Believers are called to be strong in the grace of Christ Jesus, embracing their identity as born-again children of God who are adopted into His family. This spiritual maturity leads to a responsibility to be faithful teachers, diligently contending for the faith and passing it on to future generations. The sermon emphasizes the need for self-discipline, devotion, and steadfastness, likening believers to soldiers enduring hardship, athletes striving lawfully, and farmers laboring faithfully, all while diligently studying and rightly dividing the Word of God to remain approved by Him.
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Well, it's good to be with you again this afternoon. Speaking of these conferences, as our brother was raising the subject of a fall and a spring when I remember as I was growing up that we used to have a spring and a fall conference. Usually the fall conference was a missionary conference and the spring conference, a conference of general ministry. And it was a time that we all enjoyed. And I trust that you too find a great deal of fellowship and that a good time together as you have your conference. It's been a joy for me to be with you this weekend and to make some new acquaintances and to renew old acquaintances.
And I appreciate that very much. I do just want to make one brief comment on some of the questions that were raised during the earlier period. The comments that I have made on the subject of the gap theory and these areas are my own. I take much and just about all of the scientific aspect of my own thinking from the Institute of Creation Research and the Bible Science Association and the scientists that are associated with those ministries. I have enjoyed them for over twenty-five years and have certainly enjoyed and thank God for the help they've given. I recognize that some of the thoughts that they have vary from some that you may have.
And we can enjoy our enjoyment of the Scriptures and what we read in the Scriptures of things in the past, and someday we're going to have a real good lesson on what it's all about. But I think that in the meantime that we can enjoy together those things that concern the life today and that to come with a great deal more precision in our understanding and certainly perhaps with a great deal more cooperation in what we would seek to do for God. on the basis of the Scripture itself and what we know of it. About every time that I speak, I didn't do it this morning, but I like to have the missionary prayer handbook and open it up for the day of hand. I encourage you to pray for our missionaries.
I don't know how many of you know the subject for today or the nation for today in the missionary prayer handbook. I hope that you use it in your daily prayer. I hope that you use it in your family Bible readings. When we raised our children, we used the missionary prayer handbook. We had a daughter, a son, and two daughters. And our children enjoyed seeing the number of children the missionaries had. How many of them may have had birthdays about the same time they had? Perhaps the same names that they had. Learned something about the kind of schools that they went to. And as the children grew up, they grew up with a greater appreciation of the missionaries. And then as it was with ours, they became missionary kids. Much to their surprise, perhaps.
particularly in what they knew in the earlier years. But I encourage you to get the missionary handbook and to remember to pray for them day by day. They need our prayers. And you will find that as you pray for them, perhaps the Lord is going to lay one on your heart as a special burden for you to contact. And in the course of your communication with them, be drawn closer to them. And you'll find as time goes by, that they'll be willing to open their hearts to you on what their real needs are, what the battles are. the spiritual battle, the other battle, some of the practical problems, perhaps the education of the children, of some particular problem they may have with the youngsters and for the children and caring for them as parents in a foreign land.
The Lord will give you an opportunity to encourage and to help, and you in turn will be drawn closer to them and to the Lord's work. So today is the twenty-third, and the country at hand is Columbia. And those of you that have received the missionary telephone out of Canada, And particularly the last one and the one before, perhaps you'll remember, the great deal of terrorist activity in Colombia. It's all associated with the dope trade. Political figures are assassinated. Other figures are assassinated. None of the missionaries so far have been bothered, as far as we know. Or the saints. But they do pray for prayer. The country is in a terrible condition over this whole dope problem. And it's going to affect the Lord's people as well.
uphold our missionaries and the Lord's people in Columbia. And then tomorrow, Bolivia, the next day at Ecuador, where our friends at Collingwood have been. And then we can look on the list, and you'll find friends of yours, and we trust, if you don't know them, in the course of time of prayer and perhaps correspondence, you'll get to know them and is drawn very closely, too. This afternoon, I'd like for us to look at another familiar passage, the second chapter of Second Timothy. And as we look at this chapter, we have brought before us the exercise that the Apostle Paul had as he spoke to Timothy to exercise Timothy toward an active, godly life.
Now our brothers brought before us the matter of growing and maturing in the things of God. I trust that this is pretty much what all of our thoughts have been the course of the day. You know, we're never too old to learn. And I hope we aren't. I hope I never am. That I have the mental capacity to do some learning as well as the will. And as we read the Word of God, it should speak to our heart, warm our heart, correct us, instruct us, and so on. And so was Timothy as Paul's beloved one. And he begins in that second chapter of Second Timothy, thou therefore my son. I believe the other translations may show my child. And again, the emphasis is on the born one. The one he loves so dearly, as one born in the family.
And thank God that's the way he looks at us. You know, you and I aren't adopted into the family of God. We're born into it. The whole message is that he must be born again. And this is what the Lord told Nicodemus. You and I are born into the family of God just as we're born into the family of men. Then God takes us at the same time and he adopts us as a son. And that brings us into maturity and the responsibility. You know, the son and the father's business speaks for dad. Speaks for his dad in the place of his father. He can negotiate. He can carry on the affairs of that business. And those who are dealing with the company know that the son speaks for the father.
His word is good. And the son knows what the father wants. And the father knows what the son wants. They're working together in partnership. But, you know, we have a similar relationship with God. We're his son. And when we speak of sons, we speak of maturity. We're not speaking of the little-born ones, the child. But we're speaking of one who has accrued a certain amount of experience at age in which now the father recognizes him as a son. And that's the way God has placed you and me in the family. Sons of God. That means we really know our father's business. We're to be attentive to it. Much of this is similar to that calling and responsibility ambassador. Here, however, it's a much more intimate relationship, it's father and son, in which there's a nearness.
There's an affection. There's a loyalty and a responsibility on a higher plane. And this is what God has brought us into as sons of God. Here, as a child, he speaks of that relationship by birth. You know, you and I all have a blood relationship with Christ. The blood that he shed is the blood by which we've been purged of our sins and we've been cleansed and we've been brought home to God. The price that was paid when he paid our death and he delivered us from every charge against us and then brought us in the peace of God. There's nothing left, there's peace. We've been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, my child, be strong in the grace that's in Christ Jesus.
That grace is limitless. That grace is all of God. And that grace is all for our blessing and joy. The lovely thing about all the attributes of God, they're infinite. And all of the provisions and the benefits that he extends toward us are equally infinite. Our problem is that we're so small and so finite that we don't appreciate it for what it is. Nor do we receive it, nor exploit it, as we might. for our blessing and for his glory. And so the exhortation is to be strong in that grace. What does it mean to be strong in grace?
We speak of grace again as that unmerited favor, as to all of God's provision for us at Christ's expense. The point that we have brought before us is that God has met every need and provided abundantly for us, and now he seeks of us to go and to take more, and to take more, and to take more. and let us not fall short in that desire that we have and that seeking. We can even say that going after what he extends to us. Here's the child. He's the believer. He's the one who's been born into the family of God. As the Lord told Nicodemus, he must be born again, even so we who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, they've been born by the operation of the Spirit of God, into the very family of God.
And as our brother mentioned to us earlier, nobody's going to take us out of it. We're not unborn out of the family of men, nor are we unborn out of the family of God. We thank God that our position is secure, it's eternal. We have no doubts, no fears, no anxiety. We rest. We're peace with God because he met every foe and he met every charge that was against us. and dealt with him to the utmost of a satisfaction when he judged his beloved son on the cross. So we have peace. It's a lovely thing to enjoy that peace. And so now Paul speaks to him of enjoying that grace, that gracious favor, that enabling power that comes to him, to you and to me by the grace of God.
He's a child. It's a good place to start, isn't it? That's where we start with our family. We're the child. We're all there. It's common to all of us. Many of us have had children. We've enjoyed grandchildren. They're lots of fun. And we enjoy seeing the children of others. We're children. And that's just the way that God has looked at us with a deep, deep affection. And looking at us and all of our weakness and our inability. And yet taking us and making us his own. And making us that into the presence to exalt him. And to delight in him. Goes to the next verse in which he brings before us this teacher. I as a child born into the family of God to grow up into that godliness and that faithfulness and God expects us to continue to grow as our brothers brought before us.
That we might be able to teach others. As parents we teach our children whether we know it or not. They watch us. They hear us. Well if mother and dad do this it must be all right. If mother and dad say this it must be all right. If mother and dad go there, it must be all right. See, we're teaching them. Passively, if not actively, and they observe it, and they learn by it. And here he's speaking of those that are now going to be a faithful teacher, and he expects every one of us to be such. And he has specific instructions. As we look at Titus, he speaks of older women teaching younger women. older men, taking younger men under hand, and giving help, and giving them the benefits and the advantages of all that we can give to them, which God graciously has taught us.
The things I was heard of me of many witnesses. And these witnesses were those who had heard Paul as he was preaching, who had been with him, as he was traveling, who had been with him, perhaps as he was eating his meals, or whatever the case may have been, wherever they were. All of these things, he says, commit to faithful men in which they were able to teach others all. The faithful teacher is not only going to teach faithfully, but he's going to seek out the students. And that puts a burden upon the teacher. You know, you're not going to do much teaching if you don't have students, are you? And it behooves us then to try to find young men and young women whom we can teach and whom we can help. They may go to the mission field someday.
They may be serving the Lord here. They may become a faithful mother, raising children for God. Or a young man, a testimony for God, perhaps in the business. the profession, whatever he is. God will use them. And then we would trust that in the course of time they'd be those able leaders in the assembly. They'd guide and direct it along the way for God's glory. The teacher seeks out and he teaches so those who are taught may teach others. He's looking for a generation after generation of succession that in the work of God there might be a continuity. Hand on the truth that we have received. Now this in turn brings before us a real responsibility.
If we look at Jude chapter three, verse three, in Jude three, we have the exhortation there and that encouragement from Jude. Beloved, when I gave all diligence, Jude writes, to write unto you the common salvation. It was needful for me that I write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith. The faith which was once delivered unto the saints. This is that exhortation. We don't have to defend the word of God in the sense of defending it from the evil ones. It stands itself while all the enemies fall. But we contend for it and we preach it and we teach it that it might have its power in the lives of others.
To turn them around and to bring them to the Savior. And so it is with these teachers in seeking to find out and to hand on that truth of God. as a quick growth cycle from babyhood to teacher. That's God's order. And he's with us in the entire cycle. It'll encourage us and guide us along the way. He speaks to us of enduring hardness next to the soldier. This isn't going to be a soft life in all respects. You know, God knows just how much you and I can endure, and he's not going to exceed that limit. We might think sometimes we're right there at the tip. But he's not going to exceed that limit. He's not going to try us beyond what we're able to accept.
But in the course of that testing, he's going to cause us to grow and to learn as we never would in other circumstances. He's going to bring us into blessing and into joy. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You know, the soldier seeks the approval of his commanders. And so Timothy did with Paul. The good soldier avoids compromise. The world's not to get in his way. He has a higher calling. He's calling us to serve at whatever cost, his own life included, for the satisfaction of his commander. We've seen examples of this in life, where men and women have given up their lives in their service for God.
There was no compromise. They strove against the wicked for the testimony of the Lord Jesus. And in this they want approval. The true soldier is to reject anything that's inconsistent. that's contrary to the will of God. And beloved, I'm sure today that as we see the intrusions that have been made on society and from society and turn into the churches, including our assemblies, we find that we have some problems. When we older ones were younger, there were certain things that never entered into our homes, that are in our homes today. And many of the younger ones can't understand why it is that we object to it. But there's a calling that God would have us to follow.
And there's a faithfulness to God. Sometimes things may not be absolutely wrong, but they're baggage. We don't need them. We can get rid of them. And by getting rid of them, we're going to be able to serve the Lord that much more effectively. And this is one way to look at it. Not what's wrong with it, but what's right about it. In order that we might get a priority, where they belong, in order we might be able to serve the Lord more fully to his own glory. And you know, we're going to be a whole lot happier in this. Nobody's ever unhappy because he gives up something for the Lord. Don't ever let them fool you with apples. God's no man's debtor. Whatever we put aside for him, he's going to far more than compensate for. And he'll tell us of the good things of life.
Perhaps you've had the same experience that I've had. You've prayed to God for something. God doesn't give it to you. He gives you something better. Thank God for that. What a father we have. He knows what we need. And he cares for us abundantly. That faithful soldier will be consistent in every effort and every striving to serve as commander. And we serve the finest of all. We serve the King of Kings, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of all the armies. And we're in here sometimes seeing a mighty army of the Lord. Are we really soldiers?
God calls us today. May we indeed be faithful to him. No compromise. Then the athletes. I think the Apostle Paul was interested in athletics. He didn't let it go to his head as many of us do today. He said bodily exercise profits a little. And it's something which is good for all of us. Some of us probably ought to have a little more than we did or do. Some of us had a whole lot more than we were younger. Perhaps we needed. We enjoyed it. I always did. And he uses the example of the athletes. And it's one that should speak to us all. An old man that warns, says he in verse four, entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he might be a faithful soldier.
And now the same parallel is given to us for the athlete. In this case, it's a runner. If a man also strives for mastery, yet is he not crowned? except he strives lawfully. It must be a lawful striving. Now that lawful striving speaks of him striving within all of the rules that are given to him. And those rules are going to be rules that concern the full operation of the whole procedure. For the athletes, those that were in the games of the Olympics, they had several things that they had to prove. They had to prove, first of all, they were of Greek birth.
You see, we have a proof, a birthright, and a birth proof, too, that we're born of Him. We can't even get started without being able to prove that, that we've been born of Him. Second, they had to undergo a course of training. That means they had to be physically qualified. They had to be meet for the master's use. They had to be sanctified and set apart for this. They had to devote the time to it, the energy, to this course of training, to that discipline that would enable them to fulfill the training and go on into the race. And then finally came the contest.
And they had to follow the rules. They couldn't make any shortcuts. They couldn't do anything contrary to the set rules that were set before them by which all of them had to abide. And then they were in the race. Here Paul says, if a man strives for mastery, he's not crowned except he strives lawfully. It makes no difference if you come in first if you violate the rules. You're disqualified. And you see, God has these qualifications he expects us to keep in the way of godliness and the faithfulness to him. In our personal lives, in our dealing with this book, the word of God, in our life in the assembly, or family life or whatever it might be.
God has these rules by which he expects us to abide and to live by the life of faith that God has granted. So we find the Lord's servant committed to that faithfulness, that devotion. So as we look at the husbandman, we call him a farmer. My boy farms in the panhandle of Texas. That's a life for him, not for me. He loves it. I couldn't take it. But he farms with cattle and wheat and barley and Angkor goats and you name it.
All of these things. What do we know about a farmer? We say, Tom, why don't you come see him? Well, they've got problems with the weather. They've got problems with the cattle. They've got problems with this and problems with that. When everything's in order, he can take off and come see him. We're very thankful he's with his mother this weekend. But these are some of the issues that they face. As a farmer, they seek a harvest. They labor to break up the soil, to sow the seed, to plow out the weeds, and then to harvest the crops. And the whole accent's on labor in lots of them. From early morning sometimes to late at night.
Good weather and bad weather. may be caring for cattle or it may be caring for grain, whatever it might be. But we find about this farmer, this husbandman, he must labor before he partakes, and according to his faithful labor he will partake. What about you and me? We're to be that faithful husband too. Well, there's something uniquely different about us and them. We have a guaranteed harvest. They don't. We have an assured harvest that we'll protect us. Some of those chaps labor all summer long. They have a lovely crop where a hailstorm comes and an hour is gone.
It's not filled with us. We have a God in the Father who's overlooking the whole procedure. He'll bring in the harvest. And he tells us the plant and the water, and he'll bring in the harvest. And then we're brought into the joy of participation in it. We're to be faithful farmers, laboring for him. I have a note in my notes here for Isaiah chapter twenty-eight in verse twenty-three. As I said, farmers are rather close to us because my wife's uncle was one and my son is now farming the farm. We've spent a good deal of time at the farm when we were home on furlough.
My wife was raised on that farm a good bit. And I've often thanked God, and she has, and when we were missionaries, she had that farm background. And she learned some things that were very helpful. You know, I had the experience when I was home, and those days before going out, something went wrong with the house or the machine, you call up the specialist to come and fix it. Well, when there's no specialist to go do it yourself. It's a little bit different. Here we have an Isaiah twenty-eight and twenty-three. It says, Give ye ear and hear my voice, harken and hear my speech. God says, Give ears. Isaiah twenty-eight, twenty-three. Does the ploughman plough all day to sow?
Does he open and break the clods of his ground? When he has made plain the face thereof, does he not cast abroad the fishes? And scatter the common and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye and the quaint? For his God does instruct him to discretion in those teachings. Now this is thrilling. God teaches the farmer. How much more is he going to teach you and me? We have parallels, but those things that concern us are far superior to those that are in the natural realm. This is God that instruct him to discretion and teach him. For the fishes are not fresh with a threshing instrument.
Neither is a cartwheel turned out upon the common, but the fishes are beaten out with the staff and the common with a rod. In other words, you use the right equipment. They've got all kinds of equipment, and they're sure to apply the right equipment to the right job. And now in Isaiah, twenty-eight and twenty-eight, bread, corn is brewed because he will not ever be freshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also comes forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful and counsel, and excellent in working. What a God we have. So he calls us to be faithful in the field of his labor, in the preparation of the ground and the scattering of the seed, the watering thereof, and looking to him for the harvest.
Before there's a harvest, there must be labor. And he calls us to that labor. It may be in this land or it may be in another land. It may be where we were raised and grew up. or maybe in a different city of our land. God moves us about in business and professions and different kinds of occupations through marriage and what have you. And then sometimes he'll call one to set aside his job and all that he has as he calls him for work beyond and where it's imperative that he leave all behind it and go to an unknown land. Or at an unknown language, under a foreign government, all that's associated with foreign life. For the hardest. We might be a faithful husband and for him.
Well, as we look at the next one, we see verse seven. Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all these things. I look at this one as a researcher, a diligent student, considering, weighing in the mind what God has said, musing upon this, considering it. And there's a promise that as we do so, God will give us understandings. He'll open our minds that we might be able to comprehend and to enjoy these things and to learn for His blessings and glory among His people. The Lord give the understanding in all things. Verse fifteen, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now this is a verse that we've all known for a long time. I presume our parents or our Sunday school teachers have given it to us as a memory verse. one that we have sought to study and apply in our lives. Study to show thyself approved to God. Our brother was bringing before us before the only one worthy of glory as God himself. And we should seek to study in order that we might be approved under him. He's the one we seek to please. If we seek our brethren as well, that's all right. That's the byproduct. But the Lord's the one we seek to preach. And if we please him, that's all that counts. Our brethren will understand later on. It's not in this life and the one that comes.
But if we please him, we've completed the task. Study to show thyself approved unto God. There are no grander things than to have God's approval. Our children like our approval, don't they? They deserve it. Our brethren and our friends enjoy our approval. As those who love the Lord and love each other, we seek to approve one another. that contributes to a happy hearty fellowship. And when it can be genuine, it's all the more important. A workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Now the point that he's bringing before us thus far is diligence in that study. There's two calls in this verse.
First is diligence and second is ethics. We can get into ethics and spend a great deal of time on it. Here he's speaking about diligence. Approved of God, not ashamed. You see, we might not be approved of God, but nobody else might know it. But He knows it. He knows what's in our mind, the thoughts that are in our mind, what goes through all the time. Not only are we to be approved of Him, but in our own hearts and our own lives is to be that reflection of complete satisfaction that we have not ashamed Him. Nor are we ashamed ourselves because of our own conduct or our laxities.
He's called us to this diligence. as a student. One sometimes wonders, does he spend more time watching the TV than he does reading the Word of God? One has gone even further than that. Have we heard more advertisements on the TV than we spent time in the Word? I'm speaking to my own heart as well as perhaps you are to yours. And the TV is simply one example that's common. It could be almost anything else that we would use. You know, and we raised our kids, and I hope you'll forgive me for using the reference so frequently, we had some rules about the TV. It was when my mother-in-law came that we bought the first one.
And they said, well, that's good. Now we've got one in the house. The kids won't go to the neighbors. You know, they're down about like this. All right, now we've got it in the house. The next thing is, what do they watch? Who has the veto power? So it was a rule. You have a half an hour a day. and mother and dad had the Vita. Well, back in those days, we didn't have much of a problem thirty years ago. Then we had the thing down in the family room. Mother introduced a new rule. If that's on, somebody's at the ironing board. That took care of the ironing. Back in those days, there was more ironing than there is today. So we had a half an hour a day at the tube and at the ironing board.
Then on Saturday, we had very often... the winter ski event. And I confess I enjoyed some of those things in the hockey games. We let them look at it for a couple of hours if indeed the weather outside would not permit them to be outside. That was Saturday. But on Sunday the thing was off all day long. We had time for more important things. Now some people today would say, wow is that strict. But you know when you have these guidelines in your home, you'll find that you're spending your time on more important things. I would think of the assembly at which I was raised twice a month.
We spent the afternoon in one of the hospitals distributing tracts and singing hymns in order to reach the patient. That's a much better alternative. Of course we can do other tract distribution in other places and so on. Perhaps we're on very thin ice here. We should stop. But I recognize that these are some of the areas that we look at. Why did we hear one brother said that he believes in the television and in the right channel? I think it was our brother up in Detroit. What's the name of our aged black brother up there? He says, I believe in heaven and on and in the right channel.
Everybody was amazed. He says, I believe it belongs in the English channel. Well, I confess I enjoy the news, and I think there's some things that we can use. And along this very line, I think that we as Christians ought to be intelligent about the events that are going on in foreign land. For instance, if we hear of a great earthquake in Chile, Do we right away question what city is that? Do we have missionaries there? If we hear about a famine in one of the countries, of course, we don't have missionaries in Ethiopia now, but in one of those in Africa where we do, are we concerned about our missionaries there and how we might help them to help the Lord's people that are among them? He's as part of the ways in which these modern technologies can be used of God to enlighten our mind to help his people in the work of God.
It's like an automobile. We can use it or abuse it. But in all of this then, God calls us to a faithfulness as a workman, diligent, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now the word of God is wrongly divided out of ignorance, very often. But sometimes it's divided wrongly intentionally for the sake of promoting a doctrine, perhaps for steering the assemblies away from biblical truth we've held for a long time. You'd be amazed if you saw some of the things that I've received in my home that justify women preachers by men that are highly held among us sometimes.
You'd be amazed if you saw the kinds of writings that we see promoting other things that are directly contrary to the scriptures in which we've held for a hundred and fifty years without question. And so as a good student, we're to study to show ourselves approved under God as a faithful, diligent student. seeking his approval, study that we not be ashamed of our own laxness and failure and at the right time to rightly divide the word of truth according to all the help and the knowledge we can gain from God as we study the scriptures and absolutely ethically that it's precisely right with no ulterior motives along the way.
All of these then are these exercises, these exhortations that Paul brought to Timothy and in turn that he brings to us, that we might be faithful to him. He goes on in his exhortations to Timothy, encouraging him on into faithfulness and into godliness. But as we just look at these that we viewed this afternoon, we get that self-discipline, that training that we ought to have, that devotion to the Lord, which is going to be a faithful steadfastness. You know, when we read in Acts chapter two in verse forty-two, what do we read? Those who had gladly received his word continued steadfastly, continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, in the breaking of bread, in the prayer.
They not only continued, but they continued steadfastly. What a glorious bunch of people they must have been. They were diligent in every sense of the word. Their objective was to serve the Lord, and they let nothing get in the way. May it be true of us. We will be found faithful to him, a faithful child, loving our God, growing up into faithful teachers, with that loyalty and that devotion of a faithful soldier, that fairness in following the rules of a devoted athlete, continuing on in the labor, intense labor of the husband, of the farmer, planting, watering the seed. diligent in research of the scriptures and all of these things that would build us up and encourage us as we would seek to encourage others and then studying on in the Word of God.
We used to be known as men of the book among the assembly. May it be that it will be more common to hear that in the future day. So we once again be men and women of the book. Those who have not only loved the Lord but have loved the Word of God and have gone on to serve him faithfully for his name's sake. Shall we pray? Father, we thank you again today. that we can look to thee with that full assurance of divine care and of divine approval as we would seek to honor and to glorify thee in thy way and thy work for thy glory. Give us a vision, we pray, of all that thou would have us to do. And we would confess that we would seek to follow thee, even though we failed in the past. Grant that we may see greater days ahead, days of encouragement, days of blessing for thine own people and above all for thine own glory.
And then from this, for the salvation of souls. If it please me, we pray in our Savior's name. Amen.