Acts 26:15-18

It has been such a wonderful experience to be in the presence of God the last couple of weeks. Spending time in fasting in various ways and praying and even last night we were so grateful for the time, powerful time of worship that the Lord gave to us and we were able to experience the presence of God and even this morning as well. Warm welcome to all of you, especially all the guests to our church, we welcome you.

We are going through the book of Acts, church on the move and we are today in Acts 26:15-18. Acts 26:15-18. To set the context for today’s message, we all know where the Apostle Paul is. He is in Caesarea now standing before King Agrippa and Governor Festus as for the third time in the book of Acts the Holy Spirit repeats the testimony of the conversion of the Apostle Paul. As I mentioned to you last week, anytime God’s word repeats something, it is worth noting and when God’s Holy Spirit repeats something three different times, there is definitely a lot that we can learn from and we should pay attention to it very intently because there’s definitely God wants to communicate certain things to us.

We ended last week by the words of our Lord to him, oh Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is futile. It is foolish to kick against the gods and we talked about how the resistance rebellion against the will of God was a futile attempt on his part. In the context of that, we go to verse 15, then I asked, who are you Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, the Lord replied. He knows that the light that struck him down was supernatural in nature. He also knew that the person who was speaking to him was of divine knowledge and understanding, but his identity is still not known to him. So we asked the question, then I asked, who are you Lord? Then he hears a voice that’s the last answer that he would ever expect for him to hear and the words was this, I am Jesus, the earthly name of our Lord that was given to him to know that he is our savior, whom you are persecuting, the Lord replied. As dramatic as the light that struck him down on that day was, this was a greater and bigger dagger into his heart on that day as he heard the identity of the voice that had struck him down on that day. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

As he has done in the previous passage, the Lord Jesus Christ is identifying himself with the persecution of his body, the church itself as well. You cannot separate the two. And this is a poignant reminder for all of us this morning as well. When you attack Christians, you attack Jesus. When you speak bad about other believers, you are speaking bad about Jesus. The next time you are very tempted to gossip about your fellow believer. Think about that for a second. You cannot separate the body from the head. So the way we act within the body of Christ, it is so important because the way we treat others is so intricately tried to our devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. You attack believers of the Lord, you are attacking the Lord himself. You gossip against the believers of the Lord, you are gossiping against Christ himself. The body of the Lord is so important in his mind and the Lord says, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

And then the word comes to him, verse 16, get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. Jesus’ voice to him is also a reminder to him that everything that he has been hearing from the people of the way has been the truth. That Jesus of Nazareth did not just die on a cross, but three days later he rose again. And now it is his voice that he is hearing on the way to Damascus. Even as he’s standing before King Agrippa in all of his glory and pomp, along with Governor Festus and all the military generals and all the members of the court, surely some of them were involved in the crucifixion of our Lord. Now here stands the Apostle Paul to tell them that the Jesus that you crucified is not dead, but he has risen again and he has spoken to me on my way to Damascus. What a great witness he is as he stands before them.

But the commission of the Lord to him is also very, very clear. A little bit of a different version that we read earlier in the previous testimonies about him. Jesus says to him, I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant. And in some of your translations says, I have appeared before you to appoint you as a minister. The word that is used over there, servant, minister, is the Greek word huperitus, which is a beautiful word in the Greek language. It is actually referring to someone who is in the galley of a ship, a servant in the galley of a ship. It is not even a sailor who has the privilege of being on the deck of the ship. It is literally a sailor who is in the galley of the ship. And if you know anything about the ships of that time, they were powered and directed by men who were rowing in the galley of the ship. Jesus calls him and says, up until now, you were doing things according to your own will. But I am appointing you to be a servant and minister to me, to serve in the ship of the kingdom of God, in the galley of that ship. And now in the galley of the ship, as you’re rowing the boat, you are not a man of your own will. You have to listen to the one who is standing in the front and telling you, row, row, row, you row. When he tells you to stop, you stop. When he tells you to row, basically he has no will anymore in his life. His entire life is directed by the one who is standing at the end and telling him what to do. The call on that day was just that. You are no longer a captain of your own soul. You are no longer a master of your own will. Your will and running for your own intuitions has come to an end on this day. From this day on, you have a new master in your life, one who will stand at the head of your life. He will tell you where to go. He will tell you when to preach. He will tell you what city to go to. He will tell you what to write. In fact, the 13 books that we have in the New Testament that were all written by this man is because God spoke to him directly and told him what to write. How did the letters that he wrote became part of the New Testament canon? If it was just a letter written by a prisoner, they would not be the inspired word of God. But remember, from this point on, everything this man writes, everything this man says comes from the throne room of God. So when he writes a letter, it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every word is ordained by the Holy Spirit. That is why the letter to the Ephesians, the letter to the Philippians, the letter to the Colossians, the letter to many different churches, letter to 1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, letter to Philemon, letter to Titus, all personal letters are all inspired word of God. Because his will has now been transformed and the will of the Lord Jesus Christ is directing him every step of the way. You cannot run on your own anymore. You have a new leader, a new captain, a new way of thinking, and a new person who is directing you in your life.

But isn’t that what’s supposed to happen in all of our lives? See when we come to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, there has to be a surrender that happens in all of our lives. If you do not surrender your will to him, you’ll be living only a shell of the Christian faith that he has called you to do. And that’s why Jesus tells us so clearly, if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up the cross and follow after me. Taking up one’s cross is surrendering of your will. Taking up one’s cross is you dying to yourself. Taking up your cross means you’re willing to say, my life, the way I want to live does not matter anymore. Jesus is the one that I follow. And that’s what the following that call Christ is calling each one of us to do.

Then he told him, not only do I want you to be a servant and minister doing my will, I want you to be a witness for me, telling everyone what has happened to you on the road to Damascus. But not only that, time and time again, he will appear to him again and he will tell him different things. And Jesus says to him, I want you to be my faithful witness to everything that I will show to you every single time I appear before you. He will appear before him while he was in the temple. He will appear before him while he’s in Caesarea. He will appear before him in Jerusalem. At different times, the Lord will appear to him. Dramatically, in a matter of few seconds, Christ transforms his life.

There’s a question that is asked in Jeremiah 13:23 about the inability of man to change himself. The question is asked is this, can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? And the answer is no, he cannot. But it is talking not just about something that is skin deep. Man by his own efforts cannot change himself. Then the next words remind you of that fact. Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. This man would have continued in his path of murder and persecuting Christians unless and until the grace of God appeared to him on the way to Damascus. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin. The leopard cannot change its spots. Man who is accustomed to evil cannot start doing good on his own unless and until the grace of God appears to him and transforms him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Evil men like you and me cannot ever hope to do anything that is good in the sight of God. That is why the Bible consistently and constantly preaches to us about the depravity of the human soul that can only be redeemed by the grace and mercy of God. Every single one of you are evil to the core. I am evil to the core. If there’s anything that is good in me, it is only because of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. When I was also on my road to Damascus doing the things that I wanted to do, isn’t it the grace of God that appeared to each one of us and stopped us and say, I have called you to be a servant, a minister, and a witness to what I have done in your life. Many times when we sing songs, we tear up. It is not just emotional in nature. It is because we are reminded of the change that Christ has brought in our life, how he has redeemed us, how he has taken our chains away, how he has set us free, the joy that is in our life, the hope that is in our life, the peace that is in our life. We remember where we were before and we thank God for what we are today by the grace of God. Oh, the songs of the redeemed is a song of a changed people by the grace of God. The songs of the redeemed are people that say, apart from the grace of God, I will still be a wretched soul, but thanks be to God who has saved me and made me to be the man and the woman that I am. The song of the redeemed is one of humility. The song of the redeemed is one of admission of his own faults. The song of the redeemed is a song of the uttermost grace that saves the sinner to the uttermost way.

What a beautiful way in which God shows us and then he told him also about the protection that he will give to him in his life. Verse 17, I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. You will face a lot of difficulties in your life, but time and time again, as we have already seen through the book of Acts, I will be a God who will be a protector and the rescuer of your life. Then he tells him what his great commission is and the message of his gospel. Verse 18, I am sending you to open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

Let me focus first on the latter part of this verse and I’ll come back to the beginning part towards the end. He says, I have a message for you, but it is a message of utmost importance that you are supposed to preach to the Gentiles and the Jews alike. And it is only the most important message the world will ever hear. It is this, through the Lord Jesus Christ, you can have deliverance from the power of Satan and you can become children of God. Through the message of the gospel, you can have forgiveness of sins that no one else can give to you. And not only that, you can have a place and inheritance, not only in this earth, but in the world to come among those who are sanctified by belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. Deliverance from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. Deliverance from darkness to light, forgiveness of sins that no one else could give to us. And not only that, a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

When writing from prison in Rome to the church in Colossae, he will repeat the same verses again, reminding them of the great commission in his life. Colossians 1:12-14. He says, I give joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you, and he’s telling that to the church at Colossae, to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. Aren’t you glad this morning that we have an inheritance and we get to share it with the people of God who are in the kingdom of light. Many times we measure how much inheritance you have and how much money you have by logging onto your Chase account and your Bank of America account, but if you read your Bible, the Bible will tell you, you have treasures, inheritance, wealth that you are not quite aware of. And you need to constantly study God’s word and allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten you and equip you to understand the riches of God’s grace in each one of our lives. We were talking about that even last night as well, about the glorious things that we have in ours because we are in the Lord. Look what he did, verse 14, he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. How many of you are glad this morning that Jesus has rescued you from the dominion of darkness? You need to understand that you were in bondage, that you could not escape the darkness on your own unless and until Jesus came and did the rescue work. You were a captive. You were held in captivity. Sometimes you didn’t even know that you were in captivity, but you were in captivity of the devil. But he did not leave you alone. He came and rescued you. And he brought you into a glorious place, the kingdom of the Son he loves. Oh, what a beautiful place that is, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. In him, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

In talking of this inheritance that we have, the psalmist will cry out to you in Psalm 16:5-6, Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup. You make my lot secure, oh God. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. Writing in the Old Testament, the understanding of the inheritance that he has from the Lord was limited in the mind of the psalmist. The New Testament saint can sing this song with much more confidence. Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup. You make my lot secure, oh God. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. Wow. Only the Christian can say that. A delightful inheritance, an inheritance that will never fade, inheritance that will never be lost. The stock market can go down by 10%, it will not affect this inheritance that is given to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Lot of people went through a lot of anxiety this week. Monday, down by 10%, Wednesday, up by 10%, Thursday, down by 4%, Friday, who knows what is going to happen this week. Many of you are logging into your 401k and seeing the account balance go up and down. It can create nausea, anxiety, lot of unnecessary worry in your life. Everybody is laughing because everybody did that. But here is the message of the New Testament. You have an inheritance that will never fade away. You have an inheritance that will never lost again. It is secure in heaven, secured by the coming of our Lord, given to the church as something that will never fade away. Oh, one day when you stand before Him, you will fully realize the riches of His grace that was given to you. This side of eternity, your mind is clouded. This side of eternity, your understanding is limited. But a day of unclouded day is coming, a day when we will know Him just as He is coming. Then you will know fully what a delightful inheritance He has already given to you. I thank God for treasures that will never fade away, for wealth that could never be lost, for riches that can never be taken away. Moth, stealing, rust cannot take away what I have in the Lord. What a great assurance and confidence we have in the Lord. Yes, it has fallen for me, and I share it with all the saints who are sanctified by the Lord.

But what I want to focus on today mainly is that first portion of the commission that came to Him. I have called you to bring people from darkness into light. Darkness into light. The first act of creation was, let there be light. That came from God, who is light. The earth was without form and void. Darkness covered the entire world as it is at that time. God into it, by one word, spoke that word, let there be light. And we now, having understanding of science and biology and the way the world works, now know why God created light to begin with. All throughout God’s word, we see things of God are given in light. Whenever God brings judgment upon God’s people or the nations of the world, the word darkness and blindness you use to describe it. Remember one of the plagues that came upon the land of Egypt was darkness. Why? It was so such thick darkness that it was unable to even feel the darkness the Bible would tell you.

In Deuteronomy 28:28-29, when God told his people to follow after his precepts, he gave them a warning. If you walk away from the laws of the Lord, here’s what the Lord will do. The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, confusion of mind. What will happen to you? At the middle of the day, you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. So there’s a darkness that will come upon you as a nation. You will walk away from the precepts and the law of God. And not only that, in the day, talking about the judgment of the nations that will come upon the people of God, this is what God said in Amos 8:9, in that day declares the sovereign Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. Again, a figurative language showing the darkness of the nations that will descend upon a people who are rebelling against God.

In the midst of all that, God still had a promise for his people. Isaiah 9:2, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. I want you to pay very close attention to the words that are used over here. In Isaiah 9:2, the people are still walking in darkness. You know what that means? There’s darkness, but they’re kind of surviving in the midst of it. They’re walking, they’re living in the midst of darkness because they’re able to move around a little bit. And but look what happens 29 years later as he writes Isaiah 42:7, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. Now, what happened between Isaiah 9:2 and Isaiah 42:7? In 29 years, the people have become more comfortable with their darkness. They’re walking around in darkness in Isaiah 9:2, but they’re sitting in darkness by the time you come to Isaiah 42:7, which means they’re more entrenched in the darkness around them, comfortably sitting in it, often not even realizing it, in the midst of the darkness and blindness that they’re living in. Why is that? 2 Corinthians 4:4, the God of this age, who is the God of this age? Satan, the enemy of your soul, has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. They cannot. It’s not that they will not. They cannot. In their own, they do not have the ability to see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Have you ever wondered why the gospel that is so clear to you, it seems like a foreign language to the unbeliever? That is because the God of this age has blinded the hearts of the unbelievers. They’re walking in darkness. They are living in darkness. They are sitting in darkness. Ephesians 4:18 will tell you, they are darkened in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in Him due to the hardening of their hearts, ignorant, blind, dark people all around you.

Again, God’s promise comes to them, Malachi 4:2, but for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his race. That was a prophetic word, not only for the immediate future as we come to the end of the Old Testament. It was also God looking to the end of times by saying, the sun of righteousness will rise one day, will bring about healing to the nations of the world, and the light finally came into this world after a gap of 400 years. But look what happened, John 3:19. This is the verdict he would say. Light has come into the world. Remember the light that Isaiah prophesied? To the people living in a darkness, a light has dawned. To the ones sitting in darkness, the light will come to set them free. It happened 700 years after Isaiah, 400 years after Malachi. But the sad state of affairs is that because the God of this world has blinded the hearts of the unbelievers, the light has come into the world, but what happened? People loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. That is why, even though he was the most perfect man ever to walk on the face of the earth, only said the things that his Heavenly Father wanted him to say, healed the sick, mended the heart of the broken hearted, made the leper whole again, raised the dead, did all the things that was prophesied about him in the Old Testament because their hearts were evil, blinded by the God of this age. They did not recognize the light. They did not see the light and ultimately in the preordained time that was given by the Father, they took him to be a cross to be crucified.

And you come to Matthew 27:45-46. From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came all over the land. Why did that happen? Why was there darkness that happened from noon until three in the afternoon? You have to kind of admire the mind of God. Darkness descended not at six o’clock in the morning. Darkness did not come at nine o’clock at night. Darkness descended at midday noon, just like the light had shown to Paul on the way to Damascus exactly at noon. When the sun is at its highest, when the sun is at its brightest, the Bible says immediately all over the land, darkness descended upon the land. Now here’s a problem with this verse to the people who don’t believe in the Bible. This is a historical fact. Roman historians have many of them have written about a period of darkness in Palestine that came out of nowhere. Over the centuries, people have tried to explain it away by saying some kind of an eclipse have happened. But there’s a problem. This was a time of the Passover, the time when the moon is full. During full moon, eclipses do not happen. Oh, don’t you love God? Don’t you love the way he works? Eclipse does not happen during full moon. So it is not an eclipse. And you all witnessed an eclipse last year. You know how long it lasts. It maybe lasts for a few minutes. The longest eclipse I believe is around seven minutes long. Eclipse does not last for three hours, but the Bible says from noon until three o’clock in the afternoon, darkness fell upon the whole land. Why did darkness descend upon the land during the crucifixion of our Lord? There are three things that I want to point out to you. You might come up with three others maybe, but this is what I’m thinking. This is depicting the very depth of human lostness before God. What is happening on the cross at that time is the judgment of our sins on the cross. Every single one of our sins is being judged on the cross at that time. Remember all the verses in the Old Testament that I already pointed out to you. Every time God’s judgment and man is in sin, the Bible uses words like darkness and blindness to depict it. When the sins of the whole world are being placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way God could illustrate the depth of the darkness we were in was to cover that entire land in a physical darkness to show to you the depravity and the depths of your soul. Secondly, I think darkness, as in the whole creation, cannot bear to watch the sufferings of Christ. Luke would tell you, even the sun was hidden on that day. Even the whole creation, inanimate objects as they are, suddenly are seeing the God of light. One who had never tasted sin becoming sin and it is as if they are hiding their faces on that day. But I think the main reason why darkness descended on that day is because of this. Darkness as the perfect holy God is becoming sin for us and our judgment is being placed on Him. Remember all the Old Testament passages. Every time God will send judgment, He would use the word darkness. But on that day, you are not being judged. I was not being judged. Jesus was being judged on the cross. Even though He had never committed anything wrong. As if He was the worst sinner in the world, the punishment of the Heavenly Father was falling upon Him. The sins of the whole world was being placed upon Him. And the entire world and the immediate land was drowning in darkness on that day as the Son of God was being judged on the cross. What a gruesome sight that must have been.

God did that. All that, why? To do this for us. 2 Corinthians 4:6. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. The same God who looked in the darkness of the world and said, let there be light. Looked into the darkness of your life and said, let the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shine into that soul. And that is why you are a child of God. But that could not have happened unless and until He went through the darkness of God’s judgment on the cross of Calvary. 2 Timothy 1:10, which tells us the grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but is now being revealed through the reappearing of our Savior Christ Jesus who has destroyed death. And what did He do? Brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Look what He did for us. He brought light, life, immortality to us through the gospel.

1 Peter would tell you, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God’s special possession that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. I hope and pray that you are so happy this morning when you think about the fact that Jesus has taken you from the kingdom of darkness into the wonderful light that we have in the Lord. And that is because He endured hours and hours of darkness of God’s judgment to bring light into your life. And that light doesn’t end. That light continues in our life. That light illuminates our soul. It continues to expose the worst of darkness and the things that are wrong in our life. And finally, when we come to the land that God is making for us, look what happens. Revelation 21:23,25, the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it. For the glory of God gives it light. Oh, how beautiful that will be. The glory of God is going to give it light on that day. And the Lamb will become the lamp of that city. Our Lord does not need the sun or the moon in the New Jerusalem. He Himself who is the light will shine His light among God’s people and they will never live in darkness again because we have come to the New Jerusalem. The nations of that day who are yet not redeemed will walk in the light of New Jerusalem. And the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On that day, its gates will never be shut. Because you know why? There will be no more night there. When do you usually shut the gates? At night. You don’t need to shut the gates of Jerusalem ever. Because that’s the land where there is no more night. Because the Lamb will shine brighter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all the time. Revelation 22:4-5. They will see His face. Who are they? We will see His face and His name will be on our foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun. For the Lord God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever.

Our Lord went through hours of darkness so that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God can shine into our hearts. And our dark souls can be illuminated and born again to become children of God. And He continues to illuminate our life with His light. We have perspectives and knowledge and understanding the world will never be able to have. Finally one day, when we reach heaven’s shores, His light will be the guiding light of our lives. We will never experience night again. We will never experience darkness again. We will never experience sin again. We will never experience the gloom of this lost world again. We will live in His presence forever and ever.

Let me end with this illustration really quickly. English author HG Wells, famous for science fiction novels such as Time Machine, Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds, once wrote a short story called The Country of the Blind. It’s about an inaccessible, luxurious valley in Ecuador where, due to a strange disease, everyone is blind. After 15 generations of this blindness, there was no recollection of sight or color or the outside world at all. Finally, a man from the outside, a man who could see, literally fell into their midst. He had fallen off a high cliff and survived only to stumble into this forgotten country. When he realized that everyone else was blind, he remembered the old adage, in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is what? King. He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight. Look you here, you people, he would say, there are things you do not understand in me. Once or twice, one or two of them attended to him, but they sat with faces downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, but they could never understand all that he was trying to communicate to them. They never believed in him. They thought he was crazy, as he described colors, because they had never seen colors. The man eventually fell in love with a girl there, and a girl’s father, by the name of Jacob, talked to a doctor about him. He said, the only way I would allow this man, who can see supposedly, to marry my daughter who is blind, is if he also becomes blind. So because of his great love for this woman, he agreed to the surgery, to take those really bad body parts that he had, called the eyes, taken away from him. Because the father was very insistent, if he is to marry my daughter, he has to become blind like the rest of us. Fortunately, on the morning of the surgery, as he got up and walked around, and he saw how beautiful the meadows were, and how beautiful the sunrise was, he reminded himself that all of this surgery is not worth the love that he had. So he left that country, still with his eyesight intact, and walked away from the blind place where people lived in that valley. An author who writes about this, write this, that is where we live, in the valley of the blind, in the country of the blind. In the country of the blind that is proud of his science, sure of his health, oblivious to the light. It is not only pitiful, it is deadly. Jesus said, men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Jesus had his own name for the country of the blind, he called it the world. In his last words to disciples before going to the cross, Jesus warned them of the hostility they would face, just as he had in this blind world. Yet rather than pulling his beloved followers out of this blind and hostile world like this man had done, Jesus sent his own Spirit to his people to convince the world of his blindness.

Do you understand that? That you are the only people in the world who have spiritual eyesight? Your co-worker is blind. Your friend in school cannot see, you do, but his blindness is not a matter of temporary matters, it is a matter of eternity, it is a matter of life and death. Yesterday Pastor T.V. Samuel shared about how every night he goes to sleep, sad that he did not get to share the gospel. That is convicting. We all should be feeling that, but it also should be driving us to action. It’s not enough to feel sad every night, it is enough to get up one morning and say, I’m going to do something different in my life. In the country of blindness, I will tell others about the wonderful colors that are given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the country of blindness, I will tell them about a land that God is preparing for us. In the country of blindness, I will tell about a Savior who came to take my blindness away and to give me sight and to give me light everlasting. I pray that we’ll be faithful in our witnesses, knowing we are in the country of the blind with an eyesight that needs to be shared with others before it’s too late. May God by His Spirit help us.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you came. Thank you that you died. Thank you that you judged sin on the cross. Thank you for your suffering. Thank you that you made us to be our children, your children. Thank you for your grace in our life. In the name of the Lord Jesus, let me pray.