History is “His Story”
Chuck Brooks, Pastor-Teacher, GraceWay Church January 17th, 2016
Some people have said that the subject of History is actually “His Story”…the story of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. From the dawning of time, when our Creator, scooped into the dust of the earth and made man, it’s been all about Jesus.
The language in the first chapter of Ephesians attests to this truth:
Eph 1:4 Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him. Because of his love
Eph 1:5 God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children---this was his pleasure and purpose.
Eph 1:6 Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son!
Eph 1:7 For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God,
Eph 1:8 which he gave to us in such large measure! In all his wisdom and insight
Eph 1:9 God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ.
Eph 1:10 This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.
With this as a backdrop we turn to the first chapter of God’s Holy Word. The first verse of the Bible tells us that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
We could spend the next few months dealing with just this one verse! The scientists, naturalists and philosophers of this world would rather ignore what the Bible says about the creation of the universe and teach their fictitious and rather nonsensical version of how it came into existence.
The predominant cosmological model of the universe’s origin is the Big Bang Theory. Listen to the following statement, made by a scientist upon the launching of the Hubble telescope in 1990: “Fifteen to eighteen billion years ago the universe exploded into being.”
But anyone who has a brain that works would ask the question, “If the universe did not exist before the explosion, what was it that exploded?” Well, they have an answer to that. Their model suggests that all energy and matter previous to the explosion had been condensed into one tiny little point of singularity. At some point, and for some reason, that infinitesimal point of singularity exploded, and the results of that explosion are still reverberating throughout outer space.
Now this raises a whole host of questions. From where did all of this matter and energy originate? Why did it all condense into that infinitesimal point of singularity? What started it all?
Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest, tends to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an external force, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. There has to be an outside force for anything to change, move, or come into existence.
What is the force that scientists ascribe as the cause for the Big Bang and therefore the cause for all existence?
The naturalist or evolutionist also have an answer for that question too. The answer is chance. Chance becomes the great innovator and initiator of the universe. What are the chances that anything can happen by chance? The answer is: not a chance! Chance has no influence on the result. Chance cannot do anything because chance is nothing. For something to act it must first be. Chance has no being; it is no-thing. To say that the universe was created by chance is to say the universe was created by nothing.
Someone has said that “chance” is like the excuse our children give when they knock over and break something in another room. You ask, “Who broke my lamp?” And all the kids respond, “Nobody.” This is the same lame and irrational excuse for the beginning of the universe that worldly scientists and philosophers give: Nothing + chance + time caused the universe to come into existence.
The truth of the matter is that that which has a beginning in time must have something preceding it or it could not begin, and so we read: “In the beginning…God.”
There is nothing in the Scriptures that tries to prove or make a case for the existence of God, there is just the bold declaration for God being the sovereign Author of all and everything that is.
God stands alone and outside of all other things. Evolution states that the universe was self-created; which is a logical impossibility. Anything that exists, either exists in and of itself or is caused by something else. God is the uncaused cause; He is the self-existent, eternal being.
The first chapter of the Bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth, which included all the plant and animal life. And, then in the middle of His pristine creation the Bible tells us that, “God created man in His own image and blessed them and commanded them “to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over all His creation.”
Chapter two of Genesis tells us that God took that man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it and “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
As we read further we find that Adam and his wife Eve both disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequences of their sin was just what God warned them would happen, they died a spiritual and an eternal death. “Spiritual death” means that fellowship from God was broken and death was passed to all humanity through Adam’s seed.
The New Testament letter of Romans says in 5:12, “Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned…” Since the days of Adam, all are dead in trespasses and sins.
But as early as chapter three of the book of Genesis, God promises someone who would deliver humanity from sin. In Genesis 3:15 God tells the serpent a.k.a., the devil, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Theologians call Genesis 3:15 the protoevangelium–or the first gospel because these words spoken by God contain the first promise of redemption in the Bible. Everything else in the Bible flows from these words in Genesis 3:15. As the acorn contains the mighty oak tree, so these words contain the entire plan of salvation. The great English preacher Charles Simeon called this verse “the sum and summary of the whole Bible.”
Eve would give birth to Cain and then his brother Able. It’s at this time that we begin to see the effects of sin.
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God taught them that the shedding blood would serve as an atoning sacrifice for their sin. God killed an animal to provide a covering for Adam and Eve, not just for their naked bodies, but for their sin. This example was meant to be followed by Adam and his offspring.
Abel obeyed God and offered to the Lord the firstlings of his flock and of the fat of it. And The LORD God had respect for Abel and to his offering, but He did not have respect for Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground. The Bible tells us in Genesis 4 that Cain glowed with anger, and his face fell and he murdered his brother Abel---the first cold-blooded murder.
Time continues and the Bible tells us in Genesis chapter six that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Jehovah was sorry that He had ever made man on the earth, and He was angry to His heart.
But there was a man that the LORD God was pleased with; his name was Noah. God commanded Noah to make an ark because God would be sending a flood upon the earth to as judgement on the wickedness of man. Noah and his family worked on the ark as he preached righteousness for 120 years. No one repented and the floodwaters came. God destroyed the wicked but saved Noah and his family.
Once the floodwaters subsided, God sent Noah back upon the earth, giving him a similar command as he had given Adam about 1657 years earlier: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”
As we continue to read the Bible we find that the floodwaters did not wash away the sins of mankind because sin is not an external malady, it is an internal condition of the heart. Humanity still needs a Deliverer. God would keep His promise.
From the loins of Noah’s son Shem, some 400 years later, God called Abram from the Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. In Genesis 12 God says, “Go out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house into a land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
God kept His word and blessed Abram abundantly with cattle, silver and gold but there was one problem, Abram and his wife Sarai were getting old and they did not have children. How was God going to make Abram a great nation when he had no kids?
God repeated His covenant with Abram in chapter 15 of Genesis but still there were no children, not even one. By this time Sarai was pushing 76 and her husband was pushing 86. In those days when a woman was barren she was despised as one who God had abandoned.
So Sarai concocted a plan. She would give her younger slave woman, an Egyptian named Hagar over to Abraham so they could have children through her. And it worked! Hagar got pregnant. But it backfired on Sarai because it raised the status of Hagar in the home as she would be the mother of the patriarch Abram’s son!
These two women despised each other and eventually Hagar ran away but God remembered her and in Genesis 16 promised, “I will give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them. You are going to have a son, and you will name him Ishmael, because the LORD has heard your cry of distress. But your son will live like a wild donkey; he will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. He will live apart from all his relatives.”
Hagar’s son Ishmael would become the father of 12 Arab nations but he was not the promised seed that God originally told Abram about.
God would keep His covenant promise to Abram. His wife Sarai conceived and gave birth to Isaac. But one day Abraham would be presented with the test of his life. He would be commanded by God to take his son, his only son Isaac, to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering. I can only imagine what must have been going on in Abraham’s head. The son of promise…the son of the covenant now being sacrificed??? What is God doing???
The Bible says that obeyed God and as he and his son were on their way up the mountain, Isaac spoke up and said to his father in Genesis 22, “"Father?" "Yes, Son?" Abraham answered. Isaac asked, "We have the burning coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham answered, "God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, Son.”
When they came to the place that God told Abraham about, he tied up his Isaac, laid him on the altar and picked up the knife to sacrifice his son but the Angel of the Lord (a preincarnate appearance of Jesus) called out to Abraham and told him not to lay a hand on the young man because he had already demonstrated his faith to God in his willingness to sacrifice his only son in obedience to the Lord.
Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.
Isaac would later have a son named Jacob. God would reaffirm his covenant with Abraham to each of Abrahams sons, the last being Jacob whose name was changed by God to Israel. Israel would have twelve sons that would be known as the twelve tribes of Israel.
The children of Israel would be sold into Egyptian slavery for 400 years as foretold by God to Abraham in Genesis 15. God would raise up Moses to free the Hebrew slaves from Egyptian bondage.
As the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness, God delivered His law to them through Moses (Exodus 20) and eventually use Moses’ successor Joshua to lead them into the promise land of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey.
The children of Israel grew in number and continued to multiply but the sad truth is that over and over they would forget the law of God and give into temptation to serve the foreign gods of the nations around them. God would judge them by raising up enemies against them from the surrounding nations.
At first they would cry out in repentance and in answer to their cries God would raise up judges to deliver them from their enemies. For a while they would walk upright before God and then the cycle would repeat—they would fall into sin and idolatry, God would judge them, they would repent and God would raise up a judge to deliver them.
In 1st Samuel 8 we find Samuel serving as one of those judges in Israel. By this time, he was growing old and so he made his sons judges in Israel along with him. But there was a problem, his sons were wicked men and were extorting money from the people, accepting bribes and not deciding cases honestly.
So all the rulers of Israel met together and went to Samuel demanding he appoints a king over them just like other nations have. Samuel was displeased with their request for a king; so he prayed to the LORD, and the LORD said, "Listen to everything the people say to you. You are not the one they have rejected; I am the one they have rejected as their king. Ever since I brought them out of Egypt, they have turned away from me and worshiped other gods; and now they are doing to you what they have always done to me. So then, listen to them, but give them strict warnings and explain how their kings will treat them." (6-9)
Samuel follows God command and appoints Saul, a tall and good looking man to rule over the people as their first king. Saul crashes and burns after he consistently rebels against the Lord for some 42 years.
God gives instructions to Samuel to find David, an unassuming shepherd boy—quite a distinction from the tall and good looking Saul. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord knows the heart.”
Even though King David has his failings, his heart is constantly in pursuit of God and so in 2 Samuel 7 God makes a covenant with David saying:
I will set up your seed after you, who shall come out of your bowels. And I will make his kingdom sure. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever…your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.”
• God promised Adam and Eve that there would be a deliverer to crush Satan’s head.
• God promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that there would be a deliverer through whom the whole world would be blessed.
• God promised Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15-22 that he would “raise up a Prophet from among his brethren.” (see also Luke 24:27, John 1:45, 5:46, Acts 3:22-23, 7:37).
Here in 2 Samuel 7, God promises that this Deliverer would be a King and would preside over an eternal kingdom.
But Satan, who was the serpent in the Garden, was not idly standing by. Remember, the prophecy was that his head would be crushed by this deliverer. Satan's only hope of keeping himself from suffering a mortal blow lay in the prevention of this "seed of the woman" from being born, or to destroy it after it did come. If Satan could only interrupt the line of this coming promised seed, who is Christ, and prevent His coming, he would gain the victory without even a battle.
So now Satan concentrates on the birth of the children in the line of the seed of this coming Redeemer. So we rewind momentarily back to the days of Adam and Eve. Satan's first attempt was when Eve gave birth to her first two sons, Cain and Abel. In Genesis 4:1 we read, "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD."
Literally Eve says, "I have gotten the man, even Jehovah." Eve evidently believed that Cain, her first-born, was already the promised seed. But Satan assumes that Abel was to be in the line of the seed (because of his faith and righteousness), and so he uses Cain to destroy Abel, believing that in this way he could defeat God's promise of Genesis 3:15.
We know that the murder of Abel was Satan inspired because we read in I John 3:12, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother." Thankfully, God gives Eve another child named Seth through whom the Messiah would come (Luke 3:38).
In Genesis chapter six we learn how Satan caused the whole human race to become corrupt except for one man and his family. This was through the systematic breakdown of the home using marriages of believers with unbelievers. The whole human race had to be destroyed except for Noah and his family. They were the only believers left on the earth.
Next at the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter eleven, again the human race is corrupted through a political religious system that God thwarted by the confusion of languages that caused them to scatter abroad. Again one man is singled out as the one through whom the Messiah would come. Abraham was told that he would be the one.
Christ was to come through Abraham. Galatians 34:16 says, "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ". But Sarah was unable to have a child. Perhaps Satan somehow had shut up her womb. God miraculously intervened and Sarah conceived and bore Isaac.
Isaac married Rebecca and she was also barren. Genesis 25:21 says, "And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebecca his wife conceived." Satan again attempted to prevent this child from being born and God overruled.
Jacob and Esau were born to Rebecca and Isaac. Jacob was the one through whom the Messiah would come. Later we see Esau attempt to kill Jacob. Again Satan wants to prevent the Messiah from being born.
Satan tries to destroy the whole nation of Israel in Egypt. Pharaoh, a type of antichrist, orders all males to be killed. Again God intervenes and raised up Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.
At one point in Israel's history, Satan was successful in killing "all the seed royal of the house of Judah." One boy was hidden in the temple for six years during this threat against the royal line of the Messiah. II Chronicles 22:10-12 tells us that Joash was spared. He was the only person on the earth through whom the Messiah could come.
Later in history during the time of Esther, Satan uses a man named Haman to make a decree to kill all Jews young and old, including women and children in one day. God used the woman Esther and Mordecai to spare the nation.
After David was made king, he fell into gross sin with Bathsheba and God judged him by not allowing the sword to depart from his family (2 Samuel 12:10).
David and his family was judged. While his son Solomon was allowed to build the temple, eventually the kingdom was split in two—the Southern Kingdom (Judah) and the Northern Kingdom (Israel). Eventually God’s people were taken into captivity by first the Assyrians (Israel) and then the Babylonians (Judah).
The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom were never able to return to Jerusalem but the two tribes of the Southern Kingdom (Judah) were. Under Ezra and Nehemiah, they were able to rebuild the walls and resettle into the homeland.
The book of Malachi was written by the last of the Old Testament prophets. The people had been restored to Jerusalem and the temple and walls rebuilt but they had become sensual and selfish and had grown careless and neglectful of their duty. The purpose of Malachi’s prophecy was to rebuke the people for departing from the worship of the law of God, to call the people back to Jehovah and to revive their national spirit.
Before Malachi ends his book he gives a message from the LORD saying, “Behold, I will send My messenger, and He will clear the way before Me. And Jehovah, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Angel of the Covenant, in whom you delight.”
The time between the last writings of the Old Testament and the appearance of Christ is known as the “intertestamental” (or “between the testaments”) period. Because there was no prophetic word from God during this period, some refer to it as the “400 silent years.”
Then all of a sudden things picked up again. God spoke through an angel to a priest named Zacharias and told him that he would have a child. This priest and his wife Elizabeth were up in years (what does this sound like?) and they had a baby, whom was named John. Listen to John’s bio:
“For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall neither drink wine nor strong drink. And he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he shall turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:15-17)
Six months later, an angel came to a teenaged woman named Mary and told her, “You shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name JESUS. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give Him the throne of His father David.”
Both John and Jesus were born. But Satan must have been flabbergasted…he must have fallen asleep during those 400 years of silence. He must have thought that he won. He must have thought that God gave up on these sinful creatures and had disregarded his promised to send a deliverer.
But BOOM! The Messiah was born! Matthew 1:17 says, “So there were 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David until the exile to Babylon, 14 generations from the exile until the Messiah.” Forty-two generations in all!
Satan probably scrambled and recalled his demons and concocted another plan to destroy the One who would crush his head and deliver the people from their sins.
Within a couple of years after Jesus was born wise men came from the east, following a star, to see this child. King Herod inquired from the wise men when star they were following had appeared (Mathew 2:7) so he could find the child, not to worship Him, but to kill him. God warned them of Herod’s treachery so they went back to their country another way and didn’t tell Herod anything.
Then the satanically inspired Herod was furious and commanded his soldiers to kill all the boys in Bethlehem, and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had carefully inquired of the wise men.
But God had protected His Son and our Savior from being killed by telling Joseph in a dream to flee with the child and His mother into Egypt.
Both Jesus and John the Baptist grew into adulthood. Before Jesus began His public ministry, the forerunner, John the Baptist came preaching repentance and the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matthew 3:2).
Interestingly, John introduces people to Jesus, as “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” This takes us all the way back to Adam. This takes us back to Abraham’s words to his son Isaac, “God will provide the Lamb”!
Jesus preached and people began to follow Him. He did miracles confirming His authenticity as God and the crowds that followed Him grew. The religious leaders of the Jews got jealous and delivered Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified.
Later, one of the disciples of Jesus named Peter said would preach these words:
“Men, Israelites, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by powerful works, and wonders and miracles, which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know, this One given to you by the pre-determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by lawless hands, crucifying Him, you put Him to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” (Acts 2:22-25)
After the resurrection of Jesus and before he went back to heaven, He promised that God would not leave His people alone and would send His Holy Spirit.
Act 1:6 They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
Act 1:7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within His own authority.
Act 1:8 But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
The Holy Spirit came as promised on the Day of Pentecost as the followers of Jesus were all together in one place praying (He still comes to empower His followers today as we come together to pray in one place).
On that day, God filled His people with His Spirit and the Church was born. This new group of believers was not just Jews but if you read the record, the Church also consisted of Gentiles (Acts 2:8-47).
God had promised Abraham that “all the nations of the world would be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3; 22:18). In Old Testament passages like Psalm 67 we find words that express God’s heart to reach all the people groups of the earth:
Psa 67:1 God be merciful unto us, and bless us, And cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.
Psa 67:2 That thy way may be known upon earth, Thy salvation among all nations.
Psa 67:3 Let the peoples praise thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise thee.
Psa 67:4 Oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy; For thou wilt judge the peoples with equity, And govern the nations upon earth. Selah.
Psa 67:5 Let the peoples praise thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise thee.
Psa 67:6 The earth hath yielded its increase: God, even our own God, will bless us.
Psa 67:7 God will bless us; And all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
God birthed the church out of both Jew and Gentile creating one new body to fulfill His original purpose and covenants to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…His original purpose of reaching the nations and delivering them from sin.
We are that Body, the Body of Christ, with just one mission – to “make disciples”!
Disciples aren’t just church-goers or people who say they know or love God. Like Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, Moses and Joshua, Deborah, Ester and Ruth their lives consisted of following the Lord.
As with the apostles and many of the believers in the first century and during the reformation period…their whole lives revolved around Christ and His church.
Their whole lives found their purpose in Christ and His church. Their road map and compass was the Holy Scriptures, the Word of Christ. They were empowered by the Spirit of Christ.
The Church wasn’t just an afterthought like someone people believe. It isn’t just the second option after Israel failed to obey God and keep His ways. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:
Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ:
Eph 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love:
Eph 1:5 having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Eph 1:6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved:
Eph 1:7 in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
Eph 1:8 which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
Eph 1:9 making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him
Eph 1:10 unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in him, I say,
Eph 1:11 in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will;
Eph 1:12 to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ:
Eph 1:13 in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, - in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
Eph 1:14 which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Does that sound like something hatched as “Plan B” or a contingency plan put into action? Does this reading of Scripture sound like an alternative to “Plan A” or a backup plan? No!
Next time we are going to delve more into what the church is all about. The Bible teaches that there are five major purposes for the church and next time we are going to begin looking at each of them.
Application:
If you are a Christian, you must see yourself as someone who is a participant in the purposes of God to reach the nations with His Good News.
It is not enough to know the story of salvation. You must act on it and come to know the subject of the story of salvation. Let me illustration what I am saying:
Sometime ago a great actor in the city of New York gave a wonderful performance in a large theatre, at the close of which there were rounds of applause. He was called back again and again. Finally someone called to him, “Would you do for us the Twenty-third Psalm?”
“Why, yes. I know the Twenty-third Psalm.” He recited it as an actor would, perfectly, with nothing left to be desired as far as a performance was concerned. When he was finished, again there was thunderous applause.
Then the actor came to the front of the stage and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is an old man sitting here on the front row whom I happen to know. I am going to ask him without any notice if he will come and repeat the Twenty-third Psalm.”
The elderly gentleman (who happened to be a preacher), of course, was frightened. Trembling, he came to the stage. Fearfully he looked out over the vast audience. Then, as though he were at home only with one, he closed his eyes against the audience, bowed his head, and spoke.
When the old man finished, there was no applause, but there was not a dry eye in that house. The actor came to the front of the stage. He, too, was wiping his eyes and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I reached your eyes and ears and he reached your heart." And he said, "The difference is this. I know the Psalm, he knows the Shepherd."
Do you know the Shepherd?
