Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Mark Johnston: There are many dangers in this world. Sometimes we aren't even aware of them all. But at other times, we're aware of the trouble around us. How do we get out of the trouble we're in, and how do we stay out of the trouble of which we're not even aware?

Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken, teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. In today's message, we'll lay the groundwork for Peter's denial of Jesus. We'll also discover the beginning of the missionary work that was carried out in the Book of Acts.

Phil, safety is important to us. We protect our homes, our cars, our families, and our country. Is it safe to follow Jesus?

Dr. Philip Ryken: Mark, I want to answer that both ways because on the one hand, of course it's not safe to follow Jesus. Once you make a commitment to follow Him in the way of the cross, you can be sure that you're going to face difficulty, suffering, maybe persecution. That's very clear from the scriptures we'll be looking at today.

But at the same time, really following Jesus is the only safe thing you can do because when you give your life to Him, you receive the gift of eternal life. That's a kind of safety you can never have in this world, but it's the safety you need for all eternity.

Mark Johnston: One of the dangers we face as Christians operating in the world is temptation. What can we do when we're confronted with temptation?

Dr. Philip Ryken: The first and most important thing is not to trust ourselves and our own abilities and our own spiritual strength to help us resist the power of some temptation. That's the temptation that Peter faced, the temptation to trust himself. As we'll see as the story of the gospel unfolds, it didn't work out too well.

What we really need is to put our full confidence in Jesus and in His power to deliver us in times of temptation or really any dangerous trial we may face in life.

Mark Johnston: Thanks, Phil. Let's turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 22, verses 31 through 38, and listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Dr. Philip Ryken: If you know the story of the last days of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, you probably know how much danger Jesus was in on the night He sat down with His disciples to share the Last Supper. Already Judas had made his deadly bargain. Before the meal was over, he slipped away and went to those religious leaders revealing the secret place where Jesus was meeting with His disciples.

Armed men would soon be on their way, ready to do Jesus harm. All of this was already underway. What mortal danger Jesus was in. In less than 24 hours, He would be dead. If you know how much danger Jesus was in, do you also perceive how much danger the disciples were in that night? They were up against the deadliest of all enemies that night: the devil himself.

And yet they hardly realized it. Of course, that made their situation all the more dangerous. If you can see how much danger Jesus was in and how much danger His disciples were in that night, can you also see how much danger you are in until you find total safety in the sinner's savior?

Let's consider the danger that Jesus and His disciples were in that night. Really, the danger has been present at least since the beginning of this chapter when Satan took control of Judas Iscariot. We learned back in verse 3 that Satan entered into Judas, also called Iscariot. But you also know that the devil wanted to have control of all twelve of the disciples and that he would surely have gained it if Jesus had allowed him to gain it.

We know this because Jesus turned to Peter at a certain point in the conversation that night and He said this, as you see it in verse 31: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat." That dramatic statement was designed to get Peter's full attention. He was speaking specifically to Simon, also called Peter. Jesus repeated his name for emphasis.

He wanted to get Peter's full attention. He was telling him something he desperately needed to hear: that Satan was trying to destroy him. If you learned that Satan was trying to destroy Peter, you would hardly be surprised at that. He was the leader among the disciples, the first among equals. Peter was the first to be called to be a disciple. He was the first to confess Jesus as the Christ. He was the first to get out of the boat and try to walk on water.

If Satan could destroy Peter, he would be able to destroy all of the disciples. That is what Satan was really after. He wanted all of them. When Jesus said, "Satan demanded to have you," He used the plural form of the pronoun "you." I think He wasn't just saying you, Peter; He was saying you all, disciples. It wasn't just Judas that the devil wanted or even just Peter. It was all twelve of them.

He wanted to sift them like wheat. He wanted to toss them up in the air the way a farmer tosses the grain to separate the wheat from the chaff. Maybe the disciples were solid enough to land back on the ground, but probably Satan doubted it. Maybe they would get blown away by the harsh wind of persecution. Maybe they would get blown away the way that Judas was, in which case they would belong to the devil forever.

But of course, Satan couldn't even toss them around without God's permission, and so he dared Jesus to let him put the disciples to the test. It's because Satan is always greedy for more souls. He's never satisfied; he has a ravenous appetite. This is vividly portrayed at the end of C.S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters.

If you know the book, you know it's a collection of letters apparently written from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his young associate, his nephew Wormwood. At the end of the book, Wormwood has failed in his efforts to keep someone from coming to Christ. Now Screwtape sees his opportunity because he thinks that perhaps he will have the opportunity to consume Wormwood now for himself.

That's the demonic appetite. He writes and he says, "I have always desired you. I think they will give you to me now, or at least a bit of you. Do I love you? Yes, I do, as dainty a morsel as ever I grew fat on." Then he signs his letter, "Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle Screwtape." That's the attitude of the devil himself. It's a ravenous appetite that he has.

He wants to have us; he wants to possess us. He wants to damn every soul that he can get his hands on. That's the devil's business in the world. He's been greedy like that since the very beginning, which explains why he slipped into Eden and tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. It explains why he came after Jesus in the wilderness. It explains why Peter himself later described our adversary the devil as someone who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

How ravenous he is in his appetite for lost sinners. Really, what Jesus said to Simon Peter is true about us. Satan wants to have us; he desires us. He will stop at nothing to have us for himself, always looking for some way to destroy us. He is there in that selfish move that we make to keep something for ourselves rather than to give it away for Jesus.

He is there in that sudden temptation to click on the link to the pornographic website. He is there in the temptation to grow discouraged in some ministry situation or maybe some ministry conflict and to just quit and go do something else. He is there in the temptation to give up on some difficult relationship or in the despair we feel about ever making any progress with that one main sin which seems to dominate our heart's daily agenda.

Satan is always there lurking in the shadows, desperately hoping that one day we will walk away from Christ completely. That's what he was hoping for with the disciples. Do you see how much danger they were in and how much danger you may be in? When I hear the warning that Jesus gave to Peter, I can't help but think of people who have left the Christian church over the course of my lifetime.

A girl who ran away from God as soon as she went off to college. A family that decided they didn't even need to be in the church anymore because that's not where God is working today. A man who felt so powerless against the attacks of Satan that he went back to a lifestyle of sexual sin. I suppose they are all people that Satan wanted to have just like he wants to have you, just like he wants to have me.

It would be the most dangerous thing in the world to think that we aren't in any danger because that, of course, is the mistake that Peter made. Do you know the response that Peter gave to this warning from his Lord and Christ? Jesus said that He had prayed for Peter. We'll come back to that. Then He said this: "And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers."

This time Jesus used the singular form of the pronoun "you." He is speaking more specifically here to Peter. I suppose He prayed for the other disciples as well. We get the words of that prayer in John chapter 17. But here He has a specific prayer that He has made for Peter in particular so that Peter will be able to strengthen the other disciples. This is the prayer that Jesus is giving.

But of course, even in saying that, Jesus is assuming that Peter will turn away. It's only logical; you can't turn back unless in some way you've turned away. But Peter would have none of it. He didn't even want a hint that he in some way would turn away from Jesus. He said, "Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death."

That's Peter for you, jumping in first and jumping in headfirst when he does, here making a very bold claim of his own faithfulness. That's Peter, often in error but never in doubt. Sure that he would follow Jesus to the very end. It's a bold statement. What other disciple had ever said that he was ready to walk with Jesus all the way to the cross? And yet it was an empty boast, wasn't it?

You know the rest of the chapter. You know that he failed to remain steadfast. However much we may admire the courage of this statement, his overconfidence put him in the way of deadly spiritual danger. His confidence was totally misplaced. It was confidence in himself rather than confidence in Christ. So rather than asking God for the strength that he needed to stand firm, he announced that he was already prepared to face any and every danger.

I suppose it must be the Titanic of all testimonies. Jesus told Peter that he was headed for disaster. Surely you know the famous prophecy that He made, as you see it in verse 34: "I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me." Peter must have been shocked at that prophecy.

Maybe the other disciples were shocked too, I don't know, but it was a shocking prophecy. Peter would deny Jesus almost immediately. It would happen before the day was done. He would deny Jesus repeatedly, not just once or twice but three times. And he would deny Jesus emphatically, denying that he even knew the man. Of course, and very sadly, that prophecy came true.

By the end of the night, Peter was weeping the bitter tears of his triple denial. You can see why he fell into that sin. He was trying to be strong in his own strength. He thought he had it all together spiritually. He didn't know his weakness. I wonder if you have ever made the same mistake that Peter made. Have you ever promised God that you would do something, only to fail?

Is there any sin that you secretly think you could never commit? "Yes, I am guilty of this sin," some people say, "but I would never go so far as to do that." Listen, if you have any confidence in yourself instead of having all of your confidence in Christ, then you are as likely to fail as Peter was, and so am I.

I can't help but think of one prominent Christian leader who was getting ready to speak at a conference when someone asked him how he thought the devil would drag him down. "I'm not sure," he said, "but I know one place where he will never get me, and that's in my family life." Well, he later regretted those words, for sadly the man committed adultery and had to leave the gospel ministry.

Are you really surprised at that? It's in the areas where we think we are strong that we are in the most danger because we do not perceive the desperate weakness at the heart of even the very best things that we do for God. That was true of Peter. He was weak in the area where he thought he was strong. He wasn't ready to go with Jesus to prison and to the cross.

And yet the marvelous thing about Peter's story and about this whole passage is that even for all of his weakness, Peter did not finally fall away because he had a marvelous, strong Savior ready to save him. Peter knew the Savior of sinners, and that Savior did two great things to protect him from danger. We see both of those things in this passage.

He prayed for Peter, and then He died for Peter, saving him both by His intercession and His atonement. This is where we will find our salvation as well. The devil is always trying to drag us down with our sins, but we have a Savior who has died in our place and who now lives to pray for our protection.

So let's consider both of these things that Jesus did for Peter and for us. First, He prayed for Peter, protecting him by the power of His intercession. For when He was warning about what Satan would try to do to him, Jesus also gave Peter this great promise: "But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail."

This is one of those marvelous connections in the Bible. How often our salvation seems to turn on the word "but." If you put it in the right place, here the word "but" puts everything that Jesus will do for us over against everything that Satan will try to do. Satan was against Peter, but you see Jesus was for him. Satan wanted to destroy Peter, but Jesus said He would promise to save him.

Peter was saved because he was over on the Savior's side of this sentence. He did not fall away, but in the end he returned to Jesus. I think it's important here to see what Jesus prayed for very specifically. He didn't ask for a lot of the things that we might be tempted to ask for. He didn't pray that Satan would leave Peter alone.

You see, in the providence of God who works in every situation for the good of His people and for the ultimate glory of His name, Satan was permitted to make this attack. Jesus didn't pray that Satan would leave Peter alone. He didn't pray that Peter would never sin. He knew Peter's fallen nature; it's inevitable that in one way or another sinners will sin.

In this case, it was God's plan for Peter to see the limits of his own strength. He was left to his own strength, and what became of him? Jesus did not pray that Peter would have a rich and easy life with one spiritual success after another. I mean, that's the kind of thing we would probably pray for, isn't it? But it's not what Jesus prayed for Peter.

He prayed that Peter's faith would not fail. If we believe that Jesus Christ is the all-wise God, and if this is what Jesus prayed for, then surely it must be the most important thing for us to have. Faith was the thing that Satan was trying to take away from Peter, and that tells you something too.

It's not just what Jesus is praying for, but what Satan is trying to take away. That shows you how important it is to the Christian life. If Peter stopped believing, then he would no longer belong to Jesus, and that's what Satan always wants to take away from us: that faith in Christ that makes a believer a believer, that faith in Christ that connects us to Christ so that He belongs to us and we belong to Him.

As Charles Spurgeon said, "The point of Satan's chief attack on a believer is his faith. We are engrafted into Christ by faith, and faith is the point of contact between the believing soul and the living Christ. If, therefore, Satan could manage to cut through just there, then he would defeat the Savior's work most completely."

Consider everything that we would lose if our faith were to fail. What does the Bible say about faith? It says that we're justified by faith. So if you take away a man's faith, then he no longer stands righteous before God. The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God. Take away faith, therefore, and you can no longer offer anything acceptable to God at all.

The Bible says that the righteous will live by faith. Well, if you take away faith, then you are taking away life itself. A believer has no life in Christ apart from his faith. All of these things are the things that we would lose if we were to lose our faith. But on the other hand, if you still have your faith, then you live invincible in the power of Christ.

Think of that marvelous litany that the writer of the Hebrews gives at the end of that marvelous chapter of scripture, Hebrews chapter 11. He talks about all of the stories of the Bible and all of the things that faith is able to accomplish. It is by faith that people have conquered kingdoms and obtained promises and stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the power of the fire and escaped the edge of the sword.

It's by faith that people were made strong out of weakness. By faith they became mighty in war and put enemies to flight. It is by faith that they received back their dead by resurrection. This is the faith that Jesus prayed for Peter, a faith that will save in any and every situation, a faith that will even save unto death.

This is the prayer that Jesus loves to pray, not just for Peter but for all of His disciples. It is the Savior's prayer for a sinner's faith not to fail. Do you know that Jesus is praying for you right now? That's what Jesus is doing. If you ask what Jesus is doing, He's sitting on the right hand of the Father, and what is He doing? He is interceding for His people.

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God, interceding for us. That's Romans 8, verse 34. It says that He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. Jesus Christ is the infinite intercessor, always living to pray for you.

I suppose that if only you could see Jesus on His knees and listen to what He is praying to the Father, what courage you would be able to take to live for Christ through every trouble in life. Jesus is praying for you that your faith will not fail. He's praying for you in your chronic pain, it may be.

He is asking that in your physical weakness you will not stop trusting in the goodness of God. He's praying for you perhaps about a troubled marriage, that in your alienation you will not stop trusting in His love or the power of His grace. He's praying about your secret discouragement perhaps, that in your night of dark despair you won't stop trusting Him to lead you into the light.

He's praying about the way that you've wandered into sin, that you will never stop trusting in His forgiveness and in His grace. These are prayers that will surely be answered. They will be answered for you as they were answered for Peter. A man's faith did not fail. Although he turned away, he also returned, believing by faith that even denying the Christ could be forgiven.

The same thing will happen in your own life in all of your situations of need. The very Son of God is interceding for you before the Father. How can that petition fail? Jesus prays more wisely, more frequently, more efficaciously than anyone prays. He prays more for you than you have ever prayed for yourself.

Therefore, although you may go through many difficult circumstances, you may even fall into wicked sin as Peter did, you will not be lost because Jesus has prayed that your faith will not fail. In whatever difficult situation you're in in life, with all of its problems and difficulties, with all of the complaints you have about it, with all of the objections that you would bring before God Himself, it is the Savior of sinners who holds up His hand and He says, "But I have prayed for you. And I have prayed for you this: that your faith will not fail."

It is not just His intercession that Jesus offers to us, but something much more costly than that. As precious as prayer is, there is something even more precious that Jesus has done for us. He speaks to His disciples about it here in this passage. But before He speaks about it, He also gives them some unexpected instructions, and I want to say just a few words about these instructions because I know if I didn't, you'd go away wondering about them.

They do raise a lot of questions. Look again at what is said beginning in verse 35. Jesus said to them, "When I sent you out with no money bag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?" They said, "Nothing." And He said to them, "But now let the one who has a money bag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one."

I say those instructions are unexpected in that they need some explanation because they seem to contradict what Jesus said to His disciples earlier. Some of you may know or remember that back at the beginning of chapter 9, when Jesus was sending His disciples out on their first mission, He told them almost exactly the opposite of this. He said, "Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, no money; and do not have two tunics."

That's what the disciples did; they took almost nothing with them on that first mission trip. And yet they found that God would supply all of their needs and they were able to testify when Jesus asked them. They said, "No, we lacked for nothing because you provided everything that we needed." But now the disciples are entering a new missionary situation, I think, one that requires a different approach, and Jesus is speaking to them about it.

It's worth reflecting that on that first mission trip, the disciples went out to Israel, where the people of God had a God-given responsibility to meet their daily needs. But soon they would be going out into the wider world, and they could not expect people to provide for their ministry there. They were going to take the gospel to those people for free; they needed some other means of support.

So the time had come for the disciples to make some preparations for those journeys, taking a little food and money with them. There's a place and time for living in total poverty, not having any property to call your own, but there's also a time and a place to work hard and to plan ahead. I think today generally speaking you'll find that the people of God are living in Luke 22, not back in Luke chapter 9.

That's why when we send out our own missionaries, we seek to provide for them in various ways. It's right and good for people in ministry to make provision for those kinds of needs while at the same time, and there is no contradiction here, totally trusting in God to provide their needs on a daily basis.

But I think Jesus is speaking here about a new ministry and missionary situation. What's perhaps harder to understand is why He told His disciples to go out and buy a sword. Why do you suppose Jesus told them to do that? Some Christians have taken these instructions literally. Some have even used this verse, I am sorry to say, as a justification for using physical violence to advance the kingdom of God.

It's a good reminder why we need good hermeneutics: sound principles for the interpretation of scripture. One of those important principles is to let scripture interpret scripture, using one clear Bible passage to help you make sense of a passage that seems harder to understand. I think that's easy to do in this case because all you need to do is read the rest of the chapter.

Later that very evening, one of the disciples—Peter, as it turns out, surprise surprise—used his sword to cut off the ear of one of the men who came to arrest Jesus. But what did Jesus say about that? He didn't say, "Now I'm glad you brought that sword along; that's just what I wanted you to do with it." No, He said, "No more of this."

No more violence or swordsmanship or physical force in the name of God. With this rebuke, Jesus declared His permanent opposition to any attempt to use the weapons of this world in waging His war. There is a place for physical weapons in the affairs of the nations of the world, but no place for it in the ministry of the church.

If Jesus is not advocating here armed violence, why was it that He told His disciples to buy a sword? Well, maybe for this reason: nearly all of the best commentators agree, I think you'll find, that Jesus was speaking metaphorically. What is the sword? It is a symbol of warfare and conflict. Therefore, Jesus was saying that the time of violent danger had come for Him and for His disciples and that in these perilous times they would need to be spiritual warriors.

He's speaking to them about being prepared for a spiritual battle. The old German commentator Adolf Schlatter points out that in time of war, a warrior will give everything he has to get the weapon he needs for the fight; he'll even give the very shirt off his back. So too, he goes on to say, the disciples require that courage which regards a sword as more necessary than an upper garment and surrenders even its last possession but cannot give up the struggle.

That's the calling Jesus had for His disciples; it's the calling He has for us. Not force in the sense of physical violence, but force in the sense of spiritual valor. Living for Christ, contending for Christ, waging all of the spiritual wars that you can fight on your knees and with the scripture in your hand. This is the kind of situation that every disciple of Christ is in since the time of Christ and since His work on the cross.

That's the main thing Jesus wanted His disciples to be thinking about. All of this about money bags and backpacks is very useful from a practical point of view, but the main thing Jesus wanted them to hear was the fulfillment of a long-awaited promise. Notice what Jesus says in verse 37: "I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about me has its fulfillment."

Jesus had a clear understanding of His calling. He also had a full confidence in the truth of scripture. There's a great lesson for us in that, isn't there? Jesus knew that all of the old promises of salvation would come true. He had total confidence in every word that God had ever spoken. He also knew that all of those promises would be fulfilled in His own person and work.

Take the promises that Isaiah made in the 53rd chapter of his magnificent prophecy. You know that great chapter of scripture; it's the one that Jesus was quoting from here when He spoke about what was written in the scriptures: numbered among the transgressors. That's part of that prophecy Isaiah gave about the suffering servant.

He said that the Savior would be despised and rejected. He said that He would be led away as a lamb to the slaughter and buried in a rich man's tomb. He said at the end of that prophecy that that Savior of sinners would make intercession for sinners. That's a significant prophecy, isn't it? Jesus was fulfilling that here in His prayers for Peter.

Isaiah also prophesied that the Savior would be numbered with the transgressors. When Jesus heard that prophecy, He knew that it was all about Him. He was the Savior of sinners; He was the one who would suffer and die for His people's sins. He was the one who would pray for their salvation; He was the one who would be numbered with the transgressors.

Jesus wanted His disciples to make the connection; He wanted us to make the connection so that we would see how that scripture is fulfilled in His own life and death. Of course it was fulfilled. Jesus was innocent of all charges, and yet He was numbered among the transgressors, wasn't He? At the end of His legal trials, He was unjustly convicted of committing some capital crime, and then He was taken to the place of execution and nailed between two thieves.

You see, that is what Jesus came to do, not simply to die but to die in this way, in a death that put Him in the very place of sinners. The important thing wasn't where Pilate said that Jesus should go or what the Jewish leaders were saying or what the Roman soldiers were doing. All of the forces of humanity arrayed against Jesus, putting Him to death in the place of a sinner.

The really important thing is that God in His justice considered Jesus to be in the place of a sinner when He died on the cross. This is the great work that Jesus came to do. When the Bible says that Jesus was numbered with the transgressors, it means more than simply that He was regarded by human beings as some kind of criminal.

It means that in terms of the justice of God, He took all of our sins upon Himself and then died in our place the death that we deserved to die. Maybe you know the great scripture from 2 Corinthians where the Bible says that for our sake He, that is God, made Him, that is Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

It's a way of saying that Jesus was counted as a sinner. He came to do this saving work, and when He did that work, the Savior of sinners took the guilt of our sin upon Himself, and once He had done that, He was obligated to pay the penalty that all our sins deserved. To give just one pertinent and in a way kind of provocative example, when Jesus died on the cross, He was paying the price of Peter's sin.

And what kind of sinner was Peter? Well, among many other things, very notably He was a denier of the Christ. It means that when Jesus died for Peter's sins, He was dying bearing the guilt of a denier. It wasn't just Peter's sin that He died for, though; it was all the sins of all His people. All of the idolatry, all of the adultery, all of the theft, all of the dishonesty, all of those sins.

I don't know necessarily what kind of sinner you happen to be, but I know that Jesus died for that kind of sinner when He died on the cross. That's the kind of sinner that He was counted to be when He took the guilt of that sin upon Himself. It's not that He was a sinner Himself, you understand, but that He was dying in the place of sinners, so that in terms of the justice of God, Jesus died as it were as a lying, lazy, thieving sinner, dying to pay the debt that our sins deserved.

And you see, now you can look to Him and you can say, "Now there is the Savior of sinners. He's the Savior of the kind of sinner that I am because God has counted Him to be that kind of sinner." Because He has been counted that kind of sinner, there's nothing the devil can do to me now.

There's no accusation he can bring against me that will do anything to harm me. You see, because Jesus has done that great protective work of saving deliverance, keeping us away from the accusations of the devil, not just praying for us but also dying for us. Do you believe this? Do you understand it?

I doubt whether the disciples understood it that night. Later they understood it; you can read about it all through the New Testament. But at the time, I think they missed it entirely because look at what they said. Rather than grasping the spiritual point that Jesus was making, they were still thinking much too literally about those swords and about how they were supposed to wield them.

"Look, Lord, here are two swords. We've got it together, Jesus. We've got what you told us to get; we've got the swords." And Jesus said to them, "It is enough." Not saying, I think, "enough swords," but really just "that's enough of this conversation; we've gone as far as we can go."

I mean, you don't understand it now. You won't understand it until I actually do it, until I actually die for your sins on the cross, and then you'll know what it means: that I was numbered with the transgressors. I ask you again, do you understand this? Do you believe it? If you've never believed it before, will you believe it?

Will you believe that Jesus was counted as a sinner so that you could be counted righteous before God? And if you do believe this and have believed it, will you continue to believe it? I pray that you will. But more importantly, Jesus is praying that your faith will not fail.

Our Father in heaven, we give You praise for the mighty saving work of the Savior of sinners, our Savior, for we are among the sinners. We give You praise not just for His atonement but also for His living intercession. And will You now, for His sake, also hear our prayers, that we too may be saved? In His name, amen.

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Inc: You're listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformed theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide Christian teaching that will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

Alliance broadcasting includes The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, God's Living Word with Pastor the Reverend Richard Phillips, and Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible featuring Donald Barnhouse. For more information on the Alliance, including a free introductory package for first-time callers or to make a contribution, please call toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888.

You can also write the Alliance at Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103. Or you can visit us online at AllianceNet.org. Ask for your free resource catalog featuring books, audio, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding Reformed teachers and theologians. Thank you again for your continued support of this ministry.