He is my life, my strength, my song This cornerstone This solid ground through the pierces When fears are still when striving seas Please open your Bibles to Luke chapter 24. This is after Jesus is raised from the dead. He appears to the two on the road to Emmaus and then he comes and he speaks to the 11 apostles that are still alive.
In verse 44, I'm reading from the New King James, so it may be a little different translation than what you're used to, but it's good to get a fresh perspective on scriptures you might be familiar with. Verse 44. " Then he said to them, ' These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. " And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
Then he said to them, " Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. The story continues in Acts chapter one. Let's pick it up there. It's a continuation of the end of the Gospel of Luke. We'll start reading in Acts chapter 1, the first three verses.
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day in which he was taken up after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandment to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, having been seen by them during 40 days and speaking of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Now let's go down to verse 8.
Jesus says to them, " You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. " So this is the plan that the apostles would take the message all throughout the whole world, from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and then out to the ends of the earth. That was the instructions. Question for you. You got to think tonight. I got a few questions I'm throwing in here. Come on now.
You may have to take a wild guess on this one, but I'd like you to just think about this. What percent of the people in the world today do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God? What percent do you think don't believe he's the Son of God? All right? I'm getting all different numbers. 68%. All right? So if you take the entire world and you got to remember there's South America's in there too, and you've got all of Europe, all of Africa. You take the whole world.
There's less than one-third of the world are people who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and a little more than two-thirds do not believe that. So here we are 2,000 years later. Jesus is said to take the gospel to the whole world. Now, those who do not believe fall into many categories. Now, I know some people have moved to Boston where we are from other parts of the country, maybe to get a job or to get an education.
And after a little while, if you've come from the south or someplace like that, you wake up one day and realize, " I'm not in Kansas anymore. " Boston is not exactly the Bible belt of America, if you know what I mean. Okay, that's just the way it is. Yep. Like it or not. We have all kinds of people in Boston. So maybe there's more than 32%, but there's an awful lot of people right here who don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God. People you know and you work with and live in your community.
There are atheists and the agnostics. An increasing number of Muslims right across the street from where we are as a Jewish synagogue. There are Buddhists, Hindus, New Age, religions, pagans, you name it. There are all kinds of people out there right around us who do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. There are two challenges in the Great Commission. Now, I appreciate that we are in a church right here that is zealous about making disciples and sending out missionaries and evangelizing.
That's a real strength that I see in the church here. And I appreciate that. This is a good thing. The Great Commission, " Everybody knows Matthew 28. Go make disciples of all nations. " Well, the Great Commission for us today, there are two challenges. The first one is, looking at the whole world, taking the 32% who believe, okay, they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Does that mean they're following His teachings?
In Luke chapter 6, Jesus said, " Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say? " That's right. John 8:31-32, he says, " If you abide in My Word, if you hold to my teachings, then you're really my disciples. You're my disciples indeed. " It's not just believing we've got to obey the teachings of Jesus. James said, " Hey, even the demons believe.
" So the first challenge in the Great Commission, teach them to obey everything I've commanded you, is the 32% of the world who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, teaching them to obey His commands, to follow, to obey and submit to the king over his kingdom. The second part of the Great Commission for us today is to hit the other 68% of the world, the people who don't even believe right now. Well, how in the world do you do that? We're going to talk about that. How do we do that today? Come on, bro.
When we want to reach out to people who don't even believe that Jesus is the Son of God, how do we do that today? Okay, we're just a few miles away from Fenway Park here. So I got a picture of someone sliding into first base head first. And it's kind of like that. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God is just getting to first base. If you're stranded at the end of the inning, it doesn't do any good at all, okay? You follow what I'm saying?
Yeah But just to get onto first base, just to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, how do you get there with somebody who doesn't believe? Well, how do we typically begin? Just throwing the question out there. How do we typically begin? They're all different ways that people start off. Sometimes you look and you'll see, " Wow, this person, their life is a mess. Their family's falling apart. Their kids are out of control. They've got a problem with drugs or alcohol or they're just terribly unhappy.
" And you can approach the person and say, " Hey, come to church. Come study the Bible. We can help you get your life together. " So we can reach out to people that way, " Hey, we have a marriage retreat. Maybe your marriage isn't going well. Maybe there's some people in the room here. That's what first got you interested in the gospel. " That there was some need that you felt in your life. Okay? There are all different ways that we reach out to people.
I thought of a few to say, " Well, if somebody doesn't know anything, well, why don't you read the gospel? Read a gospel, a gospel of John and see maybe that'll spark something in your heart. " Sometimes the more intellectual types, they'll hand out a book of somebody like C.S. Lewis, mere Christianity to get someone thinking along those lines. But sometimes people will come to church and they'll hear personal testimonies.
This is what my life was like before, and this is how it's changed since I became a Christian. Or as I mentioned before, that discipling or the Word of God will be used to help meet people's felt needs. Now, we just went through the book of Acts and Church. How did they communicate to people who didn't believe? Did they use any of those ways at all? It wasn't quite the same. Think about that. How did they do it? How did they typically begin? Where did they start?
Did they start with you turn on the radio or the television? Did they start with God has a wonderful plan for your life? Did they start with, " I've got a great life, and if you become a Christian, you can have a great life in a family like I do. " Did the apostles ever say that? Actually, it was kind of the opposite. The reality is we don't want to be like this guy here, the used car salesman. Do I have a great deal for you? Okay? No money down and no payments for the first 12 months.
In fact, this isn't going to cost you anything because Jesus has already paid the entire cost himself. Now, I make my living as an engineer, but once in a while, we have to get involved in sales. And I understand the temptation to exaggerate the benefits and to minimize the cost when you're trying to sell something. It's a common temptation in life, but we don't want to become like the used car salesman. Jesus was the very opposite. Jesus says, " If you want to follow me, it's going to cost you everything you have.
" He talked about that in Luke chapter 14. You have to give up everything you've got. Jesus was the opposite of the used car salesman. He said, " This is going to be very expensive to follow me. " So you better count the cost. So just a reality check. Let's be objective. Let's be real. Okay? Okay. The truth is sin can cause a lot of pain and discomfort in your life. Your kid's out of control. You got an alcohol or a drug problem or immorality causes so much pain and suffering.
In the end, people just living a life going after pleasure. And it's true for many people that if you put things in the Scripture into practice, you will be eliminating certain painful things in your life. But there's another side of the story. I'm curious now. John chapter 15. Think about this. Jesus said in verse 18, " If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own.
Yet because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. " Remember the word I said to you, " A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. " Fundamental teaching of Jesus. A student will be just like his teacher. How did the world treat Jesus? They tortured and killed him. Wow. Jesus was rejected by the world.
If someone is a true follower of Jesus, what just might possibly happen to them? Persecution and rejection. That's right. Now, I really haven't experienced any serious persecution in my life, to be honest. When I look at, okay, a little name calling, or I'll talk to somebody and say, " Well, I lost my job because of my faith, " well, and then went out and got another job. Persecution is a serious thing.
A lot of people in America think, " Oh, persecution, that's something that happened in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century. " But that doesn't go on anymore. Well, I've got news for you. Guess which century of the first 20 centuries of Christianity there were the most martyrs by far. It was the most recent one, the 20th century. Estimated 45 million people were killed because of their faith for being Christians. Now, it's hard for me. I had a hard time saying, " That can't be true. That's got to be way off.
" And so I looked at the breakdown of the numbers. Over 20 million people in Russia and the Ukraine under the communists were killed for being Christians in the 20th century. And I dug further into this. And in the notes, I've got notes you can relax if you're trying to keep up with me here. I have notes that we'll be sending out electronically and also handing out hard copies. Wow. And I've got the references, and I encourage you to check these things out. Don't just take my word for it.
But in the half of the world we're in, there isn't much persecution right now. However, there are a lot of other places in Asia, in the Middle East, and in Africa, in places like the Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, China, Indonesia. There are a lot of countries in the world where there's severe persecution going on. And the estimate, and you can check this out for yourself, it's been estimated that roughly 100 to 160,000 people every year lose their lives just for being Christians.
But we don't see it because it's not happening around us. You know We got very upset because of three people losing their lives a few weeks ago, and that was a terrible tragedy. But this is hard to grasp millions of people getting slaughtered. And looking over church history, it appears that the level of persecution from age to age since the first century has been relatively constant. But it comes in waves.
Think of standing in the ocean and you're standing in the ocean now or 200 years from now, you get one wave after another after another. Persecution is like that. We're not getting persecution in this country right now. But who's to say that that won't change? It's changed. It's flipped many times in the past. So we need to be aware of that, that the message that God has a wonderful plan for your life doesn't fly in half the world at all.
You become a Christian, and the chances are in this life, it's going to be a much harder go. So that's just the reality. In my research, I stumbled onto something I wanted to share with you. The guy who put together a lot of the statistics on this, who devoted his life to it actually was affiliated with Gordon Conwell here north of Boston. He was a missionary in Africa, and he did a study of long-term Christian demographics, including on martyrdom. And he was speaking once to a wealthy group of Christian donors.
And they asked him the question. They said, " Dr. Barrett, can you please tell us what is the most effective means of evangelism in the world? " Because we want to give our money to whatever's going to be the most effective. These are businessmen. And he stopped to think about it. And this was his answer. I'm going to read exactly what he says. He said, " We have been engaged in in-depth research on this subject. And we think the most effective means might be Christian martyrdom.
" What he said reminds me what Tertullian had said in the 200s. He said, " The blood of the martyrs is the seed for the growth of the church. " He said, " Who is it that sees someone, a Christian who is martyred for their faith, who doesn't contemplate it and is not excited to inquire what's at the bottom of it, and who after inquiry does not embrace our teachings? " So that's how the church spread in the beginning.
So if we want to evangelize the world in this generation and are serious about it, I think you can figure out what that means. Well, what did they preach in the beginning? What was the original message? How did they convince people who didn't believe in the beginning of the church in the book of Acts to come to faith? Why did people become Christians? Apostle stands up and says, " I saw Jesus rise from the dead. People are going to laugh at you. " That's not going to convert people all over the world.
So let's consider how they actually did it. How did the apostles spread the faith? I looked in the Book of Acts and I found 12 examples. And these are all in the notes that I'll make available. There are 12 examples in the Book of Acts that indicated specifically how they spread the gospel where they used the Old Testament prophecies. And think about it. Think about it in your own knowledge of the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 2, Peter's preaching to the 3,000, and he goes back to David.
Stephen, when he is stoned to death in Acts chapter 7, he goes back and he's preaching the Old Testament. And Jesus is the fulfillment of that. Acts chapter 13 is a long discourse by Paul in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, where he's quoting extensively from the Scriptures, particularly ones tied into David. Acts chapter 3, Peter is speaking to the crowd after he heals the crippled man.
And he says, " But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. " Peter said, " All the prophets from Samuel and those who followed as many as have spoken and foretold these days. " In Acts chapter 4, when the leaders get on their case, Philip quotes Psalm 118, he said, " Hey, he's just fulfilling the prophecy. The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. " Acts chapter 8, the Ethiopian eunuch.
He's reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. And it says, " Philip, beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. " That's right. Cornelius. And you think, " Well, Cornelius, he's a Gentile. " But Peter says when he's preaching to Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, " To Him, " referring of Christ, all the prophets witness. Yeah.
In Acts chapter 17 in Thessalonica, it says, " Paul, as was his custom, reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. " Of course, we know about the Bereans in Acts 17. It says, " They searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. " That's right. Apollos, one of my heroes.
In Acts chapter 18, it says, " A Jew named Apollos, mighty in the Scriptures, vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. " When Paul is preaching to King Agrippa in Bernice and Caesarea in Acts chapter 28, he says, " To this day, I stand witnessing to both the small and the great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come. That the Christ would suffer.
He'd be the first to rise from the dead and would proclaim the light to the Jewish people and the Gentiles. And then he goes after King Agrippa. He says, " King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do. " The book of Acts concludes in Acts chapter 28 with Paul in Rome says he was persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening. And some were persuaded. So if that was the way they did it in the beginning, here's the question for you.
Why don't we do it that way today? Why don't we do it that way today? Okay. Objection number one. Whenever I ask this question, this is usually the first objection says, " Ah, they were talking to the Jews. " That's why they used the Old Testament. We're not reaching out to Jews, so we wouldn't use that. They're doing it because they're trying to reach the Jews. Now, that sounds pretty good, but let's put that one to the test. First Corinthians. Now, is the book of Corinthians written to a Jewish church?
They've got problems with incest, idolatry, meat sacrificed to idols. They're not arguing over the Sabbath observance and the kosher dietary laws and circumcision in the church in Corinth. They have other problems. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, " When you were pagans, so if there's any doubt whatsoever. " But let's turn to this pagan Gentile church in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and read the message that Paul preached to them on which their faith was founded.
1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 1, " Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which was preached to you unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And he was buried and he arose again on the third day according to the Scriptures.
And he was seen by Cephas and then by the 12 and then by many others after that. When he says according to the scriptures, he doesn't mean according to the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He means according in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that the Christ would die and be resurrected on the third day. This is the message that Paul received. This is the message that he gave to the Gentiles in Corinth. And this was the gospel message.
Christ died on the cross in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, and He rose on the third day in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. That was the message that converted a Gentile church in Corinth. Are there any more doubters? Well, okay, that was just while the apostles were still alive. What happened after that? It's a great book. We don't just speak great things, we live them. And it's got two of the very earliest Christian works after the New Testament in it.
And one of my favorites is Justin Martyr's first apology. And by the way, Martyr wasn't his last name. It means he died for his faith. He was known as he became Martyr. Now, I'm going to ask you a question. Is he writing to a group of Jews here? He's writing a defense or an apology saying, " Can you please stop persecuting us? " And you know what we're believing is reasonable. So I want to read to you straight from Justin Martyr's first apology. This is the intro.
He says, " To the Emperor Antoninus Pius and to his adopted sons Marcus Aurelius Verus and Lucius Verus, the philosophers, also to the venerable Senate and to all the people of Rome. Is he addressing Jews here? No. No, he is not. Emperor philosophers Senate and everybody in Rome. And here's what he says to them. After he defends the Christians against all the false accusations, he goes on the offensive with the Romans. He says, centuries ago, there were certain men among the Jews who were prophets of God.
Through these men, the prophetic spirit foretold things that would happen in the future. In the books of the prophets, we find prophecies about Jesus, our Christ. They foretold his coming, his being born of a virgin and growing as a man. His healing every type of disease and sickness and even raising the dead. His being unrecognized and hated. His crucifixion, death, and resurrection. His ascension to heaven and his being the Son of God.
It was also predicted that he would send persons into every nation to proclaim these things. And it would be primarily the Gentiles who would believe in Him. He says, " Our belief in Christ as the Son of God is not based merely on the assertion of others. It is founded on compelling evidence. What originally convinced me and many others is the fact that the events surrounding the life of Jesus were foretold in advance. We have witnessed with our very eyes that things have happened just as they were predicted.
When you read these prophecies, we think that you will also acknowledge that these are the strongest and truest evidence. So think about this. He's saying to the Roman pagans, " Listen, all these things are prophesied in the Jewish prophetic writings, and you can read about them. " And by the way, one of the things they said is that you guys were all going to become Christians as well. It wasn't just for the Jews. Justin, who was preaching this, was not Jewish. He was a Samaritan.
And in his dialogue with Trypho, it's basically a debate between him and a Jew. He explains how he became a Christian. It was someone who pointed him to the Jewish prophets and how Christ had fulfilled the prophecies. That's how he became a Christian, and that's how he was spreading the gospel to the pagans. So objection number one, that was only to the Jews. I hope we've obliterated that. Yep Now, let's go for objection number two. I hear this one. Well, that's okay, Chuck. You're a Bible scholar.
I'm not a Bible scholar. Okay, first of all, I'm not a Bible scholar. Never taken a course in a seminary. I'm an engineer. I'm a civil engineer. My work I was doing today was basically had to do with designing a sewer pipe, okay? So if you think that I'm some high-minded academic intellectual, let me diss a value of that. Sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble there. Let's turn to Acts chapter 4. This is to answer those who say, " Well, they were Bible scholars back then. I'm not a Bible scholar. I can't do that.
" Acts chapter 4 in verse 13, it says, " Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled and realized that they had been with Jesus. " Okay. They weren't academic Bible scholars either. That's right. They were fishermen. They were tradesmen, tent makers. But they knew the scriptures. That's all you need. That's all you need. You just need to know the Old Testament scriptures. And so there's no excuses. Come on.
And then the other one was that, " Well, that may have worked a long time ago, but who's to say that would work today? " you know Maybe it worked in the first, second, and third century, but hey, people think differently. Probably wouldn't work today. Well, we've already decimated all the other excuses. Let me go after that one. Last of all. And I'll give you some examples. One, I was discussing this with a good friend of mine. His name is Finny Kuruvilla. His roots are from southern India in the state of Kerala.
And I was interested in how Finny became a Christian. He said, well, his father actually became a Christian before he did. His father was very zealous for the faith. And that's why he gave him the name Finny. He was named after Charles Finney, the great revivalist. And so I was interested. How did your father become a Christian? He said, " Well, my father, when he went into college, he was an atheist or an agnostic. He didn't believe in God. He was very confident in his faith.
But one day, someone invited him to a lecture that was being given by a Christian. And in the course of the lecture, the speaker asked a question that changed George's life. This was the question. He said, " How many people can you name in history whose biography was written 1,000 years before they were born? " Or even 100. You can't say that about Caesar. You can't say it about Muhammad. You can't say it about George Washington or Winston Churchill. You can't say it about anybody, but you can say that about Jesus.
And then he opened up Psalm 22, which talks about the crucifixion in detail. And he said, " Hey, listen, at the time this was written, crucifixion didn't even exist as a punishment and it's described in detail. " Now this shook up George. But George is a pretty confident guy. He's a pretty law student. He said, " I'm going to go back and do the research and disprove what this guy's saying. " George couldn't do that. He became a Christian.
Next thing he's out on the streets preaching the gospel on the streets of India and recruiting people to go into northern India where they get beat up for sharing their faith in one of the toughest part of India for spreading the gospel. So that's one example right there. Allison, late at night, she hears me in the other room on the computer talking on Skype to my friend Mike. I've known him for 40 years. He lives in Mexico. And we're going through this right now.
I said, " Hey, listen, I can prove to you that Jesus is the Son of God. I really want you to think about your faith. " He considers himself a Buddhist and he's a philosophy major. But he's never heard anything like this before. But I'm laying out, going right through the Old Testament, some of the things that we're going to be talking about in the next few classes, about proving from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. I'll give you another example.
I was in Albania, which is a predominantly Muslim country, although it's not as hardcore as many other countries in the world that are predominantly Muslim. And when I was over there, I remember having discussions with some of the more serious Muslims in the country, basically in the shadow of the great mosque of Tirana in downtown Tirana, the capital. I remember having a discussion with one of the guys in particular. I said, " Do you believe in Jesus? " He said, " Well, of course I believe in Jesus.
" He was a great prophet. I said, " Okay, good. Well, do you believe he died on the cross and rose from the dead on the third day? " He said, " No, no, we don't believe that part. " He said, " What do you mean you don't believe that part? " He said, " The Christians changed the story afterwards. They added that part after it happened. " And I said, " So the New Testament, you can't trust the New Testament because the Christians changed the story. " " Come on, bro. " I said, " Okay, great.
We don't need the New Testament. I'll prove it to you from the Old Testament. It belongs to the Jews. It's written 1,000 years and 500 years and 600 years before. " They had no comeback for that because there is no comeback for that. So you can use that today just as effectively in the same way it was used in the past. So I'm going to set the bar pretty high in this class. Come on now. Here's where I want to set the bar for myself in teaching this class.
And the bar is to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Jesus was the Son of God. That's the standard. Love it. Now, why do I think I can hit that bar? Well, I don't know. Other people have done it. Peter did it. Paul did it. Apollos did it. Justin Martyr certainly did it as well. So if I just do what they did, follow their example, I believe that I can do the same thing. And I think that's what it demands. If we're asking people to cash it in, come on.
In states where they have capital punishment, you need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. That's right. So I think this is even more important than life or death. This is eternal life and death. So I think we need to expect the same standard of ourselves when we're trying to know the Scripture that well and to convince others. So that's the standard that I'm going to hold myself to. And you can judge at the end whether we've done that or not. We can all work towards that together. Now, this is very powerful.
This is very powerful. This is a new but a very old way to share your faith. Instead of saying, " Come to my church and see the wonderful, loving, mixed-race fill-in-the-blank people that are there. " Or, " Would you like to find a nice purpose for your life? " Or something like that. Instead of that, try this one. This is called in the Middle Ages, when the knights would issue a challenge, they take their glove off and they throw it down on the ground. And they dare the other person to pick it up.
Basically, you're challenging them to a duel at that point in time. So here is the challenge that we need to that I think we can issue, the old challenge. Here's the challenge that I ask people, if I can prove to you from the Old Testament prophecies that Jesus was the Son of God, would you believe and follow Him? Now, that makes people really uncomfortable. I was talking with a friend in Chicago, and we're talking about this.
I said, " you know This is really I think this is one of the most effective ways to share your faith. " He was a friend in a coffee house. And he did this with his friend. He said, " I want to show you the proofs from the Old Testament that Jesus was the Son of God. " He said, " If I can prove it to you, he said, I can prove this to you. " And he said his friend got all flustered. He started talking really fast. He started not making any sense at all.
So you're going to get some interesting reactions when you do that. The purpose of this class is to equip you to share your faith like that. So to prepare for the next lesson. I know some of you are thinking, " I can't wait a whole week for the next lesson to find out how you're going to do this. " So for those of you who can't wait, read Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 13. Take a look at how Peter did it. Take a look at how Paul did it. Compare, see what the similarities are, the differences.
Go back and read the Old Testament prophecies that they're quoting and citing. And you'll learn a lot right there. Notice how they did it, what they did, how they used the scriptures. You can do the same thing. And then take the glove off. Issue the challenge. Invite other people into the banquet. Bring in the atheists and the agnostics into the class here.
Bring people who don't believe because I want to show you and them at the same time proving from the Scriptures, just like Apollos and Paul did, that Jesus is the Son of God. Amen. Amen. My hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone This solid ground