“Are you looking for a sign?  This is it!”

            We saw that on a highway somewhere when we were traveling, and under it the address of the local church.  I laughed then, but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.  People are still looking for a sign, just as they were in Jesus’ day.

            I have heard a lot of talk about roadside signs in my lifetime, many of them negative, and I understand the concern.  The church is an undenominational entity and those signs, if they are not carefully worded, can teach things we are trying not to teach. But can I say this one thing about them?  Through the years, many people have shown up at various church doors where I worshipped because of the sign.  They remembered it from childhood.  Or maybe they remembered a neighbor who acted differently than their other neighbors, who helped their family when no one else did.  They remembered other neighbors, people who faced their own tragedy and came through it with a smile and faith intact.  Maybe they remembered the times that neighbor invited them to church and now they are in the middle of a crisis and they see a sign in front of a building that looks awfully familiar, one like the sign where their neighbor faithfully attended year after year no matter what was happening in their lives or in the world.

            That is certainly one benefit of those signs that people, including me, sometimes wish weren’t there any more, or were worded much differently.  But maybe this is what we need to concentrate on: that sign wouldn’t have done a thing in the cases I mentioned if the remembered people hadn’t been the kind of people they were. 

            Our lives are supposed to be the sign.  In a world where “Christian” can mean anything and everything, you should still be able to tell a genuine one by how he acts.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:16.  If you really want people to be interested in your faith, then show them a faith worth being interested in.

            A lot of people in Jesus’ day wanted the other kind of sign.  What did Jesus have to say about that?  Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, Matt 12:38,39.  Jesus knew that a miraculous sign would do no good.  He said as much in the parable where the rich man desired Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead as a sign to his brothers, but was told, “If they will not hear the Law and the prophets, they won’t hear if someone comes back from the dead.”  The sign on Mt Carmel ultimately did no good either.  The next morning Jezebel was still in power, able to threaten Elijah and send him running.

            No, the signs that really matter are the ones we act out in front of our friends.  Those are the signs that spark their interest and lead them to ask questions, signs that will eventually start them reading the Word of God and finding their way to Him.  Miracles didn’t work for Jesus, and he steadfastly refused to send a sign at their request.  Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, John 12:37.  What worked were his words and the life he lived, and that’s what works today.

            You are the sign people are looking for.  Word it carefully.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God, Phil 1:27,28.

Dene Ward

I have a hard time seeing cobwebs.  Every so often, Keith will grab a broom, wrap an old rag around it and go around sweeping my ceilings, especially in the corners.  He always ends up with a rag covered in lacy, pale gray webs that had hung from the white ceilings, hidden from my less than perfect vision.

            A few weeks ago, after returning from a ten day trip that combined family visits with a speaking engagement, I was exercising on the porch steps and happened to look at the screen door.  Maybe because I was concentrating on my repetitious step routine instead of simply going in and out, I saw a thick layer of cobwebs wrapped around the automatic door closer.  I looked a little higher and more hung from the hinges.  Yet a little higher and both corners were strung with white.

            These were not small cobwebs.  They were several inches in diameter and so thick the black metal door looked as if someone had splashed white paint on it.  This is what I’m saying:  they were easy to see and had been there quite awhile yet I had missed seeing them.

            Here’s a question for you.  If cobwebs were dangerous in some way, poisonous perhaps, which would be the most dangerous, the ones you can’t see, or the ones you can? 

            Let me make that a little easier for you.  Those cobwebs that Keith gets down for me?  Before he retired I might not have seen them, but I knew they were there—cobwebs always hang from the ceiling.  When any special company was on the calendar, I always got the broom and brushed them down myself.  I knew where to brush whether I could see them there or not.  The cobwebs that hang all over the screen door as clear as day?  Those I never see because I never look for them.

            When we raised our boys we taught them several ways to avoid poisonous snakes.  One was to stay away from places they could hide, like wood piles and thick brush.  We also taught them to look for odd shapes and movement in the grass—the only way to see past their natural camouflage.  But on a cold sunny day, those things won’t be in some dark place, they’ll be right out in the open, basking on a sun-warmed rock or lying in the sun-baked field.  Which ones do you think are the hardest to see, simply because you aren’t looking for them in that place?

            Now think about the dangers in your spiritual life.  Which temptations are the most perilous, the ones you know to look for or the ones you don’t bother to look for?  Which of your faults are the most dangerous?  The ones you are trying to work on, or the ones you refuse to see?

            What’s the moral of the story?  Always be looking.  Don’t fool yourself with that psychological trick called denial.  It won’t make the snakes disappear.  It won’t make the poison less venomous.  You have an enemy who isn’t stupid.  He has great camouflage.  Sometimes he looks like a friend, sometimes he looks like a blessing, sometimes he even looks like you. 

            Do a daily character exam.  Look for the cobwebs in your soul.  Look where you see them and where you don’t.  Or get someone with better eyesight to do it for you, and then listen to them.  “That’s just how I am,” may be the biggest lie anyone ever got you to believe.  Blindness is not an excuse for sin.

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds, 2 Cor 11:13,14.

Dene Ward

     Another issue Keith has always had with his hearing has been direction.  Even when he can hear something, he is not certain which direction it came from.  90% of the time he is wrong.  We have expected the implant to improve this, and it has, but not completely.  He is wrong only half the time now.  This morning he asked where the pounding was coming from and while he was close—he said north—it was actually west northwest, in fact, close to due west.  We assume this will improve just as everything else has.

     He is not the only one with this problem.  When a new Christian comes with a question about something they "heard," usually on television or a podcast, I always cringe.  Their zeal, which is commendable, often puts them on a seesaw, up with elation and then down again when they find out their new source is anything but scripture-based.  If the first thing all of us learned to do was to ask, "Where did this come from?" we might not find ourselves in such a bipolar state of mind. 

     Learn to ask yourself first, "Did this come with scripture to back it up?"  If not, then chuck it immediately.  Anyone who cannot give you a scripture-based reason, a "thus saith the Lord" as we used to say in the old days, should probably be ignored on general principle.  But suppose they give you a scripture.  Ask yourself if it contradicts any other scripture whose meaning you are certain of.  The Bible does not contradict itself.  If that person has interpreted it in such a way that two Bible principles are opposed to one another, they absolutely must be misusing scripture, perhaps out of ignorance, but perhaps not.  As much as we hate to believe such things, it is possible that this person is deliberately misleading you for the sake of his own agenda. 

     A lot of decent people have been misled by men who were out for no good but their own.  Some have lost their livelihoods; some have lost their lives; many have lost their souls.  Hon Meng Chen, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh, Jim Jones and others you may not have heard of hoodwinked their believers into signing over their possessions, committing adultery in some cases, and ultimately facing death in any number of ways.  They all started small, with a group who believed a doctrine found nowhere but in their leader's megalomaniacal mind.  "I would never believe such a thing," I am sure they all thought several years before the fact, but ultimately, they failed to check things out.

     Keith's hearing is improving as he gains more experience with the implant, but his spiritual hearing has never been bad.  Yours can be just as good as his.  Don't be like the millions who believe a lie simply because they want to.

And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nothing by the manifestation of his coming; whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2Thess 2:8-12.

Most of you know that Keith had a cochlear implant put in earlier this year.  I have not reported much about it because it is a work in progress—a slow one.  We have learned many things and found out that most of our assumptions were not exactly correct.

     I suppose I thought that once this was in place that it always worked, that you would hear from then on.  No.  Just like any other electronic equipment, it needs a power source, in this case a battery.  That means you put it on in the morning and take it off in the evening to recharge.  I still cannot call out in the night and expect him to hear me.

     And then there is the "hearing."  The implant itself does not hear.  It simply provides an electronic signal to the auditory nerve and he must learn to translate that impulse into a normal sound or word.  Every day he practices "hearing" with either a computer program or by taking out his regular hearing aid that still sits in the other ear, and the two of us talking.  Gradually he is learning that this noise equals that word.  He is going much more quickly than most, they tell us, but it still seems slow to both of us.  He does the best when he has the hearing aid, the implant, and his usual lip reading in play, but if he is ever to reach the point that he is ready for a second implant, he must get much better using only the implant.  Otherwise, he will be lost if he still cannot "hear" with the first one.

     And then there is the sound itself.  Even when he can translate a word, it sounds more robotic than human.  Sometimes pitched too high and sometimes too low, and very often mechanical.  As one doctor put it, it sounds like a cross between Mickey Mouse and R2D2.  That too, can distort the word for him.  All in all, it is not a miracle worker.  It is plain hard work with moments of discouragement and moments of wonder.  A friend who was born deaf ultimately stopped using hers.  It wasn't worth the trouble to her.  She is not the only one who has ever felt that way.  So far Keith has found the motivation to plod on.

     The fourth week we were sitting at a stoplight waiting when suddenly he reached over and turned off the turn signal.  "How can you stand that?!" he said.  He was hearing a turn signal!  Last week he sat at the dining table and then suddenly looked up at me and said, "Is that clock ticking?"  Yes, the kitchen clock ticks.  "Why?  It runs on a battery."  But you and I would have long ago learned to ignore it.  That is a skill he is having to learn.

     Our spiritual hearing can work the same way.  Sometimes we turn it off on purpose.  If I don’t want to hear what you have to say, I won't listen.  Sometimes what you say sticks out like sore thumb because it is different.  Everyone else just tells me what I want to hear but you have the love—and guts—to tell me what I need to hear.  Sometimes it sounds off a little because that is exactly what it is.  I am supposed to be able to tell truth from falsehood, especially in regard to God's Word.  If it doesn't sound right, don't just accept it or even just ignore it—look it up yourself.  I have seen Keith looking at me and others strangely a time or two as he hears these strange sounds that are voices he must learn all over again to recognize.

     And sometimes what you hear can be the thing that saves your soul.  When you recognize it, you should instantly want more.  You should work harder and harder to understand it because you know your eternal life depends upon it.  You have the motivation while others do not—you believe and they don't. 

     Check your hearing this morning.  Do you need an implant?  Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls Jas 1:21.  The Word of God is worth hearing and obeying.  Don't take it out and turn it off because it offends you or because it takes some work to understand.  Your soul depends on how well you hear.

Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, By hearing you shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing you shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear  Matt 13:13-16.

Dene Ward

The first time he said it I was confused.  The second time I was a little miffed. 

            “We’re going home,” Keith told someone of our upcoming visit to his parents’ house in Arkansas, early in our marriage.

            Home?  Home was where I was, where we lived together, not someplace 1100 miles away.

            I suppose I didn’t understand because I didn’t have that sense of home.  We moved a few times when I was a child, and then my parents moved more after I married.  I never use that phrase “back home” of any place but where I live at the moment.  But a lot of people do.  I hear them talk about it often, going “back home” to reunions and homecomings, visiting the places they grew up and knew from before they could remember.

            But what was it the American author Thomas Wolfe said?  “You can’t go home again.”  Those words have come to mean that you cannot relive childhood memories.  Things are constantly changing and you will always be disappointed.

            Abraham and Sarah and the other early patriarchs did not believe that. 

            These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. Hebrews 11:13-14.

            That phrase “country of their own” is the Greek word for “Fatherland” or “homeland” or “native country.”  Those people believed they were headed home in the same sense that Keith talked about going back to the Ozarks.  Some question whether the people of the Old Testament believed in life after death.  They not only believed they were going to live in that promised country after death, they believed they had come from there—that it was where they belonged.

            That may be our biggest problem.  We do not understand that we belong in Heaven, that God sent us from there and wants us back, that it is the Home we are longing for, the only place that will satisfy us.  We are too happy here, too prosperous in this life, too secure on this earth. 

            Try asking someone if they want to go to Heaven.  “Of course,” they will say.  Then ask if they would like to go now and see the difference in their response.  It is good that we have attachments here, and a sense of duty to those people.  It is not good when we see those attachments as far better than returning to our homeland and our Father and Brother.  Paul said, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, - if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better: yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake. Philippians 1:21-24.   Paul knew the better choice.  Staying here for the Philippians’ sake was a sacrifice to him, a necessary evil.

            Heaven isn’t supposed to be like an all-expenses-paid vacation away from home—it’s supposed to be Home—the only Home that matters.

            How do you view Heaven?  The way you see it may just make the difference in how easy or difficult it is for you to get there.

Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Dene Ward

I was 18, but I might as well have been 12.  Looking back I can see the warning signs, but as naïve as I was then I was blind to them.

            The summer between my freshman and sophomore college years I had found a job not far from the house at a concrete plant.  I had signed on as a “tile sorter” out in the warehouse on a crew full of women, but the yard boss saw on my application that I knew how to type so the first morning he made me the office secretary. 

            The work was simple and a little scarce—I answered the phone; I made the coffee; I figured payroll from the time cards and passed out paychecks.  I might have typed three letters all summer long.  Finally I found the old directory of suppliers and other concrete plants in the area.  It was scratched out and scribbled over with address and telephone changes so I gave myself the chore of researching and re-typing that whole thing on the days when there was literally nothing else to do for hours.  I think the whole point of me being there was so the yard boss could say he had a secretary like the big guys up in the front office.

            Aside from the pride issue, he was a decent man, a Jehovah’s Witness who actually talked with me about religious things when he was free.  He seemed impressed when I showed him a passage or two he didn’t know was there. 

            But his immediate underling was not as nice a man as he pretended to be when the boss was there.  Not that I knew it at first or none of this would have happened.  I can look back on it now and hear his words and know what he was thinking as surely as if he told me out loud, but not then.  I was too innocent and trusting.

            One day late in the summer I found myself alone in the office with him.  The old clerk was sick and the yard boss had been called up to the front office on the highway, a good quarter mile walk through the hot dusty yard beneath overhead cranes.  I had gone to the front counter to look for some forms and suddenly I found myself hemmed into a corner with this six foot something, 250 lb, fifty year old man coming right at me   Before I knew it, he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me.

            I am not sure what he expected, but somehow I got loose, slipped around him, and ran as fast as I could to the only restroom in the place, a grimy cubbyhole about four foot square.  I locked the wooden door, grabbed a scratchy, brown paper towel and scrubbed my face over and over and over and over.  Then I re-wet the towel, added more soap and went at it again.  I couldn’t stop myself.  It’s a wonder I didn’t draw blood.

            Now look at Psalm 51:2.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  This is the psalm David wrote after Nathan convicted him of the sins of adultery and murder.  I have read that in the Hebrew “wash me thoroughly” is literally “multiply my washings.”  After at least a year, long enough for Bathsheba to bear a child and that child to die, David finally realizes the enormity of his sins and feels the remorse like a knife in his heart.  One little plea for forgiveness won’t do in his mind, not for the terrible things he has done.  He feels the need for ritual cleansing over and over and over and over.  It isn’t a failure to accept God’s forgiveness; it’s an overwhelming sense of absolute filth.  

            When I read the literal meaning of “wash me thoroughly” those feelings I had standing in that grubby little bathroom over forty years ago came flooding back to me.  And now, like never before, I realize exactly how I ought to feel when I ask God’s forgiveness.  What I have done to Him is much worse than that which was done to me by a sordid lecher so many years ago.

            You need to feel it too.  If there is anything that will dowse your temptations like a bucket of water on a fire, that will.  I am not sure now how long I stood there shaking, sick to my stomach, but I did not leave that hideous little room until I heard other voices in the office.  Nothing was going to get me out there until I was sure I was safe.   

            Sin in your life will corrupt you.  Soap won’t get it out, no matter how many times you wash yourself.  Only the blood of the Lamb and the grace of God can cleanse you.  And even then, you should feel the need for more, and more, and more, and more, until finally you can face yourself in the mirror. 

            If you are having trouble with temptations today, remember this little story.  It’s not something I share lightly.

Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD, Jer 2:22.

Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, That the bones which you have broken may rejoice, Psalm 51:7,8.

Dene Ward

The first time I received a bushel of pears from a neighbor out here in the country I was disappointed.  I was used to the pears in the store, especially juicy Bartletts, and creamy, vanilla-scented Boscs.  As with a great many things here in this odd state, only certain types grow well, and they are nothing like the varieties you see in the seed and plant catalogues or on the Food Network shows.  We always called them Florida Pears, but recently learned they are Sand Pears, and in this sandy state that makes good sense.  They are hard and tasteless.  In fact, Keith and I decided you could stone someone to death with them.  We nearly threw them away. 

            Then an older friend told me what to do with them.  They make the best pear preserves you ever dripped over a biscuit—amber colored, clear chunks of fruit swimming in a sea of thick, caramel flavored syrup.  Then she made a cobbler and I thought I was eating apples instead of pears.  No, you don’t want to eat them out of hand unless they are almost overripe, but you most certainly do want to spoon out those preserves and dig into that cinnamon-scented, crunchy topped cobbler.  They aren’t pretty; they are hard to peel and chop; but don’t give up on them if you are ever lucky enough to get some.

            A lot of us give up on people out there.  We see the open sin in their lives and the culture they come from and decide they could never change.  Have you ever studied the Herods in the New Testament?  If ever there was a soap opera family, one that would even make Jerry Springer blush, it’s them.  They were completely devoid of “natural affection,” sons trying to assassinate fathers, and fathers putting sons and wives to death.  Their sex lives were an open sewer—swapping husbands at a whim; a brother and sister living together as a married couple; leaving marriages without even a Roman divorce and solely for the sake of power and influence.

            Yet Paul approaches Herod Agrippa II, the son of Herod Agrippa I who had James killed and Peter imprisoned, the grandnephew of Antipas who had John the Baptist imprisoned and killed after taking his brother’s wife, great-grandson of Herod the Great who had the babies killed at Jesus’ birth, a man who even then was living with his sister, almost as if he expected to convert him.  Listen to this:

            I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently, Acts 26:2,3.

            Yes, I am sure there was some tact involved there, but did you know that Agrippa had been appointed advisor in Jewish social and religious customs?  Somehow the Romans knew that he had spent time becoming familiar with his adopted religion—during the time between the Testaments the Herods were forced to become Jews and then later married into the family of John Hyrcanus, a priest.  No, he didn’t live Judaism very well, but then neither did many of the Pharisees nor half the priesthood at that point.  But Agrippa knew Judaism, and Paul was counting on that.

            Paul then spends verses 9 through 23 telling Agrippa of the monumental change he had made in his own life.  Here was a man educated at the feet of the most famous teacher of his times, the rising star of Judaism, destined to the Sanhedrin at the very least, fame and probably fortune as well.  Look at the list of things he “counts as loss” in Philippians 3.  Yet this man gives it all up and becomes one of the hated group he had formerly imprisoned and persecuted to the death, forced to live on the charity of the very group he had hated along with a pittance from making a tent here and there.  Talk about a turnaround.  Do you think he told Agrippa his story just to entertain him?  Maybe he was making this point—yes, you have a lot to change, but if I could do it, so can you.

            In verse 27, he makes his final plea—King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe!  Paul had not given up on changing this man whom many of us would never have even tried to convert.  And it “almost” worked.

            Who have you given up on?  Who has a hard heart, a lifestyle that would be useless to anyone but God?  Who, like these pears, needs the heat of preaching and the sweet of compassion?  Who could change if someone just believed in them enough?

            Sand pears seem tasteless to people who don’t work with them, who don’t spend the time necessary to treat them in the way they require.  Are we too busy to save a soul that is a little harder than most?  Who took the time to cook you into a malleable heart for God?  It’s time to return the favor.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses... Ezek 36:26-29.

Dene Ward

The boys have taught me well, not only strategies and terms, but who to root for in football, basketball, and baseball.  The Gators, the Rays, the USF Bulls, the Miami Dolphins, the Buccaneers, sometimes the Jags if they aren’t thoroughly embarrassing themselves, and any SEC team that is not playing Florida at the moment. 

            But if any of those teams are playing, I do not enjoy what most people call “a good game.”  Why would anyone enjoy something that causes heart-burn, heart palpitations, and heart-ache?  I cringe until the score becomes outrageously unbeatable, and then sit back and enjoy the rest.  That’s my kind of game.

            And though it certainly isn’t a game, that’s the way I like my contests with the Devil too.  It ought to be that lopsided a score.  We have a Savior who has already taken care of the hard part.  We are already so far ahead, even before we start, that a comeback by the opponent should be unthinkable.  We have an example how to overcome.  We have help overcoming.  We have a promise that we CAN overcome if we just try.  We have every possible advantage, including coaches and trainers and all-star teammates, and a playbook that is infallible. 

            We have the motivation too.  As we said, this isn’t a game.  There is no next season, and defeat is an unthinkable consequence that should spur us on to adrenalin-boosted, nearly superhuman feats.  And the trophy is far better than anything offered us in this life.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  Now they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one, 1 Cor 9:25.  That crown is called a “crown of life” in several passages—an eternal life with our Creator. 

            Do not make your game a close one.  Don’t sit back and let the Adversary make a comeback.  Don’t fumble the ball, or commit an error, or make a turnover out of carelessness and apathy.  Victory is not handed to you on a platter.  You still have to want to win, and fight like that every minute.  My kind of game may not appeal to you when you watch your favorite teams play, but it should be the only kind you want when your soul is at stake. 

            We are “more than conquerors” with the help of God (Rom 8:37).  His game plan involves a rout, running up the score, and rubbing the enemy’s nose in defeat.  And it can go exactly that way with just a little effort on your part.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:53-55, 57

Dene Ward