Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Judges chapter 13 and reading
for our text verse 23. Our text is a response by the
wife of Manoah to what he said, we shall surely die because we
have seen God. Our text is his wife's response. 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 hands, neither would he
have showed us all these things, nor would, as at this time, have
told us such things as these." Judges 13 and verse 23. Very remarkable time in the history
of Israel and for this couple, the appearance of this angel. And we must clearly say that
this angel was none other than our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
in one of his pre-incarnation appearances. And how we know
this? Firstly, we have the very testimony
of Manoah. At first, he did not realise
that this man that had appeared to his wife and then to him was
actually an angel of God. We are very told this, that he
did not know this. And then in verse 21, then Manoah
knew that he was an angel of the Lord. And how did he know?
Because he saw him ascend up in the flame and they saw him
no more, vanished out of their sight." It's very clear from
Manoah that this wasn't just a created angel, but that they
had seen God himself. We think of Jacob when he wrestled
with the angel Penuel. He says, that I've wrestled with
God and my life is preserved. That's why he called it Panyum. And so there was that expectation
that if one was to see God, then that they would die. They couldn't
look upon God and live. But in the face of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lord said, if you have seen me, you have seen my
Father also. I and my Father are one. God manifest in the flesh, Emmanuel,
God with us. And that explains as well why
Manoah and his wife did not die. They were looking upon our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, eternal God, one God, but three
persons. And in due time, when our Lord
came to this earth, he was to take into indissolvable union
with his divine nature, human nature, as much as the overshadowing
of the Holy Spirit imparted and was the means of bringing the
Son of God into this world, truly God, so it was that He was born
of Mary, born of the seed of Adam, seed of Eve, that then
He was truly man as well, of the seed of Abraham. But this is one of those pre-incarnation
times. Very interesting as well that
Manoah asks the angel of the Lord, what is thy name? And the answer was, why askest
thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret, in the margin it
says wonderful, and in the prophecy of Isaiah, wonderful is one of
those names that is ascribed to the coming Lord Jesus Christ. Also throughout the Old Testament,
and this is not the only pre-incarnation appearance. We mentioned with
Jacob, it was so with Abraham when he was told that he should
have a son, and before Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, one
of those three men was the Lord. And we have the appearance to
Gideon as well, that is another appearance. And each one, none
of them were told or given a name. And so when we come to Matthew
chapter one, and we read of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we read this, his name shall be called Jesus. And no more
secret, but a name is given. And we have in Paul's epistle
to the Philippians, that he has been exalted as he was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. God hath highly exalted
him and given him a name which is above every name that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow. So it is the blessing that
Manoah and his wife had of seeing the Lord come in this way and
show himself to them. They'd both seen the same thing.
They'd both heard the same message. They both witnessed the same
things that had been done, and yet they interpreted them in
a different way. And what is upon my spirit this
morning is the providences of God, or those things that God
brings to happen in our lives and in this world, interpreted
rightly. And we have those examples through
the scripture where there has been wrong interpretations, where
there has been a right interpretation. And here is a very clear example
of how one person can view and view it as a mark against them
or that they shall surely die. And the other view it completely
the opposite as a token for good. And his wife had those very clear
reasons as well. And we know this for every blessing
that God gives. He gives a reason for his blessings. When he saves us all from hell,
when he delivers from the wrath to come, it is because Christ
has died in the place of that person. It is because that person
has been given faith. It is because The debt has been
paid by Christ, and so the benefit and blessing is then bestowed
upon those for whom he died. And so it is not just a blind
faith. It's not just a saying, well,
all will be well. Just a fatalistic hoping for
the best. It is based upon the promises
of God. It's based upon the word of God. And Manoah's wife was very good
at this, very clear, she could clearly say, if the Lord were
pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering
and a meat offering at her hands. They'd seen he had received that. She takes that as a token for
good. Neither would he have showed
us all these things, those wonderful visions, those things, and those
things that were going to come to pass, and told us at this
time such things as these. If they were killed, how could
then the child be born? How could it come to pass what
had been told? They must live for the very word
to come to pass. And she could see that, and she
reasons then in a scriptural, a biblical, a right way, with
a right view of what had happened. And so there is a real lesson
for us here. There's another illustration
here as well, and that is one helping another. How often we
find in the Word of God, well, Proverbs says that where there
are two, iron sharpeneth iron, and where there are two lying
together, then they both have heat. The blessings of having
one to walk with and to speak with in this way, And we see
that blessing, and what an encouragement when we do have a husband and
a wife, or two people that are friends, and one is able to allay
the fears of another. One is able to give a reason
why they need not fear. Throughout the Word of God, there's
many fear nots, and the Lord doesn't just say, fear not, and
then just leave it at that. He always again, with the fear
nots, gives a reason. gives a reason why they should
not fear. And so, maybe look at some other
passages, maybe be really clear of this as well, that God is
a God of providence. He is the one that created this
world and made it, and He sustains it. And it is His sovereign will
that is being unfolded among the nations, and with his people. We read in Romans 8, we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them that are called according to his purpose. And we are to
remember this, that God is working out his sovereign purposes. We
do not often understand what he is doing. He says to Peter
and the Apostles, what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt know hereafter. But we have those guidances from
the Word and examples to encourage us to interpret things rightly
and to trust in Him and to wait upon Him. In a beautiful illustration
in Matthew, the Lord says that the very hairs of our head are
all numbered. and that a sparrow can't fall
upon the ground apart from your Heavenly Father. That was made
a real blessing to me years ago, staying at Church Farm, feeling
very low in my soul and walking across the graveyard, looking
down at the ground, feeling that the Lord was far off from me
and I was far off from the Lord. And as I walked along, I came
across a dead sparrow lying on the path. And I stopped and I
looked at that sparrow and I remembered that scripture. And I thought,
well, this sparrow could not have fallen and could not have
died here unless the Lord permitted it. So the Lord is here. And
that really picked me up. It really encouraged me. And
I've never forgotten that time. The Lord can use simple things
to bring scripture to remembrance and to encourage us and to help
us. and to lift up our discouraged
hands and downcast eyes. The Lord will have his people
comforted and strengthened in his hand to believe that he is
in control and he is working out his purposes. So I want to
look then at six ways, six ways in scripture how what we are
going through is to be interpreted. The first I want to refer to
is that in Hebrews 12. And this is a chapter that is
speaking of the Lord's dealings in chastening or correcting his
children. He says that every one of his
children will be chastened. That is a mark of being a child
of God, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth. And as we have said here recently,
that not every trouble, trial that we come across is chastening. Some are that tribulation we
must go through. It's not because of anything
the Lord is correcting us for. Chastening is known when he already
has told us through his word what we should do, what we should
not be doing, and we haven't been listening. And so then he
brings the rod. But here it is set forth as a
blessing. But when we read in verse 11,
now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous,
nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them that are exercised thereby. And what follows is
the effect that should be upon us knowing that. 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. In other words, we
are being encouraged, not discouraged. We're not to look at things that
are happening in our lives, things that we might say, and that,
well, this is coming because I've done some evil, because
I've been walking wrong, because I haven't listened to the Lord,
and therefore these things are coming, and the Lord is going
to crush me and destroy me, and these are coming because I'm
not one of His children, and I don't have hope, I can't have
hope, No, it's not to be interpreted in that way. It's to be interpreted
that the Lord is taking notice to, instead of just destroy,
to mark with a chastening, loving, correcting hand. And the blessing
is upon those that exercise thereby. That is, that meditate upon what
is happening. Think upon their ways. Think
upon the Word. Read the Word of God. and pray
to the Lord, look to the Lord to help them in their trial. And through that trial, it says
here in Hebrews 12, 11, that it is grievous, it isn't a pleasant
path, but if we walk through it in that exercise, prayerful,
careful way, then there will be a blessing at the end of it.
It is an encouragement. And so you look at a thing that's
happening in our lives, a trouble, a trial, a sickness, and we interpret
it according to the scriptures here and know that this is not
a mark against us, but a mark for us, an encouragement for
us. Those that are not the Lord's,
the Lord just leaves them to themselves. He won't ever make
them to tremble and to feel that they have sinned against the
Lord, that his hand is against them. And remember, Satan, when
he suggests things, will always drive us away from God. But the
Holy Spirit of God will always drive us to God. The corrections
of a loving father, in a natural sense, will bring that child
back to the father and increase and strengthen the love. is not
a mark against, it is a mark for. So that is the first, interpreting
by the word and understanding the word of God and the example
here in Hebrews 12 and verse 11. The second way of interpreting
is in the light of the world to come. And I want to refer
to Psalm 73. This is Psalm of Asaph when Asaph
testified that he'd been watching the wicked and the foolish and
he was getting envious of them. He said, I was envious at the
foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. There are no bands
in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble
as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Here's
seeing the ungodly, and they seem to be ones that are prospering
in the world, but God's people are not. They have trials, they
have troubles, and even in their death they are concerned and
they have trouble. Of course, God's people, they
know what is beyond the grave. They know this is the Judgment
Day. They know they are sinners. That's why the martyrs, when
they died in the flames, died for their faith, they often read
Psalm 51, a psalm of repentance after David's adultery and murder. Be merciful unto me, O God. And the testimony and confession
of their sin, because they knew they were sinners. They relied
solely upon the mercy of God, and that the Lord had pardoned
and forgiven their sin." If we're amongst the wicked, we think,
well, we're not sinners. We've got nothing to fear. We've
done a few good works in the world, and well, God must take
us to heaven for them. Surely they have no idea of the
righteousness of God. They desire the Lord to depart
from them here below. and they just enter into death
as if everything is fine and there's no trouble at all. And
this is what Asaph was looking at in his day. He says in verse
13, Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, I've washed my
hands in innocency. All the day long I have been
plagued and chastened every morning. He's looking at the ungodly.
He said, behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world.
They increase in riches. His language, his question is,
how does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most
High? He cannot reconcile what he is
seeing in this life with the Word of God and with God dealing
justly. And then he comes. And he comes further down in
the psalm to verse 17. And he says, until I went into
the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end. Surely thou didst
set them in slippery places, thou castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation,
as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors. And he
pictures what is beyond the grave. He has seen them die with no
bans, no trouble in their death. And when he comes into the house
of God in the sanctuary, when he comes to the word of God,
he has a picture of what is the other side. As they open their
eyes, and then they're filled with terrors. Then they see the
Lord as he really is. Then they realize that they are
sinners. Then they realize it is too late.
They have hell and judgment eternally before them. is set right in
the balances of the sanctuary. And we are to interpret things
in that way. We all see the world, we see
those that desire not the knowledge of the Lord at all, and they're
doing well. They have their thousands, their millions, their cars, their
everything that heart could wish. But in a moment, their life could
be taken from them, and then what will happen with their soul? The Lord told many parables to
that end of those that were rich and those that had all those
goods. But then what would they do in the judgment? What would
they do when they die? Naked, we came into this world. Naked, certainly we shall go
out of it. We cannot bring anything out
of it. And what profit then of all these things? What shall
a man give in exchange for his soul? Our soul is the most valuable. Fear not them which kill the
body, after that there's nothing more they can do. But fear him
who hath power after he hath killed to cast both body and
soul into hell." And so a way of interpreting those things
that we see and may stumble us in the light of the world to
come and seeing it in the house of God. The third way is leading, when
one will lead us away from God and His Word. And this is an
emphasis on the Word itself and the importance of sticking closely
to the Word. It's in Deuteronomy chapter 13.
And from verse 1, the Lord says to his people, If there arise
among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a
sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof
he spake unto thee, now comes the warning, saying,
Let us go after other gods which thou hast not known, and let
us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the
words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord
your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul. So shalt ye walk
after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments,
and obey his voice. And the right interpretation. is this. You can get people that
would say, well, I have said that this will come to pass.
And it does come to pass. And I've said this or that, or
this miracle is done, or this wonder is done. And you might
marvel at these things. They might even be a miracle
that has been done. And the test that God gave to
the children of Israel here Would they listen to one that was showing
them miracles like that but leading away from the Word of God? Or
would they listen to the Word of God and say, I'm not going
to trust in these miracles and these things that you're saying
because they are taking me away from the Word of God? There are
many, even sadly amongst our churches, that will say, the
Lord has shown me this. He's told me this will come to
pass. He's told me that these things
will happen. And he's resulted in an ungodly
walk, a walk that he could prove from the word of God is contrary
to the word of God. Men are just blinded by the fact
that, oh, God's shown this person someone, it must be right. How
dare you speak against it and say it's wrong? Well, we have
no authority to say that, but the Word of God is the authority. If they speak not according to
these things, it is because there is no truth in them. And if it
were so with Israel, in Moses' day in Deuteronomy, so will be
today. There will be those things that
men will say the Lord has done or shown them, and we can prove
from the Word of God that they are not correct and we should
not follow after those people nor believe them when they lead
away from the Lord and away from the Word of God. So interpreting
providence, interpreting things that are said to us that we are
supposed to believe and accept as genuine, the right interpretation,
do they agree with the Word of God? If they do not, then depart
from them. We have clear word in 2 John, the second epistle of John.
If any come unto you not having this doctrine, the doctrine of
our Lord Jesus Christ, truly God, truly man, then receive
him not into your houses, bid him not Godspeed. He that biddeth
him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds. We need a right. interpretation there are many
today that are saying and you go on the internet and you'll
find all sorts of preachers all sorts of ideas and they're all
to be tested by the word of god the devil and he said in the
scriptures goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour
but he also is said to be as an angel of light and that is
where his greatest harm can be when he comes in like an angel
of light. Well, what happened with Manoah
and his wife? They did have an angel come to
them, but it was an angel of the Lord. It did not lead them
away from the Lord. It led them to the Lord. It was
a blessing. And so we are rightly to interpret
those signs and things that people would Try to teach us. Make sure that they agree with
the word of God. The fourth thing I bring before
you is interpreted in God's time. Sometimes we cannot interpret
something rightly until the Lord's time. If we think of the case
of Jacob and Joseph, the time when Joseph was sold into Egypt. Jacob had been deceived by his
sons. They said that, or made out,
that an evil beast had slain Joseph. And then after those
20 years, then the famine is upon the land. And Joseph, unknown
to his brothers or to his father, is in Egypt. And he knew his
brethren, and he was dealing hardly with them. He had given
them the corn that they came for. He put their money back
in their sacks. He kept Simeon locked up in prison. He asked that Benjamin, his brother,
would be sent to him. And Jacob did not want to let
Benjamin go. He says, ye have bereaved me
of my children. Joseph is not, Simeon is not,
and you will take Benjamin also. And he says this, all these things
are against me. Well, when we look at the whole
account, we know that these things were not against Jacob at all. Joseph had been sent before to
preserve life. He was alive. And those things
that were being done were being done by Joseph himself, drawing
his brothers, drawing his brother to him at the same time, bringing
them to remember their sin, remember what they'd done to him, and
bring them to conviction and to humble them. And so, dear
Jacob, He makes, you might say, a premature judgment of the situation. In our text we have Noah, Manoah,
and his wife, and they're making a judgment. His wife is able
to see at this time those signs for good. But dear Jacob, at
this time he cannot see, and he thinks all these things are
against him. The message that we would say,
knowing the end to Jacob, we would say, Jacob, you wait. Don't be so hasty. Don't see
so quick. And that may be the message that
some of you need this morning. The things you're passing through,
the troubles, the sorrows, the afflictions, and you might be
making this assessment like, Jacob, all these things are against
me. Well the message we have for
you is don't be too quick. Wait on the Lord, wait His time,
wait to see what the Lord is doing, look at the outcome. Give
thanks, give blessings for everything, token for good, every help, every
answer to prayer, but as the Lord endured us, judge nothing
before the time. Now the Lord said to his disciples,
your time is always ready, my time is not yet. And so be encouraged to continue
and watch and pray and wait on the Lord until he clearly shows
what he is doing, why he is doing it, and you see the end of the
matter. Better is the end thereof than
the beginning thereof. We think of Joseph, though. What
did Joseph say? What he was going through, he
had had the dreams. We are told that in prison, that
until his time came, the word of the Lord tried him. So even
Joseph, though the Lord was with him, helping him, blessing him,
Why had the butler forgot him? Why was he in prison? Why was
all these things happened against him? But then afterwards, he's
able to say in Genesis 50, the last chapter in Genesis, he says,
as for you, ye thought, this is talking to his brothers, ye
thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. to bring to pass, as it is this
day, to save much people alive. Now, therefore, fear ye not.
I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and
spake kindly unto them. That is the gospel. The gospel
speaks comfort. And through the Lord Jesus Christ,
remember it was Joseph that suffered, whose feet they hurt with fetters,
who is thrown into prison, and into the pit. So our Lord Jesus
Christ, he suffered. He was brought from prison and
from judgment. He was treated in that way, and
he was made a blessing sent before to preserve life. But the message
then, if we're walking through dark paths and we cannot see,
don't try and try to interpret it now. Wait. We sung in our
first hymn, God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain. But
it involves waiting the Lord's time, the same as Jacob, the
same as Joseph had to do. The next way that I would point
you to in rightly interpreting a thing is not in God's time,
but over time. In Psalm 107, 107th Psalm, it's
a very beautiful psalm, but it speaks about many things that
happened to God's people in Providence. They got into one trouble, and
then another trouble, and then another trouble. And some of
those times was because of their foolishness, because of their
rebelling against God, And each time they fell down and there
was none to help. And then they cried unto the
Lord in their trouble, and the Lord delivered them out of their
distresses. And we read again and again,
O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his
wonderful works to the children of men. So he goes right through
this psalm. And at the end we have this verse,
who so is wise and will observe these things even they shall
understand the loving kindness of the Lord. One of the dear
brethren once said, he that will observe providence will never
lack a providence to observe. That is, if we are looking at
life's journey and the things that happen, expecting to see
God's hand in it, to see answers to prayer, to see the timing
of the Lord, you look at the book of Esther, you don't read
the name God there, but right through that book you have the
timing of the Lord, so perfect in everything that happened.
And so with this psalm, You're going over a period of time. Don't let things just pass over
in your life. Look at these things, one after
another. Look at those times you've been
in such trouble and cried to the Lord and he's helped. Then
you get another trouble and you've cried to the Lord and he's helped
you again, and another one. You put all of those together.
A lot of people, they go through life and they don't think about
what is happening. They're not conscious of it.
They don't analyse it at all. They're not mindful. In this
psalm, it's really a recording of it. How would this psalm be
if this was your life or my life? And we were writing down what
troubles we'd been in and how that we'd prayed and the Lord
helped us. And then we got into another
trouble again and we'd prayed and the Lord helped us. Would
we, in observing it, understand the loving kindness of the Lord.
I like this verse because, you know, you get a child and you
give it something nice or sweets or something like that. No, they
don't need to understand. I think that's a loving gift
from a parent. But if a parent was to give them
a smack or to chasten them and it hurt, they wouldn't understand
that as a loving gesture. And yet there's more love in
that than in those gifts that were pleasant. And so it is with
the Lord's dealings with us as well. We're to rightly understand
the loving kindness of the Lord. To not be just left to go our
own way. A child left to itself bringeth
its mother to shame. The last one I bring before you
is that of the light of fulfilled scripture. And in that is the
crucifixion. The dear disciples, like all
of those in Jerusalem and the Roman soldiers, they'd seen the
death and the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. There
were many that were untouched by it. There was the centurion
that, when our Lord died, he said, sure, truly, this was the
Son of God. And then, three days later, we
have the two on the way to Emmaus, and they're walking, and they're
very sad. They said, when this stranger
joined with them, that we trusted it should have been he that should
have redeemed Israel. Beside all these things, this
is the third day since these things happened. They interpreted
what had happened as if all of the Lord's work, His prophecies,
and all He said He was, and all that they trusted He was to do,
had all come to nothing. but they didn't know the scripture.
They didn't recognise that the scriptures had been fulfilled
through their eyes. The Lord Jesus Christ was the
one that joined with them. He said, of fools and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his
glory, beginning at Moses and all the prophets? He expounded
unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they said afterwards, after
he'd revealed himself to them, when he went in to eat with them,
they said, did not our heart burn within us while he talked
with us while away? They could see that all those
scriptures, the sacrifices, the prophecies of a suffering saviour,
The words of Psalm 22, written a thousand years before Christ
died, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, had been fulfilled. They pierced my hands and my
feet, had been fulfilled. In Psalm 129, the plows plowed
upon my back. They whipped him, they scourged
him, it was fulfilled. All of the things that had been
done was fulfilling scripture, and so a right interpretation
of those things. Peter, on the day of Pentecost,
he's charged the people there. He that was delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by
wicked hands crucified and slain. And he brings together God's
purposes, God's foreknowledge, and yet their wickedness in crucifying
the Lord. But how vital that we view things
as fulfilling scripture. Remember what the Lord has said
when they pointed out the stones of the temple, and the Lord said,
you see these stones, not one shall be left one upon another. And they said, what shall the
signs be of thy coming and of the end of the world? They knew
the Lord would come. They knew the Lord would come
and the world would end. What signs? And the Lord gave
signs, some of them, were fulfilled in the 70 A.D. when Jerusalem
was destroyed. Others are for the end of the
world. Signs in the sun and the moon, the sea and the waves roaring,
men's hearts failing them for fear, they're falling away. But before that, he said there
shall be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in diverse places. But fear not, the end is not
yet. And we see all these things coming to pass. And we know that
when the Lord comes, it shall be like the day of Noah. So suddenly
men were buying and selling and marrying and giving in marriage
until the day that Noah entered into the ark. So shall it be
in the day when the Lord comes. Men will be doing the same things.
And those signs in the sun, moon, and stars and all that shall
happen very quickly. And the end of the world shall
come. Men hadn't been making any changes
for their plans, and suddenly the Lord comes. Well, many, it
shall be with us that it shall be the day of our death, but
some it will be, alive when the Lord comes, and the Lord's people
to meet the Lord with Him in the air. But an important principle,
interpret, look at the things that are happening in the world,
and then look at the Word of God. The Lord has foretold these
things. And God's providence is unfolding
that book and making his counsel shine. We should learn from these
things and then be able, when they come to pass, to be able
to give an answer to those that are fearful like Manoah's wife
did. Viewing these same things, 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 her hands,
neither would He have showed us all these things, nor would,
as at this time, have told us such things as these. May this
word be an encouragement, encouragement to seek the Lord, to wait upon
Him, to trust in Him alone, to follow Him fully in all His ways,
to join with His people here below, and to anticipate being
with them in heaven above. He giveth grace and glory. No good thing shall he withhold
from him that walketh uprightly, whose trust alone is in Christ
and his righteousness, his works, his blood, his sacrifice, his
offering, and our trust solely not on what we have done, but
what he has done. and our hope for heaven be based
upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone. May the Lord bless the word and
grant us the comfort that no doubt Manoah received from the
words of his wife. May we receive it from the words
of scripture this morning. Amen.