Thank you, Mike. Christ, there's
real life, real love and real holiness. That's beautiful. If you'll open your Bibles with
me this morning to Hosea, the book of Hosea. Let's start in
chapter one. Whether this story that we're
going to look at today is a picture of Christ and His people or it's
really Hosea and Gomer, they both teach the same story. And
that's what we'd like to look at today is the story of Hosea
and Gomer. Have you ever found in your experience
that you've been brought along a road that you just didn't understand. A series of events that are seemingly
unexplainable. How did I get here? I just don't
understand what the Lord is doing and what his purpose is in causing
me to go through whatever it is I'm going through at this
time. To the old in faith, these may be familiar words. To those
who are new in the faith, soon enough you'll understand. But
I think often, I wish I knew what the Lord's purpose was in
bringing me through whatever it is I'm going through at that
time. But I find it's only when I'm brought low, only when I'm
bent over by the weight of what I'm going through, it's only
then I'm able to look up. It's only then that I remember,
oh yes, this is how the Lord saves. This is how the Lord strengthens
my faith in Him. The heat of the trial is not
worthy to be compared with the gold that remains. We're going
to look at a story this morning, and we're going to follow the
road of someone else. And some of you may find that
you know the road. So I'd like us to look at Hosea
chapter one. Let's read the first two verses
here. The word of the Lord that came
unto Hosea, the son of Berei in the day of Uzziah, Jotham,
Ahaz, and Hezekiah, all kings of Judah, and in the days of
Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel, the beginning of the
word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go,
take thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms, for
the land hath committed great whoredom in departing from the
Lord." Remember before where I said You start thinking about
a road that you didn't expect to go on, that you didn't expect
that you'd ever be in that situation. Now you imagine for a minute
Hosea's situation here. He's a prophet of the Lord. At
this time in his day, as far as we know, he was the only one
speaking for the Lord's name in his day. He feared the Lord. He rebuked Israel for their idolatry
and for their going away from the Lord. And seemingly, at this
time, he was the only one who was speaking. And now, the Lord's
word unto him is, now, I want you to go marry a prostitute.
And you take her children, and with you as well. Now, this just
isn't on the surface. When we look at this, it doesn't
make sense. Now, what we know about her,
we know that she's from a corrupt people. She was not a Jew. She
was outside the Israelites, so she was one of the peoples of
the land, they called them, that they were not to be mingling
with and mixing with. They were idol worshippers. Maybe
they worshipped Baal, maybe they worshipped Molech, we don't know.
But idolatry can come in many forms. It's not just bowing down
to a stump or something you call a god. Idolatry is anything that
we love and esteem more than God. That which exalts the creature. and not the Creator, that which
serves self and not the Savior. It's what you love and what you
esteem greatest in your life. Now the Lord says, I want you
to go marry one of these people. Join her to your house. I want
you to take her home, introduce her to your friends, have children
with her. Hosea must be thinking at this
time, Lord, what are you doing? I've been bringing your word
and now you're telling me to do this? This is embarrassing.
Think about how this looks. This is shameful. It's bewildering. We were always told not to mix
with these people and now you're telling me to take her in. Into
my home. Introduce my friends to her.
We don't know if she was a prostitute yet, but she certainly had grown
up in a culture where this was common. This is what she knew.
It was normal. From a godless and a corrupt
people. All these things just didn't make sense. Yet, Hosea
obeyed. Despite the appearances, despite
what it looked from the outside, Hosea obeyed. He obeyed God because
faith believes God. It doesn't rely just on what's
seen. We can't look and see whether
or not we feel like we can go there before we do it. Faith
believes God and he's following God's word at this time. How
far the hand of Hosea had to reach down and pull this woman
up out of her land and out of her people. This was a step down
for him as a Jew to take this woman from one of the peoples
of the land who was from this corrupt culture and take her
into his house. This was a step down, such a
condescension for him. Why this woman? Why Gomer? Why
not somebody else? Why not somebody I could bring
around that I wouldn't be ashamed of? She wasn't seeking Hosea. She didn't know and she didn't
love God. She probably never even heard
of Jehovah. She was a sinful woman. She had no business being
shown grace from Hosea. Being the deplorable person that
she was and had come from, she should have been passed by. And
such were some of you. How thankful I am for the work
of God the Father in his predestinating love. Because God had from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. Consider this, if God didn't
choose anyone, no one would be chosen. If it were up to Hosea
to choose somebody like Gomer, she never would have been chosen.
The Lord said, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen you. I've
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Jeremiah, before I formed thee in thy belly, I knew thee. The
Father chose a people in Christ. Do you understand this? Not fully. We understand it because the
Word says it. I believe it because the Word says it. But I don't
really understand the concept of how was I in Christ before
the world was. I don't understand that. But
I believe it because the Scripture teaches it. Here's what we do
know and what we can take from this. Only those who are in Christ
Those were the only ones who were chosen before the world
began. How I desire to be one of those people. I was not seeking
God. I did not know God and I did
not need God or love God, but yet was chosen. I know this,
in part, that I am a sinner. I also know that God hates sin
and will have nothing to do with sin. So how can these two things
be? The scripture didn't say it.
couldn't believe it. In Romans 5a it says, But God
commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. He loved me first, before there
was ever any sin. And because he does not change,
he never stopped loving me. Therefore, Christ had to die
for us, to put away our sin. That's the gospel story. Without
the work and thought of choosing of people, all would be lost.
Do you realize that this is the only hope that we have? That
we were chosen in Christ before the world began? It's the only
hope that we have. Election is God's choice. And
this is the first thing that God does for you. But do you
know what the last thing that you'll ever freely know is? Whether
you're one of the elect. We can't use the reasons of saying,
well, I'm elect, therefore I'll believe. Your only evidence of
being elect is that you believe. You don't know that you're elect.
You're going to doubt it all the days of your life at some
point. You may have confidence in it one day, you may not the
next. But thus, you are commanded to believe. And that's the last
thing that we'll ever know, and that'll be on the other side.
Belief is the only evidence. Now, Hosea, I want you to go
take a wife of Hordan's. And children of Hortense, if
you're one of Christ's, this is how he found you. He took
you unto himself and he took the sin, he took the shame, he
took the unrighteousness, he took the guilt. And this picture's
Hosea taking in Gomer and Christ taking in his church. He took
her as a bride. And then what? So he went and
took Gomer, the daughter of Diblam, which conceived and bare him
a son. So we see that he's taken this woman in and she's bore
him a son. But we find in, if you look in
verses eight and nine, let's first start with verse six first.
She conceived again, so after the first child and bare a daughter.
And God said unto him, call her name Loruhamai. for I will have
no more mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly
take them away." In verse 8, now when she had winned Loruhahmi,
she conceived and bare a son. And then said God, call his name
Loabnei, for you are not my people and I will not be your God. So
you can see from the names of these two children and also from
the language, the language in verse 3 says she bore him a son. These other two children were
not same language said. So what we see here is she's
gone back to the way of her people. These are not Hosea's children.
And this picture is what the Lord is telling you. You're going
to take in the children of Boredom into your house and with this
woman. So let's look at chapter two. This is the Lord speaking,
Say unto your brethren, Am I, which means my people, and to
your sisters, Ruhamai, that my margin says that having obtained
mercy, Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife,
neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her
hoardings out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her
breasts, lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that
she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like
a dry land, and slay her with thirst." Gomer got tired of playing
house. Gomer was brought in and She
was brought up out of this land into something that she didn't
know. And she had no idea of any of these things that Hosea
was commanding. She did what came natural to
her. She left her husband and she became a prostitute. And
that's where he's saying, plead for your mother. She's not my
wife. Plead here is not plead in that we're asking for a plea.
It means rebuke. It means the language said that
it is a pulling back by the hair to get somebody's attention and
say, listen to what I'm saying. You plead with her that she is
not my wife. Why? After all this, would she
do this? Why, after the kindness that
Hosea showed her, to now abandon her children, to abandon her
husband, and to become a prostitute? This doesn't make sense. Do you, who have received grace,
and who know it, why then have you sinned against the God who
loved you, who watched you, and who made you whole, who gave
himself for you, and who redeemed you? Why then? We can't look
at what she did any differently. How then could I, having known
my Savior, then sin against him? This is what's going on here.
Hosea took her into his home. He made her part of who he was. And this is my wife. I'm going
to have children with her. This is the same as when the
Lord Jesus Christ has taken us on. And yet we sin against him.
How offensive it is. We don't feel what the offense
of it is. At times we feel some sort of guilt. We experience
some sort of punishment because of it, because of the works of
what we've done. But we don't really see sin for
what it is. But it is an offense to God, an offense punishable
by death. My guess is Hosea was a loving
husband and took her in as his wife. He said, you're going to
be given to only one man and you're going to care for the
needs of your house. You're going to care for these children. And
there were a lot of rules and probably a lot of responsibilities,
a lot of work. Things were hard for Gomer, different
from what she had. And she thought to herself, I
just want to be happy. I'm not happy in this. How much
of our selfishness and corruption is brought out in the pursuit
of happiness? If you're out to be happy, there's
going to be a wake of corruption with it, because it means you're
going to do what you want to do and not what you ought. You
put things aside that you shouldn't. What is pictured here, this is
a picture of her leaving here, is the utterly depraved state
of men. This is our nature. We are in slavery to sin. As
the dog goes back to his vomit, and as the sow, who was washed,
goes back to wallowing in the mire, so the sow is cleaned off,
brought her into the nice house, but yet she goes back to what
she knew. That's what Gomer has done here as well. There's no
amount of rules. There's no amount of system of
checks to keep you from doing something, or even seemingly
happy state. What a wonderful thing for him
to take her out of this land and bring her into his home.
Can ever overrule, no amount could ever overrule our sinful
nature. Just give it time. The law couldn't. The law just exposed it. When
the law was given, this is shackling people with law and works fuels
our sinful nature. It exposes us because we can't
do it. Why? Because it's not what we
want to do. The reason you enjoy sin, the
reason you gravitate to sin and keep falling into sin, so to
speak, is because that's your nature. That's what you do. Otherwise,
no law is needed. If it was, there would be no
need for the law, apart if you always did the law. But the law
is needed to show you that you can't do the law. And the only
reason in my experience I've not fallen into this, and frankly
even worse, is the Lord has restrained me. He's mercifully prevented
me. He's hedged me about. He's kept
me from myself. And when we look at somebody
like this, you see somebody do something, you don't say, well,
what are they doing to make them do that? That's not it. Because
the only reason I'm not exposed like that is that I've just not
been found out. And the Lord's restrained that
from others from knowing the sin that's in my heart. By all
accounts of the law, at this point, what was Gomer? She'd
abandoned her husband. She'd abandoned her children.
She was brought into his home and she committed adultery, became
a prostitute. The law said to her, you're guilty.
What is the penalty for adultery under the law? Stoning to death.
So where do you stand? You that sit out here, where
do you stand before the law of God? Do you have any good works
and have to cancel out the bad ones? James 2.10 says, for whosoever
shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is
guilty of all. So even if you kept the law perfectly
every day of your life, but had one mistake, you've been guilty
of violating the whole law. The good and the bad things,
they don't mean anything. You've broken the law, you're guilty.
I'm sure right now that there's someone sitting in jail who has
never ever been arrested before in their entire life, but committed
one murder, just one, and now they're guilty and they're going
to spend the rest of their life there. That picture is saying
the whole law is before you, but you offended one, you're
still found guilty. Gomer went after her happiness.
How many families, how many lives, how many relationships and businesses
are broken to pieces all in the pursuit of trying to fill the
black hole that's in my corrupt heart? all in the name of happiness? She could see no need for Hosea.
That's why she left. We in our spiritual blindness
see no need for God. And this is the result of the
actions of the Fall. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit,
they died. Their spiritual nature died.
Their bodies were still alive, but their spiritual nature, it
died. and they couldn't see God for
who he was before, and they don't see a need for him. Today, men
even question that he even exists. Does he even exist at all? I
read a lot of science papers, what I do for a living, and many
of them say, well, they found in our brains some amount of
neurons talking that say that's where the God particle is. That's
where God lives. It's in your brain. He's not
real. It's something in our brains
we want to believe. It sounds ridiculous, but we question even
God exists. Let's look in verse five of chapter
two. It says, For their mother hath played the harlot. She that
conceived them hath done shamefully. For she said, I will go after
my lovers to give me my bread and my water and my wool and
my flax and my oil and my drink. Gomer said, I'm going to go after
my lovers. I don't need you, Hosea. You think you provide
for me, I don't need you. I can provide for myself doing
what I do as a prostitute, getting money. And my lovers give me
these things. These things, the bread and the water, these are
to picture provision, things that we need. The new nature
provided by the Holy Spirit. The word is our food. The living
water that will spring up within you. So these are things that
we need. The wool and the flax, those are given to picture a
covering. Covering, being washed in the blood, under the blood.
The flax is another word for linen. They would make linen
in a flax. So it's the fine linen, clean
and white, the righteousness of Christ. So all these things
that we would go to God for, go to Christ for, that he would
provide for, she's saying, I don't need that. I'm going to provide
these things myself. I'll do it my way. So Gomer went
so far contrary to what she was supposed to. She left her family.
She left her husband. She committed adultery. She was
a prostitute. And clearly you can see she was
selfish. She says, no need for Hosea. My lover's given me all
these things that I need. I don't need you. In verse 8,
for she did not know, and this is Hosea saying this, that it
was I that gave her the corn and the wine and the oil. and
multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal."
This is sad, but you look at this. Hosea followed her around
every night, wherever she would end up, and he would leave something
there for her. This gold and the silver and
the water, all these things that she needed, all this time it
was Hosea providing these things. After leaving him for this, he
still did this. Why, Isaiah? Why would you do
this? Even after all, he left you with
the family. Why would you continue to do
these things? The reason is, is because he still loved her. She needed these things to take
care of herself. It was at this time, it was him
providing her needs despite what she had become. You consider
this, that despite the way she had treated him and treated her
family, he still provided for her faithfully. This crushes
me when I consider the Lord's faithfulness, the Lord's provision
in my life, the Lord's love for me. And yet I still have doubt. I still willfully sin against
him. I still am walking away from him many times. How could
I do that when he's done so much for me? He saved my soul. He gave his life for me. But
yet I'd still do that? I have some knowledge of my sin,
some knowledge of my rebellion, some knowledge of my walking
contrary to God, and just as Gomer, we deserve to die for
what we've done. Yet God still loved us. He considered you He considered
what you need. He considered that He cared for
you. He healed you. He gave you strength, all to
sin against Him one more day. Just as Gomer, Hosea provided
what she needed to continue on against Him one more day. And
yet God would sacrifice His Son, His only Son for me, to let Him
endure the sinful world, to be rejected of the very people He
came to save, to be nailed to a pole to bleed out and die.
There's no words for this. Our crimes condemn us unjustly. Yet, He still loved us. He ordered all things, the good
and the bad, to one end for the salvation of the souls for all
those for whom He came to die. How precious we must be in His
sight. for him to do all that and still love us despite how
we have treated him. Well, in verse nine, it says,
therefore, I will return and I'm going to take away the corn
and the time and the season thereof and the wine and recover my wool
and recover my plaques given to cover her nakedness. And now
I will discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers and
none shall deliver her out of my hand. He's saying, I'm going
to take it all away and you're going to be left with no hiding
place. And then you'll see, in verse 11, he says, I will cause
all her mirth, all her joy to cease, her feast days, her new
moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. I will destroy
her vines and her fig trees, where she has said, these are
my rewards that my lovers have given me. And I will make them
a forest and the beasts of the field, she'll eat them. And I
will visit upon her the bays of Balin. when she burned incense
to them, and decked herself with earrings and all her jewels,
and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord. All these things are now against
me, says Gomer. She's got everything turned against
her. Everything she had going for her was all quickly taken
away. She says in verse seven that
I returned to my first husband for it was better with him than
with now. So she's saying now after all these things being
taken away, maybe I better consider going back to him. This is getting
pretty hard. These decisions I've made to
get out and get away from him. This is a little harder than
I thought. It's not working like I thought. But though she found
in her circumstances loss of benefits and seeming punishment
and she lamented over these circumstances. There was no true repentance.
See, loss and punishment never produced true repentance. Why
do we know that? Because she never returned to
Hosea. If she truly repented, she was sorry during the time
there was a form of repentance. These things were taken away.
It was hard. And so she looked back to him and said, oh, you
know, when people get in trouble, they start looking to try to
have some relationship with God. But as soon as the trouble's
gone, Their desire to have that relationship with God is gone
as well. And so this is what has happened here. She never
returned and so there was no true repentance. She endured
many years of a hard life. The years had taken a toll on
Gomer. She was once beautiful. She was
once able to provide for herself because of what she looked like.
But now, weathered and worn, she's all used up. The flower
has faded. And we find that she doesn't
make money for her masters anymore. She's not able to provide for
herself anymore. Nobody wanted her. And so her
masters have said at this point, you know, she's not making us
any money. We might as well just sell her.
Sell her as a slave and get what we can get out of her. I'm not
sure, humanly speaking, there's a lower point that someone can
be at in terms of humanly speaking. Being a slave, you have no rights,
no opinion. No personality anymore. Slaves
are auctioned off naked on a block where you look at them like animals.
When they auction off animals, that's the same way the slaves
were auctioned off. They'd auction off naked so you could see what
you were buying. Make sure that one's not too sick or something's
wrong with this one. Don't you imagine, when she was
standing up on that slave block, that reality set in. I never
pictured myself being here. I never thought it would come
to this. What happens after this? What's going to happen to me
when somebody buys me? Who am I going to go to? Are
they going to be cruel? Are they going to beat me? You
don't know. You're auctioned as a slave.
You have no rights. I imagine as she looked out across that
crowd, she saw an older but familiar face. That was Hosea. and probably
thought to herself, what a wasted, selfish life, all to end up here. I had it good before, now look
at me. Yet, this was all according to
God's plan and to God's purpose. When we see who He is, His glory,
His goodness, His holiness, His perfection, His love to His people,
His faithfulness to us, then, and only then, do we really see
ourselves for what we are. For the first time, Job said,
I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye seeth
and I abhor myself. I hate myself because I've now
seen you. I've seen what I've done and
I see what I am. I see that I'm a sinner and that's
all I can do. I'm ashamed to be even seen by
God. And what's even worse, I'm ashamed
it's been this way all along and I didn't even know it. Isn't
that what our first parents saw in the garden when their eyes
were open? They saw their nakedness. They saw what's been this way
all along. We didn't know it. We cover ourselves. We're shamed. Well, in chapter 3, verse 1,
it says, Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman, beloved
of her friend, yet an adulteress. How, Lord? How can I love this
woman after all this? It's been a long time. Things
have changed, Lord. How can I do this? He says, you
love her according to the love of the Lord toward the children
of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons and wine.
So you see, this is where the love comes from and how it is.
It's because we don't love after the same manner as men. As far
as men and women, we just say, right, this person awful long
time ago. But he says, you love her as unto the love of the Lord,
the way the Lord loves his people. Despite what we've done, despite
all the things that we have against us, yet the Lord still loved
us. And that's what this is picturing here. And verse two, he says,
so I bought her unto me for 15 pieces of silver. That's the
full price for a slave, for an omer of barley and for a half
omer of barley. My friends, if you're one of
the Lord's children, then you too have been bought with a price.
His life. You've been bought from the slavery
of sin to freedom in Christ. You've been bought from death
and now given to life. You've been bought from the law
and be given to grace freely. I imagine at this time after
Hosea bought her that her heart smote her. She was standing on
the brink of slavery, torment, pain, uncertainty, abandonment,
And he said, I'll buy that one. I'll buy her. You don't want
her. She's not worth anything. No, I'll buy her for the full
price. And so did the Lord when he bought
you. Standing before a thrice holy God with a mountain of sins,
condemning and demanding death, he bought me. It was almost over,
but he saved me. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, he loved us. Even when we were dead in
sins, he had quickened us together with Christ. By grace, you are
saved. Hosea watched her. He sought
her out. He gave her provision even when
it was undeserved all those times. And now he's fought her back
and he's going to take her home all because he loved her. If
you ever see the face of the Redeemer, who he is and what
he's done for you, you'll love him. And you'll find true happiness
in his presence. When the Lord is near, when I
feel the presence of the Lord near, I have no wants, I have
no needs. He's all that I need. He's providing
everything I need and I'm content just to be there. There's nothing
to me like hearing the preaching of the gospel. When I hear the
preaching of the gospel in spirit and I can hear it and rejoice
in it, there's no greater thing in this life that we can experience.
What joy, what peace, he found me. I was lost, but now I'm found,
and he's going to take me home one day. Now I ask you this,
name one thing that Gomer did to keep Hosea's love. Name one
thing. There's not anything that she
did to keep his love. And because of that, you and
I need to quit looking at what we're doing and how we feel as
to whether or not God loves us. God's love is found in Christ.
And if I'm united to him, then he loves me too, just like Christ. And when Homer, when Homer, when
Gomer and Hosea got home, you reckon anything was different?
You reckon anything was different after they got home, after he
bought her? You reckon the next morning, I imagine he probably
had breakfast on his table and probably a smile on her face.
I think that she was probably very thankful to be there. And
in verse three, It's what this is picturing. He's saying, thou
shalt abide with me many days, and thou shalt not play the harlot,
and thou shalt not be for another man, and so will I also be for
thee. Now, I know me. If I'm in that
situation, gone through everything Hosea's gone through, To buy
her and bring her home. There's going to be some rules
when we get home. I've done this one time already and we saw how
that went. So now we're going to do things a little different.
There's going to be a lot of hard rules and a lot of things to
keep her in mind so that this doesn't happen again to me. But
yet none are given. No rules are given here. Why
is that? The Lord's work and the Lord's promise is that there
will be no more sin. Sin has been put away. Your sinful
acts and your sinful nature will one day be put away when we're
raised in Christ likeness. It's put away in the new man
and the new nature, but we don't see and perceive it in this life.
One day it will be put away and we'll perceive what it's like
to be without sin. The new nature will cause us
to be faithful as we ought, cause us to have perfect love, cause
us to be righteous as he is righteous. Gomer, the rest of her days was
changed. The things that she desired before,
She didn't desire them anymore. She didn't want them anymore.
The things that she thought would make her happy. She saw that
there's only pain and misery there. They didn't provide her
what she wanted. She had found her happiness. Her happiness
was found in Hosea. Just as we will be with our happiness,
the Lord, our righteousness, there's going to be no rules
and there will be no laws. You know why there will be no
rules and no laws? Because the law is not made for
the righteous man. We are free from it. There are
no rules. If this is what I want to do,
not sin anymore, to be able to worship to him as I ought, to
be able to pray and have my prayer be heard, to have him not look
at me in my sin, that's what I want one day. And that's what's
being pictured here with Golem. And anyone who says that grace
without works, some sort of free grace is a little too free. There's
got to be some rules for us that lead people to sin. Anyone who
ever says that or believes that has never seen Christ and has
never seen his face. My life is not mine anymore.
See, if I'm one of his, I've been bought with a price. And
my desire is to live for him who loved me and who sought me
out, who bought me and is going to take me home one day. Christ
Jesus came to save sinners, and if you're one, you come to him.
He is all you'll ever need. Do you thank Gomer and Ed Hosea
for the rest of her days? I think she did. And you will
need Christ too, only if you've ever seen his face and come to
know what grace really means. I thank God for his grace and
for his love that never changes. Never seen myself as a Gomer
before, but I think after this I do now. All right, I'll let
you go. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we pray to you
in Christ's name. Lord, we ask that you'd cause
each heart gathered here to see themselves as gone. Cause us
to see ourselves as nothing and having no rights or any ability
to come before you, Lord, that we might see your glory in coming
and buying us with your life Lord, cause us to walk in a way
that's honoring unto you. Lord, cause us to believe and
to trust you for all things. Lord, we thank you for allowing
us to worship today. We thank you for this place and
for this congregation. Lord, we pray that you'd bring
back Frank and his family home safely. Lord, we ask that you
give us traveling mercies and bring us again next week if you'd
have us come. Lord, we pray in your own time
that you'd save our children. Lord, we ask that you give us
what we need, not what we want. Lord, cause us to look to the
things that are above and not the things that are here. It's
in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.