Isaiah, Introduction II

Good morning. We have a really choice passage to look at this morning, but of course we're taking a larger look at the book of Isaiah. And so we've chosen this certainly as seasonally appropriate. We will be taking a focus on this Isaiah 7.14.

Interesting where that comes from here in Matthew 1.22 and 23. What we see just described there says, Now all of this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. This prophet is, of course, Isaiah. This is the book that we'll be studying here for some time to come, having just begun last week.

Isaiah 714 is here spelled out real clearly. This is the word from the Lord through the prophet Isaiah. So it's not just Isaiah's opinion or Isaiah's best guess. It is the Lord's message indeed through Isaiah as he spoke the words that the Lord intended him to convey.

As we look larger at that passage, something else particular that we see repeated reference to as we look at both Old Testament and New Testament passages This is a message to the House of David. It's explicitly pointing to Christ as the fulfillment of the promise given a thousand years before Christ's birth to the King David himself. Now, something very interesting, as you look at the pattern of the books in the Bible and the number of chapters in Isaiah, we notice that there are 66 books in the Bible and 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah. Now, since the Old Testament has 39 books, the 40th book of the Bible is the first book of the New Testament, Matthew, right? So far so good? All right. Here's Matthew, the 40th book, the first book of the New Testament.

And if we look in Matthew 3.3, notice what we find.

It says of John the Baptist, for this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord. And where does that come from? The 40th chapter of Isaiah. Interesting correlation, right? So here is in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, a quotation out of the 40th book, speaking of John the Baptist who said, make ready the way of the Lord.

There are a number of fascinating parallels. You have it in this form in your handout. Let's take a look at another one. Here is, again we're going to zero in on something, on the book of Revelation, the 66th book of the Bible. And notice here, if we look at Isaiah 66, the last chapter of Isaiah, it says, For just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before me, declares the Lord, and he continues on from there.

If we look at the book of Revelation, now the 66th book of course, Revelation 21.1 reads, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

Interesting. What we'll find as we look through this, there are lots of correlations between the chapters of Isaiah and the books of the Bible. However, we're not going to get distracted by that, because what we're going to be focusing on, as interesting as these correlations between books and chapters are, we're going to be looking at what does the text say, because it's indeed the message of Scripture which is inspired. We're not going to allow ourselves to be sidetracked by looking at Bible codes and correlations for months on end.

Indeed, a number of you may have run across things, you know, there's Bible codes, there's Bible diets. Believe it or not, this particular Bible code refers to a particular Palestinian leader who just passed away, right? And you can buy software that goes along this line. I mean, you can really get into this stuff.

The point being, we don't want to, although the patterns of correlation between Isaiah and the rest of the Bible are very interesting and fascinating, We're not going to allow that to distract us. I'm not saying there's necessarily anything even wrong with some of these things, diets, Bible codes, whatever, in themselves, but what we need to keep in mind is it's the message that God inspired it for, not the codes, the diets, and the other things that people can easily come up with. We're looking at the inspired message of Scripture and looking to see what the Lord has intended to be profitable for our benefit from Scripture. Oh, here's one that's very interesting.

Here's this guy who has the Hebrew alphabet and he's got that cross-correlated with the DNA structure in cells. Anyway, I don't know. Now, last week we touched on this Isaiah timeline. If you didn't happen to catch this, you can pick up a handout from last week and it kind of lays this out. I think it's helpful to just kind of get a larger context. We also looked at the divided kingdom. That was a part of the handout last week.

That took note of the fact that after Solomon, the nation of Israel was divided into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. And the Northern Kingdom was the ten tribes, and the Southern Kingdom was the two. Benjamin and Judah. And then in the Northern Kingdom, remember that we had 19 kings, and all of them were of a sheep's opinion. Remember a sheep's opinion? Very bad. And then there was the Southern Kingdom, they had 20 kings, and a rough approximation, about eight of them were good and the other not so.

We made point that here was Isaiah, he had contemporary prophets during his time in the Northern Kingdom, Amos and Hosea. In the Southern Kingdom, Isaiah had a contemporary of Micah. Now, we noted here was the map of the Northern Kingdom Israel, with its capital, Samaria, and Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom called Judah.

We also made a point of kind of the larger context. We call it a space station view of the ancient Middle East. We noted that what I showed on a smaller map here, if you look at the larger picture, there's Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, and that those nations are nations that we'll find addressed in the rest of Isaiah as we proceed through it. And that's to kind of give you some initial familiarity so you know what we're talking about.

Now, this is a chart we haven't seen. Here, this top green line I put there, this is the dividing time when Solomon let loose of the reins and then there was a civil war that created the two kingdoms. One of the reasons for all the colors to be able to give a sort of a a range of how bad and how good some of these kings were. And that little color chart here is down there. All right? And then here's Isaiah and the kings that were contemporary with him.

Hey, you know, that wasn't intended to be funny. Anyway. Okay. All right. Now, I was thinking about asking you to open your hymnals to 676 and we could sing We Four Kings. I was thinking about it. I didn't ask you to do that. And the reason is there is no such hymn. Okay?

The We Four Kings would also be a little bit odd, so I figured we'd just pass on it, and we'll just talk about them anyway. These are the four kings that were in the ministry of Isaiah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. So none of this, you know, we won't have you stand up and sing, We Four Kings.

Anyway, you get the idea. One of the things we want to take a look at, I'm going to take a quick review through some of the archaeological findings. And at least one seal or seal impression, the term there is Bola, from each of the courts of the kings, either the kings themselves or one of their court officers, has been found. And this particular one is from right before that. But the first one there is here's the seal of Al-Yaw, and he's not from Texas.

Here's Al-Yaw, who is the servant of King Uzziah, the first king listed there in Isaiah 1.1. Here is the signet ring, actual direct ring of King Jotham. So that's the ring of King Jotham.

Here is a seal impression, and we actually have several good ones. This is one of them of King Hezekiah. And just like we would do today, important documents would be stamped with the seal. Then here's another one. Here's a seal impression of King Ahaz. So each of the four kings, we either have the impression made by the seal, or the actual original seal itself, which is sometimes in the form of a ring, for each one of the kings that Isaiah mentions.

Now, these bottom ones here, those are seal impressions. In other words, it's not the original, it's the impression made by the seal. And a single seal is called a bola, just to get the terminology down, and a plural that's called a bullae, okay? And so that's why I just would ask you the question, do we call this a woolly bully? Anyway, real distracting, okay.

Now, some more Isaiah archaeology. The burial plaque was found in the Mount of Olives. This is the place where Jesus departed and described in Acts 1, okay? The Mount of Olives, located directly across from the Temple Mount, and here it is. It says, here the bones of Uzziah, king of Judah, were brought.

Do not open. That very plaque has been found. Here, and I wanted to point it out because you see a number of things in the picture, right there is Hezekiah's broad wall, which is described in several passages, including one we'll look at there in Isaiah 22, 9 through 11.

Hezekiah fortified the city of Jerusalem because of the anticipated attack. And this is one of the things that he did. And so we find remnants of that very wall. Then Hezekiah was also thinking, you know, our water supply is very vulnerable. And so he had a tunnel constructed to bring the water supply from its source into behind the wall so that we have a protected access to water and the people in Jerusalem wouldn't be driven out because of lack of water. This tunnel system was interesting.

It is at that time a great advance in technology, roughly a third of a mile long, and it has Several references in scripture at the lower end where the water accumulated. We'll take a look at that in a minute here. The spring that it came from here is closer to the Temple Mount area and you see that as well. What made this unusual is it would be a couple of centuries later before the Greeks would come up with something of a similar magnitude of technology.

Usually what they would do is they would bore down at any of the places where the tunnel took a turn and they bore down at intervals in then go between those vertical borings. Hezekiah said, we don't want that. You get too many places for things to cause trouble. We can get the enemy in one down one of those shafts and then they'll cut it off. So we just want to go direct from one to the next.

It appears that they followed some kind of a soft rock path or crack or something of that sort. So that's what made it unusual. Here's the source. It is the place where King Solomon was anointed king. It turned out to be the source of water for Jerusalem for many centuries, some 20 centuries.

And in 2 Chronicles 32.30 was where it records that this spring is what Hezekiah wanted to protect as to the water supply for Jerusalem.

Now, multiple lines of evidence say that they started from each end and bored along this circuitous path towards the middle. And that they met there, the reason I have the finger pointing is because they weren't quite matched up And when they met, there was a difference in the ceiling height, and that's what you see right there. You see, for example, chisel marks from each end, the direction of those chisel marks pointing towards this central place. There's one other thing. They found this inscription inside the tunnel wall at that location, and it gives the account. That's perhaps a little more easily readable. Anyway, it gives the account of how they came about, to come to that place, and when they were about just feet apart, they could hear people picking on the other side of the wall as they got closer, and finally it was pick to pick when they finally broke through.

Here's something interesting we will be taking a look at, and just summer of last year, as they were doing a sewer project, they noticed that there were these steps that they had discovered, and pretty soon after investigating, they recognized that these are steps leading down to the lower end of this water system that Hezekiah had built.

And in the book of Isaiah, it's called the waters of Shiloh. And when we get to chapter 8, we'll study that. In Nehemiah, referred to as the Pool of Shelah. Notice the SH and the L sound repeated, but the name changed a little bit. And then finally in the New Testament, in the Gospel of John, chapter 9, the Pool of Siloam. This is where Jesus told the man who was born blind from birth to go wash off his eyes in the pool of Siloam. So, real interesting. We'll look at how that has not just archaeological interest, but also spiritual significance, because it was a place that scripture keeps repeating to in the first references there in Isaiah that we'll be looking at. Now, here's a prism that sheds some light. You may ask, prism? It doesn't look like you can see through it. It doesn't look like any light can go through it. Remember, Hezekiah fortified the city of Jerusalem because of what he anticipated as a battle coming. This is the record of the other side of that same battle.

So we'll take a look at that when we get there. So obviously more later. Then there are the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of you, I understand, have even had a chance to see some portion of these Dead Sea Scrolls. Always real fascination with these. From 1947 into the 1950s, And even now, occasionally, as a matter of fact, one was found just this last week, Thursday or Friday, I think, additional fragments and documents are found out of these scrolls. Here's kind of a closer shot.

What they would do is they'd take the scrolls and you can see how the access is a little bit difficult to get to. They'd drop down into those locations and hide the scrolls so that the scrolls couldn't be easily gotten by somebody else who had bad intent.

So as we look at this, a number of manuscripts have been found there, almost every book of the Old Testament. 22 manuscripts of Isaiah, some of them in very good states of preservation, some of them mere fragments. But this is a picture of one of them. Here's an instance where one page is shown. It's in pretty good preservation and even the stitching between segments of the scroll is still in good shape.

And here is Isaiah 9-7 we'll be looking at next week. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace or the throne of David and over his kingdom. So here's the portion we'll be examining, talking about Christ's coming. Now, we'll be looking at other things as we go through the book of Isaiah.

There's lots of interesting things. This one up in the upper right corner, for example, is from about the time of Isaiah, and it has his father's name on that. It says, belonging to Amos. So, we're not sure if it's exactly his father, but a common name in those days. Anyway, we're sure you'll have a really exciting time as we go through the book of Isaiah, no doubt about it. Hopefully not that exciting. Okay, more on our four kings here. Can you handle that? Alright, now this relates to your handout, so you might want to take a look, it's still on page one. Here are the four kings, Uzziah, Jopham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. These are the four kings that are mentioned by name and in the sequence that you see there.

Now, we also have Isaiah's genealogy. It says repeatedly, and not just in the book of Isaiah, that he was the son of Amos, and it has the Z kind of ending, transliterated. Now, I don't expect at all for you to name your kids after Isaiah's kids. I'm sure Jasheb was the first one, and we'll see that as we get into chapter 7. And then there's a real winner, Meir Harshal El-Hashbaz. You really don't want to have to yell that out when you're yelling for your kid. And then add the middle name to it on top of that. That'd be real tough.

But, it's interesting, Jewish records outside of scripture say that Uzziah and Amos were brothers. And if that's the case, here's where that would leave us. Isaiah would not be in the kingly line, but Isaiah would be part of royalty, part of the larger royal family. And that would also explain why he is so prominent during the time of Hezekiah, as we'll read about as we get later on.

Now, it isn't just an academic thing. I'm not just showing you dry academic things here. First of all, Isaiah says in chapter 8 and chapters 7, 8, and 9 that deal with these sons of his and the importance of that and also the importance of another son to be born that we've talked about here. Isaiah 8, 18 says, Behold, I and the children whom the Lord have given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells on Mount Zion. Now, it may be that your neighbors are saying that you and your kids are signs and wonders.

I don't know. I know as I was growing up, that was certainly the instance about our family. I won't tell you about that. Isn't that good? Okay. Now, these kings also, if we look not only in Isaiah 1-1, but Matthew 1-9, are in the genealogy of Joseph. So these kings are not just, you know, incidental kings who happen to be some fine piece of history, but also the connection of Joseph along the kingly line through these very kings that we'll be studying in greater detail here. Joseph, who was the appointed earthly father for Jesus Christ. Now, last week we also touched on this point.

God made believing Jews and Gentiles into one new people, the Church. And you may recall this when we were studying through Ephesians chapter 2, and how the Lord made a new people, not just one or the other reconstituted, but a new people from Jews and those who were Gentiles into what is now the church, having taken away the dividing wall, which Ephesians 2 described as the law itself. Isaiah will tell us about the Gentiles, Israel and the church, in Christ's first and second comings, but not directly about the church. And you'll say, well, wait a minute, aren't we the church?

And so obviously a question is going to come into your mind. Well, first of all, the Lord has used Israel as the means for bringing Christ in his first coming, and he will rule over Israel as king in his second coming. So, you're asking the question, since we're in the church and not in Israel, what are we going to get out of studying Isaiah? Of course you're thinking that, right? Wow, okay. Now, one of the things we want to take a look at at this stage is this. As we study through Isaiah, what are we going to be looking for that has application now? What is true, even though Isaiah is not directly addressing the church?

So he's going to be looking through that, and one of the things that always stays the same, we know from Scripture, both the Old Testament and the New, is God's character. We will find God's character spelled out in Isaiah. As a matter of fact, as I've been looking ahead, chapter 40 through about 48 describes God's character in repeated and massive detail. because he wants them to understand the distinction between God of Scripture, as spelled out in Isaiah, and the pagan gods. God, for example, does not lie or change his mind. It's both a New Testament and Old Testament teaching. It is part of his character, not just simply a statement, an observation, but it is part of his character revealed by God.

As we study for Isaiah, we'll see lots of passages that give us insight into the character of God, even to the triune nature of God, that He is three persons in one essence, His nature revealed to us. We'll be seeing multiple references to those things. We have obviously seen initial reference to Christ coming to earth in His first coming. We've seen that here this morning.

God is always spelled out as the Creator. That's a consistent teaching of the book of Isaiah, obviously of all the scripture as well. But Isaiah very clearly Now, what's surprising, perhaps, here, is the book of Isaiah says more about God as the Creator, in that family of words, than any other book of the Bible, almost twice as much as the book of Genesis. It speaks massively of God as the Creator.

Okay, I want you to get your minds ready. Are you braced for this? Get your minds in gear. Here is all the books of the Bible. You see on the bottom the book numbers, right? And here's book one, Genesis, the first one, uses the word create, created, creation, etc., that family of words, quite a number of times. But notice here is Isaiah, talks about God as the creator in that family of words almost twice as many times as Genesis. And Genesis is a book of beginnings. Isn't that amazing? Now I know, I've shown a bar chart here. Showing a bar chart in church is really almost sacrilege by itself, and it's likely to cause a lot of problems.

So there may be some people upset, I understand. Don't worry about it. We'll try to deal with it. But from time to time we have to show these things, see? So you just have to calm... Now, I know some of you may be a little upset and irritated by it, so would it help if I showed you some chocolate? Okay? Would that calm your irritation? Would that appease your wrath? I'm glad to hear that this might be helpful. Try that. Does that help? No? Maybe not. Let's move on.

It is also going to spell out really clearly, once having fallen all those in Adam, and I know you in the Identification Truths class have been looking at this, have the same nature. There's all sorts of variety amongst human beings on planet Earth, but all those in Adam have the same nature.

Scripture spells that out from the very beginning chapters to the end. Isaiah will give us the same message as the Apostle Paul in this regard. Let me show you what I mean. Here's Isaiah, it says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. That's the passage you looked at last week in Isaiah 53. Paul says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Are Isaiah and Paul saying the same thing?

Yeah, same thing. Salvation for all those in Adam is always by faith in God's provision. It doesn't matter whether you go to Genesis or go into the books of the New Testament. Same message, always by faith in God's provision, always. Here's Isaiah, he says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.

Isaiah 12, 2. Or, here's another message here. The earth that we walk is cursed until the time when all things are restored. That's spelled out from Genesis 2 revelation, brought up again even in the book of Romans. What does Isaiah say? Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. But then, towards the end, for behold, I created new heavens and a new earth, and that former things will not be remembered or come to mind." A restoration in mind as well.

So Isaiah is teaching some potent things, but things that are consistent with the rest of Scripture. And these are things that we can carry on and continue as we move through the book of Isaiah, because there are timeless truths, truths that go beyond Which group is God working with? Truths that go beyond the particular group that we're in, the church. Now, marriage and children were both intended by God from the very beginning.

Scripture makes that clear. Even the Gospels make reference to it. And we see reference to that even in the last couple chapters of Ephesians that we studied there. The Hebrew word for married is Beulah. Ever hear of something like Beulah land? Beulah is from Isaiah. This is the land of married, and we'll get into that when we get there, many years from now. Okay, here's Isaiah 54-5, "...for your husband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth."

But, as we look at these, there's something else to look at too. Paul wrote this in 2 Corinthians 3.18, not just with the New Testament in mind. As we look through the Scriptures, We're going to be seeing something that is exceedingly valuable, and that is we're going to be beholding the Lord through His Word as we study God's Word. We're going to not just be looking for truths to pack away in our gray matter, but we're going to be beholding the Lord.

And we have the promise in 2 Corinthians 3.18, the Lord will use that to transform us, to change us.

That's why we're going through this. This is God's inspired Word, not just as an intellectual point, but as a point that he inspired his word that we might be transformed as we behold the Lord through his word. We'll see multiple times where the Lord Jesus Christ comes shouting out through the pages of Isaiah. And now let's look at this Isaiah 714 passage that's often looked at this time of year. So let's take a look. Interestingly enough, rather than just claiming it arbitrarily, oh, this is a prophecy, And it has to do with Jesus Christ. We have this particular authorization to take that view from Matthew chapter 1.

Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. We pointed out the fact that there was a particular focus upon the house of David in the initial passage. It's zeroing in on the house of David, which is in fulfillment of and in completion of the very prophecy that David himself had, that he would have a descendant sit on his throne forevermore. Now, as we look at this passage, notice some words here that come out of here. There's this word betrothed, and we want to bring that up for particular mention.

In our culture, being engaged, unless someone makes some written document otherwise, does not hold any legal bearing. It is an informal arrangement until a legal marriage takes place. That was not the case in New Testament times, and not the case among the Jews of biblical times. Being betrothed was an engagement stage, but it was so serious that to break it off required a divorce. You couldn't just say, hey, I'm calling this off, or not show up for the wedding. You were already bound legally.

Notice, too, in verse 19, and Joseph, her husband, so there's already this connection here. This is pointing at how serious a commitment this is. Send her away secretly until Joseph knew, because remember, initially, here's the angel Gabriel showing up to Mary and saying, Mary, you're going to be with child and you'll have this baby Jesus. And this will be the one to fulfill the promise to David about a house, a throne, and a kingdom. And so until Joseph understands what's happening, his mind is spinning, but he's also not quit thinking. And he's thinking, I'm going to put her away quietly. So the question is, how do we do that?

In Israel and New Testament times, and this wasn't true in the Old Testament times or what it was in the New Testament times, They had a two court system. We brought this up earlier as we were going through the study of Ephesians. The Jews had two court systems, and a Jew could choose which court they were going to operate under. How would you like to be able to do that? You choose which one.

And the way it worked was like this. There was Rabbi Hillel, that was the grandfather of Gamaliel, Paul's tutor. Rabbi Hillel said that a man could divorce a woman for any chosen reason. I don't like the way she fixes the toast. I really would prefer my meat to be medium well.

And so any reason, there was no need to state a reason. Shammai, however, said no, we've got these certain specific things, and if it's not that, then you can't do it. So what this points to is Joseph had said, I'm going to pick the court where they don't ask." That's really what he had done. He said he was going to put her away secretly, quietly. He could do that because the court system allowed him to choose the court of Hillel, and he could walk in and say, I want to divorce Mary, and there was no questions, and it could be done quietly. Nobody had to ask why.

So here's Joseph, and notice, who is Joseph? Son of David. He is descended from David, and that's what you see spelled out earlier in the book of Matthew. Don't be afraid to take Mary for your wife. And that is exactly what he did. He took Mary as his wife. He fulfilled what he basically started in place with the betrothal, the legal engagement.

And then finally, it says he kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son. It was according to the Jewish tradition that a man was not to have relations with his wife all during pregnancy. And so this would be certainly in accordance with that tradition, that he would keep her a virgin.

The other point here is several times in this passage we see the name Jesus popping up from the very first to the very last. The Hebrew would have been Yeshua. And that root to this word Yeshua appears 29 times in the book of Isaiah. And so we'll be looking at it. Here is one where it shows up, and I think you'll find it interesting. Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is no other. Isaiah 45, 22. This same Hebrew word as Yeshua is the one for saved, the personal name of Jesus.

We're going to see that cropping up again and again and again in the book of Isaiah, scattered throughout it. And this I am, in the Greek Old Testament, is Ego Emi. Which, as we've explained previously, Ego Emi was a statement that everybody didn't just make. This was something we find recorded of God, in the Greek Old Testament, and into the New Testament, of Jesus himself.

We find it in Exodus 3.14, where here's Moses at the burning bush, and Moses says, who should I say has sent me? And the Greek Old Testament records there Ego Emi. And as we go through the Gospel of John, where Jesus says, I am the gate, I am the shepherd, I am the bread, all those, he says, ego eimi, I am.

It means, I, the self-existing one, am living in the eternal present. And what we find here, turn to me and be saved, the root for Jesus' name, Yeshua, all the ends of the earth, for I, he says, I am God, I am the one who is self-existing. who lives in the eternal present. All times are in right now. All times are in the present. As we look at this passage here, we notice something we might just pass over incidentally. I would suggest to you that we not do that.

And there's reference to a son. That might sound fairly generic, but I don't believe it is. One, we find repeated reference to this son, and it fits into the passage we'll be looking at out of Isaiah next week. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. Anyway, we'll go into the rest of that passage.

But a son was given to us. A son was given to us, and notice what that son did. We saw this as we went through the book of Ephesians. Ephesians 5, 1 and 2, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ, The Son, given to us, also loved you and gave Himself up for you. The Son who was given to us was also a Son who gave Himself for us.

A special Son. A certain Son. A certain One. The One whom we will behold for eternity. Lord, as we look at this passage here, how potent, how powerful are the words, especially when we think of, here is Isaiah, seven centuries before the fulfillment. telling us about the coming of our Lord, telling us specifics about the way in which He would be born. And as we saw last week in Isaiah 53, about the way that He would die for us, about the way that He would not only be a Son given for us, but a Son who gave Himself for us. We thank you that in each place where we see that here, it's because He loved us. He loved us not because of something we did or are yet to do, But He loved us while we were yet sinners. Thank you for that marvelous grace. In Jesus' name.