Good morning, everyone. It's
really good to see you. We're going to be looking at
Judges 7, Lord willing. But we'll probably sing before
we do that. I just wanted to say a few things just in general. We're in John 7a. And in John 7a, we have this
incredible picture of an intercession. of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf
of his people. And while we have this picture
in John 17, it's very easy to just look at it in a carnal way
or a worldly way and say that this is necessary. What I pray
that we'll all realise, this is necessary, but it needs to
be a continuous activity of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of
his people. and it needs to be an eternal
activity, which it is, but so often it's very hard for us to
see that, to understand, to believe it, to really believe it. We
just sung a song about our God, and we have an advocate before
the Father, and we know what advocacy is, and we know that
He's a qualified advocate, that it's a finished work that He's
done, and it's an eternal work. And so often we know when we
read about what it is to come into the presence of our Father,
what a blessing and what a bonus it is. And we compare that to
Genesis 3, where we were cast out of His presence, driven out
of His presence. And man's been trying to get
into the presence of God ever since. And they have so many
ways of doing it, but all of it's fleshly religion. But that's not what we're declaring
here in this church, not what we've declared for 20 years.
This is a work that is continuous and eternal, which means that
the job is finished. Those that the Lord is advocating
for have been advocated for and have access into our God's presence,
this great God that we're singing about. And so often we get stifled
by ourselves and the things of the world and the circumstances
of our lives. And they cut us down in faith.
They cause us to turn again in unbelief, to look to our own
wisdom, our own resources, to stand on our own two feet and
to reject God all over again. Please, in your own time, go
back often and read Genesis 3. But in Genesis 3, we, all the
mankind in Adam, rejected God and his grace. We chose the knowledge
of good and evil, our great blueprint for life. We became arrogant. We accused God of being a liar,
of deceiving us and withholding things from us. And we threw his grace in his
face and we were driven out of the garden because at that point,
sin entered every one of us. Sins aren't just what we do. We do sins because it's what
every one of us is. We all fall short of the glory
of our great God. And no matter what it is, even
if it seems like our most moral, most righteous activity of our
lives, we're told in Isaiah 64.6 that that most righteous work
in God's eyes is a filthy rag. We're riddled with sin. We don't
have any hope in ourselves. We've been blinded spiritually. We don't understand the spiritual
realm until God opens the eyes of our understanding. And so
we're deluded in a sense, even from Genesis 3, to think much
more of our abilities and our wisdom and our religion. And we don't think enough about
the magnitude of our enemies. And so when we left the garden
and God drove us out of that garden, There was a number of
things happened there in Genesis 3, and that's why it's good for
you to go and read it, but the first thing that happened was
there was an automatic enmity between us and our God. We'd
rejected Him, we'd accused Him, we'd insulted Him. And as a result of that, there
was an enemy, an enmity. put between us and all spiritual
beings. There's an enmity between us
and each other because we all want to be the king of our own
nest and there can only be one God. There was an enmity in a sense
put between us and all creation. The animals were made to fear
us eventually, but all creation was cursed and frustrated. And God gives us a reason so
that our efforts will be frustrated and it will be hard work by the
sweat of our own brow to get anywhere in life. And I'm not
just talking about into God's presence spiritually. Every single
thing in our lives in some way impairs us. And the reality is, all these things are enemies
to us, and they're far, far greater than what we think. So when we
walk out of Genesis 3, We walked out with our own religion,
carnal religion, fleshly religion, and the religion of men. A religion
that bases rewards on our own wisdom and abilities. And basically
that sums up every religion in the world except one. And it
doesn't really matter what the religion is. You have a look
at them and all of them have a requirement of men and some
sort of reward for me. Now, I've heard of a lot of different
forms of religion, but the most dangerous one, and I would warn
you of, is the one that parades as Christianity. The one that
promises, and she even shows to some degree with the perversion
of the scriptures, that every one of us has some
ability to do something and owe some service to God. Now we do
owe a service to God, but none of us have the ability
to bring that service, any service to God, with the holiness and the righteousness
that our God deserves. And so while religion will promise
promise that our studies and our practices, our learning,
our rehearsing, and all the things that go into us becoming something
for our God, are just vanity, and they're
an offence to our God. See, what we often do is overestimate our abilities, underestimate
our enemies, and we glorify man in the place
of God again and again and again. Now, you'll hear in a religious
world that When man makes a choice in faith
or when man does something to reach out towards God and to
draw near to God, then God will equip him and there'll
be some sort of equipping that he's able to do this and he's
able to do that. Now, again, it's a subtle thing. It is true that God does work
in the hearts and the lives of his people. but he does it in such a way
that his son gets all the glory and his people are humbled before
him. So when we come soon to Judges
7, I just want to tell you it's another good thing for you to
read from Judges from cover to cover. One of the biggest things
that comes from this book of Judges as I read it, and I hope
as you read it, is it's like a pattern. It's a rise and a
fall continuously from one end of the book to the other. And
in that rise and fall, we have a pattern. God establishes his
people and then his people become arrogant and proud and self-confident
and they forget their God. And in a sense, just like Genesis
3, they reject their God all over again. See, we're continuously in the
midst of a civil war within ourselves, and it's something only the Lord's
people know about. When the Spirit takes up residence
in the hearts of His people, our flesh is still at enmity against our
God. You can read about it in Romans
7, you can read about it in Galatians 5, and there is an enmity between
flesh and spirit. And these things war amongst
us, and they war, God tells us, and they frustrate our activities. So any confidence in our own
activities in our own wisdom, in our own flesh, in our own
learning, is detrimental for us. Now the whole world will
see that as ridiculous unless they've met the Lord. And they'll
understand. In judges, there's a rise and
a fall of Israel, and we believers are the true children of Israel. So while we have this history
here played out in the world scene, There's a far greater spiritual
connotation that's going on in our lives. So eventually, in a minute, we're
going to sing and then eventually we'll get to Judges 7. But I
just wanted to just to remind you that we need to be taught
of our God over and over again. Every moment of our lives, we
need to be taught of our God. that we are frail and we are
helpless. And in the things that happen
in our lives that crush us, that catch us off guard, the painful
things, the difficult things, the agonies of this life, all
these things used in the hand of God, even the enemies of this
life, all these things used in the hand of our God are for our
good. See, we have entrance into the
presence of our Father. We have an advocacy that's successful. We have a work that's being completed. There's nothing that the Lord's
people need to do to bring to Him, to do for Him. He creates opportunity in evangelism. He gives the words to the evangelist. He moves the hearts of the people
that believe. He moves the hearts of their
enemies in this life. Continuously, he's ordered all
circumstances that have ever taken place in this world and
he did it all before the foundation of the world. He laid it all
and he set it in place. He doesn't have to watch it and
monitor it and adjust it. It's perfect, and it works perfectly,
and it will work perfectly. But he is present there continuously,
because in every step of the way, his son's glorified, and
his people are saved. We have an incredible gospel
to declare, and it's muddied by the waters of religion so
often, but it is very simple, and it is very plain, and none
of us can save ourselves or others. But what we can do is point to
the one that can save and does save. Anyway, so there is a lesson
for us in Judges 7. We're going to sing number 8. who is Gideon, and I just want
to take a bit of time to, I can't pronounce them, but I can tell
you what they mean. Jerobo-Baal, Baal, Baal, means
contender with Baal, and Baal, while he's a pagan god, the word
means owner or lord, and so he's a representation of Satan, and
every enemy of God and his church. He's also a representation of
that Pharisee that lies in every one of our fleshes, the one that
influences us away from grace. Gideon. Gideon means great warrior. And he's a great picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll see that again in this
passage. So and all the people that were
with him rose up early and pitched beside the well of Harrod. And the well of Harrod means
the well of trembling. And we'll see why soon. So that the host of the Midianites
were on the north side of them by the hill of Moray in the valley. And again, Moray means fruitful,
archer. It can actually mean teacher,
and we'll see a lesson from God here. And the Lord said unto
Gideon, the people that are with thee are too many for me to give
the Midianites into their hands. Strange, isn't it, to say that?
But read on. Lest, make sure you see this,
lest. The children of God are represented
here, all the people of God, unless they vaunt themselves,
puff themselves up, become proud and arrogant, raise themselves
up in self-confidence, in case they vaunt themselves against
me saying, mine own hand hath saved me. And so often that's exactly what
I hear from the professing Christian religious world. I chose, I did,
and God rewarded. That's the religion of man. That's
the religion of our own flesh. This is talking to Israel, God's
people, us. This is what happens in our life,
the life of believers. Not just those sinners out there.
We're all sinners. So this is what God does about
it. He's got a lesson to teach his
people about pride and arrogance and about his grace. Now therefore,
go to proclaim the news of the people, saying, whosoever is
fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Gilead. And there returned of the people
22,000. and there remained 10,000. So
you can see the picture, we had 32,000 and they were trembling
up in verse two. And the Lord in great grace let
those that were afraid and fearful go home first. And we're down
to 10,000 people. And the Lord said unto Gideon,
the people are yet too many. bring them down unto the water,
and I will try them or test them for thee there. And it shall
be that of whom I say unto thee, this shall go with thee, the
same shall go with thee. And of whomsoever I say unto
thee, this shall not go with thee, the same shall not go with
me." So you can see the Lord's already given instructions here,
isn't he? Directions, guiding his people, and it seems crazy. How often does the Lord walk
you to places that seem just crazy, take you through circumstances
that don't make any sense? But whose wisdom are we relying
on? Our God's? We're our own fleshly,
fallen, blind religion. And so the people So he brought
down the people under the water, and the Lord said unto Gideon,
Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog
lappeth, him shall thou set by himself. Likewise, every one
that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And I have seen a little
bit of speculation from the religious world about what this all means.
And I can tell you now that dog can refer to a particular thing,
a number of particular things in the scriptures and on your
knees can certainly pertain to a number of different things
too. But it's not the point, is it? So we won't get waylaid
in this, because that's another enemy if it waylays us from a
lesson from our God. So reading on, and the Lord God
said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that leapt, will I save you
and deliver the Midianites into thine hand and let all the other
people go, every man unto his place. So I want you to just look there
in verse seven. The Lord's made a promise, hasn't
he? He's given his word. He's uttered his word. Okay,
and I want you to see just a great picture of the eternal covenant
as we move through here as well. The Lord's spoken, he's made
a promise. Verse eight, so the people took
victuals in their hand, that's supplies, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel,
every man, unto his tent, and retained those 300 men, and the
host of Midian was beneath him in the valley." Okay, so we've
got our 300 lads, and they've got swords. Interesting way to
approach a war, isn't it? And it came to pass the same
night, and that's significant too. There's gonna be a lot of
significant things in here, and I'm sorry for interjecting, but
straight away, when the Lord moves, the Lord moves, and then
everything moves with Him. He's God. We gotta keep reminding
ourselves, He's God. And it came to pass the same
night that the Lord said unto him, arise, get thee down unto
the host, And watch this, for or because I have. I have delivered it into thine
hand. We're past tense now. Do you see what a picture of the
everlasting covenant that is? God gave his word in verse seven
and already by verse nine, it's a done deal. It's a done deal
because he's God. So God speaks in past tense now. And he says, but if thou fear,
and fear, we can swap out for unbelief any time. I can't blame
him for fearing these guys. You're going to find out why
in a minute. But unbelief lies within each
one of us. And what's God's remedy for it?
If you fear, take Phura, your servant with you. And they went to the outside
of the armed men that were in the house. And the Midianites
and the Amalekites and all the children of the East lay along
the valley like grasshoppers for multitude. It's amazing. There were down to 300 fellows
and they got trumpets. And I'm sure these men are mighty
men trained for war. And in a sense, because God's
sovereign, let's not forget it, these hosts of the Midian work
for him. And they've been raised up and you can see it through
our judges. They're raised up as a weapon in God's hand to
discipline his people. And again, don't forget the great
spiritual picture. Every single thing in this world,
was made an enemy of us because of our pride and our arrogance. So everything's in contention
with us unless our God restrains it and orders it and guides it
and uses it, which is well within his ability, isn't it? So you can see how great they
are. And the camels, they're so great. And the camels are
without number as the sands of the seaside for multitude. A great enemy. And when Gideon was come, oh,
sorry, sorry. Sorry. Back in verse 11, I've
missed this and this is my fault. Okay, God's doing a work here
and he's made a promise again, hasn't he? That something would
happen, that he would go before his servants And he will do something that,
in the circumstances of this world, will somehow encourage
them and strengthen them for battles like this. So sorry about that. And when
Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream.
Now this is random. This is a massive host. They've
come to the edge of the guards. Could be any guards, anywhere
around that massive host. But again, God's siren in this. And when Gideon was come, behold,
there was a man that told a dream under his pillow and said, behold,
I dreamed a dream and lay a cake of barley bread, something insignificant,
tumbled into a tent and smote it that it fell and overturned
it that the tent lay along or was collapsed. Useless. And his fellow, who just happened
to be sitting next to him, answered and said, this is nothing else
save. You listen to the confidence
in this man. He's been convinced in his heart. This is nothing
else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. And look at his reasoning for, Into his hand hath God, past
tense, delivered, medium, and all the hosts, every single enemy,
a multitude, like grasshoppers, a multitude of people that are
trained to fight against the Lord's family, the Lord's people,
the Lord himself. But see, the Lord's gone before
them here, hasn't he? When the Lord moves in every
believer's life, there's particular things he'll do in our lives.
One, he'll reduce our estimates of ourself, just like he reduced
that army. And he'll make us look really
pathetic and really weak and really fragile. And he'll do
it for a purpose. And then what he'll do is he'll
open our eyes more to just how great our enemies are, how prolific
they are in this world and in our lives and in our circumstances. But in the midst of it all, he'll
also show us that he's gone before us in all these things. And he
moves the hearts of men. He moves mountains. He moves
whatever's necessary to bring his people to himself. What a
great blessing it is, in spite of all the opposition we have
in this world. What a great comfort it is when you're down in the
depths of despair over the things that happen in your life, the
difficulties and the trials, the impossibilities. So Gideon's heard this again,
past tense, and he's heard it from his enemies now. And what's
he do? And it was so when Gideon heard
the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof. And
again, I just want to stop and I'm sorry, but circumstances
come to us in this world and we're given some discernment
by the Lord and we observe them and we grapple with them as best
we can. But there's one interpretation
for every single circumstance that happens in this world, and
you've got it in your hands there, many of you. God interprets,
his spirit applies that book to the hearts of his people,
and he interprets the world for us. So when Gideon had heard this
and he was convinced of this by God, look at what the first
thing he does. He deals with God personally,
doesn't he? He worships God. And when he's
worshipped his God, he returns under the host of Israel. And
what's he saying? He says, arise, arise for the
Lord. Past tense, now he's saying it.
The Lord hath delivered into your hands the host of men. How hard would that be to believe?
They're still there. They're a multitude. I've only
got a trumpet and 299 other mates. But God convinced him. So much so that he went and witnessed
to his brothers and sisters. You see, that's what church is
all about. It's not about rallying to get you more moral and you
more socially accepted and you dress better. It's about us coming
in and sharing the grace that we've experienced in our lives,
whether it's in this pulpit or in that seat down there. Turning
to one another and coming back and saying, Our God's amazing. Our God can do it. Our God has done it. Preaching
the everlasting covenant to one another, the security that we
have in the gospel, trusting the gospel ourselves. And he divided the 300 men into
three companies and he put trumpets in each of their hands with empty
pitches and lamps within the pictures. So we have a clay pot
basically with a hole in the top or a hole some way. We put
a light in it. So there's a little glow probably,
but there's a light in it so it's covered. Okay. And he said unto them, look on
me and do like And behold, when I come to the
outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall you
do. Now again, this is a great picture,
isn't it, of how we live in life here as a Christian. And it's
not about taking the law and finding out a way to become better.
It's not about reading the scriptures more and being sharper at being
able to declare a scripture. Our saviour walked this earth
and he had such power that we can't even comprehend. And the world was set against
him. And the only thing he employed
on his own behalf was faith in his father in heaven. He trusted his father, he trusted
his circumstances to his father. He walked by faith in this world. And he was the forerunner of
our faith. And he's the author and he's
the perfecter of our faith. As I do, so shall you do. Notice it's a shall, it's a promise. It's not something we have to
do, it's something he'll do in us. When I blow with a trumpet, I
and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on
every side of all the camp and say, and I'm just going to interrupt
again. We had a pagan that made a declaration
back here in regard to the sword of Gideon. So he gave glory to
men because he doesn't know God. what the Lord's people say there.
This is the sword of the Lord that the Lord has put in the
hand of Gideon. So Gideon and the hundred men
that were with him came out to the outside of the camp, and
again watch this, in the beginning of the middle watch, and they
had but newly set the watch. So again, imagine the scene,
it's midnight. These guys are sleeping on the
ground and they've dumped all their gear. And they're halfway through their
sleep, the majority of the army. There's armed guards that are
around them. They haven't been to sleep yet
and they're just knocked off. So they're in a hurry to go to
sleep. And these other lads, they've had a broken sleep and
they've had to get up. See the wisdom in this? And who gives
that wisdom? God gives wisdom to his people. It's God's timing and it's God's
ways. And it's incredible. And we don't
understand it. We can't manufacture it. But
what an amazing thing that he does it in the hearts of his
people when necessary. So they nearly set the watch,
and what did they do? These guys blew the trumpets.
Imagine the confusion and the chaos. In the dark, they think
everything's all right, nothing's happened. They're just starting
out for their night watch. Trumpets go off, and then the
pictures are broken. And suddenly, from nowhere, there's
lights. And remember all these guys, not just those two that
we saw back there that were talking to each other in the enemy. All
these guys, there was a flavour, an anticipation that God was
going to defeat them by the hand of Gideon here. So God had gone
before them. So this chaos, this confusion
at this perfect time. So they blew the trumpets and
they broke the pitches. And all the other three companies
did the same thing. And they held their lamps in
their left hands and their trumpets in their right hands to blow
with all. And they cried the sword of the
Lord and of Gideon. And they stood. Just take your
time on this next verse. This was a war. This is a battle
that symbolises every single enemy to the Christian life,
just as much as a historic war here. This was a war, and what
did these guys do? They stood, every man in his
place, around about the camp. And what did the host do? These
guys were just standing, blowing trumpets. And the hosts ran. These mighty men of war, they
ran. They cried and they fled. They were in derision. And the 300 blew the trumpets
and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even
throughout all the hosts. Lord did this. It's the Lord's
battle. The Lord does this with every
single enemy in our life, whether it's trying to be a better, more
godly parent, whether it's trying to be more moral and helpful
in society, whether it's trying to be that better evangelist,
whether it's trying to encourage our brothers and sisters more,
whether it's scratching our nose in the morning It's impossible,
but by the grace of God. So we have this incredible picture
where God's gone before them and these men have run in disarray
and then turned each other, their swords into each other. It's
just such a picture of grace. And the men of Israel gathered
themselves, oh sorry, and the host fled to Beshittar in Zareth
and to the border of Ebel Meholah unto Tabath. And the men of Israel
gathered themselves together out of Naphtali and out of Asher
and out of all Manasseh. and pursued after them in Midianites. Do you see a great picture it
is of how we encourage each other with our own testimonies? Like
this happened, and it's a great testimony, but the children of
God get inspired and they come and join the fight. And I don't
know about you, but often I come in here after a big week. And
I would expect you would too. And a week that would draw me
back to trusting in my own wisdom and my own strength, my own righteousness,
my own abilities, a week that would continually whittle me
down, I guess. And the reason I come here is
to be encouraged in the gospel again, to be refreshed, to be
energized, to remember. has won and has been continuously
displayed before our Father in heaven. And we have continuous
favour with the God of this whole world. So one victory inspires more
and more. One testimony inspires others. It's not a small thing to have
the privilege of coming here and encouraging each other in
faith and in the Gospel. What happens next? Gideon sent
messengers. This gets bigger. We send the
Testimony out further. Angus will be going to America
soon. He'll be telling them what the Lord's done amongst us. And
it'll encourage these people, those people. That's how the
gospel works. That's how the Lord uses the
gospel in the hearts and the lives of his people. That's why
it's the power of salvation unto them that believe. The fight's not in our abilities,
it's in regard to our faith. The one big battle, and Paul
mentions it a number of times, the one big fight, the one great
battleground, is the faith of the Lord's people. And all these
enemies have been set against us to crush our faith and turn
us back to unbelief. And they'll do it whether they
send us to a pub for the rest of our life or when they send
us to a pulpit for the rest of our life, lying on behalf of
God. So Gideon sent messengers throughout
all of Mount Ephraim, saying, come down against the Midianites
and take before them the waters unto Beth-baha and Jordan. Then all the men of Ephraim gathered
themselves together. And they continued. They gathered
themselves together and they took the waters, just like they
were asked, all the way to the Jordan. I won't bother saying
that word again. And they took two princes of the Midianites,
and this is really significant. I wanted you to just notice these
two, two representatives of their enemies, Oreb and Zeb. And they slew Areb
on the rock of Areb. And they slew Zir at the winepress
of Zir. Now, they're two symbolic things
used in the scriptures, and we just don't have enough time for
that. But the rock symbolizes Christ, doesn't it? The rock.
The immovable, inflexible rock of our salvation. The great judge
of this world. And the wine press, it depicts
the wrath of that great judge against all that would oppose
him, all that oppose his people. And they pursued Midian, and
look at this, they brought the heads of Arab and Zion to Gideon,
on the other side of the Jordan. Now that's a big picture too
because Jordan represents death so often and our great Gideon
sits at the right hand of God now across the Jordan and he
gives us these victories in our life and we take these heads,
these trophies of our enemies And while in the world's eyes
we look defeated and broken and crippled and languishing, in
faith, we take these trophies and we lay them at the feet of
our Saviour. John 17 is about glory. Who gets the glory? Why they
get the glory? Who they get the glory through?
It's about God being glorified in the salvation of His people,
always. And we give Him the glory, don't
we, in the big things? I scratched my nose this morning,
I didn't think about it, but if I do think about it, He deserves
the glory. When James says, don't do anything
without considering the will of the Lord, he's not talking about lip service.
He's talking about knowing and considering in your own heart
that God is sovereign and every event is ordered in his hands. And the best we can do is fall
at our feet before him, be humbled and depleted and cry out to him
for mercy. And when we cry out, cry out
those promises of a finished work, a sufficient work, a satisfactory,
a perfect, a holy, a work that's been done from eternity. There's just one other picture
I'd like to draw your attention to, and it's back at verse 20. I didn't really say a lot of
it at the time. I just wanted you to follow the
story. But these pictures, these earthen vessels, and the light
that's within them. We're described as earthen vessels
with a treasure in each one of us. And treasure's the gospel. Earth is symbolic of our flesh. It's made up of death and made
up of blood. There's nothing flesh in each
one of us. And we are earthen vessels and we are frail. They're
frail and they're fragile. Have you ever dropped a cut,
a plate? They're frail and they're fragile. And the circumstances of this
world, especially this great mass of enemies, they will crush us again and
again and again. But it's in that crushing that
that light's released. And in the Lord's people, that
lights the gospel. It's Christ in us, our hope of
glory. And while we might not look much
in our own estimations and the world's estimations, it's an incredible declaration
from someone who's so compromised to say, hey, my God's raining
and I'm doing all right, and everything's all right. And to
encourage your brother who's been over next year, it's okay,
brother. Our God is sovereign and he's
done all these things and he breaks us again and again. He breaks us of that pride and
that arrogance just enough to remind us of his light within
us. And of course, there's just one clay pot that matters, really,
and he was broken a long time and the true line of the gospel
was given forth to men. We are proud, I pray, in God's
mercy, he would show us that here, not when we meet him in
eternity, here, and move our hearts as often as necessary
by it, as painful and difficult circumstances as necessary, to
restore us to a union with him, where he gets all the glory and
bestows all the grace. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
in your mercy, I please, I pray that you would just stop us from
getting proud and puffed up for having confidence in anything
of ourselves, our wisdom, our abilities, anything in ourselves. That you really would use the
circumstances of our lives to show us your glory, to reveal
the wonders of your grace in your dear son. And as your spirit
moves across this world, unbridled, powerfully, and in your wisdom,
Heavenly Father, Help us to just trust that, Father,
to fight this fight of faith, to encourage each other in faith,
not works, not activities, not wisdom, in faith. And Lord, if
you're willing, through these circumstances, just amaze us
at just how great your grace is. Father, thank you that this is
the way you work in the hearts and the lives of your people.
Please keep us. I pray for our brothers and sisters
throughout the world, and anyone who's declaring the gospel to
one person or a million, that you cause that to be a faithful
witness, and that you do what you promise. Turn up in that
witness, Heavenly Father. Manifest yourself. And cause
that light to shine again and again and again in this world
until you've found all your lost sheep. I praise you, Heavenly
Father, for this church, and I praise you for our experiences.
I praise you most of all for our great King and Saviour who
ever stands before you on the earth. I do pray in his name
and always for the glory of God.