Thank you. Greetings, friends. The Book of Exodus, chapter fifteen and verse twenty-six gives us another of the great I Ams that the Lord used in describing himself, his characteristics in the early days of the Bible, and especially here in connection with the deliverance of the children of Israel. out of the land of Egypt, where they were held as slaves, and had been for four hundred and fifty years. In this twenty-sixth verse, God says to Moses, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, this is the message he's to bring to the children of Israel. Moses is to tell the children of Israel, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandment, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptian, for I am, I am the Lord that healeth, H-E-A-L-E-T-H, healeth thee. God who was the healer of the children of Israel. And especially would this be necessary because in the wilderness there was little or no opportunity for any kind of healing that would be known to man in that particular day. they would be perhaps not available. Any remedies would not be available likely in the wilderness where they were going to travel and on their way to the promised land. However, he did bring these diseases, many of them, upon the Egyptians at that time because of their attitude toward the children of Israel and their attitude toward God. that they refused to believe in a God, that God was the Lord their God. The God that fed them and clothed them and kept them and gave them their country and gave them life, gave them everything that he gives you and me, and yet they would not recognize a supreme being known as God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, they didn't know it those days. He hadn't revealed himself yet as the Triune God. But he has in your days and day in mind, my friend, and therefore we have the Bible and we are under greater responsibility than any people that ever lived in days of the past, especially up to the time when Bibles were printed and published. so that they were available to every person. This would be in the eighteenth, nineteenth century, at least in the nineteenth century, and certainly in this twentieth century. So, friends, we have the Bible of the Word of God that makes us most responsible to God. And he has told the children of Israel here that if they will... If they will, just obey him. You see, when God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he asked them to obey him. In one respect only, in just in one thing, that they would not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden, but that they would be able to eat of all the other trees, how many more there were. We don't know, but God planted them all in the garden in Eden. And they were good for food. They were trees of the field, which is man's food we read. And they had all of them, access to all of them, but this one they weren't to eat of it. But they broke that commandment, and so God is here telling the children of Israel, and if you will, hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God. and will do that which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee. In other words, he put the diseases upon the Egyptians in his form of judgment, because God is the God of judgment, as well as the God of love. And God will punish for sin, and that punishment will rest either upon the sinner, or upon his substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on Calvary's cross. For the sins of you and me and everyone else in the entire human family, from Adam, down to the last person that will ever be born into this world, into the human family. So, by obeying God, the children of Israel would not have these diseases of the Egyptians put upon them. Because, said God to the children of Israel, I am the Lord that healeth thee. He was the great physician in the Old Testament, and the Lord Jesus is the great physician in the New Testament. So here is nothing new insofar as God is concerned, but it's newly revealed unto man his creature. that God can say to them to Moses, to the children of Israel, I am the Lord that healeth thee, that healeth thee. The one who made the body, your body and mine, certainly knows more about it than anyone else and all other people's put together in all the world. Our physicians are making a tremendous stride. And they've learned tremendous lot about the body. But, oh, my friend, God who made it knows everything about it. And so he's going to be the healer of their diseases. He's going to keep them from these diseases. I am the Lord that healeth thee. Now... We know that we have all kinds of sicknesses and afflictions in the world today. There are the germs that we somehow or other get into our system and we become ill. There are afflictions that happen to us as we injure ourselves in our daily lives. There are afflictions that we bring on ourselves. There are strictions that we learn from other people, and we get them, and we become addicted to them. There are practices that afflict our bodies, the same as disease, and yet men and women and young people will afflict their bodies. and hurt their bodies and injure their health by doing these things. Everyone knows about them, and yet we see so many people, and they're doing what they really know is injurious to their health. They're willfully doing it. Admitted that some habits are difficult, Many of them, likely all of them, are difficult to break. But my friend, the way the balance would have not been better to deny yourselves that which would injure your health, instead of going on and injuring your health and filling your lungs perhaps with emphysema, and injuring your heart, your lungs. and your internal organs, one wonders, one sympathizes with habits that have formed willfully by the individual and other times following the leaders or following the crowd. And we want to be like the crowd and we don't want to be a different to the crowd, and so therefore we indulge in things that are... We are told by the doctors, by physicians, are very injurious to our health. Certainly, poisons, dopes, smoke, alcohol. There's a host of them. And we know in our hearts they are injurious to our health, and yet so many people do them. Oh, my friends, really? I believe that it's most difficult to break those habits, but there's one that can help you and can deliver you from them, as well as the worst of all diseases which is light compared with sin. On every part it seizes, yet rages most within. The sin of each other is the worst disease it is, but these others... And the worst of diseases which is sin, there's only one can cure. And he's the one who said, I am the Lord that healeth thee. My friend, if you trust him as your Savior, he can deliver you from these things and deliver you immediately from them. Wouldn't it be great at this Christmas time? To accept the Savior who came as a babe in Bethlehem. Accept him as your Savior who died for you on the tree. And be delivered from the penalty of sin. And also he would be able to deliver you from these habits. And whatever else we do that's contrary to his will and word and commandments as we read here. It will enable us to be delivered from them. And enable us to live for God. live for him, and live a joyful life, a happy life, happier than we've ever been before, or have ever known before. The Lord Jesus is able to do it. He came to bring peace, peace of mind, peace of body, as well as peace with one another. And so we thank the Blessed Lord, for the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to Bethlehem. but went all the way to the cross at Calvary and died that we might have eternal life, forgiveness of our sins, enable us to live in this world for God and to live peaceably and righteously and godly. And we pray for our government, our country, our president, and all who are in authority in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.