because the subject that has been laid upon my heart is an old one that ever knew, and I would love to have taken chapter by chapter right through the whole of the nine chapters. But what we've got to do is in four morning Bible hours, press it together a little, and take two chapters each morning and try and slip that extra chapter in on the last morning. Now I will turn you to the book of Samuel and to the life of David. One Samuel chapter seventeen, we are going to read verse fifty-five and onward. And very quickly you will see what the story is. Story that has intrigued me. story which I find full of detailed ministry from the word to my own heart's devotion, a story of tremendous challenge. One Samuel, verse fifty-five. When Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire thou whose son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy servant Jesse, the Bethlehemite. He came to pass when he had made an end of beating unto Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him. as his own soul. Now, I don't think these two men, David and Jonathan, ever dreamt that one day, thousands of years afterwards, in a beautiful Florida town, St. Petersburg, A little group of Christians would gather together to go over the story and learn lessons from it. But the story of their love would be told and retold during four mornings under this roof. But this has come to pass. Now, I'm pretty sure of this. I don't think you have ever realized, ever realized, that right here down in this old America of yours you are writing as a Christian a love story word by word line by line sentence by sentence chapter by chapter that one day when it's finished is going to be a love story a love tale that's going to be told and retold in those never-ending ages coalesced with Christ around the camp-files in the glory land. If this grips our hearts this week, I am perfectly certain of this, there will be an exercise to say, Oh Lord, I want to write a good love story. I want to write a story that will be worth telling. I don't want to be ashamed when that story is told by chapters that are full of failure and weakness and disgrace. I want it to be a story that will be told for thy glory. And I believe we shall have the exercise that Moses had in Psalm ninety, verse nine when he said, we spend our years as a tale that is told. And as descriptive heart, he cried in verse twelve, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our heart to it. And I was a boy, dear old mother, said to me, Harold, you look after the pennies and the shillings will look after themselves. Well, of course, your mother said, you look after the cents and the dollars will look after themselves. And if you look after the days, there's no need to worry about the years. Day by day, you are writing a story of love. Your response to his great love, and the whole of this story will display the love of Christ in picture. And the whole of the story will illustrate your response to that great love. I love him because he first loved me. Now we are going to examine and look at this story in some detail. First of all, I want to say to you that you never, never lose sight of yourself until you fall in love with another. Did you know that? Human loves like that. There comes a moment when someone steps into your life and you love them, and someone steps into your life to displace that pure selfishness. You loved your own soul, your own life, but now someone has come to displace self. And as you stand perhaps at the marriage altar and you say, Will thou take this man, this woman, to be thy wife, thy husband, to love, to cherish, till death do us part? When you enter into that amazing oneness that unites two lives, you know as well as I do, if selfishness reigns, that marriage will be wrecked. You can write over all the tragedies of marriage in our great North America today, selfishness. When you step away from a marriage, you can no longer say, I'm going here. I'm going to do this. I'm going to behave in that way. No, it's we now. What would the loved one like? Where would the loved one like to go? What would the loved one like to do? And marriages like that grow golden into old age, long after all the passions of youth were passed. And you can see the ripening love story in many a man and woman right onto the even tide of life. They don't chatter and talk like they used to. There may be the quiet confidence and restfulness one with another, but there's something that's bound them together. And all these human pictures illustrate Christ the lover of souls who came in his great love to capture your heart. and having won it the response of your heart, deepening through the years, writing a story that will be worth telling. Now let's think this thing through. Come with me to chapter eighteen, it lies open in front of you. One Samuel eighteen, verse one. And it came to pass. When he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. You see, it's natural to love your own life, to care for its interests, to be concerned about little me. But now a rival has stepped in. And he loves someone else. as he loved his own soul. And the story has begun. Jonathan's in love with David. We are going to call it chapter one. We are going to call it the awakening of love. This is where love found its spring. And our love story has begun. The awakening of love. Now I want you to look at these two men. Jonathan was a prince. His father had been anointed king over Israel. He was a big six-foot-three fellow, a magnificent man. And this boy had been born in a palace, and he had grown up, and from his early days he had been trained as a soldier. He had gone out to fight the Philistines. There's many a record of his skill and devotion to his nation. And I judge, I may be wrong, he was quite possibly over thirty years of age, a mature, fine, magnificent prince born in a palace. He's looking into the face of a boy. It's hard to find out how old this boy was, but he was the tail end of a farmer's family. He was number eight amongst the boys, and the bigger boys had grown up and gone through the old school house in Bethlehem, and he was the boy at home, helping mum and dad, minding the sheep. A gifted boy and a charming boy. A boy who was awfully fond of music. A boy who knew God. Somehow out on the hills, he brought the everyday things around him into relationship with God. And he would whisper, I'm a shepherd. These are my sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And he translated everything into spiritual contacts. There was a spiritual life there. He was so outstanding that he had been chosen once to go up and stand in Saul's presence. And if you look at his letter of commendation, it's worth reading. Would you like to look back at it? I think we can find it fairly quickly. Back in chapter sixteen and verse seventeen. And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well and bring him to me. Then answered one of his servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, a mighty valiant man, a man of war, prudent in matters, a comely person, and the Lord is with him. Could you get a better commendation than that, to get a good spiritual job? And so from the farm he had come to be an armor-bearer, and to play music in Saul's palace. But of course, in a great big palace with hundreds of people teeming in and teeming out, Saul might have taken this boy just for granted, because later on, when he saw him coming out of the valley of Elah, he said to Abner, Who is this boy? Whose son is he? Find out for me. And he seems to be rather ignorant. But he knew him. Now this boy has had an amazing experience. One day there came the great prophet Samuel. You know what his name means, don't you? Ask to God. Ask to God. Hannah's child. This lovely boy who had grown up with Eli in the temple and matured and through whom the word of God came to Israel, who was a blessing to the nations? One day God said to him, take your horn of oil, and you go down to a remote farm near Bethlehem, and this was all in God's overruling prophetic fulfillment, and you find one that I'm going to choose and anoint him as king to reign over my people. Do you remember the story how Samuel came and how the first big boy stepped in, a liar, the fine big soldier? Surely this is the one. No. And Samuel sixteen, verse six, Surely the Lord's anointed stands before him, Eliab, but the Lord said to Samuel, Look not on the countenance or on the height of his stature, Because I have refused him, for the Lord seeeth not if man seeeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. And so the old farmer says, Come along, Abinadab, and the second boy comes forward, and Samuel is told, no, you've got to pass him by. And so Jesse says, now Shama, my third boy, you come. And so right through the family until the last one has come, and they say, now are there any others? And all Jesse could say is, well, of course, there's the baby boy, and he's minding the sheep, the kid boy of the family, David. Bring him in. And when he's brought in, birth trails, he was ruddy, that is, a healthy wetness all over his face, and with all of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look at. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. And I can see Samuel taking that horn of oil and anointing this youngest boy of a farmerless family to be king. And something happened. After the anointing, verse, verse thirteen, the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forth. Verse fourteen, and the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. God has laid aside the chosen man that men chose to be king, and taken this farmer's boy to be king over Israel. And he goes back to minding the sheep on the hills. Now, this is the boy, I suppose, in his late teens or early twenties at the most. And they're face to face, a prince and a shepherd boy. A man born in a palace and one born on a farm. And they've fallen in love. Now, how did this happen? Well, the story is an exciting one. It's a story that every boy likes. I don't think the girls like it too much. It's a bit too gory for them. But every boy frills at this old Bible story of David, how he was sent with a great big basket, hampered of food by his father from the farm, up to the boys in the army. And when he arrives, the thrilling story unfolds right there in chapter, let's see, He sees the valley of Elar. He sees the people of God in their tents on this side, and he sees the Philistines in their tents on this side, and the valley between the battleground. And he sees the great giant coming out. Oh, I wish you could see that giant. I don't think we've got any idea of his strength and size. Do you know he was nine foot six? Boy, right up there. And nine foot six all brag and brawl. And he comes out, and if you were to look at his armor, my word, he seems to be covered all over with armor. He's got, it says, a helmet, verse five of chapter seventeen of brass. His arms are the coat of nails. He's got greaves of brass upon his legs and targets of brass between his shoulders, and the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam. And in front of him went a man with a great shield to ward off any blows, and he stood and cried, defying the armies of Israel. Choose your man. Let him come out and fight me. If I kill him, you serve. If he kills me, we'll serve you. Absolutely terrible. A wonderful way of settling things. Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could settle our problems in the world today like that? Get an American and a Russian shot up to the moon and let them fight it out. And say, well, it's square now. No, we can't do that, can we? But in these good old days, that's all the Philistine world wanted. Here's our man, and we'll fight you. Now these Philistines that came all up the coast of the Mediterranean and were constantly pushing up the valleys, the inveterate foes of God's people redeemed out of Egypt and brought by a backdoor into this land to possess it, picture the world. Sometimes you'll see a world of Delilah with all her charm, and the world can be awful attractive and charming. Sometimes a great, big, bragging giant, nine foot six high, and he pictures the God of this world with his defiance against the people of God. Now let's have a look at the people of God and see what's happening. Israel trembling in their tent. Saul, what are you going to do about it? Saul stands looking out at his tent door, and the royal flag is fluttering in the breeze, and he stands there, and he knows instinctively a chosen big, strong soldier man as king. He should step out with his sword and fight that fight. It's his fight. It's his responsibility. But he didn't go. Just behind him in the tent you could see his son Jonathan, born in the palace, a lovely fellow. And instinctively he knows we couldn't let Dad go out. He's king. We must shield the king. I should offer to go. I've fought those Philistines. I've stormed their stronghold. I'm the one. It's my responsibility. I should go and fight that giant. But he didn't. And into their picture comes the And I can see David putting down the basket, and he sees the whole picture before his eyes, and something stirs and burns in his heart. And he says, I'll fight it! And of course there were critics, and the first critic was his older brother, Eliab. And Eliab in verse twenty-eight says to him, I know the pride and the naughtiness of thine heart. Thou art come down, that thou mightest see the battle. Look here, little schoolboy kid, brother. Get back and mind the sheep. This is a man's job out here. I know all about you. David stands there with the criticism of an older brother, an experienced soldier, and what's his answer going to be? It's a thrilling one. And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause? Doesn't the whole situation demand that I shall go and fight him? And from here we begin to see in David the anointed one the prophetical picture of David's greatest son, our Lord. I speak with holy reverence. as father and son gazed over the battlements of glory. And the father said, Will you go down? I am going to send you. Go willingly into that great battle to win a victory for the fallen sons of men who tremble in their tents in all their need. He said, I will go. And since of the father he came, And why did he stoop to the virgin's womb? Why did he stoop to Nazareth and Galilee? Why did he move amongst us and at last sobbing in Gethsemane faced the cruel Battle of Calvary? Is there not a cause? It was the shame of the situation that brought him to face your hope. Brought him to the Battle of Calvary to destroy your opponent. Just as Saul and Jonathan gazed out of that tent and they knew instinctively it was their fight, their responsibility, their foes. So we see Jesus stepping in between us and our foes, and we whisper, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. And I have never met a Christian around the world who I tested and looked into the face of them and asked them the question, where did you first fall in love with Jesus, David's greatest son, who didn't look back into my face sooner or later and say, at Calvary, where he went out to battle my souls and took my place and run for me a great salvation. And it's at the cross the springs of the response of love come to the great love of Christ and we love him because he first loved us. We said one dear man or woman here who's never fallen in love with Jesus but never felt that response of love to his great love. May I say to you perhaps you're not a real child of God by a new birth yet because this is the captivating thing that awakens Love in the heart of a person that binds that person to Christ for eternity. It's the beginning when we fall at his cross and whisper, He loved me. He gave himself to me. Now the second critic in this chapter seventeen, of course, was Saul, the king. And in verse thirty-three he says, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight him. You are but a youth. He's a man of war from his youth. What's David going to say? He says, Saul, I was minding far the sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, took a lamb out of the flock. And I went after him and smote him and delivered him out of his mouth. I fell and slew the lion and the bear, this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them. Bravo, David. This is terrific. Here's a boy who knew God. He says, he's no bigger than lions and bears. And if God strengthened me with might by his spirit and gave me the victory over the lion and the bear who is this uncircumcised Philistine. All right, says Paul. Now, just a minute. If you had any training as a soldier, you've been my armor bearer, but let's see now, let's get some armor for him. And soon they had him with a helmet and a great big armor plating all around him. And it was all clankety, clank, clank, clank. He could hardly swing his arms. He says, no, I can't fight like this. Well, what have you got? Well, sir, I've been practicing with a little sling over my shoulder, and I've got some little stones, and I know just their way from their balance, and I know how to hit the target together in the game. And I think that's all I need. With God. Shamgar had an ox go. David had a sling. Dorkus had a needle. Mary had some spring. And so it goes on. It's the little things that God uses if they're devoted. kill and devotion put in his hands and he'll use it for its glory. And so he went out to face the giant and the third critic of David was the giant. And I tell you it's almost funny to see the story unfolding. You can see the old giant looking at David coming out and a great big puzzled grin begins to stretch on his great face. It almost hits his ears as he says, what is this? A little puppy come to yapp around my ankles? A little puppy dog that I can take on the scruff of his neck and wring his little head? A little puppy that I can give to the vulture John Crowe to eat up? What's this? And he just laughs at it. There it is. Verse forty-three, am I a dog? Thou comest out to me with stage? What's he going to answer? Thou comest, verse forty-five, says David, to me with sword and with spear and with shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts. Behind me, not just merely the armies of Israel, but the divine forces that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob And Joshua and Moses knew the Lord of hosts, divine forces behind me, sir. And I could see them facing each other. And it's thrilling. I could see David, oh, I know the thoughts that were stirring in his mind. He says, sir, behind you there's only a big idol, God, called David, made by human hands and thinking. You keep him in your temple. One day you captured the Ark of the Covenant, which speaks of the presence of the living God amongst our people, Israel. And you put it in the big, big temple. And during the night, Deacon went down with a bump on his face right in front of the Ark. In the morning the Philistines came in and said, what's happened? Was there an earthquake last night and they propped him up and they got the old fish god, half man and half fish, something very fishy about him, right up again. And when they got him right up, they left him for another night. And during the night he went down crash and his head rolled off and his hands rolled off. Now fancy having a god that can't think and can't act for his people. David looked and says, that's all you've got, but we've got the living God. We have turned to God from idols to serve the living God, the Lord of hosts. Lord, help me. Whip and wet, wet. Crash. As I've said before, something that never entered a giant's head before went right in. Right in. Right out. And this is where the ladies squirm a bit. David jumped forward and got hold of his sword. And he began to hew the head off. And the picture is David with his boyish fingers holding the hair and the head dripping with blood and the sword and the victor. And the Philistines are packing their bags and flying. And the children of Israel are sharpening their swords and getting into battle. And the women are saying, my word, let's have a new hymn. And they're coining up a new chorus. Saul has slain his thousands, but David is tens of thousands. And in this tremendous situation, Saul and Jonathan watch David, and as they watch, Saul can't explain it. He doesn't like it. Who is this boy? Find out who his father is. Bring him to me. And this tormenting spirit of jealousy begins to form that grew to a green-eyed monster, that grew to a soul-destroying power of the devil in his life, that wrecked, ruined, spoiled him. He tried to kill him, get rid of him. By his side was a young prince, and as he looks at him, You can't explain it, you can't. When it hits you, it gets you. When it hits you, it hurts you. Love has come. He's enough. Oh, isn't he wonderful? Oh, is he terrific? Oh, I love him. And the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. He loved him, but his own soul, a rival, has stepped into his heart. A rival to self, loving self. He's in love with this. Just that. You can't explain it. Now, Christian, have you started your love story yet? Where did you fall in love with Jesus, David's greatest son? Can you remember the happy day when Parthenes wept your soul as you came to his cross and you had seen him sobbing in Gethsemane? You had seen him with a face like a flint being led out to Calvary. You'd seen him pinned on the cross. You'd heard his cry, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. You'd seen him entering the darkness and battling with the powers of the evil one and battling with sin in all its awfulness for God made him to be sin for us. And at last he cries, Take a lefty eye, finish. The mighty victor steps from Calvary. To taste death and then in written power to stand and say, I did it all for you. Give me thy heart. We looked into his face and said, Lord, I love you. Thank you. We costed him. And in love with Jesus, a new life had begun. We were his forever. You started your love story? Oh, you say, yes, thank God I have. Well, that's only the beginning. That's the awakening of love. It's got to move forward chapter after chapter. We spend our years as a tale that is told. We are writing it on earth. It's going to be told with our love of Lord around the campfires and the great future. So teach us to number our days, to apply our hearts to wisdom, to write a story that will be worth telling. Now I hope this is settled once for all as we move on. The awaiting of love is a real thing. If I challenged you this morning, you would say yes. Mr. Wildish, I love the Lord Jesus. His love has captured my heart. He knows my frame. He knows my failures. He knows my ups and downs. He knows my problems. But I do love him. He's my savior. He took my place upon the cross and died for me. and destroyed those awful forces of sin. And the God of this world got his death though. And this is a captured life. I love him. Now look what it turns to in the next verse but one, verse three of chapter eighteen. And we are going to coin our second chapter now. And through this week we shall be coining at least nine chapters. Verse three, and Jonathan and David made a covenant because Jonathan loved David as his own soul. Two men enter into a covenant. Now, we all know what the covenant of marriage is. A man and a woman come together, and they are asked the question, will thou, wilt thou? I do, I do. Tell death you are smart. Yes, they've made their decisions. Two are coming together, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and the old home of his upbringing, and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And when love links two together, it's one of the holiest and most lovely things in this world. There are many loves. What would our world be without love? A mother's love, a father's love, a child's love, a brother and sister's love, a friend's love. The love of husband and wife. But you know, here's something that's quite unique. It's the love of strong man for a strong man. Nothing wrong in this. There's no such thing here that any suggestion all through this story of anything to do with sex, there's no homosexual business about this story. It's just a prince who has fallen in love with a shepherd boy. And they looked into each other's faces and how they made the covenant, whether it was clasping hands, or whether their arms were on each other's shoulders. I don't know. In the presence of the Lord, they said, We no longer belong to ourselves. We belong to each other. I belong to you. You belong to me. And they entered into this covenant. And they owned that they were not their own. Now have you reached that stage? I don't know how often you do it or whether you do it at all, but in the Christian church around the world I find that all the precious churches mostly love that command of the Lord when he said as he instituted a forget-me-not supper is due in remembrance of me. I have heard of those who meet every day for the communion. I have heard of those who love to on the Lord's day every week gather together for the breaking of bread. I have heard of those who say, well, we think once a month is enough, and there are others, once in three months. Now, it's as often as he eats this bread, as often as you drink this cup. But we should go with prepared hearts, and we should go to commune with him in remembrance. We should go to show forth the Lord's death in the world that sat in his face and gave him no place and proclaimed to the universe that that cruel death upon the cross means everything to us and has brought everything to us. But whatever that Lord's Supper means to you, there's one point I bring from it. Paul says, Jesus at the table said, This is the new covenant, the new covenant in my blood shed for you. And every time you take the cup and you sip the wine, you confess that you are not your own. You are a blood-bought man or a blood-bought woman. In other words, you confess that you go out to pace the day or the week or the month, and you cannot live as you like. You belong to someone else. And just like a married person who's entered into the marriage government, morning, noon, and night, every day, what does the loved one want? Where would the loved one like to go? The whole tenor of your life has been changed. Lord, what would you have me to do? I'm not my own. I belong to you. Where would you have me to go? How would you have me to behave? And so right through our lives we live here forever. Only here. covenant blood that's brought us, and we cannot act alone. Has your love story for Christ reached the place called the Covenant of Love? Now, in my closing moment or two, before I dismiss you, I'm going to tell you one story to rivet this upon your minds and hearts. It's rather precious to me. Do you remember in one Corinthians eleven how the Apostle Paul writing about that Lord's Supper? He says, If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. I think it's verse thirty-one of chapter eleven. He's saying, you know, some of you Corinthians are coming thoughtlessly and carelessly to the Lord's table. You come rushing in and you eat and drink with unjudged hearts. And for this cause many are weak and many are sickly and some sleep. Now whatever those words meant in the Corinthian church, I know what they mean in the church today. All the weakly Christians, all the sleepy Christians. All the sleepy Christians that you meet. Why? Because they have never dealt with their Lord. They are going on day after day without looking into the face of their Lord and saying, Lord, is there anything that grieves thee? Is there anything between my soul and thee? Is there anything that's wrong? Now let's be brave about this. I don't know how many of you were here last night, but so few Christians who will admit that God must as a loving Father and the Lord Jesus must as a loving Savior. Lord, come and search us at times. So few are willing to say with open hearts, search me, O Lord. And that's what he wants. He wants us to prepare our hearts. And he wants us to come to the Lord's Supper with judged hearts. He wants us to say, Lord, now I am coming to meet with thee to be reminded of thy precious broken body and thy outpoured blood, the cost of my redemption. Is there anything in my life that's grieving thee so that I can come with judged heart, with prepared heart, with overflowing heart, conscious of nothing between, to remember and worship and pour out my love to thee? If you judge yourself, says Paul, in that verse, you will not be judged. But if you don't judge yourself and you go grubby and dirty and defiled and as a Christian you are sleepy and careless, then the Lord may have to step in and punish you. I don't know what means he will use, but he still has to chasten his children and teach them lessons. The wood shed of our loving Heavenly Father is still in action, even though American fathers have given it up. Oh, I tell you, the chastening and judgment of the Lord is still abroad, and many of the things that happen amongst God's children could be a loving Father who is stepping in and saying, I can't let you go on in that weakly, sleepy, sickly Christian life. And I've got to judge. But if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. If everything is opened before the Lord, if it's put right now, if we have short dealings with Him day by day, those things will never be brought up at the judgment seat of Christ, that Bima, where everything will be examined before the great marriage and the marriage supper and the eternal honeymoon. If you judge yourself, you will not be judged. Now here's my story, and I'm going to leave it with you to think about around the ground today. We have two very dear friends, and they have three lively boys, and they're full of life and tricks. You know, when boys are full of life and tricks, you don't get many doctors' bills. And these three boys were a real problem at times, because they were so full of spirits. One day, my friend told me he had to go out with his wife to visit some folks down the road, and they looked into the face of their three boys about seven o'clock in the evening, and they said, now look, boys, we'll be out for an hour or two visiting friends. We're leaving you in the home and garden on your own. We're trusting you. No, not too much wildness. They weren't wildish boys, so don't get worried. But not too much wildness, and behave yourselves, and we'll be back about nine o'clock. Bye-bye, boys. Have a good evening. And they went down the street. And they came back soon after nine o'clock. They came back to the house and there was stillness in the house as they let themselves in. Not a sound. And that was ominous. Something was happening or had happened. Where were the boys? So they went in and they hadn't gone far into the house and they found on the table... a pile of broken glass, and amongst the broken glass was a lovely cut glass butter dish that our good lady friend valued very much. It was all broken in two or three pieces, so there had been something going on all right. But where were the boys? Then they noticed on the table by the side of the glass a piece of paper and written in schoolboy handwriting these words. Dear mom and dad, we broke the button. We are sorry. We put ourselves to bed without any supper. Some boys, I wish our boys had been like that, they weren't. Now I asked you, with that piece of paper in his hand, do you think my good friend went around to a cupboard and pulled out the biggest, soundest slipper he could find? Do you think he went up the stairs and pulled those boys out of bed and put them over his knee and gave them a, you know, something of punishment? Ladies, do you think so, yes or no? If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. If you can look into a face of a love, Lord, and say, Lord, you love me with a matchless love, the love of Christ, and it's captured this heart. I love you. The awakening has come, and I've entered into a covenant. I am not my own. I am bought with a price, the precious love. And I want to walk with my love, Lord, by faith, and I don't want to grieve him. I don't want to go anywhere alone. I don't want to share anything without him. The covenant of love. And I believe he who knows our forgetfulness and our shallowness and our frame gave us that loved remembrance supper. And he said, of course, as he eats this bread and drink of this cup, you do proclaim the Lord's death. And he wanted to draw our hearts back again and again to himself. At the beginning of every day or week or month, I leave that with you, to go out into the world and say, I'm his, he's mine, and there's nothing between my heart. And I proclaimed his death, and I go out, a blood-bought man, a blood-bought woman, not my own. So we pray. Loving Lord, how we thank thee for coming down from the glory amongst us, for that tremendous fight and battle Calvary, setting thy faith in the flint toward it, a great lover of our souls, destroying Satan's power, winning for our salvation. Lord, around us in the world, there are many like Saul who look into thy face and see no beauty in thee, seem to be jealous and unkind toward thee. Oh, the wonder of it, we can't explain it, why that love was set on us, and we responded to it. We fell in love with thee, we loved thee, because thou didst love us. Lord, With the awakening of our love, we have moved forward to realize that we are not our own. We are bought for the price. And, Lord, we have entered into the covenant of love. And as these mornings go by, may we gather with eager hearts to go into the details of this love story as it grows deeper and deeper, testing and challenging our own love story to see if we are writing a love story that will be worth telling in the sweet by and by. O Lord, let thy blessing be upon every heart, and as we go out into the grounds and walk and talk and swim and eat and play shuffle ball and enjoy the sweet fellowship, walk with us, let us hold thy hand and walk and talk with thee, and may the wonders of thy love stir our hearts.