Good morning. I'd like to spend the time today that we have together in the book of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter twelve. Hebrews chapter twelve brings us to running a race and I'd like to read the whole chapter to you. You can view it in the race that is run and then the trials of the race and then the goal of the race. I think that every one of us understand that this life's journey here and the way we go is a race and that we enter it, having our eyes fixed on a goal. I think that our eyes need to be fixed on the Lord Jesus. He's the goal. Paul said, pressing toward the mark, the prize, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. So we need to keep our eyes fixed on that goal. and then the result of that, the reward of it. I'd like to read to you, first of all, perhaps about the first half of the chapter, so we get a little in context at least as to part of the race. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily be set up. and let us run with patience the race that's set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest you be weary and faint in your mind. You have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto Son. My Son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint, when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son, he receiveth. If endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement of which all are partakers, then are ye bastards or illegitimate and not sons? Furthermore, we have fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live? for they verily for a few days chasten us after their own pleasure. But he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised by it. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees. and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God. Let any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and by it many be defiled. God will bless to us the reading of his word. I think Paul in writing to Timothy gave some instruction about the reading of the word. It needs to be done in the public sense. So as we look at our chapter, he brings us to a race. Now he starts out showing us the previous runners. You know, sometimes you enter a race, you run a relay race. And there are some runners that run ahead and pass a baton on. And then somebody else takes the baton and they run for a while and they hand it to someone else. And rather, the race that's gone before us, there have been many run the race. And God reminds us of some of them. He reminds us of some who in running the race were faithful martyrs or witnesses for him. And he takes us all the way back to Abel and he begins running the race with Abel. And he shows us a man who offered a more excellent sacrifice. He did it because he viewed God's viewpoint. You know, so many times we just view our own viewpoint or we view the viewpoint of some other man. But when we get God's view, which Abel had, He offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. You see, when Adam sinned, God provided a lamb and he killed it. Perhaps it was a lamb. Scripture doesn't say it in my memory anyhow. But he killed it and he sacrificed it so Adam would have a coat of skin to cover his nakedness. Now, before he sinned, he never knew he was naked. I don't think really in reality... He might not have clothes like these clothes, but he was clothed with the righteousness of God. Man never lost that righteousness until sin came in. I believe that when God walked with Adam in the cooler of the day, in the garden, he came down to walk with Adam, that Adam was clothed with that light. I do not know how God manifests himself to Adam because God is a spirit. He said no man could look upon God and live. Maybe in Adam in that state he could have. But at any rate, God must have manifest himself some way because he walked with Adam. But when Adam sinned and he was put out of the garden, he found himself naked. The righteousness was gone. You know, when we die and we go to heaven, we're not going to be a naked spirit roaming in heaven. Even though our bodies in the grave... He says in Second Corinthians five-eighth that we're going to be closed upon with a house from heaven. And so I believe there's some glory of God that we're going to be closed in in that day. See, when I go to heaven, I have no fear of just a spirit that's wandering around with nothing, naked, but it's going to be a spirit that's going to be closed upon with a house from heaven. Now there is a day when I'm going to be clothed with this body, only it's going to be resurrected, where now it is physical. When it dies, it's going to be sown a natural body. When it's raised, it's raised a glorious body. And when that spirit and body are joined together, it's going to be a body like His glorious body. That's going to be glory for me. I'm going to join in the glory of God, and that will be glory for me." But Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice because his father undoubtedly gave the boys the instruction of the sacrifice that was made for him, how God covered his nakedness. Adam lived a long time. He lived almost to the flood. That's hard for us to see sometimes. But as you look at the generations, they went along for about eight generations before the flood. And Adam lived almost that time. So there was good instruction that was passed on to those people. But what did they do with it? Here's one man, Abel, who was willing to take what God had to say, and he offered the blood offering to God. When Cain comes along, his brother... He had a right idea. He wanted to worship, but he did it in a willful way. He did it in his own way. And you know, that's the problem of worship when we take it up to do it in our own way, isn't it? Remember two other guys who did that one day. Nadab and Abihu. They were doing a right thing, but they did it in a wrong way. They were going to burn incense before God. But they didn't ask God how he wanted the incense burned. God had sent the fire from heaven and ignited the altar of burned offering. And he said, that was to be a continual fire. They were not to let it go out. It's apparent that these fellas didn't take that fire, but they brought other fire in to burn incense before God. And when they did it, they did it in a willful way. And God struck them dead. Now when Cain offered his sacrifice, he did it in a way that seemed right to a man. We get in trouble when we do that. That's what the book of Proverbs says. There's a way that seemed right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. You know Cain found that out. He died eventually. And Nahab and Abihu found it out. They died immediately. Some things God won't put up with. And he didn't put up with what Nadav and Abihu did. And so he struck them dead. But now when Cain offers his offering, he picks the best out of the ground. That was what he raised with his own hand. But he brought it from something that was cursed. God had cursed the ground for man's sake, didn't he? And then he goes and brings something from the ground that was cursed. and expects God to sacrifice God to accept it. God didn't accept it. And he said, a sin offering is required of thee. Sin life at thy door. Good read. A sin offering is required of thee. But you know, Cain wasn't willing for that. He got angry. He killed his brother. See, the hatred in his heart. But God says here, the first runner in the race, As he brings us to that household of faith, he said he offered a more excellent sacrifice than king. And the blood of Abel still speaks through the sacrifice of Christ. Was a blood sacrifice for a sin offering. And God received it. He moves us along to Enoch. And we read that Enoch walked with God. And he was not. For God took him. That must have been pretty nice, huh? Enoch walked along with God in such a holy way that God said, come on home, Enoch. There's only one other person he ever did that too, isn't that right? And that was Elijah when he took him home to heaven in a fiery church. We don't read either one of those men died. He said, Enoch walked with God and he was not. For God took him. He took him right home to be with himself. And so God goes along and he brings us to a number of men. I'll pick on Abraham for instance. He said, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And then Abraham fixed his eyes in a distance and he said, Abraham looked for a city which had foundation whose builder and maker was God. Abraham with a heart exercised in faith look forward to that city that had foundations. And so Abraham was a man of faith. And then God shows us through the whole chapter, men of faith. But when we come to this chapter now, all those men having passed by as witnesses. Now, the word witness in the New Testament is a word that can mean a witness by his mouth or by his life that brings him to death. It can mean martyrs. And so as you bring this, Paul is saying, now, wherefore seeing we also, you got to notice those two words, we also, or you lose the thought of the previous chapter. He said, we also are compassed about. They were compassed about with witnesses. We are in the day of grace. We also have witnesses. You see, in verse forty of the previous chapter, God having provided some better thing for us. That's the truth of the whole book. Better things. We have something better than they had. They weren't made perfect without us. We got a better sacrifice. We have a better covenant. We have better promises. We have a better hope. That's what the whole book brings us to. So he said, now we also are compassed about with such a great, so great a cloud of witnesses. So around about us there is a cloud. Now some people look at the cloud in chapter eleven and they say, those people are sitting up there watching us. They're witnessing what we do. Now I don't see it in that sense at all. They were witnesses in the life that they lived, some to martyrdom. some to death. And I'd have a hard time believing that my mother's sitting up in heaven and sitting down and watching all I do. My mother's gone home to heaven. There's a center of attraction for her. That's the Lord Himself. We're delivered from this scene. When we get to heaven, we're not going to be viewing all the misery on this scene. We're going to be enjoying the person of the Lord. We're going to be in His presence. And so what we see here There is a cloud of witnesses. There have been martyrs since that day. And in this day there are witness for Him. There are a cloud of people, a multitude of people who bear witness to the better promises that we have, to the better hope. See? And so we've got something in the Lord Jesus that those Old Testament saints didn't have. They weren't to be made perfect without us. A perfection comes through Christ. Oh, bless your heart. We can start all the way back with Abel and go down the line and see men who were faithful witnesses to God. And if you've got any doubt about any in the day of grace, you can go back and pick up Fox's book of martyrs and read of those who down through the ages have been martyred for their testimony, for their witness to Jesus Christ. So many of them were fed to the lions. Paul said he fought with the beast at Ephesus. I don't know if I can take that in a literal sense, or he was considering the ungodly at Ephesus as beast. But at any rate, when I was over there in Ephesus, and I stood in that arena, in that great Colosseum, and you had the arena that was down below, and you had the amphitheater up above you. And you can stand there and see where the doors were all the way around, where they kept the beast. And then when they brought the Christians in and fed them to the lion, can you imagine what the hope was in that day? What hope did they have? You see, those who suffered martyrdom in the Old Testament were looking forward to someone who would redeem them and they did it in faith. And today as we look back, we see Calvary's cross, the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ himself. And we look back, but there's something else that was a hope to them. Paul tells me in First Timothy one, one, he said, Christ is our hope. My hope is Jesus Christ himself. My hope isn't necessarily the resurrection. Although at that resurrection it's when Christ will come. and that is the day when I shall be made like him and be with him forever. That's the hope that the believer has to be with Christ and to like him. And so when we look at that for a moment and these Corinthians if you will or Ephesians or the Romans or wherever it was that the Christians were and they were taken and fed to the animals and can you see some of them? back in the corner of the arena, and those beasts coming out and crowding them into that corner, laying there ready, waiting for the spring to come upon them when they'd be torn to bits. And someone up in the audience of that amphitheater calls out, Maranatha! And then those cowering saints waiting to die, call back, Maranatha. You see, behold, he cometh. That's the hope of the believer. We're accomplished about with such great clouds of witnesses. There have been witnesses in this generation who have died, buried alive in Africa. Witnesses in China. We've been taken, I don't know if you ever read the book Born to Burn by a brother that was a missionary, Davis from England. And they took him up, stripped him naked, took him and tied him up by his fingers. So his total weight was on his fingers. And then took bamboo sticks and beat him in his nakedness to bring the most excruciating pain they could on. Burned his fingertips and everything else. To try to get him to recant the change is fate and to deny it. And he survived through the whole thing. The Japanese had him and then the Communists had him. And he wrote the book Born to Burn. It's born to give his life for the glory of God. Witnesses, martyrs, that have run before. When we enter the race, we entered the race when we became Christian. We became those who were to run in an active way. Paul was concerned that one day God might bench him. He said, lest he be cast aside. And that word there means to be set aside, to be benched. You know, just like a ball player when he's taken out and substitutes put in. Paul didn't want no substitute for his race. He wanted to run it himself. And so he said, I keep my body under. I give it a black eye. He said, they run for a corruptible crown. We run for an incorruptible. That's the way it is. See, we entered the race. We entered it when we became Christian. Sorry to say, sometimes some of us aren't too willing to put in the training and put in willing to pay the cost of the race. We were willing to sit on the bench for a while. Oh, that God would give us the view of those that have run before and the exercise they put in running so that as we run the race we might be faithful. as well. See, there's the previous runners. But then there's the preparation for the race. He said, lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily be set up. No runner can run with a lot of weights. And you know, some of our weights aren't necessarily sin, but they are things that hinder us from running. There's been many a man in his day that's made his family his weight. that he can't do this for the Lord or he can't do that for the Lord because it's family. Got to be so cautious about what he does with the children and all the rest of it. And today we're seeing a day when we got a favor, everything the children do. But you know if you're willing to be conscientious for God and you said God before your children in the way you live your life and you set him before the children in the way you teach. and the way you run the race, then the children have an example of a faithful mother and father who are faithful to God. They've got an example to follow and then they're going to want to follow it. They'll be faithful. Oh, you know, sometimes today because of the pressure to peer group and maybe some of the things we've done in our lives, our kids go through a period of rebellion here and there. Glad to say all of them don't do it. Once in a while some of them do. When they do, you know, if we've been faithful to God, we're going to know that we've built a foundation that's safe and sure. You can't lay any foundation other than the foundation of Jesus Christ that's going to endure. And if in our home and our family we lay that type of foundation, then when our kids begin to rebel, we can... come to the place of resting. Oh, I've shed some tears over one of mine, but I could say to my wife, God is not going to permit the devil to tear down in a few years when he went away to the service. I was concerned because I was in a service. I know the temptations that are there. But I could say to my wife one day when it took me a struggle in a while to come to this, to say, here he is, Lord, he's in your hand. And then to say, To her, you know, God's not going to permit the devil to tear down what we spend our lifetime building. You see, you can look back and think, well, have I been faithful to God? And that's the one thing that's going to encourage you in that day. Today's a tough day for the kids. Lots of pressures put on us. Lots of temptation on every hand. So when we run the race, we need to set aside the weight. Sometimes we make music the weight. We make our occupation the weight. See, so many men today who are married to their job, they've got no time for God. Now, oh, they've got a heart for God, and it'd be nice to do something in the assembly, but I'm too busy. Too busy. Don't have time. That's a wait. You know, when we get so busy, there's no time for God, and something's wrong. Oh, we grab a few verses to have a little devotion each day, and men are faithful to that. I know that God is there, but when it comes to the needs of the assembly, how many men I know who are very gifted men, far more gifted than I have ever imagined that I could ever be. And yet, no time, a job. And you know, I've learned the higher they go in the company, and the higher the company lets them go. The less and less time for the assembly and the fellowship of the people of God. It becomes a wait, you see. We have to see as we run the wait, What's hindered me? Most of you may well be farmers. You can allow that to become the hindrance. You can allow the weather to become the hindrance. The Lord has taught us to judge things rightly that we may know the difference. And so we have to know, when is the time we're going to trust God for this? When is the time when I have to move out and God is saying, do it now. We need that instruction from us. And so as we run the race, those hindrances, let me name a few. Some people that little green dollar becomes a hindrance. And that's what takes you to sin. You know, as in money that's the sin, but it's the love of money, that becomes sin. And it's possible for a weight to bring it to sin. So he says, and it is to lay aside every weight and then the sin which does so easily beset it. And translating this as a problem, whether it is one particular sin that hinders us or that it has taken any sin, sin hinders us. Well, I don't care how you take it. Sin is going to hinder it or run it. But if you have a particular sin in your life that you notice hindering God, hindering you in the race for God, then it's time to get rid of it. It's time to set it aside. Time to put the Lord first. Because some sin. That the world doesn't consider sin. But you know that are in your life. That hindrance. Whatever stands between you and God. Is sin. If you don't have the time for worship. And you don't have the heart for worship. You don't have it for prayer. that's hindering, hindering your life in the race for God. You need to weigh that and then to set it aside. There's a preparation for the race. I suppose I might have told you the story before, but when I was in the army and it shipped me overseas, man, there's a time when I learned, hey, I don't need this and I don't need this and I don't need this and I got rid of it. I dumped it. I didn't want to carry it all the way through that jungle because I knew I was never going to use it. Some things here in this life we don't need. We don't need. We think we need it. But if we sit down and examine them, we really don't need them. Being content with such things as you have. Paul said, I know when to be abased and I know when to abound. That's the kind of life we need. I don't say that I've come to that perfection yet, but I'm struggling toward it. To know when to be satisfied with the things that He's given me and see how much I abound, and then to be satisfied in the little that I might find myself in. When to be abased and when to abound. There's a preparation for the race who lay aside the weight and the sin that besets us. But there's a perseverance in the race. Let us run. Let us run. Let us endure. That's what he said, let's run with patience. And as we run, certainly there is that need. But we need to run with that perseverance. Patience is endurance. And we need to run with endurance. Sometimes in the run, as we run the race, an actual race. We might start out strong and finish so slow. It better off if we set ourselves with a good pace. Sometimes when we're young, we just get that zeal, and sometimes it's zeal without knowledge, and we take off going and fall flat on our face and wonder what happened. But if we persevere in the race, That's taking the path that we know that is a scriptural one. And as we learn line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, and we proceed toward the goal. I can remember races I run in my life, making up my mind, I was going to win the race just like during the Second World War when we went overseas and first got into battle and it looked like the battle was all against us. And the Japanese were shooting down our airplanes, and when we shot down there, there we saw our own equipment, Hamilton Standard propellers and Pratt & Whitney engines. Man, I remember what a surprise cookie I was. And I said, wow, how are we going to win this battle? We're fighting our own equipment. But you know, because the airplanes began to get fewer and fewer, our own airplanes, it meant more and more work until I was working twenty-four and thirty-six hours without any sleep. to keep airplanes in the air. Because when we went overseas, there were only five of us. Can you imagine it's twenty-five airplanes and only five of us that knew anything about that airplane? And I happened to be one of them. That's how they sent us overseas. It was a P-Forty. And when the war broke out, that thing was an experimental aircraft for a good share. Because Jimmy Doolittle was the the man who was running the bugs out of it or trying to it before they went and bombed Japan. And I was crewing a P-Fortier that Jimmy Doolittle flew. And so the war hadn't broken out yet. But that's where I got my training. So when we went into war, there was only five of us in that squadron to do anything about that airplane. And so all of the responsibility and the heavy weight to keep those things in the air begin to rest on a few men, to try to train other men. At times you couldn't train them, you had to do it yourself. And when they crack up an airplane in their training, we had to go and pick up a wing here and a fuselage there and a wing over there and stick them together and put another one in the air because we were on the wrong side. It was endurance that needed, but I was running so hard that one day working up under a wing of an airplane, I just passed out like that. And they picked me up and carried me to bed. There is a limit in our endurance. And so when it comes to the spiritual run, we need to see, am I running in the will of God? Because God knows what we need and what we don't need in the run. So we need to know God's will as we run. And then we'll have the perseverance in the race. We'll be able to endure. And that's a Paulist saying in First Corinthians nine twenty-six. He said, let us run, you know. We need to run, and I think I mentioned his verse just a moment ago, as to running for an incorruptible crown, not running for the one that's corruptible, but running for one that's incorruptible. He says in verse twenty-four, Know ye not that they who run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize, so run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they that do it obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainty, so fight I, not as one that beat at the air, but I keep my body under and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway or a substitute set on a bench. See, that's what he's saying. So if we're going to persevere in the race, Then we need the mastery of the temperance in all things. The moderation in all things. And there's this perspective of the race. He said, looking unto Jesus. That's the perspective that we have. We need to look to him. Now everyone when he runs a race has a goal. That's what he has. And he runs toward a goal. If you run looking at the other runners, you lose pace. Looking at a race on TV one time, and I saw that runner just take and turn his head just a little bit to see where that other one was so close. And he broke his pace and he lost the race. See, when we run, our perspective in the race needs to be looking at the Lord Jesus himself. You see, when he ran, he was the example. when he was here. And so he says that it's looking unto Jesus. He's the author and the finisher of our faith. See, he's the one who is the perfector of the race. As we're in the race, we needed someone to perfect us. And that perfection is done by him. He is the meaning of the word there as author. Means leader. Means captain. means originator. See, our race began in him. When you look at the word author, that's what it means. It means the originator. And so our race began in him. And so he's the author and the finisher or the perfecter of the race. Now, you know what that means? When a man gets a piece of furniture and he goes to work on it, He wants the finish on it. And so to bring that finish to what it is on this piano, it took some work. It was stained and then the wood was sanded. And then a coat of finish was put on it. It was sanded again. It was another coat of finish put on it. There's a finer sandpaper applied to it. And then there's another coat of finish put on it. And again, it's finished by rubbing. until it gets a high luster, just like that. You don't see any brush marks or anything. When I worked in aviation, and we used to finish these old fabric-coated airplanes. If a man wanted a highly polished finish, we gave him a hand-rubbed finish with twenty-five coats of lacquer. We would spray it. Well, the first three coats were brushed on, and after that, every coat was sprayed. And after you sprayed it, it was again the process, the sanding, of working it, taking off the high spot, filling in the low spot until you had, finally, on a piece of fabric, a finish just like that. He's the author and the perfecter. He's the one who brings us to the goal. That's what he does. That's the idea, bringing us to the goal. He's the finisher of our faith. He brings it to that. So when in the running of the race, we need to keep our eyes fixed on Him. He indeed gives us the right perspective. And then He's the perfecter of the runner. He's the one who is the beginner, the author, the leader, the captain, the originator. And then He's the one that brings us to a finish. But then we need the patience of Christ. See, in this race here, unless we have something to encourage us in the way, we can get this third. So we need the patience of Christ. What was the patience of Christ? Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, not counting the shame. Oh, then if we're going to be encouraged in the race, we're going to have to see beyond this running. We're going to have to see what the finish of the race is. going to have to see the goal. In the goal for Christ, what did he see? He saw the joy of the restoration to the Father. He saw the joy of a bride being presented to him one day. Beloved, we're on the other side. So we see as the bride the joy of being presented to him. He said he's going to present his bride without spot And without blemish. That's hard for me to imagine. But then I shall be perfect like him. No spot. No blemish. He presents us, he said, holy. Unblameable. Unreducible in his sight. So that's what the patience of the race needs to be. But there's a prize. And the prize is Christ-likeness. That's a prize. finished race and absolute Christ likeness, to be with Him. Now the end of this chapter brings us to the prize. It brings us to the reward of the race. We need to keep that in view that one day we'll be like Him. Let me stop here a moment as we close this meeting. I want to say to you, are you a runner? Are you a runner? Have you entered the race You know, the only way you can enter the race for God is by putting your faith in the person of the Lord Jesus. Have you done that? Are you a true Christian? Are you a child of God? Is there a time in your life when you said to him, truth, Lord, I am a sinner. I'm lost and I'm done. I'm headed for hell. I deserve the judgment of hell. But I believe in your grace, your desire was to save me. That's why you died. I'll trust you with my soul. There have been some time in your life when you received life, when you received the Son of God. If not, why not this morning? You either run for him or you run for the devil. You run for one of the two. You're either a child of God or a child of the devil. There's no in between. My Bible teaches me that. I'm a child of day or a child of darkness. I'm on a broad road or a narrow road. Which one you are? You walk in light because you follow the light of the world, the Lord Jesus? Or do you walk in darkness or you're a child of God? If you are, then how are you running the race? Are you running it, wearisome, because you're looking at the other Christian? You got your head turned. You haven't heard the words that he said to Peter. When Peter said, Lord, what shall this man do? That's what Peter was doing. He was turning and glancing at the other runner. And the Lord said, What's that to thee? Follow thou me. Ah, we've got to keep our eyes on him. Is that the way you're running? Maybe you're troubled this morning over some of the other Christians, some of the other lives that might have hindered you. Then it's time to turn your head. Fix your eyes on the Son of God. Fix your eyes on the goal of being like Christ. The more you look at Him, the more you look like Him. The more you look at the brethren, the more you'll be like them if you let them hinder you. But the more you look like Christ, Look at Christ the more you'll be like Christ. I trust this morning our hearts at least have that desire. Have that desire. Even though we're stumbling as we run. That we're still running impatient. Waiting and running to be like Christ. So we pray. Thank you our Father for this word of truth that you've given to us this morning. That we may see Jesus. the author and finisher of our faith. We pray that there's no one in this audience this morning, be it ever so young or so old, that they have not seen Jesus, the Savior of sinners. And we pray, Father, that each one here might fix them clearly in their vision, that they may run to win the prize. For Christ likeness, under the day that we may be with Him and like Him forever. Oh, Lord Jesus, stir our hearts for that desire to be like thee. We sing it sometimes to be like Jesus in the home or in the crowd or in the throng. May that really be our song, a desire to be like thee. We just commit this meeting to thee, Father, and pray that you've had your way in it. both in the word spoken and the word received. For we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.