2 Kings 8:1–6

0:00 Good morning. You have been so kind to me and so welcoming. May I make one additional request? May I have your piano player? As a preacher, Greg, I want to thank you for allowing me to come and preach. As a pastor from North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens, New York City, I want to bring greetings from our church, and on behalf of our elders, I want to thank you for the loan of Melanie and Alex Duke for two years when they came and served us so well.

0:48 But as a parent, as a parent, I want to thank you for the care that you extended to our daughter, Madison, when she was a member here at Boyce College. And so it is my delight to be with you this morning. I bring greetings and I bring a warm heart of thankfulness. Also of note this morning, I would like to acknowledge one of your members. Her name is Marlee Johnson. Marlee, if you would please just stand for one moment. I just want to acknowledge her this morning. Her father's name is Paul. Her mother is Michelle. She has a sister named Maggie. She has a brother named Jacob and a brother named Luke. And she has a grandmother whose name is Christine. She's a member of your church. She's your fellow sister in Christ. I think it is appropriate this morning that we express our love to her as your fellow member. Marley, it is so good to see you this

1:53 morning, thank God. Yes, thank you. So this morning I want to speak to you on the subject of restoration. Let me illustrate it in this way. Several years ago I went in to see my barber. He didn't speak much English, but as I was communicating with him I said, here's what I need you to do for me. I need you please to cut my hair but leave me a little bit on top so as to create the illusion that I have some hair. As he is cutting my hair, I kid you not, one of his friends came in, and he started to have a conversation with his friend. So here's the scene. I am in the barber chair. The mirror is in front of me. I'm seeing everything that is happening. He is cutting my hair, but he is not looking at my head. He is having a conversation with his friend who is seated behind him. And as I'm watching what is happening and I see the end product, I say to myself, suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be. What I am in need of is restoration. And

3:02 restoration is something which is not confined to bad haircuts, but we live in a world where entropy has an undefeated record. Fairy tale endings are reserved for fairy tales. You're going to make a very good living in this world if you can replace a hip or a roof or a fender and make it look like new. All of the king's horses and all of the king's men are busy trying to bring about restoration. And it's, again, not just in our physical universe, but it is also with respect to relationships. They fall apart. We have things in our lives that go wrong all the time. We have finances which disintegrate. We have emotional conditions which are very fragile. Sometimes we experience what is known as depression. This entire world is a world which is in need of restoration. And sadly, the area where we need restoration the most is the one in which we seek

4:08 it the least, and that is with respect to our relationship with God. And I think you all understand why we need restoration. It is because of sin. Through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. We live in a fallen world. Well, what I would like to do is I would like to illustrate how the doctrine of restoration works through a passage of scripture in 2 Kings chapter 8. We're going to be looking at the first six verses, but before we do, please allow me once again to pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that we have bibles and we want to acknowledge lord that this is your word this is you speaking and so god i pray that we would have a reverence and an attentiveness to the word for lord we want to listen to you i pray for myself as i stand up here i pray that i would not just be reading words off of a page but lord i would ask that you would for your glory fill me with your holy spirit

5:12 so that your people might be instructed and encouraged and that your son might be glorified as we look at his beautiful gospel. And so Lord, as we listen, as I preach, bring glory to yourself and we will give you the thanks. In Jesus' name, amen. 2 Kings chapter 8, beginning to read in verse 1 and what I will do is I will just sort of make my way through the text verse by verse and I'll make a few comments kind of as a running commentary as we go through. Now Elisha, who was Elisha? Elisha was the most prolific miracle worker in the Bible other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the one who came after Elijah. Elisha said to the woman whose son he had restored to life arise and depart with your household and sojourn or temporarily travel wherever you can why for or because the Lord has called for a famine and it will come upon the land for seven

6:19 years so the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God she went with her household and sojourned or temporarily traveled in the land of the Philistines for seven years who is the woman to whom Elisha is speaking here. She is known as the Shunammite woman. She was a very benevolent and a very hospitable woman. We run into her in 2 Kings chapter 4. She knew that Elisha had a ministry which would require him to travel from place to place. And so she said to her husband, you know, he comes our way quite often, and as he comes, he needs a place to stay. And so these people, very hospitable. They build a room on the top of their house so that Elisha can have a place to stay when he passes by. And he's very thankful. He's very appreciative of what this woman did.

7:13 And so he went to her and he said, what is it that I can do for you, seeing as how you have done so much for me? And the woman says, I don't want anything at all. I have everything that I need. I dwell among my people. I don't need a thing. However, Elisha's assistant, a man by the name of Gehazi said to him I know what this woman wants she's getting a little bit older and her husband is already old and they don't have any children and so Elisha says to the woman next year at this time you are going to have a child fade in fade out a year later they have a son the little boy grows up one day he's out in the field he's working with his father he begins to complain of a headache he walks in the house he crawls up on his mother's lap and there in her arms the little boy dies what does the woman do she carries the little boy up into Elisha's bedroom lays him across the bed and she makes a journey to find Elisha now Elisha wasn't there at the time

8:19 Elisha was 16 miles away at Mount Carmel and so she travels to Mount Carmel she has a conversation with Elisha at this point he is probably not very fleet of foot and so he says to his servant Gehazi I want you to take my staff I want you to run as fast as you can back to Shunem I want you to go in the bedroom and to lay the staff across the boy don't talk to anybody on the way just go and lay the staff across the boy, the woman and Elisha make their way from Mount Carmel all the way back to Shunem and in arguably what is the most unusual prayer meeting in all the Bible, Elisha goes into the room and the boy is raised from the dead. That is the woman to whom this passage refers.

9:06 And what Elisha is doing for her is he's giving her a little bit of a warning here in chapter 8 saying, you need to get out of Dodge. You need to get out of here because there is a famine coming and I, as the man of God, have a little forewarning of this. I know that it's going to come and it's going to last for seven years. To consider the magnitude of this, you'll remember back in 1 Kings chapter 17, there was a famine that lasted for three and a half years. And during that famine, there were people that were dying. Now, this is going to be double that length. This is going to be a seven-year famine. So you can't stay here. You have to leave. What does the woman do? She leaves and she goes into the land of the Philistines for seven years. Continuing the reading here in verse three. And at the end of seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she went to appeal to the king for her house and her land. Obviously, when she was gone,

10:10 somebody confiscated her property. It seems to be the government. Nothing ever changes. And she goes back to the king and she says, I want you to restore, that's our word for the day, I want you to restore that which was mine. Give me my house and give me my property back. Now, when we get to verse 4, I can read the English words for you. I can explain what those words mean. I cannot explain the rationale behind verse 4.

10:42 In my opinion, it is one of the most unusual verses in all of the Bible. It is a really strange verse, and let me explain why it is so strange. 2 Kings 8, verse 4. Now, the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God. Stop right there. This is bizarre. The king at this time is Jehoram. He is a wicked king. He is an idolatrous king. He is a king who hates Elisha.

11:14 He is the grandson of Ahab and Jezebel, and the apple has not fallen far from the tree. This is a bad guy. And what is he doing here? He is having a conversation with Gehazi. Now, why is Gehazi not with Elisha at this time? Gehazi is not with Elisha at this time because Gehazi is now a defrocked clergyman. He has been kicked out of the ministry. The reason that he's been kicked out of the ministry is because he is a leper. And the reason why he is a leper is because he tried to extort money from a Syrian general named Naaman.

11:47 We read about that in 2 Kings chapter 5. And so he's out of the ministry. He is leprous. And all of a sudden, one day, this king decides that he wants to have a conversation with Gehazi. And it's even more bizarre than that. What does the king want to talk about? He says to Gehazi, middle of verse 4, tell me all the great things that Elisha has done. This is just nuts. I mean, why in the world would this king want to talk to that man about the great things that Elisha has done?

12:22 I mean, here's why it is strange. First of all, he with his own eyes on multiple occasions saw some of the great things that God had done through Elisha. Secondly, and even stranger, is the fact that this king on multiple occasions had tried to kill Elisha. And all of a sudden the king wakes up one day and says, you know what? I would like to get a rundown of all of the wonderful deeds that Elisha has done. And so he invites this leper into his presence and the leper starts to tell the stories about the great miracles of Elisha. Are you with me so far? We're okay. All right. And as we move on to verse 5, the key word in the entire passage is the second English word in the ESV in verse 5. And while, W-H-I-L-E, while he, Gehazi, was telling the king, the king Jehoram, how Elisha had restored the dead to life. That's the story of the Shunammite

13:29 woman and her son who was raised to life. And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, or paint a picture in your mind's eye, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and for her land and Gehazi said my lord oh king here is the woman and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life paint the picture in your mind's eye as to what is happening here I'm sure that the king has some distance between himself and Gehazi, seeing as how Gehazi is a leper, and he says, I have a question for you. Would you please tell me all of the great things that the Lord has done through Elisha? And so Gehazi starts to travel down memory lane, and he says, you know, well, king, where do I start? I mean, you know, when he started his ministry, he was with Elijah on the other side of the Jordan River,

14:34 And Elijah was taken up in a chariot, swing low, sweet chariot, coming forward to carry me home. And he drops his mantle and Elisha catches it. With it, he uses it to cross over the Jordan River. When he gets to the other side, he is in Jericho. And while he's in Jericho, the water is bitter. This guy, king, I'm telling you, he takes some salt, he throws it in the water. And all of a sudden, the water becomes sweet. And from there, we traveled over to Bethel. And as we were traveling to Bethel, some of the people made fun of him because he was bald, and what happens?

15:07 Two she-bear come out of the woods, and they maul and kill 42 young people. There was another instance, and King, you know this because you were there when we went on that military expedition, and as we are there, we are about to die of thirst, and all of a sudden, Elisha, through the miracle-working power of God Almighty, brings about water, not through rain not through a river but all of a sudden we have water we have enough to drink and the water gives the illusion or makes a mirage for our enemies that it is actually blood and through that we are able to defeat them king you were there you know it you saw it there was another time when we were eating this stew and it was poison people were dropping dead and he takes some flour and he puts it in the pot and all of a sudden it becomes edible there was another time, King, this was really bizarre. We're over at the River Jordan. There's a guy who's chopping down a tree. He's using a borrowed axe head. The axe head falls into the water, and I saw it with my own eyes. It started to float. Elisha comes over. He waves a stick over the water.

16:12 The axe head floats. A lot of crazy stories, King, but by far, by far, the strangest thing that I ever saw, was there was this boy over in Shunem. I'm telling you, king, he wasn't sick, he wasn't injured, he wasn't wounded, he was dead. The boy was dead. And Elisha walks into the room and he lays on top of the boy and the boy is raised to life. I'm telling you, the king, the boy was dead and he came back to life. It was the that's him.

16:49 W-H-I-L-E, while he was telling the story of how the dead had been raised to life, the one who had been raised to life walks into the room. And he says, my lord, oh king, here is the woman and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life. The king wants to make sure that this is actually not choreographed. And so he asks a few questions in verse 6. And when the king had asked the woman, she told him, so what does the king do?

17:24 So the king appointed an official for her, saying, restore, you remember that word restore, restoration, that's what the topic of today's sermon is, restore all that was hers together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now. In other words, not only do I want you to give this woman back her house and her property, But she is going to get full restoration. Everything that would have grown on that land until now, I want you to give it back to her.

17:59 That is a really good Bible story. And in it, we see restoration. What I want us to answer this morning is, based upon this story, what were the means that God employed in order to accomplish this end? And I have three points for you. Point number one is that our glorious message of restoration is controlled by the design of providence.

18:32 Providence. What is providence? Well, simply put, providence is the fact that God is in absolute control over all things that happen. He is orchestrating the movement of the largest planet and the smallest molecule and everything in between. God is sovereign and he rules over all. Consider how the abstract of principles, Article 4, puts it. God from eternity decrees or permits all things that come to pass and perpetually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and all events.

19:11 End quote, and well said. he rules over all the presbyterians put it more succinctly they say he ordains whatsoever comes to pass if you want to spell it out you can simply remember that god has a lock on all things he limits orders controls and knows all things god is in control god is the one that is directing traffic and since god is the one that is directing traffic and i hope you see this in the passage there's a king that wants to have a conversation with a man who is no longer in the ministry as that man is describing the miracles that are happening at the exact moment when he is describing the dead who came to life the one who was dead actually walked into the presence of the king who was directing traffic in that it is God that is the doctrine of divine providence since divine providence is true therefore there is no such thing as luck and so if luck exists

20:17 then the god of the bible does not nothing is random you will hear young people say oh that was so random there is nothing that is random nothing is left to chance everything is preordained everything is by design there's another thing that young people will say today and i know that they mean well when they say this but consider what is actually being said when something works out ultimately for good they will say that was such a God thing which I will not argue indeed it was a God thing but I would have a follow-up question and that is can you tell me anything that is not a God thing. Everything that happens by definition is a God thing. Providence is a friend to restoration. I think you have a horse race here every year. Usually it happens in May, I think.

21:18 I'm not sure. And this past year, there was a horse that had 80 to 1 or 81 to 1 odds. And that horse ends up winning the race. Now, those odds are extreme. Well, what is the mathematical probability that after 2,550 days that a woman who left would walk into the king's presence at the exact moment when a conversation about her was being held? What are the odds?

21:54 82 to 1, 100 to 1, a billion to 1. So you're telling me there's a chance. You cannot calculate what the odds are. Incalculable. There's a 0% chance unless someone is directing traffic. And what I am here today to talk to you about is restoration. And I'm telling you, someone is directing traffic and that someone is God.

22:26 God is controlling or ordaining whatsoever comes to pass. The doctrine of providence is a friend to restoration. And so what I would say to you is, everything that has happened in your life up till this point, where you are, who you are, where you were born, who your family was, the very fact that you're even here today and everything that has led up to today was not just some random concoction of events that are having a confluence, but it was the divine providence of God that is directing traffic. Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, I was evangelizing a friend of mine.

23:13 His name is John, and John had several things working against him. First of all, he was an atheist. Secondly, he was from a Jewish background. Third, he was a heroin addict. And fourth, he was homeless. And so for many years, I would try to bring the gospel to John. And I was only ever in all of my encounters with him able to get him to go to church once and once only. it had no impact upon him whatsoever. Now John lived in another state. We would stay in touch with one another quite often and I had lost touch with him for a couple of months. And he gives me a call after we had not spoken for a couple of months and he said, you're not going to believe what has happened to me. I was homeless. I was strung out. I was out on the streets. I got hit by a car and I went into the hospital. And for the past two months or so, I have been in the hospital

24:16 getting dried out from my heroin addict and having my leg taken care of because I was hit by a car. And I said, John, where are you now? He said, I am in a rehab center. And he told me where the rehab center was. The rehab center was about 40 miles away from the hospital. He said, I'm in a rehab center well as providence you remember our word providence as providence would have it I knew several people who lived in the town where the rehab center was and so what I did is I started a little group text and I said dear friends I know that you have a heart for the Lord you have a heart for evangelism I'm going to ask you please if you will do me a favor I'm going to ask you if you will go to this rehab center and visit my friend John and bring the gospel to him. It's a group of about 10 people. Meanwhile, I left an important element out of this story. Let me backtrack just

25:19 a few seconds. When John went into the hospital, his clothes were no longer wearable, and so he had to get clothes to wear out of the hospital. There was a nurse there that was taking care of him she at the time was not a christian but she was a very compassionate woman what she did is she went to one of her mother's friends who was roughly the same size as john and said could you give me some clothes so that when this man leaves the hospital he'll have something to wear now back to the main line of the story he's in this rehab center i have sent this text out to these 10 people or so, and immediately a woman texts back and says, I know who this man is.

26:01 My daughter is a nurse in this hospital, and for the past eight weeks, she has been taking care of him. Furthermore, the clothing that he is now wearing was given by one of the other men who were on this text feed. His name was Chris. Chris jumps into the text conversation and says, I am on my way to the rehab center right now. I do not know this man. I do not know what he looks like. I'm just going to go in and look for the guy who's wearing my clothes. My friends who have hearts for evangelism go visit this man. They're kind to him. They love him. They bring the gospel to him. The one woman who was the most relentless in bringing the gospel to him was Marley Johnson's

27:05 grandmother, Christine, to the point where this man called me up and said, I am thankful for the visitors. They are so kind. Could you please tell Christine not to come back? All she wants to do is tell me about Jesus Christ and how I need to be saved. Fast forward about a month, John is born again. He is saved. And as he is giving me his testimony, the thing that he says to me, which which really really blessed my heart was he said as one with a scientific background and one who was an atheist and and just just needed proof I could not wrap my mind around the mathematical probability that you would know someone in the place where I was and the clothes that I would have on my back would belong to friends of yours, and the nurse who took care of me would be a friend

28:10 of one of your friends. And I had to say to myself, this is not random. There has to be a God. And then he started to listen to Marley Johnson's grandmother, Christine, about what it means to know this God, and thankfully she relentlessly brought the gospel to him and he was converted. All that to say, the biblical doctrine of restoration is befriended by the doctrine of providence.

28:43 You are where you are because God has you there. You may not understand it. I'm sure that you don't understand it. However, God uses providence to bring about restoration. Point number two, our glorious message of restoration is communicated most effectively in the context of pain. What was the greatest pain that the Shunammite woman ever knew? It was that her son died.

29:14 I don't even want to think very long or meditate upon what this woman was feeling as her son died in her arms I can't really imagine what she was feeling as she made that 16-mile trip to Mount Carmel. But as she was going, I'm sure she was not thinking to herself, this will one day be used for good. But if you play the story out, the only reason why the king grants restoration to this woman is because she had a son who was dead but came back to life.

29:48 that is what caught the attention of the king for if the woman had walked into the presence of the king while he was having a conversation with Gehazi at best it would be an interruption the king may turn to her and say who are you and she would say well my property was confiscated and and now I want it back I'm sure what he would say to her is get in line woman we have just had a seven-year drought. We're not going to give you your property back. But that which caught the attention of the king was that she had a son who was dead, who came back to life.

30:27 Without that pain, she never would have had the restoration. And I want to encourage you today by telling you that the pain that you are going through, because of providence, it is not only something that God allows to come into your life, but it is something that God is actually using in your life to bring about restoration. Pain is often a key ingredient in the process of restoration. Consider the story of Joseph in Genesis. If Joseph is not the favorite, he doesn't get the coat of many colors. If he doesn't get the coat of many colors, then his brothers aren't jealous of him.

31:09 If they aren't jealous of him, they don't sell him into slavery. If he doesn't get sold into slavery, he doesn't go to Egypt. If he doesn't go to Egypt, he doesn't meet Potiphar. If he doesn't meet Potiphar, he doesn't meet Potiphar's wife. If he doesn't meet Potiphar's wife, he doesn't get accused of rape. If he doesn't get accused of rape, he doesn't go to jail. If he doesn't go to jail, well, then he doesn't meet the cupbearer. If he doesn't meet the cupbearer, then he doesn't interpret the cupbearer's dream. If he doesn't interpret the cupbearer's dream, then the cupbearer doesn't know that he can interpret dreams. And when Pharaoh has the dream about the seven good years and the seven bad years, then the king won't know to put aside produce during the seven good years. And if they don't put that produce aside, then everybody in that region of the world dies. If everybody in that region of the world dies, then Joseph's family dies. And if they die, then his brother Judah dies. And if Judah dies, then there is no King David. And if there is no King David, there is no King David's greater son. And if there is

32:12 no King David's greater son, then you're going to hell and so am I. The pain which Joseph experienced was an integral part of restoration for the world. So much so that Joseph says to his brothers, well you meant it for evil but God meant it for good. Joseph didn't even understand himself what that meant. Ultimately good comes to the world through the pain that he went through. Now if we put blinders on Joseph and we look at any one section of his life, I'm in jail. I'm in jail for a crime that I didn't commit. I'm in a country I don't even know where I am and here I am in jail and I've done nothing wrong and I have been forgotten for two years.

33:01 What is going on and what is the purpose of this? Well, if you look at it that way with those blinders on, there is no purpose for it. But brothers and sisters, I want to say if you take the blinders off and you get into your Romans 828 helicopter and you lift off and you see, aha, God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him to those who are called according to his purpose, you will then be able to see that although pain is not enjoyable. I am not saying this morning that Joseph enjoyed his time in prison. I am not saying that the pain that you are going through right now is enjoyable. I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt. Pain always hurts. By definition, pain hurts. What I am saying, however, is this.

33:47 it is not without purpose. It is for a purpose, and God is using it to bring about restoration. And so when the blinders are taken off, and we see that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him, to those who are the called according to his purpose, we can then say, along with the hymn writer, what e'er my God ordains is right. There's no way, there is no way that you can ever convince me that this woman in the pain which she was experiencing with a dead son as she travels to and from Mount Carmel is saying to herself, I know that one day this is going to be a key ingredient in bringing about restoration. At the same time, I know for a fact that after restoration was granted to her, she knew that the reason in part why it was granted was because God allowed that pain to come into her life.

34:48 Amen. And I don't want to speak just technically about this because I know that some of you today are really hurting. And maybe you're hurting with the blinders on. Lord, what are you doing? And why is this happening? i want to tell you i don't know but i do know the one that has allowed and has ordained and has orchestrated that pain in your life and it will be with purpose and so please trust in the one who does all things well god uses pain let me give you the best illustration of this and that is never has anybody known pain more than our Lord Jesus Christ who for six hours hung upon the cross who prior to going to the cross was mocked and scourged who had a crown of thorns

35:51 ground onto his skull he was so weakened that he could not carry his own cross and as he is experiencing this pain he's carried to the top of Mount Calvary and he is nailed to the cross and there in his body he bore our sins upon the tree never has a man known such pain it wasn't just a physical pain that he had to endure but it was the fact that he was he was polluted with our sin he who never knew any sin became sin for us Christ suffered once for sin the just for the unjust and it's not just the the pain in his muscles and in his joints but but but it is the the pain of my sin and my rebellion upon him. And then the penalty for that sin, something he had to endure for those six hours where God the Father rolls up his sleeve and hammers his son to death upon the cross. He was pleased to make his son a sacrifice for sin. It pleased the Lord to crush him and to

36:53 bruise him. Jesus Christ was experiencing pain on that cross. Now, you can put the blinders on that and you can look at that and say, why? What did this actually accomplish? And it does seem senseless, but when you take the blinders off and you see that because of his pain, and listen, the gospel is not just, it just doesn't have the ingredient of pain, but the gospel is pain. It is him suffering pain in my place and for me.

37:26 It is there Jesus Christ endures my pain so that I never eternally will have to experience it. He took my sins and my sorrows and he made them his very own. Pain is an ingredient that God uses to bring about restoration. Amen. And finally, finally, the glorious doctrine of restoration is accompanied with a demonstration of divine power.

38:05 So our points this morning are providence, pain, and power. I use alliteration in my sermons not so as to help you remember, but I do it to irritate people that don't like alliteration in sermons. Power, specifically the power of a risen son. You see, the reason why the king was willing to restore her property was not because of anything meritorious that the woman had ever done.

38:39 Imagine this, Gehazi's having the conversation, the woman comes in, she interrupts, And Gehazi looks over at the woman and says to the king, I know this woman. She is a good woman. She and her husband built a room on the top of their house. That's not going to get the attention of this wicked king. No, no, no. It wasn't her own merit that caused the king to act. The reason why the king was willing to restore her property was because a previously dead son was now alive and standing by her side.

39:14 there's something very special and unique about this woman she had a dead son and now he is alive and so please follow the argument from the lesser to the greater objectively if a wicked king hearing the testimony of a leprous defrocked clergyman was willing to grant total restoration to a woman that he did not know based upon a boy who was dead but is now alive but a boy who would eventually die and die permanently how much more will a willing loving eternal good intentional god not grant ultimate restoration to his elect when he sees his perfect eternal son standing by our side a proof of our justification a son who used to be dead but now is alive and is alive forevermore In other words, before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea.

40:17 I'm going to be standing in the judgment one day before a king. I just hope that king isn't looking at me. But there's going to be one standing beside me who used to be dead but is now alive. The king's going to look at that son, and he's going to bring about something called restoration. Eternal restoration. He was looking at the risen son.

40:50 God the just is satisfied to look at him and pardon me. Objectively today, I want to tell you that Jesus Christ died and that he rose again and that you are going to be judged and you are going to spend eternity somewhere. And 100% of your case before God is you putting your faith and your trust in the risen son, Jesus Christ, for you to cry out to Christ to have mercy upon you.

41:27 To kiss the sun. Restoration. It comes about through the power of a risen sun. That is objectively. Now let me speak to you subjectively. I think the greatest joy that I have experienced this weekend here at this church was hearing the many testimonies of the college students who are being ministered to by those in campus outreach who have come from death to life.

42:01 It is really refreshing to see so many new believers who are college students, who are getting saved. Let's think about this subjectively for a moment. Here are these young people. Their testimonies sort of sound like a broken record. They're all the same. I came to college. I was living for the world. I was living in my sin. Someone came and they brought the message of the gospel to me. And what happens? There's a change of heart. How is it that someone who doesn't understand, someone who is bored by this, someone who thinks that Christians are weird, and in reality we are, but they want nothing to do with us? They have no love for christ and for his church they have no interest in the bible they're living for their flesh and all of a sudden boom they are brought to life how does that happen i mean i don't think that there's a psychiatrist in the world that can explain the change the change comes about

43:05 subjectively through the power of god unto salvation which is the gospel and that is why Paul says I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believes and so I want to give encouragement to all of you who may in some way be sheepish about taking this gospel to unbelievers well please understand if it is just you and your persuasion or just you being able to walk work out the the logic of the gospel for it to make sense to someone yes you should be sheepish because it's never going to accomplish anything however I want to encourage you today you have something much more than that you have the power of a risen son and you're taking this message to them and it is that which God uses to take the dead and bring the dead to life it is that which God uses to bring about restoration for his elect and i want you to think back on your life and i want you to give god glory

44:11 for the power of that risen son to save you because there was a day when you were disinterested and dull and deaf and dead and for some reason i will never be able to understand this god chose to touch your heart with the glorious message of His risen Son and bring you to life and give you a love in your heart for Christ.

44:43 Restoration through providence through pain and through the power of the gospel. Father in heaven, thank you for the attentiveness of these people lord from outward observation they seem to be interested in what was said but lord only you know their hearts i would ask in jesus name please if there are any dead men and women or children in the room that you would please bring them to life and father i would also ask in jesus name for those of us who have been brought to life that we would rejoice in how you orchestrated our restoration through your glorious gospel. May we never forget this. May we never forget this.

45:35 We love you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.