Genealogy of Christ and A-Z — Leith Anderson

The Strange Vocabulary of Scripture

You will find a very strange vocabulary in the Word of God. Some years ago, I discovered a phenomenon that became a source of great blessing, not only in my own personal life and studies, but in the privilege of preaching on some of these subjects to our people.

I suppose we know that all language studies comprises the learning of certain rules and grammatical laws that are peculiar to that particular language, though I'm often certain that students are quite convinced that language is merely the studying of the rules, and after you've got them down pat, then you learn that they're no good at all because they're all exceptions to the rules in a language.

But if one is going to delve into the mysteries and intricacies of a language, he has to learn the grammatical rules and instructions, he has to learn something about verb forms and conjugations and all those rather tedious and tiring things.

But I suppose the most delightful part of any language study is the study of vocabulary. These are those mainstays of a language, the words that tell us what objects mean. And as one begins to build one's vocabulary in a language, he begins to feel a little more at home in that particular language.

And there is, in God's Word, a very strange phenomenon. I've called this the strange vocabulary of God. Now, we recognize the fact that the Bible, of course, was written in language other than our mother tongue, English, translated from Hebrew and Greek the most into our tongue.

Therefore, the translation of every word in the Bible was a problem for the translator, a more or less difficult, sometimes fairly easy problem, not so difficult to find an expression in our tongue for that which was written in the original tongues of the scriptures.

But now and again, there was a more difficult problem. And they had to wrestle with this particular problem until they'd find an adequate expression. But has it ever occurred to you, this rather strange thing, that the translators of our English Bible felt somehow impelled to allow to remain, shall I say, in the raw, untranslated certain expressions of the Bible?

For instance, the next time there is congregational reading in your church, and the Psalms are read, will you please notice what happens when you come to a little word that's inserted in the text, sometimes two or three times in a psalm, the word that's spelled S-P-L-A-H, Selah.

You will notice the very brave and the very instructed and those who know will say it just as forcefully as any other word in the psalm. Those who aren't quite so sure begin, and then they drop it halfway through.

And those who are dead certain that it ought not to be read at all will sit rather smugly while the others make their mistake in the reading of the text. And so the whole congregation is divided over the little word called Selah in the psalm.

Never quite sure that it ought to be read, but there it stands. Then you come to other expressions in the word of God, such as the word Urim and Summum. Oh, says somebody, I know what that means. Good for you.

There are some others who aren't so sure they know what it means. But if those who translated the scriptures knew what it meant, why didn't they say it? They said it about every other word when they were translating Hebrew.

Why did they strangely, or did they feel so strangely impelled to leave the words exactly as they found them? This isn't all. You'll find some others. Oh, now and again the translators will say something like, well, for instance, our Lord's great cry from the cross, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which being interpreted is, it says.

And then they'll give us an interpretation. But there are some other expressions like the one anathema maranatha. Do you know what that means? Of course, you heard a sermon on it one time, so now you know.

Well, if it means that, why didn't they say it that way? I've often asked myself the question, why were some of these expressions left exactly as they occurred in the original tongues of the scriptures?

I'm not so sure that I have the answer, but I have one that seems to satisfy me, and I'm the person that has to be satisfied most of the time in these matters. And so I sail along rather comfortably with my own answers to these kinds of problems.

And I rather suspect that the Holy Spirit led these translators of the Bible to allow these expressions to stand just as they were written, if only to cause us to come up to them, pause and ponder. Stop and take a second thought.

What is this about? And if you will do this every time you run across one of these expressions in the scriptures, I feel quite certain that you will discover a fresh and a new proof you may never have noticed before, and thus maybe accomplish the very thing God wanted to accomplish.

Now wait, stop for a bit. Give this a second thought. Let me speak to you on this particular subject, on this particular point. Now all of this was in my mind when once upon a time, a while back, I discovered myself reading the last book of the Bible, the Revelation.

Alpha and Omega in Revelation

And there I discovered that there is a phrase, or rather a title, which our Lord uses of himself, applied to himself in this text or in this book, which is not found anywhere else in the scriptures. I'm going to read this particular passage in order to refresh our thinking about it.

Revelation chapter 1 and verses 7 and 8 read as follows. Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him. And they also which pierce him. And all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.

Even so, amen. Now he speaks. I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the ending saith the Lord which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty. Now doesn't it seem to you a little strange that this expression is allowed to remain thus on the page of an English Bible?

Now the words for Alpha and Omega are not English expressions. They come from another language. Oh, I can hear somebody saying, but everybody knows that that means A and Z. Well, it doesn't quite mean A and Z, but it does mean the first and the last letters of an alphabet.

And in that you're correct. But if that's what it means, once again one asks the question, why didn't the Spirit of God lead the translators of the Bible? Although they were not inspired as were the writers of the scriptures, the original writers of the scriptures, they most certainly were under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit of God.

Why didn't he lead them to write I am A and Z? Now if he'd said that and said it that way, all the folks from Canada and England would have objected. They would have said, no, it should read I am Alpha, I am A and Z.

You know, which means, of course, the same thing. But I wonder if God does not want us to stand just a little bit longer here and ponder this title of our blessed Lord. What is the real purpose of the book of the revelations?

Oh, I know that this is an unveiling of God's future plan and program. And it's quite difficult for me to understand how anybody can understand where we're going and how things will be confirmated who does not have some grasp upon the sequence of events in the book of the revelations.

But you know, really, technically, this is not the basic purpose of this book. It is a purpose. But the purpose of this book is this. This is the unveiling, the revelations of Jesus Christ. God is saying that no matter what comes in the future, and this will be the future, no matter how things shall be brought to a confirmation, no matter what cataclysmic events are necessary in my settling up with all the sons of men, all the judgment theories and so on, it doesn't make any difference what comes in the future.

I want you to understand that my son stands supremely adequate for every need of human life and experience. Here he stands, unveiled in all his sufficiency and all his glory. My friends, I think this is a truth that has nearly escaped us in these tragic days of which we are part.

That our Lord Jesus Christ is supremely adequate. Our world is asking the question, is he? Is he relevant? Is he adequate for human needs? Some years ago, right after the war, I was on the campus of the University of Hiroshima in the city that was blasted and obliterated from the face of the earth in Japan by our atom bomb.

As I say, it was very shortly after the war and the city was still a shambles. The university was trying to crawl back into some semblance of existence. We were meeting with a group of some 40 or 50 Japanese students in a closet hut.

It was the dead of winter. It was bitterly cold. The only heat in this place was a tiny little hibachi, a little bowl filled with a few charcoal embers that burned, and I was warming my hands beside it and the students were huddled about.

And after speaking to them about behavior, then came the inevitable question and answer period. And they fired away, obviously, of course, with the lips of an interpreter, and I was grateful for that because it gave me a chance to think while they were asking, and I was absorbing what the question was.

I could sort of orient myself and get ready to fire back. There was one very keen, bright-eyed young fellow who sat on the edge of the crowd who allowed a few questions to go by before he raised his hand and asked for permission to speak.

First he identified himself. He was a former kamikaze pilot. He was about to be assigned to a mission which he knew, of course, would mean his death. When the war was over, this was to him the bitterest of disappointments.

Already his life and his ambition was shattered. He hadn't been able to fulfill what he'd believed he'd come into the world for, to die for the emperor. So he was an embittered young man. So it happened that his phone was with Giddyup Hiroshima.

He told how he came back to that city only to discover almost obliterated. He discovered that his home was gone, that his family were all blotted out, and life was to him an empty thing. And with burning eyes and searching questions, he sat in that crowd and said, Sir, I am not a Christian, but I've lost all faith in the religion of my fathers too, and I can't very well live without a religion.

I want to ask you just one question. Do you really believe that this Jesus Christ whom you preach is sufficient for every question and every problem of a man's heart and a man's life? You know, of course, what the obvious answer was.

Of course he is. And he is today. He is enough. He is sufficient. And I wonder if this title of our Lord, as he uses it here, is not suggestive extremely so. It is not suggestive of how completely sufficient our Savior is.

Jehovah, the God Who Is and Who Is to Come

You know that when Moses stood before the bush that refused to be consumed yonder there in the desert of Midian, and as a curiosity aroused, he set to watch this phenomenon. And a voice spoke to him, and he knew it was God speaking.

And with unshod feet and bared head, he stood and listened while God talked to him. And the heart of that conversation was a query concerning who God was. They'll not know God when I take your name back to them.

They've forgotten who you are. Whom shall I say sent me? And we all know what our Lord or what God said to him in that moment, the revelation of the wonderful name of Jehovah. Now, you probably know that the name Jehovah is really a combination of three parts of the Hebrew verb to be.

I don't know quite how we could get an equivalent of this in English, except to say, and I know this will sound very clumsy. God was probably saying something like this to Moses. You go back and tell them that Am was, will be sent you unto them.

Say that again. That Am was, will be. The God who is, the God who was, and the God who will be. Combine them and you'll get a clumsy name such as Am was, will be sent me unto you. So Jehovah has in it these three parts of the Hebrew verb to be.

But the better Hebrew scholars will tell you this, that while we have placed accents upon the syllable of the name that is translated in our Bibles, I am, this is not totally proper. That really the accent of it to be placed anywhere should be upon that syllable of the name which betokens or speaks of a future revelation.

The God who will be is the God who is commissioning you to go to his people. The God who is going to in the future unveil himself, further reveal himself. You know very little about him now, but as he further reveals himself to you, you will know much more about him.

The God who will be, he is the God. And I stand with God on the Isle of Patmos, bareheaded, before this burning bush. And I hear the Lord Jesus Christ say, I am Alpha and Omega, beginning and ending the Lord which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.

And I feel that the prophecy spoken to Moses yonder in the deserts of Midian and completed fulfillment in this one who stands now unveiled in all his glory before us. Here is the totality of divine revelation in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How I love to hear our Lord say, I am. Every time he speaks those words, I stand on tiptoe expectancy, waiting for a revelation of something very wonderful. When he says, I am the bread of life, my soul reaches out to him because then I know every hunger of my heart will be fully satisfied in the one who says I am the bread of life.

When he says, I am the light of the world, my poor darkened intellect reaches me and searches for the light, and I know I'll find all I'll need in following him, for he says, he that followeth me shall never walk in darkness, but shall walk in the light.

Every time he opens his mouth to say, I am, raise your soul, my friend, for God is about to give you some precious revelation that will meet the need of some facet of your needy soul. Never is it so precious or wonderful as when he stands on the edge of the grave and he says, I am the resurrection and the life.

Ah, then all those burning questions that race through our hearts and demand an answer find complete satisfaction in him. I am Alpha and Omega, says the Lord Jesus. I am the first and the last letters of the alphabet.

The Inexhaustibility of Jesus Christ

Now, for these few moments, let's think for a moment about what this suggests concerning our Lord. Think for a moment about the inexhaustibility of Jesus. For years, as a young man, I worked in a bank in Philadelphia, and that bank was located right next door to the Betsy Roth House.

And I think I passed that place where they say the first flag of our union was woven by her hands. And I suppose I passed that house three times a day for four or five years. And I had to move out of the city years later and go back with some friends who came from California to get inside the Betsy Roth House.

I'm going to make a confession now, which I hope will never get back to New York City. I've lived for nearly 26 years in the shadow of the Empire State Building. And don't publish it in gas. Tell it not in Ascalon.

I have never been to the Statue of Liberty. Isn't that awful? And every one of you who live outside of the city have no doubt, you know all about the dimensions of the Statue of Liberty. You've been all over the city of New York.

Well, I lived for a good many years right near one of the great libraries of America, the New York Library. And I never got into it until I took a class of mine from our institute to examine some old manuscripts with the Bible.

Then I had to pretend like I was an authority, you know. And there was a terrible hypocrisy to that. But I pretended like I knew all about the library. And while they were examining the manuscripts, I hiked off to the information booth and got a few facts and then pretended like I knew all about it, you see.

But that's a tremendous library, is the New York Library. It occupies an entire block in the city of New York. And it has, I've forgotten how many floors, but I know that one of those floors has on it, the entire floor, nothing but the cards that tell you what's in the library.

And that's quite a library, you know. But what really now, what are those vast tiers of books, those hundreds of thousands of volumes? What really are those tons of poems that you find in that library?

And incidentally, it's not anywhere near as large as the Congressional Library in Washington. Any one of these libraries. What are those books but this? If they are written in our mother tongue, in English, they are simply the incalculable numbers of the arrangement of 26 letters of our alphabet.

And that's all. Really now, that's all they are. Shakespeare wrote to Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and Macbeth and a lot of other things. And Dickens wrote David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers and so on.

But you know, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, Shakespeare and Dickens and all the others really wrote nothing but a masterful combination of the 26 letters of our alphabet. Every poet and every historian and every novelist who has ever taken up his pen to write in our language has simply juggled the same 26 letters of our alphabet to produce their work.

And are you thinking of writing a book? Think not. It has its own problem. But are you thinking about it? Have you been deliberating, dipping into the reservoir? And perhaps you say I'm discouraged because so many have dipped from this vast reservoir.

There probably isn't anything left. Oh, my friend, that isn't true. You can come to that same alphabet this afternoon and it is as undiminished as if not a teaspoon of thought has ever been taken from its vast, vast resources.

It's fresh, brand new. It invites you to come and dip into it and by all your skill, manipulate and juggle and put together and patch and piece together and do what you can. Perhaps you can produce a masterpiece too.

The alphabet is inexhaustible. And Jesus stands and says I am the alphabet. Well, isn't it wonderful today to know that all of those who have come to him with a burning need and drawn deeply from him have not diminished as great one iota?

All around this world today tens of thousands, perhaps millions have knelt brought their need to him, drawn from him strength, grace, power, victory. And perhaps you're a little worried lest the next hour shall bring to you some special need and you come to him to find him exhausted, have no fears at all.

He is as fresh in his supply of redeeming grace, of sustaining power, of sin-conquering victory as if he had never been touched by a sinner yet in two thousand years. As if he hadn't expended one ounce of energy in the answering of a single prayer he stands today inviting you to come with all of your heart's need, all of your life's desperation and draw from him for he says I am Alpha and Omega.

Let's bow for a moment before him and acknowledge his all-sufficiency. How wonderful. Now let me speak further of the indispensability of Jesus. The vast continents of literature that have been written and are encompassed in the millions and millions of volumes that are captivated in our libraries today.

All of these things awaiting our exploration are as inaccessible as diamonds on the moon until we have mastered the alphabet. You just can't know them. You can't understand them. Just all the riches of knowledge are locked behind inaccessible doors unless you know the alphabet.

I do not know exactly how this operates here at Moody Bible Institute because I have one son who's almost through and I'm praying right down to the end, you know. So June, I hope you'll make it. But in the schools where I am president once in a while I have to well I'm the sort of supreme court once I've gotten past this committee and that committee you know when they're in trouble, academic trouble then at last comes that final moment when they stand before me and this poor fellow came in I had all the notes and all the recommendations and they said you just have to let him go he can't make it.

He just can't make it. Well I had his record before me and I opened it and he stood there for a moment shifting from one foot to the other he'll call him Jim. I said Jim sit down, relax and he knew his bag was packed he was about to leave and I said well this is the moment for goodbye but I'm protected a little.

I've got some questions in my mind and I'd just like to have you answer them and don't forget anything you say now can't be held against you it's too late. I can't reverse the decision. I don't intend to you'll have to go.

You just apparently can't make it and I'm sorry but I don't understand it. Jim look you got through high school and you seem to graduate with a fair decent average and then you went into the army and you got through a couple of years in the army and there's nothing against your record there but why didn't you make it here?

What's wrong? And then he gave me an answer that just about floored me. He's a big fellow you know nice looking boy too. I just hated to see him go and I felt we hadn't yet found the reason and I wanted to at least satisfy myself in that moment.

And he said just as stiff as he could for a moment and then I felt I could just feel him sort of relax and then kind of collapse. And he said a strange thing. He said sir I just wish my mother was here if she was nearby I could get by.

And I said now this I have bad hearing in this ear. And he said say it again so I'll get it in this ear. Did you say your mother? Yes he said my mother. Well you better say some more because I'm lost.

I don't know what you mean. And then he began to pour out his problems. He said you know sir I don't know how to read. Come come. Jim. Of course you do. No I don't. I don't even know the alphabet. Now you can analyze this boy any way you want.

You psychologist you've got him pegged already. But sir this is what he was saying. And he went on to tell me that was done all of his assignments in high school. He should have gotten his diploma. Of course we as parents feel that way about all of our boys when they graduate by the time we fight for it and do all the assignments and all the research and all the sweat.

And we feel like just a minute Mr. President I'll take that if you don't mind when I get ready to give it to them you know. But this was a little different. And then he began to unfold his story of his need his problem and somewhere way way back there this lad hadn't yet learned how to master such a simple thing as the alphabet.

And so all his life he'd struggled through on crutches. Now you can say all you want. But why didn't he sit down and master it. Well why don't we do a lot of things we should do. And here he was all surrounded by knowledge.

What good was it to him. He didn't have the keys. He couldn't unlock the doors. I sat one day down in the jungles of Guatemala. I sat at the elbow of a translator. He said we're about ready to see a breakthrough.

How would you like to witness it. I want you to see a pagan man who probably today will learn for the first time how to read. And I watched as these translators laboriously the back of it was these months and sometimes years of sweating it out listening to every sound trying to get it down so that the sound at least would be correctly recorded.

And then after all the sounds had been worked through and the grammar or the sounds at least were built together. Then work out about the grammar and then out of that a primer and then teach it back to the very people.

From whence you got it. Oh I tell you this is hard work. And years were behind this. Here sat a pagan savvy. He had a nice face. He was a believer. He'd been saved. His face was different from the faces of other Indians round about.

You could just feel it. When you talked about the Lord his face lightened up. It was wonderful to have fellowship with him. But you know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge were locked to him as securely as if they were behind a book.

He hadn't yet gotten the secrets and worst of all all that God wanted to say to him was locked up in this book. And I watched for an hour or so as this missionary was. And then let me tell you something.

A light dawned on that man's face after a while the like of which I've never seen anywhere in this whole world as all of a sudden that book this strange thing this white man always talked about that book was talking to him.

It was saying it in his language. And I saw a man standing on the edge of a vast sea for the first time in his life being given a vehicle to explore its vastness. And it was a thrilling discovery. Friends I say the same thing about our Lord Jesus Christ.

What the alphabet is to literature. Jesus Christ is to life unless you have him unless not only you have mastered him but he has mastered you all of life. All of its enigmas all of its puzzles all of its perplexions its problems its tensions its thrusts its difficulties they are all standing before you unconquered and uncomfortable until you have the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's quite significant may I say to note the three occasions. The only three times this name occurs in the book of the revelations. The first time it occurs right here at the beginning of the book in Revelation 1 .8.

The second time it occurs is in Revelation 21 .6. And the third and final time is in Revelation 22 .13. And I think that each of these occasions are significant junctures. First the first time the name occurs is when the Lord is just about to unfold some further mysteries of divine revelations.

The one who is going to speak says I am Alpha and Omega. Now what you see write in a book and send it to the churches. I'm going to make a revelation of myself to my own and I am the alphabet. Without me they'll never understand what I'm driving at.

That leads me to say that unless you know Christ as God's alphabet then all the truths of this book will forever remain an inscrutable mystery to you. You may indeed be able to find some secrets of how to unlock the treasures of human wisdom.

But you can never never never discover the secrets of divine revelations without Jesus. The Alpha and the Omega move on. When you come to the second time that this name occurs in the book you're almost at the edge.

Yes you are at the edge of all time Revelation 21. What's left to be said. Oh just the remainder. The wind up of all things behind the one who speaks is all the ages of the past. And I wonder if he doesn't say I'm Alpha and Omega at that particular point if only to say this you'll never understand the mysteries of the drama of human history unless you apply me to it.

I'm the answer. You know you never can quite unravel all the movements of history. They're somewhat like they're adding up a column and never being able to come to a total without Jesus Christ. And he says you can understand all of history.

If you know me the Alphabet Alpha and Omega. When you turn your back upon time and you're on eternity's shore. I don't know what God has in the future. But it must be even more glorious than the past.

And no matter what the future of eternity unfolds a glorious overpowering mystery. There he stands. Still sufficient still. The answer. Alpha and Omega. The first and the last and all that's in between.

Christ as the Sufficient Savior

Now I have just a moment or two left. Oh I wanted you just to catch a glimpse of our wonderful Lord today. Not that we haven't been seeing him hour in and hour out in this wonderful conference. Yes we have.

But I would just like you to. I thought perhaps I could just reach out and pull the veil aside and say look at him. Behold him. I don't know what your need is. And I don't. I can't possibly understand the vastness of the needs represented in this audience.

But I know he's enough. He is adequate for all of our needs. Yes our Lord Jesus Christ is God's alphabet. And how adaptable he is. You want to write a love letter. Tell somebody you love them. What are you going to use.

Oh of course. Pen and paper. No. No no. I mean what's the stuff you're going to use to tell the story of your affection. Well friend if you're going to write it in our tongue you're going to have to use some combination of the 26 letters of our alphabet.

So you're going to write a hot letter to the fellow who's owed you money for so long. He's getting tiresome. And you're going to tell him off in no uncertain terms. Let me tell you what are you going to use.

Letters of the alphabet. You're going to write a poem. Good for you. How great it must be to be able to write poetry. I can make two words rhyme. Try as hard as I will. What are you going to use. You'll have to use the 26 letters of our alphabet.

It's such a wonderfully adaptable instrument isn't it. Well gotta say to us that's it today no matter what your need my son is sufficient for your need. He is alpha and omega. We don't all need the lord jesus alike.

But we all alike need him. For he is able for every one of our needs. Yes he is. What's yours today. Stand before the same blazing burning bush that John stood before on Patmos Island so long ago and hear him say I'm alpha and omega.

The Cashalot and the Beauty of Christ

Many years ago as a young fellow I read a book. I don't even think this thing's in print anymore but it was called The Cruise of the Cashalot. Now some of you may have read that book. You remember it was written by a man named Frank Bullard and it's the story of the old whaling days in earlier American history when those great foremasters pushed out from the rugged New England coast and hunted for the schools of whales in the North Atlantic chased them and then caught them.

And there were some exciting episodes in that book and Frank Bullard tells of perhaps one of the most exciting of all chapters he says. I think he writes as I recollected himself so he had experienced this.

He says that when he first saw the cashalot which was the name of the whaling ship that was to take him out with others in search of whales. And I quote him he says methinks she's the ugliest tub I have ever seen.

Not a nice description of a boat. The ugliest tub I have ever seen. And so he spent several weeks on this boat until finally came that electrifying cry whales ahoy you know. And off they prepare the boats and the harpoons and the all the rest of it.

And Bullard tells how he got aboard one of these smaller boats. He was dropped down onto the surface of the sea and they set out for the whales. They sighted one and they aimed their harpoon and it was a bullseye right in the snout of a big whale and it stuck one or two more and they had it or her.

I don't know how you tell the sex of a whale but then anyway they had it. And then this denizen of the deep did what they expected it would do. It took off like an express train. Now all the skill of these seamen was being challenged how to stay afloat how to keep your prey in sight and get it in.

That's a job. And these denizens I understood from this story often would go in a straight line and suddenly reverse themselves. And then your task was to stay out of range of that thrashing big tail that could splinter your boat like a matchbox.

Well sometimes they'd go in circles and turn the sea into a fury. And this one chose the latter method. And this tiny little boat was spinning around in that churning sea and suddenly it flipped over and Bullen found himself going straight down to Davy Jones' locker.

But when he fought his way back up he thought to the surface and shook the brain from his eyes and caught his breath. He felt something rather solid and yet somewhat slippery under his feet and he awoke to the terrible realization that he was riding a whale piggyback and this thing was still taking off in all directions.

And he was riding and he slipped and slid all over there was a pretty big surface and he didn't hit the edge of the thing and he didn't slide off into the sea. And then he explains in his book he says.

Oh the prospects of what kind of a death shall I die. He thought of Jonah and how terrible it would be to be swallowed by this thing should it suddenly desire to eat what was riding on its back. He thought of how it would be to be smashed into unconsciousness and then go down into the sea or just really jump off and drown.

And while he said I'm contemplating all of these various methods of ending this sad and sordid chapter he said. I saw coming up over the horizon the mast of a ship and as the ship bore down upon it he said.

And he thinks I never saw a lovelier boat in all my life. It was the cashalot. Aye. Same old boat same old ship. What made the difference. His desperate need. I know once I saw no beauty in him that I should desire him Jesus my Lord.

There was no attraction there when first I saw and heard of him. But then when the pains of hell got hold upon me when the Holy Spirit showed me my desperate need of a Savior suddenly he became the altogether lovely one.

And as the days have come and gone ever since he has increased in desirableness. How wonderful to know of Jesus Christ as your Savior. And then to grow day by day into the wonders of his inexhaustibility.

Matthew's Genealogy and the Gospel's Central Message

Whatever your need is he is able for it today for he is Alpha and Omega. Amen. I will teach you tonight what I consider to be one of the most important passages in the Bible. I don't know whether you will agree with me or not.