Let's turn together to Exodus
chapter 4. We have before us in this passage a display of a very faithful
man who was terribly unbelieving. an unbelieving servant who served
an ever-gracious God. And Moses said unto the Lord,
O my Lord, I am not eloquent. I wonder where he ever got the
idea that God asked him to be. I am not eloquent. neither heretofore
nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of
speech." Apparently he had a problem with stuttering. Slow of speech
and slow of tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who
hath made man's mouth? or Who maketh the dumb or deaf
or the seeing or the blind. Have not I the Lord? Now therefore
go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt
say." Not just put words in your mouth,
give you the ability to speak them. And he said, Oh my Lord,
send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. That
is to say, send anybody but me. Anybody you want to, just not
me. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and
he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can
speak well, and also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee,
and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou
shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth, and I will
be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what
ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman
unto the people, and even he shall be to thee instead of a And thou shalt be to him instead
of God. And thou shalt take this rod
in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs, wonders." When
Moses was a young man, he chomped at the bit to deliver Israel
out of Egyptian bondage. You remember when he was forty
years old. What happened? He slew an Egyptian. You say,
Forty? A young man? In those days, Forty
was a young man. When he was forty years old,
he was chomping at the bit. He wanted so much to deliver
Israel. When he was a young man, he presumed
that God had sent him. He knew God had chosen him. He
presumed God had sent him. He presumed that he was ready.
He presumed that he was able to do the work. He was zealous
and he was bold. But he wound up fleeing from
Pharaoh like a whipped pup with his tail between his legs. You
can read it in Exodus chapter 2. Forty years later, the Lord
appears to Moses in the burning bush. And he said in verse 10
of chapter 3, Come now, therefore, and I will send thee to Pharaoh. that thou mayest bring forth
my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." When that happened,
Moses is now 80 years old, and he had learned a few things. We ought to learn a few things
as our hair gets a little gray and our bodies get a little weaker.
He wasn't so anxious to go now. He wasn't so confident of his
abilities. Moses had now spent 40 years
in the desert learning, learning that he was weaker than water
and more useless than a bucket without a bottom. And Moses said
to God, who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and began to ask
God to excuse him from his work. Now I've said all that to say
this, and you can take it to the bank. Any man who thinks
he is able to speak for God, able to preach the gospel, able
to minister to the needs of God's people, is altogether totally
unfit for the work of the ministry. Any man who is chopping at the
bit to get in the pulpit needs to be kept out. chomping at the
bit to be a preacher. He hasn't been called of God
to be a preacher. Hasn't been gifted of God. He
hasn't been sent of God. Any man who's sent of God has
been taught of God to know something of the immense magnitude of the
work to which God sends him. And it is a burden to his soul.
And he knows something of the indescribable insufficiency he
has in himself to do the work. How can a man presume that he's
capable of speaking as God's ambassador, as God's mouth, if
you will, in God's stead, as the apostle puts it, to the hearts
of men? Does a sinful man dare presume
that he can interpret the Word of God? It doesn't happen here. I'm thankful
it doesn't happen here. But I go to a lot of places to
preach. And I don't preach off the cuff. I don't stand here
and give you what I think the Scriptures say. I just don't
do it. I don't even discuss the Scriptures lightly. I want to
know what God says. But I'll study, prepare, labor,
seek a message from God, and then some yahoo will meet me
at the door and want to argue with what's been said. Receive
nothing. Well, this is what I think. If
they only knew how little I cared what they think. What I think. How dares a man presume that
he can, with his own brilliance, interpret the Word of God? How
dare a man, a mere mortal, think that he can speak in God's stead
and speak to the hearts of eternity-bound men and women? How dares a man
presume that God the Holy Spirit will speak through him? Who is
sufficient for these things? That's the language of a man,
Darwin, who spoke for God. Who is sufficient for these things? And yet, these are the very things
that every man who is sent of God, who is called, gifted, and
sent of God to preach the gospel must do. Moses had to learn. He had to be convinced. As every
prophet, every apostle, every preacher must be convinced, convinced
by God himself, that our sufficiency, our only sufficiency, hear me
children of God, our only sufficiency for anything spiritual, our only
sufficiency is of God. We will understand nothing. We
will do nothing, we will be used for nothing except God be pleased
to give us understanding, to work in us and through us according
to his good pleasure and perform his work using such worthless
things as you just read about back in the office in 1 Corinthians. And the people to whom Moses
was sent had to learn and be convinced that the work of deliverance
is altogether God's work. It doesn't matter who is sent.
It doesn't matter what credentials he has or doesn't have. If Israel
is to be delivered, God must do it. So the Lord performed
three great wonders by Moses. He didn't just perform them before
Moses. He performed three impossible
things by Moses' hand. Isn't that amazing? He taught
him by saying first to him, take the rod that's in your hand and
throw it on the ground. He threw it on the ground and
that rod became a snake and Moses was terrified and fled from it.
And the Lord said, quit running, reach over there and take that
snake by the tail. And took the tail and it became a rod in his
hand again. Vividly portraying to Moses that
the serpent whose head must be crushed, is altogether in the
power of him who is the rod of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. And when his career of infamy
is over, our blessed Savior will cast the serpent headlong into
hell, and he will forever suffer the wrath of God because of the
evil he has performed. And he will also crush the serpent
beneath your heels shortly. The hymn writer said, then the
end beneath his rod, man's last enemy shall fall. Hallelujah,
Christ in God, God in Christ is all in all. God teach us,
God teach us that our Savior has such dominion over the fiend
of hell. that he will turn Satan's power
against himself and destroy him even to the point that he erases
from his creation all the trail of the serpent's slime upon this
earth. When he who came to destroy Satan's
work has destroyed Satan's work. And then the Lord commanded Moses
to put his hand under his coat over his heart. He said, take
it out again. And his hand was leprous as snow. Can you imagine the shock? Put
your hand back over there. Now take it out. And his hand
made completely whole. What an instructive picture.
I'll just remind you what I tried to show you last week. By man
came ruin, and death, and sin portrayed in the leprosy. And
by man shall come redemption, and righteousness, and perfection,
the wholeness of God's people. As in Adam we died, in Christ
we are made alive. What a blessed assurance these
pictures give us. Not only shall the serpent be
defeated and confounded, every trace of evil that's come into
this world since Satan first lifted his heart in pride and
said, I will be God, shall be eradicated from God's creation
by Jesus Christ our Lord. And then God gave Moses a third
sign. He said, take some water out of the Nile and pour it out
on the ground. And it became blood, a sign of judgment. For all who will not believe
the Son of God, all who will not bow to Him who is the rod
of God, the King of glory, who will not trust Him and Him alone
as their righteousness, their redemption, their salvation,
their cleansing, they shall fall forever under the judgment of
God. Now, I want you to see Moses'
response to these wonders. Up to this point, his reluctance
seems to have been at least somewhat commendable. It seems to have
been at least, as far as I can tell, the reluctance of sincere
modesty and humility. But Moses was still reluctant
to do what God commanded him to do. He said, Send anybody
you want to, not me. Imagine that. After all he had
seen and heard and experienced, after all that we have seen in
this third chapter, Moses says, Lord, I'm not going. I'm not going. I can't go. I don't have the ability to do
what you commanded me to do. I can't deliver Israel, I can't
even speak. And we see his reluctance in
the text we read, verses 10 through 17. Hold your Bibles open and
look at it with me. Moses said unto the Lord, O my
Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since Thou hast
spoken unto Thy servant, but I am slow of speech and slow
of tongue. The Lord had told him, I will
be with you. That was the infallible assurance
of success. I will be with you. That means
where I send you, I will open the way for you. What I have
said I will do, I will do. I sent you to deliver my people
and you shall deliver my people. But Moses, believe not. If God
had required an eloquent tongue, an eloquent tongue had been necessary,
the Lord Jehovah said, I am. That in itself is a declaration
of life and everything connected with life. Were eloquence, wisdom,
might, power, energy needed? I am is sufficient to supply. The Lord said unto him, who hath
made man's mouth? Now who maketh the dumb, or deaf,
or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord?" Now I could
pause and spend a good bit of time telling you to pay no attention
to folks who think that God doesn't do such things. The Lord says,
if a man's dumb, I made him dumb. If a man is deaf, I made him
deaf. If a man is eloquent, I made
him eloquent. If a man stutters, I made him
stutter. If a man sees, I made him see. If a man is blind, I made him
blind. God rules all things, the good
and the evil. Profound and adorable, matchless
grace this is. The Lord said, I will be with
thy mouth. I will teach thee what thou shalt
say. That's grace worthy of our God.
There's none like Him. He speaks to Moses when Moses
says, Lord, send anybody you want to, just not me. I would
have been so quickly provoked, wouldn't you? I would have been
so quickly provoked. Man, if my daughter dared, when
she was growing up, to tell me she wasn't going to do something
I told her to do, I don't have any idea what would happen. I
don't have any idea. I wouldn't tolerate it for a
second. Thank God our God is not like we are. But His patience,
His grace, His long-suffering is infinite. Our God in grace
overcomes all difficulties, and His grace proves itself sufficient
for us in all our needs, even when our needs are the direct
result of our own unbelief and sin. That's called grace, free
grace. His grace is steadfast and unrelenting
no matter what toward His people. I, the Lord, ought to silence
forever the reasonings of our carnal heart, shouldn't it? I, the Lord, am with you. I,
the Lord, will be with your mouth. I, the Lord, will teach you what
to say. That ought to be sufficient. But the rebellion and unbelief
of our hearts is such a monstrous thing, like a thousand-headed
snake. Cut it off here and it rises
there a thousand times over again and again to disrupt our peace,
dishonor our Savior, and hinder us in our way. Yet He who is
ever faithful and true is full of grace and ready to help. If the Lord is with us, our very
deficiencies, our very lack, our very infirmities,
our very weaknesses are for him but an opportunity by which he
displays his grace. Tell me, children of God, has
not your life's experience confirmed what I just said to you? He has never dealt with us after
our sins. But rather, in spite of our sins
and overruling our sins, constantly displays the wonders of his grace. Moses' ability or lack of ability,
his eloquence or lack of eloquence, shouldn't have bothered him in
the least. Didn't bother God. I recognize that's pretty easy
for me to say. I never had to go confront the
mightiest king on the earth. Moses is here called to go to
Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and confront him with the word of
God, the king, whom Pharaoh didn't know. He's called to go to Pharaoh. Now, learn this. Like Moses, you and I desperately
need to learn not only to know our weakness, we need to learn
in our weakness to rely upon our God's all-sufficient free
grace. Hold your hands here in Exodus
4 and turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. You're familiar with
the passage, but look at it. Paul has a thorn in the flesh. Folks speculate about it. I don't
know why. When God doesn't tell us something, I don't know why
we have to pry into that and ignore what he does say. People fall
all over the top of themselves trying to figure out what Paul's
thorn in the flesh is and forget about God's all-sufficient grace.
I'm interested in the grace. Paul says, for this thorn in
the flesh, verse 8, I besought the Lord three times. I begged
God three times that it might depart from me. And God said,
live with it. Live with it. Learn to live with
it. Whatever it is, learn to live
with it. He said to me, my grace is sufficient
for thee." Oh, now I can live with it. For my strength is made perfect. Obviously the word means his
strength is manifestly made perfect in weakness. Paul says, most
gladly therefore will I rather glory in that very thing which
I ask God to take away from me. my infirmities, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distress for Christ's sake. Now watch this. For when I am
weak, then am I strong. It is only When we are brought
to know and acknowledge our weakness, our infirmity, our frailty, our
nothingness, our insufficiency, that the power of Christ and
His all-sufficient grace rests upon us and gives us grace. The moment we begin to think
we're able, hear me, every child of God,
hear me, My brothers and sisters in this assembly, the moment
you, any of you, the moment I, the moment we together begin
to imagine that we're able to do anything, that we're strong, that we know we're in trouble. We're in trouble. Now, back here in Exodus chapter
4. The knowledge of all the Lord
had revealed to Moses by his word, by the revelation of Christ,
by the wonders he performed, by all that he had experienced,
should have made Moses confident, should have enabled him to overcome
his unbelief. Still, rather than upbraiding
him, The Lord said, I will be your mouth. Moses said, I can't
talk. God said, I'll speak for you.
I'm not an eloquent man. God said, I'll be your mouth.
I'll teach you what to say. In the hour when men call you
into judgment, he told his disciples, I'll give you the words to speak.
You don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry
about that. You don't have to concern yourself with that. The
tongue of stammerers, he says, shall be ready to speak plainly. He told Jeremiah, he said, don't
be afraid. You can't speak, don't be afraid
of that. Don't let that bother you. I'll sit you. He who made man's mouth could
fill it with the most commanding eloquence you can imagine. if
that were needed. But our poor, unbelieving hearts place far greater significance
and far greater confidence and far greater importance to something
we can see or produce in ourselves than to God's word of grace. God forgive me, but that's just
fact. We place more confidence, as
Moses here demonstrates, in an eloquent tongue than in God who
made the tongue. We want learned, well-educated,
highly respected preachers. We want men who are able to preach
with reason and logic and argument, who can present the gospel in
an intellectual way that's irrefutable so that men can't deny what's
been said. They can't gainsay the preacher's
logic and his eloquence. Several years ago, there was
a church down in Alabama that was interested in They were coming
down as pastors. Brother Mahan had recommended
me, and they called him up and asked him, said, well, where
did Brother Fortner go to school? And they called Brother Henry
on one of his better days. He said, I don't know. I think he
went to one of those reformed schools down in North Carolina. Not reformed,
reformed. He was saying, what a contemptible
thing to ask. What a contemptible thing. As
if somehow by learning. by brilliance, by training, men
can be taught to be the servants of God. The one man who had such abilities,
the one man in the New Testament, and just one. There was just
one. Just one man in the whole New Testament. Moses was such
a man in the Old Testament. Moses was a brilliant man, educated
in all the finest schools of Egypt. He was Pharaoh's son.
But there was one man in the New Testament who had the ability
to use such reason and logic and precision, and that man was
the Apostle Paul. I don't know how on earth Brother
Darwin knew what I'd be preaching on, but I want you to turn to
1 Corinthians 1. He read this back in the office a little bit
ago. And what Rex read here just a few minutes ago is much in
the same line. 1 Corinthians 1. Paul said, I
determine. I determined, I have made this
a purpose of life in preaching. I determined not to come to you
with wisdom of words, with the power of logic, with fine reasoning,
lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect. You mean we make it of none effect
by such things? No, I don't mean that. God means that. That's
exactly what 1 Corinthians 1 is all about. That's exactly what
it's about. There's no question some men are more learned and
more gifted than others. Some have greater speaking abilities. Some have greater reasoning abilities.
Some are more highly educated. But those things are utterly
insignificant when God's pleased to use a man. Completely so. The men that God had been pleased
so greatly to use throughout history, for the most part, have
been the simplest of men. The simplest of men. Men who appeared to be utterly
useless for anything connected with leading men or speaking
to men. You see, the gospel of God's
grace, the gospel itself is its own power. It doesn't need any
help. We just preach it. The gospel is its own eloquence. We attempt to adorn the gospel,
we take away its adornment. It is its own adornment. Look
here in 1 Corinthians 1, 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel. Now watch this. Not with wisdom
of words, What's he saying? Stand up and talk to me ignorantly?
No. He says, I'm not using human learning and human reason and
human argument to get you to profess faith in Christ. How
come? Lest the cross of Christ should
be made of none effect. Now watch this. For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto
us that are saved is the power of God. For it is written, I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent." Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? You see what he's
talking about? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world,
and yet we at least seek to somehow make it spiritual? Verse 21.
For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God. It pleased God, now underscore
the words and forget what you've heard folks say about it. It
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. Folks all the time
say that's not talking about foolish preaching, that's exactly
what it's talking about. Foolish in the eyes of men. You
mean you expect people To believe the gospel, just because you
stand up and preach it, you don't give them a chance to ask questions
and debate and argue. You don't offer them something
to consider. Pretty please may be accepted if they're brilliant
enough to do so. You expect people to believe
just because you announce good news? I dead sure do. How do you persuade them? By
declaring truth, that's all. By the foolishness of preaching.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. The Jews require a sign. They
want to see you do something. The Greeks seek after wisdom.
They want to hear your reasoning. But we announce Christ, we proclaim
Christ, we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews a stumbling block,
to the Greeks foolishness, that's alright. But to them which are
called, them which are the called of Jesus Christ, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because
the foolishness of God is wiser than men. The weakness of God
is stronger than men. Now, look at the next line. For
you see your calling brethren, Peter, Paul, Apollos, you see
your calling brethren, not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world, to confound the wise. God hath
chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things
which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and things
which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not,
to bring to nothing the things that That's just what you might expect
from God. Just what you might expect from
God. To use nothing to bring to nothing folks who think they're
something. That no flesh should glory in
His presence. I can't skip the next line. That's
the best part of it. But of Him are you in Christ
Jesus. who of God, not by the preacher, but of God, not by
eloquence, but of God, is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. But don't stop.
The chapter really ought to continue. Paul's still talking about the
same thing. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not
with the excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you
the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And
I was with you in weakness, and fear, and much trembling, not
afraid of you in weakness, fear, and much trembling, because I
have got to speak for God to you. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom. but in demonstration
of the spirit and the power. For why on earth would a man
who was trained at the feet of Gamaliel A man who was well trained
in logic, in rhetoric, in speech. A man who was well trained in
argument. A man who trained as highly as
any man in his age. Why would he make it a determined
effort to speak to men as though he were a farmer? Why? That your
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power
of God. If we could get a handle on that,
it'd sure stop a lot of arguing. You'd quit trying to convince
everybody you'd meet to believe in election. You'd quit trying
to convince everybody you'd meet to believe in God's sovereignty.
You'd just simply declare God's free grace in Christ and leave
it to God to do what He will. Because if you can convince somebody
to believe something, I guarantee you there's a smarter Joe than
you out there who can unconvince them. Well, what do we do? Preach Christ to men. The simpler, the better. Preach
Christ to men. Now, look at verses 13 and 14
back in Exodus 4. Moses said, O Lord, send somebody
other than me, verse 14. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Moses. You see, Moses, he did become
the meekest of men. But what he has said here was
not an expression of meekness and humility. Let us ever seek
grace to be clothed with humility. But that cannot be called humility
that refuses to obey God's will, walk in the path God's hand marks
out for us, and obey God's command. That's not humility. But I feel
that's not humility. But I think that's not humility.
It's pride. It's pride. Moses' problem was
fear. And fear is never identified
with true humility, only the pretense of humility, the hiding
of pride. The fact that Moses provoked
God to anger by what he said to him makes those things clear.
Unbelief is never Humility. Never. God says, I'm going to
send you to Pharaoh, and I'm going to tell you what to say,
and I'm going to give you power and grace and wisdom to say it,
and you're going to bring my people out. I'll be with you.
And Moses said, I'm not going. I can't do that. That's not humility. That's pride. It's called what
John says, making God a liar. God promises salvation to every
sinner who believes and we refuse to believe God's testimony. That's
making God a liar. God declares His unconditional
free love to our souls and we question whether His love is
genuine or not. It's making God a liar. God Almighty
bids us cast all our care on Him because He cares for us and
we insist on carrying our care ourselves. It is unbelief and
pride. It is making God a liar. So well,
Pastor, but what about our worrying and our natural constitution? Our worrying and natural constitution
is pride and unbelief. That's the problem with us. Our
problem is not that there's something mentally unbalanced. Well, I
won't say that. We've got a lot of imbalance.
That's not the problem. The problem's in here. It's in
here. It's in our hearts, called unbelief. You see, our acceptance with
our God and our being used of God does not in any way depend upon
anything lacking in us or anything found in us. It's all together
in His Son. Can you grasp that? He loves
you in Christ because of Christ, for Christ's sake. Took everything you deserve. Swallowed it up. For this very
reason. To give you everything he deserves.
Without qualification. Ever. Are you sure that's what
this is talking about? Oh yeah. Thank God Moses' story
doesn't end here. With the Lord's anger being kindled
against him. But in the rest of the passage,
verses 14 through 17, we see the Lord God gracious
still. Instead of being the singular
voice that God used to speak to Israel, instead of being the
singular instrument of their deliverance, Moses got the privilege
of having Aaron's help. Now I hope you heard quotation
marks around the word privilege. Aaron became his helper. Aaron
who led Israel to mock Moses because he married an Ethiopian.
Aaron became his helper. Aaron who led Israel in the worship
of a golden calf and caught it keeping a feast to the Lord while
Moses is on the mount with God. He got the benefit of having
Aaron to be his helper. The fact is, Moses lost much. This highly honored servant of
God, this man described by Paul in Hebrews 3 as one who was faithful
in all his house, like you and me, was a sinner still. And his
unbelief is set before us as a glaring warning. Don't follow
this man. O Spirit of God, teach me to
believe God. To believe God. To believe God. Moses lost the dignity of being
God's singular voice to his people in his generation because he
didn't believe God. Moses lost the dignity, the honor
of being an instrument, the singular instrument by whom God brought
Israel out of Egypt because he didn't believe God. And yet, the Lord was gracious
to him still. I won't read those verses again, but when I read verses 14 through
17, this is what comes to my mind. Moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. That's what Moses does, just
makes the offense abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound, that as sin had reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord." Aaron was in many ways a great trouble
to Moses, but there's a greater picture than that. God said,
all right, Moses. This is what I'll do for your
unbelief. I'll give you Aaron, your near
kinsman. I'll give you Christ, your near
kinsman, your brother, and he will come to meet you with gladness. I'll give you Aaron, to be your
high priest, to be to you instead of a mouth. I'll give you Christ
to represent and speak for you before me. I'll give you Aaron
to make atonement for your sin. I'll give you Christ to make
atonement for your sin. I'll give you Aaron to be your
mediator. I'll give you Christ to be your
mediator. Moses, you put words in Aaron's mouth,
and I'll put words in Aaron's mouth. And he commanded Moses
to put words of law in Aaron's mouth, but that's not all. If
you read in Numbers chapter 6, you'll see that he commanded
Moses to put words of grace in Aaron's mouth. Words of grace
based upon the atonement that Aaron made every year on the
day of Passover. The Lord be with you. The Lord
make His face to shine upon you. The Lord give you peace. The
Lord bless you. And he put words in our Savior's
mouth. Words of law to be fulfilled
by Him. And grace is poured into thy
lips. Words of grace. All grace. Pure, free, unqualified, unconditional,
unrelenting grace where sin abounded. Grace, thank God. does much more abound. Amen. Let's pray together. Oh God, our Savior, thank you
for your boundless free grace. ever make us aware of our sin. Bend our hearts, bend our wills,
bend our souls, our Savior, low at the feet pierced for us before your throne of grace that
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in every time of
need. Our brother has prayed, as we
often do, that you'll be pleased to use us. Oh God, in our day, Make us useful. To whatever end honors you, make
us useful. Make us instruments of good in
our own houses and to our own households. And make us instruments
of good to our enemies and in their households for the glory
of your Son. We bring our brother Josh to
you. Thank you for his willingness
to serve his nation. The multitudes that you set in
harm's way to defend us, let us never take it for granted.
Thank you for them. And we commit our brother, your
son, to your care. Oh, may the angel of the Lord
encamp round about him. Keep him and keep his heart. For Christ's sake I pray. Amen. God bless you. You're dismissed.