevance for the Old Testament in your life? Well, Paul is illustrating how that happens. Back in Romans chapter three, we're reminded that the Old Testament reminds us of our sin. We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God. When you read the Old Testament, you ought to be reminded of your sin. You ought to be reminded of your guilt before a holy God. And that is one of the purposes that we have the Old Testament in our hands. But turn over to chapter 12, because if you're familiar at all with the Book of Romans, you know that the first 11 chapters are carefully reasoned doctrinal defense of the righteousness of God. And when you come to chapter 12, you have this word, therefore. where Paul connects the doctrine that has preceded it with a very practical application that needs to flow out in your life and my life. And it is here that we see a lot of applications in the practical outworking of Old Testament truth in the daily life of New Testament believers. If you look at chapter 12, verse 19, we see that divine prerogatives remain the same in both Old and New Testaments. Paul reminds us that vengeance is God's. He will repay, says the Lord. That's why you shouldn't avenge yourselves. There's no need to take matters into your own hands. No need to get stirred up to get angry. You try to band everybody together for your cause because there is a God and He has reserved vengeance for Himself. Old Testament gives principles for wise Christian living. Look at the next verse, at verse 20. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Proverbs 25, 21. The Old Testament commandments will inform how I ought to love. Look over at chapter 13 and verse nine. Paul says these commandments, don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't covet. And if there's any other commandment, it's all summed up in this saying, namely, Leviticus 19.19, love your neighbor. as yourself. See, love does no harm to a neighbor. That's why love is the fulfillment of the law. The Old Testament can inform how you love those around you. The Old Testament informs my relationship with God, even as my relationship in Christ, right? My relationship with God in Christ can be informed by Old Testament scriptures. Chapter 14, verse 11, just as it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God, so then every one of us will give account of himself to God. The Old Testament informs my Christology, my understanding of who Jesus is. Look at chapter 15, verse three. Even Christ didn't please himself. Just as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me. Psalm 69. But when the Old Testament informs my Christology, it also informs what Christlikeness looks like in my life. Back at the previous verse, verse 2, let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification, because look at Christ in the Psalms. The Old Testament motivates my faith and my hope. Just a few verses later, chapter 15, verse 12, again, Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles will hope. So now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Old Testament can even inform your priorities as a New Testament believer. Look at verse 20 of the same chapter, Romans 15, verse 20. Paul says, I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation, but just as it is written, to whom it was announced, they shall see. And those who have not heard shall understand. Isaiah 52, verse 15. Finally, Paul does use the Old Testament to contrast a life of faith with a life of works. Paul is not saying that the Old Testament was about pleasing God by your works, but he is saying that depending on how you read the Old Testament, depending on how you understand it, you may be tempted to think that you can work your way to heaven. You may be tempted to think that you can please God by your works. And he uses the Old Testament itself to show us that is not what God intends. That is not how Old Testament believers lived. Romans 9, he tells us, the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith, but Israel Pursuing a law of righteousness never attained the law of righteousness. Why? Because they didn't seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law, they stumbled on that stumbling stone just as it was written. Behold, I lay in Zion, a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. But at this point, I would like us to look a little bit more closely at Romans chapter four. I've given us a survey of the book to give you a sense of what Paul is trying to do. Let's now take a breath and drill down a little bit and understand how Paul uses this. We see the discontinuity, the break that the New Testament makes from the Old Testament, as well as the continuity, the connections, in Romans 3.21, where Paul says, now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Not by works of the law, but the law and the prophets do bear witness to it. And so if you continue looking through chapter three and the end of it, we see that Paul is explaining that God's righteousness is available to everybody regardless of your nationality. You say, how do I know that? Well, there's two reasons. Number one, you've all sinned. You all have the exact same problem. all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, there is no distinction. But secondly, Christ's atoning death, with no contribution from us, is the only way of salvation, so we all have the same way of solving our problem. We all have the same problem, sin, but we all have the same solution, and that is Christ. New Testament or Old Testament, it's the same. So Christ's redemption, Paul is explaining, verse 25 and 26, is the answer to the sin of all ages, both before and after Jesus' death. There's no room for boasting among humans, Romans 3.27, because salvation is by faith. Paul therefore concludes, verse 38, that a man is justified apart from the deeds of the law. Now, if you're a Jew, and you're relying on conformity to the Mosaic law as your means of salvation, to be told that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law is a shocking statement. Do we recognize how that would have hurt, how that would have sounded to somebody in Paul's day? Well, maybe we can. We just think about who Paul was. How did Paul react when he first heard that kind of teaching? He tried to kill anybody who would say that. It was so radical. It was so contrary to everything he believed. But Paul is going to defend that radical statement from the life of Abraham himself. And so if you look at chapter four, verse one, he says, what should we say then that Abraham, our father, has found according to the flesh? Because if Abraham was justified by works, then he has something to boast about. but not before God, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. So Paul starts out laying the foundation, he says, boasting is excluded. You don't get to go before God and tell God he owes you something. You don't get to put God in your debt. He's gonna remind us of that in Romans 11, out of the book of Job. We don't get to go before God and say, God, look at all the good things I've done. Now you, I deserve heaven. You owe it to me. I don't know about these other people. They didn't do the good works that I did, but me, I earned it. No, that doesn't happen. There is no boasting before God. Because the scripture says something different, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Paul is drawing your attention to the exact wording of God's statement to Abraham in a specific context to prove to you that salvation is by faith, not works. The word justified is a word that means to be declared righteous, something that you would see in a court of law, to be declared not guilty, but not just declared not guilty, not just declared innocent, but declared in the right. Abraham was declared righteous by faith. It is not technically that Abraham's faith is counted as righteousness. That's not what the passage says. The preposition that is used is a preposition for into or unto. His faith was accounted unto righteousness. His faith is accounted leading toward a result with a purpose, with something in view. When Abraham responded to God in faith, God provided him his righteousness. That is justification. In other words, faith is the means of securing God's gift of justification. It's not a contribution, as if it were a work. Faith is what places a believer in union with Christ, and that union enables God to justify you. There is no boasting in grace, Paul reminds us, verse 4, because To him who works, wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. You know this. We were reminded of this this morning, right? If you work and your employer gives you your paycheck at the end of the week, you don't sit down and write him a thank you note. Maybe you do the first time because you're glad to have a new job, but the 12th time, the 13th time, he doesn't want your thank you notes. It's a debt, he owes it to you. As soon as there is work, there is a debt. We cannot put God in our debt. We cannot work for our salvation. If you want an illustration of this, Paul gives us one. The illustration is the testimony of David. Verse 5, but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. David says in Psalm 32, one of the penitential Psalms, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now, the Old Testament does not connect Psalm 32 to any particular event in David's life. But in the previous chapter, Paul quoted from Psalm 51, where the heading over the Psalm reminds us that this is what David penned after he had sinned with Bathsheba. And the same things are what Paul says in Psalm 32. In Psalm 51, as Paul quotes it, David declares that God's judgments are just upon sin. And in Psalm 32, he says, but how blessed is the man to whom God doesn't impute that sin. That means that David, the adulterer, David, the murderer of Uriah. David, the king, the typological messiah who tarnished his own reputation, who brought great pain and suffering to his family and his subjects, who invited ridicule against God-given authority. David, the transgressor, was forgiven. David, sins were covered. God did not count his sin against him. David was justified by faith. Have you ever doubted God's ability to save you as a sinner? Look at David and take heart. God justifies the ungodly who come to him in repentant faith. And Paul wants us to remember that. But he asks us then, verse nine, does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only or also upon the uncircumcised? He's asking a question about the rituals and the rites of the Israelite people. Does this kind of justification happen to somebody who is not of the seed of Abraham physically, who is not one of the chosen people of God in the Israelite nation? Could this justification be available to anybody else? And Paul wants us to look at the timing of God's declaration to understand this. This is before Abraham was circumcised. He reminds us, verse 11, Abraham received that sign, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he already had while he was still uncircumcised, so that Abraham might be the father of all who believed, though they are uncircumcised, so that righteousness might be imputed also to them. and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, that is, who are Jews, but also who walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised." You see, Paul's point is that the timing of this statement matters. Paul is not just grabbing a passage somewhere out of the Old Testament and dropping it in. And we need to be careful that we don't do that with the Old Testament. Paul wants us to know the chronology of the Old Testament. Maybe you've picked a chronological Bible to read this year, a chronological plan that can really help your understanding of scripture as you start putting things into their place. And Paul is building his case on the timing of God's statement. Abraham was justified before the law was given. He was justified before he received the sign of circumcision. He was justified before he offered Isaac upon the altar. He was justified 15 years before Isaac was born. He was justified before Ishmael was conceived by Hagar. In fact, he was justified even before God changed his name from Abram to Abraham. It is clear then that salvation, justification, cannot be equated with a religious rite, a religious ceremony, like baptism or the sacraments. It can't be equated with keeping a set of rules. Justification is a gift from God, and we know that because Abraham was justified before any of these outward acts or signs had happened. Fourthly, we see the basis of God's declaration to Abraham. Again, Paul is weaving together these aspects of the Old Testament narrative. And he wants us to remind us verse three, verse 13, excuse me. Verse 13, for the promise that Abraham would be the heir of the world. The promise that he would, I'm sorry, this is of the Messiah. The promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Because if those who are of the law are heirs, then faith is made void and the promise is made of no effect. Because the law brings about wrath. For where there is no law, there is no transgression. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be according to grace so that the promise might be certain. To all the seed, not only those who are of the law, but also those who are of the faith of Abraham, who was the father of us all, just as it is written, I made you a father of many nations. In the presence of whom he believed. Who did he believe? Who did Abraham believe? He believed God. What about God in particular? God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which did not exist as though they did. Who contrary to hope in hope believes that he might be the father so that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken so shall your descendants be. We ourselves could be heirs of Abraham's righteousness, his imputed righteousness, the righteousness that he received from God. We can be heirs of that same justification when we are heirs of Abraham's faith. What does that kind of faith look like? Well, Paul gives us an illustration here. It is the birth of Isaac. Abraham, at 85 years old, did not doubt God's promise that he would have a son. not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead. Since, at this time, the first promise came was in 85. Later on, he's 100 years old. He's not considering that or the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced that what he had promised, he was able to perform, and therefore, it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now God hasn't come to you with a promise like that. So what does that look like? That looks like when you look at God's word and he says, it is appointed to men once to die and after that, the judgment. But if you believe in his son, Jesus Christ, you can have eternal life, not by your works, but by grace. When you stake your eternal destiny on that, recognizing you don't have it in your flesh to make this happen. Recognizing that you're staking your faith on something that you can't see and you won't see for many years, perhaps. But you are staking your faith on the words of God. You refuse to call God a liar. You demand of yourself that you believe what God says. That is the kind of faith that justifies. That is the kind of faith that God looks at and it is imputed to him, it is accounted to him for righteousness. So what is the benefit then of God's declaration to Abraham in Genesis 15? And Paul tells us that in verses 23 through 25, when he reminds us, it was not written for Abraham's sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. See, God knew in advance how he was going to bring about your salvation and mine, and 4,000 years ago, he put himself on record that justification is by grace through faith apart from works. So the next time that you read through Romans, or through any other part of Scripture for that matter, be aware of the threads that are interwoven from other parts of Scripture. In particular, read the Bible with an eye for quotations, or for allusions, or for illustrations from the Old Testament. You know, it's okay to pause during your reading through Romans and go ahead and look up. that passage. Maybe you have a cross-reference Bible or a study Bible. It's okay to pause in your reading. God's okay with that. You can stop, and you can flip back a few pages or a thousand pages in your printed copy of the Word, and you can go back and see what he's referring to. You can allow God to speak to you from his whole Word. It's okay to take a class, a Bible class, that will inform your understanding of Scripture and how the Scriptures fit together. It is okay to look up in Galatians, or Matthew, or Acts, or 2 Peter, or if you really want a project, look up all the Old Testament references in Revelation. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. And God wants us to recognize that you need to put yourself in the place of a reader who recognizes that it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed, but also for us. Do you realize that the Old Testament, this statement in particular, but the Old Testament was written for us? so that we can understand what God would have for us, so we can truly appreciate it, right? We can understand from the New Testament everything we need to know to get to heaven, but God intends us to appreciate it in our spirits and in our worship by looking at the whole of his revelation. So two quick applications in closing. First of all, read all of God's word. You are an heir of God's revelation which is available to you by the grace of God. If you have ever studied the history of the word of God or the history even of the English Bible, you will recognize the hands of God's grace that we have this in our hands. That we are an heir of the revelation that God himself has given to us by inspiration so that we can profit in our doctrine and reproof and correction and instruction in righteousness so that we can be completely equipped for everything God has for us. And secondly, as we have sung tonight, rejoice in your justification because you are an heir of God's righteousness, available to you by grace through faith. I hope you are an heir. This righteousness is available to all who come to God by grace through faith. If you have not yet put down the arms of your resistance, or you've not yet humbled yourself and laid aside your efforts at self-glorification, if you have not accepted the gift of eternal life, you must. You must. Because this is how you're justified. But if you have accepted that gift, rejoice. Rejoice in what God has done. Let's close in prayer.