We apologize this morning, we were having trouble getting that and I was already, can I use the word discombobulated, because as I got off onto 60, I must have hit something by the time I got here. I had a flat tire, but at least I got into the parking lot. So I'll pray and we can begin. Holy Father, we always stand in great and continual need of your help. And when anxiety comes, we need your help even more. But I believe the things that are to be communicated this morning are important. I just pray for grace because we are about to learn that apart from you, we can do nothing. And what exactly does that mean? So we ask your help in the name of Jesus. Amen. In the Westminster larger catechism, it is broken down in the definition of the commandment and then the duties required in the commandment and the sins forbidden. And so this week we are going to recover to cover the duties required And it got me to thinking something as I was preparing for this, as I was praying for this, I couldn't get past the fact that I really need to lay a foundation, an evangelical understanding of obedience, and I don't think we have properly emphasized that as a foundation in teaching the Ten Commandments. We talked about why the Ten Commandments are relevant for today, but it's a verse in John 15 5 that I said for a number of years I've really wanted to know what exactly is our Lord saying here, and I had asked Were there any Puritans besides maybe George Hutchison that did a commentary on John 15, verse 5, especially the words that, apart from me, you can do nothing, we can do nothing? How is it Did Christ enable us to keep his commandments? First of all, let's look at John 15, 5, and the words of John Gill. For without me you can do nothing, nothing that is spiritually good, no, not anything at all, be it little or great, easy or difficult to be performed, cannot think a good thought, speak a good word, or do a good action, can neither begin one nor, when it is begun, perfect it. Nothing is to be done without Christ, without His Spirit, grace, strength, and presence. We can't do anything separate from Him. And I said, I wish that John Owen would have did a commentary on John 15 so that I could really understand what does our Lord mean here. And if you could go, yeah, you're right there. By the way, I just discovered that picture and I was talking to Rex about it. An artificial intelligent picture of John Owen is how he would look now. And I said to Rex, I can't confirm whether that would be right or not. The one thing I know because I've studied John Owen a lot is he didn't probably wear his hair like that because I don't think the pictures of John Owen that you see of his hair is actual hair. I believe it's a wig and I say that because one of his detractors said that he wore enough powder in his wig to blow a small cannon. So I got a kick out of the picture anyway because it's just a matter of time we're going to get artificial intelligent drawings of Jonathan Edwards and so I can finally see what he looks like without his wig. But John Owen did do a phenomenal job on Without Me You Can Do Nothing and How We Do Everything by the Spirit of Christ. And he says in his Collected Works Volume 3, and in Volume 3 and in Volume 4 of the Collected Works of John Owen, about 1,200 pages, is his work on pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And there is a chapter in there which I have narrated and I put it on the Man of God podcast at one time. and emphasizing Ezekiel 36, 26, and 27, he says, a new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. Verse 25, Ezekiel 36, I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness while I cleanse you. But this is a means to the end of enabling us by changing the governing disposition, we call it, the new birth, regeneration, the mind and the will and the affections to enable us to be able to obey the commandments of Christ. And we have to emphasize, and I'm going to explain why this is so important for us, and that is Unless the Holy Spirit assists even this new disposition, we do have an enlightened mind now, we do have an inclined will now, we do have holy affections. But the Holy Spirit is absolutely needed in any act of obedience that is acceptable to God. And where that is helpful for myself and some, even my own son and others who have a delicate conscience, that is that in our obedience to Christ, this is only known, these fruits, by their fruits, it is not known, we're not experiencing something that we can feel of the Holy Spirit working in us. So the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, 22 and 23 begins with love, joy, peace. So if we are trying to live the Christian life and we live devoid of joy and peace, And our prayers of confession and contrition have almost no hope in them. They always lead us in a state of a spirit of bondage and fear. When we are done, we can be assured that we are not walking in the Holy Spirit because the fruits of that is going to be joy and peace. And John Owen says in the Acts and Duties of Holiness, a chapter that I narrated for our seminary, that which I at present design to prove is that the actual aid, assistance, and internal operation of the Spirit of God is necessary, required, and granted to the producing of every holy act of our minds, wills, and affections, in every duty whatever. or that notwithstanding the power or ability which believers have received in or by habitual grace, they still stand in need of actual grace in, for, and unto every single gracious holy act or towards God without me, without my spirit, without the spirit of Christ, therefore, you can do nothing. And everything that is acceptable to God, every holy affection, every holy correct inclination, every obedience to the law of Christ is done by the aid of the Holy Spirit. It is our duty with all care and diligence and the use of all means to preserve. This is what we must do. We must preserve this new principle within us, cherish and improve both the principle itself and its actings in these holy dispositions. We are to show all diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. So the disposition is placed in us by the new birth, by being born again. As the theologian says, the governing disposition has been changed. The Holy Spirit has taken the helm of our soul and he steers it Godward. And it is so important for you to have evangelical obedience. And I say this again because brethren, Without this understanding, all of our obedience is going to be legal, slavish obedience. And it will not give us joy. It will not give us peace. It is impossible to do so because it is not by the Holy Spirit. So now turning to the sixth commandment, if you want to open your Bible to Genesis 4, verses 5 to 8, Next slide, Michael. In the unfolding of human history, and I am indebted to John Murray for this and his principles of conduct. It was interesting when Pastor Carlson said, would I be willing to teach on a couple of the commandments because he was going to be gone, others are going to be providentially hindered. And I said, I'd be glad to teach on the sixth and the seventh commandment if I could have John Murray's principles of conduct in one hand and my quill in the other as I'm taking my notes. But in the unfolding of human history and of divine revelation, we do not have to wait long after the fall of Adam. We do not have to wait long to find a clear indication of the sanctity attaching a man's life and of the wrong involved in the taking of one man's life by another. It is noteworthy that next to the sin of our first parents, the first recorded sin is that of Cain, which had its issue in the murder of his brother Abel. It is apparent that the passions from which this ruthless act proceeded were those of anger, and envy. Keep that in your mind for when we get to the application. God's disproval and condemnation are plainly expressed in the sequel. The voice of your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground. Now listen to this. This is so graphic and we could miss this, except that it has its place And what he says later on, and he says, now cursed are you from the ground. The ground has opened its mouth and received your brother's blood from your hand. It opens its mouth, the blood goes down into the mouth of the ground. Thomas Watson says there are only three times in the scriptures when it is said the voice of the blood cries to heaven. These are the three sins in scripture that are said to cry. Number one, oppression because of the devastation of the afflicted. Because of the groaning of the needy, now will I arise, says the Lord, Psalm 12, 5. Number two, sodomy, homosexuality. I will go down now and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to me, Genesis 18, verse 21. Number three, bloodshed. This is what we are talking about. murder, killing someone, bloodshed, cries from the ground to God. It must be requited. This cries so loudly that it drowns out all the other cries. The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Abel's blood had as many tongues as drops so they could all cry aloud for vengeance. The sin of blood lay heavy on David's conscience as well. Though he had sinned by adultery, when he cried out for the most was his crimson sin of blood. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, Psalm 51, verse 14. Though the Lord visits for every sin, He will in a special manner avenge those who shed blood. He requires blood. and that even an animal that was stoned that killed someone, which did not have the use of reason to restrain it, much more will he be enraged against those who against both reason and conscience take away the life of a human being. And as we proceed in the history of the human family, we find that the depravity of the human heart manifested itself to such an extent in the violation of the sanctity of life that the indictment against the human race becomes epitomized in the charge of violence. There was violence over all the earth before the flood. We are told that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth and that the earth was filled with violence. The earth forms a mouth, The blood goes into the mouth of the ground and it cries to God because it needs to be requited. There must be something carried out to make this right. So the mouth forms a larynx, it forms voice cords, it cries out to God, Oh Lord, even in Revelation, how long? Brethren, Let's look now at Genesis 9 and we'll draw this to an application on this first part of the sixth commandment. Because that man's heart is violent, and evil. In the mercy of God, he gives the three things in Genesis for the continuation of man so that he doesn't end up in the case he was before the fall. There was propagation of life, Genesis 9, verses 1 and 7. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Verse seven, and you be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein. Number two, the sustenance of life God gave us and his mercy and anointed covenant. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. and the protection of life in the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens. And surely your blood, the blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it. And at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother will I require it. require the life of man. Who so sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed. This is the key. This is why this is a unique sin, murder, that though the penalty, judicial penalties that ended in death in the Old Testament for all other capital crimes no longer are in existence, unrequited blood must be paid for by the life of another. And so this blood is crying to God in heaven, how long, oh Lord, will it be until you make these things right? 41 years ago, July 5th, 1983, Albert and Martin preached a series of sermon called God's Word to Our Nation. The second sermon in that series was called The Sin of Blood Guiltiness. He's talking about the day after the 4th of July, and the delivery was as you would expect from Albert Martin. But brethren, these things have been left unrequited. The blood that is thrown in rags and so on in the back of the dumpsters of our hospitals, the unrequited blood of children that have been murdered, and in most cases is not requited. And 41 years after 1983, where does that leave us now? In the last election, look at the statistics of every state. that wanted murder to be legalized of infants, almost every single legislation passed. Brothers, I don't, and sisters, I don't want to be a prophet of doom, but this must weigh on us. There is no other expiation for unrequited blood than the death of the murderer. And no system of eschatology is going to say otherwise in that blood has to be requited by the death of the murderer or God Almighty will come down himself and requite the innocent blood. So as particularly relevant to our present lesson, we will focus our attention upon the third of these, Genesis 9, thou shall not kill. The Hebrew text of the commandment is accurately translated, thou shall do no murder. And this commandment is a sin forbidden, You shall not murder, Exodus 20, verse 13. A duty implied, and that is to preserve our own life and the life of others. And number two, there is also a duty implied, and that is a preservation of our own life and the lives of others. A little historical sketch. Many of you have seen commentaries on the shorter catechism. Thomas Vincent, Thomas Watson, Thomas Boston. But only one time until J.G. Voss, about 20 years ago, did a commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism, which I use for the duties required in the Sixth, Seventh Commandment, and so on. There was only one author that did a commentary on all of the larger catechism, and that was Thomas Ridgely. And what's interesting to me is I see the things and I ask myself, if that was the only commentary, certainly there is going to be a demand for it, and certainly they will keep it in print. But it's only been reprinted one time that I have seen, and that was Stillwater Revival Books up in Canada. And as usual with other books that I use for reference, it went out of print and there's no demand for these things. I have my copy, Thomas Ridgely's commentary on the larger catechism. This is 1815. It was a different day. This came out in 1731. Now we need to preface this on the Sixth Commandment. All killing is not murder. For there are several cases in which, although one kills another, yet he is no murderer as one. In the execution of justice, the sword has been given to the state, Romans 13, and the state their job in the fear of God and for God, must put to death the death of the murderer. At one time, we took that a lot more seriously. But the state has not murdered the man. He is executing what God demands, and that is a requital, the vengeance on unrequited blood. Number two, there may be bloodshed in a just and lawful war. without the charge of crime or murder, especially if that nation is the innocent party and they were invaded like Ukraine. Now, how much we should have got involved in that is not my present subject, but Ukraine was invaded by an evil nation and they had the right to make war. It's a necessary defense against an unjust invasion or a recovery of what is unjustly taken away. Thus, David pursued the Amalekites, who had carried his wives away, captives. And number three, the punishing of some great injury. and wrong. Thus, David likewise wars against the Ammonites for a decontamilious usage of his ambassadors. That's the one thing about using an old commentary. You have a strong use of the English language of all of these words that are now archaic. Ezekiel Hopkins, an Anglican Puritan says, as for self-murder though, We have to preserve our own lives and the lives of others, and we'll apply that in just a few minutes. But as for self-murder, suicide, truly self-murder next to the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost is, I think, the most dangerous and most desperate that can be committed. And because it leaves so little room for repentance, it leaves but very little for hope and charity. Those wretched creatures whom God has so far abandoned as to permit them to fall into this horrid crime, had they but any of the least care of their eternal salvation, they would certainly tremble when they are offering violence to themselves. How do you repent of suicide when you are committing a sin in the very act? that they must instantly appear before God when they die and lift up those hands at this great tribunal, which they had but a minute before they had imbrued in their own blood. Number two, the murdering of another is a most heinous and black sin. A sin that God does usually by some wonderful method of his providence detect. and bring to light for punishment, and which dogs the consciences of those who are guilty of it with hoard of frights and terrors, and is sometimes extorted from them a confession of it when there has been no other proof nor evidence. Their conscience is so eating away at them They are under such guilt that they turn themselves in and say, I can't live with what I have done. And by the way, John Flavel, when he's dealing with the seventh commandment, which I will deal with after this, also says that that sin also God has a way of exposing, though it is done in darkness, it often comes to light. And God so infinitely hates and detests the murder of another. Why? Because man is unique in that he was made in the image of God. Your fellow neighbor is made in God's image and therefore God abhors his sin against somebody who was made in his image. And that's why it is a capital crime still that should be, if we weren't in the state that we are in this nation, receive capital punishment for a capital crime. If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor and slay him with guile in his heart, you shall take him from mine altar, that he may die." And accordingly, we read in 1 Kings 2, verses 30 and 31. that when Joab had fled and taken hold of the horns of the altar, he grabs the horns of the altar and he is hoping for mercy so that the messengers who were sent to put him to death dare not violate that holy place by shedding his blood. Still, Solomon gives command. to have him slain even there, as if the blood of a willful murderer were a very acceptable sacrifice offered unto God while holding on to the horns of the altar. Now, think about that for a second. We do not speak of vengeful men. that if the murderer is put to death, we are satisfied because he has got what he deserves. That's not the heart of a Christian. But brethren, if every man who is on death row for the sin of murder should become a Christian and show evidence that he is born again, he must still be put to death because the unrequited blood can only be propitiated by the death of the murderer. Next, we must protect our neighbor's good name in the Seventh Commandment. And because it's so interesting about the Westminster Larger Catechism, every single answer, and it could be a hundred word answer, comma, semicolon, colon, they're all one sentence. So where J.G. Voss did us a favor is he broke them down into single sentences and put the scripture proofs. That's why I printed them out for you for your reference. So we must protect also the good name of our neighbor. A good name is better than a good ointment. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 1. It is a great cruelty to murder someone in his name. We injure others in their name when we belittle and slander them. David complains, malicious witnesses rise up. They ask me of things that I do not know. Psalm 34, 11. And we must do within us as we can, as much as we can, to save the lives of our neighbor, as loving our neighbor as ourselves. As to our endeavors to preserve the lives of others, we are to caution them against all things which would tend to destroy their health, and by degrees, their lives. We must also discover and detect all secret plots against them and contrivances which may be directed against them. And we are to support and relieve those who are ready to perish by extreme poverty. That's why we have a heart for the people in Cuba and Haiti. And some of us received the latest letter from Myanmar, Burma. How disheartening that Now the Burmese army has joined with China, and the way that they are getting their attention is bombing the innocent. We must cry to God. Oh, God, hear the cries of these children and act on their behalf. Oh, Lord, we are too far away. We are so limited as to what we can do. And even if people have volunteered to go there, it is too dangerous. we must endeavor to preserve the lives of others. So now, quoting Thomas Ridgely in his Body of Divinity, I believe that's four volumes. I have two or three of them. I was a kind of a person as a mail carrier for Kregel. If they had two, three of the volumes, and I knew they were waiting for a fourth volume to come in and make it a set, I would say to King Kregel, well, how much can I get one or the two or the three volumes for? And then I'd really get a discount on these. Though this is from 1815, it might sell it to me for $15 because there was no such thing as digital print. So what is meant in the larger catechism by careful studies to preserve the life of ourselves and others? This includes every form of human research and plan directed toward the preservation of life, for example. scientific investigations. For example, in Grand Rapids, a very, very good friend of ours, and he was later on Albert Martin's son-in-law, worked at the Van Andel Institute, which the whole facility is just to study the cure for cancer. And for all of their studies, it doesn't seem like we've eradicated it at all. This stuff just weighs on us. And what is meant by lawful endeavor is to preserve the life of ourselves and others. This means all efforts directly or indirectly aimed at preserving serving human life. Accepting such efforts as may be wrong because forbidden by God's moral law. In addition to the actual literal crime of murder, what does the Sixth Commandment require us to avoid? Besides the actual crime of murder, the Sixth Commandment requires us to avoid, resist or subdue whatever tends toward the unjust destruction of human life. Thus, we are to resist thoughts and purposes, subdue passions. And I'll talk about subduing your passions when I get to the application. and avoid occasions, temptations, and practices which tend towards such destruction of life. Why does the Sixth Commandment require patient bearing at the hand of God? This is an interesting question. Why would it be preserving your own life, not to chafe, when God brings very difficult providential trials into your life. If you're fretting at what God is doing and you're not content, you're inside, you're actually murmuring against him, a sin which is also forbidden in the application of the first commandment, it will have its effect upon your health, upon your presence of mind and so on. And so we must submit and we must humble ourselves and we must commit it to the Lord, though he turns the screws upon our nature in these trials. And it is painful. We should not chafe. We should not murmur. And there are a number of other of these that I will probably get into next week when we talk about the sins that are forbidden in the Sixth Commandment. But I thought I needed to deal with one, and brethren, I have nobody in mind here whatsoever as to why I want to deal with this. I'm doing this for my own good. I just know that this is a sin. that can be very prevalent and that is a sin of unjust anger. You blow your cork, you yell at somebody, you're at work and you explode. Everybody is affected by it and I want to help you deal with this. By the way, Lee, I believe that there is a modern version of John Downham's work, and I did see it at one time. I know Ben Carlson showed me a paperback of this. This book came out in 1609, and there is a modern paperback. And at one time I thought we carried it back there, but I narrated three chapters of it into a more modern English yesterday. But I want to deal with John Owen, chapter nine, on what is called sins that have dangerous symptoms. He says they are inveterate, they are long established, they have dug in the trenches, and they have marked your character so seriously that now it's going to take a more unusual work of mortification to be able to put its vigor and its power to death. The first direction, John Owen says, I narrated this recently, I've done it a number of times, so I called it six dangerous signs that a sin is becoming inveterate, that it is becoming established. And he says, the first direction is this, and I changed the word lust to anger for this purpose. Consider if your outbursts of anger have any dangerous symptoms attending or accompanying it. whether it has any deadly mark on it or not. If it has extraordinary remedies are to be used, you cannot live and let a sin have dominion over you, which it will not. If you're a Christian, Romans 6.14, for sin shall not have dominion over you. But if even a believer, manifest existentially, that's the language of Romans 7.14-25, that which I would not that I do. Whether it has any deadly mark on it or not, if it has extraordinary remedies or to be used, an ordinary course of putting this into death will not alone do it. So you will ask, What are the signs and symptoms, the attendance of the indwelling sin, loss, that you are attend to? And he says inveterateness, and there are six of them. But this really affected me the first time I read chapter nine in the mortification of sin by John Owen. Your distemper is dangerous. In other words, if it isn't mortified, it can lead to apostasy. If you say we don't worry about these things, we are Christians, sin cannot have dominion over you. Well, you have no proof that you are a Christian if there is one sin that you will not deal with, that you will let it live, that you will say, no big deal. If your tendency to anger has lain long, corrupting in your heart, if you have allowed it to abide in power and prevalence without attempting vigorously the killing of it and the healing of the wounds you have received by it for a long season. Have you permitted your anger to eat up your spiritual duties? You're trying to have your devotions. You're trying to pray to God. You want your devotions to be really, really good. And yet this anger that you are harboring toward another person is keeping you from having any kind of a decent devotional time in which you must leave your gift upon the altar and go be reconciled to your brother. Have you permitted your anger to eat up your spiritual duties? the duties in which you ought to hold constant communion with God for some long season, or your anger to defile your heart with vain, foolish, and wicked imaginations for many days. David says, my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. Psalm 38.5. When a lust is laying long in the heart, corrupting, festering, cankering. It brings a soul into a woeful condition. In such a case, an ordinary course of humiliation will not do the work. Whatever it be, it will try this means gradually and make its way more or less into all the faculties of the soul. and make the affections comfortable with its company in society. It grows familiar to the mind, and so you become desensitized. You're doing this continually, and others see it, but you can't see it yourself because you're desensitized to it. It's inveterate. You've gotten used to it. so that it doesn't startle at it as a strange thing, but it is bold and you are accustomed to it. It will get such an advantage by this means as oftentimes to exert and put forth itself without you taking any notice of it at all, as it seems to have been with Joseph and his swearing by the life of Pharaoh, Genesis 42, 15 and 16. Unless some extraordinary course be taken, such a person has no ground in the world to expect that his latter end shall be peace and a full assurance. So immediately he's going to lose his joy and his peace. So we must be familiar with ourselves, cautious and watch in our hearts, lest this ill temper break out. Many men live in the dark. Now, this is not a mortification of sin, but a treatise on indwelling sin. And the warnings at the end of chapter one and chapter two of this are so profound and it applies so well here that I'll end with these two paragraphs. Many men live in the dark to themselves all their days. Whatever else they know, they know not themselves. They know their outward estates, how rich they are, and they are careful to examine the condition of their bodies as to health and sickness. But as to their inward man and their principles as to God and eternity, they know little or nothing of themselves. Indeed, few labor to grow wise in this matter. Few study themselves as they ought. Few are acquainted with the evils of their own hearts as they ought, on which yet depends the whole course of their obedience, and consequently of their eternal condition. This, therefore, is our wisdom. It is a needful wisdom if we have any design to please God or to avoid that which is a provocation to the eyes of His glory. Awake, therefore, all of you in whose hearts is anything of the ways of God. Your enemy is not only upon you as Samson of old, Judges 16, 20, and 21, but is in you also. He is at work by all means of force and craft, as we shall see. Would you not dishonor God and his gospel? Would you not scandalize the saints and ways of God? Brethren, this weighs on me so much. As a teacher, I went to Hawesville and I'm teaching them and if it gets out or somebody points to me and says, I saw you 10 minutes before the service and you're erupting at your wife and the caustic words that are coming in and out of your mouth and you lose the ability to be salt and light because they're not going to take you seriously how quickly this can turn into a scandal and it can disqualify you who are aspirants from the ministry. from being in the ministry? Would you keep your garments undefiled and escape the woeful temptations and pollutions of the days in these latter days which we live? Then awake to the consideration of this cursed enemy, indwelling sin, which is the spring of all these and innumerable other evils, is also the ruin of all the souls that perish in the world. Inquire then, how is it with your souls? What do you find of this law, the law of indwelling sin? That which I do, would I do not, because that which weighs in me and incapacitates me to obey God is this law of indwelling sin. Do you find it dwelling in you, always present with you, exciting itself, or putting forth its poison with easiness at all times in all your duties when you would do good? What humiliation, what self-abasement and intenseness in prayer, what diligence, what watchfulness does this call for you at your hands? What spiritual wisdom do you stand in need of? What supplies of grace? And brethren, God has promised to answer those prayers. Ask and you will receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened. But we need to be importunate in those prayers when we are wrestling with things that will stain our Christian profession and turn people off to our examples, to the gospel. He says, what supplies of grace, what assistance of the Holy Spirit will there also be discovered as to your need? And he ends with this. I fear we have in us few a diligent proportion to our danger. Now, brethren, I'm not going to ask questions, but I will open it up for comments, because if I ask questions, that assumes that I know a great deal, a lot about the Sixth Commandment. I'm not pleading that and I'm not saying that I have gotten on top of these things. But if you have anything you want to add, just raise your hand and Michael will bring you a microphone. Well, I hope you'll still be talking to me after this. All right, I'm going to close in prayer. I really appreciate your patience. You know, you show up here. I hear my tire underneath my car. I know I'm probably getting a flat. And you come here and you say, well, I don't want this to keep me from communicating something that I thought would be useful to us. So I'll pray and we can be dismissed. Holy Father, we stand in great and continual need of your help at all times and in all ways. And we trust, this is our trust, that he that has begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus. And we want to be as above all the beatitude of Blessed are the meek. As Lloyd-Jones says in his excellent exposition of the studies on the Sermon on the Mount, A meek man is done with himself. He's through defending himself. He says, there's nothing to me to defend. I will defend the cause of God and I will be bold when God's name is being called into question and he is being slandered. But Lord, help us to be completely through with ourselves and show just a little bit of a manifestation that we have been in our devotions. With our Lord Jesus Christ we ask in His name, amen.