They will greatly and dear him
to your heart he was born in the state of Virginia. So he's one of our come home. Virginia and by birth I understand
though that. Norfolk's not really considered
part of Virginia over here in the western part of the state.
But nevertheless, my father was in the Navy, and that's where
I came into this world. And I am so thankful to be here
with you all this weekend. I want to ask you to take your
Bibles and open them with me to the first chapter of Mark.
Mark chapter 1. We saw last night that the conversions that are recorded
for us by the Holy Spirit in Scripture, particularly last
night, the conversion of Levi, the publican, are given to us
as examples, as types of every believer's experience. Nowhere
is that more clear. and applicable than in the cleansing
of the leper in our text tonight. And so our prayer is that the
Lord will give us the grace to see ourselves in this miserable
man. Todd, I love what you said about
mercy, that it's God's response to misery. And if there's any
hope of us experiencing the mercy of God, it will be as we see
ourselves. Apart from the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ as miserable lepers. Let's read together,
beginning at verse 40. And there came a leper to him,
beseeching him. and kneeling down to him, and
saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion,
put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will
be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken,
immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And he straightly charged him
and forthwith sent him away and saith unto him, See thou say
nothing to any man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest
and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded
for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to
publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter insomuch that
Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without
in desert places, and they came to him from every quarter." Now,
when our Lord walked this earth, lepers were a common sight. We live in a fairly sterile environment
when it comes to that sort of thing. The miracles of modern
medicine have kept us not only from the hideous disease of leprosy,
but many of the other things that were common to most folks
and are still common in many places of the world today. Leprosy
is a hideous disease, completely disfiguring what God had made
in his image into a monstrous mass of rotting flesh. The leper was to stand at a distance
from everyone else and cry, unclean, unclean, and surely he was. That we might appreciate, there's
no possible way that we can fully understand the depths of our
sin. And I pray that the Lord will
spare us of revealing that to us who could live with themselves
or face another human if they knew how awful they really were. And yet this leprosy surely is
given to us as a picture of our sin before God. I found in preparation for this
message a physician's description of the symptoms of leprosy. This was a physician of several
hundred years ago, and he says the patient's voice
is hoarse and comes rather through the nose than the mouth. The
blood is full of white, shining bodies like grains of millet,
which upon filtration separate themselves from it. The serum
is scabious and destitute of its natural humidity, insomuch
that salt applied to it does not dissolve. The boils are held
together by little threads of calcium. The face resembles a
half-burnt coal, ulcerous, shining and bloated with frequent hard
knobs, green at the bottom and white at top. The hair is short,
stiff, and brittle, and not to be taken off without removing
some of the rotted flesh. As to the forehead, there are
large wrinkles or furrows running from one temple to the other.
The eyes are red and inflamed and shine like those of a cat. The ears are swollen and red,
even with ulcers toward the bottom and compassed with little glands. The nose is sunken because of
the rotting of the cartilage. The tongue is dry and black,
swollen, ulcerated, divided with furrows and spotted with grains
of white. The skin covered with ulcers
that die and revive on each other. The feeling is so destroyed that
the wrists and the feet or even the large tendons of the body
can be pierced with needles without the patient feeling any pain.
At last, the nose and the fingers and the toes fall off completely. Now, I know that's an awful thing
to have to listen to, but when Matthew gives us a description
of this leper, He tells us that this man was full of leprosy. He was in the latter stages of
leprosy. Turn with me, if you will, to
Psalm 38. Psalm 38. Verse 3, David is describing
the condition of his sin before God. And he says, There is no
soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there
any rest in my bones because of my sin, for mine iniquity
are gone over my head as a heavy burden they go or they are too
heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt
because of my foolishness. I am troubled. I am bowed down
greatly. I go mourning all the day long,
for my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there
is no soundness in my flesh." Daniel, as we've already been
reminded tonight, said, My comeliness when I saw him turned into corruption. Paul said, In my flesh there
is no good thing. And the Scripture declares very
clearly that our righteousness before God is as filthy rags. Now those filthy rags were understood as the rags that the lepers used
to wrap their oozing sores. Leprosy is like sin in that it
destroys the nervous system, leaving the victim without feeling
The Scripture says in Ephesians chapter 4, who being past feeling
have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness. And Paul speaks in 1 Timothy
of having our conscience seared with a hot iron. If you burn
the flesh enough, you'll lose the feeling in that part of your
flesh. And that's the connection that there is between leprosy
and sin. Leprosy lies dormant in the body,
often from birth, inherited. Years can pass before the symptoms
are manifest. David says, I was shapen in iniquity
and in sin did my mother conceive me. The truth is that the sons
and daughters of Adam have been born leprous. We are, the scripture says, by
nature children of wrath, born dead in our trespasses. And in our sins, leprosy is highly
contagious. Highly contagious. We caught it from our parents. We caught it from theirs. We
caught it from theirs. It's been passed down ever since
the fall. Ever since the fall, the disease
of leprosy has been passed on to every generation. of the sons
of Adam. And there's another sense in
which leprosy is contagious. The scripture says evil communications
corrupt good manners. The admonitions that we've already
heard tonight from Colossians chapter three remind us of our
need to avoid the manifestations of leprosy in our own lives and
in the lives of our companions. Leprosy is incurable. You may have noticed in our text
in Mark chapter one, this man who was cured of this disease
and how he seems to have ignored the command of the Lord not to
tell anybody. But can you imagine yourself
to have been diagnosed and have lived in the horrors of this
disease for this long to be in its latter stages and in an instant
to be cured. There was no hope for him apart
from a miracle of God. Nothing that anyone could do
for him. You remember when the king of
Syria sent a letter down to the to the King of Israel about Naaman
the leper, saying that I'm sending Naaman down to you. And the King
of Israel said, Who am I, God? This king is only trying to stir
up trouble. He's trying to cause a quarrel
between his nation and ours by asking me to do something that's
impossible for a man to do. In the end, leprosy is always
fatal. Scripture says that the wages
of sin is death. It's the consequences And as
we turn that around, we see that leprosy or uncleanness before
God is the result of sin. It's the result of sin. Let me
show you that in Proverbs chapter 6. Proverbs chapter 6. Now, we saw this morning that Our Lord won the victory over
sin and Satan for us, and that all sin can be summed up in those
three areas of pleasure, popularity, and power. And yet in the book
of Proverbs, the Lord gives a little bit more of a breakdown of the
things that he hates. Notice in verse sixteen, these
six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination
unto him. A proud look, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth weakened
imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, and a
false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among
his brethren." Now, there are six instances in the Old Testament
where God punished specific sins with leprosy. And you'll be interested to see
that each of these six instances relates to one of these things
that God hates. The first one is found in Isaiah
chapter three. Isaiah chapter three. Do you remember what the first of
the of the things that God hate was? A proud look. You know, that is really the
sin that plagues us all, isn't it? The sin of pride. You know, the best definition
of sin is really a one-word definition, and that one word is the sinner.
It is a one-letter word, and it's the middle letter in the
word sin. It's also the middle letter in
the word pride, isn't it? I mean, that just kind of sums
it up, doesn't it? Paul, I remember when you were
preaching in our church, you said, we got an eye problem. You know,
that's really what it is. Look here in Isaiah chapter three,
beginning of verse sixteen. Moreover, the Lord saith, Because
the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth
necks and wanton eyes. walking and mincing as they go
and making a tinkling with their feet. Therefore, the Lord will
smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of
Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. Because they
walk hearty, haughty, with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes,
A description of pride. God's going to inflict them with
a disease. And this disease, as you read
on, is a clear description of leprosy. Look at verse 24. And
it came to pass that instead of sweet smell, there shall be
stench. And instead of a girdle, a rent. And instead of well-set hair,
baldness. And instead of a stomacher, a
girdle of sackcloth and burning instead of beauty. This is the
result of a proud look. You see, the truth is that we
all are guilty of this sin, aren't we? And as a result, apart from the
healing touch of the Lord Jesus Christ and the imputation of
his righteousness, apart from that high priest declaring us
clean, we've been infected with this disease of leprosy and pronounced
unclean before God. You remember what the second
thing was in Proverbs chapter 6? It was a lying tongue. Look
with me to Numbers chapter 12. Numbers chapter 12, beginning at verse 1. And Miriam and Aaron spake against
Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for
he had married an Ethiopian woman. Aaron and Miriam were jealous
of Moses' wife. And as a result of that, verse
2, they said, the Lord indeed spoken only by
Moses, hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it."
They spoke a lie against God and against his prophet. And
the Scripture goes on to describe to us the encounter that they
had with the Lord and the confirmation that God gave as to Moses being
his prophet. But out of jealousy and resentment,
they began to stir up a lie. And the cloud departed from off
the tabernacle, and behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow. And Aaron looked upon Miriam,
and beheld, she was leprous. Why? As a result of her lying
tongue. You see, the truth is, the Lord
Jesus Christ is the only one whose lips are without guile. All men are liars. God alone
tells. The truth is not what the Scripture
says. Oh, we ought to refrain from
lying. But if the truth be known, every single thing we say is
colored with and tainted with our pride and our flesh and untruths. We won't take the time to look
at each one of these passages, but the third sin that's described
in Proverbs 6 is hands that shed innocent blood. And if you go
back to 1 Kings 2, you'll find that Joab, David's commander,
killed Abner, who was innocent, and God pronounced a curse on
Joab and on his family, and that curse was the curse of leprosy. Hands that shed innocent blood. The Lord Jesus said that if you
have anger in your heart, you're guilty of murder. People
think, well, I've not done that. Oh, in God's sight. You see,
a heart, verse, back to chapter 16 of Proverbs, the fourth thing
was, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations. And the next instance
that we see of God Punishing sin with leprosy is found in
2nd Chronicles chapter 26. Let's go there. We've got a moment.
We'll take our Bibles and turn to 2nd Chronicles. Chapter 26. Verse 16. God had made Uzziah the king of Judah. And Uzziah
became king at a very young age, and God blessed him. And he was
a good king. But his success and God's blessings
went to his head. And the Scripture says in verse
16, But when he was strong His heart was lifted up to his destruction,
for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the
temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense. It was forbidden that anyone
other than the priest make the sacrifice of incense on the altar. God always kept the priestly
function and the kingly function separated in Israel. There's
only one who was qualified to serve as priest and king and
prophet. Verse 17, And Azariah the priest
went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the Lord
that were valiant men. And they withstood Uzziah the
king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn
incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron,
that are consecrated to burn incense, go out of the sanctuary,
for thou hast trespassed, neither shall it be for thine honor from
the Lord God. Then Uzziah was wrought. and
had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and while he was yet
wroth with the priest, fighting with the priest, believing that
he had the right to do this, the leprosy even rose up in his
forehead before the priest and the house of the Lord from beside
the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest
and all the priests looked upon him, and behold, he was leprous
in his forehead. And they thrust him out from
thence, yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had
smitten him, and Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his
death." God punished his attempt to come
into the presence of God apart from the intercession of the
priest with the curse and disease of leprosy. You see, the truth is that all
of us by nature have believed at some point that we could come
before God and make our sacrifices through our own works, through
our own efforts, apart from the intercession of our high priest,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the consequences of that
sin is the horror of leprosy, uncleanness. The fifth one in
Proverbs chapter six, our feet that are swift in running to
mischief. Now, Naaman was the king's right-hand
man in Syria, and he had leprosy. And he came down and found the
prophet of God. You remember the story? Elisha
told him to go down into the River Jordan and bathe seven
times, and he resisted at first, but finally he went, and God
miraculously cured him of his leprosy. What a wonderful story
in 2 Kings chapter 5. The problem was that the Prophet
had a servant. The servant's name was Gazi. Naaman, being a very wealthy
man, made attempts to reward the Prophet for his work. And the Prophet of God refused
it. He said, You keep your things. Keep your gold, keep your cattle,
keep your change of clothes, I have no need for them. Let
God get the honor for what's happened. And he sent Naaman back home
to Syria. As soon as Naaman got out of
sight, Gehazi, the scripture says, went running after him. He went running after him. And
Gehazi said, the prophet Elisha has changed his mind. He's decided
that he wants your things. a name and was glad to give him
to him. As a matter of fact, gave him more than he asked for. Gehazi
took the gold and the change of clothes and all the things
that he received from Naaman and brought them back and hid
them in his house. Went back to the prophet. The
prophet said, where have you been? I haven't been anywhere.
Was not my heart with you when you went chasing after? You went running after. Your
feet were swift to run after mischief, to profit from what
God had done, believing that somehow your gain was godliness. And what happened? God took Naaman's leprosy and
put it on Gehazi. Genesis chapter 12, the last
of the sins that are described as things that God hates in Proverbs
chapter 16 is a lying tongue and sowing discord among brethren. And in Genesis chapter 12, beginning
at verse 14, it came to pass when Abram was come to Egypt,
the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The Egyptians
liked Abraham's wife, Sarah. And the princess, also a pharaoh,
saw her and commended her before Pharaoh. And the woman was taken
into Pharaoh's house and he entreated Abram well for her
sake. And he had sheep and oxen and
asses and men servants and maid servants and she-asses and camels. And the Lord Now, that word,
plague, right there in the scriptures, the same word interpreted in
other places where we've looked as leprosy. He plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues
because of Sarah, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and
said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst
Thou not tell me that she was thy wife. Why sayest thou she
is my sister? What is that a lying tongue? So, I might have taken her to
be my wife. Now, therefore, behold thy wife,
take her, and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men
concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all
that he had. A lying tongue and sowing discord
among brethren. Don't you know? Well, you talk
about wives submitting to the husbands, and husbands loving
the wives, as Christ loved the church. Can you imagine the discord
that took place between Abram and Sarah as a result of that? Abraham tried to save his own
skin by putting Sarah into Pharaoh's harem. And what was the result
of it? Leprosy. In each one of these
cases, we see in the Word of God a picture
of how the Lord has used leprosy to illustrate and describe the
uncleanness that results in our doing those things that God hates. Let's go back to our text in
Mark chapter Because the hope and the good
news is that, though all men are by nature leprous before
God, there's a cure. There's a cure. There's hope
to be made clean. What is the cause of that cure? Well, we find it in verse 41,
and Jesus moved with compassion. The cause of
a leper being made clean is the love of God, in that while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He loves us with an everlasting
love. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, and it is His compassion
toward His people that moves His heart. to heal us of this
horrible disease. He put forth his hand, and he
touched him. We have not a high priest that
cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in
all ways tempted as we are. Yet he was without sin Now, we
read earlier that description of leprosy, and the reason I
read it is because these folks that saw this and that read these
stories, they knew what leprosy was. To get close to a leper
or to touch a leper would have been unheard of. The possibility
of catching that disease was something that you would avoid
at all costs. And yet we see the Lord Jesus
Christ disregarding any concern for that and reaching out his
hand and touching a leper and making him clean. The cause of
our cure is the touch of one who is touched with our infirmities. And he was infected with our
leprosy one time. One time, he took on himself
all the consequences of our sin on Calvary's cross. And he became
a mass of iniquity. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
bore our sins in his body on that tree, became the greatest
sinner that ever lived. So much so that the Father could
not look upon him. rejected of God, despised, forsaken. That's the only time that he
could be touched by leprosy and he knew that. Look back in our text in Mark
chapter two, and Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his
hand and touched him and saith unto him, I will be thou clean. The cause of cure is not only
the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not only the power
that we see in him putting forth his hand and touching lepers,
but it is in his words. It's in His Word. When He speaks,
His Word comes to pass. The Scripture says, God's Word
will not return into Him void. It will accomplish that which
He sends it to do. And that's true of the written
Word, but it's most especially true of the living Word. God
the Father sent His Son, the Word of God, into this world
to accomplish a purpose, and he did not return unto his father
void. He returned unto his father with
the names of those that he successfully redeemed. When he speaks, it happens. What can a leper do? Well, here
again we see in our text What do we find this leper in verse
40, and there came a leper to him, beseeching him and kneeling
down to him and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou can make me
clean. Preacher, you sure I've spent
a lot of time talking about leprosy. Well, my hope and prayer is that
will see ourselves as God sees us, and in doing so, recognize
our need for cleansing. Look with me to the book of Leviticus,
chapter 13. God gives to the children of
Israel the ceremonial and Levitical laws regarding the cleansing
of a leper or the declaration of one who is a leper. What is
required by the law of God when one came before the priest with
evidence of leprosy in his flesh. The priest was to diagnose that
leprosy, according to the word of God, and if he met the qualifications,
he was to declare him unclean and put him out of the camp. But notice there's something
very interesting in what the Lord gave to Israel for diagnosing
leprosy. Verse And the priest shall see him,
and behold, if the rising be white in the skin, and it have
turned the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising,
it is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh. And the priest
shall pronounce him unclean, and shall not shut him up, for
he is unclean." Don't worry about trying to diagnose him. He's
got leprosy. Put him out. Don't shut him up
for seven days to check it again. It's sure he's got leprosy. He's got these spots of white
that we read a description of earlier on his flesh, but he
also has this word raw is the same word translated living flesh
in other places of the scripture. And it means that he's got spots
of leprosy, but between these spots, he's got clean flesh.
He's got living flesh between the spots of leprosy, and God
said, if you see a person looks like that, don't even shut them
up for the seven days to recheck them. They're unclean. Put them
out of the camp. They've got leprosy for sure. Look at verse
12. And if a leprosy break out abroad
in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that
hath the plague, from his head even to his foot, wheresoever
the priest looketh, then the priest shall consider, and behold,
if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce
him clean." that hath the plague, it is all turned white, he is
clean. But when raw flesh appeareth
in him, he shall be unclean." Full of leprosy. Now what the
Scripture says. There is only one priest that
can touch a leper and declare him clean. And the ones that
he declares clean are those who from the top of their heads to
the bottom of their feet, wherever they look, they've got leprosy. There's no clean flesh on them
anywhere. That is a clear description of
a sinner, a biblical sinner, as you can find, as I know You see most folks think they've
got sin when they find spots of leprosy on. And they think
that what they need God for is to is to come patch up those
those little spots those areas those you know I've got some
things that are simple but I've got some things you see the. You see the application. What's
the hope of being cleansed of leprosy? Recognizing your need
as one who is full, full of leprosy. The Lord's never turned a sinner
away. Not one single time. A sinner is a miracle of God.
You see, if you're able to see yourself like this, it's by God's
grace, isn't it? I mean, that's that's as much
a work of the Spirit of God as any part of our salvation for
us to see ourselves like this to believe what God says about
our condition before him that we are leprous from head to toe
and one who sees themselves like that will run to the priest. Begging for mercy to be diagnosed
clean. Isn't that what he does back
in our text in Mark chapter one? There came a leper to him in
verse 40, beseeching him, kneeling down to him, pleading for mercy. In agony, crying out, have mercy
upon me. Worshipping Christ. Bowing before
him. And what did he say? Lord, I
know you want to make me clean, but I'm not sure you can. Lord, I know you wanted to make
me clean all this time, and now I'm going to let you. That's the message that you hear
about that other Jesus. That's being preached out there.
He wants to make you clean. Won't you let him have his way? Sin is an offense to God. You don't punch somebody in the
nose and then when they get up. From the floor, say to them,
I'm going to let you forgive me. How offended would you be if
somebody did that to you? They punched you in the nose,
knocked you down, you got up, and they looked you in the eye
and said, I'm going to let you forgive me for that. That's exactly
what men do with God. Lord, I know you want to forgive
me, I'm going to let you. That's not the way it works.
No, the way it works is what this leper said. I know you can, if you will. If you will. It's just the opposite
of what men think. You see, it's an acknowledgment
of his power. Lord, I know you can. And it's
an acknowledgment of his sovereignty, if you will. Lord, it's up to
you. It's up to you. Lord, you can,
you're the potter. We're the clay. You can make
from the same lump of clay vessels for honor or dishonor according
to your will, and you have the sovereign prerogative to make
that determination. Lord, if you will, I know you
can. Will you have mercy on me? Lord,
I'm a leper. I'm convinced of what you say
about me. I'm unclean. Notice the result of the healing
of leprosy. It was immediate and it was full. Putting away of our sin. Completely. Hid in the depths of the sea,
separated from us as far as the east is from the west, tossed
behind the back of God, remembered no more. Covered by the blood
of Christ. full and complete and immediate
cleansing. And what else do we see as the
result of this cleansing? Well, this poor sinner. This poor sinner was so thrilled.
He was so thrilled to have been made clean. What did he do? There's no indication that he
didn't do what the Lord told him to do. I think he was on
his way to the temple to do what the Lord told him to do. But
on his way, he couldn't keep his mouth shut. I mean, he was
so thankful and so excited about what the Lord had done for him,
he told everybody he saw. Look! Look! Gleam! giving testimony to the grace
of God. He is the. He is the result of
our being cleansed, isn't it? Not only did he give testimony
in thee and then he shed it abroad. He published it and made it a
blaze abroad of the matter in verse 45. But the Lord told him
to go to the temple and to make the sacrifice that Moses required
as a testimony unto them. Now, if you go back to that Levitical
law that we were just looking at. Of the cleansing of the leper. The Lord told the children of
Israel when there was a miracle healing of a leper. That that
leper was to take two birds. And was to take those two birds
to the temple. And the priest. Was to take one
of the birds and kill it. and take the blood of that bird
and put it on, he was to dip into the blood of the one bird,
a piece of cedar, a piece of scarlet thread, and a piece of
hyssop. And all of those things represent
the Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, which is
the means by which leprosy is cured. the scarlet thread of
redemption, the hyssop, which is a picture of the scourging
of our Lord by whose stripes we are healed, and that piece
of wood, picturing the cross of Christ, and that bird being
killed, is the judgment of God against our sin placed on his
Son for our cleansing. But then that blood from that
first bird was to be scattered on the second bird, and the second
bird was to be released. And that's a picture of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ and our freedom in him. And it all
gave testimony to the work of Christ in what he did to make
lepers whole and clean. You see, the truth is, by nature
we are, as the scripture says, full of leprosy before God. But we have a God who's full
of mercy. And we have a God who can make
lepers clean. When they see themselves full
of leprosy, they cry out for mercy. They look in faith to
the Lord Jesus Christ alone, who is the only priest who can
touch them and declare them to be clean. Then they're clean
before God. Let's pray together. Our Father,
we thank you for the stories of redemption that you've
given us in your word. We pray for your Holy Spirit
to make your word come alive. Cause it, Lord, to be effectual
in our hearts. Cause us to see ourselves as
we are outside of Christ. In need of mercy, in need of
cleansing, in need of grace, in need of forgiveness. to be made whole. And then, Lord, that we might
have the faith to look to the Lord Jesus as our high priest,
who took our leprosy on himself, that he might touch us, declare
us clean before you. Thank you, Lord, for the fellowship
that we're about to enjoy together around the food that you've provided. And as we pray for this spiritual
food to strengthen our souls, we pray that you would give the
physical strength that we need from you. We thank you for it
and ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Now we have some refreshments
downstairs. I invite everyone to come and
join us. I would ask, though, that you let our guests go first,
and children let the adults go first, OK? All the adults will
be served first, and our guests, OK? You're dismissed.