SPEAKER_00: We're actually going to have three scripture readings this morning, but I'm going to uh just ask you to hold that place and we'll read them uh as we go along this morning in our our uh our focus on the subject of the persecuted church.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when I became a new believer, one of the first books that I that I read as a as a young man was a book called Fox's Book of Martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that that book gets around much today, but it was uh back 30 years ago, it was circulated widely among Christians, and it was a book that that tells the stories of brave men and women who were killed for their faith uh in the 14th through 18th centuries.
SPEAKER_00: I remember being amazingly struck by the subject matter of this book.
SPEAKER_00: As a new believer, I didn't understand, I didn't have much understanding about uh what it would actually cost uh many people, what it has cost them uh over the centuries uh to be a believer in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that book helped raise my awareness.
SPEAKER_00: Um in recent decades, the with the advent of the internet, really many stories have come to light.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes it takes a while after history for stories to really surface.
SPEAKER_00: I think of the Holocaust, and it you know, it took some time for the fullness of what really happened there.
SPEAKER_00: And even now there's still things that are that are coming forward.
SPEAKER_00: There's it just takes time for the the uh the tragic nature of things to come to the surface.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the internet is very much helping that today, so that around us there is a lot of voices that are being spoken.
SPEAKER_00: There are there are ministries that are dedicated to raising awareness of what it costs Christians uh around the world to give their loyalty to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, finally, one last uh one last thing I wanted to mention is that when I was in seminary, one of the things that I learned there was that there have been more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined.
SPEAKER_00: And so we say, what is what does that tell us?
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that tell us is there has been a dramatic increase uh in Christians being persecuted uh in the last hundred or so years.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't look like things are going to let up.
SPEAKER_00: What I'd like us to do today is to think of, I wanted to just focus on this theme centered around three questions, and we'll be looking at a text with each of these questions.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to ask the questions of why are Christians being mistreated and oppressed around the world?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, why does God allow his people to be abused?
SPEAKER_00: That's an important question.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, what do suffering Christians really need in their trials?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that they really need?
SPEAKER_00: And so I hope we'll just spend some time uh unfolding these questions and uh hearing from the word of the Lord uh on them.
SPEAKER_00: So now if you're still open to uh your Bibles to John chapter 15, let's be considered uh the first question of why are Christians being mistreated and oppressed around the world?
SPEAKER_00: Then I'm I would like to read from John 15, beginning in verse 18 through 16, 4.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is speaking, he said, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
SPEAKER_00: If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
SPEAKER_00: But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master.
SPEAKER_00: If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
SPEAKER_00: If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
SPEAKER_00: But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they don't know him who sent me.
SPEAKER_00: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But now they have no excuse for their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever hates me hates my father also.
SPEAKER_00: If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my father.
SPEAKER_00: But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: They hated me without a cause.
SPEAKER_00: But when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away.
SPEAKER_00: They will put you out of the synagogues.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he's offering a service to God.
SPEAKER_00: They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me.
SPEAKER_00: But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.
SPEAKER_00: Here ends the readings of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that's very clear in Scripture is that to be one of God's people is to be in a place where you will be facing potential hostility.
SPEAKER_00: To be a Christian in this world, in the new covenant age, is to be a potential target for oppression.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the surprising things in my introduction, I talked about how I discovered the idea of persecution as a brand new believer in the book Fox's Book of Martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: But that was really only because I didn't really know my Bible very well.
SPEAKER_00: And that very much of the New Testament and much of the Old Testament is centered and is spoken within this theme of the suffering of God's people in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in particular, taught that if we wanted to be his disciples, we should be prepared to suffer much in this life.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say it would always be the case.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in the passage we read, one of the things he began with was, if the world hates you.
SPEAKER_00: But he did say that it would be normative.
SPEAKER_00: And he did say that we should expect that as the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he went on to say, in many different ways, that we should be prepared to count the cost ahead of time before we take on a profession of loyalty to him as our king.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he said this lots of times in lots of familiar passages to us.
SPEAKER_00: He who loves mother or father more than me is not worthy of me, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or he who loves this world more than me is not worthy of me.
SPEAKER_00: Or what king, if he goes out to war, doesn't first sit down and count the cost.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in lots of different ways, the Lord made it plain that it would be normative in many periods and in many places of this world for his people to suffer derision and shame and oppression and systematic kinds of persecution against those who identify themselves with him.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus puts his finger right on it, and we're not going to dwell long about this.
SPEAKER_00: I think in some ways it's it's it's obvious to us if we've been a Christian for very long.
SPEAKER_00: The reason, largely the reason the world hates God's people, is because they hate God.
SPEAKER_00: The reason the world is not in tune with God's people is because they're not in tune with the message of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes I think we know that as the church, we do a really poor job representing God.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that's on our hearts, to not be people who are bringing trouble on ourselves and bringing a derision to the name of Christ by the poor ways that we might behave.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, largely the world hates Christians because of the message that we have.
SPEAKER_00: And the message that we have is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: The message that we have is that the world is lost, and that the world is at odds with the creator and the sustainer and the judge of all the universe, and that there is a day set that is coming when he will bring justice and make all things right.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the message goes on to say that there is a way to be made right that is wonderfully, wonderfully good news.
SPEAKER_00: Because this God has stepped into history in the person of Christ and become one of us and has a heart to rescue, to rescue humanity made in his image.
SPEAKER_00: But he does ask of us something.
SPEAKER_00: He asks of us that we contribute nothing to the process.
SPEAKER_00: He asks of us that we come to own our need, and that we come completely empty-handed, and that we come to trust and give our loyalty and not be ashamed of a Messiah who is a crucified Messiah, and who one that is one that the world mocks.
SPEAKER_00: So it's proclaiming the real nature of man and the real nature of God that gets us into trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's obvious to us that 20th century America is an anomaly.
SPEAKER_00: In history, 20th century America, 20 going into the 21st century, is an anomaly.
SPEAKER_00: And we've had many, many years of calm and peace, but already there are leaders, not not there, these are not uh uh wild, loose canon kind of leaders, but there are solid uh leaders, sober leaders of the Christian church uh in America who are giving voice to the idea that this time of peace may soon be coming to an end, that already it's on the horizon, that there will be a greater cost, a greater public cost for those who name the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So this brings us to the second question.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, why does God allow his people to be abused, anyhow?
SPEAKER_00: And we we think of how we uh we strive to treat our family and we strive to treat our children, and we we want to protect them from any kind of harm, right?
SPEAKER_00: So so why is it that God allows his people to suffer this kind of abuse?
SPEAKER_00: And here I'd like us to turn to our second scripture reading, and that would be found in Romans, so still in the New Testament, uh turn forward toward the back to the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be in chapter eight, verses thirty-one to thirty-nine.
SPEAKER_00: If God is for us, who can be against us?
SPEAKER_00: He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
SPEAKER_00: Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
SPEAKER_00: It is God who justifies and acquits who is to condemn Jesus Christ is the one who died more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
SPEAKER_00: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
SPEAKER_00: As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_00: For I am sure that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Why does God allow his people to be abused?
SPEAKER_00: This, of course, is a big question.
SPEAKER_00: It's a part of a bigger question of why is there evil in this world and why does a God allow suffering and evil in the world?
SPEAKER_00: But this question narrows it down to the actual people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And why does God not intervene for his people?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Romans 8 gives us some light, some important light on that.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't relieve all of the mystery.
SPEAKER_00: And indeed, at the bottom end of all we would have to say is we'd have to say that Scripture always encourages us to remember that there is a lot of mystery that we have to just hold related to God in his providence.
SPEAKER_00: God does not deal with his world in ways that we always understand.
SPEAKER_00: In the very passage that Paul quotes here in the middle of Romans 8 in verse 36, this is a quote from Psalm 44.
SPEAKER_00: Later on, take some time to read Psalm 44.
SPEAKER_00: I really have grown to love that psalm this week as I've reflected a little bit on it.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is a song by the sons of Korah, and this psalm is putting into words some very deep, heartfelt cries that sound illegal to our ears.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you might, when you read this, feel a little uncomfortable that the psalmist would be so bold to say the kinds of things that he says in this psalm.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's really getting at in this psalm, he's saying, Lord, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: He said, We are being killed all day long.
SPEAKER_00: We're the world is regarding, our enemies are regarding us as sheep to be slaughtered for your name's sake.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if we had been unfaithful to you and this was just a discipline on your part, we could understand that perhaps.
SPEAKER_00: But this is not the case.
SPEAKER_00: We don't understand why this is happening to us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's relentless.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist ends this psalm with a cry wake up, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Wake up and see what's happening to your people.
SPEAKER_00: And have mercy and extend your mighty hand and bring relief.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God put that psalm there for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good place for God's people to be who are suffering.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good place for them to express the felt abandonment that they have.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not the place for them to stay.
SPEAKER_00: And Romans 8 gives us another perspective from the Lord that can help us stay grounded in those times when there is great mystery involved in suffering.
SPEAKER_00: At the very heart of this passage that we looked at, we find that the one that Christians put their trust in is not a tyrant.
SPEAKER_00: The living God is not some kind of tyrant God or some kind of God out to lunch.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a God unfamiliar with suffering.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he is a God who is intimately familiar with suffering.
SPEAKER_00: He's the suffering God because he became one of us.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows what it is to suffer in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what it is to suffer in obedience to the Father and to carry out in this world the heart of the Father and the vision of the Father that he's doing in this broken world in bringing us to redemption.
SPEAKER_00: And even more than that, he knows what it's like to stand before the very judgment of God, having laid aside his own robes of righteousness, and having become sin, having taken on my sin and your sin, and having stood before the hot anger and contempt of the Father in our place, and in some mysterious way, absorbed and satisfied with the wrath of God that was ours.
SPEAKER_00: And in this passage, the Lord is telling us I know your suffering.
SPEAKER_00: It's always been that way.
SPEAKER_00: But if God is for you, and He is.
SPEAKER_00: Who can really be against you?
SPEAKER_00: Who is really against you?
SPEAKER_00: Your whole identity in life, the one thing that is the most important in life you already have.
SPEAKER_00: The creator and the sustainer of the universe loves you, my people.
SPEAKER_00: And he's died for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's made you one of his own.
SPEAKER_00: And he's taking you somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: There is a living hope.
SPEAKER_00: The story isn't ended here and now.
SPEAKER_00: You really have a future.
SPEAKER_00: And so he can say a little bit earlier in this passage that I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in the new heaven and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: And when the fullness of our redemption comes and we have new bodies, and sin and death is done away with, and it will last forever.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't abandoned you, the Lord says.
SPEAKER_00: Being separated from our children, our loved ones, there's no doubt of the tragedy in that.
SPEAKER_00: But nothing compares with what the Lord has prepared for his people, that we shall not be separated from him and from the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting that sometimes God does give us a glimpse into the mystery of his suffering saints.
SPEAKER_00: I remember being blown away when I lived in Chicago.
SPEAKER_00: I heard on the radio that there was an interview on there.
SPEAKER_00: And this man was an Ecuadorian.
SPEAKER_00: And he was speaking in a foreign language, and as it turns out, he was one of the men, maybe one of the spearmen, who had participated in the killing of that very famous massacre of Jim Elliott and Nate Saint and some others in Ecuador in the 50s, the 1950s.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a great tragedy at that time.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure if for those of you who were alive at that time and who were awake to what was happening, had asked the questions: why would God take such talented people, such missionaries who had gone to that place and to bring the gospel of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And he allowed them to be killed on the shore.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think a lot of you know the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_00: That Jim's wife Elliot and apparently others had gone back to the village after the death.
SPEAKER_00: And that eventually this village was converted to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that one of these men, who had been one of the spearmen, became, he was converted and became an elder in the church that was in that place.
SPEAKER_00: And he actually took it on himself.
SPEAKER_00: He um knew that he had taken away the father of uh Nate Saints, I'm sorry, of I think it was Steve Saint.
SPEAKER_00: Um he had taken away his father Nate.
SPEAKER_00: He had participated in that, and so he took it on himself to help raise this boy who was there, uh, who continued to stay in the village.
SPEAKER_00: And to hear this interview of this Christian elder, who had at one time been a murderer, and to hear his heart of how the Lord used this bizarre event and this horrific tragedy, how he had used it for his own glory and for good is just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't always get to hear anything of the other side.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to stay room for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: God is for his people, he's actively interceding for them, he's not out to lunch.
SPEAKER_00: And Christians who are suffering are not victims merely, they are more than conquerors in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, finally, what do suffering Christians really need in their trials?
SPEAKER_00: And here I'd like us just to read one final short passage in the book of Hebrews, chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 13, one through three.
SPEAKER_00: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
SPEAKER_00: Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.
SPEAKER_00: In this book of Hebrews, the Hebrews has a lot to say about suffering and the cost of being a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And in this opening section of the practical section of the book, there's a there's a call on these believers who were beginning to wane, who were beginning to grow weary of the cost that was uh that they were having to pay in their day.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord is telling them to let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: You to love your brothers and sisters who are suffering and who are imprisoned, even if you're not, to pay attention to that, to know them, and uh and to seek to love them and to love them well as you have opportunity and to not forget them.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason given here because you have solidarity with them.
SPEAKER_00: You have solidarity with them.
SPEAKER_00: They're your brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that this idea is developed a lot in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time this morning to look.
SPEAKER_00: You have it generally spoken in Romans that we're to weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus made a very striking use of this idea in um of lengthy parable of the sheep and the goats, that at the end of the age there's going to be a separation that's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And that separation is in the terms of that parable is played out based on how people treated his people who were suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the terms of the passage, these are people who are in prison and naked and poor.
SPEAKER_00: And um the primary reference there is to those who were that because of the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't ashamed to align themselves with God's people and to love them.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't even know these people, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here we are in America, and these people, we don't really know who they are.
SPEAKER_00: We we hear about them, we hear about Christians in North Korea, we hear about Christians in all kinds of places in the Middle East and in Asia.
SPEAKER_00: We hear about Christians right here, though, too, in our own country, uh, Christians who are internationals, who have come here and who have had to suffer all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that's that that I think can help us think about this is to help us think about an idea of a landing zone.
SPEAKER_00: Being Veterans Day, I think this is a good illustration for us.
SPEAKER_00: A landing zone is a place where where uh aircraft, military aircraft land and drop off troops.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think back to the Vietnam War, um landing zones were just crucial at that time because much of the war was taking places in places where there weren't roads, and troops had to be quickly shuttled into the front lines and to different places, and there were landing zones everywhere that were that were made.
SPEAKER_00: Troops that were brought in came from all different units Air Force, Marines, Navy, Army.
SPEAKER_00: They were all involved in this.
SPEAKER_00: These troops weren't all from the very same unit either, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um they came from different units.
SPEAKER_00: People didn't know troops from other units.
SPEAKER_00: But some of these, some of these landing zones were renowned for being hot.
SPEAKER_00: So they were under fire.
SPEAKER_00: And there was this overall mission of the war that went on day after day.
SPEAKER_00: But each day, troops got their orders, and many of these troops, the orders they got, they had to go to hot landing zones.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they got.
SPEAKER_00: And they came into these zones, and if you can watch them on the internet, these things happening.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's just amazing the uh the pressure and the emotion that was there as these troops are coming out of helicopters being fired upon and uh uh scrambling to get their positions.
SPEAKER_00: Other troops came into calm landing zones.
SPEAKER_00: They strolled out of the helicopter, they might have broke for uh for a meal and a lunch and so you know you know in a water break, and they didn't have that.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, what was called for in the armed forces was a camaraderie.
SPEAKER_00: It was a camaraderie for all your brothers and sisters who served.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you were in the hot zones or not.
SPEAKER_00: And when when your brothers were taking fire and your sisters were taking fire, and they were suffering, and helicopters were crashing, and people were losing lives, it didn't matter what unit they were, it didn't matter what branch of the armed services they were.
SPEAKER_00: You felt it.
SPEAKER_00: You felt solidarity with them.
SPEAKER_00: Their loss was your loss.
SPEAKER_00: And you did what you could.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that same situation is what it's like to be in the Christian church.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of hot landing zones out there.
SPEAKER_00: There really are.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have one right now, and I don't think God wants us to feel guilty about that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to bring guilt or rise in your heart about that.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord gives us our orders, but I think our day is coming.
SPEAKER_00: I think the landing zones will start getting hotter here in America.
SPEAKER_00: But for right now, what can we do?
SPEAKER_00: What can we do from our heart?
SPEAKER_00: Not just go out there and do action.
SPEAKER_00: What can we really do from our heart to help and to have solidarity with these brothers and sisters who are suffering?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think one of the first things we can do is we can just open up to the Lord and seek to be real with him about where we really are and about maybe the indifference and the coldness that we might have.
SPEAKER_00: And to just open up and ask him to take us, to just take us to a new place and to lead us and to show us.
SPEAKER_00: For the Holy Spirit to lead us, he'll do that, he'll lead you individually, he will give you marching orders as to what he would like you to do with your gifts and your station and your opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: And we can begin right where we are.
SPEAKER_00: And we certainly can pray.
SPEAKER_00: There is great power in prayer, even prayer for unknown people.
SPEAKER_00: There is great power in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament everywhere testifies to this that as you help us by your prayer, that God in a mysterious way uses the prayers of people who are not necessarily in the battle to sustain his troops who are in the battle.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of things we can pray for.
SPEAKER_00: I wish we had more time to develop this, but uh, let me just say this in closing.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing prayer for relief is not the only concern.
SPEAKER_00: It might not even be the primary concern.
SPEAKER_00: When we read the scriptures, everywhere we're told about the kinds of things that Christians will face under persecution.
SPEAKER_00: And so what they what these Christians need, they certainly need relief, and we are encouraged to pray for peace and for tranquility, that we may live quiet lives in all godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, by all means pray for that.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not probably the central thing.
SPEAKER_00: What about that these believers could have the strength to just to deal with the problems of their life that you and I have on top of everything else?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they have bad marriages, they have rebellious kids, uh, right?
SPEAKER_00: They have money problems and conflict problems and job problems, or maybe no jobs at all.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer to be strong and to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer not to give up hope on God and to not let the word of Psalm 44 be the last word on their heart, but to let Romans 8 be the last word on their heart.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer for encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer for boldness that as they're in prisons and suffering, that they might be light to those around them, to the inmates around them.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer for material things, for those who have lost parents.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer for courage that they won't shy away from being Christians and gathering and taking their children and feeling guilty that somehow they're leading their children into a place where they will come to hate God someday because they've put them in harm's way.
SPEAKER_00: They need prayer for those very practical kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a world of ways to pray for the persecuted church that are very practical.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, the Lord really is calling us to have solidarity with them and to love them, to let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: Let us close our time together here in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father, Lord, we thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the encouragement of scriptures that assures us that as your people we're not alone.
SPEAKER_00: And it gives us at the same time a great opportunity to carry out your vision and your mission in this world in very practical ways.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that as a church that you would take fresh initiatives with us, that you would extend your hand, and that you would move the hearts of your people, the hearts of your people, Lord, from the depths of who we are, not just externally, but that you would move us to do practical things to support your people.
SPEAKER_00: And today we lift them up.
SPEAKER_00: We lift up all who are imprisoned, those who are hungry, those who are destitute, those who are fearful.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you strengthen your people today?
SPEAKER_00: Would you in very practical ways strengthen your people for the sake of your steadfast love?
SPEAKER_00: And we ask it in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.