Synoptics - Matthew 23:37

Matthew 23:37 and the Misuse of Context in Reformed Debates

And which program do you use? Your geekiness level just went right through the floor. Sorry. Someone asks me, I go, well, that's Olive Tree, or Accordance, or Lagas, or, you know, whatever. I don't have it.

Okay. Do you look it up? No. Yeah, okay. Just one word. Just one word? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Never heard of it. Okay. Well, I'll show you Olive Tree, which I think is, at least as far as for preaching and stuff like that, I've found to be.

I actually have not used a paper text. I mean, other than this thing, but that's because you all have it. But I could actually reproduce this on my iPad, too, because I have the same Synoptic thing. So I don't know why I don't do that.

I should. I think about it. Probably will from now on. But I haven't preached on the paper text since I got my iPad, mainly because the fonts on my iPad are about 14 times bigger than anything I can get in print.

So it's just so much easier than that. And I'm looking at these little teeny Bibles that Mr. Callahan uses, and I just don't know how he does it, but it must be the bifocals or trifocals or whatever it is you got going.

Progressives. Progressives, yeah. See, I don't have any of those things. So I'm sitting here looking underneath my glasses right now going, man, that text is getting smaller and smaller every week. Look at that.

It's terrible. So I probably should get my Synoptic put together on my iPad. But then how would I know how close we're getting to the end? That's just it. When you've got a book, you can see exactly how many pages you have left.

All right. We're at the end of Matthew 23. And as hard as I have tried to avoid Matthew 24, we're going to have to get there. But it may be the fastest run through a chapter we've ever done, actually, now that we think about it.

Oh, good. Balance has returned to the Force. I'm not sure which is the dark side, but I think George is darker than Brick, so I guess that makes George the dark side. What? Yes. What are you talking about?

It's the same time. Back to putting it in his notes. I was called the dark side of the Force today. Yes. It's still good in him. I know. Father. Anyway, just a little bit of movie humor there. We have already looked at Matthew 23, 37, so I don't want you to feel like we are completely overlooking it when I just make a few comments on it.

My recollection is what we did is when we started Matthew 23, I commented that it was one of the most misused and abused verses in the New Testament, and we went over it for an entire session. So, I'm not skipping it, but I do want to make just a few comments on it this morning.

As I mentioned, if you were not here, there is no other verse in the Bible that I have heard misquoted more times than Matthew 23, 37. Seriously. There just isn't. Now, the reason that that might be is that what I listen to is determined by what I do, and what I do is a little unusual.

It is misquoted primarily within the context of arguments against the Reformed faith. In fact, I know that not too many of you catch the dividing line. Some of you do, but this past week, I think it was on Thursday, I reviewed a debate that I listened to on Wednesday, and some of you know that is when I do a lot of my studying, is when I'm riding a bike, and that's when I listen to all these very interesting things that are out there.

I listened to a debate that was called the Great Debate. I've never heard, I've never seen, no one's ever given me a DVD or a CD or something called the Mediocre Debate, or the Really Bad Debate. It's always the Great Debate, and I've listened to so many great debates that were anything but great, and this one was anything but great, as far as that goes.

But it was the Baptists versus Reformed theology. That's how it was put forward. And you had four independent, fundamental Baptists, strongly dispensational, and King James only all the way. And so from their mindset, we're talking trail of blood, we've always existed, we're not from the Reformation, we're not reforming anything, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they really, really do believe that, well, believe it or not, they actually cited Matthew Chapter 3 as evidence of the existence of Baptists at the time of the New Testament. And that's John the Baptist.

Something tells me if John showed up wearing what he wore back then, eating what he ate at a Baptist potluck, he would not be welcome. But anyway, anyway, it was a very, very interesting encounter. And all of the standard arguments were, and a number of arguments I had never, ever, ever heard of before, were thrown out there.

And Matthew 23, 37 was put out there. Thankfully, it was read directly from the text, so it was not misquoted, which surprised me. But over and over and over and over again, I have heard people misquote this verse based upon their understanding of what it's saying, rather what it actually says.

And given the number of times, I mean, some of you may remember when I started an entire war back 11 years ago, when I debated Dave Hunt on the afternoon talk program here in Phoenix. I filled in for Marty Minto that one day, and I had Dave Hunt on, and I interviewed him about comments that he made in his newsletter against Calvinism.

And he had misquoted in print Matthew 23, 37. I'd even heard R .C. Sproul misquote Matthew 23, 37 off the top of his head. And what is the misquotation? Well, as you know, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not.

What gets lost is how often I would have gathered your children. Your children becomes how often would I have gathered you. The reason being, the understanding on the part of the person quoting it, is that this is a text refuting the idea that God's election is sure and powerful and certain.

And so, without looking at the text in its context, without doing what we've done, we've walked all the way through Matthew 23, we've seen all these woes, and we've seen over and over again the Jewish leaders standing in the way of what God's doing.

They'll compass the sea to make a single proselyte, and to make a single proselyte was a huge process and took a lot of time and effort on their part, but then you make them twice as much son of hell as yourself.

And the assertion, the specific assertion made in verse 13, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of God against men, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

The Jewish leaders are being very strongly abraded, condemned for the fact that they stand against God's purposes because of the perversion of God's Word that has become enshrined in their traditions and their practices.

So, you have then, in verse 37, this general statement directed to Jerusalem as a whole, killing the prophets, stoning those who are sent to you. A summary of what has been taking place for hundreds of years, we see this, we talked last week about, upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, and the blood of the innocent is able, the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, and so on and so forth.

How often would I have gathered your children together, as the hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not. So, there is a distinction made between those who would not, which were the Jewish leaders because of their tradition, which overpowers the Word of God, and those who would be gathered, just as we see in verse 13.

There's nothing here about God's electing grace, and regeneration, and the will of man, or any of these things. It is a condemnation of the Jewish leaders who, on the one hand, claim to be serving God, and on the other hand, then stand in the way of the accomplishment of His purposes.

But that's not how it's cited. Instead, it is cited in a very, very different way, and understood in a very, very different way. And you get this type of surface-level citation over and over and over again, in the rhetoric that is out there, opposed to Reformed theology.

I thought I might mention, especially you folks, who are about the only folks who would find this particularly interesting, about that debate. Given that the Baptist, and they kept talking about the Baptist position, you know, we don't exist.

Don't worry about that 1689 thing. That's irrelevant. The Baptist, there was one particular pastor. Oh, did he have an independent fundamentalist Baptist voice? Oh, my. I know independent fundamentalists.

Most of these were pastors of the Bible Baptist Church. I was baptized at the Bible Baptist Church in Charlestown, Pennsylvania. So, I know the mindset, and I know the voice. And if there are Reformed Baptists who try to sound like Al Martin, then there is this Bible Baptist voice.

I'm not sure who it's an imitation of, or if it's just sort of developed over the years. But, wow. I actually have enough going on in my sciences, I can almost get down low enough to just rumble like this voice.

You know what I'm talking about? Just, whoo. And he would launch into his talks, and one of the statements that he made, as soon as I heard it, I literally started laughing, which means when I'm riding my bike, people might think I'm really odd.

They see this guy peddling by and laughing, going, that's not what it means, and what's that? But, you all especially would have caught this. Why do I say you all? Well, if you stayed awake during the Hebrew series, you would especially catch this because of the number of times I have emphasized this particular point.

But, he was speaking against particular redemption or limited atonement. He says, the Bible is absolutely plain on this. There isn't any argument on this. Because, in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10, of course he's reading from the King James Version of the Bible.

It says, by this will, we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. There it is. Once for every person. Now, I stop and, well, no, I didn't stop, but I mean, I'm listening to this, and the thoughts cross my mind.

It's like, you know, I've explained how many times during the Hebrews series that there is a particular term in the book of Hebrews. I've even bored you by mentioning to you the specific Greek word, hapax.

I think I've explained the phrase hapax legamina. Hapax legamina is a Greek phrase meaning named once, and that's what you, that's the phrase you use when you're talking about a word that appears in the New Testament only one time.

A hapax legamina. They can be sometimes difficult to define if we don't have extra biblical examples that we can go to, because it's only used once. When you hear that phrase hapax legamina, hapax, once, one time, and there is a strengthened form of it, epapax, which is just putting a preposition on it so it's strengthening it.

They're both used in the book of Hebrews. It is a temporal adverb, a temporal adverb referring to time, one time. Not only that, but it wasn't that long ago that we went through the beginning of Hebrews chapter 10, and what did we emphasize over and over and over and over and over again?

The fact that offerings that are made over and over and over and over and over again cannot perfect anyone. The contrast that is drawn there is between the once-for-all, one-time, singular, unique sacrifice of Christ and the repetitive sacrifices of the Old Covenant.

Yet, despite all of that, and I'm pretty certain, I'm pretty certain that at some point, if we went back and listened to all those recordings, and they're all online at sermonaudio .com, that I said somewhere along the line, now there are people who get confused about this, and they look at once-for-all, and that means once for all people, once for every person.

But that is not a possibility, not just exegetically, but linguistically. That's not what the temporal adverb refers to. But how would this particular independent fundamentalist Bible Baptist pastor be able to come to that conclusion, given that he believes that the English text overrides the Greek text?

There is a tendency on their part to avoid looking at what the original language is meant, because that's sort of questioning the ability of the King James to communicate itself properly to you. Well, to be honest with you, I don't think you'd have to look it up in Greek to realize what the author is saying, in light of the flow of the argument.

But finding the flow of the argument means you actually have to read all the way through, rather than picking verses. And when you're just picking verses, well, just based on the English, once for all can have more than one meaning.

But the underlying word that is being translated cannot have some of the meanings that the English could, and hence the importance of being able to look those particular things up. Unfortunately, the debate did not provide an opportunity for refutation of that false assertion.

And so there are going to be people that are going to listen to that and go, hey, that's a great argument. I'm going to have to remember that one. And that's one of the problems with that kind of format.

It wasn't a very good format for the debate. Anyhow, that doesn't have a whole lot to do with Matthew 23, other than the fact that it is very, very, very easy to read a text within your tradition, and to allow the tradition to insert entire concepts or words, or in the case of Matthew 23, 37, to delete entire concepts and words.

The misuse of Matthew 23, 37 leads people to divorce the text from its context. It is the conclusion of these woes. And to delete the distinction between Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders that are being upbraided, and her children, the people who were crying out, Hosanna, when Jesus makes his triumphal entry, over against the Jewish leaders who were doing anything but.

So, then of course you just continue on to the next verse, Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Coming from the Old Testament. Now, it's interesting that, again, remember, chapter and verse divisions, modern innovations, didn't exist before 1300s for the Old Testament, 1400s for the New Testament, and verses 1551.

There is a division between 23 and 24. It flows so clearly as you follow it along that we need to keep this in mind. In fact, the way that our thing is set up here, there's a little section that sort of just floats around and gets stuck in here about the widow's might, which isn't in Matthew, and it sort of interrupts our reading here.

We will look at it, but notice that from Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Goes directly into Jesus left the temple.

This is page 255, Matthew 24. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. So, you're not going to see me again until this eschatological acceptance of the Messiah, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, is fulfilled.

Jesus leaves the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

And as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us, when will this be? And what will be the sign of your coming of the close of the age? So, in Matthew, this is a seamless thing.

You have the condemnation of Jerusalem. You have your house is left to you desolate. You will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. As they're leaving the temple, the disciples say, wow, man, these buildings are just incredible.

And Jesus' response would have engendered in any Jewish person, especially one who continues to have in their mind the idea that Messiah has come. Messiah has very particular political ramifications in regards to overthrowing the rule of the Gentiles, which in our mind is embodied by Roman supremacy all across the world.

We are under the heel of Rome. It's not like there were tens of thousands of Roman soldiers roving the streets of Jerusalem. There wasn't. There was no need for that. There was a garrison there, but there wouldn't be all that many soldiers.

Now, they'd be well armed and well trained, but the number would be relatively small. What they saw was not only the governor and the interference that the governor had in their internal affairs, in the appointing of high priests, for example, which was not supposed to be something that was done.

The position of the high priest was a lifetime position. And so by taking one out and putting somebody else in, you were basically saying, I don't care what your law says, we're going to do it my way.

It was primarily seen in the political realm and in the taxation realm, which is why publicans were so hated. Because the publicans cavorted with the Romans and were representative of Roman rule, and were often Jewish, and hence were considered to be traitors.

Which is part of the, I am glad I'm not like this publican, Luke chapter 16. So, the disciples, in hearing Jesus saying, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

They're thinking, they're thinking all the Old Testament prophecies about all the nations coming to Jerusalem and flowing into the mounts of the temple. And once the Messiah has established his kingdom, then they could see Caesar himself coming to the temple in Jerusalem and bowing the knee.

And seeing their people having preeminence over the Roman Empire. And so for Jesus to say, not one stone is going to be left on another, is a radical repudiation of the immediate eschatological hopes tied to the Messiah at this particular time.

And so, you can just imagine the looks that were exchanged. Nothing is recorded for us in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, that there was an immediate objection. But, you'll notice, in Mark, compare Mark and Matthew.

At the side of the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, but then in Mark it's, at the side of the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately.

So the specific names are provided for us. And they're primarily the leaders who would have had, always having the discussions about who's going to sit at his right hand and who's going to sit at his left, judging, you know, on the twelve thrones and judging the peoples.

And these guys have an eschatology that has been informed by all the various, there were different streams during the intertestamental period after Malachi and up to the time of the coming of Christ. There were different, you know, certain readers would emphasize certain aspects of Old Testament prophecy and, you know, the Messiah is central and what's the Messiah going to do and what's the Messiah's role going to be and clearly these guys, when they talk about sitting on thrones and judging the people and all the rest of that kind of stuff, are seeing themselves as the Messiah's right hand men and once he comes in his kingdom, that's a pretty important thing and they're going to be right in the interpretational issue that comes up in Matthew 24.

And there would be different interpretations of Matthew 24 in this room, I'm sure, from various folks. There's going to be differences between those who are post-millennialists and amillennialists and then amongst the amillennialists you have the optimistic amillennialists and the pessimistic amillennialists.

I'm really not sure what the difference there is, but I guess the optimistic amillennialist leans closer to the post-millennialists than the pessimistic amillennialist who leans closer to the historic pre-millers or something, I don't know.

But one of the key issues in interpreting the text is what is the nature of the question by the disciples. Matthew puts it this way, tell us when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age.

Mark, tell us when will this be and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished. Now in Matthew you have the sign of your coming and of the close of the age. So you have a single sign of your coming and of the close of the age.

But is the coming and the close of the age the exact same thing? In Mark it's simply what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished. And Luke, when will this be and what will be the sign when this is about to take place.

So what was the understanding of the disciples in asking this question? For example, the sign of your coming and the close of this age, the way that Mark has it, about to take place or will be accomplished is definitely in light of the preceding verses, the destruction of Jerusalem.

Because it's a direct line. Jesus said to him, do you see these great buildings in Mark? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. As it sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, tell us when will this be?

The only this is the destruction of the temple. When will this be? But Matthew interprets that, expresses that as your coming and of the close of the age. Now are they the exact same things? Different people have answered that question in different ways.

Mark and Luke have, I think, a more streamlined narrative leading into their discussions that we see a following found in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. All of these containing pretty much the same information.

Now, it's very difficult. It's difficult for me. One of the things I've been dreading about getting to Matthew 24 is it's when you're raised with one particular perspective, it's difficult to necessarily rid yourself of it and not fall into it at times.

And Matthew 24 is often seen as a road map and blueprint to how to read, used to be how to read the newspaper. I know there still are a few of you who do that. Not too many, but a few. For those who are more of the digital age, the reading of your RSS feed and your blogs and your news sources and so on and so forth.

But it's seen as a, I mean, I was raised context where that was what you did. You saw world events in light of the, especially in light of Israel. And once Israel became a nation in 1948, well, I can remember to this day, it's funny how you remember certain things.

I got about six boxes worth of stuff from my dad this week. It was my mom's stuff, basically. And I discovered she threw nothing out. And I mean, I just felt fainted when I opened a box and here not only is this picture from my little league team from back in Pennsylvania in 1972 or 73, somewhere around there, maybe 71.

But neatly folded underneath it was my little league shirt. And I held this teeny tiny little thing up. I went, you're kidding. Wow. I'm glad she washed it before she put it in here, you know. And I was just absolutely amazed.

But one of, I forget what it was I was reading, but she kept all the cards, just cards, cards, cards, cards, cards, cards. I mean, you could write a history just out of these boxes. You really could if you took the time to do it.

And of course, what I'm doing is I'm getting a scanner. I'm going to take a scanner home. I ordered a scanner. It's all getting digitized. But one of the things, yes, you can do that, Mr. C. It's really cool.

It's great. You don't have to have boxes and stuff. All you need is a fairly decent sized hard drive and you just scan it all in there and it doesn't fade anymore. I mean, some of these, some of these, remember, what was the kind of, the names missing me, the kind of pictures?

Polaroids. Polaroids. Some of those Polaroids are starting to look a little funky after all this time. You know what I mean? You know, they're starting to be, I'm sorry? Yeah, well, whatever the goop is.

Some of those Polaroids are starting to look a little weird after about 40 years. But you get to all those stuff scanned. I'm not sure when I'm going to do it, but I have to get it done eventually. But I was reading this one card.

I don't know if it was a birthday card or, I'll have to look, but it was my mom. And it was to me. And one of the things she, that's right, that's right. Actually, it was someone that was reading this.

And I think it was for like my 10th birthday or something like that. And she was saying, I really doubt that you'll even make it to 15. The Lord is so near. And I remember so clearly, 1980-ish, we used to have these watches.

Remember these, remember the watches that would glow all the time because they had tritium in them? You know, we're all dying from that now. But, oh, look, it's radioactive. Wow. That's cool. You know.

Telling my, actually, I do remember telling my biology teacher about that is that it only gives off alpha radiation and a single piece of paper would protect you from alpha radiation. So you're cool. It's like, okay, good.

I'm glad to know that, I think. Except you can't find watches like that anymore. So I'm wondering just how good that information was, but. Pretty expensive. Probably. But it, I mean, it glowed constantly.

And I remember we had a lock-in at the church that I was a member of at the time. Do I even know what a lock-in is? Yeah. Okay. I'll know what a lock-in is. Some of you that have grown up around here, I don't think we've ever had a lock-in here.

It is sort of fun, actually, but where you're basically locked into the place all night. And it's amazing what 13 to 16-year-olds can figure out to do in a church all night long. It's very interesting.

But let's just say I once found my shirt in the baptistry at this church, which was really an interesting thing. It had those things where you had to, you know, go find such and such. You know, you had to go find all this stuff.

And you'd raid people's backpacks and stuff like that and steal their stuff. It was fun. But anyway, I was a part of this group, and somebody asked a question about the end times. And I had read Dwight Pentecost's Things to Come.

And I remember sitting in high school, taking those, remember those achievement tests you have to take where you fill in a little bubble, you know, all that stuff. Do you still fill in bubbles sometimes?

Yeah, I think it might have been IO or something like that. But I had just finished this, you know, and I normally was pretty fast at that. And so you could turn it in and sit there and you just had to sit there and read.

And there I was, late great planet Earth, man. You know, I mean, I know what's going on here. And so they're asking these questions. And I'll never forget, I can see this like it was, remember it was yesterday.

In fact, I had to go to this church this week to vote. And it was sort of like, wow, it's still here. Looks like it did then, but it's a lot older now. It's just been around a while. But in fact, I voted in the very same room where this happened, which I've just now realized.

It was at the other end of the building, but same room. And so I used this watch, and it literally glowed bright enough that in the dark, I couldn't do this today, but I had this New Testament. And I was using the watch.

If you put it right down next to the page, it was actually bright enough you could read the New Testament. Like I said, today wouldn't happen. Not just because you can't get the tritium watch, because the print would have been too small to see anything.

And I was explaining the olive tree and how the olive tree represents Israel. And within one generation that sees the flowering of the olive tree, these things would come to pass. And well, 40 years to 1948, that's about seven years from now, you know.

And everybody's like, ooh, ah, ooh. They're in the dark. I guess that kind of makes her great in the dark reading, talking about Antichrist and stuff like that. And ooh, I wonder if Henry Kissinger really is.

I don't know. But wasn't he one of the biggest... Oh, you bet, man. I mean, it's amazing how everybody's name adds up to 666. Don't know how that works. Henry Kissinger's name added up to 666, and Hillary Clinton adds up to 666, and Obama adds up to 666.

If you check the math sometimes, I sort of wonder exactly how all that works. Anyway, so I know what it's like to have that kind of overriding system. And eschatology is the one area where I go, eh, it's okay.

You all go ahead and argue about it. I'm not really... I don't want to go there. But when you look at Matthew 24, when I looked at Matthew 24 back then, I wasn't trying to ignore what it said. I really wasn't.

But I had just heard it used in one particular way so many times that both it and the book of Revelation, you know, one of the biggest revelations of my college years in Bible college was, you know, these books had a meaning to the people to whom they were written.

And you might want to start there first. Not exactly a radical insight, but one that does away with a lot of really cool stuff. It really does. And once I realized, well, okay, what would the disciples have understood Matthew 24 to be about?

Something that was going to happen 2 ,000 years from now and be completely irrelevant to them. And Jesus' answer to them was not in answer to their question. He gave them an answer that really wasn't an answer to their question.

But at the same time, you know, take heed that no one leads you astray. Sounds like Jesus is saying, no, this is... the answer I'm going to give you is directly relevant to you and to your life and to where you are right now.

Sounds like it, but it's real easy for us to sort of take our systems and miss that. So a lot of the issue comes down to what is the question that's being asked? And the valid question. Could Jesus have been answering their question, but also giving more than they knew to ask?

In other words, given that they had certain false assumptions, I mean, you're talking about the end of the age. And if Jerusalem's going to be destroyed, it has to be the end of the age. Well, which age are we talking about?

What about all the political stuff that is in the back of their mind? All that has to be sorted through. And that's one of the reasons why you have differing opinions. I mean, I think I'm being fair to say that over the past 20 years, R .C. Sproul has held each one of the major eschatological perspectives at some point during his ministry.

I think he was at one point a historical pre-Miller. I know he was a non-Miller, and I know he's been a post-Miller. I'm not sure exactly where he is right now. He may not be certain exactly where he is right now.

But the fact is, you've had all sorts of different perspectives taken by men of great insight in the Scriptures. And part of it is how you determine what the questions are, what the context was. And especially when we're talking about application to future situations, I think especially in this area, there needs to be some level of willingness to hear other perspectives and humility in the conclusions to which we come, which unfortunately is one of the main reasons I don't like discussing eschatology, because if there's any place where there are men who have decided that this is a hill I'm going to die on and all the rest of you are going to hell in a handbasket, if you disagree with me, it's eschatology.

I mean, wow! If you want to see people just pulling their swords and ready to run a brother in Christ right through, smiling the whole time, it's eschatology. And I'm just like, you all have fun. I'm not crossing swords on that one.

So those are some things we'll be thinking about as we work through Matthew 12. I didn't forget the Mark 12 thing. We'll sort of sandwich that in next time. All right. Let's close the Word of Prayer. Once again, Father, we do thank you for your Word and the freedom we have to study it, to possess it, and to treasure it.

We do ask that we would treasure not only the Word, but the freedom that we have, the freedom we have to go into worship even now. We ask that as we do so, you will lift up our hearts and our minds, free us from the earthly things that would distract us, that we might worship you in spirit and truth.

We pray in Christ's name.