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Bro. Bill Nichols
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is likened to a man, beholding his natural face in a glass.
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what matter of man he was.
But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we bring thanks to you this morning for giving us your
Son, the way, the only way that we may come into your presence.
Thank you for giving us the time, this time, and with it, one more opportunity to study your word.
Thank you for giving us this place, a place of worship, a place of study, safety, and a place of study.
Thank you for giving us the technology to reach out and to bring together a body of believers.
And thank you for the assembly of believers gathered together here and online to worship, to worship you and your
Son, Jesus Christ. Take this message and mold it and make it say to each member of this assembly just exactly what you want them to hear.
And take this assembly and mold each of us into the person you want us to become.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen. Okay.
So I'm going to back up just a couple of verses in chapter 1 and pick it up at verse 16.
Chapter 1, verse 16. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Every good gift and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the
Father of lights, with whom is no variability, neither shadow of turning.
Of his own will he begat us with the word of the truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Now Charles Spurgeon had this to say about that passage. The first thing then is to receive.
The word receive is a very instructive gospel word. It is the door through which
God's grace enters to us. We're not saved by working, but by receiving.
Not by what we give to God, but what God gives to us and what we receive from him.
So what does God give us? He gives us faith.
Is that what I heard? I said grace. You said grace? Okay, you're far back there and I didn't quite get that.
That's what I said at first and then I said, okay, but that's not the end of it. What else does he give us? He gives us faith and then one other thing.
A problem for each one of us, the most important thing that he gives us. His salvation.
Salvation. He gives us salvation. He gives us salvation. And how does he give us that salvation? By his grace.
Not because we deserve it. Not because we earn it. But because in his own good time, he chose to give us this blessing.
Okay, now for verse 19 where we left off last time. Now, I'm going to read it and then comment on it.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
Okay, having been saved by the grace of God, believers should be swift to hear and then swift to respond positively to the
Scripture and swift to pursue every opportunity to know
God's Word and his will better. So what are we to do? We've been saved and now we're not been saved because of something we did, but because we've been saved, now there's something that we should do.
And what is it that we should do? We should be swift to hear the message. We should be swift to respond positively to the
Scripture. And we should be swift to pursue every opportunity to know
God's Word and his will better. That's what our duty is now. Well, we have other duties too, but that's the most important duty that we have.
King David in Psalms 119 verse 11 said this,
Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. So what's he telling us?
He's telling us that he has the word stored in his heart. He was swift to hear and he is swift to pursue opportunity and understand that it is the word of God embedded in his heart that makes him able to avoid temptations to sin.
Paul, when he was advising Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 verse 15 said this,
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Rightly dividing the word of truth. I'm having trouble with word and world, aren't
I? So what's he saying? Study to show thyself approved unto
God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now, in keeping with swift to hear, I went to Ezekiel chapter 3 verse 17, and I'm going to be in Ezekiel 3 for just a few minutes.
So you can go there if you want to. I don't know what I said. Did I say Ezekiel 3 verse 17?
You said Ezekiel 3. Ezekiel 3 and I'll pick up at verse 17. Son of man,
I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Now I've got a question.
The son of man is referring to Ezekiel. Did Ezekiel have anything to do with the fact that he was watchman over the house of Israel?
Did he have any input? Did Ezekiel have any input to his being a watchman over the house of Israel or was he a watchman over the house of Israel because God made him the watchman over the house of Israel?
Because God made him the watchman. And so he says to his watchman, I've made you the watchman.
Therefore, hear the word at my mouth. He is going to give Ezekiel information.
And he is going to in turn pass that to the house of Israel and give them warning from me.
So I'm going to give you information and you are going to be my mouthpiece and give it to the people that I have set you in charge of.
Now there's one thing that we need to be careful about when we are made to be a watchman.
I say careful. I'm not sure that's the right word. But it's something we should be aware of.
If you are ever in a position of mentoring anyone or of teaching anyone or preaching as Brother Ben is going to do this morning, there's something that you've got to keep in mind.
You need to be aware of the responsibility of becoming a preacher or a teacher and not take the task too lightly.
You don't just say, oh, yes, I'll do it and do it. You better count the cost because there will be costs associated with them.
And one of the things is at the hands of Satan. If you show any interest in being a spokesperson for God, Satan is going to sit on your shoulder and tell you that you're making a mistake and tell you all kinds of reasons not to do it.
But there is something you need to be concerned about with the Lord too. I skipped all the way to the end of Ezekiel, to Ezekiel 33.
I said three, but I was in three. Now I'm all the way at the end at 33, 33 six.
Now, again, he's talking about the watchman. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, now what happens here?
If the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, the people will not be warned and therefore bad things will happen to the people.
But there will also be bad things that will happen to the watchman, not because God made a mistake and appointed him the watchman, but because,
I guess you'll let him in. Somebody's banging at the door. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, the people and the people be not warned.
If the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity.
So he is taken just like he was, taken away in his iniquity.
But his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. Now, why is he requiring the blood at the watchman's hand?
It was the person that is in iniquity. Why the watchman?
Why is the watchman punished? Not because the man stayed in his iniquity, but because the watchman didn't warn him.
If the watchman failed to warn him, I will require his blood at the watchman's hand.
So thou, son of man, I have set thee a watchman under the house of Israel.
Therefore, thou shall hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. So coming with a position of mentoring or teaching or preaching comes the instruction that you need to listen to the word of God and give the word that God gives you to the people and do not fail to warn them.
Because if you fail to warn them of the incoming dangers, they will be held in their sin and they will be punished for them.
But you also will bear responsibility, not for the fact that they remain there, but for the fact that you did not warn them.
So that's something you've got to keep in mind. And then you need to especially keep that in mind.
And I'm going back now to 2 Timothy, verse three, and this chapter three, verse one, 2
Timothy chapter three, verse one. This know also that in the last days, perilous times shall come.
I think we're all kind of in agreement that if we're not in the last times right now, we're really close to them.
And I'm going to read a list of things and you're going to see them and you're going to say, yes, yes, yes, yes.
This is happening now. Some more than others. For men shall become lovers of their own selves.
I don't want a God, I want to be God. Covetousness, covetous.
They want something that somebody else has and they want to take it away from them to get it. Boasters, proud.
Blasphemers. Here's one that is kind of on point to me and to all of you that have children.
Disobedient to parents. That's becoming more and more prevalent and not just disobedient to parents, but disobedient to all figures of authority.
Unthankful, unholy, without natural affection.
Trucebreakers, false accusers. Incontinent, fierce.
Here's one. Despisers of those that are good. Somebody does right, the world flocks to hate them.
Traitors, heady, high -minded. Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such, turn away.
That's Paul's warning to Timothy. Then I skip down to verse seven.
Ever learning, these people, ever learning and never able to come to knowledge of the truth.
Well, why can they study, study, study and never come to the knowledge of the truth?
Well, because he has to reveal it. Because he has to reveal it. That's exactly right.
If God doesn't reveal it, you won't figure it out. It's done that way so that the elect will hear and believe and the non -elect will hear and not understand.
And Brother Bill, I remember Otis telling that and I really did, I didn't question him personally, but in my mind, because what his statement was is if you are a child of God, things will be revealed to you when you're studying it.
And I thought, well, now that's, you know. But it's true. Now, I mean, the older I got,
I realized, yes, that's how it's revealed to us. Well, I'm gonna only correct you on one thing.
Not the older you got. Oh, you don't think that's it? I don't think that's it. I don't think it's the older you got.
What I do think it is, the more you studied, as you grew older, the more you studied, the more you was revealed to you and suddenly you began to recognize that things were being revealed to you, that you didn't expect to be.
And that can be revealed to someone as young as Ben and it can be revealed to someone as old as me and anybody in between and on both ends.
But what is important, oh, and I'm not picking on you. I understand exactly, I understand exactly what you said.
Yes, the more we study, the more it's revealed to us. If what?
If we're. If we belong to him. If we're left. If we don't belong to him, the more we study, the more.
You know what they say? Untruth revealed. Why do I see it that way? That's what they'll say.
And you'll say, I'm sure you're right. You don't see it that way. And as long, you don't wanna say this, but as long as you are not his, you won't see it that way.
And that's a scary thing. And so then I went way on down to verse 12.
We're in 2 Timothy 3, verse 12. And this is, I put in because I don't like this verse.
If I had a pencil to erase and erase part of God's word and the authority from God to erase it,
I'd erase this, I'd erase this one and change just one word.
Yea and all that, actually two words. Yea and all that will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution.
I wish that that had said, and some that live a godly life might suffer persecution.
But it didn't say that, did it? If I said that, I would be guilty of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy. I would be guilty of heresy because I would be changing the word of God from what it is to what
I want it to be. And that is an important thing. Okay, I'm gonna read it again just so everybody understands that this is what it says, not what
I wish it said. Yea and all that will live godly in Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
This is again Paul talking to Timothy. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.
So what's he saying? Timothy, you know me. My life was a pattern for you to follow.
You know me, you know how I lived, you know what I did. You know me. And that's something that if you're a teacher, you better be aware of, that people out there looking are going to be looking at you and you better be able to say, you know me and you can follow me as best as I could follow
Christ. Will I make mistakes? Will any teacher make mistakes?
Yes, indeed. And what should you show the people that are watching you when you make a mistake?
You should repent and you should ask for forgiveness and then they'll know what to do when they make a mistake and they'll make them.
Everybody will make mistakes. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.
He's saying, you know me. And that from a child thou hast known the
Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
So what else he's telling Timothy is, you know me and you know the Holy Scripture and you're able to know the
Holy Scripture because you're mine. This is Jesus speaking not Paul now because Timothy belonged to Christ.
So he was able to know the Holy Scripture. And what's the Scripture? All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Well, that's half of verse 19 of chapter one of James. That's the first half.
The swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath part. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
When we consider the nature of temptation and the holiness of God, we must take special care to be slow to speak, slow to wrath, because our wrath worketh not the righteousness of God.
Our wrath almost always simply defends or promotes our own agenda.
When we get mad when we're talking to people about Christ, about the
Scripture, when we get mad and we show our anger, you know what mostly we're angry about? Because they don't accept or won't accept our version of the truth.
Now, if our version of the truth is the correct version, then we should be concerned but not angry.
Because whose responsibility is it that those that hear the truth will respond positively to the truth?
Whose responsibility? That's God's responsibility. We don't have responsibility to make sure that they obey the truth.
But we want to be able to be the conduit. But we are required to be the conduit for it.
And if we are not, then we are held accountable. That's when we're held accountable, when we fail to inform of the truth.
Matthew Henry said this. I like to read these old guys because they talk so differently than we do.
It is as if the apostle had said, whereas men often pretend zeal for God and His glory in the heat of their passion, let them know that God needs not the passions of any man.
His cause is better served by mildness and meekness than by wrath and fury.
So if you meet, if you present the truth to a person and the person receives the truth, then you can rejoice with him.
And if he doesn't receive the truth, you must understand that that's not your responsibility.
That's God's responsibility. Continue to be gentle. Continue to be mild. God will take care of that person.
Give him a second chance if he's His, and a third chance, and a fourth chance if he's
His. And if he's not, it won't happen. Henry goes on to quote
Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 17.
The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.
And now Henry went and quoted a man, and I didn't know who it was.
I had to look it up. He said, Dr. Manton. Well, I looked that up, and Dr. Manton was
Thomas Manton. He was a 16th, 17th century. He lived from 1620 to 1677.
That makes him a 17th century Puritan pastor.
That's who he was. Here says of some assemblies. So here's what
Dr. Manton said about some assemblies. If we were as swift to hear as we are ready to speak, there'd be less wrath and more profit in our meetings.
If we were as swift to hear as we are ready to speak, there would be less wrath and more profit in our meetings.
And then he goes on to say, he does another thing that I had to stop and look up. That's the problem of dealing with these old timers.
They know people and stuff that we don't know, and we have to look them up. I remember when I mentioned
Manasci. Now, what in the world is that? That is an adherent of a
Persian religion called Manasciism, and it is a religion that taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good spiritual world of light and a evil material world of darkness.
So it was a struggle between good and evil, and the dark, the evil, was the material world, and the good was the spiritual world.
And what happened was, as time passed, the good light left the bad earth, and it got worse and worse.
Well, that was a potent religion at the time, and it rivaled
Christianity until it was replaced by Islam as the second leading religion, or third, if you consider
Judaism. You had Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and then that one kind of faded away.
But at the time that Henry is talking about, he's going to refer to Augustine, who was at the tail end of this period.
Okay, so he says, I remember when Manasci contested with Augustine, and with important clamor cried, hear me, hear me.
The father modestly replied, neither let me hear thee, nor do thou,
I said that wrong, neither let me hear thee, nor do thou hear me, but let us both hear the apostle.
I want to say that again in my words. You don't have to hear me. I don't have to hear you. We don't have to argue.
What we both should be doing is listening to the scripture. That's what he's saying.
Don't, we don't have to argue about it. In fact, he goes on to say the worst thing we can do that we can bring to a religious controversy is anger.
This anger, however it may pretend to be raised by concern for what is just and right, is not to be trusted.
Wrath is a human thing. And the wrath of man stands opposed to the righteousness of God.
Those who pretend to serve the cause of God hereby show that they are acquainted neither with God nor his cause.
This passion must especially be watched against when we are hearing the word of God.
Now, Peter says it this way. In 1 Peter 2 .1, Wherefore, laying aside all malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.
Put all your arguments aside, all your hatreds, all your guile, all your hypocrisies, all your envies, all your evil speaking of one another, and be as intent as a newborn child desiring the milk of their mother, the word of God that you may grow.
Be single -minded in seeking to know the scripture.
Okay, now we are to verse 21. We'll go a little quicker now. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your soul.
That was verse 21 of James. That was the King James Version.
The New King James Version quotes it a little bit differently and it's a little bit easier to understand, so I'm going to read it.
Wherefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.
Matthew Henry said, we are required to prepare ourselves for it to get rid of every corrupt affection and every prejudice and prepossession and to lay aside those sins which pervert the judgment and blind the eyes.
We are required to prepare ourselves to get rid of all corrupting influences.
All filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness before explained must be an especial matter be subdued and cast off by all such as attend the word of gospel.
We are directed on how to hear it. So how are we to hear it?
Receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your soul.
And in hearing the word of God, we are to receive it, assess the truth of it, consent to the laws of it and receive it as the stock that does graft.
So as the fruit which is produced may be not according to the nature of our sour stock, but according to the nature of that word of the gospel which is engrafted into our souls.
We must therefore yield ourselves to the word of God with most submissive, humble and tractable tempers.
This is to receive with meekness, being willing to hear of all our faults and not only take it patiently, but thankfully, desiring also to be molded and formed by the doctrines and precepts of the gospel.
In our hearing, we should aim at salvation of our souls.
It is the design of the word of God to make us wise unto salvation. And those who propose any meaner or lower ends to themselves in attending among it dishonor the gospel and disappoint their souls.
We should come to the word of God, both to read it and to hear it, as to those who know it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.
And that was an interesting way of putting it. Verse 22, Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
John MacArthur says this about that last phrase, deceiving one's own self. That's literally reasoning beside or alongside as being beside oneself.
You've heard people say that I am beside myself. This word was used in mathematics to refer to a miscalculation.
And he said, professing Christians who are content with only hearing the word of God have made a serious spiritual miscalculation.
What did he say to do? It says, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own souls.
For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural face in a glass.
Charles Spurgeon said this, the glass of the word is not like our ordinary looking glass, which merely shows us our external features.
But according to the Greek of our text, the man sees in it the face of his birth.
That is the face of his nature. He that reads and hears the word may see not only his actions there, but his motives, his desires, his inward condition.
Understanding this power of the word of God, the preacher is responsible for working hard not to hinder this power.
Certain preachers dream that it is their business to paint pretty pictures. But it's not so.
Even though Charles Spurgeon painted some of those beautiful pictures. And we're going to end our lesson today with a beautiful picture by Charles Spurgeon.
We're not to design and sketch, but to simply give the reflection of the truth.
We're to hold up the mirror to the nature of a moral and spiritual sense and let men see themselves therein.
We are not even to make the mirror, but only to hold it up. The thoughts of God and not our own thoughts are to be set before the hearer's mind.
And these discover a man to himself. The word of the
Lord is the revealer of secrets. It shows man his life, his thoughts, his hearts, his inmost self.
If you remember in 1
Corinthians 13, 12, for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face, now
I know in part, and then shall I know even as I also am known. Verse 24, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightforward forgetteth what manner of man he was.
Now John MacArthur made a statement that I'm going to read and I'm going to tell you, I almost agree with it. And I think if we were here talking, he would say, yes,
I had a limited space and I agree with you. I think he would say that to me.
Unless professing Christians act promptly after they hear the word, they will forget the changes and the improvement that their reflection showed them that they need to make.
So we're to be doers of the word. We don't just hear it, we have to do it. And what I said was this, in one sense
MacArthur's right, but I think the Lord may allow you to fail this test.
You may look at yourself in the mirror, you may see what you need to do, you may not do it, and you'll probably forget it, and the
Lord will not be done with you forever. He'll give you another chance to be tested.
We talked about this last week. He'll give you another chance to be tested.
And if you fail it, he's done with you, right? He is never done with you as long as you're what?
As long as you're his, he's never done with you until you accept the truth like Jonah.
Jonah was given the truth to reveal, and he said, not me Lord. And he went exactly the other way.
He had his experience with the great fish. He was spit out on the shore, right in exactly the same place where he left, given the same instructions, and this time he begrudgingly went.
And even at the end of the story, he was still unhappy. I would have been the most delighted person in the world.
A whole city repented, and he was angry, but that's Jonah. God gives us chances to be tested, and God allows us to fail, and he'll allow you to continue to fail as long as you fail, and as long as you're his, he'll continue giving you chances to be tested.
He'll allow you to be tested again and again and again until you finally pass the test, and then you'll be blessed for that test.
And then he's done with you, right? He wasn't done with Jesus when he tested
Jesus in the wilderness. He went away and came back a different time, so just because you passed one test doesn't mean there won't be other tests for you to pass, but one thing you'll know, having passed the test the first time, the next time you're met with a test, you'll be more likely to pass it because you'll be strengthened by what you've done.
Okay, verse 25. There's only 27 verses. I think we're gonna get through and not jump too much on Ben's time.
Don't worry about that. But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Okay, law.
Just because we have grace doesn't mean the law doesn't exist anymore. There is still a moral code for believers to follow, to obey.
The difference between believers and non -believers, believers are enabled by the
Spirit to keep the law. Unbelievers are not. And when you keep the law by grace, we have genuine freedom from sin, and the
Holy Spirit applies the principles of the Scripture to the believer's heart, they are freed from sin's bondage and enabled to obey
God. In John 8, 34, Jesus talking to his disciples, answered them saying,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the
Son abideth forever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.
How can you be free? Only if the Son makes you free. Verse 26.
If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Now, what he's talking about here is ceremonial public worship.
James chose this term instead of one referring to eternal godliness to emphasize the external trappings, rituals, and routines, and forces that were not followed sincerely.
The Jews had a religious structure, they had a formality, they had a system that they followed, but it wasn't followed sincerely.
Okay. Verse 27.
James MacArthur says this, James, did I say James MacArthur?
Yes. John MacArthur said this,
James picked two synonymous adjectives to define the most spotless kind of religious faith, that which is measured by compassionate love.
What are the two words? Pure and undefiled. And now the word fatherless and widows.
Those are those without parents or without husbands. They were and are an especially needy segment of the church.
Since they're usually unable to reciprocate in any way, we do something for an orphan or a widow, they are not in themselves able probably to reciprocate.
So caring for them clearly demonstrates true sacrificial Christian love.
And of course the world is the evil world system. Keep yourself clean, clear of the evil world system.
And now for the final thought. This is Charles Spurgeon again. I'm gonna read this.
I'm gonna let you think about it in a minute. We'll take questions and then we'll be done. Charles Spurgeon.
I would like to see a Christian not kept in a glass case away from trials and temptations.
That's kind of what I said. I wanted to be kept away from trials and temptations.
Give me a glass case. Keep me away from that. He says, no, that's a better way. I would like to see a
Christian not kept in a glass case away from trial and temptations, but yet covered with an invisible shield so that wherever he went, he would be guarded and protected from the evil influences that are in the world in almost every place.
Not to be kept out of the temptation, but to be protected and guarded through it so that you're protected from the evil influences and they are almost everywhere.
Any comments or questions? So it had more to do with, his question is,
James' assertion that God does not tempt. With Jesus' example prayer that instructs us to pray that God exists not through temptation.
He didn't say that the temptation that would be led away from was of God. Jesus himself was tempted.
He was tempted by Satan. Now, does God allow temptation? Yes, he does.
He allows temptation and he allows it for two reasons, to either be a test for the believer, to mold the believer into being the kind of believer that he wants him to be.
And if he passes the test, he will become stronger. If he fails the test, he will be retested.
God allows that. He allows that to everybody, but for the believer, it's for testing, for molding, and for discipline to make them be more like they ought to be, to be the kind of people they want to be.
Now, for the non -believer, it is a different story altogether.
They are, in fact, tempted of the devil. They are dealing with,
I can't remember how we said it last, searching for evil, searching for evil things to do, things to satisfy worldly lusts rather than to satisfy spiritual things.
So there's two kinds of things. There's the tempting of the saints, a test to strengthen them and to form them into being more like Christ.
And there's the tempting of the non -believer so that they show that they are right when they are judged, and everybody will eventually be judged.
That's the best I can do. Anybody got a help for me on that?
This is when I like to have Brother David. Brother David, what do you think? And he will tell me what
I often said to start with. Usually. Anything else?
If not, let's pray. Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this place to come together and to study your holy word.
Thank you for giving us the testing, allowing us to become stronger, more like you, molding us to be as much like Jesus Christ as it is possible for us to be, a never -ending job.
Bless us and keep us as we go through the services today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.