(Mt Pleasant) 8. Prayer in the New Testament - Part 2 — Gerhard Du Toit

I'd like to know how many of you are, as a family, praying for missionaries? Can you put up your hands, please? On a consistent basis. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. You know, sometimes people ask us for our prayer card, and then they say, oh, we want to put it on the fridge so that we can pray for you.

So I often say to them, well, as long as you don't put it in the freezer, you know. But it's wonderful for us to be able to pray for missionaries in different countries, all over the place of the world.

We have a joy of traveling to different countries, and we mostly deal with people in leadership, which means missionaries and their wives and pastors and their wives. And there is a country in Eastern Europe that was under some of the most brutal communism for 51 years, and it's the country of Albania.

And about, I don't know if it's just eight or nine, probably about seven years ago, I was asked to go to Albania and to spend time with missionaries. And then in Macedonia, they brought all the pastors and the missionaries.

What's that? I always feel if I've got two dynamite sticks here on both sides of my body. And if it's the wild best, you feel if you've got two six-shooters here. Awesome. First time in my life I've been in a country where you need two, you know.

Reconciliation Among Albanian Pastors and Missionaries

Anyway, the country of Albania, we were asked to do two things, to speak to people in Albania and then to speak to all the pastors and the missionaries in Albania. And we took them, they brought them to Macedonia, which is just outside of Albania.

And we were there together for three days. It was tremendous, the very first day of that conference, how God broke in, you know, one of the greatest problems on the mission field is interpersonal relationships.

People cannot get on with one another. And there was tremendous friction between the pastors in Albania and the missionaries. And I didn't know that, you know. You're so glad when you go to these countries that you don't know what's going on, because if you know what's going on, you won't go.

So, I went there and in the very first session the Spirit of God broke in. And there was tremendous reconciliation that took place. And so that's when they came to us and they said, is it possible to come to Albania every year, which of course we are not able to do.

Poverty and Hospitality in Albania

But I became interested in Albania because Albania, you know, we are in Albania, Hungary, Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, what is called the Balkans. And Albania is a very poor country. The average income is about 30 Canadian dollars a month.

If you are a doctor in Albania, your income is about 200 dollars a month. And there are areas of Albania where people on Friday nights, in the middle of the night would go into parts of the city and look for stray cats or dogs.

You say, why are they doing that? Because they don't have any meat on the tables. And people are really poor. I stayed in a house in a little village outside of the city of Tirana with a couple. And you know, we only had bread and coffee.

And sometimes they gave us bread and coffee and butter, I think it was. And that's all we had. And I didn't realize how poor they were. I was in a little room and I just had a bed and a table and a chair and a few blankets.

And then when they went into the village to get something, I went to the fridge because you can't touch the water. It's so dangerous to drink. And I went to the fridge and there was virtually nothing.

And this poor couple at the end of the time when I wanted to give them a little gift of money just to try and help them, they said, no, no, you have been our guest and we want you to be with us. And you know, there's something which I love as an African because we were brought up in Africa and it's a thing called tripe.

It's about the equivalent of a kangaroo, I should say to you. But it's sheep stomach and in Africa we loved it. And my wife being a Canadian, you know, she gives it to me once a year. I call it the great day of the atonement.

Once a year she would give it and she's always embarrassed by the neighbors because of the smell of the stuff. Well, this elderly lady in Tehran, I found out that I like tripe. And she said, well, let's go to the butcher and we get some tripe.

So I said, where is the butcher? She said, out there in the bush. I said, what do you mean? Well, you come out there in the bush and there's a bunch of sheep and goats and cows standing and that's the butcher shop.

And these poor sheep stand there and thought I'm next on the list but he banged off his neck and for days I was just eating tripe. I had the time of my life. I don't think I can tell you how many times I went to the washroom but I had the time of my life eating this tripe.

Gospel Tracts Reaching Albania Under Communism

But you know, brother and sister, let me tell you something about Albania. 25 years, 51 years it was communism. Brutal. Brutal communism. He took the philosophy of communism from Mao Zedong. The suspicion that a child couldn't go to school and say, you know, my daddy last night said that the meat that the government gave us is bad.

They would go and arrest his father. So the level of suspicion was just unbelievable to even try to comprehend. But you know what happened? For 25 years, missionaries out of Switzerland would go from Greece to Italy and they would take a ferry from Greece to Italy and when that ferry over the Adriatic Sea, when that ferry would come close to the country of Albania, they would take thousands of gospel tracts and this is how those gospel tracts looked and they would seal them like this and they would throw them in the Adriatic Sea and these gospel tracts would go to the beaches of Albania.

And so for 25 years, 4 times a year, that's what they did. And of course the communist government would find out about it and then send the army to it and they would confiscate these tracts but people got a hold of these gospel tracts.

And when communism fell apart in Albania, the missionaries from Switzerland went into Albania and they came into a community about an hour outside of the city of Tarana. Tarana has got about 800 ,000 people in the city an hour outside of the city of Tarana and they found a community with the name of Druos and they figured out that that must be in that community.

Communism, as for it, fell apart, the country was free and they found that and they said it must be in that community or rather in those beaches where those gospel tracts and they began to do visitation amongst the Albanian people and they came across 45 people that gloriously got saved.

And when they said to them, when they began to speak to them about the gospel the people said, we know exactly what you talk about. And they said, well how did you know that? And they said, because we have become Christians.

And we met in secret. And they said, how did you become Christians? And they all ran to the places where they hide the gospel tracts. I was speaking in the city of Tarana and a man came to me who was a pilot and he said to me, I was a soldier during that time and we were sent out to the army to confiscate these gospel tracts and he said, I didn't understand why the government was so adamant against it.

And he said, one day when no one saw me, he said, it was in the winter I took one of those tracts and I folded it up and I put it in my army coat where no one could see it. And he said, I hid it in the basement of the house because if they would have found it, you know, it could have cost him his life.

And he said, I went down there and read it and he said, I gloriously found Christ as my personal saviour. I was in Albania last year, oh I tell you, if I take you there I mean, you know, it will change your life for time and for eternity.

The Sacrifice of the Lamb and the Lamb of God

We were in the city of Patrikic and we had sessions there with the missionaries it's right next to a huge lake called the lake Achrat across Macedonia and the missionary, the German missionary Arnold Geiger said to me, one day we were driving down the road and he said to me, and a man came on his bicycle a big smile upon his face and Arnold said to me, Brother Gerard, you see that man?

I said, yes, he said, he's a wonderful Christian. I said, how did he become a Christian? Well, he said, you know, we came into Albania and we went into the mountains in the villages and what we did as we went into the mountains from villages we were sharing the gospel of Christ with people.

Now, you see, those people had no knowledge because the communist dictator said he was going to wipe Christianity out. I mean, in Albania, brother and sister there are only about something like 3 ,000 Christians in the whole country.

Whole country. And you know what? Of those 3 ,000 Christians 85 of them are 40 years and younger. And so, he said, we went into the villages and we were preaching the gospel and he said we had to start right from scratch.

And so we started with the Old Testament and talk about the lamb that was sacrificed and then build it up into the New Testament how Christ became the lamb. And he said, this man and his family sat there and he said, I didn't explain this in the right way for him.

And he said, the next week, this man came down from the mountains into the village in the town of Patrkic and he said, as he came down he was looking for me and he found me. And when he found me, he said to me, he said, I need to talk to you.

I need to talk to you. And Arnold Geiger said to him, what is it that you want to say to me? He said, I did that. I did that. I did that. And Arnold said, what did you do? He said, I sacrificed a lamb.

And Arnold said, what do you mean? He said, I got my family together. We decided that we were going to do this thing that you talked about the first day. And he said, we sacrificed a lamb. We sacrificed a lamb for God.

And the poor missionary threw his hands and he said, no. No, no, no. You don't understand. That's not what I was trying to say to you. And the man said, no, you don't understand. We sacrifice a lamb so that we can prepare our hearts to give our lives to the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

And he led them all to Christ. Oh, Brethren, it's just right there. It just breaks your heart when you go to these people. Listen, pray for us in November. We are bringing all the churches in Toronto together for a week of prayer.

Prayer and the Distribution of New Testaments

We are trusting God to take 100 ,000 New Testaments into Albania. 100 ,000 New Testaments into Albania. And every Christian is going to receive so many New Testaments. Gospel literature. We are having a week of prayer.

People come from all over the country and we are having a week of prayer in the National Hall of Congress. You say, what was that? That was the place where the communist dictator had all these meetings while he was dictator in the land of Albania.

Persecution and Hunger for the Gospel in Romania

Let me tell you something about Romania before we pray together. When we were in Romania last year, the last weekend that I was in Romania, the University of Emmanuel where I was teaching and the church there, they came to me and they said, we want to give you a taste of what the rest of the country is all about.

And so I said to them, what do you want me to do? They said, we are going to give you a translator, we are going to give you a team of students from the Bible College who is going to sing and testify and we are going to give them a bus and a driver and they are going to take you three to five hours in the mountain passes towards the border of Yugoslavia.

And I said to them, so what will happen? They said, well, on Saturday night you will speak in a church and on Sunday morning and Sunday night, Sunday morning you will speak in two different churches and Sunday night in the city of Dida, there is a Baptist church with about 650 people and then the last meeting will be there.

So, we took off into the mountains and you know, it was snowing and everything and we got to this first place and brother and sister, those people, you know, are so hungry. I mean, these people, someone mentioned to me over the weekend that some folks have difficulty being in these sessions because they find it difficult to pray together.

I tell you, you come to me with countries, if I take you to China, you go into the underground church in China and you've got 200 pastors and they are going to keep you busy for 16 hours because they don't know if they are going to be arrested the moment when they come out and some of them, they could pay the price of their lives.

So, the Saturday night when we were in this meeting and this church, I spoke in this church and when the service is over, you know what happened? The people refused to leave. I mean, by that time, I have had about 29 services already in a matter of 7 or 8 days and I was just absolutely wiped out and these people in this church, they all sat there, services over, I went and sat down and no one got up and walked out.

And so, the pastor came to my translator and said, you need to talk to him. And my translator came and said, the pastor has got a message for you. I said, well, I just brought a message. Just give me a break, you know.

He said, well, the message of the pastor is that the people refused to go home. I said, well, come on, you know. I said, well, I am tired. I want to go home. Oh, no, you don't understand. You don't understand.

What you spoke about tonight broke their hearts and they want to hear more. Brethren and sisters, I mean, how do you say no to people like that, you know? So, I said to them, listen, I don't have energy and I am just about done.

I promise you, if I come back to Romania, I will come back into this community. And so, we went back to the house where we stayed. Now, brethren and sisters, it's very, very primitive. I mean, the house that I stayed, the toilet is outside somewhere there.

The kitchen is a little place here. And then there are rooms here and they've got all of this stuff. And in this house where I stayed, I didn't know that that was the first church while communism was still going on.

Romania has been free from communism for 70 years. And so, when I came into the house, the man and his wife announced their son was a seminary student. And so, I came into my room and he came into my room and he said to me, my mother wants to tell you her story.

And I said, what do you mean she wants to tell me her story? He said, well, I will do the translation. My mother can't speak English, but she wants to tell you what happened to her. And so, we went into the kitchen and they gave us a cup of coffee and sat around the kitchen table.

I mean, it's a school, this can come. And we sat there and as we sat there, she said to him, this is what I want you to tell this man. She was the first daughter of the Baptist pastor of that church. And he was the pastor.

And when she was three years old, the secret police came on the Trachesko, came to the house one day and arrested her father. And her father went to the other side of Romania, put him in a prison. He was in labor camp.

And brother and sister, twelve months later, they came back to the house, the secret police. They handed her a sheet of paper and they said, we need to tell you that your husband died in prison. And she was just in a terrible state and they said, you're going to need to get over it.

This is his death certificate. He's dead. You'll never ever see him again. So here was this young mother with a three-year-old little girl, nothing, and she was going to face life. And so she began to go through this grieving process and realizing now she's on her own with this little three-year-old.

And do you know what happened? Three years later, she got married again. A school teacher who was part of the church, a single man, lovely Christian man, she got married to him. And she had two little children with a school teacher.

And five years later, something happened. The man that was dead wasn't dead. So what happened? They lied to her. He went to prison. I've got a picture of him here. He went to prison when he was 160 pounds.

He came out of prison and he was only 50 pounds. And when he came out of prison, he had this massive passion. I'm going to go back to my wife and my little girl. Now she's about, what, eight, nine, ten years old.

And now I'm going to go back and I'm going to start the church again and ministry is going on. And away from the other side of Romania, he worked his way through the mountains, on his way back to this little community.

And he's going to come back to his wife and his little girl. No idea what happened. And he knocked at the door of the house and huge excitement. He thought, I'm going to surprise her. I'm not going to walk in.

I'm just going to knock at the door of the house. We're going to have this marvelous reunion of our little family. And knocked at the door of the house and she came and opened the door. The moment when she opened the door, she turned as white as a sheet.

And she stood in absolute shock. And she looked at him and recognized him. I mean, he was just flesh and bone of a skeleton of a man. And he said to her, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. And she just looked at him and she said, no, you're dead.

And he said, no, they lied to you. And she said, you know, they gave me your death certificate. That's what they did. And as he stood there, he saw something and around the corner these two little ones came and holding on to the dress of their mother.

Their mother said, look up. Who is this man? And he said, who are these? And she said, these are my children. I got married again. We have no idea, you know. We have absolutely no idea what those people went through.

Praying for Missionaries and Protection in Africa

So, I trust that you've got a burden and a longing for missionaries. You know, these missionaries that went to Mozambique. Our farm was five miles from the Kruger National Park and we were 35 miles from Mozambique.

If you want to pray for them, pray for them that those children and that they don't get malaria. One million people every year die of malaria in Africa. Humanly speaking, it's a 99 possibility that that whole family is going to get malaria.

And if children get malaria, it's a 90 possibility that they can die of malaria. And so, if you pray for them, it will be wonderful. You know, I don't have time, but I tell you, these countries that you can go to.

I think someone talked about Tanzania or I was in a conversation. I had the marvelous privilege of teaching at NASA Theological Seminary outside of the city of Wanza in the country of Tanzania. And incredible.

The Gospel Among the Maasai

When we were flying over Tanzania to the seminary, which is right on Lake Victoria, I looked down because I love the Africans. I was brought up with them. And I looked down and as I was looking down, I saw the African Kraus.

We call them Kraus in Africa. And I looked down and it was the Maasai Mai. I'm sure you've seen these people tall warriors and they're ferocious. They're ferocious men of war. And so, when I got to the mission station, I said, when I got picked up at the airport, Norm Dilsworth, who's a missionary, been there 60 years of his life.

He's a white Tanzanian. He was born there. He picked me up and we were driving through the city of Wanza, a million people in the city. And I said, Norm, I said, listen, are you doing something amongst the Maasai Mai?

And you know, he's an amazing man. Just a big smile upon his face. He said, you wouldn't believe this. I said, what? He said, God gave me a burden. I've been 60 years in the country. And he said, God gave me a burden for the Maasai Mai.

And he said, no one would be allowed amongst them. I mean, they're ferocious warriors, those men. And you know, one of the things for them to become the leader of the Maasai Mai, he had to kill a lion on his own.

And so, these people are incredible. And some of them are 7 feet and more, you know. And so, he said, God gave me a burden for the Maasai Mai. And he said, I talked to Sheila, my wife, and I said, I want to go and minister.

And she said, they won't accept you. And she said, you know, you're not going to even come back alive. And he said, but I have a burden. God gave me a burden. And so, she said, what do you want to do?

He said, can you give me 8 weeks that I will not be with you? And she, no, Norm, you know, I mean, he's just one of these men. He just said, don't take no for an answer. And he went. And he went to the Maasai Mai and he said to them, can I live amongst you?

And they said, no way. Well, he said, why not? They said, well, first of all, you're not going to make it. You can't do what we do. And he said, you don't understand me. I'm a white Tanzanian. And they said, you can't.

And he persuaded them. And brother and sister, you know what happened? They allowed him to be amongst them for 8 solid weeks. You know what? He lived amongst them. He dressed like them. He went into hunting with them.

He drank the cow blood. He ate the fat of the cow. He ate the raw meat. I mean, I don't know how he survived. But for 8 weeks, that's all he did. He lived amongst them. Shira said, I thought I would never see him again.

And after 8 weeks, the chief of the Maasai Mai came to him and they said to him, so, why do you want to do this? What is it that you want to say to us? And he said to the chief, bring the people together.

And he spoke to them and he preached to them for about 3 hours about the life of Christ. And 35 of them got saved. I mean, it's tremendous, you know. And they have 2 churches. When I was, before I began to speak, I said to Norm Dolceff, I said, do they have a pastor?

Yep, they've got a pastor. He said, he's an unbelievable tall man. And I said, is he coming? He said, no, he's not coming to the conference. He's got 8 children. And I said, let's pray. Because I took some clothes, you know, I want to give this man some clothes.

I mean, my long trousers was only about shorts for him. They were incredible. And you know what happened, brother and sister? The Monday afternoon, he arrived with his wife and the youngest child and bicycles and a chicken.

I said, what are we doing with a chicken? He preached this Sunday and they couldn't give him anything for his sermon. And they gave him a chicken. Don't give me a chicken when I go back to Canada, OK?

Because we don't want chickens, you know. We kill them the old style African way until the head parts from the body. So watch out for the Australian chicken. Well, let me tell you something. I said, what's the chicken about?

Well, he said, that was the offering of yesterday. I said, what are you doing with the chicken? He said, I put a tie around each leg and tie it around the pole. We feed it until it's big enough. And then, it's the only church where you can go preach and preach and the offering is growing, you know.

Isn't that marvellous, brother and sister? This is an amazing, you know, just an amazing thing. But you know, when you are amongst those people, oh, I tell you, brother and sister, it's incredible. You know, and you would talk to him and he said, OK, tell me about your monastery.

I said, how can I pray for you? Well, he said, you know, we're right next to the Serengeti. There's no fences at the Serengeti because it's near. So I said, what's the biggest problem that you have? He said, elephants.

I said, what do you mean? He said, they come and they destroy our crops. He said, we chase them away with pots, they get aggressive. And he said, sometimes they want to kill the people. And I said, what about, oh, he said, all kinds of animals.

He said to me, when my wife gave birth to the youngest child, the last child, he said, she was in the hospital in Wanza and he said, I was going on my bicycle about 35 miles to go to the hospital. She was in the hospital, she was going to give birth, and he said, I was going to the hospital and he said, I was going alongside this dirt road right next to the Serengeti.

And he said, I was flying down the seal of my bicycle and he said, before I knew what happened, there were two male lions walking right in front of me. And he said, I had no chance. And he said, I came right at him and he said, I hit one of those male lions right in his ribs with my bicycle.

And he said, the moment when I hit him, he said, I was flying through the air. And he said, as I was flying through the air, he said, I knew the moment when I hit the ground they'd be on top of me. He said, you know what happened?

I knocked his wind out. And he said, I landed there and he landed there. And he said, we both ran in different ways. Oh, Brethren, I mean, you know, I mean, this country is the dryest of bone. Why don't you go to the mission field?

Huh? I mean, you know, let me just tell you this because I give you all day telling what's going on in the world. You know, there are two missionaries there. You should hear them because these were two white missionaries and in Tanzania, they had a little truck and they went to buy groceries and kidnappers came.

With AK -47s. They call AK -47s African checkbooks. So, they came, drove their mother out into this little dirt road. So, their little truck, this missionary's wife drove them off, pushed them into this dirt road and they jumped out these Tanzanians with their AK -47s and they blew the tires out, shot the tires out and they thought, okay, this is it.

They're going to strip everything and then they're going to kill us. And so, these Tanzanians took everything that they could from this little truck. Two missionaries stood there, didn't know what to do and lo and behold, they didn't shoot them.

But they're out there in the bush. There's no way that they can get anywhere and they stood there and thought, what are we going to do? We are stuck. There's no way that we can get out of this. And do you know what happened, brother and sister?

Two Maasai Mai warriors, you know, in the winter, they come into the city of Wansa and because there's such fears, they use them for security in the city. And so, they become security guards. And two Maasai Mai warriors, there's this trail coming through and they were standing in these missionaries and thought, what are we going to do?

And here, out of the blue, two Maasai Mai warriors came on this trail and they were coming right to it and as they came, you know, with their swords and all their clothes and garments and stuff and as they came, they saw these two missionaries and so, they began to talk Swahili.

And so, the missionaries said, they said to the missionaries, what happened? And the missionaries said, you know, we got robbed, tires got blown out, they took everything that we had and we really stuck.

And the one Maasai Mai warrior said to the missionaries, so, what are you going to do now? They said, well, we don't know. And you know what happened? This is exactly what happened. That Maasai Mai warrior dig into his garments and open it up and open up and you know what happened, brother and sister?

He took out his cell phone. He took out his cell phone and said, phone the mission station. I mean, you know, these missionaries, they would, you know, they would sit and they would tell you a story and they'd crawl on the floor if they were laughing about this.

Because, I mean, to them, it's the greatest thing that has happened in the history of mankind. Anyway, there we are. Better stop now. Let's pray together. I want you to just get two or three or four people and why don't you just spend some time in prayer.

I'm going to close and then, we've got a few minutes to turn to the scriptures. We've got another session tonight also. If you can stay. So, can you turn around and find a couple of people that you can pray with and let's spend some time in prayer.

Intercessory Prayer for Revival and Missionaries

Heavenly Father, we want to thank you so much for the tremendous encouragement that it will bring, that it brings to our hearts when we pray together and when we counsel one another unconsciously as we listen to the prayers of those who unburden their hearts and as we unite our hearts in the place of intercessory prayer.

Father, if you and this beautiful Adelaide Valley and in this country of us here in Australia could raise up men and women that are going to climb underneath God's burden in prayer in such a way, what a difference this can make to this country.

And we want to pray this afternoon that somehow here in this land that God will give birth to a prayer movement the way that you have given birth to a movement of prayer in the land of Peru the last three years and how the churches have caught the vision of becoming houses of prayer and begin to see what God is doing as a result of lives and ministries of intercessory prayer.

And Father, you have said unto us in your word you have not because you ask not and you said unto us you ask and when you ask you ask amiss and you ask outside of the will of God and God cannot answer those kind of prayers.

And Father, we do not know this Sunday afternoon what it is going to take for God to come upon the so-called evangelical church in Australia and to see the church becoming a house of prayer and to see men and women and pastors and missionaries and evangelists and lay preachers and men and women in leadership to see them coming to their places in the relationships of God where they will become saturated in a spirit of intercessory prayer.

Father, I've been amazed and I'm so grateful that you have not allowed me to become discouraged or disillusioned but I had a huge expectation in my heart that if we are going to have an Easter conference like this and we are going to put the emphasis upon spending time with God, somehow, dear God, I had a sense of anticipation that the response is going to be so overwhelming of men and women that wanted to learn about prayer.

And yet, Father, it is so true that sometimes when we come with the understanding that we cannot separate the answers of prayer from that which God is doing in our own lives, that sometimes it just scares the very life out of people and they feel threatened and they feel intimidated.

And Lord, I confess this afternoon I probably totally missed the boat in my understanding and my perception and my expectation and anticipation of men and women in this country that could be hungry for prayer.

And yet, Father, I do believe in my heart that they are there. That the remnant of God's people want to know about prayer. They want to know how God answers prayer. How God is able to manifest Himself.

How God is able to send revival as a result of redemptive intercessory prayer. And we just pray that the seed these days that has been sown in our hearts and in our lives, Father, we may be just a handful of people, yet, Lord, You have enriched us in our understanding.

I thank You that You have come to my own heart with new concepts of what a life in the ministry of prayer all needs to be about. And there is a spirit of prayer that prevails in this country. We pray that You will give us the insight.

We pray that You will give us the vision. We pray that You will give us the comprehension to be able to somehow come to grips with this understanding of the spirit of prayer. With the understanding that You said unto us that if we then who are evil and know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more shall our Heavenly Father keep on giving the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him?

And, Lord, I am sad in my own heart to think that there are churches and maybe fellowships within this country and this community and within the Adelaide Valley that virtually don't pray together and that there is this understanding that we just don't pray together.

God, it's such a sad thing to realize that Your Word puts so much emphasis upon the necessity of what prayer is about. And so we ask that the seed that has been sown, that somehow the Spirit of God will come and fertilize the seed so that we would become men and women.

And, Lord, I don't know if I ever in my life will be able to do something like this again here with this group of precious, precious people of Yours. But I just want to pray that all that the Spirit of God will follow up the seed and fertilize it, and all that we would have men of brokenness of heart and burden of soul and men of great hunger and thirst after God as it relates to prayer.

Lord, our time is gone. This hour and a half that we have committed ourselves to these services, that we did not want them to be extended and that is virtually gone. And yet we want to ask that as we take the last few minutes of this little afternoon that has become so refreshing and we just ponder upon Your Word, minister afresh to our hearts, we pray.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Wonderful. Brethren and sisters, why don't you turn around. I wonder if I could ask some of those back that sat at the back. We've got a ton of chairs open here. Those of you who are at the back, would you mind to come and fill these spaces and then we are kind of closer together.