Suffering

Well, good evening to you tonight again from Beacon Baptist Church. I trust that you turned in early enough to hear that congregational song, Oh Father You Are Sovereign.

It was good to hear that recording, to be reminded of the things that we affirm together, that we have come to believe, that grow out of a proper understanding of the Word of God, that represent the God of the Bible. And those wonderful doctrines, the sovereignty of God to be put to music. Oh Father, you are sovereign in all the worlds you made. Oh Father, you are sovereign in all affairs of men. Oh Father, you are sovereign, the Lord of human pain.

Oh Father, you are sovereign. And it goes on, the last stanza, Your love pursues its purpose, our soul's eternal good. We sing these things on Sunday morning, looking forward to the return of a full slate of services, a normal schedule back to what it was a year or so ago. And we're moving in that direction, but as we think about announcements, this evening I trust that you're praying and preparing your hearts for the Spring Bible Conference. Mark Webb and his wife Paula will be with us beginning Easter Sunday morning, this coming Sunday, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then in Bible Conference Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. And the Tri-State Particular Baptist Fellowship will meet on that Monday, and he's also going to be speaking there. Three men speaking at that pastors conference, and it's open to you if your schedule allows. And you want to come, Terry Lane from Shollaford Baptist Church in Pofftown will be one of our speakers. Some of you remember Bill James, Bill James pastored Shollaford Baptist Church for nearly 50 years, and the Lord called him home after a battle with cancer several years ago, and the church called Terry Lane to follow him, so that's who Terry Lane is. And then Ron Rumberg will be with us, he's up in the Richmond area, he's a very, very well read man, written a good bit about the Civil War, he's a solid theologian, pastors a small group up there.

He's been married 61 years, it's good to talk to him on the phone and listen, learn from him, but he'll be with us, and then Mark Webb will be speaking. So three men on that Monday following the beginning of our Bible Conference. I was encouraged as I went by the book room and saw that a dozen or so of you picked up Dr. Erwin Lutzer's book, We Will Not Be Silent is the title of it, and let me whet your appetite with a few of the chapters here. Chapter one, How We Got Here, a survey of the forces that seek to dismantle the core values that built up America. Chapter two, these are some of the efforts that he is identifying and exposing and calling us to take a stand against. One is rewriting the past to control the future. Freedom of speech for me, but not for thee.

Sell it as a noble cause, how propaganda is used to shape a population's perception of reality so they will not change their minds even when confronted by compelling counter evidence. Capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure. Why socialism is initially attractive yet ultimately leads to failure and how capitalism can create wealth that furthers Christian work everywhere. Chapter nine, vilify, vilify, vilify, how disagreements today are no longer resolved with mutual respect and civility but through shaming and outrageous denunciations. And then the last chapter, wake up, strengthen what remains. Jesus speaking to a New Testament church gives a warning that applies directly to us today and his assessment is the only one that matters. So a book that will bring you up to speed on a number of contemporary issues written with a pastor's heart, very readable for good things from those who have begun to read.

So pick that up. I noticed the sign up sheet for the meal schedule for Mark and Paula Webb. Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night are still open. So if you're interested and you look at your schedule and you want to host them for a meal after the services, call the church and alert us of that and we'll get your name on the schedule.

Otherwise the schedule will be available for people to sign up. It would be nice to have some more of those slots filled in before they arrive here. They'll be staying in our missionary house. It's nice to have that to host our conference speakers. They like that. It's very suitable to them.

We offered them either to stay there or stay in Graham and they preferred that so they will be there. Let me take a quick look and make sure I haven't missed anything else on the announcements. Just to alert all of you, Sunday School teachers are mindful of this but let me make everybody aware of what our schedule is for Sunday School. The Sunday after the Bible conference, we're going to begin Sunday School.

All of our adult classes will gather here in the auditorium. We'll be able to social distance, spread out and for eight weeks we'll have a rotation of men speaking during the Sunday School hour. This is in transition toward our summer elective program that will begin the first Sunday in June.

Let me see if I can get the date. It's the first Sunday after the Bible conference. Our Sunday School will begin.

All adults in here, our other classes meeting accordingly. Anyone has any questions about that? Do you have concerns? Do you have questions?

Call the office and talk to me. We're going to move forward in that way. We're moving slowly. We're not beginning Children's Church yet. We're just going to begin Sunday School and we thought this would be a good way to make a transition to our summer electives. When the summer electives come, we'll have three or four options for you that will allow us to again spread out throughout the facilities. We won't be all packed in small classrooms and we'll allow more time for the move toward normalcy. So that's what the plan is.

Just alerting you to what we've discussed and decided upon. Isaiah 53 verse four and five. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed. Let's take a look at the request side of the sheet.

I have, I think I have, some information that helps me explain to you some developments with some of these requests. Our government official of the week is Councilmember Everett Green. We're praising the Lord that Bob Caldwell is doing well from his recent procedure. Drew Guthrie continues courageously and in an honorable way of battling her cancer.

Pray for her. Doris Loftus, we mentioned to you on Sunday, fell and broke her wrist. She had surgery last Friday at Duke and she's making progress with that, getting adjusted to a cast. Thank you for praying for Shirley Watkins who is at home and just weak. Gary Barker, former member of the church here, is making good progress in recent surgery. He had his cast removed from his hand. Pins will be taken out soon and he will begin physical therapy shortly thereafter.

That's the latest we have with Gary Barker. Sandra Blanchard is a cousin of Sue Vestal. She's in ARMC with severe anemia and is having upper GI tests.

Sue tells us she is a believer. Duane Craig, his father, who's been staying with he and Lori, has gone to the VA hospital at this time. They are doing an assessment of his condition and they will be advising Duane and Lori concerning how to move forward with him.

We're asking you to remember Paul and Gail Ellis' family, Drew and Nancy Ellis. Nancy has been diagnosed with COVID and pneumonia. Nancy and Drew have 10 children. They recently brought a newborn into the home and it's a challenging time to have COVID and pneumonia. They're an amazing family. The older children just have pitched in and taken over and obviously with supervision, but they're a very well-organized family.

They need to be to care for that many children. But it's good to see that, see them taking on responsibility, but pray particularly for Nancy and Drew as he's the head of that home. Terry Smith is a cousin of Sue Vestal. She was in the ER overnight on Monday due to breathing issues and Sue tells us there's a family history of COPD. Lee Vestal, her husband, she's saying please pray for complete healing for an infected toe. His thyroid function is almost normal.

His blood sugars have improved when he saw the doctor last week. And then an uncle of Ann Enick, Jack Wiley, had a bad fall last week and is very sore. I know you're praying for Laverne Waugh and Mike Webster as Mike battles colon cancer and Laverne continues to adjust to the loss of Stewart. Please remember Betty Duncan in your prayers. She is weakening, hospice is coming in to help, and I think the frequency of their visits has increased. So pray for them during this time of transition. I have two missionary letters and they're both from the same couple, CELAS and Vonger Compost in Brazil.

They're short. Let me read them to you. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, with the growing number of deaths due to COVID-19, the governor of our state decided for a stricter lockdown. Again, we are prohibited from gathering together for worship. So we decided to pray and invest on preaching God's word online. The Lord is blessing and the message is reaching more than 1,000 people. Rejoice with us.

Right now we are preaching a series on the Sermon on the Mount. Besides that, as much as possible, we try to assist and visit older and lonely people. They are the ones who really suffer with the quarantine imposed by the government. He's got a picture there of an elderly man. This dear brother lost his wife four months ago and is now by himself week after week and feels an emotional torture. And he says, like Mr. Edmundo, there are thousands of widows and widowers. And let's see, he says, we are also dealing with several cases of serious marriage conflict. The quarantine obligated couples to spend a lot of time together. By God's grace, most couples are growing in their love for each other, but some who already had unresolved problems are getting worse. We have three couples in our church talking about divorce.

Pray that the Lord may use us to help them reconcile and live peacefully to the glory of God. So that's from Selas and then here is some additional information. These both came today, March 31. He writes, dear partners in the gospel, this month Mrs. Barbara Lively, one of our faithful supporters, surprised us with a collection of all of our newsletters since 1985. The picture at the right shows a letter written when we were finishing our studies in the U.S. and preparing to return to Brazil to work with church planting and literature ministry. We still have good memories of living in this tiny trailer which was parked in our teacher's backyard. We never dreamed that after two years of ministry here in Brazil, the Lord would provide us with a real house, a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Bolthouse, a dear couple that by God's wonderful providence we casually met in a restaurant.

In 1986 they came to Brazil, saw the work, and gave us a home fully furnished. Selas says that he is being blessed by studying and preaching on the Sermon on the Mount. What a joy to hear Jesus teaching on Christian character, love for our enemies, revenge, speech, divorce, etc. He says, I thank God for teachers such as D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Dr. John MacArthur, and D.A.

Carson from whom I am able to rely with my studies. We rejoice in the fact that many years ago we translated into Portuguese Studies on the Sermon on the Mount an 873-page work by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones with love and gratitude for your partnership, the Campos. So that's what I have for you tonight in terms of missionary correspondence. We'll pray a little later in the service. But I want to take up where we left off the last time I was here, thankful for Pastor Barkman covering for me last Wednesday night. It was my turn. But I was feeling pretty ill last Wednesday.

It's funny how these things start. I left the house in the morning and had just a bit of a scratchy throat but felt fine otherwise. I came to church and as the day wore on, I began to feel worse and worse, headache and body ache and sore throat.

So I went home around 2 o'clock and went straight to bed for several hours. And it's been a bit up and down since then, even a bit of a sore throat today that necessitated a virtual call with a doctor, just wanting to be certain that I didn't have strep throat. And after talking with him, he was convinced that I didn't and made me feel better. But we talked about COVID and he asked if I'd been exposed to it.

And I said, well, yes. I said, I'm 90 percent convinced that I contracted COVID in December. And I told him a little of the history here that Carly had come down with it and was tested. And she tested positive. And I was having the same symptoms and drew the conclusion that I had it as well. And I wasn't tested. And he said, well, under normal circumstances, I would say to you that that probably wasn't wise not being tested.

However, I did the very same thing. He said, this is a doctor talking to me. His wife came down with COVID.

He got it, thinks he got it from her, had the same symptoms, and he did not go and have a test run. So he left me off the hook because he was guilty of the same. But anyway, it was good to talk with him over at Cornerstone Medical.

It's been a bit frustrating. Dr. Lamont Morrissey had been my doctor for 18 or so years. And he had a number of health issues and was in and out of the office and eventually retired from the practice. And when he retired, they passed me off to another man. He was there a year and a half or so and went off to Minnesota. They passed me off to another doctor, Dr. Latta. She was there a while, and she's gone. So it's been a bit frustrating to have consistent care with a doctor.

So I'm hoping perhaps the contact I made today will prove to be fruitful moving forward. I want to talk to you tonight about suffering, as we've encountered it here in the book of Job, and in particular in the life of Job and his wife. I remind you that although Job is the main character in the book and his wife is only mentioned secondarily, that Job was married to her, and everything Job suffered and lost, his wife suffered and lost the same. And she also, her problems were complicated by seeing her husband assaulted physically.

And so she was grieving the loss of her family, her children, and then to see her husband's health deteriorate compounded her struggle. And we have this record in chapter 2 after Satan got permission to attack Job's health. We're told in verse 7, So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself, which he sat in the midst of the ashes. Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die. But he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.

Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. And I'm encouraged by the way Job responded to his wife. I think if I could read between the lines, he was saying something along these lines to her. When he says, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks, I think he was saying, That's not you. You're speaking out of character.

I've known you to be of a better frame of mind. You're speaking as the foolish women speak. And he was admonishing her and yet was being tender toward her, even though he was suffering immensely. And then he brought her back to the sovereignty of God.

He says to her, Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. I think it's hard for us to read this passage and get ourselves acclimated to what was going on in Job and his wife's life. We know what was going on. We know the test in the spiritual realm that was going on, and they knew nothing of that. So they're trying to make sense out of this cataclysmic fallout that has engulfed their lives. And again, I remind you, they did not know what we know. So they're trying to comprehend, what is God doing?

How should we respond? And it's loss and devastation that's hard to comprehend. Not one child, not two children, not three or four or five, but their entire family, ten of them. All their servants, all their livestock, all his wealth, and now his health. It's good to be reminded of God's sovereignty. And I came across this quotation from Joel Beakey in his book, Walking as Jesus Walked. Listen to what he says, and he's talking about the sifting of Satan. Satan's desire is to overturn and destroy our faith by choking it with impurities, but Christ's desire is to strengthen our faith by purging the wheat. He desires to purify the grains of divine grace so that the chaff may be destroyed and that our faith would prevail.

What's more, Satan had to ask God's permission to sift the disciples as wheat. Christ overrules Satan. He sets limits beyond which Satan is not allowed to go. Satan may take away much through sifting. He can destroy much through his sieves of prosperity and adversity, and wreak havoc through his sieves of spiritual temptation and difficulty in fear. Satan can destroy much in sifting us. He can destroy our fleshly self-confidence, our fleshly expectation of an earthly kingdom, fleshly holiness, fleshly pride, fleshly strength, fleshly wisdom, fleshly prayer, and fleshly self-righteousness.

All that is self must fall as dust or dirt through the sieve. But the one thing that Satan cannot destroy is our faith. He cannot touch that noble grace by which we are united to Christ. He cannot touch faith, which is that bond of union by which Christ dwells in our hearts. He cannot destroy the faith that works by love, produces hope, and is the heart of true godliness. The faith that cleaves and clings to the Lord, that cannot but love God, that hangs upon Christ and God's promises in Him, cannot be destroyed by Satan. Satan cannot destroy that faith which clings to God's word and which seems the humblest of all graces, though it is the most important grace of all, for it is the foundation and support of every grace. You remember on that fateful night when Jesus predicts Peter's denial of him?

We have this record in Luke chapter 22 verse 31, and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when, not if, but when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. Christ's prayer for Peter ensured that his faith would not fail, and his faith did not fail. We're talking here in these first couple of chapters about the development of persevering faith. And that is a faith that God gives, that is a faith that God superintends, that is a faith that God works to develop and produce perseverance in.

And that's what he's doing in Job's life. We need to be reminded, I think continually, of the extent of God's sovereignty. I brought the words of Isaac Watts' hymn with me here to the pulpit, I sing the mighty power of God.

Listen to these words. I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise, that spread the flowing seas abroad and built the lofty skies. I sing the wisdom that ordained, the sun to rule the day. The moon shines full at his command, and all the stars obey. I sing the goodness of the Lord that filled the earth with food.

He formed the creatures with his word and then pronounced them good. Lord, how thy wonders are displayed where'er I turn my eye. If I survey the ground, I tread or gaze upon the sky. Listen to this third stanza. Not a plant or flower below, but makes thy glories known. And clouds arise and tempests blow by order from thy throne. While all that borrows life from thee is ever in thy care, and everywhere that man can be, thou, God, art present there. Yes, indeed. God's sovereignty.

I came across this little book by Erwin Lutzer, Pandemics, Plagues, and Natural Disasters. What is God saying to us? He has a little bit in here about Job, and I thought I would share it with you because it is pertinent to where we are here at the end of chapter 2. He says, we must distinguish between secondary causes of events and their ultimate cause. The immediate cause of the lightning and the wind that killed Job's children was the power of Satan.

But he says, follow carefully. It was God who gave Satan the power to wreak the havoc, and it was God who prescribed the limits of what Satan could do or could not do. That's why Job quite rightly did not say, the Lord gave but the devil took away. No, he ascribed the death of his children to God's will. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. And then he pivots from that to the current COVID crisis. He says, from a natural point of view, the immediate cause of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the germs which originated in Wuhan, China, spread from one person to another. The immediate cause of a tornado or hurricane is wind and temperature patterns. Earthquakes take place because there are shifts beneath the earth's crust, yet the ultimate cause of these events is God. He rules nature, either directly or through secondary causes, but either way, he is in charge.

After all, he is the creator and the sustainer of all things. God has not relegated calamities to his hapless archrival, the devil, without maintaining strict supervision and ultimate control of nature. No earthquake comes, no tornado rages, and no tsunami washes villages away, but that God signs off on it. No pandemic stalks the earth, but that God allows it. Many theologians emphasize that God does not ordain natural disasters and pandemics, but only permits them to happen. However, keep in mind that the God who permits these things to happen could choose to not permit them to happen. In the very act of allowing them, he demonstrates that they fall within the boundaries of the inscrutable providence, his inscrutable providence and will. Luther is quoted as saying, even the devil is God's devil.

So says Erwin Lutzer. So, the sovereignty of God. 1 Peter 4 verse 19 says, Those who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right. And that verse by Peter tells us that every Christian who endures adversity of any kind is suffering according to the will of God.

God isn't absent. God has ordained that suffering, whatever it is, for purposes that are good and noble and wise and profitable for you and for me. So Peter tells that sufferer, whoever he is and whatever he's suffering, to do what? Entrust your soul to your faithful creator. And that's what Job is telling his wife. Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity?

In all of this, Job did not sin with his lips. Here's a quotation from an article that I've been reading by Carolyn Staley from a book that she's written, From Grace to Glory. She says this, Since a Christ-like character rarely develops under circumstances of earthly comfort and ease, the furnace of affliction is more or less our allotted portion. Since a Christ-like character rarely develops under circumstances of earthly comfort and ease, the furnace of affliction is more or less our allotted portion.

It does seem to be that way. And for those of us who struggle with the mystery of God and trying to understand the ways of God and looking for explanations and connecting cause and effect, let me summarize these two chapters by giving you three statements. Number one, God is under no obligation to give us an explanation of His doings. God is under no obligation to give us an explanation of His doings. He did not explain to Job on the front end. He didn't explain to Job on the back end. He didn't explain to Job in the middle of what was going on. He did not know what you and I know.

God is under no obligation to give an explanation. That's hard for us. That's hard for us. But this next point, I think, is helpful for us. Not that the first isn't helpful. It's helpful, but it's difficult for us to accept. A persevering faith, and that's what God is developing here in Job, a persevering faith. A persevering faith is not dependent upon explanations. Job grew in persevering faith in the absence of an explanation, which tells me that it's not necessary. We don't have to have an explanation. Faith does not die in the absence of an explanation. In fact, faith can persevere in the absence of an explanation.

That's good news. And the third point is, just because God doesn't give an explanation doesn't mean there isn't one. Just because God doesn't give an explanation does not mean that there isn't one.

There is one. You and I know what's going on. Job didn't know what was going on.

And I wonder if Job now knows what was going on. That will help us, I believe, as we seek to live our lives to the honor and glory of God. Because suffering exposes us to the mystery of God. Suffering exposes us to the mystery of God, not an explanation from God. Romans 11, verse 33, O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and how unfathomable His ways. Proverbs 25, verse 2 says, It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. Deuteronomy 29, 29 says that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children. One of our difficulties is that we preoccupy ourselves too much with the secret things of the Lord that are confined to God, hidden from us. We want to know the secret things of God and we're not near as earnest in committing ourselves to the things that are revealed. What is our obligation? What is our responsibility to live out our Christian life?

That's a good verse, Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to whom? They belong to the Lord our God. They don't belong to us. They belong to Him.

And they're secret because He doesn't reveal them to us. Listen to Amos. Here's a verse in Amos, chapter 4 and verse 7. God says, I also withheld rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain on one city. I withheld rain from another city. One part was rained upon and where it did not rain, the part withered. We wonder why it rains here and three miles north it doesn't rain. Well, because God orders these things. God's in charge of the weather.

And that's what He's saying there in Amos, chapter 4 and verse 7. I also withheld rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest, when they needed to rain. I made it rain on one city. I withheld rain from another city. One part was rained upon and where it did not rain, that part withered.

Yes. So, there are direct causes and there are indirect causes. The indirect cause of the suffering and calamity that Job lived through and experienced was the devil, was marauders that came and robbed and pillaged and killed.

Those were the indirect causes. But the direct cause behind it all is the plan and purpose of God. Listen to this verse in Isaiah, chapter 45 and verse 7.

Isaiah 45 and verse 7. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. And if we're confused about who is saying this, the end of the verse says, I, the Lord, do all these things. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity.

I, the Lord, do all these things. You see, we can't have a cut and paste theology. What do I mean by that? Well, a theology on suffering that just clips and cuts and pastes and ignores certain things revealed in the word of God. That's part of the word of God. We have to read it.

We have to embrace it. We have to incorporate it into our theology. Isaiah 45, verse 15. The prophet says, Truly, you are a God who hides himself. A God who hides himself.

C.S. Lewis said that God actually speaks loudest to us when we suffer. Now, I think it's just our ability to hear is heightened. I don't know that God's speaking any louder. It's just he has dispelled all the clatter and the noise that's drowning out his voice.

But anyway, C.S. Lewis said this, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Well, before we moved on and considered Job's friends and the ministry that they had when they came to him, and it's commendable that he had these friends, and it's commendable what they did, I thought it was good just to stop and pause and revisit the subject of suffering and get our theology reinforced and strengthened. Because there's no escaping suffering. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when, not if, you encounter various trials and temptations. It's a part of life.

It's what we have to live through. It's our portion in this broken and fallen world. And there are too many disillusioned people who do not have a robust, biblically-based theology of suffering. And when suffering shows up on their doorstep and invades their life and their family, they are without answers.

Their foundation is revealed to be weak and faulty. And we need a sound theology that when the storms of life come and when suffering comes, we have been fortified, we've been taught, we've been instructed, and we honor God in our response to these things that he brings into our life for our good and his own glory. So that's what I have for us tonight. We need to pray. I would ask you to join me as we remember these requests and ask God to grow us in these areas that we've considered tonight.

Bow with me, please. Father, we confess that we do not suffer very well. We confess that more often than not, our minds are given to doubt. We begin to wonder and question, where are you, God?

What are you doing? And Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that it is indeed profitable to us for instruction in righteousness, for correction, for rebuke. We pray that you would help us to respond to life and the challenges that you bring into our lives in believing faith and to value what you value, that you value, and esteem it higher than pure gold, the development of genuine faith. Help us to place the same value on this, that persevering faith is something worth pursuing and something worth enduring, something worth enjoying to see it developed in our life and to realize that suffering is very much a part of the fabric of that development. We thank you for the way in which you've demonstrated that our perseverance behind our persevering faith is a God who sustains us and keeps us, how we thank you that Jesus prayed for Peter and told him such, that when his faith did not fail, he was to strengthen his brethren. Thank you for sustaining the faith of Job. Thank you that you made him mindful to even be able to instruct his wife and to help her as she was dealing with the same losses that he was. So, Lord, we confess in humility our need to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to submit ourselves to you in your sovereign ways, and to understand that we live by faith and not by sight, that it is not profitable for us to be constantly trying to understand the intricacies of your ways, that your ways are higher than our ways and they're beyond finding out.

We thank you that a robust Christian life is a life that embraces mystery and unanswered questions and yet trust a God who is sovereign over all things. Lord, I commit our church to you and I thank you for the way you have kept us and sustained us and grown us through this past year, as we've lived through this COVID pandemic. Thank you for sparing us of much more severe bouts of COVID. So many of our people who have had it had mild cases of it. And despite whether our case was mild or more severe, you've taught us things through it all, of the uncertainty of life and the brevity of life and that it is in you and you only that we live and breathe and have our being.

You have convicted us of presumption as we have thought that we're going to do this a year from now or two years from now or five years from now or ten years from now. We have this day and we must live this day in the light of that day. So, Lord, thank you that we can have audience with you, that we can talk with you, that we can pray to you, that we can intercede for others. I thank you for Bob and Judy Caldwell. I thank you for sustaining them and bringing Bob through a pretty serious health crisis a few weeks ago. Thank you that although he's a bit weak, he's regaining his strength and we have seen him back in the services and for that we are thankful. We pray that you would draw near to Betty Duncan and Pat as she is failing in her health.

Thank you that you have directed them to Jeannie's place there in Greensboro where they can be looked after. Lord, how we thank you for the ministry of hospice, how they have ministered to so many of our families in this church. We thank you for the way in which they go about ministry, their tenderness, their compassion and their skills.

We bless you, God, for giving us this tangible ministry. We thank you that Doris Loftus is responding to the surgery and a broken wrist. We pray for her healing. We pray for Gary Barker's improvement. We pray for these relatives of Sue Vestal, for Sondra Blanchard who's in the hospital with severe anemia and is having these upper GI tests.

We ask that you use these to reveal any serious problems. We pray the same for Terry Smith who was in the ER overnight due to breathing issues and struggling with COPD. We commit Lee to you and ask that he would continue to know healing in his toe.

We're concerned about Nancy Ellis and the COVID and the pneumonia that she's battling with. We pray that you would sustain her and strengthen her. Thank you for the training that her and Drew have given their children and for the family unit, the way it works and functions so well. We ask that you'll be kind and merciful in that situation and raise Nancy up very soon. We pray for Dwayne Craig and Lori as they have the weight and responsibility of Dwayne's father.

We ask that there would be clarity that come from the VA when they meet with their diagnosis. We pray for Jack Wiley, this uncle of Anne Enoch who had this bad fall. Lord, we are very much looking forward to this Spring Bible Conference. And Lord, it is our prayer that you would open up the heavens and come down, that you would visit us in power and in grace, that we would see the Word of God unfold to us in fresh ways, that the Word of God would come with convicting power, and it would come with saving power, and that the church would prosper from this concentrated time in the Word of God.

Watch over Mark and Paula as they come. We ask that he would come in the full power and strength that you provide, and that as he stands here and preaches on Easter Sunday morning and we sing of a resurrected Christ, that we would rejoice together in that which you've given to us in the Savior. We thank you for these appointed days, and we do indeed look forward to times of refreshment, and times of strengthening, and times of edification, and times of growing in steadfastness, and times of growing in deeper understanding of the ways and Word of God. So bless this Bible Conference. Bless as we continue to move forward and come out of this lockdown pattern that we've been in for over a year. May our people respond enthusiastically to the Sunday school reopening in a week or so.

And as we do, would you protect us from any further outbreaks of COVID? Lord, thank you that we can look to you. Thank you that we can trust you with these things. Hear our prayers, not because of us, but because of Him, who came and lived and died and rose again and is seated at your right hand in glory, and He ever lives to intercede for us. Bless your people. Bless this upcoming Bible Conference. Bless us that we might be blessings to those around us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And Amen.