The concept of "judges" in the biblical book, defining them not merely as rulers but as divine deliverers during Israel's periods of oppression. It highlights Samson's life as a case study, illustrating his struggles with personal sin (lust of the eye, flesh, and pride of life) and his eventual reliance on God in moments of weakness and despair. The message emphasizes that true deliverance comes not from human strength but from God's sovereign intervention, drawing parallels to Christ's ultimate victory and the need for personal surrender to God's will.
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We do the song, I dream today, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I dream, I have been, I have been, dream, dream, dream. I'm redeemed by love divine, glory, glory, righteous mind, all to Him, all to Him, I now reside, reside.
I have been, I have been, sweet and sweet. Christ is indeed. Christ is indeed. For the Savior to be. Give my Savior to me. I am redeemed. I am redeemed. I am redeemed. I am redeemed. I will give glory. I will give glory. One day I shall be. One day I will be redeemed. I am redeemed. I'm redeemed by love divine. I love divine.
Glory, glory. Christ is mine. Christ is mine. All to him. All to him. I now resign. I now resign. I have been. Praise, praise, praise. Since I charted for all that we know, In my life he had grown.
Since I gave my life to give us the Lord. The longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows. The longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows. He be so He did my heaven, my heart of the Lord, my wonder I serve him.
but sweeter he grows. Every lead he is supplying. Lent your praise, he returns. day my way is brighter the longer I serve him the sweeter he grows the longer I serve him the sweeter he grows.
The more that I love him, the love he becomes. She sees my heaven, my Lord, over to What have you done recently for one of your elders?
I hope that you minister to them in some fashion. They have ministered to you. And one way that you might be a real help to them is to put into their hands one of these two books, Battle for the Bible or the Lord of the Church. Both of these books will give them food for their soul, something to read of, something to refresh their own spirit, and they're really nominal in Christ. You might have a young fellow in your local church that's interested in the assemblies of God's people and concerned about their growth. and it would be very great that they would have put into their hands, and they would consider your little consideration and a three-dollar investment, although they won't know that that's what the price is, and you can put the Lord of the Churches into their hands and have a double effect, give them something special, not only a signed copy by Mr.
Davies, but there's a little chart in the front page on the Book of Revelation and the seven letters, so there's an extra little study material. These two books and others are over at the bookstore. You really should make a little bit of an investment in some of the volumes that are here. Not only that our brother doesn't have so much to carry home, but that you begin to have a ministry and the joy of giving to some others. Not just for your own library, but take something home to give to those that are interested and concerned and thus encourage them to get some good spiritual food under their belt. Don't you do that? The facts of the Bible be excellent for some of your more mature Christians and those that are interested are concerned in the welfare of the truth of God's word and the preserving of it amongst God's people.
Look at Judges Chapter Thirteen. Judges Chapter Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen are four for us. The view of the twelve judge, but not the land judge. You drew your attention on the very first opportunity that this word is used rather specially in this particular area of the word of God, and although in other places when the same word judge is used, it has reference to discerning good and bad, but through the book of judges and to the first two people in the book of Samuel, Eli and Samuel, it is used in reference to a deliverer, one who is overruling, guiding, and providing for God's people.
And once again, like when we say the word reformation, you think of being reformers, but a period of time. So from now on, I trust that when we think of the judges, you do not merely think of the book, but rather a period of time in the nation's history that was at a low end, necessitating the raising up of a king, and God ultimately bringing in his chosen king, suggestive of the time in which we live just prior to the coming of our blessed Lord. Judges Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen carries for us information regarding the life of Samson. And our little chart that we have suggested might be of some point of interest, not meant to be an interpretation, but an application of the truths that are seen.
We see Samson coming in at the end of the church period, just prior to the coming of the Lord. Some of his characteristics, the enemy that he fights against, the fact that he never actually triumphs over the enemy. The enemy lingers, and the one who triumphs is the king that comes, David. And, of course, in fulfillment, our blessed Lord is alone the one who will be able to straighten out what is suggested by the Philistine denomination, or excuse me, Philistine domination. The last two sections, chapters seventeen to the end of the book, afford for us two very sad circumstances. once and all priesthood in chapters seventeen and eighteen, after nineteen through the end, introduces to us the perverted judgment.
Great civil war, impure ideas, inconsistency amongst God's people, no doubt the incidences themselves happened earlier, but are conical at the end of the book to show the devastating effects and the low ebb of a nation. They end up in a violent civil war, more concerned over the dignity of a woman than God's honor. It's a sad, confusing, and almost for some sensitive consciences, a really repulsive story, and yet it's been carefully preserved for us to see the very sad circumstance that characterized the end of this book and the reason why the people were clamoring for leadership and a rule.
Unfortunately, they wanted a king rather than God's control and submission to the unseen rule and leadership of the Lord. The oppression, the seventh oppression on the nation of Israel given to us in this book, is given in chapter thirteen in verse one. The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. It is the longest oppression to which God's people are submitted in this book. We are introduced here to a new enemy. They have been mentioned in directly. By this time they have thoroughly emigrated out of Egypt, have permeated the southern part of the land, and are gradually found in many different areas in the whole southern section of the land.
They have five cities and five lords that rule those basic cities that constitute their dominion. Their scheme or pattern was an infiltration of the land. It was not a direct attack as such, but gradually an overrunning and a permeation of the land and gradually getting more and more control. This subtle form suggests to us a profession of Christianity, which is more evident after the Reformation in these later years. They were not out of Egypt by way of the shed blood of the Passover or going through the Red Sea. They came out and emigrants moved into the land and might be what is suggested by our Lord as those that are sown, the seed that is sown, the children of the devil, that will not be extricated until the Son of Man comes and removes, takes the true harvest and removes all the chaos.
They suggest a profession of Christianity that we face, feature the Philippine histories that are constantly in opposition to God's people. They seem to be almost doggedly, diligently, just harassing. You know, even, for example, in the time of Isaac, it meant just filling up the well to be done. Just harassing. contention, division, and strife. There they are permeating and controlling the land. Scripture gives only the name of Palestine to the Holy Land when it speaks of judgment. The word Palestine comes from this Philippine rule. It's the longest oppression, forty years, and there will be no deliverance, either by Samson nor any, until the coming of the king.
And there is no deliverance from oppression of Christianity. The church... is filled, the professing church, the kingdom, if we could call it in a broader sense, is filled with those that profess faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord promised that circumstance to be so. That will not be corrected until he himself returns and removes those that are his own, and then comes back to make a discerning judgment in his kingdom. Israel has been crushed by forty years of oppression. There is no cry on the part of the people for a deliverer. Raising up a stanton is a sovereign act of God.
He ultimately must come in and prepare in his way to bring a deliverer in, shows remarkable interest and concern in God's people. There was a certain man of Zora, the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoa, and his wife was barren and bare not. The angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold now thou art barren, and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean things. Lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head. For the child shall be a Nazarete unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistine.
Before we look at this portion, I'd like to draw to your attention two or three characteristics, and then we'll come back to this particular paragraph in what follows. This is a lengthy portion, and we could not do justice to his whole life. You might like to make a chart sometime on the upper left-hand side of your chart, the paragraph heading, then a second column, the content, and the third column, the opposition, and whether or not he was moved by the Spirit of God, and the lesson to be learned. Six columns across. and then read through his life, and you'll find out that his life very easily breaks into paragraphs, into experiences, obvious relationships, good and bad, and where there is much to glean just from your own experience.
We must have overlooked that in chapter fourteen, verse one, Samuel found the Timnath a city amongst the Philistines, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. He came up and told his father and his mother, and he said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines, Now therefore, get her for me to wife." The end of verse three, get her for me, he reaffirms to his father, for she pleases me well. The lust of the eye. In chapter sixteen in verse one, men went stanza to Giza and saw there a harlot, and went in unto her. The lust of the flesh. And it came to pass afterwards that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorex, whose name was Delilah, the pride of life.
You can see how these threefold enemies, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are illustrated by these three women in this man's life. The first two are passive, object of his attention and interest and his own self-indulgence. The third is an aggressive, satanic attack upon God's servants. because of his own indulgence and his own arrogant pride in his relationship with this woman, the sad pitfall for this man. Lessons to be learned by all of us. These things are not to be relegated merely to the sins of manhood, but they come in similar forms to others as well, meaning to beware of fulfilling the desires of the body and of the mind.
This is truly the lust of the flesh. Now in chapter fifteen, after a great battle, we find the first time that we have a record that Stanton has a personal relationship to God. In chapter fifteen, in verse eighteen, after a tremendous battle where he slew thousands, saw the thirst and he called on the Lord and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. But God crave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Wherefore he called the name thereof, and Hankara, which is in Lehigh, unto this day.
And he judged Israel in those days for the Philippine twenty years. Twenty years were this man's ministration that some way allayed the opportunity for the coming of the king, for the true deliverer. He carried on in some way faithfully. But this is his first experience in a relationship with God. And when he comes to the end of himself and his physical strength, which was his personal strength, he knew it well. He tried it himself in. But when he came to the end of himself after a conflict and in fatigue, he raised his voice and he called upon the Lord.
It's the first record of having any spiritual or social intercourse with God. I wonder how many of us have spent long periods of time seeking to serve the Lord without personal relationship with him. Samson may be at his spiritual height at this little period where he acknowledges his weakness, his utter dependence, and in fatigue and tiredness he calls upon God, and God graciously calls a great spring of water to come up miraculously and to provide refreshment and nourishment. And thus it becomes a significant thought, the place of the core spring.
I trust that you have some time in your life known what it is to come to the end of your own self. And find it necessary physical or emotional or spiritual fatigue, and have learned to kneel down and turn your bedroom or your office or your car or wherever you are into a sanctuary of silent communion with God, and learn that God can refresh you. inner strength welling up within. Even though you're in the desert, you can sing unto the Lord and realize that God wants you to acknowledge your weakness. The moment you and I are weak, then he can become strong. That's a familiar thing.
It's possible that in the end is for us that in his weakness there was strength. That's the first time you go on. The second that is recorded. And the last sign is found at the end of chapter sixteen. He has been blinded. He has been humiliated in shame. Shifts of his dignity and his usefulness to God. He becomes scorned and mockery for the enemy. Verse twenty-eight in Samson called unto the Lord and said, Oh, Lord God, remember me. I prayed and strengthened me, I prayed. Only this once, O God. that I may at once avenge the Philistines for my two eyes. And then he took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood and on which it was borne up, the one with his right hand and the other with his left.
And he said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the Lord and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew with his death were more than they which he slew in his might. After sixteen in verse thirty-one and the very last praise, He judged Israel for twenty years. In the end of the preceding chapter to hear everything that was in the city, he accomplished nothing for God. And God just reminds him that he did judge Israel for twenty years. He died in shame, but his death was a spiritual victory. A practical victory over his enemies. And I think that many of us, in some way, at least have been taught whether we understand it in our personal experience or not, that it is in our death.
death of our old man, and a sense of our having been crucified with Christ, that we ourselves would pass back judicial sentence against ourselves. So that's what crucifixion is. Crucifixion is not synonymous with death. Crucifixion is condemnation that issues in death. Judicial condemnation that issues in death. Our Lord Jesus and two men on either side of them were crucified, but they were quite alive. And the crucifixion never took our Lord's might. He voluntarily, by a sovereign act, dismissed his fury. The crucifixion is a condemning judicial sentence against ourselves.
And it's a great blessing when once at the end of his life he can pass this and say, Lord, let me die. Now he's fulfilled. We should be spiritual. Call him the Lord in our weakness. Find him to be our sustaining strength. and then call on them afresh and say, Lord, let me die. Put an end to God's heart and allow by eternal spirit to create Christ's end and allow him to flow through. But this all comes about in the whole narrative and all the valuable lessons because of a remarkable, divine, appointed call on the heart of God. God intervened in chapter thirteen, and I would like to mention a few very simple words.
practical demonstration to show how this light come in, and it's great and important for you and me. Here is a woman who has never been pregnant. Here is a woman who has never born a child. Here is a man separated from his wife. She remains anonymous. God knows who she is. The head of this household, the knower is maids. I want you to follow their actions and their relationships together. We want to depart from the study of the book Judges as such and gather something very simple, something very pertinent to those of us who are married, those of us who sometimes think that we might like to enter in to this very noble and profitable or sometimes charming human relationship.
The woman came and told her husband, Please remember now, the very unsophisticated life is being lived. It's a very modest, physical form. Here's a woman that's been out in the field somewhere, and a man has come to her and said, you're going to be pregnant. You're going to bear a child, and this is what I want you to do. Rather than keeping this to herself, rather than having apprehension or doubt for questioning, she has a very open relationship with her husband. She has no fear that he is going to hold her upset. What does the husband feel like? She comes back. They have never had a child. This is a logical desire. And then she comes in and says, well, I've been out in the field and I met a man and I'm going to have a baby.
There is much room for suspicion, evil thought, innuendo, doubt in the relationship together. But there is a spiritual health between this man and this woman, a confidence and a mutual trust that commends itself to each of us. A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God. Very terrible. For I asked him not when she was. He had told me he had named his name. But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. And now there is no wine or strong drink, neither any unclean thing, but a child shall be a man right to God from the womb to the day of his death. What was the Noah's answer?
Health? Questioning? Enigma? Accusation? Then the Noah entreated the Lord, and said, Oh, my Lord, let the man of God, which now did send, come again, that I might check on this story? No. And teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. Father, there's a remarkable disposition in this grant. Although his wife has received the divine revelation, although she is to be the vehicle, and she is to be the one blessed, He immediately enters into his responsibility, which is, what shall we do to train the child? Will you cradle that little one in your arm?
Did you carefully raise your heart to God and say, what shall I do to train this child? Or was it possible that you weren't even there? Have you ever assumed responsibility for the raising and the training and the guiding of your children? I have no doubt that at the judgment seat, that I shall be deeply responsible for my family. For the weaknesses, for the frailty, for the ineffectualness, for some of the hurts and wounds, for some of the carelessness, I know that I am responsible for those eternal souls, my wife and my children. And as a judgment scene, I must be answerable for them, as of mine.
None in totality, for their adult lives, But in some measure the word of God makes it abundantly clear. Being a father and a husband is created with deepening responsibilities in a perverted, sinned, cursed, and flesh-entertaining world in which we live. And it means that we must keep official upon ourselves and our loved ones. And his immediate answer is to turn back to God and entreat him, Lord, give us divine instruction. What shall we do to teach this child? And God harkens to the voice of Manoa, and the angel of God came again unto the woman, and she sat in the field.
But Noah her husband was not with her. Now note that carefully. Obviously it is Manoa's wife, who is the vehicle that is fixed for divine revelation. She is the one that God has chosen. She is the one apparently, if we read the story or write, that in some way he said it. Whether for God's choice to fight her own attitude or disposition, she received the instruction. She is the one that is communicated with. It is she that is the object of fellowship and communion with God. And we shall see shortly, she is the one that's divinely instructed, much more with spiritual insight. But nonetheless, there is a remarkable balance in this family youth.
And it is this family that God has chosen to raise up but deliverer for the nation of Israel. Whatever Sampson turns out to be, it's not to be laid upon the shoulders of this man and woman. God has chosen this family, and they shall be the one to bring this shiny one. So that is what Sampson's name means. In faith they say, he will be the shining deliverer for the nation of Israel. The angel comes again to the woman, but the Noah of her husband was not with her. Did God not know that person? But he chose it. that we might learn, and a woman made haste, and ran and showed her husband, and said of him, Behold, a man of appearance, me, come. Now she doesn't sit and get everything that she can, and says to herself, Well, let her know what comes back in the shop today.
I've got something to tell him. That's not the disposition. She's not disclosing in her insights or understanding. She wants to share with him. She recognizes and accepts him her role, and this just immediately doesn't know it. It is very balanced, very mature. There's many a Christian man that resents his lifetime sent in Bible study. He has to spend the time at work. He's out on the road. He comes back. He wants to share something with him. And he chaste a little bit. Oh, you don't do it openly. But it's a little something of an offense to our ego. We feel like we should be the ones that know. Why should she be teaching me? I can't allow her to know that she's instructing me. I will look kind of disinterested. Why? Because if you have some kind of a denier self-protection to reality...
the ego and the lack of humility. But we'll say it's self-protection. And that we just cannot receive from that weaker vessel that which is hers to give to us, where she wants to share, and your very capacity to acknowledge, dear, I never knew that. Oh, thank you for that insight. That will weld your relationship. Instead, you continue to read the paper in apparent disinterest, and you have ruptured a close-up heart. You're breaking the very thing that you want to think. To acknowledge weakness is not to be weak. It is to strengthen your tie with your loved one. To be able to receive from her an illustration that she can give.
She runs hastens to draw him. And Noah arose, hath with his wife, and came to the man and said, Are you the man that spoke to my wife? I am. Now let my words come to bear. How shall we order the child? And how shall we do unto him? You see his concern? He wants his child to be raised from God. Father, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Husbands leading to love, power, wine, acts of vision, and care for the woman in your life, for when Christ may make a vigil for you, self-sacrifice, fortune, and cleansing by the word of God.
That's the meditation that is out in the teaching of God. That's our side of the relationship. changing and cleansing, nourishing, green of life, cherishing, protecting, hovering over your mother and will of kids. That way of succoring and sustaining will cultivate within that mature woman's spirit and soul the willingness to abandon herself to you and to be able to fulfill God's command to her, which is still pretty typical for her. The most typical thing for a woman to do is to submit to you. Because she knows you too well. but she's urged to do it as a civil law. But how much more comfortable and how charmingly delightful it is when she can do it in response to the vigil of love.
It makes no difference what her attitude is to you. It makes absolutely nowhere different whether she receives her love and attentiveness and tears. You have chosen this woman, you have committed yourself to her, and now until the day the Lord breaks that union, you are to love and care and cherish and nourish and give of yourself. And thus be preparing yourself for the noble of the truth, to be an overseer and treat with godly maturity nearer the end of your life, and be a true elder and shepherd God's people. You have learned much to reign in your own family. Now you turn to the sheep, to the family of God. Manoa is glad to see his responsibility.
And of course, now he wants to respond in some way. He wants to come back and give to the man. Let me give you a present. Oh, no, I'm sorry. What's your name anyway? The angel says in verse eighteen, Why ask that thou ask of my name, saying it is wonderful or secret or not to be known? Manoa's such a kid with a meat offering and offered it upon the rock and to the Lord. Relationship with God produces worshipers. Relationship with God produces worship. The desire to give back to God. He ordered it upon a rock unto the Lord, and the angel did wondrously. And Manoa, his wife, looked on. The king's appearance on the flame went up his forehead, and from off the altar the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the order. And Manoa and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to the ground.
But the angel of the Lord did no more appear than Manoa. Then Manoa knew that he was an angel of the Lord. And when old said unto his wife, We shall surely die because we have seen God. But his wife said unto him, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hand. Neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would at the same time have told us such things as these. Spiritual instruction, insight, and did not yield. Thank the Lord if you have a godly spiritual one. And if not, pray and ask the Lord that He might be given grace to be able to continue to minister to her and through the use of the Word of God create a spiritual atmosphere that will give her the desire to be what she should be to you in the spiritual realm as well as the physical.
Jeremiah and Paul both had a deep sense of having been called by God to the service of God before their birth. The apostle said, While I was in my mother's womb, it pleased God to call me to separate me from himself. Jeremiah, I listened to the Lord speak to him in chapter one, giving us an insight in what divine knowledge means. God says, I knew you before you were born, and I ordained you to serve me and go to the meat. and astounding thing is, and here Samson, at any time in his life, could have looked back and surely know that God had singled him out to serve the living arm, and divine and towering was his.
Young fellows and girls, those of you who honestly have some care for things eternal, it is of profound importance that you recognize that somehow in his greatest love God has chosen you to be his own. And he has singled you out and says, Now walk words of that cause, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. All think of the treasured blessing and enrichment that is yours, like great men of old have sinned, like any who has ever found their heart to serve God, a deep, fresh in awareness that God is full, Young fellow, he won't do.
And he'll do what he is able to, proportionate to the degree to which you will surrender to be what he should be. Samson was separated by God, even in his mother's womb. Young girl, what you do today will affect the child if you can't. Science didn't know that surely. But God did. He said it early in holding scriptures in the middle of the Lord. And he reaffirms it here, that what you do with your life and what you're taking to your body will affect that little eternal flame that shall be carried by you and brought into life. The family unit is of tremendous importance. A marital relationship is consummated and brings great pleasure and joy.
And out of it that love comes an eternal vehicle to be set aside for God. And the early you feel that, and since that appointment, Except the great dignity of God's holy call. I argue none with any of your theology. It's just the revelation of God's word. Young, hallowing girl, God has called you for himself. And he has separated you for himself. And I have a deep condition in my soul. Some of you, even now, feel the pressure in your life that God has been speaking to you. You know you have faculties and equipment. You have body, personality, warmth, thought, and spiritual gifts of the Spirit to yield to God. Will you squander it like Samson?
Will you eternally go on with your life just and show me what you want? And he looks and he looks at me. Get up for me. He pleases me. Is that the way you shall wait, surely? No, I think not. You are going to respond to the tender ruling of the Spirit and acknowledge the Spirit a great will of God for you. Good work. God has ordained that he should walk in. Won't you seek them out in Holy Scripture? Won't you respond with your devotion and heart? Won't you be, among those that will deliver God's people from the Philistine, the fourth profession, the rank and hypocrisy of religion around?
If you too will have a sense of separation and identification with the Lord, Samson would not break elementary things. Wine, fruit juice, Satan, grace. He let his hair grow long. There was an external testimony that he was identified with God, separated to God. There will be those that might not want your fellowship. If that's all right, you go on with him, and he'll provide the kind of fellowship and companionship and provision for you. Dear young folks, You sat under the sounds of God's word for a whole week. You have been in the fellowship of God's people and enjoyed it.
Many of you have not really missed the world at all. Some of you have been here for two weeks. You know that you need to go enter into God's core. He has drawn you to himself humbly, simply, Jeremiah would reason with God and said, Oh, I'm a child. I cannot. And God just don't say that. I'll be everything you need. Just yield yourself to me. I had since and only served the Lord. He set it himself. When he called on the Lord, he found refreshment. When he called on the Lord, he ultimately died.
And getting his life, he became a deliverer. But you can start now. and anticipate that your marriage and relationship, if you do have that privilege, and the Lord is allowed, will be one of such warm balance, the acceptance of your partner, the valuing of his and her qualities, that you shall turn out to be a full, mature unit, ready to be blessed of God and used of him. For those of us who are a little older and more mature, never too late, for you or me, and form our lives in submission to what's suggested here and to the Word of God. There's a rightful relationship between the Noah and his wife.
Samson, at every opportunity, I pray that some of these lessons will be waged by the Spirit of God and press upon our conscience in all their supplications and that even now, in each quiet moment, you might resolve to present to yourself, once for all to God, a living sacrifice. After all, it is that intelligent mental sacrifice of worship that he can give to God. And if it's in response to the Word of God, motivated by the Holy Spirit, he shall surely find a good and perfect and accessible will of God.
I want to thank you very much for your warm reception. Allowing me to share God's word with you, and a real pleasure for me to be here. Physical rest and activity, the opportunity to hear God's word ministered so refreshingly in a penetrating and a scholarly way by our brothers and a blessing to my soul. And I trust that you carry home with you much that will change your life, and that together we might serve our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ.