Sermon on Ishpeming 13.12.2015

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let's begin our service with opening prayer and thanksgiving.

Dear Heavenly Father, again this morning we thank you that we are able to gather around the hearing of your Holy Word. And so again we ask that you would reveal unto us the reason for our salvation, which is alone through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. And during this Advent season we are waiting for the arrival of that festivity when your Son was born into this world, who lived that perfect life, fulfilling the purpose, law, the last letter on our behalf. He gave his life and shed his blood so that we could own by faith of grace this gift of salvation, which is alone through the merits of your Son, our Lord.

And so we ask that again today you would bless this occasion, bless our services, comfort us with your grace, your word, and nourish us with your everlasting gospel message. This all we ask in the name of your dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We are living the Advent season. Today is the third Sunday in Advent. And the theme today is the one who prepares the way for the Lord. And so it's a message about John the Baptist. And I thought I'd read for this morning the Old Testament text set aside for this Sunday, which is from the last book in the Old Testament, the last chapter, and its last two verses.

So it's from the book of Malachi, chapter four, verses five and six. And we will hear these words as follows in Jesus' name: Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the Lord, the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Amen.

So the prophet was living that period of time after the exile. And he was the last prophet before a period of one hundred years, or several hundred years of silence regarding prophecy. So the people of Israel were in exile for those 70 years in the captivity of Babylon.

When Persia then came to power and overtook Babylon, then the people of Israel were allowed to again return to their promised land. They came back to Jerusalem. They saw the city in ruins and they saw the temple as a pile of rubble. Now began the time of rebuilding.

The return happened in several different waves. In the earlier waves of return, there were some of the people like prophet Zechariah, prophet Nehemiah, prophet Ezra, the high priest, Zerubbabel, and so on and so forth. Then there was a second wave. Then there was a third wave of people that returned back.

This prophet Malachi was in one of the later groups that were able to return. And so he was living apparently about the year 450 B.C. Prophet Malachi had a difficult task because even though there were many people who were in the city, there were periods of times of happiness and joy. They were able to again rebuild the city and rebuild the temple.

One of the prophecies of Nehemiah says that they had a hammer in one hand, but then they had a weapon in the other hand. They were building simultaneously as they were defending themselves against the enemies and some opponents that were attacking them.

But then he also had to preach against some of the ungodly lifestyle that was occurring among their own people there in Israel, there in Jerusalem. And so he was preaching that message to them as well. A message, a warning.

So this name Malachi in the Hebrew language means angel or messenger in our language. And there are many types of angels in the Bible. Three types of angels to be specific.

When we think first of all of the word angel and angels in general, we think of those invisible creatures that the Bible talks about. There are many paintings and pictures and illustrations depicting these angels. Many children's bedrooms, or maybe even a church, maybe a little illustration or picture showing maybe a little child walking over a rope bridge. And it shows an angel or angels beside that child there to protect and guard and keep the safety of that child.

So the Bible says that there are these guardian angels. And they have been sent to serve those according to the letter to the Hebrews for those who are saved. But this word angel also means messenger.

This message of salvation was not intended to be delivered to us by means of a written message. Often when they delivered, even in the temporal sense, for example, news from the battlefront back to home, how the war was going, they would send a person on a horse and he would bring the passerbys in his car and then he would go home. And he would have a car on his back and he would go galloping back to the town where the people were at home and deliver an oral message.

Luther says in this way that this message of salvation is not intended to be delivered as a written message, but it is an oral message, an oral proclamation of our Savior, the promised Messiah. And then Luther goes on even further to say that it is not God's wish or desire that this message would be kept and preserved in some little closet, locked up, but that it would be able to be spread and announced and brought forth, as Jesus says, go ye forth into all the world.

So there are several different types of angels. The angels of glory that I have referred to already. I would venture to say that none of us in this room have ever seen an angel. At least I've never seen an angel. But there are occasions where a believer has seen an angel. And there would be stories to relate to tell about when they saw it and how they saw it and what was the occasion.

So even though many in the world may deny it or poo-poo this idea of angels, it is biblical and written about and stated in the Bible. There are these angels of glory, which are our guardians, our guardian angels.

But then there's an angel in another sense of the word. We are angels. It may not seem that we're angels when we're at home and have some argument or disagreement and our sin-corrupt flesh may get the best of us. It seems far from us that we're angels. We're corrupt human beings. We're sinners from the crown of our head to the heel of our foot.

But as I mentioned already, this word angel means messenger. So we are all messengers of this most important message, the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, the Gospel. We can all say to one another, your sins are forgiven unto you.

Fiddle-a-soothery.com. Fiddle-a-soothery.com. Fiddle-a-soothery.com. Fiddle-a-sootherly.com. I'm sure the older ones of course remember him and the younger ones may have heard of his name, but he made many mission trips to this country over the years. He was a man from Finland, and on his first mission trip, he came as a widower and he made a trip through Minneapolis and then it continued off to the West Coast and this was back in the mid-50s.

When he made this large swing around the country and came back to Minneapolis, it was announced that he had met a woman on the first swing through, and then he got married to her, Anna. I'm sure many of you remember Ville Superi's wife, Anna. And so they got married in Minneapolis and then went back to Finland.

Anna was originally from Annandale, French Lake area, but was an older single lady living in Minneapolis at that time. But anyways, he was here in this country for over a year, and my dad has somehow read or heard or maybe even counted the number of sermons he had. He had about 700 sermons during his short mission trip of just over a year. So count the number of sermons. That's more than one a day. It's more like two a day.

So anyways, he was here in this country on his first mission trip in the mid-1950s, and he came to one locality, and the people, the believers in that locality said that there's a man here that we know he's kind of a... I'll use the word that they're kind of laughing about. I used when I was translating a Finnish sermon into English years ago in Houghton at the Midsomer Copper Country Services, and I translated from Finnish to English as Ravelrauser. Well, I'll use the same word again.

And here's a man who's a Ravelrauser, and we're kind of afraid of him. But he's easy. He seems to be a little bit disturbed, a little bit uncomfortable. And he's got some questions. Why don't you go to talk to him? We know him a little bit too well.

And so he went to talk to this rough man who had done hard labor work all of his life and is probably a hard drinker, and probably used curse words and strong language. And so Ville approached this man, and he wouldn't even lift his gaze. He wouldn't even look him in the eyes.

And so Ville went and began to talk to him about the message of salvation and Jesus Christ, our Savior, and he has redeemed the sins of all mankind and paid the price. And pretty soon that man, who wouldn't even look at him, lifted his gaze and he says, Are you a man? Are you a man who is able to forgive sins?

And he says, Yes, that's the mission I'm on. That's why I'm here in this country. And he says, Can you forgive me of my sins? I've done terrible things in my life. He says, How much of my sins? Some of them or all of them? And he says, Every last sin that you have ever committed, they will be forgiven.

And he says, I will forgive you. And he says, Well, can you preach me that gospel? So he lifted his gaze, of course, put his hands upon this rough man and preached the gospel, and his face lit up and he said, Can you do that again? He said, I'll do it as many times as you want.

And he preached the gospel again, and pretty soon that man began to jump around and bounce around in the room like a free butterfly. And he says, The angel of the Lord has released me from my sins. This preacher could be any one of us, an angel of the Lord.

And so this is what the name Malachi means. It means angel. It means messenger, a messenger of the Lord. And that's what all of us are. Every last one of us, from the oldest one in this room to the youngest one in this room. We are all messengers. We are all angels of the Lord in this sense of the word.

And so our text says, Behold, I will send you Elijah. But if we go back to the earlier chapter, chapter three, it says, Behold, I will send my messenger. So it's referring to the same thing. Elijah, messenger.

And Elijah is actually referring to, even though there was an old prophet Elijah in the Old Testament, he's kind of a picture, kind of a symbol, kind of a parable in a sense of John the Baptist. And as I mentioned that Malachi was the last prophet of the Old Testament.

And then there was this period of silence regarding prophecy. There is no new prophet. There is no prophecy that came out. We have the book of Apocrypha. And that came during this period of silence. And that's why they consider it not part of the real Bible.

We may have it as a supplement Bible here on the pulpit. I don't see it here. It is in some churches. But it's not considered equal to this Bible per se. So that was the period of silence. And then this period of silence continued for these hundreds of years.

Now I forget how many hundreds of years. And then suddenly the silence ended. And the first messenger, the first announcement was the one who was the crying voice in the wilderness. And it was that John the Baptist.

And this is what is being referred to here. Behold, I will send you Elijah. Not the Old Testament prophet Elijah who was dead and buried and was he the one who was taken up in a flaming chariot to heaven. But this is Elijah in the symbolical sense of the word.

So behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So again, going back to chapter 3. Behold, I will send my messenger. Which is the same thing. And he shall be my messenger. And he shall prepare the way before me.

So the exact same idea. And the Lord of whom you seek shall suddenly come into the temple. But then it's referring to someone coming into the temple. So the one who is preparing the way for the Lord is preparing the way for another person who will suddenly come into the temple.

Well, we remember when Jesus was here upon this earth, he literally came into the temple. The first time he was brought by his parents when there was a sacrifice offered for him when he was 40 days old. And that's when old man Simeon took Jesus into his hands and rejoiced that now my eyes have seen thy salvation. Let your servant go in peace.

And then he came again when he was 12 years old and when he was visiting with those scribes and the Pharisees and speaking those words of wisdom. And the Pharisees, those learned individuals, were just in awe about the wisdom that proceeded out of his mouth.

And of course, Jesus, I'm sure, came many other times. And he came at the end of his life. And he came that time with a whip in his hands and he turned over the tables of those who were exchanging money and chased those out of the temple who were selling doves.

So we can see that literally, Jesus came into this temple many times during his life. But is this the temple that's being referred to? Well, there was one confirmation class and a teacher was asking about the living temple of God.

And this young student, was she an unbeliever at that time? She was saying that, where is God? That is God way up there in the heavens? There so far away. And then she saw a church, an empty church in their community.

And she said that, well, is God in that church? It's a cold, dark winter day and the church is empty. Is that where God is residing? And is that where God could be found? Even though it's a sanctified building for the preaching of his word, that church was cold and empty and vacant.

So that was the question that she was pondering in her mind. And so this confirmation teacher then says that, if someone would walk through the door, someone from the community, and ask the question, where can I find Christ? Where can it be found today?

We know that on Ascension Day, he ascended from earth into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty there in heaven. But where, if that individual would ask the question, where can I find Christ today? What would be your reply?

Well, these confirmation students were well aware of how they would answer this question. And they said, where the believers are gathered. Where two or three are gathered in my name, Jesus promises that I will be there in your midst. And Jesus has promised that I will be with you, my own, every day unto the end of the world.

And so, the interesting sermon, a Pentecost sermon by Luther, he says in this way, that, he says that, not only are your sins forgiven, but you are outright the paradise of God and the kingdom of God.

So, the kingdom of God resides in our hearts, by and through faith. Even though the world may criticize, and at times make fun of you, and as it happened to Paul, that it was almost, he referred to his former life and unbelief in self-righteousness, he says, he considered it a pile of dung and a pile of rubbish.

And even if from the ways of the world, that they may kind of mock us and ridicule us and make fun of us, he says, nevertheless know, that you have been ordained. Every one of you have been ordained.

Even though I have literally been ordained in the outward sense of the word, in November of 1992. So, how many years ago that was? That was twenty, twenty-three years ago. And literally, the bishop came and put his hands upon me.

He didn't pour oil, but in the olden days, he used to pour oil over the head of the one who was getting ordained. And so, Luther uses that as an illustration. That you have not been ordained by the bishops of this world with their foul oil. He calls it foul oil.

But every one of you have been ordained by the high priests of all high priests, which is Christ Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And he has ordained you with the oil of the Holy Spirit.

So, this is what Luther says. If you want to look it up in one of his Pentecost sermons, in the church apostle. A very interesting, interesting sermon.

So, he says, not only are your sins forgiven, but you are a piece of the paradise of God and the kingdom of God, and you have been ordained by the high priests of all high priests with the oil of the Holy Spirit.

So, this is what Malachi is here referring to. That, behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord, of whom I am speaking, referring to the promised Messiah, when he comes, he'll come, whom you seek, he shall suddenly come into his temple.

It wasn't the literal, physical temple that he was referring to. And he literally did come into this temple many times during his lifetime, as I illustrated and mentioned. But he is referring to the living, the living temple of God, which is made of living stones, which is the kingdom of God here upon this earth.

And so, Luther says, quoting the old church father, Augustine, he says, that outside of the kingdom of God there is no salvation, and there is no Christ. But Christ is there, where there is a forgiveness of sins. He is within his kingdom, through faith and in his spirit.

So, this is what the messenger, which is Elijah, which is referring to the message of John the Baptist, he says, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

But then it says, but who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand, or withstand it, when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire.

In the olden days, when they used to purify metal, they used to bring the metal to such a high temperature that it would melt, it would be in a molten state, and then when it was in a molten state, all of the impurities could be skimmed off the surface of that molten metal, and then it was cooled down again, and came back and solidified, it was then a pure metal.

And so, that was what the refiner did. And bringing that metal to a very, very high temperature. And so here, he's using that as an illustration that when the Lord comes, who can withstand his arrival? For he is like a refiner's fire, and he is like a fuller's soap, or the one who makes soap. Soap making in that day had its own operation, and he's using that also as a picture, as an illustration.

So, when the first promise of the coming Messiah was given, it was there in paradise, after Adam and Eve fell into sin. And it was a very vague promise, and it was actually announced to the serpent.

But Adam and Eve were right there nearby, listening to what God was saying to the serpent, and it was gospel to them. So God was saying to the serpent, that of the seed of the woman, will one day be born Him, Him meaning the promised Messiah, Christ Jesus, who will crush the head of you, the serpent.

And now Adam and Eve were listening to that, and heard that, and that was gospel to them. So that was the first time the gospel was mentioned and pronounced here upon this earth, when God Himself pronounced it.

And then that gospel promise of the coming Messiah was renewed again and again and again. And it became clearer and clearer and clearer, taking on more details, and it's just like, you take a telescope, and you look out into the distance, and well then you have to focus it, put it at higher power.

When you first look at it, it may be all blurry, but as you begin to focus it, then it comes into focus, and details become clear and sharp. So this is actually what is happening during the Old Testament time, as they're proceeding toward the New Testament morning.

More and more details were added to the picture, and it became sharper and clearer, like looking into a mirror. And then the Old Testament prophet Isaiah says, Unto us a child is born, 800 years, 700 years before Christ is born. Unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, the Great Counselor, the Almighty God.

A very clear, sharp promise of the coming Messiah. And the same prophet, or a prophet with the same name, this is probably 200 years later now, 500 years approximately before the birth of Christ, and he says, He will be like a sheep that is brought before its shearer. He will be like a lamb being led to the slaughter, and he will open not his mouth.

And he will be whipped, and he will be struck, and through his wounds we will be healed. Isn't that a clear, very clear picture and a prophecy of when Jesus on Good Friday would eventually be hanging on the hill of Golgotha.

So behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Well, it sounds to me that we're waiting for Christmas, and I'm sure the kids especially are anxiously awaiting, and in many houses they have the Christmas tree set up, and they have lights on the Christmas tree, and there's already wrapped presents underneath the tree, and they're counting the days and probably opening up the little windows on the Advent calendars.

How many more nights do I have to wait before Christmas is here? And that will be the day that we can celebrate Christmas as a day of happiness and joy and fulfillment of our hopes and expectations.

But this isn't what this prophet is saying. He's not giving a very good picture, a very positive picture of this upcoming celebration. He says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Wow, there seems to be a little bit of a conflict here. So what can this mean?

Well, we remember when Jesus was on Good Friday, He was being led from His place of interrogation there in the city, and He had to walk the way of pain and suffering, the way of, in Latin it's called via dolorosa, the way of suffering.

And He had to carry His own cross, which was typical. The person who was to be crucified had to literally carry His own cross, which was actually the cross member of the cross. Because the vertical pole was already erected on the hill, the place of crucifixion.

And so Jesus had to carry it. It was put upon His shoulders and He tumbled to the ground. The weight of the cross was so heavy He succumbed and couldn't go anymore.

And then those people there, the soldiers had some compassion and they looked into the crowd and they found some individual that they snatched from the crowd and told that person that you carry that cross member on His behalf.

But then there were people watching as He was traveling. They came out in the tens, hundreds, maybe thousands. And of course there were many women in the crowd and women are a little more sensitive with their emotions.

And the women were weeping and crying and tears were flowing as they saw this traumatic event. And Jesus turned to the women and He said that now is not the time to cry. Wipe your tears away.

And the Old Testament says in the book of the Song of Solomon, for at that moment, at His height of agony, Jesus in His heart was celebrating a wedding festival. I talked about it last night.

One of the most happy occasions that we can experience in our life is a wedding occasion. So at this time of pain and agony, the Old Testament writer says He was celebrating a wedding festival in His heart. Not physically, but spiritually.

Because He knew that He was on a mission. This was the duty of God to go prepare the gift of salvation. To pay the price of redemption for sin-fallen mankind. And so that we could be released from our sins, from death, and from the power of the enemy of souls.

But then He said something further. He used a little illustration. He said, If these things could be done to a green tree, then what would happen to a dry tree?

So we were at Keplinger's cabin last summer. And of course we like to light the stove every day. And there was a pile of wood that was perhaps cut that spring.

And every day when we went out, every day when we tried to light the fire in the stove, we struggled. And it was just a weak fire that was burning. It would just smolder. And we couldn't get a good strong fire for the life of us. Because it was wet. It wasn't completely dried out.

So it was kind of a frustrating experience many times. So I'm sure many of you have tried to do this. Try to burn wet wood. You're not going to be very successful.

But lo and behold, you find dry wood, and it brings it even close to a flame, and it kindles and it burns, and it burns with fervent heat.

And so now, the duty of John the Baptist was, he's going to come, and he's going to come with a hatchet. And he's going to check every tree. And every tree that does not bear good fruit, he's going to hew it, he's going to cut it down, and he's going to cast it into the fiery burning furnace.

And it will burn, and it will burn well. It will burn with fervent heat. But you try to do that to green wood, and you're not going to be very successful. As I've illustrated already.

So Jesus says that they may try to do this to a dry tree, but what about if they try to do it to a green tree? Well, what does Jesus mean? And this is what is actually being referred to here.

That, behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, or the duty of John the Baptist, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And who may be able to withstand and bear his arrival and his coming?

So, in the olden days, people used to work as lumberjacks. And there probably are some lumberjacks, as I know there are here in this community. But this is a much more common occupation in years back.

And there's a story of one man who was working as a lumberjack. He happened to be in the old country. And in the middle of the winter, he's out telling trees, and he says, and then it was so cold, he froze his feet, both of them.

And so, he got sent to the hospital. And it was a little bit too late, so gangrene was setting in, and they had to amputate. Not only one foot, but two feet. Not only one time, but many times.

The gangrene kept on spreading up his legs, and they kept on cutting back further and further and further. And pretty soon, he had no legs at all. He was just a stump of a person. Both legs were cut right up to near his hips.

And you can imagine, I'm sure they didn't have very good pain medicine back in those days, and he was in excruciating pain there in the hospital.

And of course, the nurses and the doctors were trying to take care of him, and keep him as well as he could, comfortable. But he had more than physical pain. He also had an awakened conscience.

And one minister after another, he was probably asking for help, and they came in, and they tried to help him, and nothing seemed to help.

And somehow, for some reason, they were able to contact a believing man, a believing minister. And so he arrived at the hospital, and he was going down the hallway to the room where the patient was, and the nurse was kind of filling in all the details, what had happened, and so on and so forth.

And so then she came to the room, and she opened up the door to the room, and she stayed outside, and he went inside, and there he was in the bed, breathing in pain.

And then he noticed, the patient noticed that someone was arriving, and his first question is, are you a man who can forgive sins? He was kind of starving. He was kind of startled, and he said, yes, I can forgive sins. I'm a messenger of the Lord. I have my own sins forgiven, and through the power and authority of the Holy Spirit, I'm able to preach.

And he said, please preach me my sins forgiven. And he preached, you can believe your sins forgiven in Jesus' name and blood.

And he said the minister said he stood back, and the man began to clap his hands together, and he said, the Lord Jesus be praised. The Lord Jesus be praised.

So this patient knew that his day of departure was coming, and he knew that if he leaves this world in this condition, it's going to be the dreadful day of the Lord, and who would be able to withstand it? He wouldn't be able to bear it, to go see the fiery-eyed judge, the creator and the judge of all mankind.

But now, it was a changed situation. He had received his sins forgiven, he was snatched from the abyss of death, condemnation, and hell, and now he was planted, he was grafted into the true vine, the living vine.

And Jesus said that a green tree doesn't burn. And what did they try to do to the green tree? Christ Jesus.

And Jesus said this little parable on the way to the hill of Golgotha. And the enemy of souls, I'm sure, was wringing his hands and saying that if I give him, the master, the Lord and master, I will get all of his subjects at the same time.

So we can imagine that the fires of hell were burning hotter than they had ever been burning before. Jesus was crucified to the cross, nailed to the cross, he died, he was buried.

And the enemy of souls, I'm sure, was thinking that now, my victory has been gained. Their leader and master is dead. And now he's going to burn forever in the fires of hell.

But when a green tree doesn't burn, he was there for three days and three nights in the bosom of the earth, but death, hell, and the power of the enemy of souls could not contain him.

He rose from the grave victorious on Easter morning. And so now, through the power and through the work of salvation of Jesus Christ, this man was now snatched from the abyss of condemnation of hell and now grafted into that true vine, the living vine, which is Christ Jesus.

Now the question is, what is the meaning of this? The minister then asked that, well, how did you know to even ask such a question? The man said, I grew up in a believing home. As a young boy, I gave up my faith. I went into the world.

My mother and father many times reminded me, but I just shut my ears. I turned a deaf ear toward them and I didn't listen. They have long since passed away. But I can still remember their instruction, their teaching, and their preaching. And it was a constant reminder to them.

And so the minister left and that man lived for a few days later and the nurse later told that minister that he died several days later, but often he was rejoicing out loud that his sins were forgiven and he had peace with God in heaven and he was able to live.

He eventually closed his eyes to this world and be translated from life to eternity. So he was able to experience this happiness and joy of a child of God.

But how is it with us? Are we always just filled to the brim with joy and experiencing, as I mentioned last night, the feelings of betrothal and just kind of floating around like an angel? And our feet hardly even touching the ground where we're so filled with happiness?

I'm sure many times we're lugging around and we're dragging that old portion and sin and corruption rises to the surface and the feelings of joy seem to be at times far from us. But that doesn't negate reasons for joy.

Even though our feelings of joy may go up and down and fluctuate strong and weak and hot and cold, the reasons for joy are different. And they are within, contained within the work of salvation of Christ Jesus.

So these are constant, steady, and always sure and true.

But then when we're thinking of this message of Advent, Advent means the arrival. We're awaiting for December 24th if you open up your Christmas presents, Christmas Eve, or December 25th, and how many more days until Christmas the children may ask? How many more Advent calendar doors do we have to get open?

But in faith we're waiting for the eternal Christmas which will begin in heaven one day and never end.

But one friend of mine, he remembered as a young boy, and there were 12, 13 siblings in his family. And one morning his mother woke up and told the father that I have a headache. I have a real bad headache.

And so his mother got up and they lived in a farming community and he's going to walk across the field and go to the neighbors and see if they had some aspirin or whatever kind of pain medicine they had back in those days, back in the 50s.

And so then mother noticed that, well, where did dad disappear to? And the children who, some of them had woke up said, well, he went to the neighbors. He's going to go get you some medicine for your headache.

And she told the kids that, call father back, that I'm not going to need any medicine. That mother's going to get you some medicine. Mother's going to heaven.

And so father came back and all of the children, 13 children gathered around the bedside and pretty soon mother cried out and she said, clapped her hands together and she said, I'm leaving to heaven.

And the children said that, that you can't leave mother. The oldest one was in the mid teens and who is going to take care of us?

She clapped her hands together and she says, the heavenly father will take care of you.

And pretty soon her eyes brightened up and she said, now I can see the angels coming. I can see the glory of heaven.

And she slept away. She was gone. Translated from this life and brought to that eternal Christmas there in heaven.

So she was able to go and receive the fulfillment of her hope of faith. Of course the children got left behind and I'm sure things were not easy and often difficult, but still this is our goal of faith.

That one day if we keep faith to the end, we'll go to see our redeemer face to face and see those who have died in faith before us. We'll be able to see them and all of the other saints there in heaven.

So be encouraged and uplift your heart this morning and even now believe, sins forgiven in Jesus name and precious blood. The power of the gospel will lift you, will carry you and bring us all one day to our heavenly home. In Jesus name, Amen.