Well, I invite you to turn tonight to Proverbs chapter 4, and then we'll look over at chapter 7. This is just the reading for tonight. I wasn't really slotted to preach tonight, but I was at the Missions Conference in North Carolina this week, and Steve Hauerzile was there with Rhonda, and we were talking. He thought it might be helpful to take some of this. It was like an hour-long talk, so I'm not going to do that tonight. Take some of this and try to make it into a sermon, I guess. We'll see how that comes out. So it's not really a sermon. It's not my typical way of exegeting a text. It's going to be a little bit more topical tonight. And that's what we're going to do. Wright was scheduled to exhort, and I called him, and he said, Pastor, you want to do this? I got a lot on my plate, so please take it. So it was great that I will do that. So anyways, Proverbs chapter 4 tonight, beginning at verse 20, and then we'll read into chapter 7. Obviously, we're dealing with a very important subject in our day and something that I really don't feel prepared to be an expert about at all. I've sort of been put into this having written the catechism. They wanted me to talk at the conference on the Reformation catechism and its use in the church, and I thought, well, that's kind of boring. So, but I think it's important to say that the Lord has opened a door with that and it's now going into the eighth language in yet less than a year. And so there have been lots of printings of it. It's going to go into Arabic now. So it's obviously been somewhat of a help to people because it gives you sort of propositional statements to be able to talk to your children with. And that was sort of the goal of this, to help families in the church and maybe Bible studies and maybe even a sermon series i don't know but anyways i said at the conference what i'd like to do is sort of look at the crucial issues that we're dealing with today and that's what we're kind of tackling tonight so beginning at proverbs 4 beginning at verse 20 my son be attentive to my words incline your ear to my sayings let them not escape from your sight keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them in healing to all their flesh keep your heart with all diligence for from it flows the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look straight forward and gaze, your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Now over to chapter 7. My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you keep my commandments and live keep my teaching as the apple of your eye bind them on your fingers write them on the tablet of your heart say to wisdom you are my sister and call insight your intimate friend to keep you from the forbidden woman from the adulteress with her smooth words throughout the window of my house i've looked out through my lattice and i've seen among the simple i've perceived among the youths a young man lacking sense passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight, in the evening, in the time of night and darkness. And behold, the woman meets him dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She is loud and wayward. Her feet do not stay at home. Now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait. She seizes him and kisses him. And with bold face she says to him, I had to offer sacrifices, and today I paid my vows. So now I've come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I found you i've spread my couch with coverings colored linens from egyptian linen i perfume my bed with myrrh aloes and cinnamon come let us take up our fill of love till morning let us delight ourselves with love for my husband is not at home he has gone on a long journey he has taken a bag of money with him at full moon he will come home with much seductive speech she persuades him with her smooth talk she compels him and at once he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver as a bird rushes into a snare he does not know that it will cost him his life and now oh sons listen to me and be attentive to the words of my mouth let not your heart turn aside to her ways do not stray into her paths for many a victim she has laid low and all her slain are a mighty throng her house is the way to sheol going down to the chambers of death and there will end the reading of god's word you imagine if this were solomon writing and here's a father sitting down his son saying son i've got to talk to you about something really important in life i've got or talk to you about really serious things. I've seen a lot of lives ruined by this. Imagine if that were David sitting Solomon down. Kind of fits, doesn't it? You know, it would be wrong just to think that this is about a prostitute standing trying to lure in a young man. This is about lady folly and lady wisdom, two different paths and choices that people have. And it's really dealing with the seduction of the heart the human heart and the most powerful desires that we come up against in this life anything that seduces us away to lady folly anything that pulls us away down that path is exactly what he's talking about in this particular passage well i'd spend a lot more time in that tonight but i want to take up the subject tonight of what we're dealing with in terms of of human sexuality and the new sort of orthodoxy of the sexual revolution the title doesn't quite fit this what i'm doing tonight but i thought it might sell well in other words i thought the place would be packed out if i said that but you know sometimes that works sometimes it doesn't um when i went into ministry and i first entered ministry you know it's almost 20 years ago now i was a young idealistic pastor ready to take on the world and defend the reformed doctrines of grace i knew that in the western culture over the past century we were experiencing a radical change in our understanding of what it means to be human and how that plays out in sexual ethics but who of us entering the ministry in the early 2000s would be prepared to face a revolution that would overturn in 15 short years the god-ordained institution of marriage you know think about how radical that is looking back and and then from from early 2000 say you know that's what you're going to be faced with as a pastor you ready for that and all that's going to come with it and what's to come in the next 15 years what it has done in a very short period of time is open the floodgates into every form of sexual deviance that is contrary to what god made is good everything in genesis 1 through 3 now is under great assault and the whole thing is being overturned i felt equipped of course uh to deal with the the challenges more that the reformers face on from the inside you know that that interested me a lot more that was you know we were facing justification issues we were facing federal vision issues at that time find nuances in soteriology is what we called it studies of salvation it didn't take long however that i seemed like i was facing an insurmountable problem the entire world turning around the other way the entire world demanding our submission to an unbiblical anthropology a unbiblical anthropology that makes the assumption that the desires of the human heart whatever they may be are good and right for somebody if they follow them and who is to tell anyone differently where now somebody's identity is so bound up with their sexuality in this view the great reason why there is such hatred right now for historic christianity in this country is precisely because to question somebody's sexuality based on sinful desire is to question who they are that's what charl truman's book in a nutshell is all about strange new world because you're questioning who they are when you're questioning their pursuit of a whatever form of sexual deviance that they are it's a question for them of being it's a it's what we call an ontological question and the very thing we have to deal with and unravel in our day and address is just that point and so now what we're we're up against is ever since the Obergefell decision in 2015 when gay marriage was legalized a flood of assaults have come on us that seek to overturn the entire creational sexual ethic that God established from the beginning for our good not only now we cannot take it for granted at all that non-christians around us agree on the most basic definition of what it is to be male and female our institutions have embraced concepts such as gender fluidity and call believers to declare their preferred pronouns and accept whatever view of gender is espoused by those around them and let me just say that is no less true now in historically robust christian institutions where parents face sending your colleges listen even if it's our brand you have got to be really smart today and ask the right questions and not just assume if i send my child off to a certain college that has the brand name i've always known it's going to go well that is not the case we will send our kids now we're facing sending our kids to what used to be historically robust christian institutions now that we'll seek to act actively indoctrinate them against everything you've taught them with the new sexual libertinism of our age and it will still be called christian i don't think you should have to pay for that homosexual homosexual behavior is now so normalized into the mainstream consciousness of our culture, there's no question that as we see the continual unraveling of all creational norms contrary to nature, the next wave of sexual deviation will demand the acceptance of polyamory, bestiality, pedophilia. These will be normalized in years to come. You noticed recently, I couldn't believe that children are now being encouraged to identify as animals. Children. So what's coming? Full participation in the workplace and the wider society will require a complete submission to whatever are the prevailing ideals of the moral revolution and the proposed reset of all creation norms. That looks like exactly where it's going. Consequences. Does anyone see them? you know i dr godfrey said something a few weeks ago that that made me ponder this in light of this whole thing where romans 1 talks about the giving over of people to these things and and he said you know romans 1 18 says the wrath of god is revealed if something has to be revealed it can only be seen when it's revealed it's not seen unless it's revealed do you understand what that means it means that you see what's happening right now in the culture judgment God is giving people over to their sins and you're seeing the sad consequences of hatred of him but here's the scary part to it they can't see it because it's not revealed to them even the wrath of God is concealed in this age until it's revealed and will be ultimately revealed on the last day and this is what i saw in the court case that i was on you know a deeply religious family this community and um a mall station case and when the investigator was put on the stand the the defense tried to undermine escondido pd investigation saying you guys didn't do your job you didn't do due diligence you didn't interview this didn't interview this person And the investigator said, are you kidding? This happened 20 years ago. Do you know the backlog of cases I'm dealing with right now? And I've got to go protect all those little girls out there right now. I have priorities. My heart just sank. Consequences. Terrible things happening all around us. I think you saw it this week, didn't you? The mental health of our youth in this country. Look at the sad fruits of what you saw happen. And it's praised by a society under judgment. The sad consequence of hating God. What do we do? That's just kind of a question, isn't it? What do we do in the midst of all this? I think we're out of sorts on how to deal with these things. And this is in my short time, in my 23 minutes left. there's a lot more that could be said tonight and as i said i'm no expert in this but god's given us his word and god's given us help and one of the things i want to do tonight is just briefly tie together then the pastoral challenges of what we face with our mission and that's where this is important to see and to think about how should the church respond at these times there's sort of three ways the church is is responding right now the not the most helpful ways the first way is that we're trying to find a way of tolerance in the church and we've been concerned to reach the culture we've been so concerned about reaching the culture and so we're trying to find a way to appease the lies to coexist in the church with this and i think what you're seeing is at least from their from the outside's perspective on these issues with historic christianity there's no coexisting there's no coexisting there it's it's pretty evident this is that it's not going to be tolerated what we believe the other extreme is to become angry and i think we see this on on many social media sites that our job is just simply to to work hard to fix the culture that's a pretty big burden to take on i don't i i i don't i have to worry about my house i've got to worry about the escondido urc but is it my job to go fix the entire culture on this matter there are many christians who are pushing us to that and i think first things first but we'll come back to that the other response is to do what we've always done well is just be victorian about all these things especially when it comes to the impressionable think about it you know which are young people um we want to leave the impression that these are not the things that we touch in the church we don't talk about these things because the church is too holy for this that's not going to help the next generation we've got to be open we've got to be direct we've got to be compassionate we've got to talk to them and we can't punt the football to RYS to think that's where pornography will be talked about that's where sexual morality will be talked about that's where homosexuality will be talked about but not in the church that's not going to work the victorian days are over the bashfulness about this is over it has to be so those are the sort of responses that i think are in front of us now and this is where i think our past we have to think together about our mission as as christians and and we have to get to the heart of issues and this is why i love studying how our lord dealt with these things did jesus ever deal with rampant sexual immorality in the culture and could you think of a verse where he did an account and the reality is he did many times sometimes we have to look deeper into passages to understand exactly what jesus was doing and to see how he helped people and what his aim was in the face of very difficult challenging situations like this and that takes you to a well-known passage today that you all know you can turn to john 4 just for a minute with me and we're going to look at the woman at the well just for a moment i think she captures for us something tremendously helpful in understanding the most basic problem that we're dealing with when it comes to issues of human sexuality so it's john chapter 4 you know the story jesus had to go to samaria because he had a divine appointment on his calendar to meet and to save this this woman it's a remarkable story because the jews wouldn't travel there of course and they were known the samaritans were known to the jews as a bunch of half-breeds they were also known as grossly sexually immoral people so this is not the kind of people the average jew would ever go talk with or visit with the lord goes right there violating all the conventional standards and norms of the day the superimposed barriers of the pharisees ethnic and now notice here even um in terms of of a woman jews never talked with samaritans rabbi jesus would have never addressed an adulteress jesus knows her he knows everything about her and i think what's remarkable about this particular passage is the compassion of christ he has known that this was a child given to him from his father that he was to save salvation has to happen you understand that when it comes to this is one of the great truths of election when it comes to god's elect salvation will happen nothing's stopping it but sexual immorality is no easy chore here to deal with how do you get into the heart of someone who's so deeply rooted in sin what do we do jesus comes to her she comes to him on the well he has his divine appointment was set and he asks her for a drink and she of course is confused why he would even care how is it you a jew speak to me as as a samaritan jesus of course asks her for a drink she she recognizes she he doesn't have the bucket notice what he says whoever drinks whoever drinks of this water will thirst again but whoever drinks of the water that i shall give him shall never thirst but the water that i shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life proverbs 4 ponder your heart out of it come the issues of life you'll have something springing up out of life unto everlasting life jesus is concerned with a woman who is known as somebody who is grossly sexually immoral in the culture he is concerned that she's not saved and that she has not had water that is truly satisfying and that's the great problem here everyone by nature is trying to fill their hearts with something to satisfy themselves with something other than christ well what are some of the most powerful desires that we have what are some of the most powerful desires that we have is it sexual desire that's the world in which we find ourselves it's your sexual desires that must be followed we're told think about that i have water to give you that you have not known what are your most powerful desires what are the desires that lead us captive well it's a post post freudian culture freud said that who you are is really determined by the object of your desires okay he said your sexual desires are the most powerful desires that belong to your inner life. Freud put the individual at the center of all things. It's all about you as the individual and what your inherent desires are that makes you who you are. This is what he said to ask the question, who am I and what am I becoming? Well, if sexual desires are the most powerful desires that we have, he says that's the category for understanding you. You see where we got all this nonsense? Everything needs to be evaluated through the fulfilling of your desires. And because of that, the great goal of humanity is happiness, he said. And the channel by which that is achieved means that sex is foundational to your happiness. Whatever you choose for yourself. which I always thought leads to the question, how are we different than animals? We have desires, certainly our sexual desires. God's given us a place to have them fulfilled in marriage. What does Jesus raise with the woman? Does he see her problem just as she's sexually immoral? Is that what he sees as her problem? Does he see her as somebody who's just breaking the seventh commandment? Out of the blue. Go call your husband to me. That's an interesting thing to say. She says three words back. No husband have I. No husband. What's her problem? Unbridled sexual lust? There's got to be more to it than this. i have no husband you've well said you've had no husband you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband and that you spoke truly ever pondered that you've had a long list of divorces in your life i mean by today's standards this is pretty radical We've never dealt in the consistory room with somebody who's had five divorces. At least I haven't. You've had five husbands. And now, the one you have is not your husband. I mean, you've given up on marriage, haven't you? And so now you're trying out another woman's husband. Now you're an adulteress thinking that will satisfy you. Sure, sexual morality characterized her life. But have you noticed what Jesus did? Did you notice? You notice where he was taking her? So you were once this. You practiced this. You believed in this. And now you've moved to this. How's that working? See how you could apply this? You were once heterosexual, weren't you? Now you say you're homosexual. Has that really worked for you? Are you fulfilled? Are you happy? So you were born a woman. And now you've transitioned to become a man. Are you fulfilled? You were born a woman. Now you transition to become a man. And you just shot up a school. You see what Satan's doing? Satan's work is to take people in the darkness and progress them into the darkness, into the darkness, further into the darkness until they destroy themselves and others. Adultery was just the broader symptom of the emptiness that characterized her life. Let me say this too. Where there is rampant sexual immorality, this is where I think the compassions of Christ do come in. Where there's rampant sexual immorality, I think what you will often see is a past full of a lot of abuse. Serious abuse. She was abused. That doesn't justify her actions. But you have to see things for what they are. Sexual desire is one of the most powerful desires. You have to look behind it. It's subservient to a greater desire in all of us of something that was lost at the fall. It's a search for happiness. It's a search for identity. It's a search for a personhood. It's a search for a desire to be loved. It's no coincidence. Right before this, what did Jesus declare? the most powerful words in the scriptures? God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have this life. Well, she needed to be loved. Didn't she? She needed to know love. When Paul addressed sexual morality in the churches, he had no problem saying, I betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Everything about that has to do with our union with Him. This is why he would say, listen, your bodies are not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. A radical statement in a culture, of course, that separated body and spirit saying your union with him involves your whole person this is important your body and your soul is important when you're involved in sexual morality of which everyone is tempted and tried and tested and and and struggles with in these temptations and sometimes fall into what you have to realize he said he says why you have to fight this is because it's like joining your holy union with jesus when with a corinthian church he said with a prostitute it's no form different with any form of sexual deviance and so he says flee sexual immorality because you're being remade into the image of christ and he gives you true value he loves you He cares for you. He bought you. He purchased you. He's not going to lose you. He gives you meaning to your life. He cares for you and He values your life so much, He died for you. That has to get into our heads to beat this. Jesus is in the business of giving this powerful living water through the gospel that sets people free. there's countless stories to prove it where we should all be testimonies of it i was thinking the other night when dr ferguson prayed you know and i think what is what is an important answer to all this when dr ferguson prayed the other night and when he was preaching on jesus's prayer excuse me that we may be one as the father is in him and jesus in him for what in remember what he preached on that the world would believe that you sent me speaking of our union and the glory which you've given me i've given to them that they may be one just as we are one i pray that in their unity glory would rest upon them and then remember what he did with that he said you know when the church was in acts and it was the the mission of the church was going out that glory the lord was answering the prayer and the glory was hovering over the church and remember what was the response of the culture no one dared to join them counterintuitive why well because what they saw was a people united by love they saw a community and a fellowship that was markedly different they saw in a distinctive roman culture of moral bankruptcy a people who weren't perfect but lived by repentance they repented of sins together they were separate and rome could never produce this and they saw that well do you see how important that is for the issue of sexuality in the church In other words, the very thing we want so badly to accomplish with people on the issue of human sexuality can never be achieved by trying to find some forged middle way in an attempt to help people. The glory is intended to bring a restraining and questioning influence on people. Isn't that what he said? When the church was going out, the people came to them with questions. a witness marked by love and the conviction that is held in beliefs that were embraced in unity. Now, here's the problem. I don't think it's not evident what the problem is in the church today. I was really thankful to see the Christian Reformed Church make a good statement at their last synod. Weren't you? Remember what it said? The CRC voted to affirm that unchastity in the Heidelberg Catechism includes adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex. Here's what Varysh talked about. As wonderful as that is that they declared that. Out of the 123, it was 123, 53 ministers voted against that. 53. That's not John 17. That's not a witness that the world will say, wow, look at the unity and the truth. That's not a witness, you see. Our brothers and sisters, we have to pray for them. Our brothers and sisters in the PCA are struggling with this terribly right now, aside B Christianity, where they're trying to find, many of them are trying to find a middle way to say, well, I'm a gay Christian. So long as the desires aren't practiced, so they still will identify with the old nature. And that's caused a huge split in the PCA, Huge division in the PCA. You see, that's not witness. That's not unity. That's not love. That's division. But I say to us, the URC, the Escondido URC, we can't just be angry about the larger sins of the culture. We have to be united with a clear witness in God's holy standard. Christians must be faithful in pursuance of a holy sexuality as part of their witness to the world. And that means that it would be wrong just to be fixated on the bigger and larger sins of the culture without considering what brought us here to begin with. How did we get here? It seems to be an important question. Something went wrong somewhere. God's holy standard of sexuality reaches far deeper into our lives than what is often appreciated. And as the line of the culture gets pushed back further and further to the more extreme things, what the church has to go back to is to the most basic of things, beginning with the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And beginning with things like, listen, I know these are really bad sins. We're not worried anymore about premarital sex. No, we have to talk to our young people about that. In what ways do we need to demonstrate repentance so that the high standard of moral purity might be demonstrated to a world as a proper creational ethic that's worth going after? The church offers little by way of answer to the world if our own ethic is diluted with compromise. Close with a couple things. The reality is in the next decade, many people who you come across in your daily life are going to be entrenched in these sins. I'm over at Starbucks the other day and the man at the counter is telling another gal, yeah, my husband. What do we do when we hear that? Well, you might be disgusted. There's a disgust to sin. But what do we think about the man? I think we have to think of him as Jesus did the woman at the well. He's not just a commodity giving me coffee. He's a person made in the image of God who needs to find life. We should pray for people. There's a silver lining in all this. It's not a happy silver lining, I guess. But in the coming years, the sad consequences of the sexual revolution will be so entirely evident in people's lives that we are going to see in the church surprising opportunities we never thought possible. It's going to be right in our doorstep. Hopes will be dashed. Families will be destroyed. Emptiness will characterize life. This will not fulfill. This will not fulfill. And opportunities will be given to you to set people free with the truth. But you've got to speak the truth in love. You've got to be willing, like Jesus, to tell people the truth and to recognize no matter what they do to you, we don't fear Him who can kill the body. We fear Him who can kill the body and soul in hell. If our eyes are open to see the misery around us, then our heart should be to lead people to the Savior of the world. The gospel of forgiveness remains the great solution to our present darkness. So a few practical things to close. We've got issues of, in our culture, incest, molestation, pornography, adultery, premarital sex, homosexuality, transgenderism, all that. I think Rosaria Butterfield's right. Expose the lies. She said there's five of them in her recent book. Homosexuality, number one, is a normal sexual variant and that it is a true and immutable category of personhood. That's a lie from the devil. The lie number two, being a spiritual person is kinder than being a biblical Christian. Paganism is kinder than biblical faith. She says, that's a lie. Don't fall into that. Number three, feminism is good for the church and the world. That's a lie. Number four, transgenderism is normal, at least for some people. That's a lie. Number five, modesty is an outdated and unfair social construct, an impediment for a woman that serves patriarchy, that holds women back, and exhibitionism is a much, much better address than social media discourse. That should be really evident to us. That's a lie. Number two, we've got to address creation basics. It's not that we need to do anything new, but we need to address what we assume people already know on issues of how we were made and God's design in creation with a particular aim and view. Number three, we can't be boxed in by the culture and fear of addressing these issues. That's one of our great dangers at the moment is just that we zip it up in fear. We have to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. That takes a lot of wisdom from heaven. Number four, we cannot forget our young people and our young adults. All of you have to invest in them. They need to feel they're a part of the church. It's hard, but they need to know we love them. And I hope sitting here, you all know that we do. Number five, we can never forget the aim. I still go back to John Calvin when he said, Many things are undoubtedly contained in the gospel. But the principal aim that God intends to accomplish in gospel ministry is the forgiveness of sins. So if your son or daughter comes to you, overtaken in pornography and confesses their sins, you throw your arms around them. You help them. You love them. We're leading them to Christ. Receive forgiveness. Help people with their identity and purpose, number six. Number seven. I'll just use it because it's so familiar. Let's focus on the family. We've got to get back to the table. We've got to talk to our kids about these things, to our children. We've got to be a family unit. It starts in the family. You know, it's interesting. One of our very seasoned ministers came up to me at the conference and said, Much of the breeding ground of abuse happened in very conservative, hard-line families where a lot of this stuff came out later. And that's something we have to take into account. How are we as fathers and mothers demonstrating the love of Christ to our children? We're all failures, I know. But the Lord gives grace, doesn't He? We have to love people, number eight, as Christ did, welling up with compassion. And we have to remember that the battle, ultimately, number nine, is the Lord's and the results are His. That's sort of the run-through of the talk that I gave. And I want to close with this thought. It's been amazing how much rain we've had as of recent, isn't it? Anybody ever thought about that? It's caused problems for farmers, I know. um it's pretty remarkable how the lord does that that he gives rain all at once like this and that he can solve a drought very quickly i think it's really remarkable that half the state's drought was just solved and no newscaster no meteorologist could predict this isn't it been amazing haven't you stood back and say wow they can't figure this out well the lord applies it himself be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the lord see how the farmer waits for the precious fruits of the earth being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains you also be patient the lord could if he wants turn all this on its head tomorrow and it's over well that means we should pray but if he decides not to then this is the reality establish your hearts for as you saw the rain come quickly the coming of the Lord is at hand let's pray Heavenly Father thank you for helping us on a big subject and pray that you would bless us give us great understanding and wisdom in our day to know how to deal with this. To first confess our own sins. For we all have by far missed the mark and there are indeed sins in our own lives that we must repent of. And we bring them to the throne of grace right now. We have all lusted. We have all done things we shouldn't have done in the course of our whole lives. We have not been good witnesses to our children. We in the church have been compromised. We've not spoken the truth in love. We've been willing to appease the culture. and we've been embarrassed of your ways. And for this we ask for forgiveness. And we ask in our day, O Lord, that you might be pleased to turn hearts back to you again. And like the woman at the well of a culture entrenched in such misery, we still should think a lot about that little line we often say, but for the grace of God, there we go. For where would we be today without your mercies? Scary thought. So help us, O Lord, Encourage us in your forgiveness. Let us know that you favor us and love us and that you have forgiven us all trespasses. And so then, as we have enjoyed your forgiveness, enjoyed your steadfast covenant love, help us to care about those who are lost in these sins and pray. And as Satan wants to use these things to destroy the righteous, we pray that you would curb that violence, that you would undermine it, and that you would give us, O Lord, to fulfill what you called us to do, and that through even these weak means, you might gather in your church the elect from the four corners of heaven, knowing that this will be the greatest victory that is possible through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we pray in confidence to you, asking that you would cheer our hearts and give us motivation in our callings. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.