The Light Redeems Us

Christmas.

It's far more than gift giving. Far more than the story of a baby born in a manger. It's really a celebration of God's intervention in human history. In a world lost in darkness, the Bible tells us that a great light was seen, a light personified in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. This light is like a jewel with many facets. One of them is our redemption.

Only possible because Jesus came to this earth to live and then die as a sacrifice for our sins. Stay with us. From Chicago, this is The Moody Church Hour, a weekly service of worship and teaching with Pastor Erwin Lutzer. On this program, we begin a Christmas series on The Light Has Come. Later, we'll turn to the first chapter of John's Gospel and learn how the light redeems us.

Pastor Lutzer comes now to open our service. And usually when we think about Advent, we have in our minds the coming of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem and the fact that people look forward to that coming of Christ. But for us, the word Advent also has another meaning, and that is the fact that we now look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ again, the glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And during this Advent season, therefore, we have a double meaning to the word Advent.

Advent means reference to the people who lived before the coming of Christ in Bethlehem, and it refers to us as well. During this period of time, we light candles, for example, today the Candle of Hope, and we do this oftentimes indicating the diversity that we have here at The Moody Church. So you may hear different languages, but all serving the same Lord and rejoicing in God's grace. Let's pray together, and then we shall sing about the coming of Jesus, the long-awaited Jesus, and we're expecting Him.

It's really a song that relates to us as well. Now, Father, we pray that these special moments will be dedicated to You in a way that is transforming. May we leave here differently than we have come because we have worshiped, we have given You ourselves, we have learned, and we have rejoiced in our Savior, in whose name we pray.

Amen. God, our fears and sins release us. Let us find our destiny. Jesus' sacred conservation, hope of all his life. Jesus, at the very least, joy of every loving heart. Lord, I begin to live in you, Lord of time and evergreen.

Lord, to reign in us forever, thou thy gracious reindeer of green. Thine are your wings, work of spirit, through the light of our God's love. I, by all means, pray.

Pray, Jesus, with my glorious love. These are the words of the prophets of old. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord. When I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, in those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. The Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear us on, and shall call his name Immanuel. The Lord shall give you a sign. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and take darkness the peoples. But the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. On this first Sunday in Advent, we light the candle of hope.

Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here! Until the Son of God appear! Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel! Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, O God, let us be free, Thine own from Satan's city free!

From decks that fail thy kingdom stay, And give them victory o'er the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel! Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, O God, let us be free, Thine own from Satan's city free! From decks that fail thy kingdom stay, And give them victory o'er the grave.

And cause the path to misery. Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel! Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, O God, let us be free, Thine own from Satan's city free! From decks that fail thy kingdom stay, And give them victory o'er the grave.

From decks that fail thy kingdom stay, And give them victory o'er the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel! Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, thou wisdom cry, O God, and order all things one and kind.

To us the path of love is shown, And cause us eager ways to go. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel! Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, desire of creation's light, A people to love now and kind. With every strife and hunger sheaves, Fill all the world with heaven's grace. Rejoice!

Rejoice! Emmanuel! Shall come to thee, O Israel! Emmanuel! Emmanuel! His name is God, Emmanuel!

Come with us, reveal us! His name is God, Emmanuel! Emmanuel! Emmanuel! His name is God, Emmanuel!

Come with us, reveal with us! His name is God, Emmanuel! And, Father, today our hearts are filled with praise as we remember God with us, the inbreaking of God into our world as seen in Bethlehem. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ. We love Him and thank you in His name. Amen.

You may be seated. You know, sometimes it's so tempting to get involved in the details of something that we miss the big picture. This can even happen at Christmas time. We can be so fascinated by the wise men and the shepherds and the manger and even the baby Jesus that we can somehow forget what the real Christmas is all about. Let's remember that Christmas is nothing more, nothing less than the intervention of God. Have you ever participated in an intervention?

That's what we do when we find that there are people who may struggle with insanity or addictions and they need to understand the extent of their problem and they need to be delivered and they need help. Christmas is the coming of God to this planet to give us the help we need. You know, in the Bible, the word light is frequently used, and this is the beginning of a series of four messages titled The Light Has Come. To the scientist, light means energy. To the person who is walking in moral uncleanness, light means purity. To the philosopher, light means knowledge and understanding. And Jesus really turns out to be all of those things as the light of the world.

What we'd like to do is to look very briefly at the world in which Jesus came and then see this explosion of revelation that we celebrate at Christmas. First of all, the world in which Jesus came was spiritually dark. It was dark because of paganism, the mystery religions, they promised a form of redemption, but it was really self-help. And self-help doesn't do what is necessary for those who are sinners, like we all are.

And so there was that. In Judaism, there was really no joy. There was not a whole lot of help because religion was really the keeping of the rules. So spiritually, things were dark. Morally, the world was dark.

Philosophically, it was dark. You know, when John wrote his book, he was speaking to both the Greeks and to the Jewish community because there was now this clash of cultures. And Plato had a great deal of influence in the early centuries of the church. If you're Greek, I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say. I believe that Plato and Aristotle were two of the most brilliant men that God ever created.

Can you imagine writing these thick philosophical books that are so interesting and so encompassing that PhD students today still do their dissertations on Plato and Aristotle? Amazing. But they were not able to give the hope that mankind sought, not because they weren't brilliant, but no human being, by using natural reason, has the building blocks upon which to construct a system that makes sense out of it all and to give this world the hope that all of us seek. There's a man who bought a special puzzle for his daughter. It was very special because no matter how you put the pieces, they never came out right. He said he bought the puzzle so that his daughter would know how the world works.

Nothing ever comes out right. Well, God is going to enter into the world, and I want you to take your Bibles and turn to John chapter 1. John chapter 1, every Bible opened.

If you didn't bring yours, there will be one there in the seat in front of you, and I think it's about page 886. We'd have to look at this text together. This is one of the most profound passages in all of scripture. It is profound, and yet all of the words that are used are simple words.

Amazing indeed. John begins now by introducing Jesus Christ to us as the creator. When he was sitting down and wondering how he was going to pen this, I'm sure he probably spent a moment or two saying to himself, how can I describe Jesus? And he came across in his thinking that he would use the word logos, the Greek word logos, because this word would have meaning to the Greeks. To the Greeks, logos was wisdom and knowledge. To those who were Jewish in their thinking, the whole Old Testament has within it the emphasis on the word of God, the word word.

He sent forth his word and he healed them. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and the host of them by the breath of his mouth. And so he uses the word logos, which is the word word. And beginning, therefore, he says, in the beginning was the word. In the beginning, before there was anything, there was the word, the logos. And the word was with God and the word was God. What a beautiful way to describe the two members of the Trinity. You'll notice that the word was with God and the word was God.

Only one way to understand that is to realize that John is teaching us about the companionship between the Father and the Son from all eternity. And he was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

Amazing. God the Father is the creator, but the agency that he used was the Son. And so that's why the Son of God, Jesus, is spoken of as the creator. And all things were made by him. And without him, nothing was made that was made. We're reminded of Colossians chapter one, where it says, All things were created, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him.

That's a phrase that you ought to be in your mind frequently. For him and by him, all things were created. Do you realize what John is saying here in these opening words of this great revelation of the book of John? What John is saying is, I'm going to introduce you to your creator. What follows in the rest of the book is me trying to explain to you the creator who came to earth there in Bethlehem and was born of a virgin. So John tells us, first of all, that Jesus, the word, is the creator. But then Jesus also is the revealer. And here we get to the concept of light. John loves the light darkness motif and uses it here throughout his gospel and also in the letters of John.

First, second and third John. He speaks of Jesus being the light. In him was life, verse four, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

We have to pause there for a moment. He is saying that Jesus is the light and the darkness has not been able to extinguish it. You know, the word that he uses here that is translated in my Bible as overcome is a very interesting word. It can mean to arrest, to capture, to overtake, or as indicated here, to overcome. It can mean all those things. And in this context, it means all those things. There are two basic interpretations. Let's just use the word grasp.

All right? I think that that's a pretty good translation of the word. So the scripture says that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot grasp it or comprehend it. Isn't that true? I mean, you find today that there are people who fight against the light. They choose to try to extinguish the light. Eventually, the darkness even crucified Jesus to get rid of the light. But although they crucified him, they could not destroy him. And so the light still shines.

And in this series, I'm sure I'm going to be talking about various ways in which people have tried to extinguish the light. So on the one hand, they can't grasp it. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.

He cannot do it naturally because they are spiritually understood. What that means is this, that if you're listening to this message and your heart is closed, and your mind has been made up, and you have no interest in allowing the light to shine within you, that would be one way in which you can try to extinguish it, but the light still shines in the darkness. So on the one hand, you can't grasp it. You don't understand it.

It doesn't even make sense to you. But then there's another way to understand the word. And that is to think of it in terms of hostile intent. Did you know that it's the same word that is used in Mark chapter 9, verse 18, where it says, the spirit, an evil spirit, seizes the child and throws him on the floor, and there's foaming at the mouth. It's speaking about a demonic spirit. So the idea is that Satan wants to take the word and wants to extinguish it, but can't. He seizes it or tries to control it, but he can't. You know, it's amazing that the Bible says that demonic spirits, Satan actually has the power to take ideas out of the human mind.

That really is true. Remember the parable in which Jesus said that a sower went forth to sow, and some of the seed just fell on shallow ground, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. And later, Jesus explained that these birds actually are the wicked one. So what Satan tries to do is he tries to seize the word of God, but the darkness cannot overcome it. The smallest candle in a dark cave still gives it light. So John says that there's going to be opposition to Jesus, but he is the revealer, and I'm going to continue on now and skip to the theme of light in verse 9. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. I need to pause there and say that Jesus is the true light. Now there are false cults who claim to have the light.

Krishna claimed to have the light, Baha'u'llah claims to have the light, and what you find in pagan religions is this idea of enlightenment. But the Bible even says that false prophets really have light as well, and that Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. You think of all those who don't believe in Jesus who have a near-death experience, and in the process they experience light. It's false light.

It's the light that has been transformed, and it is light that actually is satanic. But Jesus is the true light because he alone has the credentials to be the light of the world. And then what he says is he's the true light which enlightens everyone who is coming into the world.

The best way, I think, to interpret that is this. That when Jesus came into the world, there was a prior light that existed in all people, and it is the light of conscience, and it's a flickering light. But if human beings have the desire to be able to follow that light, if they do that, God is obligated to give them more light, and certainly throughout history we've had those kinds of incidents that have been reported. So everybody has within them the light of Christ if you think in terms of the conscience.

And so what he's saying is that Jesus Christ is creator. Jesus Christ is also the revealer. But now I'm going to skip to verse 14. Verse 14 of John chapter 1 is the most explosive verse in all the Bible. If you ask people, well, what verse of Scripture is the most common, everyone would say John 3.16. As a matter of fact, have you seen those sporting events where people have a big piece of cardboard and they write on it, John 3.16? And I've often thought to myself, what in the world does that mean to the average person who is not acquainted with the Bible?

They must surely think to themselves that this person has some kind of a hidden, foolish message which doesn't relate to them. Now, the Christians who do it, I'm sure that they mean well, but to the common person, John 3.16 doesn't mean a whole lot. Just without the verse, the reference simply does not connect. But all of us would say that that's the most common verse in all the Bible, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life.

It's the most common. But this verse shattered the religious world. The Word became flesh. Let's think about why this particular word was so powerful and why the average person living in John's day could have never accepted this.

Let's talk about the Jewish community. I checked with my good friend Michael Radelnick about this and asked him whether or not the Jews were expecting a divine Messiah. Now, a divine Messiah was predicted in the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 9. But after the Jews came back from captivity, they interpreted that phrase and those teachings differently. And they could not accept a divine Messiah. That's why throughout the rest of the book of John, whenever Jesus claimed to be God, the people were taking up stones to stone him because they said you cannot be a man and claim to be God. So for them, the idea that the Word became flesh was unthinkable. It was idolatrous. But let's think of the Greeks.

You remember back to the days when you studied philosophy? Plato taught that there was a sharp distinction between matter and spirit. Spirit was the soul.

Spirit had certain knowledge. Two plus two is equal to four. Two plus two is always equal to four.

There's nothing as certain as the fact that two plus two is equal to four. That, in Plato's mind, generally speaking, was what he called a form which was certain, but it existed in the soul. As for matter, it was always corrupt and imperfect.

So a Greek reading, John 1.14, would read this way. In the beginning was the Word. The Word became flesh. The Word became imperfect because the Word took on humanity, because it took on a human form and a human body. As a matter of fact, in the Christian church, there was a great heresy that arose, and the heresy was that Jesus Christ was only a phantom. They said that when he walked, he left no footprint, because he really did not exist as a human being. He couldn't without being imperfect. So you can see here that when John says the Word became flesh, he was saying something that was difficult to grasp.

But thankfully, it is true. Now notice the rest of the verse. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word became flesh. The Greek word for dwelt among us is the word tabernacle. Jesus came and he tabernacled among us. Now in the Jewish mind, they would immediately think of Exodus chapter 33.

There in Exodus chapter 33, the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, was established, and Moses would go in and the glory of God would appear. And now, in the book of John, what you're going to see is a replacement motif. Jesus is going to replace all of the Old Testament sacrifices, all of the Old Testament rituals of worship. When you look in chapter 2 of John's Gospel, you'll notice that Jesus claims now to be the temple, destroy this temple, and he's referring to himself. I want you to think along with me about all of the changes that Jesus brought because he is the true temple. Think, for example, of the fact that now Jesus is the place of worship.

You no longer go into a temple. You no longer go into the tabernacle to worship Jesus as the high priest did. Rather, Jesus now is the point of worship.

When we come to the Father through Jesus, we have full, extended access into the presence of God and the worship of God. So he becomes the place of worship. He becomes the fulfillment of the law. You remember that in the tabernacle itself, there were tables of the law. And Jesus, of course, fulfills the law on our behalf, does everything that the law requires, lives a perfect life in our behalf.

So he fulfills the law. You'll notice also that he becomes our sacrifice. No more sacrifices are necessary because Jesus now offers himself. In the Old Testament, the priests offered the sacrifice.

In the New Testament, our high priest becomes the sacrifice. And so what we have is the fulfillment of the Old Testament all resides in Jesus. When he came, as the text of scripture says, he dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Now, when you think of glory, you immediately think of the Shekinah glory in the Old Testament where there was a bright light and where the glory cloud actually filled the area and filled the temple. And Jesus indeed did do that when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus was the glory of God. And three of the disciples were to behold him in all of his glory. This is not the only way in which Jesus manifested his glory. In chapter 2 of John's Gospel, Jesus performs a miracle.

He turns water into wine. And it says that the disciples beheld his glory. Later on in the Gospel of John, Jesus is predicting his death and he says these words. He says, the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. So we see the glory of Jesus in his power, in his ability to do miracles, but we also see the glory of Jesus in his suffering and his willingness to die.

And you know, when you and I pray that God will be glorified through our lives, we should not think that there's going to be some kind of Shekinah glory. If we are as obedient to God as Jesus is, Jesus Christ will be honored. He will be glorified in our individual lives in the warp and woof of our common experience. So here in the text, we see Jesus, first of all, as the creator, as the revealer, as the one who gives light, and then we see Jesus also as the redeemer who redeems us from our sins. And he came to dwell among us.

And that's what Christmas is really all about. We also see that he's a divider. He divides the crowds.

You'll notice that it says these words. He was in the world, verse 10, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. They did not accept their creator. He came to his own in the sense that he was the creator and created all things, and his own people did not receive him.

They did not receive him. But to all who did receive him who believe in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God who were born not of blood. There is a new birth that you must have to become a child of God that is not of blood. It's not something that you inherit through your parents.

You can't say to yourself, well, you're a Christian because your parents were Christians. There is a birth from above that is not of blood nor of the will of flesh. It's not something that is willed because your parents wanted to have a child, nor of the will of man. It's not the kind of thing that men can scheme or men can will and dream up, but there is a special birth from above. It is called the new birth. And by the way, did you have any say in where you would be born or whether you would be born? Absolutely not. Do you have a say in whether you're going to be born from above?

Yes, you do. But the reason that you desire to be born from above is simply a gift of God. God helps you to see that you must be born again. Through the conviction of the Spirit, through the preaching of God's Word, you begin to realize that you need to be born from above. And so the glory of Jesus is manifested by his coming, and the fact is that the world of people, the Jewish nation, did not receive him.

Now some did, you know that some did, but as a nation, the nation did not accept him. And Jesus always is dividing people. And by the way, it does say in verse 16, and from his fullness we've all received grace upon grace.

The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The one who brought grace is rejected on earth today. And the reason for that is because in many respects, what he brought is such a condemnation of our own need. The fact that we need his grace, we need to humble ourselves to receive it, and we need to understand who Jesus really was and why we desperately need him.

Let's help us nail this down. What does this passage of scripture really teach us about Jesus and about our need? First of all, let me say that Christ is the final and most complete revelation of God. Christ is the final and the most complete revelation of God.

After all, who would know what God is like except God himself? And at Bethlehem, in that manger, yes, there was God in the flesh, and there's nobody else out there like him. In the third century, there was a man, one of the Roman emperors by the name of Alexander Severus. Alexander had seen that the Christians had been so marginalized and so persecuted throughout the centuries that he said to the Christians, what you can do is go into the Pantheon in Rome. And by the way, the Pantheon still exists in Rome.

If you ever go to Rome, go into the Pantheon, a first century building, still standing, amazing in its architecture and in its structure. But he said, here is the place where all of the gods are gathered. You can now put up a statue of Jesus along with all of these gods because we're giving you tolerance.

And the Christians said, thanks, but no thanks. They said, Jesus does not belong in the Pantheon of gods. He does not fit next to all the other Roman gods. And I say to you today that if you wanted to put up a statue of Jesus in the Pantheon, don't put it where all the other gods are.

What you'd have to do is to put it at the very, very top of all of the other gods because he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and there is none other like him. Only Jesus is the one who is the light of the world, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. One day I was having a discussion with someone who belongs to the religion of Baha'i. And he was telling me that, you know, there are plenty of people who receive enlightenment. He said that our founder has received enlightenment and light since the coming of Jesus.

Now, if you know anything about the Baha'i faith, you know that it teaches truth or supposed truth that is contrary, very contrary to what Jesus taught, but that's a separate subject. But I said to him, you may think to yourself that you have the light of the stars, but when the sun comes out, the stars fade into oblivion because the light of Jesus obliterates all the other lights and all the other teachers of the world. So Jesus stands alone, King of Kings, God of all gods, and there he is in the manger, veiled in flesh the Godhead sea, hail the incarnate deity. God has come to us.

So Jesus is the last and the most complete revelation of God. Secondly, and let me take this from my heart to yours, without Jesus, without you knowing him, without you receiving him, as John says here, you are simply managing your darkness. Now, in one of these messages, I'm going to be emphasizing the fact that many people are simply finding different ways to manage darkness and calling it light. You know, the Bible is so explicit in the way it describes things. It says the way of the wicked is deep darkness. They stumble, and they don't know what it is that they're stumbling over. Have you ever been in real darkness, and you don't know whether or not you're standing on a stone or a piece of gold?

You have no idea, but you keep going along, managing your life that may be falling apart in so many different ways. Without Christ, there is no light. Finally, what we must realize is that if you have the desire to choose the light, choose the light.

And you can do that even today. You can choose the one who came to bring us life and to bring us light. Many of us, when we think of the name John Bunyan, we're reminded of his Pilgrim's Progress, but he wrote another book entitled Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. And what Bunyan said in that book is it was really his own autobiography, his own struggle to believe. In his case, if I've read it correctly, it took several years for him to finally come to the assurance of faith. And he was wrestling, first of all, he said that, as a sinner, nobody could out-sin me. In terms of the blasphemy, the way in which I lived, I was the chief of sinners. But what happened is this great sense of conviction came to him, which he thought.

He put it off for as long as he possibly could. But then he began to search, and the disquiet within his soul led him finally to read the scriptures and to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. And he wrote, and he said, even when I had a good attitude, it did not change my relationship with God. What changed my relationship with God is trusting the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I could not make that righteousness any better, and I could not make it worse by my attitude.

But there it was. He said that when I repented and trusted the righteousness of Christ, and I'm quoting now, I was loosed from my affliction, the inner torment of soul. If you today are sensing within yourself that need for the light of Jesus, you can believe on him. You can open your life to him, and you can say, today I trust you, because the light of God has come into the world.

He is the light who enlightens everyone but gives special light to those who believe on him. Let's pray together. And our Father, we want to thank you today for the coming of Jesus. We pray that you might help us to identify our darkness and we ask, Lord, that you might give us the grace that we desperately need to believe on Jesus. For those, Lord, who know you as Savior but are walking in darkness, may they come to the light to restore their fellowship with you. And for those who have never believed, we pray, Father, that they will come to the light, and in that light they may receive grace and help and healing and forgiveness. We thank you that the light has come. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's stand and worship this Son of God who has come. Light of the world, you step down into darkness. Open my eyes, let me see Beauty that made this heart adore you Hope of a life spent with you Here I am to worship Here I am to bow down Here I am to say that you're my God You're all together lovely All together worthy All together wonderful to me King of all days, oh so high the eggs of death Glorious in heaven above Long it came to the earth you created All for the sake became whole Here I am to worship Here I am to bow down Here I am to say that you're my God You're all together lovely All together worthy All together wonderful to me On today's Moody Church Hour, Pastor Lutzer spoke about how the light redeems us. The first in a four-part Christmas series on The Light Has Come.

Next week, join us for part two as we learn how the light reveals us. It's great to begin every single day with God. To help us do that, we'd like to send you a beautiful hardback devotional book by Lloyd John Ogilvie.

Called God's Best for My Life, this volume provides daily inspirations for a deeper walk with God. It's yours as our thank you for your gift of any amount to The Moody Church Hour. Just call 1-800-215-5001. Let us know you'd like to support Moody Church's ministry. The number again is 1-800-215-5001, or write to us at The Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Online, go to moodyoffer.com. That's moodyoffer.com. Join us next week for another Moody Church Hour with Pastor Erwin Lutzer and the Congregation of Historic Moody Church in Chicago. This broadcast is a ministry of The Moody Church.