The Church and Her Widows

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca. You can also find us on Instagram, Grace Church, Y-E-G, all one word, or on Facebook.

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There is a form of Christian liberalism that prevails in many churches today, even in many reformed, if I can put it this way, doctrinally meticulous congregations. And this brand of liberalism comes in the most pernicious of forms.

It is the tendency amongst otherwise sound churches to elevate the importance of doctrine. There's nothing wrong with the importance of elevating doctrine, but elevating the importance of doctrine to the neglect and exclusion of the ethical and charitable duties of the church.

Now, make no mistake about it. In your Bible, sound doctrine is never placed in competition with sound living. By God's standards, Christians are never forced to choose between careful theological precision and a robust sacrificial love for others.

But sadly, this is exactly what we see in many churches, including in many churches in the broader reformed movement. In certain places, if you were to suggest that it is right for a church to devote a generous portion of its budget and manpower to its charitable ministries, that is, its ministry of mercy, its ministry of benevolence, you might even say its ministry of justice.

If you were to do that, you would be met in some groups, in some circles, with suspicion. Now, if you were to suggest that the church should be, in all of its efforts, eager to remember the poor, just to subtly slip in a quote from the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2 .20, you might be accused of favoring a social gospel.

And heaven forbid that you ever imply that it might be right for Christians to sell their possessions to meet the real needs of their brothers and sisters in Christ. Such a proposition would be considered the fanciful language of a social justice warrior or of a so-called communist Christian.

And yet, in many of these churches, you would find a peculiar inconsistency, an inconsistency that I think we must be careful of in our church. In many places, you would find a zealous commitment to the priorities that Paul outlines in 1 Timothy chapters 1 through 4.

These churches would be all about countering false teachers, praying for the salvation of all people, upholding biblical standards for godly manhood and womanhood. They would highly esteem the offices of the church, take seriously the church's band-aid to promote and to protect the truth.

They would be all about the public reading and preaching of scripture. They would even be about the diligent self-watch, watch on themselves and on their teaching. But there would be a notable absence of any emphasis on the ethical teachings found at least in the first half of 1 Timothy chapter 5.

There'd be a robust application of what we've studied so far in this epistle to Timothy. We'd see all of chapter 1, 2, 3, 4 in steady application. But then, in some cases, a wholesale neglect of certain parts of these final two chapters.

In fact, as I have studied this passage, not only over the last week, but having preached it in years past, I've come across Bible teachers who would imply that everything in 1 Timothy chapters 1 through 4 is highly relevant to the church today.

While 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 1 to 16 is of little relevance in our time. Some have said that because there is an abundance of government services and social programs that care for the elderly and the vulnerable and the infirm, the church has been relieved of this duty and this responsibility almost altogether.

And at first glance, that might seem kind of reasonable. After all, some of the people that say this very thing have been fierce defenders of biblical inerrancy and of what we would call conservative Christian values.

But I want to assert right here and now that if any church maintains a commitment to studying and understanding and applying most of the Bible while intentionally setting aside other parts of scripture as irrelevant, this is simply another form of theological liberalism disguised as conservative Christianity.

To say we will take this part and we will guard it jealousy and this part we can do with or without it. The promotion of sound doctrine is never at odds with the ethical obligations of the church. To the contrary, to quote one Bible scholar, ethics is the testing ground of all sound doctrine.

How we live, how we apply our doctrine ultimately reveals what our doctrine actually is. So brothers and sisters, today as we find ourselves now in first Timothy chapter five, I have no intention of succumbing to that temptation so long as I can keep talking.

To set aside this passage or any other because it is out of vogue or costly or because the government has taken it upon itself to try to fulfill this mandate, albeit poorly. As we will see here, Paul shows us that a biblically ordered church not only emphasizes prayer and the ministry of the word, it not only emphasizes qualified officers and the upholding of the truth, but a biblically ordered church also prioritizes the ministry of mutual love and care for the body.

The church as we will see is not merely a preaching center. It is not merely an evangelistic outpost. The church is a family. It is a family that jealously guards the truth. It is a family that prioritizes all that God prioritizes.

And it is a family that walks by a biblical ethic that directs us to a kind of sacrificial love that the world has no category for. So we'll look today at the church's care for her widows as I've titled it.

And I want to invite you today to a fuller experience of biblical Christianity, one where doctrine touches all of life. And so we have 1 Timothy chapter 5 before us. Brother, I'm going to cough a couple of times if you want to just turn me down for a second.

If you want to turn to 1 Timothy 5 verse 1. And I'm going to cough. And Sam, I have this in full manuscript form. I might need your help. I'm not sure. We'll see. It says, do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father.

Younger men as brothers. Older women as mothers. Younger women as sisters in all purity. Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents.

For this is pleasing in the sight of god. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on god and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.

Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works. If she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work, but refused to enroll younger widows.

For when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry, and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not.

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them.

Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows. So today I'm going to expound this text under three headings, and we're going to do it in somewhat of a piecemeal fashion.

I'm going to hone in on various verses along the way, and we're going to look at these three headings, the church as a family, the church's care for widows, and then the character of true widows. And so we'll look first at the church as a family.

Verses one and two, we see Paul's instruction in this respect. I'm not going to read it again just to spare my voice. Now what we'll see here is this. If you can recall the context from last week, Paul has given Timothy instructions on how he is to conduct himself as a young minister of the gospel.

Last week we heard about some of the aspects of his ministry that he was to prioritize. The public reading of scripture, of exhortation, and of teaching. We also saw that he was to set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

And as Paul goes on, he enters now into his instruction in chapter five, and he's next showing Timothy that he should be exemplary in his relations with every member of the church family. And while his words are brief, they are instructive.

In verse one, he says, do not rebuke an older man. Now this word rebuke in context means to censure severely. And what Paul has in mind here is not the prohibition of speaking the truth in love, but it is a warning against the harsh treatment of older men.

Now some might ask why are older men spared such treatment? Certainly Paul could have quoted from a passage like Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 32. There we read something that I think most of us would be well to be reminded of in the church today.

You shall stand up before gray head and honor the face of an old man. You shall fear your God. I am the Lord. Now that's a good reason in and of itself God commands us to show deference to older men. But Paul does not root the treatment of older men alone in this divine command.

Instead, he roots it in the transformed relationship that the Christian enjoys with the older man. We see this when he writes, encourage him as you would a father. The reason why Timothy and each one of us is to interact with older men in a gentle and conciliatory manner is not only because God commands it, but because we are both members of the household of God.

What this means is that I am to show that man, that man, the same honor that I owe my earthly father. Because we have both been adopted into God's family. Because he is not a mere acquaintance. He is not a mere friend.

He is not a fellow club member as if this is a social club. But he is a part of God's redeemed family. And as such my relationship to him is as near to anyone on this earth for the exception of my own wife.

Now I grant that my case would be rather tenuous if I was basing this idea of the church family entirely on this one phrase. But watch what Paul does. Not only should we encourage older men as fathers, but younger men as brothers.

And the word encourage here that Paul uses speaking about all of these groups is an interesting one. It means to exhort, to comfort, or to strengthen. It's the same word that speaks of the Holy Spirit's ministry to believers in the world today as our paraclete or as our comforter.

And what Paul is counseling us to do is to deal with younger men with a kind of gentleness and patience that befits the treatment of a brother and not an enemy. And we see an application of this in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 15.

We're writing about idle brothers. Paul says, do not regard him as an enemy but warn him as a brother. Now as we move from verse 1 to verse 2 we see how women are to be treated. Older women are to be treated as mothers.

This means that they are to be regarded as mothers of the congregation as it were. They're to be given the same honor that mothers are due. We see Paul doing this very thing in Romans chapter 16 and verse 13 where he writes, greet Rufus chosen in the Lord also his mother who has been a mother to me as well.

And finally we are to regard younger sisters or younger women as sisters he writes in all purity. This comes if you'll remember from last week on the heels of Paul's exhortation to Timothy to be an example in purity.

As Christians the younger women in our assemblies are to be regarded as our dear sisters and this is to translate into pure and chaste relationships with them. It is to shape everything that we do as we interact with them.

I think of something that I spent a considerable amount of time doing with my son when he was just a little, little boy. He's a big, big boy now. But when he was a little, little boy I would tell him you know God made you a big brother to your sister not so that you would mistreat her but so that you would protect her.

It's a lesson I think that every boy with a younger sister probably has to learn. God has given you the mind that he has given you and the muscles he has given you and the maturity that he has given you in at least in relation to your sister to protect her and to care for her.

In his providence he has arranged your birth order so that you might have this privilege and responsibility. And so it must be in our relationships with younger sisters in our church. And if I might go on a bit of a rabbit trail for a moment.

What a remarkable contrast this is from the rest of the world. Celebrity culture is rife with examples of impure conduct toward women, younger women. Outside of that there's an endless stream of headlines about the predatory treatment of girls by older men or old men or disgustingly older men.

I'm thinking of the Epstein files that were released. It's even reflected in the world religions that are around us. I don't know if sometimes you hear about these things but you don't know exactly where they are if they're true.

But in the Quran in surah chapter 4 and verse 6 or chapter 65 and verse 4 these chapters amongst others allow a man to take an orphan child not to be his adopted child but to be his wife if he deems that she is of sound judgment.

A man may take a young child to be his wife though she has not reached yet the age of puberty and she would be subject to a certain holding period meanwhile Hindu texts explicitly state that a man may age 30 may marry a 12 year old girl while a 25 year 24 year old man may marry girls as young as eight years old.

Many world religions allow marriage in the case of Islam again to one or two or three or more wives so long as they can do it honorably. I would suggest to you there's no such thing as an honorable marriage to one or two or three or four wives.

What this all tells me is that we live in a characteristically impure world and yet in contrast to that the church is to relate brother and sister one to another in all purity. Now where am I going with this?

What I want to offer us or show us is that these verses offer us a picture of the familial nature of the church. I said it already the church is more than an institution. It's a many things but it can never be less than a family.

As we begin looking at the church's care for widows in the coming verses we must recognize that the foundation of this Christian ethic is a right understanding of the church family. The reason why the church cares for its own is not because we're social justice warriors.

It's because we're family. It's because we know each other and we love each other and we have a new identity one with each other. The tie that binds every Christian together is our shared salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is our shared participation in the spirit of Christ and it is our shared adoption by the Father so that we are a family. I'm going to give you a few references and I want you to chase them this week because I'm not going to say them.

Matthew 12 and verses 49 and 50. How could I not say it? It's God's word. Hear my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brothers and sister and mother. In Matthew 19 verse 29 and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

This is why men like John Stott have said the local church is rightly called the church family and every imperative, every imperative that follows in this passage is rooted in this. Not in who we must be to please God and to win him over but in who we are.

We are the household of God. We belong to him and we are his family. Next we'll consider the church's care for widows and what I'll do because I'm rigid is I'll cough after every point. It doesn't help that I can't hear very well either.

My sinuses are all plugged. So we'll look next at the church's care for widows. That does not sound better. It feels better. I should drink more. While the remainder of the passage deals with this theme more broadly, we're going to focus on two verses in particular.

Verse nine, verse three, excuse me, in verse nine. So in verse three, we read this. Honor widows who are truly widows. Now if we look carefully at this verse, we might be inclined to think that this passage means that we're only to honor widows by showing them respect or by paying them some esteem.

But when we look more closely, we actually come to learn that Paul has something much different in mind. Here this word honor that Paul uses in verse three, speaks to showing honor by providing material aid or financial assistance.

It's actually the same word honor that Paul uses in first Timothy chapter five in verse 17. If you look there with me, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. Now certainly some people read that and they go, well, you know, I know that I've been in a situation where maybe we're lining up for food and someone says, well, no, no, you go ahead of me, double honor.

Well, brother or sister, I appreciate that. That's not what Paul means here. He says, especially for those who labor in preaching and teaching. What does this double honor look like? Boy, that tea helped.

For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the labor deserves his wages. What Paul is talking about in verses 17 and 18 is providing materially for the elders.

That exact word that he uses there is the same word that he uses here in verse three, when we are to honor widows. Now that Paul's established that we are a church family and we are to relate to one another as fellow family members, he goes on to show how we as a church are to honor our widowed mothers.

It is not merely by paying homage to them. It is by caring for them and providing for their physical needs as they arise. We see this in verse four, when he speaks about making some return to widowed parents.

You know how much you don't realize, I think sometimes, until you have your own children, how much your parents sacrificed for you, even for unbelieving and worldly parents. I even wonder in my own mind how unbelieving and worldly parents raise children as well as some of them do without the hope of the gospel, without the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, restraining you at times, helping you.

We're to make return to our widowed parents. Verse eight uses the language of providing for a widowed relative. Verse 16 speaks about taking on the burden of caring for widows. And what Paul is speaking about is the church's responsibility, and I want you to hear these words, the church's responsibility to take on the costly care of widows, costly in terms of its financial resources, costly, and I think most of us have more difficulty with this, costly in terms of our time and our energy resources.

And this is where some might label me a social justice warrior, but I assure you I'm just preaching the text. 1 Timothy 5 tells us that the church has an obligation to provide for its widows, just as it has an obligation to provide for its elders who labor well in preaching and teaching.

Now, I grant that there is a difference. It does speak about double honor in reference to elders, but there is still honor for the widows and all of this by the authority of God's word. And I want to put us into a scenario so that we can really appreciate this.

Okay. You'll have to turn down the volume again, brother. I don't like coughing, but I especially don't like coughing in front of people, something I have to get over. I want you to imagine this for a moment, that we take you to another church in another city this Sunday.

And upon arriving, you find, you really quickly begin to take things in and you see that the church is well attended, that it's evident that the church is well funded, that the primary preaching pastor, that man who gets up behind the pulpit, whose main responsibility is to preach the word, that he has obviously worked hard to prepare a rich meal for the people of God.

And that by all accounts, as you look at this church, you say, this is a thriving church. I want you to, I'm going to take you to that church. Now imagine for a moment that after the service, you find yourself speaking to one of the church's members and you learn that this wealthy and thriving church makes all of its elders work in secular vocations, in addition to working full-time for the church without compensation.

And though some of the elders would gladly give up their vocations to serve the church in that way specifically, those funds are instead allocated, the congregation feels at least, those funds are best allocated to the improvement of the church's facilities.

In fact, because of the cost saved on staffing, this member tells you, this year the church will be installing a marble fountain in the church's courtyard. And so we're constantly improving our space and our elders are happy to work for free.

I'm sure they are. But I know that if I found myself in a position talking with one of these members, I would be tempted to say, take me to your leaders, not the elders, obviously, take me to the power brokers of the church.

And I would be tempted to confront them with some great vehemence and to quote the words of the Apostle Paul in Galatians 6 verses 6 and 7 to them, where it reads, let the one who has taught share all good things with the one who teaches.

Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one sows that he will also reap. If you were in that situation, you might ask yourself, how foolish could this church possibly be? They would forsake the clear teaching of the Bible.

Though they are now thriving, one day they will reap what they sow. They will have a beautiful building and nothing inside of it. They will have a fabulous institution with no substance. And it makes me wonder what would happen if a man like James, the Lord's brother, were to visit many of our churches today.

He would find churches that are well resourced. You would find churches that are committed to defending the truths of scripture. You would find churches that are growing in number, churches with big pulpits because they want to preach the word of God.

And yet, if he were to inquire about their care of the widows, what would he met be met with? If you were to ask a church, go to a church that really prides itself about its ministry of the word and say, you know, tell me about your pastor.

Tell me about the education. Tell me about the preaching. Tell me what books you've gone through. Tell me what is your view on this doctrine. Tell me how would you defend this idea in tulip. Tell me this.

Tell me that. Tell me this. Tell me about your care for widows. Wait, care for widows? What does that have to do with sound doctrine? You'd be met with blank stares. Some might say we let the government take care of that.

Or some might say, well, we would do that if we had more room in the budget for it. Or we just find that all of our people are so busy with other more important ministries. And how would someone like James respond if he were to quote scripture or maybe his own book?

Might he respond with words like this? Oh foolish man, have you not read what the word of God says? That religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this. To visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

If our Christianity does not include caring for the widowed mothers of this church, it is impure and undefiled. Sorry, it is impure, impure and defiled before God. But if you think I'm embellishing, let's look at verse 9.

Paul writes in verse 9, let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband. This word enrolled is an interesting one. Yeah, I don't, you know this. I hope you know this.

I don't. My general rule is no longer to quote Greek words unless it's really, really important. And it's the Greek word katalogeo. Katalogeo. Why do I bring that up? Because it's where we get our English word catalog, right?

You go to a catalog. Maybe you're doing an inventory at work. You go to the catalog to see what you have there. And what it means is to select for membership in a group. And some have looked at this verse and suggested that maybe what Paul has in mind here is a third office in the church.

They would say there are elders and deacons in chapter 3 and now an order of widows identified in chapter 5. I don't think that's what Paul is getting at. Instead what it appears Paul is doing is he's encouraging the church to care for the material needs of the widows in their midst.

Not only in a way that is determined, that is convictional, but that is also systematic, that is organized, that is intentional. This means that the first century church's conviction that I must care for widows translated into a registry of true widows who received support from the church.

And even in the earliest days of the church, this is exactly what we find. And yet I would suggest that probably for most of us, we read these things and we just kind of gloss over them. But what do we find in Acts chapter 6?

We find nothing other than a formalized system for caring for the widows in what they called the daily distribution to the widows. And we know that early on the apostles oversaw this ministry, caring for the distribution of support to all the widows of the church.

But as conflicts arose, the apostles, rather than sidelining this ministry, recruited other men to continue the ministry. And when we search the pages of history, we find there are frequent references to the care of widows throughout the early church.

We read about the church's care for widows in the Didache and from Clement in the first century, from Ignatius in the second century, from Tertullian and Cyprian in the third century, from Basil in the fourth century, and so on and on and on.

And what we find is this, those who are truly widows, and we'll get to who that is in our third point, these true widows would often receive support from the church. And because their needs were provided for, they in turn would commit to serving the local church by visiting the sick and helping the women of the church, a Titus II kind of ministry, and participating in the prayer.

That is the context that helps us to understand why Paul talks about in verse 11, a younger widow, who when their passions draw them away because they desire to be married, so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.

See, that passage doesn't make sense if all we're talking about is a woman who is a widow, who's receiving support from the church, and she meets a godly man, marries him, and now you're condemned. No, that's not it at all.

It's not that a widow who's married a second time loses their salvation because they get married. It's because here the church is providing support to them, and as they do, they commit themselves wholeheartedly to serve the church.

So what Paul is saying is, if you're going to be enrolled on the list of support, of care, you should meet a certain criteria, and if you're going to do what all the widows do, it's to pour yourself then into the service of Christ's people.

This is not, we're not talking about an order of nuns, or we're not talking about a new office in the church, but just simply women serving the Lord wholeheartedly and receiving the support of the church.

Now some, it's really interesting, some liberal feminist commentators have looked at this. I always like using contrast for the sake of clarity, and they've said, this is just, you're trying to create a ghetto of widows, and what you're trying to do is just unleash your patriarchal oppression upon women in another form, so that now we're bound by the support of the church.

We're just another group of helpless women. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is so ridiculous. What this was meant to be was an expression of sincere love and care for the mothers of the congregation, for members of the church family.

Moreover, and we will end on this point in a little bit, it was meant to be an expression of the great love and care of our Almighty God for those people. We read about this care in Psalm 146, verse 9, and I challenge you, go home and look up the word widow in your concordance, and just see how the theme of widows permeates scripture.

Think about the lives of some of the prophets in the Old Testament, and how their interactions with widows are some of the high points of some of the darkest periods in redemptive history. But it reads in Psalm 146, verse 9, the Lord watches over the sojourner.

He upholds the widow and the fatherless by the way of the wicked, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. When the church cares well for widows, we're not unleashing a patriarchal oppressive system.

We are unleashing the love of God for his people. We are being used of God to express the very love that he has for his own, even for those who are seemingly forgotten and alone. This is why in the early church, men like Tertullian record that the response of pagans as they were blown away by the love, the Christian love that was demonstrated within the Christian community.

The pagans used to say of them, Tertullian records it, see how they love one another. If people, and I know I talk about other churches. I use that to frame the idea, to frame the picture that we're entering into, but never mind those other churches now.

If they would, these pagans were to come into our church, would they say of us, see how they love one another? Would they say, see how they love the word? I hope they would say that. See how they love preaching.

See how they would love the idea of preaching or the idea of the idea of preaching. Don't you see what I'm getting at here? I'm not seeking to diminish the importance, the prominence, the primacy of the preached word.

But I am really concerned, frankly, that in a lot of Protestant reformed churches, we are making an idol out of things that we ought not to be. And frankly, things are getting out of balance. We must uphold the ministry of the word fully.

We heard all about that last week, of reading scripture, of exhortation, of teaching, that when we do come together on the Lord's day, this is one of the most important things that we will do in the week is to sit under the ministry of God's word.

But the ministry of God's word must move then into life. If it is all about this hour, if this becomes the end, we have lost the plot. The ministry of the word is to instruct and inform the mind and the heart and the will and the life.

And if it's simply us becoming preaching connoisseurs, we've lost it. Now, what does this look like then in practice? I think for one, this text gives us simply a strong biblical warrant to maintain a list or registry within the church to identify those who are truly widows.

This could also be further expanded to include those who require the extra care of the church in general. In our church, this takes the form of a care list. If you come to our membership meetings, our members' meetings, you'll hear about the care list.

This concept flows largely out of passages like 1 Timothy 5. And maybe one day we'll need a specific care list for widows. I'm not sure. But it means that we have, and we must have, an organized, a systematic, and a dedicated way to care for those who are in real need.

We as a church, you as members of the church, when we talk about our budget and our financial priorities, we all should be very concerned that we are allocating the Lord's resources to care for those who are in need and to care for widows.

And for each believer in this room, really, I think the real point of application is it means cultivating a disposition of heart and broader culture in the church that values, highly esteems, and physically honors the widows in our midst.

That we would not only see them as the objects of our charity, but that we would see them for what they are. Oftentimes, the godly, experienced, mature, God-centered, Christ-dependent women that they are, from whom we have a great deal to learn.

We must understand that when we say it is the church's privilege and responsibility to care for widows, it does not mean that it's someone else's responsibility out there. That it's the deacons, or it's the elders, or it's somebody's.

It's just not mine. Is the church a building? What is the church? It is the family. It is the body. It is the blood-bought people of God. And so when we say that it is the church's responsibility, let me just turn it around.

It is your responsibility. I was thinking about it this week. Has anyone noticed the providential timing of the sermon? Do you know how many widows we have in this church? We've one. Do you know where that widow is today?

She's at home because she had surgery two days ago. And she needs help, a lot of help, for the next several weeks. I don't know why the Lord timed it exactly this way. Well, I do know, in fact. It's because we have a God.

We have a God who is sovereign. We have a God who knew that this date was on the calendar long before Nancy's surgery date was. And they actually moved her date up to align with this sermon, interestingly.

Because it was meant for later. She was supposed to have surgery at the end of the month. And they brought it right up to the Friday so that you would hear this sermon on Sunday. The Lord has given me a voice and I praise Him for it.