Read the transcriptAbout 6,000 words, transcribed from the recording, so expect the occasional misheard word.ReadHide
Good morning. We're going to be stepping into the passage Randy just read for us, Acts 13, 13-25. For a minute, though, I'd like us to take a look at some other things and some earlier things in the book of Acts. As we've been going through the book of Acts, I just think there are some pretty profound things that are worth our taking a moment to ponder. And one of them is to think about this guy Peter.
Peter is a prominent person in the first roughly half of the book of Acts, and to think about this guy Peter who not that many years before had been a fellow who in the courtyard of the high priest was very fearful of even acknowledging that he knew Jesus. He even perceived a threat from the questions of one of the slave girls there in the courtyard.
And can you imagine crying at the crowing of a rooster? Now, we had roosters crow on the farm and they didn't make us cry, we had other feelings, but anyway. especially if it was crawling in the middle of the night. But anyway, so here we have Peter, as we saw just a chapter back here, sleeping on the night before he was scheduled to be executed. Can you imagine that?
His fellow apostle James had indeed been executed. But here is Peter. The Bible describes him as sleeping. And by the way, though the picture shows the guard sleeping, that's probably not the case. Peter alone sleeping the night before what is at least planned as an execution.
Now that's rather astounding. That's a very different one from the guy who would repeatedly deny that he even knew Christ. Now here's a guy who is boldly proclaiming Christ and sleeping the night before his supposed execution. We also have the example of Stephen Stephen spoke with great boldness before the Sanhedrin, the collection of those Jewish leaders there.
As he spoke to them, he did not tone back his speech. He didn't speak to them in calm and soothing words. But instead, as the Bible describes here, and I'm reading from Acts 7, starting with verse 54, when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. By the way, dentists don't recommend that, okay?
But they began gnashing their teeth at him, being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently. Now, we've not been focusing on a bunch of Greek words here, but this one particular word is one that Dr. Luke has used in the Gospel of Luke repeatedly, and mostly in the New Testament here, and Book of Acts.
And this word, this gazing intently, is atenizo. And where is he gazing intently? Into heaven. gazing intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
Next in Acts 7.57 and 58 it says, But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears, and rushed at him with one impulse.
When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him. And the witnesses laid their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. Next in Acts 7, 59 and 60, it says, They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
Having said this, he fell asleep. Isn't it amazing to ponder a few different things here? One is Stephen, imagine here are dozens of men who are very, very very angry with him. And imagine, instead of all these angry voices and gnashing of teeth and people growling and yelling at him at times, and then shoving him out into the street, he does not appear at all focused on that.
In the midst of that, he is gazing intently, fixing his gaze upon the Lord. In the midst of that, he is undistracted. by what's about to come upon him. All of a sudden, these guys beginning to pick up rocks, large rocks, forcing him to study geology, he still is not distracted, right? He continues to keep his focus on the Lord. This is beholding the Lord, such a wonderful example.
I look at it and I think, wow, this is really a neat thing to see in the life of Stephen here. And this guy, Saul, who was kind of the coat keeper, turns out to be a very pivotal fellow. We find that this Saul is, beginning that day, a mass murderer, a serial killer of Christians. beginning the day Stephen was stoned to death in April 35 AD, obtained letters from the high priest authorizing him to round up the Christians in Damascus. So not only has he been taking care, in a bad way, of the Christians in Jerusalem, now he's going after the Christians who might have Escapes somewhere else nearby Damascus being about a week's travel away, and he's headed there He's going to bring them back to trial in Jerusalem, and he is wanting the death penalty So he heads for Damascus He makes the about week-long trip and as he gets close to Damascus an amazing thing happens the Lord appears before him and says Saul Saul and Now, and you know how it is with kids?
If you say their full name. I know my mom, what she used to do, she'd say all the kids' names. And we knew one of us was in trouble, right? But she'd go through all of them. But anyway, so Saul, Saul. So if it was just Saul, then it's not so bad. But Saul, Saul, you're really in trouble.
Okay, why are you persecuting me? And he says, who are you, Lord? That's almost like a contradiction in terms, right? like military intelligence or something. So, who are you, Lord? He recognizes it. Somehow this is the Lord, but wow, he doesn't understand it. He has thought to this point that he has gone along doing what God wanted. That's what he thought. And yet, here's the Lord saying, why do you persecute me? He comes back, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. This radical change from this guy who says, kill them all, the only good Christian is a dead Christian, to a guy who actually meets the Lord.
And so, as we go along in here, here we are in Acts 13 where Paul and Barnabas, initially starting out as Barnabas and Saul, Paul and Barnabas are being sent on the first missionary journey. As we know, we're going to be going through more of this in the book of Acts. What is astounding here, and something we want to ponder seriously, is the Holy Spirit said, send Barnabas and Saul. They fasted, they prayed, they laid hands, and then again it says that the Holy Spirit sent them. Are they going to have a very smooth, unruffled, undisturbed, unchallenged missionary journey?
Quite the opposite. As we continue through the book of Acts, although we're not going to see great difficulty in today's passage, as we continue through it, there will be indeed immense difficulties, and the difficulties that we see described will actually be the short list. It won't be the full list. It's simply a sampling of the great difficulties.
And so that's one of the things for us to ponder too. We may be going exactly in the direction the Lord wants. We may be even have the clear direction and guidance of the Lord on something and still encounter great difficulties and obstacles along the way. We should not think, what is God doing? We should not think, I'm mad at God. We should not be thinking in the midst of this, you know, Lord, how come you're allowing this to happen or causing this to happen? Because we were doing, we thought, the right thing. Why these obstacles? Well, guess what? We're not going to answer those questions today. But the next week or two, we are. So stay tuned. Let's go into the passage today, Acts 13, 13.
Now Paul and his companions, so here's a change, Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem. So first of all we see, this is the first time, Paul and his companions, earlier on Even in this very chapter, we saw Barnabas and Saul. That was the sequence, and he was referred to as Saul. Then we see Saul and Barnabas. Now we see here, first time, this verse, Paul and his companions. Barnabas is now called Paul's companion. We also see that one of those companions is John Mark, or as he's called John, who is also called Mark. is about to leave Paul and Barnabas and head back to Jerusalem, head home, likely to the house of his mother Mary.
His mother Mary had a very nice house and apparently he missed it, and maybe his mother too. But he was headed back home. Now, that's really, really bad because that wasn't the plan. It's really, really bad except for the really good part that's coming up. John, also known as Mark as he's called here a few times in Acts, for him to bail on Paul and Barnabas and to head back to Jerusalem at this early point was really, really terrible. It was a terrible thing to do.
But, as bad and as awful as it was for John Mark to do this, it's actually going to turn out really, really good. But you know what? It's going to get worse before it gets better. How do you like that story? It's going to get worse before it gets better with John Mark.
There will be times when a really great spiritual outcome just demonstrates the work of God among us and God's transforming grace. We'll see that in the life of John Mark. We've already begun to see it. rather miraculously in the life of Saul who became Paul. God's miraculous grace is demonstrated in the lives of these people. You have on page one of your handout the map of Paul's first missionary journey and we'll call this Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey here.
We date it from April 48 to September 49. And as it begins there, they started off in Antioch, they went to the island of Cyprus by ship, starting off in Solomus, crossing the island, and ending up in Paphos. So that's covering Cyprus, and then from there they sailed from Paphos to what is now modern Turkey. Just to give you an idea, here's the Paphos Archaeological Park. This is a part of it up close. It was, at that time, kind of the capital of the island of Cyprus. Here's another shot of the archaeological park there. It was quite a place.
And so now that brings us to Acts 13, verses 14 and 15. So going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian, Antioch. And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the law and the prophets, and the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it. Okay. So as they come From Cyprus, they then head into Perga and then in Pisidian Antioch. Now when I say Pisidian Antioch, what is that?
Just like we have sometimes identical place names or sometimes confusing place names, they did as well. Do you know there's over a half dozen Denver's in the United States? So we have confusing place names. I've even corresponded with a fellow who lives in California, Maryland. If that isn't confusing.
So here is the region of Pisidia that had a city named Antioch. It happened to be the exact same name as the Antioch that they came from, which wasn't in Pisidia. So when we say Pisidian Antioch, that's what they're talking about. So, here is an archaeological reconstruction of Pisidian Antioch, just to give you an idea. There were portions of it that were very fancy and well-developed. This is a possible site of the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, but because of the desire to preserve the structure above it, they may never know if that's exactly the right place.
Here is a diagram to kind of show you the typical larger synagogue arrangement. They would have a downstairs area where they would have people reading and speaking, and typically the men would be in that area. And then up above or off to the side would oftentimes be courtyards where men and who were not Jews but Gentiles could watch, or women and children could also watch from those areas. And the entrance, very typically in such synagogues, was facing toward Jerusalem. That was the architectural arrangement that they would have there.
Here's the chronology of the first journey, just to kind of keep things in place here. So Paul's first missionary journey had just begun, April of 48 AD. And now coming to Pisidian Antioch, they would be in the middle of July, the month of July of 48. So a few months have passed since they first began their journey. So the Jewish synagogue traditions were actually, by this time, well established.
In other words, what would happen in each of the synagogues, they would set down, here's the schedule for how things would proceed, and they would have the main speaker room. There would only be men in there, and by the way, adult men allowed in there. And within that room, there was a ranking. So for example, if we were to do the same at Holly Hills, and I'm not at any not of any idea that we ought to do that at all, but what they would do is they would have the more important ones and the ranking ones up front and then they would go towards the back and then those who are men or men who are Gentiles or women and children would then be outside of the room typically looking through a screen of some kind. And so here you'd have the synagogue tradition.
They would go through and read things in certain prescribed sequence. They'd read from the Law and the Prophets. That basically was the term for the Old Testament, as we call it. And by the way, all of the synagogues outside of Jerusalem, virtually without any exceptions, were all Pharisee synagogues. Pharisee synagogues.
So visiting scholars such as Paul and Barnabas would have been honored guests and invited to speak. And that's exactly what you see here. There would oftentimes be no prior notice that they were coming, but once it was discovered, because you couldn't call up on your cell phone and say, hey, I'll be in Paphos, you know, or I'll be in Pamphylia, or be in Perga, or anything like that, you know, in a couple weeks. And so typically they came somewhat by surprise, and so there wasn't a lot of notice, but they would invite them to speak.
And think about, here's Paul, a Pharisee trained under the great Gamaliel. Now that would be an honored guest. Gamaliel was the premier rabbi of the entire first century. So Paul, to have been trained under that guy, it's like, wow, we don't get any better than that. To have that guy come into town, of course you get to speak, and you would be a fool not to invite him to speak.
In addition to that, most people overlooked that Barnabas was a Levite. That meant that he had And he may well have passed on it later in his life, but in earlier times, starting at age 30, Levites would do everything else around the temple that the priests would not do. But it also meant that they watched the priests up close and were very familiar with all the different things that went on in the temple. And they were also to be very knowledgeable of the scriptures, especially the first five books of Moses.
And so to have this pair of guys come and be able to speak at your synagogue, that would have been, wow, this is way, way beyond cool, right? Alright, so you can imagine that would be why the invitation would come. The Jews, just as a matter of habit, go about establishing synagogues all the way from Jerusalem throughout the land of Israel and then throughout the world. Everywhere there was a gathering of Jews as long as they had at least ten adult Jewish men, they could establish a synagogue, right? And so they would build one here. And so there were synagogues certainly in all the larger cities, like this one, as well as even some of the smaller places, right? And so they would go about in those synagogues, reading the scriptures as standard, and then having especially an honored speaker like Saul or Paul would be.
One more thing, too, and that's the pattern of Paul and Barnabas. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, is what he wrote to the church at Rome, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So even though he went to Gentile lands, he would go first to the Jews in those Gentile lands.
And this is an example of exactly that same thing. So they started at the synagogue wherever they went, first back in Cyprus and now in Pisidian Antioch. And as they went on, that was the pattern as we'll see as we go through the book of Acts. Here's Acts 13, 16 and 17.
Paul stood up and motioning with his hand, he said, Men of Israel, you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt with an uplifted arm. He led them out from it. One of the things that we find is typical of the culture, just like when they knocked on the door, they didn't just knock on the door, they would knock and talk. Hello, this is Paul, this is Peter, whoever it was, and they would knock and talk. Here, you'd stand up and motion. So that would be the, yes, I do wish to speak.
And so that's what he would do, and he would begin this address to them with men of Israel. That would address the Jews who are present, but remember also that there would be God-fearing Gentiles. And we had an example of that back in chapter 10 with Cornelius. So he would address the Jews, who would be right there in front of them, and the Jewish men. And then he would address the God-fearing Gentiles, who would oftentimes be behind a screen or in a separated area. But he would address both of them, who were there present in the synagogue. And he'd particularly want to address the God-fearing Gentiles, because he, after all, was not just addressing the Jews, but he was there to address the Gentiles as well.
So what is he going to do? He's going to give what is an outstanding summary of Old Testament Jewish history. He's going to start in the book of Genesis, and he's going to give you this phenomenal but very quick sweep of Old Testament history. So he talked to the people and this people, In verses 15 and 17, that points to the Jews as the chosen people, as opposed to the peoples and these peoples, right? And so he's going to provide these Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles who are listening a summary of Jewish history.
So first he would say, without naming them, he chose our fathers. Of course he intended with that. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacob's sons. Next it says, he made our people great in the land of Egypt. And by the way, great did not mean of high standing. That meant lots of them. But not of high standing because in fact they were slaves. But as slaves, their numbers grew.
That's what he's talking about. When he says uplifted arm, that would be outstretched and mighty. Uplifted arm was kind of shorthand. In fact, what we find in the Old Testament is a longer term. And so he would deal with these people by working in various miraculous ways to get them out of Egypt.
So, starting with Deuteronomy 4.34, and that's when he begins using this term, not when he begins the Exodus, that's back in the book of Exodus, we find that God led the Israelites out of the slavery in Egypt with this term, with his mighty hand and outstretched arm. That would be the full expression, shorthand, uplifted arm, right? Speaking and leading through Moses as he led them out.
Through great and awesome plagues upon the gods and the land of Egypt, Pharaoh finally was compelled to let God's people go. He worked in great and miraculous and awesome ways. God saved them from Pharaoh when Pharaoh changed his mind. I've decided I want you guys to come back. So Pharaoh sent someone, an army out there, to bring them back, and God says, no, you're not doing that. God intervened miraculously.
We have insights into the 10 plagues of Egypt. I won't go into this, and I don't expect you to read that from your pews, unless you've got your pew binoculars. But we do have that in a supplement, in case you'd like to pick that up. Acts 13, 18, for a period of about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. And so put up with them is a very nice way to put it, right? So 40 years out in the wilderness, can you imagine, I mean, just kind of thinking of some of the features of the wilderness.
If you really like the latest fashion, you're going to be in bad luck. There's no stores to buy the latest fashion. And it gets worse. Your shoes never wear out. The clothes that you've had on for 40 years never wear out. And imagine some Jewish husband saying to his wife, honey, I love the outfit that you got on. And she's saying, yeah, I've had it for the last 30 years. Right? So, also imagine you'd better like manna a lot. Manna for lunch, manna for breakfast, manna for dinner, manna every day. But don't you dare try to keep it over beyond the weak, right? It'll turn to you, right? Can you imagine living that way?
But 40 years, he put up with them. God put up with the Israelites who spent 40 years in the wilderness because except for two guys, Joshua and Caleb, they wouldn't believe God and it was time to enter the land. And by the way, after God said, okay, well, you're going to stick around out here, they said, oh, we'll go, we'll go. And God said, too late, right?
So very interesting. God miraculously sustained those Israelites as they wandered through the desert. More than once we have instances of Moses, for example, striking a rock in order to get water out of the rock. And the next generation was raised and instructed to enter the land.
Can you imagine? You know, why are we staying out here? Because your parents have to die. Right? That was a sad story. Some estimates, certainly dozens, but somewhere around 80 funerals a day out in the desert. And we got to wait. We can't go in yet. No. Got to have all these funerals. Lots of them. Got to wait 40 years. They had this route. We won't go into it in detail. They went out of the land of Goshen. crossing the Reed Sea, by the way, it's not the Red Sea, but crossing the Reed Sea, going down to Sinai in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula, and then wandering about until they finally made it up to the promised land. And we don't have this map in your handout, but again, it's in a supplement available as you exit the room.
Here's Acts 13.19, when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. Now, what? Wait a minute, 450 years? I didn't know it took that long to go and distribute the land. Well, we've got to figure out what he means by that.
So, in with the Israelites, out with the Canaanites. God gave specific city-by-city instructions. God did not give uniform instructions, every time you go into a city, do it this way. Instead, He said, when you go into this city, do it this way. That's what He did with Jericho.
You go in and you do it this way. When you go to the next one, you don't just do the same thing again. You listen carefully for My instructions because it's going to be different. and listen in detail, and not one of you better mess up. You've all got to do it right, and you need to listen very, very carefully.
Ultimately, they weren't to slaughter all the inhabitants of the land, but in great part to drive them out. You guys go somewhere else. That was the ultimate plan. We do have record, however, that they failed to drive out the inhabitants in many places, some of them closer and some of them farther from the middle where they entered. Some of them fairly nearby. They didn't drive them out. Some of them way off in some far-flung distance. They didn't drive them out either. They also didn't live by the law.
In fact, if you read the end of Deuteronomy, you know what God tells Moses? He says, Moses, let me tell you something. You know how you went and gave this whole book of Deuteronomy, which is the second giving of the law? They're not going to do it. Can you imagine that? Well, what did I just tell them all this stuff for? Right? Moses, they're not going to do it. They're going to mess up. We'll see you soon. Right? Because the Lord then took Moses home. Now, so here are the seven nations.
Deuteronomy 7.1 lists them, and so you've got the Hittites, you've got the Girgashites, you've got the Amorites, you have the Canaanites, you have the Perizzites, you've got the Hivites, you've got the Jebusites, and you've got the Mosquitobites. Right? Alright, so you've got all those ites. Alright, so now, let's figure out this 450 years thing. Paul arrived at the 450 years by adding up. Ah, okay. So he's giving you the summary number, not the number for what it took to get into Canaan.
400 years the Jews were in Egypt, most of that time as slaves of the Egyptians. And they were told back when Abraham was still alive that they were going to spend 400 years in Egypt. Genesis 15, 13. Isn't that astounding? I'm going to give the land to you, but the people that are descended from you, they've got to spend some time in Egypt, you know, just a little while for centuries. So that's the start. Forty years the Jews remained in the desert, and we talked about that.
Great time. Clothes never wore out. Always had plenty of food to eat, as long as you like manna. God had them wander. A few battles here and there, too. Ten years were for conquering the land. That was the period of time. Here's Joshua. Joshua leads them in. Imagine this guy. When do you start leading them in and be this military leader? Oh, you wait until you're 80. So he leads them in. These total about 450 years. So that's where the figure comes from. That's what he's talking about. 400 years of slaves in Egypt for the most part, 40 years wandering around the desert, 10 years going to conquer the land. That's where the figure comes from.
Here's Acts 13.20, and after these things he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. And all the great stories of judges as well as all the catastrophic failures of that period of the judges are told there in the book of Judges.
What a surprise, right? And so you have wonderful ones like Samson. Here is Samson. All sorts of things you could say. Boy, I sure wish Samson had done things differently. But nonetheless, God did great things through him all the way to the very last day of his life. You have the account of Gideon. The place where Gideon gave the drinking test to all the soldiers and 300 passed and he sent home the rest. That was a place we couldn't get into when we went to visit Israel because they were having some sort of a military maneuver in the park.
So anyway, then you have Samuel, the last one that he mentions, who anoints David When David is still a shepherd boy, you know, it's David is king and So that's the last one Samuel the prophet, right? Acts 13 21 and they asked for a king and God gave them Saul the son of Kish a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years right and one of the key things by the way, you look at Saul you look at the life of David you look at the life of Solomon and If you can remember that, 40 years, each of them reigned for about 40 years, so 40, 40, 40. So between Saul and David, Solomon, 120 years, 40, 40, 40, and he gives the first 40 here.
We had next Acts 13.22, and after he had removed him, that is Saul, King Saul, he raised up David to be their king concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Well, Saul was a one-man dynasty and actually he did die nasty. As a matter of fact, his body was hung at Beth-shean where Saul's body and those of his sons were also on display there at Beth-shean. So he did die nasty, but also then you had King David. God raised up David And David had some very serious bad stumblings, but he had a heart for the Lord. And God promised David that his descendant would rule in his throne forever. That descendant was and is Jesus Christ.
So these promises are recorded in a couple different places in the Old Testament. 2 Samuel 7, 8-17 were a parallel passage. 1 Chronicles 17, 10-15. So both of those gave the prophecy given through the court prophet Nathan to King David. Here's Acts 13, 23, and 24, from the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, after John had proclaimed before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
So Paul here, as he's meeting before the Jews, presented that according to the promise given to David as descendant, Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise to David, which was, that was a piece of news to them, right? He was and is the Savior of Israel. They had been looking for a Savior. Paul is telling them, this guy is the Savior you've been looking for.
He's not done, however, telling them about Jesus, but first he's going to shift gears, if you will, and talk about John the Baptist. They have, of course, all heard about John the Baptist. Now, that's very interesting. It turns out this is the sixth of eight times in the book of Acts that we're going to hear about John the Baptist. He was actually a very well-known personality in Israel and well beyond Israel and for decades to follow. And we're going to see all the way into Acts chapter 19 that his name continues to be brought up.
And there were disciples of John the Baptist. Jews all over the Roman Empire knew about John the Baptist. and very likely in places outside the Roman Empire as well, off to the east for example. Josephus, a Jewish historian, and we don't have time to go into his fascinating history, Josephus was born a Sadducee and raised in the Sadducee family, but became a Pharisee. And then when the Jews rebelled, he started rebelling with the Jews, and then he left them to join the Romans.
Can you imagine that? Anyway, so that's the guy. He wrote about John the Baptist about five centuries after the time John the Baptist lived. And of course, John the Baptist was beheaded by the reluctant command of Herod Antipas, and we don't have time for that story either.
But here's Acts 13.25, and while John was completing his course, He kept saying, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he, capital H, he. And behold, one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. So this, as you see, is about who Jesus is.
John told the people that he is not the guy who really matters. He told them that he was certainly not the Christ. In fact, that he was nobody of consequence or of importance. What John did tell them, John the Baptist told the Jewish people that who Christ was and who Christ was to become was far more important than John himself. That who Christ was and is, even now, stands as the most important identity.
Ever hear of an identity crisis? Ever hear of an identity theft? Well, this is one where there will never be an identity theft that stands. But there is an identity crisis in every unbeliever's life. And the identity of Christ remains to be the identity for all of us that is most important. It's the most important question for all time and all eternity.
Now, so we're going to continue on with Paul's message to the Jews there. He's going to tell them, shifting away from John, back to Jesus. Who Jesus is, what he has done for you and for me. Oh, and for them as well. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for just a marvelous quick introduction to how you worked among the Jews over the centuries and as Paul summarizes it for us.
But we also see at the end of today's passage, it becomes quite clear who you Lord are is most critical and most important. In fact, the most important personality, the most important person and your identity, the most important identity in the whole universe. We thank you for that. We thank you for what you've revealed. Thank you for your love and care for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.