Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Matthew 28:18-20 | Date: October 31, 2009 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The following message was preached at To Every Tribe’s 2009 mission conference, The Privilege of Suffering, held in Dalton, Georgia. To Every Tribe exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God among unreached peoples throughout the earth. For more information about To Every Tribe, please visit ToEveryTribe.com.

Thank you, brother. It is a pleasure to be with you, and our affections likewise for Brother Rod and his family and so many of you here as well. Now, we’ve developed friendships over the years. Brother Ron McKinney, a dear friend, and my dear friend David Morris is here with us for the conference. Actually, it’s very appropriate that he should be here for this.

The passage I’m preaching on this morning is Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. I heard him preach on this about 15 years ago, and I’ve told him that he is the one who taught me what this passage was all about. If you would take your Bibles and turn with me to the famous Great Commission: Matthew chapter 28.

You, of course, remember the setting. Matthew has reached the end of his presentation of the life and the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And now he comes to the end of his presentation of that, and he has the risen Lord Jesus speaking to his disciples. We’ll pick up the narrative at verse 16. Matthew 28, beginning with verse 16:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I’m with you always to the very end of the age.”

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we’re grateful for this, Your Word. We’re thankful for the honor of being able to open a book and know that this is Your Word to us. We’re grateful for the great subject of Your Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re thankful for how we have Him presented to us in the Scriptures so beautifully, so attractively, so powerfully.

We ask that You would give us by Your Spirit this morning a new and a fresh understanding and grasp of the significance of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray that You would encourage the hearts of Your people in the various ministries that we all have with these words from our Lord. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Our Lord’s parting command to His church has, through the centuries, as you know, been regarded with a special kind of sacredness, a special kind of affection. It’s not that these words carry any more weight than any other words of our Lord, of course. All of His words come with divine authority. But perhaps this passage carries a little bit more pathos because these are, as I say, His final words to His church and to His disciples. It’s something like the final words of a dying man or something like that that we always regard as especially important. Although here, of course, our Lord is not dying. He has conquered death. He’s risen from the dead, and He is now ascending back to His Father in heaven.

More to the point, this passage provides for us a directive to the church concerning our responsibilities during this inter-advent time between His ascension and His return to us. Luke records something similar to this in Acts 1, verse 8, a passage that you’re familiar with: “You’ll receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you’ll be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth.” But here in this passage, although it is very similar to that, the Lord gives us this command, but in a certain context that’s intended to shape our understanding of that command and also our understanding of how it is to be carried out.

By way of overview, as many people have pointed out, the passage seems to be structured around these four universals. The word “all” appears here in this passage four times, and it’d be good, I think, if we would highlight them again. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Verse 19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” Verse 20, “Teaching them to obey all things [or everything] that I have commanded you,” and then, “Surely I am with you all the days [or always] to the very end of the age.” The first one seems to be the most prominent and seems to carry the force of the passage, and we’ll see how that works out.

All Authority In Heaven And On Earth Has Been Given To Me

Now the word “authority” here means more than power. If you have the older translation with you, you might have noticed that it’s translated, “all power is given to me in heaven and on earth.” Well, that’s right enough, but it might not give us the exact understanding of what Jesus is after here. Power can be understood as simply raw power. The word authority is authorized power. Not only rule, but the right to rule.

When I was a kid living at home, when Dad came into the family room, whether we’re watching TV or just sitting around talking, where do you think my dad sat? Wherever he wanted to. That’s where he sat. Now he had his favorite chair, and you don’t dare touch it because he’s going to be there. He sits wherever he wants to. Now why do you think that is? Now, in terms of raw power, when we’re little kids, well, yeah, he’s got that. But that wasn’t the issue, was it? Authority. To the day he died last month, if we’re in the room with him, Dad sits wherever Dad wants to sit. Authority. If a wild lion were released into this room, he would have more power than anyone here. We have no right to that power, and we’d try to rectify that matter as soon as we could.

And what Jesus is saying here is not simply raw power, but authorized power has been given to Him. This is His. And this, He says, is universal. All authority. All authority. And in case you don’t get the point, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” Now, on one level, of course, we already know that. This is the Son of God, after all, the second person of the eternal Trinity. He is the Creator. He is the Sovereign. Of course, all authority is His.

But you’ll notice here that that’s not quite the angle that Jesus is reasoning from. Notice what He says here: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” As I say, on one level, we know that all authority has always been His, but Jesus here is speaking of evidently a new kind of authority that He has achieved. And in that respect then, the context is all important.

Jesus has come as the mediator of God’s people. He has come to accomplish the salvation of all of God’s elect. He has come now. He has lived perfectly before the law. His life has climaxed in this death on behalf of sinners, where He took all of the sin of all of His people to Himself and bore their curse. And then having exhausted that curse, He rose from the dead. And God has given Him the stamp of approval that His death was in fact sufficient payment for all of the sins of His people. And so He has been raised from the dead, and now He is about to ascend back to the Father, and in that context, having accomplished all of that work, He says, “all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

That is, standing in the wake of His completed saving work, He claims now that universal authority has now become His. He has earned it. He’s achieved it. He’s won it, as it were, by means of His successful work on behalf of sinners in this saving errand that the Father has sent Him to. And so now Jesus’ Lordship, then, is twofold. He’s now Lord in the sense, of course, that He was always Lord. He is God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Creator. But He’s also the mediatorial Lord. There’s an earned or an achieved Lordship that has become His.

The biblical writers emphasize both of these aspects of Jesus’ Lordship. And if this were Sunday morning at our church, I would take the time to go through six or eight or ten passages that highlight that. But since we only have one shot this morning, I’m just going to highlight them quickly and you can either write down the passages or just listen fast.

For example, in Daniel chapter 7 we find this fascinating scene where the Son of Man comes before the Ancient of Days. Now the Son of Man comes on the clouds. He’s clearly a heavenly figure. My man Warfield has a fascinating discussion of this passage and he simply asks, “Who is this that comes on clouds? Who is this that has the authority to approach the Ancient of Days?” Clearly we’re speaking here of a divine figure, and yet he’s called the Son of Man. And to this divine figure, who obviously has authority, a kingdom is given to him. And it seems that our Lord here is referring back to that as well.

Perhaps the clearest passage in this regard is Philippians chapter 2. You’re all familiar with that, I’m sure. Here we have the great humiliation of Christ described, that this one who was always in the form of God, He did not think it robbery to be found in fashion as a man. He was found in the form of a man and He became obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross. God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. That is, as a result of this work of humiliation, as a result of His saving death, as a result of His successful, accomplished work of salvation in this state of humiliation, He has been exalted now and given a name that is above every name. And at His name, Lord, every knee now will bow.

We have the same in Colossians chapter 1. He is the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things He might have preeminence. Hebrews 2, we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. 1 Peter 3, verse 22, He has gone into the heavens, angels and authorities having been made subject to Him.

This is the authority then that Jesus is claiming here. He has come in the capacity of the mediator. He has accomplished the work that He was sent to accomplish for all of God’s people. And now having successfully accomplished that work, He stands at the end of it all and says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. I now am universal Lord.”

In other words, then, in the final verses of his Gospel, Matthew returns to a theme that he introduced in the very first words of his Gospel. In Matthew 1, in verse 1, you’ll remember Jesus is introduced: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham.” Just as God had promised that David’s seed would reign over the entire earth in a kingdom of righteousness, so Matthew introduces Jesus as that Davidic king, and now coming to the climax of his presentation of Jesus, we have Jesus Himself speaking in those terms saying, “all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” The Davidic king has taken his throne.

Now, of course, the full manifestation of that rule has not yet been realized. There will come a day. There will come a day when every knee will bow before Him and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. I long for that day, don’t you? Of all of the things to look forward to in that great day and all of the splendor associated with it and all of the blessings that will be ours to be received in full, what can outdo that? To see the whole world brought before the feet of our Lord, bowing and confessing His Lordship.

And I love to say this, that the message of the early church was not the anemic message of the contemporary church: “Make Jesus Lord.” Their message was unmistakably, “Jesus is Lord, and you will bow before this King.” You may bow before Him today; He’s offered terms of peace. And you may bow before Him today, but make no mistake, one day you will bow before this King. He is Lord.

Now then, the question is, what is the point of all of this? Why stress Jesus’ Lordship? What is the point of that Lordship and what’s the purpose of it? Well, of course, reading through the scriptures and all of the prophecies of this great king to come and then through to the end, it’s easy enough to say that the purpose of his Lordship is to bring about the purposes of God in judgment and in salvation.

And of course there’s a fascinating picture of that in Revelation chapter 5 where we have all of the redeemed of all of the ages standing before Christ singing praises to Him. And they are singing praises to Him, and you remember the context—that there’s the one on the throne with the book, the scroll in his hands, and there’s seven seals on the scroll, evidently a last will and testament, evidently now God’s purposes in judgment and salvation for the world. And there’s no one worthy to open this up and carry out God’s purpose of judgment and salvation. And so they begin to weep. No one’s worthy to take the scroll from his hand. And finally he’s tapped on the shoulder and said, “Don’t weep anymore.” And he points and he says, “There is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And he turns and looks and he sees a Lamb as it has been slain. And they all sing then, “You are worthy, you are worthy because, because by your blood you have purchased us out of every nation and kindred and tribe and tongue.” That is, he has earned this right to rule. He has earned this right to carry out God’s purpose in judgment and in salvation because of his successful work as mediator.

And there is one passage that it might be helpful to turn to, to see Jesus express this, in John chapter 17. John chapter 17, as you know, is Jesus’ high priestly prayer. This is the eve before His death, and He prays to the Father in anticipation of that. In the beginning and the middle of verse 1, He prays, “Father, the time has come, glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people, why? That He should give eternal life to all of those that you have given to Him.” He has achieved universal authority and the purpose of that authority is now He can grant eternal life to those that the Father has given to Him.

This is reflective of Matthew chapter 11 as well in the final verses of that chapter where Jesus says, “no one knows the Son except the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and He to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” This is our Lord exercising His sovereign power to save. And again, this is just a recapping or a climactic glance back to the way Matthew has introduced Jesus from the beginning in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 1. God promised to Abraham that in his seed all of the families of the earth would be blessed. God promised to David that his seed would rule over all the world in righteousness. And now Jesus is simply saying that all of this authority has become His as a result of His completed work.

Therefore Go And Make Disciples Of All Nations

We have come then to this age of blessing, the age of salvation. Christ has accomplished the work. Universal authority is His and He has universal authority to save. Now that in turn helps us understand the next universal in verse 19. “Therefore, go and teach and make disciples of all nations.” Universal authority is His. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.” And mark the “therefore.” Therefore, because universal authority has been achieved, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. Because Christ is the universal King, then His universal kingship must be proclaimed everywhere. No longer has this been confined to Israel, but this is going to all of the nations.

This is Matthew chapter 12 verse 29 where Jesus says He has entered the house of the strong man and He has bound him and he’s made off with his goods. This is Paul to the pagan Gentiles: God now commands that all men everywhere should repent. This is Acts chapter 1 in verse 8: “You’ll be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth.” This is Luke 24 verse 47: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name through all of the nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” This is John 3, verses 16 and 17: For God so loved the world that He sent His Son to save it. This is John 10: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring.” This is John chapter 12 where the Greek, that Gentile man, wanted to see Jesus and the disciples are a little confused about all of that and Jesus’s death: “Don’t be surprised at that. If I be lifted up I’ll draw all men to me.”

This is Romans chapters 9 through 11. Israel has been set aside temporarily and the gospel has gushed over that dam to all the world. And in the end, if the setting aside of Israel has brought the gospel to the world, in the end when Israel is regathered, what will it be but life from the dead? This is Revelation chapter 5 where men and women from every tribe and family and kindred and tongue under heaven stand before the throne and sing praises to the Lamb who by His blood has redeemed them. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations.”

Now in the process of all of this then we have learned something of the nature of discipleship, and it would be good for us to point that out before we go to our third step here. We’ve learned Jesus is commanding us to make disciples. We’ve learned two defining aspects of discipleship. Number one, a disciple is first and foremost one who has come to terms with the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is foundational. A disciple is one who has come to Christ with his knees bent and his head bowed low. And that’s why the message of John the Baptist was, “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” That’s why Jesus preached, “repent, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” A disciple is one who has come to terms with King Jesus. And basic to what a disciple is, is a recognition of our subordination to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have come in submission to Him. Our King is the world’s only Savior, and we have recognized that, and we come before Him accordingly.

Second, discipleship requires disciple making. The command is go. This, of course, is the great failure of the contemporary church in our society. We hang out our shingle and we say “come.” And our Lord said “go.” But it is binding on all of Jesus’ disciples to make others what they themselves are: disciples. Our King is the only Savior that the world has and it is our responsibility to call others in submission to Him. And it is not an optional extra. This is part and parcel of what discipleship is. And part of our submission to Him, as we’ll see in a minute, part of our submission to Him is to be disciple makers.

The third lesson is closely related to that, and that is the message of the disciple is that of the universal authority of Christ, as we’ve already seen. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and bring them into submission to me. We should be very careful, I think, to notice how this bears so directly on our postmodern world with its ideals of pluralism and tolerance. Jesus is the world’s only Savior. He has all authority and no one else does. And it doesn’t matter where you are from or what culture you have been raised in, whether you are white or black or American or Asian or African. It doesn’t matter. He is the world’s only Savior.

And when the world mocks you for your intolerance and your bigotry, thinking that yours is the only way, just trace that bigotry back to John chapter 14 and verse 6 where Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me,” and tell them that it is in fact not bigotry at all, it is simply the facts of the matter. He is the world’s only Savior. He is the only one who has accomplished this universal authority to save. And if you would be saved, you must come to terms with Him. And it will not do them any good at all to pretend that their way is as good, for He is the world’s only King. And that then, of course, is the force of the next universal.

Teaching Them To Obey All Things

Teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded. Now first of all, and again we don’t have time to explore this at length, but I want to make the point quickly in passing. Notice how this stresses the focus of our teaching and what is the standard to which we look in our lives—a standard of teaching, standard of ethics, standard of behavior. It is exactly all things that I have commanded: the singular authority, the surpassing authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. This has all kinds of implications with regard to what we call New Covenant theology. We don’t have time to get into that now, but the point here is simply that His Lordship, His singular, His surpassing Lordship must be evident in everything about us and in our teaching as well.

And this again is a long-standing theme in the Scriptures. At least as far back as Deuteronomy chapter 18, where God says to Moses, “I will raise up a prophet after you who is like you. And I’ll put my words in his mouth and he’ll tell them everything that I’ve commanded and all that he says they will be accountable for.” And Matthew picks up that theme in a big way. Matthew chapter 5 verse 17, Jesus famously says, “I’ve not come to destroy the law of the prophets. I’ve not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” And then throughout that whole next section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expands on that. “You’ve heard it said, but I say. You’ve heard it said, but I say. You’ve heard it, but I say. I say. I say.”

And not just there only, but as we get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we find Jesus saying the same: that you must build your life and shape everything about you around these sayings of Mine. And if you don’t, you won’t survive that storm of judgment to come. And all the people remarked, “this man speaks with authority.” And all through Matthew’s presentation of Jesus, we find this theme of the surpassing authority of Jesus. Over and again, Matthew tells us, “Jesus said, Jesus said, Jesus said, Jesus said.” Fifty-five times we have Jesus saying, “I say, I say, I say, I say to you,” and He’s presented to us in the capacity, among other things, as the new and the surpassing Moses.

In a big way, this is presented in Matthew chapter 17, a striking scene that’s reminiscent of Moses on Mount Sinai. And here we have Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. We have the mountain and we have the clouds and we have the voice of God and Moses is there as well. And we have Jesus’ face shining, reminiscent of something of the shining face of Moses at Sinai. And then we have that brilliant statement by Peter, “let’s build three booths.” And God himself speaks up, “No, no, no, no, no, you’ve missed the point. This is my beloved Son. Hear Him.”

This is what comes to a climax then in Matthew 28 here, where Jesus says, “all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nation, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.” All of this is simply the King exercising His kingly rights. And we should notice at least quickly in passing that He says, “teaching them to obey all things that I have commanded.” His teaching is intended to be that which shapes everything about us. It is not enough to sit back and admire the teaching of Jesus. It is ours to obey. All of it. And so Jesus says, “take up your cross. Follow me. Seek first the kingdom of God. Take my yoke on you.”

This is the Lordship of Christ being exercised universally. And all of that then is to shape our missionary enterprise. The Lord Jesus is not—He is not just another God that any pagan can add to his shelf. Nor is He—and this comes very close to home in our western society and breed of Christianity—nor is he available simply for those who want to have him as a fire escape, but not as one who would shape their lives. All authority is mine and your discipleship to me is exactly this: You come into submission and you obey all things that I have commanded.

Here, of course, is the great curse of modern evangelicalism. Missionaries can boast of so many decisions. Pastors can boast of so many people. And if you’re impressed with numbers, you’re impressed. But when anybody stops to notice that this professing evangelical faith doesn’t have with it an evangelical life, we wonder what happened. But Jesus says then, this is our mission. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go.” The nature of your mission is simply bring men and women into submission to me, their King.

That very quickly defines for us the importance of baptism. For years, when I was younger, this puzzled me. What is it that makes this ceremony so important that Jesus would include it in the Great Commission? Why is this ritual of such significance? And of course, the answer is just what we’ve been seeing. It is simply the outward display, the outward profession of this submission to our King that we’ve been discussing. “Go and make disciples. Bring them to obey Me.” And as the outward demonstration or display of that, “baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” That is, in their baptism they profess their submission to the King Jesus. This is why the New Testament church—you don’t see them anywhere baptizing infants. The only baptism they knew was the one that our Lord endorsed here. And that is a baptism of disciples. The point then is that the nature of our mission is one of bringing men and women into submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that then brings us to the final universal here.

Surely I Am With You All The Days

“Surely, I am with you all the days.” Now this expression, as it is literally “all the days,” we are told by Greek scholars, should be understood idiomatically. It should be understood as, “I am with you through the whole of every day.” That is, it’s not looking simply to the horizon, to the end of the age. But I am with you, Jesus promises, throughout the whole of every day, all to the end of the age. Christ has pledged His continued fellowship with His disciples. And because all authority is His, nothing can interfere with that.

This little phrase, “with you.” “I’m with you.” Does that ring a bell? I’m with you. All through the Old Testament we find this phrase, “with you,” as expressive of God’s promised presence with his covenant people, usually assuming opposition, difficulty, danger, life in a satanic world. And God promises his people, “I’ll be with you.”

And so, for example, if you want a few: God says to Isaac, “I’ll be with you.” God says to Jacob, “I’ll be with you.” If Joseph prospers in Egypt, it is because the Lord was with Joseph. God says to Moses in Egypt, “I’ll be with you.” God says to Joshua, “as I was with Moses, I will be with you. Don’t be afraid, don’t be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” God says to Israel going into their land, “remember the Lord your God is with you.” The angel of the Lord sends Gideon against the Midianites, and he says, “the Lord is with you.” God promises His people, “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

It speaks always of God’s comforting, protecting, and enabling presence with His people, even in the face, or especially in the face of danger and opposition and enemies. And here as our Lord sends His disciples on their global mission, He promises them, “I will be with you throughout the whole of every day, even to the end of the age.” And this is significant, particularly in terms of how our Lord and all of the biblical writers describe the character of this world. Always, always, it is characterized in terms of its evil, its opposition, its conflict against Christ and all that is His. “The world hated me,” Jesus said, “don’t think they’re going to love up to you. They’ll rejoice most when you weep.” In fact, our opposition does not come simply from them.

The Apostle Paul tells us, echoing the words of the Lord Jesus, that Satan is the crown prince of this world. Paul says the character of every lost man, woman, and child is that they walk in lockstep with the prince of darkness. Our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, against the world rulers of darkness. The book of Revelation in chapter 12 illustrates this so graphically with a great dragon chasing the people of Christ into the wilderness. Always on the oppose. Always, always relentlessly coming against the people of Christ. As David mentioned for us yesterday in the book of Acts and all through the history of the church, it has been a story of opposition—the word and the message of Christ making its way through opposition.

In other words, Jesus is saying here, in effect, “this assignment that I’m giving you is not one that will be met with eager reception. But there is this: I will be with you throughout the whole of every day, even to the end of the age.” Without this promise, where would the church be? Without this promise, how would the disciples ever survive? I don’t think I ever think carefully through this passage and consider these words, “I am with you,” without thinking about the line from that great hymn, “Without Thee I cannot live. Without Thee I dare not die.”

How are we to succeed in this mission that the Lord Jesus has given to us? Whether you’ve noticed it yet or not, people out there don’t want a king. And not only that, think in terms of the many temptations that we face. Think of the many distractions. Think of the many sins. Think of the many failures. Think of the many stupid things that we do that are so self-defeating. Think of the many disappointments and the many discouragements. Think of all the suffering that awaits. How will we make it? How will the church ever, never mind succeed, how will the church even survive?

The Lord says, this is it: “I’ll be with you throughout the whole of every day, even to the end of the age.” This is the great promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says to his disciples, “I’m not going to leave you orphans. I’ll come to you.” And because he has promised to be with us, there is no temptation taken us ever, but that because he is with us, we will be able to bear it.

It seems so often in all of our ministries, whether it is foreign or at home, that it’s beset by so many kinds of difficulties. It seems always to be such an uphill struggle, doesn’t it? Brothers and sisters, we need to be reminded that we are not fighting a losing battle. We are, under the direction and under the universal authority of our great King, advancing His kingdom. We will make it and we will succeed because all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to our great King. And because He said, “I will be with you throughout every day to the end of the age.” And because this one who has universal authority has promised to be with us throughout every day, we carry out then His commission with a great sense of optimism.

And for those of you wondering what my eschatology is, you don’t have to be post-millennial to be optimistic. But our Lord has told us ahead of time that we will succeed in carrying out His great commission because He is with us. And one day in the end, all of us who are His will be gathered together around His throne from every nation and every tribe and every kindred and tongue under heaven. And there will be one fold and one shepherd. And together we will sing the same song of praise to this King who alone deserves it. And there we’ll be safe forever in the presence of our great King, who by His blood has bought us to Himself. Amen.