God-Blessed - 3

How blessed we are to be together again this evening and how kind you are to reappear tonight for another dose of our time together. I was thinking a little while ago, knowing the guy that's preaching, I'm not sure that I would come back, but I'm glad that you have and it's wonderful to see you and to be with you in the Word of God this evening in the series of messages on the scripture, the Word of God. And I continue to remember the things that I forgot last night and the things that I forgot yesterday morning and I'm tempted to re-dive into those, but I will spare you that and hope not to be as forgetful this evening.

But indeed, forgetfulness seems to be the order of the day with me. So if I don't show up tomorrow night, you'll know why. Come and get me.

It's blessed to be with the people of God. And let me just mention, you might hear me cough a little bit now and then you probably already have. And I just wanted to assure you that I am not toxic or anything else of that nature.

I'm in the best health that I can be for my age, I think, in the general health conditions. And it's not COVID or anything like that, so you don't need to run out shouting unclean in front of me or anything of that nature. But it's the kind of thing, someone mentioned either last night or today, I think it was last night at dinnertime, that when I talk about it, that's when it comes especially. That I'm able to speak in preaching and not do it. And that seems to be the pattern when I endeavor to speak conversationally, like with my wife. That's when it comes. And it seems inevitable at home when she and I sit down together for dinner and we bow together for a word of prayer.

That's when it strikes, which tempts me to think it might be of the devil, but I think it's just a matter of me. God has blessed his word. And this evening we want to consider how God has blessed his word by the way of blessing his people who receive his word. That's what we've read from Deuteronomy chapter 28. That if the people of Israel would receive the word of God, the word of God to them then was some of the writings of Moses. The book of Deuteronomy was not yet complete to which Moses wrote. And so perhaps he was writing it as these things were taking place. But the whole of the scripture certainly was not there.

Nothing more than the first five books. And they were incomplete. But that was the word of God for the people of Israel to which they were to adhere. And they were promised these blessings if they took heed to receive the word of God. And as Pastor Barkman mentioned, by the same measure, they were warned of great dangers if they did not embrace the word of God.

And in fact, the dangers of which they are warned point by point are almost the opposite of the blessings that are listed that God would bless them with if they adhered to the word of God. So indeed, this evening we're speaking about the word of God and God having blessed the word. That blessing being not only in its preservation as we considered last night, truly that is the blessing of God upon his word, but the blessing of God upon the people who embrace his word. And I will say at the outset that wherever the scriptures go and are received, prosperity follows.

That's what we're speaking of this evening. Now, in this age, I must add the explanation that I am not talking about what is properly popularly called the prosperity gospel. Whereby thieving deceivers promise often impoverished people that if they'll just sow a seed and a generous one of that toward their ministry, God will bring back to them boatloads of blessing.

And by that means many, many people have been so greatly deprived of the true knowledge of God. I know my brethren in Kenya speak of the American preachers that come over there and speak to crowded stadiums full of people telling them that if they will simply give so much money, God will come back and bless them and the people have no money to give. But believing what the preacher said, they go out and borrow money to give, which they of course never get back. And then the Islamic imams come along with oil money out of Saudi Arabia and pay them well.

And so thereby Islam gets new Kenyan converts. The prosperity gospel that promises you you will be rich and famous and have no problems at all if God is for you is a false and deceivers gospel. But what I am dealing with is this culture wide, nationwide, people wide where the word of God is received, prosperity follows.

And that prosperity is the blessing of God upon his word, a blessing promised to Israel in the passage that we've read, and a blessing promised in various portions of the word of God. And so we read from the scriptures in Psalm 1, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law that he meditate day and night, and here it comes, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring it forth his fruit and his season.

His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he do it shall prosper. But the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Now there you have the prosperity to those who delight themselves in the law of the Lord. And it is indeed true that some who have delighted themselves in the law of the Lord have gone to martyrdom, and some may say that is not prosperity, although it's better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. But, culture-wide, nationwide, people-wide, a people who receive the word of God, who embrace the scriptures, will know a blessing upon them as a people that is not present with the ungodly.

So the Proverbs tell us in Proverbs 14, 34, righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. And we know from other scriptures that indeed the blessing of God comes upon those who embrace his word and delight in his word. Let me read a little to you from one of the Psalms, one that I'm sure you're familiar with, and I won't ask you to turn to it. It's the 37th Psalm, but I'll just read portions of the Psalm, and you'll see the pattern and what is being stressed here with regard to embracing God's law. It says, fret not thyself because of evildoers.

Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down as the grass and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Light thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noon day.

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. The Psalm continues in that frame, repeating over and over, I'll read it to you. For evildoers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth, and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever. Inheriting the land, our Lord quoted from this as he gave his own beatitudes. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The point being made again is that those who take the word of God unto themselves, who delight themselves in the God who has given that word, and therein revealed himself unto mankind, they will be blessed.

And it will not be a blessing that they have engineered by some scheming or conniving. It will be the blessing of divine providence upon his word as it dwells within them, and as they endeavor to live forth the truth of his word. And so the Scriptures are God blessed as proclaimed by the Scriptures themselves. They declare a blessing upon a people that know the Lord. Happy is the people that know the Lord. But would you add to that, that the teaching of the Scripture includes elements that are guaranteed to bring about prosperity, blessing? Yes, God moves and blesses his word and those who embrace it. But a part of that blessing is that the word itself instructs us in how we might live in order to be prosperous and blessed.

And what I speak of there is the very clear teaching abundant in Scripture, and I'll refer to a number of different passages which commend diligence. I think it interesting that when God created Adam, before there was anyone else on earth, before the curse of sin had come in to engender the growth of thorns and to make survival be by the sweat of his brow, when everything was still in the glorious state in which it was created, God made a garden and put Adam in the garden to dress and to keep it. He wouldn't have to pull weeds like we do in our gardens, if you pull the weeds in your garden. He wouldn't have to pull up and tear out and round up green briars or those multi-floral rose invasive species briars. But there was work for him to do. In the unfallen earth, he was to tend and to keep the garden.

Maybe it was pruning back the abundant growth which would be unimpeded by insects. I don't know. I won't guess, but the point is this. God created man not to be idle, but to be diligent, to be working. And even before the curse of sin came upon humanity, the one man created was given a job to do by God. And throughout the scripture, there is the admonition unto diligence. Let me read just a few of them to you and I will go rapidly so that it won't serve you probably to try to keep up.

I know where they are and hopefully have them sufficiently marked to find them. But let me just read beginning in Proverbs chapter six. Go to the end, thou sluggard, and consider her ways, which having no guide or overseer or ruler provideeth her meat in the summer and getteth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth and thy want as an armed man. Chapter 10 of Proverbs. At verse number 26, as vinegar to the teeth and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him. Chapter 12 and verse 24. The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. And verse 27, the slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting, but the substance of the diligent man is precious. Chapter 15, the 19th verse. The way of the slothful man is as in hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain. The 13th chapter, verse 4, the soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. Chapter 18, verse number 9. He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. Chapter 19, verse 24.

A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. Have I read enough? You get the idea of what it's saying. Certainly, there are many more I could go to, but the point is the Bible is a book that admonishes us unto industry, unto diligence, unto labor. And when a people is instructed to be diligent, to put aside sloth, to get out of bed and get to the job, they're going to progress.

That is the order which God has established. And so among the blessings which come from God upon a people that embrace the word of God is the blessing of instruction unto productivity, which is certainly an element in prosperity. And without productivity, there is no prosperity. Many other scriptures could be given. Paul wrote to Timothy there in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and said, if any would not work, neither shall he eat. Now this is the teaching of the word of God.

And it is in order to produce prosperity. The blessing. The blessing of God comes upon those who embrace his word. And one element of that blessing is the blessing upon those who heed the word unto diligence. Their leaf also shall not wither, but whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

There's a third thing that I want to point out this evening. In 1905, a German sociologist by the name of Max Weber wrote a book which was the product of his observation of a certain phenomenon in the field of sociology that had aroused his great curiosity. Why is it, he pondered, that Great Britain and the United States and Canada, Germany, the northern European countries, why is it that they are so wealthy and the rest of the world so impoverished?

What is it that has made them so well off while the rest of the world that has as much resources, minerals in the ground, soils for agriculture, what is the difference? As Max Weber studied that, he came to the conclusion that he wrote in his book entitled The Protestant Work Ethic. He recognized that the nations of the world which were prospering and excelling were Protestant nations. And not simply Protestant nations, but nations that had embraced the Calvinistic emphasis upon the value of hard work and diligence. When we come to the time of the Protestant Reformation, 1517 is the year that Martin Luther is pointed to as having nailed his 95 Theses to the door. And in the century following, the Protestant Reformation came about and there was a total revolution economically across Europe.

You see, prior to that, during the medieval era, the Church of Rome had come to be the ruler of thought, the ruler of things throughout Europe, and so they could set the price for certain commodities and their value. The Church taught that the work of God was what people should do and the work of God involved, going into a monastery or a convent and thus giving your life entirely to the Church for the service of God. That was virtuous.

That was good. And if you just couldn't do that, well, then you could settle to get married, have many children to make up the difference for those the priests and nuns were not producing, and work at some menial, dirty job for income. Now that mindset made work something less than upstanding and upright. That mindset presented diligent work as something less than monastic seclusion.

And the effect of that was a culture that did not understand the value of work, but when at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the shackles of mind and soul and body that Rome had fettered Europe with were thrown aside in much of Europe, the reformers came out expounding the scripture in preaching the Word of God, and you cannot preach the Word of God without preaching, he who will not work should not eat. And in fact, work is good. This is what God gave Adam to do before the curse came upon mankind. Work can be done for God. The plowman following the oxen across the field and walking in the furrow that they plow can thereby glorify God. For God has honored work, and in the scripture prescribes work as something good, not as a distraction from religious service, not as a distraction from spiritual service, but as an active spiritual service. Most of you are involved in or were involved in some vocation other than standing in a pulpit preaching. And I have no argument at all with the statement that your calling is as sacred as my calling. God has called each to his own labor, and it is our duty, whether a farmer or an electrician or a plumber or a doctor or an accountant, to do in that profession the very best job I can for the glory of my God.

Such work is honorable. And you can see, I'm sure, how that when such a mentality replaced in Europe the medieval mentality that had been fostered by the church, it wrought economic explosion. There began to be a new understanding of trade, of work, of productivity, and the nations themselves began to prosper.

So that by the turn of the century, the early 1900s, you have this German sociologist scratching his head and wondering, why is it that America and Canada and United States and Germany and the northern European countries are so prosperous and the rest of the world so wanting? And he observes, they are all Protestant in their orientation. And the Protestant doctrine which they subscribe to is one that elevates work as something good and virtuous. It's the Protestant work ethic that explains the prosperity. And it is true, my friends, wherever the word of God has gone, prosperity has accompanied it. And as I think I mentioned in one of the messages yesterday, the purer the exposition of the word of God among a people, the more prosperous that people is. And to repeat myself, this country was founded and settled by Christians, not Muslims, Hindus, or Taoists. It was established by Protestant Christians, not Romanist professed Christians.

And it was established by reformed Protestant Christians and their ideology. And God has blessed this nation above any nation on earth. And the blessing of God upon this nation is his blessing upon his word which was preached from shore to shore. Throughout the wilderness, wherever people were in this land, there was a preacher proclaiming the word of God. And God has blessed it.

The Protestant work ethic is an outgrowth of Christian teaching and doctrine and living. And illustrates for us yet another illustration of God's blessing upon his word. But then we take that a little further and I want to speak to you just for a few minutes out of my own experience in another context of ministry. In God's kind providence, a number of years ago, I was contacted by a pastor in Kenya who somehow or another had gotten a copy of one of our church bulletins and contacted me about coming there to make a long story short. I've been there I think 15 times now in a process of trying to teach local pastors in Kenya. Just as your pastor has done in Zimbabwe, men who will never have the opportunity to go to seminary or to Bible college, men who cannot leave their village in order to study elsewhere, they must be there. The opportunity to meet with them perhaps a week at a time and endeavor to help them on in ministry. And in the effort to be as effective as I could be in ministering to them, I felt I ought to try to understand what their culture is. And why it is that these men who are diligent men, men who want to progress in the knowledge of God's word, men who embrace the scripture and are taking a very good and bold stand, why it is that their nation is not among the great prosperous nations of the earth. And as I studied the matter, once again I was taken back to the religious orientation of much of planet earth. The people outside the reach of historic developing Christian teaching. Most of the continent of Africa, yay, most of the world has been heavily influenced by what we call animism, an animistic world view. Now animism is a religious mode of thinking that is convinced that the whole world is filled with and run by spirit beings. If a tree should fall upon someone's hut and kill the sleeping person inside, it's not a tree that fell and killed them. It's a spirit that thereby is doing something to try to get back at them for the ill that they've done.

If there is a flood and the river washes away, people from the banks that have built their huts there, again it is not a raging river that's the problem. It's the spirits that have been offended and we must go and do something to pacify these spirits. That is the mindset of animism.

And in many of those countries you might find in the major cities people in western dress going about professional tasks and yet that is their world view and their mindset. And so it is vital that people in those settings make sure they do nothing to enrage the spirits and in fact the spirits of their dead ancestors are present and must be appeased. And therefore you must go back to your tribal land, back to your homeland and pay homage to the dead spirits of your parents and your grandparents and their parents. And additional to anyone you may have missed so that you are not ignoring any of the spirits and that's the mindset of animism. And it has this effect upon the thinking of a people. It's continually turning their focus to the past. They are ever looking back to the ancestors that preceded them and their need to placate those ancestors lest they be angry and come from their graves to inflict harm. So you have an entire culture throughout much of the world which has been made backward looking by the world view of animism.

One African writer who has assessed these situations made the observation that to the African on the continent there is a vast past. A very small present and virtually no future to be considered. They live for the day and so I think I see evidences of that mindset in godly Christian people that I work with there who will get together the money to buy a ticket for a bus fare from their village out 200 miles away into Nairobi but have not thought about how they're going to pay for the trip home.

It's just not the sense of planning that we know here. Now contrast that with what the word of God tells us. The word of God makes us a future looking people. Christ is coming again.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. We are ever looking to the day when we shall ever be with the Lord. As for our ancestors, we bury them with respect and may go and put flowers on their grave at certain occasions. We remember them with gratitude but for the most part we're expecting to see them again in the future.

And our whole orientation is forward looking. Now you can see, I'm sure, how the contrast between those two world views has advanced the cause of civilization in Christian lands. If you're simply going back to offer some gift to the spirit of a dead end sister, there is no need to do it in any better way than they did it or lived. But if you're coming with an offering of praise to the great King of Kings and Lord of Lords, you want to come with your best.

You want to do it in the best way possible. You want to yield yourself unto him rather than being enslaved to the spirits of past ancestors. And so the spirit of inventiveness, creativity, advancing is fueled among people who are of a Christian mindset and world view. They're looking to the future, progressing forward, and thus from this nation has come the greatest creativity and inventiveness of any people in all of human history. While in the nations that are dominated by an animistic world view, they've been kept in what is literally dark ages. And such animistic thinking is woven through much of Islam and the other Far Eastern religions. And so whereas those religious concepts created people that will ultimately be rather unproductive by contrast, just keeping up the status quo in the Christian world rather than building some little hovel as a shrine for past ancestors, there was the drive to build the great cathedrals of Europe in order to reflect the august wonder and might of God himself. Instead of choosing some rhythmic mantra repeated over and over with beat of a drum, as is the case in the animistic world, there was the zeal of those composers at the time of the Reformation and afterward to compose the most glorious melodies and symphonies they could for the glory of God.

This is why as the holidays come at Christmas time, we will hear with chills up and down our spine the Hallelujah chorus, the Messiah. And the animistic world has never produced anything of any sort like that. What I'm saying is this, those nations that have had the word of God and embraced its message have thereby had their minds framed and shaped to be destined to be of highest productivity and industry and progress.

Whereas those nations that have not had that are left behind. This is just an extension of what Max Weber had observed in the Protestant work ethic. And the contrast which we could point to many other elements of between animism and Christianity is the difference between night and day. And it is a contrast which exhibits in the large the fact that God has blessed his word and blessed those who embrace his word.

One final example of this. In 2012, another sociologist researcher completed what I think was a doctoral dissertation. It was 12 years of research and he was researching the matter of missionaries influence in the lands to which they went. And using the most fine-tuned research methodology that his profession has developed with significant statistical analysis of the data that is gathered from his observations and research, he came to the shocking conclusion that one of the major contributing factors to the rise of democracy was the work of 19th century Protestant missionaries. They didn't go out to establish democracy. It was not their objective to impart to people an understanding of what a democratic republic such as we have is.

That was the furthest thing from their mind. The missionaries went out with the word of God to instruct people in what the scripture says. And what do you know, the irrefutable research that has been done in this work that was published in the American Political Science Review demonstrates conclusively that wherever a certain type of missionary went, everything there was improved by it.

Now this researcher, Robert Woodbury is his name, came to an even more amazing conclusion, amazing for the academic context in which he was reporting it and from which he was doing his research. There are several kinds of missionaries. There were the missionaries sent out by the Roman Catholic Church and his research reveals that they had no impact in terms of improving the culture or elevating the people. There were the missionaries sent out by various states, countries that have a state church for example, would send out missionaries but those, where those missionaries went, there was really no discernible improvement made. But there was a third type of missionary that Woodbury labeled conversionary Protestants.

Now you can pretty much guess what that is. It's the kind of missionaries you would send out to the mission field. Protestants who believe in the necessary, the necessity of conversion. Missionaries who go out not in order to feed the hungry but in order to save the soul. And wherever those missionaries went, there is a measurable difference in the welfare of the people living there now. Many of those missionaries went out during the era of European colonialism when England and France and Holland were establishing colonies across the continents that they were capturing and subjecting the national people to a form of oppression, often taking their lands. And sometimes the missionaries might be identified with their country's colonial ambitions and so the missionaries realizing that were careful to distance themselves from the colonialists who were in the same country establishing the colony, distancing themselves so as not to be hindered in the spread of the gospel. And consequently, those missionaries wound up opposing what representatives of their own government were trying to accomplish in taking the land from the natives and stood with the national people and thereby won their hearts to hear the gospel and many souls were saved. And they went out as conversionary Protestants to see the souls of sinners brought to Christ, to see those blinded by the darkness of satanic deception illumined with the light of scripture, the word of God. To see those blighted and enslaved by animism liberated from their bondage to a backward view unto their anticipation of the coming of Christ and his coming for them. And that made all the difference in the world in cases where some missionaries sent out by the state would be at odds with conversionary missionaries. The state would establish in its territory certain longitudinal and latitudinal lines to which the conversionary missionaries had to confine themselves and they did.

And what do you know? Years later, as the research was being done, the people on the side of the line where the conversionary missionary was are living much better than their own tribesmen on the other side of the line. Such an impact of blessing came along with the preaching of the word of God. There was, as a result, the development of democratic thinking. Our nation has taken great military efforts, perhaps espionage efforts, to try to export democracy to other countries, I think, ill advisedly. It's become quite evident, and in fact it's noticed in the research that Woodbury did, that nations that adopted a theocratic government, Islam, or a dictatorship are the ones that never received or accepted the gospel of the scriptures. The nations where such conversionary missionaries were excluded wound up predominantly being led, governed by a tyrant thug or by Islam. But the nations where the gospel was received have democratic governments.

They may not be of the strength we would hope to see, but that's what is there. And it's attributable to those missionaries' labors. They labored for the conversion of souls. And in order to do that, those souls needed to be able to read the scripture. But for them to read the scripture, the scripture had to be translated into their language. And then they had to be taught to read. And so you can see, can't you, that the conversionary missionaries who went there to see the souls saved also fostered literacy, without which democracy cannot exist. And they began educating the children, teaching them to read, teaching them their own language. In some cases, missionaries going among a tribe and living an entire lifetime there, in order to reduce the sound of the language they had to learn on their own to writing, so then they could develop an alphabet for that language, and then writing, and then teach the people to read it. And when such is interjected into an illiterate society, you know it is going to have a revolutionary effect upon that society.

Such was proven to be the case. Democracy, literacy, all of these things certainly lead to social reform. Missionaries didn't go there to effect social reform. They went there to bring the saving gospel of Christ.

But when a person is saved by grace, there's going to be a change in their social existence and communication as well. My wife and I watched a documentary a few weeks ago of an Australian news reporter who was wanting to see real live cannibals on earth. And he discovered where there was a tribe on one of the islands there in the far South Pacific, where they did eat human flesh, and so he arranged to go and observe them and visit them. And he learned how that within this animistic tribe, when a calamity occurs, some spirit is angered and perhaps some person there in the tribe is the one who has brought this curse upon them, and so the witch doctor, the shaman, can identify who that person is. And that person then may well be killed and eaten.

And this is the practice of the tribe. There was a little boy there, six years old. Both of his parents had died. He was an orphan. And because both of his parents had died, certainly there's something bad about the spirit of this child to produce such effects. And so at any time that child might be taken and killed and devoured.

And the reporter weighed the circumstance should he intervene and take this child out by some means. But all of the secular thinking of this world is the savage is a noble savage. Why send missionaries in there to change their culture?

This has been the real attitude toward conversionary missionaries. Why do you want to change their culture? They're happy the way they are. Let them alone. And I would respond they're not happy the way they are. Anyone who is eating other human flesh, though he may feel no guilt in doing it, is not living a happy life.

And the reporter decided, no, this is not for me to intervene. And he left. What darkness and tragedy befalls those who are blinded without the word of God? And what darkness and tragedy befalls those who, because of the influence of the word of God, are living in a culture that is prosperous, but refuse to acknowledge the source of the prosperity, and instead will lean into their own understanding, will walk in the counsel of the ungodly, will stand in the way of sinners and sit in the scorners chair.

And I can't get that scene out of my mind. Little boy walking around with terror in his eyes. The missionaries would go into that circumstance and see to it that the child was spared, would go with the gospel and preach the gospel for the conversion of the people. And the culture would be changed. Literacy, civilization. When the word of God goes into a people, they start wearing clothes. And in the land of civilization, where the word of God has made such a prosperous land, the rebels against God are now stopping wearing clothes.

The plunge back toward heathenism. Well, the study concluded that after Protestant missionaries had a significant present, those lands on the average are more economically developed, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment, especially for women, and more robust membership in non-governmental associations. The work of the missionaries turns out to be the single largest factor in ensuring the health of nations.

This is God's blessing upon his word. And it's to be noted in conclusion that the greatest way to achieve social change and cultural transformation is not to seek social change and cultural transformation. The greatest way to affect it is to proclaim the word of God. Missionaries didn't focus upon changing the world, but upon saving souls.

The results? Souls were saved and the world was changed. And that is the order of divine blessing upon his word. Wherever his word is taken and received, prosperity follows. Folks, this is cause for us to support our foreign missionaries earnestly, generously, to increase their number in what we're doing to enable them to take the word forth.

The world will not be changed by the great social programs of any government, but by the simple preaching of the gospel and the conversion of souls, the world will be changed. And out of that means, which is despised by man, God will bring forth his purposes. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. The word of God and the people who receive it are blessed wherever it goes. Shall we bow together as we pray? Oh, Lord, our God instruct our hearts concerning the urgency of the gospel message that is committed to our stewardship. We give thanks to thee that when we go forth with the word of God, it is not simply human beings with a religious book to try to persuade people to change their minds, but it is with the promises of the God who created all things without our aid and who is able to recreate the soul that is dead in trespasses and sin. We thank you for your blessing upon the word, above all the blessing of a soul saved from sin, but with that all of the blessings that accompany. Wilt thou, O Lord, make us conscious of these things and may such consciousness fuel our zeal for the proclamation of your word, both at home and abroad. And may that proclamation be foremost in each of our lives day by day. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.