If I was to ask you this evening to turn to the Old Testament chapter that most vividly presents the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ, I wonder would you turn to Isaiah chapter 53? Because that's where we're turning this evening for Bible reading, the book of Isaiah chapter number 53. And of all the chapters of God's Word in the Old Testament, surely this chapter brings us to the cross of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So we're turning to Isaiah chapter 53, and we're beginning our reading at the opening verse of the chapter. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, And as a root out of a dry ground, he hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, Chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears his dung, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with a wicket, with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. Now shall make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Amen, and we'll end the reading at the natural break, just there at the end of the chapter. Let's seek the Lord, and a word of prayer with God's word before us. Open, please. Our loving and our eternal and gracious Father, we come, dear God, and we stand at the foot of the old rugged cross. We see there the lamb for sinners slain. Thank you for the one who poured out his soul as an offering for sin, the one who was smitten, afflicted, smitten of God, the one who endured all that was required put away sin and Lord as we stand at the foot of Calvary's tree tonight let us catch a glimpse of the crucified one when our hearts again grant dear God the stirring of soul love to be inflamed within our lives as we consider dark Calvary grant dear God by blessing upon the preaching of thy word. Therefore fill this preacher with the Holy Ghost and with power, and magnify thine only begotten Son. For I offer prayer in and through his wondrous name. Amen and amen. There are many types of news in our world today. Taking the news reported in simply a daily broadsheet newspaper, for example, we see a diversity of news appearing on the printed pages of such a publication. There is what is known as hard news. That is really the traditional news of the day. There's sports news, feature news, and also editorial news. That news that is the collective opinion of an editorial team rather than the opinion of some individual writer. And then we have what is known as fake news. That is a term that has come to be popular in the 21st century. Fake news is that type of journalism that consists of deliberate misinformation being spread by reporters, whether it be through traditional print or broadcast news, or online social media. It's a type of news that is written and published with the deliberate attempt to damage an agency, an entity, or a particular person. Whatever kind of news you care to think about tonight, the news, that news requires a news reporter to communicate either facts or fiction to the person who is reading it. Whether they communicate that news, that report by tweeting or by writing or by speech or even by sign language, a reporter is required and needed to convey the details of a particular event for us to be informed with respect to all that happened. As I thought about this gospel meeting this evening and the continuing series of messages concerning various occupations that we've been thinking about in our gospel evening services, my mind was taken to this text This portion of God's Word, it was a portion that I preached on a few weeks ago in our Gospel Open Air service, and it really is a passage of God's Word that is suited for a news reporter. Isaiah chapter 53. The opening words present to us a question. It is a question that is asked by Isaiah the prophet on behalf of all of God's faithful messengers and preachers, evangelists and ministers down through the ages of church history. Isaiah asked the question, who hath believed our report. Who hath believed our report. It's interesting that Isaiah does not say here, who hath believed my report. Although it was that which he was reporting himself, he takes it broader and incorporates that little word, that personal pronoun, our. Who hath believed our report. Every faithful messenger of God is a reporter of God's message. Can I go further and say that every Christian is to be a messenger, is to be God's reporter. It is the responsibility of every child of God to report, to communicate to others what God would have them to know. And what would God have men and women, young people, boys and girls to know? Would God have the world to know the long-range weather forecast for the next couple of months? Is that what God would have you to report tomorrow in your place of employment or education? Would God have you to report last week's March prices? Would God have you to report the latest developments within the political circles? Would God have us to report what team won the English Premiership? Would God have us to report the latest gossip in the community about some family or some individual? Is that what God would have His people to report? It is none of these things. God would have us to report nothing else but the Gospel. Because my dear friends, there is nothing else worth reporting than the Gospel. Because it is the Gospel that meets the need of every human soul. It is the Gospel that meets the sinner's need. As we consider this chapter of God's Word before we do so, For we consider what we are to communicate to others, and what I, by the help and grace of God, will communicate to you tonight. I want to say a few things about this report that Isaiah speaks of. Who hath believed our report? I want you to see, first of all, that this report is divine in its origin. It is divine in its origin. The report of the gospel is not a man-made report. It is not a report that has been drawn up by some religious body. It's not this product of some religious organization, a church or a particular denomination, but rather this report comes directly from God Himself. When a preacher, a minister, an evangelist, a layman stands behind a pulpit and opens up the Word of God and preaches from the Word of God, that preacher is preaching God's report about God's Son. That's what he's doing. This report, found between the covers of this divine book, is divinely inspired. a divinely inspired report. And therefore, when that report is given, it is not my word that you reject, it is not my word that you spurn, it is not my word that you disbelieve, but rather this divinely inspired and given report. Is that what you reject as you cast it aside in the gospel? Do that, sinner, at your own peril. Because God's report places unique claims upon you, and it demands unquestionable submission from you. May it not be said of you that you failed to believe this divinely given report. But there is something else that I want you to see about this report that it is truthful in its content. All that we hear in the news must not be believed. You understand that to be so. Reporters place their spin on certain facts. There is, sadly, that in our nation, a lack of presenting truth, presenting fact. Rather, there's spin, there's lies. being put out into the world, and men and women quickly fall for the lie. They would rather believe lies than actually to believe the truth. However, the report concerning God's own Son is not some mere notion, is not some romantic fiction, is not some commonly devised fable, but as 2 Peter 1, verse 19 states, it is a sure word of prophecy. Would you listen to this definitive statement that we have in Psalm 119, in the verse 160? Thy word is true from the beginning. Thy word is true from the beginning. There is no fake news in this Bible. There is no fake news in this divinely inspired word, because it has come from the God of truth. The God of truth has communicated this message of truth to us. William Nicholson remarked, the continual efficacy of the gospel in all succeeding generations in the converting of sinners and in the sanctifying and the comforting of believers is a conclusive evidence that this report is true. My question to you is what have you done with this true report? What have you done with this honest report? What have you done with this factual report? Have you believed it? Have you believed the report concerning Jesus Christ found in this word? Or is it the case that tonight you question its veracity, its truthfulness? All I trust to say this evening will come from this truthful report. I trust that what I will present tonight will be truthful. as God so helps me. The question is, will you believe the truthful report presented to you in the gospel? Because you see, because it is truthful, then it's trustworthy. Because it's truthful, then it's trustworthy. So trustworthy that, sinner, you can stake your soul on the very truth of it and the very content of it. Tonight you could take a single promise from God and you could swing out over hell upon it and be assured that you would never perish. That is how truthful and that is how trustworthy this report is. Who hath believed our report, divine in its origin, is also truthful. and its content. But in the third place, I want you to see that it's life-changing in its effect. It's life-changing in its effect. You see, folks, whenever this report gets a hold of you, and whenever you come to agree with what the report communicates to you about your spiritual state, and about the remedy for that spiritual state. And when you come to accept and to embrace and to follow all that this report tells you to do, then your whole life will be changed as the gospel takes possession of that life of yours. Many have believed the report. And thank God they have known its life-changing effects. I wonder this evening will you believe this report, addressing you who have never yet believed upon it, you who have never known the full effect that believing this report brings. Let me encourage you this very evening, let me encourage you this very night to believe this divine, this truthful, this life-changing report that will be to the saving of your soul. Believe the record true. May you believe to the saving of your precious soul. Now there are certain things that God would have me as his reporter to communicate to you this evening in the gospel as we look at Isaiah chapter number 53. After I do so, after I report those truths to you, It will then fall to you whether or not you believe the report. My simple task is to communicate truth and trust that you will believe the truth as it is found in God's precious word. Now I emphasize and I reemphasize that it is not my report. It is not this church's report. This is God's report. And you need to keep that in mind when it comes to that moment when you will respond to the report, God's message, God's communication. And you need to ask yourself the question, what am I going to do tonight with God's report about Him and about me? Now as we look at this report, there are various things that we want to draw, or I want to draw to your attention this evening. The first thing I direct your attention to that is reported in this chapter is the strained sinner. The strained sinner. Isaiah 53 verse 6 tells us, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. Now the question that comes to my mind automatically as I read about natural man straying because of a sin is the question, from what or from whom is the sinner straying? Now that question has no one single answer, rather it has a multiplicity of answers. Can I say in the first place that the sinner has strayed from God himself? has strayed from God himself. Because of our sinful nature, we find ourselves from birth wandering from God. We find ourselves estranged, as the psalmist said, from the very womb. Inherited sin, that which has come down to us through the blood of Adam and down through the human race, that inherited sin, original sin, creates a bias within the human nature. That biasness causes us to just naturally wander away from our Maker and to go astray from our Creator. Within us there is a will, a will that is prejudiced to sin. This aptness on the part of the sinner to stray from God is spoken of time and time again. Psalm 58, verse 3, the wicked are estranged from the womb. Psalm 119, verse 176, I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commands. 1 Peter 2, verse 25, for ye were a sheep going astray, but now are returned on to the shepherd. and bishop of your souls. Is it not true? Here you are tonight. You're in this house. Providence has brought you here. God has so arranged and ordered your day that you're found in the house of God, and yet is it not the case that you're found at a distance from God? And is it not the case that the longer you live and the more that you indulge in sin, the more you seem to get further away from him. And even in your attempts to try to get close to God, it seems to be that you go further and further away. Your sin causes you to stray. God, God must come. God must come and break. that hard heart of yours. God must come and intervene, intervene into your life. If ever you are to be a Christian, if you're to stop your wandering and you're going astray, if you are to stop from going further and away from God, then you need to be brought to the place where Christ has stepped in and opened your heart and brought you to a place of repentance. You've gone astray from God. You've gone astray from the One who promises life only for you to go. towards death. You've gone from Him who's promised to give joy unspeakable and happiness and purpose in life only to find yourself going deeper and deeper into sorrow and grief. You've gone from Him who would give you heaven only to be closer to hell than you were last week. Sinner, you're straying from God. Something else that the sinner strays from, the sinner strays from God's law. As the governor of all nations, God is a law to which every created being and every nation is subject to. Contrary to what the sinner thinks, obedience to that law does not bring a person into bondage, but rather into glorious freedom. However, the natural tendency of the sinner and the human heart is not to comply to the law of God, but rather to resist the law, to set themselves against the law of God, to oppose the law, to put yourself on a war footing with God. and thereby breaking God's law on a daily basis in thought and in word and indeed doing that which God forbids you to do and failing to do that which God tells you to do. Sinful man has set his heart, her heart, upon breaking God's very law. And as a result, they stray from the law of God. In the book of Ecclesiastes, we read, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, the heart of men, the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. God's moral law, that which was codified there on Mount Sinai in those 10 commandments is still enforced today. Thereby, adultery is still sin. Idolatry is still sin. Blasphemy is still sin. Sabbath breaking is still sin. Parental disobedience is still sin. Murder is still sin. Stealing is still sin. Lying is still sin. Covetousness is still sin. And yet sinners by their life choices. have decided to stray from the safe path of God's law, and have willfully violated that law, placing themselves on a collision course with God. I tell you, sinner, you're a lawbreaker, and you place yourself as the lawbreaker on a collision course with God. He, the lawgiver, will bring you, the lawbreaker, to account. He shall bring every work into judgment, whether it be evil or whether it be good. He shall bring you into the judgment, and He'll judge you according to His righteous, to His holy, and to His unbreakable law. Is it not true, sinner? Is it not true that tonight, up until this moment of life's journey, You have willfully disregarded and defied God's law, God's holy law. You've lived a life that is contrary to that law, without worrying about it, without breaking sweat over it. You've happily gone on as a lawbreaker against God. You've set yourself against his very law. What will the end of you be? I'll tell you what it'll be. It'll be the judgment. Having broken God's law, you'll face the punishment of that law, the judgment. It happens in secular society. The law of the land is broken. The transgressor must face the consequences. So it happens in the gospel. Though God be long-suffering, though He show you mercy, though He show you patience, God will bring you to judgment, and God will judge you according to His law. In the third place, the sinner strays not only from God himself, not only from the law of God, but the sinner also strays from God's truth. Pontius Pilate asked the Savior a question when he stood before him in John chapter 18 and the verse 38. The Roman governor asked him on that occasion, what is truth? Now the Savior never answered Pilate on that day because he had already given the answer. He gave the answer in John chapter 17 verse 17, Thy word is truth. Thy word is truth. He had also said in John chapter 14 that I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh on to the Father but by me. God's truth is God's Word, and God's Word is God's truth. All that is found in this book is true and is truth. But sinners, instead of obeying the truth, they reject the truth. They stray from the truth as it's found in God's precious Word. When the God of truth says to the sinner that you must be born again, If they are ever to see the kingdom of heaven, the sinner, instead of accepting that truth, thinks to themselves that by doing my best, that will be enough to secure me in place in God's heaven. And so they are found strained from the truth of God's word. When God in truth says to the sinner that you are to repent and to believe the gospel, but the sinner instead of accepting that truth rejects it and lives a life, lives a life of sin and chooses not to believe the gospel, they find themselves strained from the truth. When the Bible and the God of truth would say to you, sinner, to forsake your wicked way and to return on to the Lord, You, the sinner, have denied that. You, the sinner, have rejected that, and you've continued to walk on in your wicked way, and you've refused to turn on to the Lord. When you do that, sinner, when you reject the truth, then all that you're left with is that which is false, that which is untrue, that which is bogus, when you stray from the truth. Here you are tonight. straight from the truth. If that be your case, I want you to listen to the words that we find here in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 12. It's a verse that pulls no punches when speaking about the one who rejects the truth. Because I read in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 12 that they all might be damned who believe not the truth. but hath pleasure in unrighteousness. Sinner, you will be damned. This is Holy Ghost language. This is the language of the Bible. You may not like it. It may not appeal to you, but this is the truth of God's Word. The Bible says that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Is that you tonight? Do you love your sin? Do you love your immorality? Do you love your godlessness? Do you love your Christ rejection and your God denying? Do you love your atheism, your agnosticism? Do you love your sin, your unrighteousness, your iniquity? Do you love it? Well God says you'll be damned. This is the truth. Those who believe not the truth, the truth as it is found in the written word and in the incarnate Word. It's found in the Bible, found in the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you believed the truth, or are you straying from the truth? When you do, you'll stray into error, you'll stray into falsehood, and you'll be eventually damned. God's report concerning you is that you are a strained sinner. You have strayed from God, you have strayed from his law, you have strayed from his truth. Now, ask the question that Isaiah asks, who hath believed our report? This is a report from God's precious word tonight. Will you believe it? You say in your soul tonight, preacher, you're right. I have strayed from God. I have strayed from his law. I have strayed from his truth. This record is true about me tonight. 100% true. This is true. Thank God if you would take that position, then you're on the way to God's salvation. But there's something else that I find reported in this great chapter. Not only the strained sinner, but I see the suffering Savior. The suffering Savior. These words were written 600 years prior to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. 600 years before the Messiah stepped into human history. 600 years before Jesus of Nazareth was ever born in Bethlehem. These words are spoken prophetically by the prophet Isaiah. Those words bring to our attention the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Listen to them again. Stand beneath the shadow of the cross. Picture the scene as Christ hangs at Calvary's hillside, naked, despised, rejected of men. Consider the one that's been spat upon, buffeted, beaten, bruised. Consider and view the one whose head is now crowned with thorns, the blood flowing from hands and feet. Consider the suffering Savior. He is despised and rejected of men, man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is done, so he opened not his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, and thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Oh, the sufferings of the blessed Son of God! Oh, the sufferings there on Calvary's middle tree. Oh, the sufferings that he endures in body. Yes, but in soul. A soul that is exceeding sorrowful even unto death in Gethsemane's garden. What must the soul have been there at Golgotha's hillside that if only at Gethsemane it was exceeding sorrowful unto death. Oh, the soul sufferings, the mental anguish. The physical sufferings all combined and all brought together into the crucible of Calvary, the suffering Savior. Those sufferings were indispensable for three reasons. Firstly, they were indispensable because the justice of God decreed it. God did not set aside His justice at Calvary. in order to exhibit his love. He did not do that. Justice is upheld while love is demonstrated. All brought together, the penalty of sin must be paid. Justice decreed. Way back in the Old Testament, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Adam and Eve, they knew that. the day that thou readest her off thou shalt surely die." That was the penalty of sin. Justice demands the soul to die. Justice requires the death of a sinner. And yet the wondrous thing is that by the death And by the sufferings of the blessed Son of God, the great substitute for His people there at the cross, Christ pays the price that justice demands. He dies so that I might live. He suffers so that I will never have to suffer. He endures hell for me so that I would never have to go through the very gates of hell. Justice decreed it. But the sufferings of Christ were indispensable for another reason, the Word of God declared it. God's Word prophetically revealed that the Messiah, the coming one, the Son of God would suffer for sins. We have read about it here in this portion of God's Word. He would make his soul an offering for sin. He would be wounded. This one that would come, this servant of Jehovah, this one whose visage was marred more than any other man and is far more than the sons of men, Isaiah 52 verse 14, this one, this one would suffer. Prophetically, prophetically shown in the types and in the offerings A lamb would suffer, the bullock would suffer, the dove would suffer, the pigeon would suffer. There was suffering, suffering when they were being offered by the Levite priest there at the temple, at the altar, pointing us to the cross. There's suffering involved. I say that suffering involved bloodshedding. I make no apology to say that we believe in the blood of Christ, the blood of Christ to cleanse away the soul. This is not bloodless, this is not bloodless suffering, but this is suffering that involves the sharing of precious blood, His blood, spotless, unblemished, sinless blood shared on Calvary's cross. The Word of God said that without sharing of blood there would be no remission of sins. Let me say that if Jesus Christ had have died in some way that did not involve suffering or bloodshedding. Therefore, what he declared to have done would have fallen because it would not have been the fulfillment of Scripture. But fulfillment of Scripture, thank God Christ did at the cross of Calvary. He makes good on these prophetic writings. He's delivered for our offenses. He dies for our sins according to the Scriptures. Not to suffer for sin would have meant Jesus Christ was a fraudulent Messiah. But no fraudulent Messiah was he. He suffers for sin. He suffers for my sin. The Messiah must be cut off. Is that not what Daniel said? That he would be cut off out of the land of the living? the Savior of his people. All fulfillment requires a suffering Savior. The sufferings of Christ were indispensable for a third reason, because the redemption of the soul demands it. We could only be delivered from our sin by the blood of God's dear Son. Jesus Christ came and gave himself and his life to redeem a people from their sin. It was necessary. Redemption requires suffering. And we ask you in light of the Savior's suffering presented so vividly here on the pages of Holy Scripture, does it mean anything to you? Sinner, does it mean anything to you? Does it cost you a thought to consider that Christ suffered for me? that he died for my sin, that he took my sins to himself, that he was stricken, he was smitten of God, he was afflicted for me. Does it cause any anxiety? Does it cause any stirring within that hard heart and soul of yours tonight that Christ was wounded and bruised for your transgressions and for your iniquities, that He was bruised, that He was put to grief by the Father on account of your sins? Sinner, is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, as you pass by the cross? What does this report mean to you of a suffering Savior? And what is your response to that report? Will you receive Him as your Savior? Having suffered such a violent death to secure salvation from sin, will you reject that which has been secured by His sufferings, by His death? And will you instead attempt to appease God some other way? There is no other way to be reconciled to God but through the death of his dear Son. There is a third and final thing I see reported in this chapter, namely the substitutionary sacrifice. We've known it, the suffering Savior. He's presented to us in this chapter. But we come to understand from the language used within the chapter that he was suffering not for himself, but he's suffering on behalf of others. He's being a substitute. Mark carefully the words used by the prophet in the chapter. Verse four, surely he had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Verse five, he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. Verse six, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Verse eight, he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Verse 11, he shall bear their iniquities. Verse 12, he shall bear the sin of many. You see, Isaiah is very careful in the language that he uses here within the chapter. He attributes the blame to the sinner. not the Savior for his sufferings. It is very clear that Christ did not die for his own sins, for he had none to die for. He is the holy, spotless, blameless Son of God, but rather He suffers as a substitute. He takes the sinner's place. He stands in their room. He takes to Himself the responsibility of dying as their offering, as their sacrifice. He offers up Himself as a sacrifice for sin, becoming the substitutionary sacrifice for all who would believe in Him. Think of it in this way, sinner. Divine wrath. that was coming down and coming to meet you, converged on the sacred body of the Lord Jesus Christ in order that you might be freed from your sin and be delivered from hell. What a load, what a weight, what a burden of sin was laid upon the Son of God there at Calvary's cross. It would take nothing less but infinite love from an infinite God to carry such a load, but carry it He did. He carried my sins to the cross, and as He did, I bear them no more. And because of that, because he took the responsibility of carrying my sins. Thank God, the one who trusts in Christ, the one who believes in Christ, the one who is safe from their sin, never will endure the punishment that those sins rightly and justly deserve because of the substitutionary sacrifice of a suffering Savior for a strained sinner. and for a sinning sinner. Let me ask you, as I bring this gospel meeting to a close, what will you do with this report? Another has suffered in your place. Another has died. Another has secured heaven for you. What will you do with this report? It's very interesting to notice that the beginning of this chapter, the question is not who has heard this report, because you have heard it hundreds of times. The question is not who has intellectually understood this report, because intellectually you understand it. The language used tonight has been simple. I trust it has. It isn't even who has given a consensual nod to this report. But the question is, who hath believed? Who hath believed our report? My closing questions enter these. Will you believe the report? Will you believe the report to the saving of your soul? Will you believe this report, a report that's divine in its origin, that it's truthful in its account and its content, that is life-changing in its effect? Will you believe this report, God's report about you and about His Son? Take your place as a sinner before Him. Come and welcome to Christ. Look away to the suffering Savior who died as a substitute, taking your place and taking mine. May tonight you believe the report. May you be saved. Who hath believed our report? Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our loving and our gracious Heavenly Father, we pray now just in the stillness of these moments that the sinner would come to that place where they would say tonight, I believe this report. All that the preacher has said about me is true. And all that he said about Christ is true. And tonight I want to believe in this Savior. I want to believe to the saving of my soul. If I can help anyone in this meeting speak to me at the door, maybe speak to a Christian that you're with, Indicate to them that you want to come to the Savior. Tonight's the night that you're going to believe the report, as it is found in the Word of God. Oh, may God bring you to Christ. May God give you grace and courage to seek counsel in the gospel. And therefore, O God, we leave this meeting with thee. Lord, I'm simply the reporter. I'm simply communicating the message. that many have communicated many years down through church history and through Bible times. They have simply told out this message that men and women are sinners, but there's a Savior who suffered, and there's a Savior who stood in their place. O God, work upon hearts, we pray. Turn all to Christ, we ask. Be glorified, even in the salvation of sinners. We offer our prayers in and through our blessed Savior's name. Amen and amen. Thank you.