It's a precious word. Can I say that it is our intention to be here, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, as we are permitted by government. If there is a lockdown, well then, our services will go out via Facebook Live, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, 12 noon and 6 p.m. We just remind you of that in the will of God. If you do need to leave your car You can do so through the church hall, but we try and encourage all to just stay in your cars and to keep social distancing, please. All the requirements set there by government. Let's try and keep this place open and we encourage you then just to remain at a distance one from another as we worship God even here. We're going to unite in prayer, seek the Lord for his help tonight, and so let me encourage you to pray, even in your cars, that the Lord will meet with us around his precious word. Our loving Father, we come before thee in our Savior's name at the close of another Lord's day, ever thankful for the throne of grace and the God of grace who meets us there. We thank Thee, dear God, that tonight we can approach Thee. Lord, in the merits of Christ's blood, we praise Thee for our union with Christ, everlastingly bound to Him by love's strong cord. Lord, we pray that tonight, O God, that we might know much help and assistance in the preaching of the glorious gospel of Christ. Speak to every heart, we pray. We thank thee for a congregation gathered before us in the church car park. Thank thee, O God, also for our virtual congregation this evening. May thy good hand be upon those that are here and those who find themselves in their homes, maybe because of age or self-isolation, Lord, others that are found across the world. We pray, O God, that thy word will be a blessing help and a challenge dear God even to those who Lord hear thy word tonight we cry dear God on behalf of our nation we pray Lord in the Savior's name that thou would show mercy grant dear father thy blessing upon dear God the preaching of the word across the province Through you God, means of sermon audio and Facebook live. Bless every servant of thine, may they know divine unction and power. May there be a great turning on to God again. Lord, we recognize that we have forsaken thee. We have hewn out broken cisterns that can hold no water. Lord, show us mercy, we pray in these days. Bring conviction of sin upon our own hearts and upon the hearts of the unconverted. And for those who are not ready to meet God, May, dear Father, O God, they be found in Christ by the end of this Lord's day. Lord, answer prayer, save among us, restore the backslider we asked of thee, and grant, dear God, heaven's blessing upon this public gathering. We rejoice in the promise of God that where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Lord, be in the midst of us tonight. May thy hand be upon us for good. glorify thy son for we offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious and worthy name amen and amen just let me make some announcements just quickly please remind you of our Bible study and prayer time that will be happening not here but also but in the form of a Facebook Live broadcast that can be accessed by our church Facebook page. I'll be conducting that Bible study from the manse, and then we're encouraging our families, the couples, individuals, to have a time of prayer within their own homes. Lay hold of God for our nation at this time, and pray that God will send revival, and God will be pleased to use even this time of crisis to be a means of turning men and women onto Christ, praying that God in wrath would remember even mercy. And then in the will of God, and we make these announcements in God's will, next Lord's Day we'll meet again for family worship, 12 noon, 3.30 we'll be having a gospel open air on the main street in the will of God, 6 o'clock. our gospel service and I'll be preaching at all of those services. If you do start to have any of the symptoms of COVID-19, we encourage you to stay at home. and to watch into the broadcast or other broadcasts that are available via sermon audio. If there comes a time that you have to self-isolate, then I want to say that the telephone at the manse is there for you. Just ring and we'll be there to help as much as we can. We've had offers of people who are willing to pick up groceries, prescriptions, and various things. We're bearing one another's burdens, and let me encourage you then to come along, if at all possible. If you're healthy and well, don't be sitting at home. Come to the car park here in the church, and we'll be glad of your presence and of your support tonight. Now, we're not singing, and we're not gathering in any offerings. We're just glad that you're here, For those of our own folk, we encourage you to keep tithing and setting aside your offerings, and we'll gather them in in coming weeks. Just keep them at home until further notice, please. And please, can I ask you to just be patient. You were this morning, and getting out after the meeting tonight. And we encourage you to be patient with our parking attendants, and we'll get you out of the car park safely, please, tonight. May the Lord bless you for coming even to this drive-in church service tonight. We're turning in the word of God this evening to the book of Hosea and the chapter number seven. The book of Hosea and the chapter seven, and I want to read from the opening verse of the chapter. When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they commit falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own doings have beset them about, they are before my face. They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princess with their lies. They are all adulterers as an oven heated by the baker, or ceaseth from rising after he hath kneaded the dough until it be leavened. In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine. He stretched out his hand with scorners. For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whilst they lie in wait. Their baker sleepeth all the night, in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. They are all hot as an oven, they have devoured their judges, all their kings are fallen, there is none among them that calleth unto me. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. The pride of Israel testifieth to his face, and they do not return unto the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Amen, and God will bless the reading of his word. We'll unite briefly in a word of prayer together. Let's seek the Lord in a word of prayer. Our loving Father, we come into thy presence again in the name of Christ our Savior. We pray, Lord, now for the help of the Holy Ghost. We recognize that it is his office, his work, his ministry to apply the word to the soul. It is he who regenerates the heart. It is he who gives to the sinner faith and repentance, those great gifts in the gospel. Therefore we cry to thee. for the divine anointing of thy spirit. Help dear God, leave this preacher not to his own abilities or strengths or gifts or talent. Lord, we're looking to thee for much more than this. Oh, for the breath of the spirit. Oh, for the might of His sword, grant, dear Father, the slaying of many as they listen in, and even as they're gathered before us tonight. Lord, we thank Thee for a people who desire to hear the Word preached, who desire to gather for public worship. Bless them in their own souls, we pray, and grant, dear God, now the infilling of the Holy Ghost. Because I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost to fill me to the uttermost. I take, thank God He shall and will undertake for even me, for I ask these prayers in and through the Savior's precious name. Amen and amen. My text for this evening is found in the words of Hosea chapter 7 and the verse number 9. yet he knoweth it not." I want to take these words as a text of this, for this gospel meeting, and I want to preach a message that I've entitled, Missing the Obvious, Missing The obvious. Now the words of our text, they are strange words indeed to take for any gospel message. But I trust that as we go through the message tonight, you'll come to understand the meaning of the text. and why I have given the message title as I have, Missing the Obvious. Now these words in Hosea chapter seven and the verse number nine are spoken concerning the children of Ephraim. A quick reading of the book of Hosea quickly reveals to us that Ephraim, once a people favored by God, had gone far from him. To affirm that to be the case, Let me highlight a number of references within the prophecy of Hosea that speak of Ephraim's departure from God and what form that departure took. In Hosea chapter 4 verse 7 we read, Ephraim is joined to his idols. Let him alone. In Hosea chapter five, verse three and four, God speaking here, I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me. For now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled. They will not free him, their doings to turn on to their God, for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them. They have not known the Lord. Hosea 6, verse 10, I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is the whoredom of Ephraim. Israel is defiled. Hosea 7, verse 8, Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a keek nocturnal. And chapter 8, verse 11, because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. In chapter 11 verse 12, Ephraim compassed me about with lies, the house of Israel with deceit. Hosea 12 verse 1, Ephraim feedeth on the wind and followeth after the east when he daily increaseth lies and desolation. They and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians and oil is carried into Egypt. It's very obvious from these texts of scripture to any Bible reader and any reader of the book of Hosea that Ephraim was not walking with God as he should have been. Spiritually, he had grown cold. He had lapsed into what we would term a back-slidden state. But the dangerous and the concerning thing was this, Ephraim was oblivious to his true state before God. This is what Hosea is trying to convey to them as a people in the words of our text. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. Such was the blindness that had come upon Ephraim, that his strength had been defied, he knew it not. Gray hairs, that sign of decay, had begun to appear here and there among their hairs, and again they knew it not. They were oblivious to their true state before God. I am sure those of an older generation among us tonight are, I suppose, more acutely aware of the present ageing process that is taking place in your body than those who are maybe of a younger generation. Such will know that there are some more obvious signs to the ageing process than others. Never the teeth start to decay and maybe they need to be replaced by dentures. It's revealing to us the aging process is well on its way. When one's steady hands begin to tremble, When limbs lose their flexibility and they begin to seize up with arthritis. When eyes that once had 20-20 vision begin to dim and the glasses prescription is strengthened by the optician. When the hearing starts to become dull and the hearing aid is required to hear clearly. These are all but evidences that the decay of the body associated with the aging process has begun. However, there are other tell-tale signs that are not just as obvious to us. They do indicate that the years are rolling on. And Hosea, he gives us one such tell-tale sign, the appearance of grey hairs. He uses this to illustrate, to convey the spiritual decline that had come upon Ephraim. How many of us miss the first gray hair? Whenever it starts to appear, we often miss it. And yet someone else, well, they're the first to notice it and they take great delight to tell you and I that the first gray hair has appeared on the head and on the scalp. And such is the case when it comes to our spiritual lives. Decay sets in, and we're often the last to notice it. It seems to be that it's obvious to loved ones, it's obvious to the minister, obvious to our friends, And yet it's not so obvious to us. While others are able to detect a cruelness coming into our spiritual lives, we seem to be blind to it. And it may be that there is someone here tonight, someone in front of me, maybe someone watching in to the recording tonight live, and you have lapsed into a cold, into a backslidden state when it comes to the things of God, and yet the concerning thing is that you are wholly ignorant that you have. You're blind to it all. Where once you were on fire for God, Once you love God, once you loved his people, the house of God, the place of prayer, all that is gone. It seems to be that a decay has set in. The gray hair has started to appear on your spiritual scalp. You see, backsliding is very subtle. It creeps up upon us unawares. If your hair changed from black or brown, whatever color it is, and it changed to white in one night, Well, you would be struck by the drastic change that has taken place, but because the gray hairs come up one by one, the transformation is hardly noticed, and we're unconscious that a change is taking place, and backsliding is just like that. Backsliding is but a gradual process, a gradual motion. It is but a sliding. A swift and yet an undetectable decline. And so Hosea, speaking to a people who once loved God, who once walked with God, he speaks to them in these terms. Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. It was so obvious. But Ephraim missed the obvious. And I fear that there are people in this land and in this province and they're missing the obvious as to their spiritual state before God. Sinners miss the obvious with regard to their true standing before God, rebels to God, transgressors of His law, those who have violated His commandments and yet they appear and they look and it seems in their own mind and their own estimation that they are good individuals, moral people, those that God would look upon as being respectable and yet they miss the obvious, that they're bound for hell. They're headed for eternal destruction. That they're going to be lost. And they're going to perish. And they miss the obvious. And backsliders as well. The decay is so obvious. And yet they miss it all. Well tonight I want to very briefly suggests some of the gray hairs that commonly appear on the spiritual scalp of a backslider that indicates that they have fallen into a backslidden state. And I want to do that for this particular reason, lest you and I are missing the obvious when it comes to our true spiritual state before God. The first gray hair that appears on the spiritual scalp of the backslider is a declining interest in the things of God. A declining interest in spiritual matters. Backsliding may be accounted for by the fact that people are taken up with other matters to such an extent that spiritual matters are quickly and readily forgotten. Let me highlight just two spiritual activities that go to the wayside when a spiritual decay has set in. The first spiritual activity that is affected by a decay in spirituality is the activity of prayer. The activity of prayer. Was this not one of the causes why Peter so badly fell away from his Lord? He failed to heed the Savior's counsel given to the hymn there in Gethsemane's garden to watch and pray. Watch and pray, Peter. Prayer would have fortified this man's soul. Prayer would have preserved him in the hour of temptation, in the time of testing, and yet, where do we find him? We find him sleeping while he should have been supplicating. You see, it is the place of prayer where often the rot starts and sets in. J.C. Ryle said, backsliding generally first begins with neglect of private prayer. Matthew Henry made a similar remark, apostasy from God generally begins in the place of prayer. Octavius Winslow said, all backsliding has in its commencement in the declension of prayer. It may date its beginning at the throne of grace. The restraining of prayer before God is the first step in departure. How's your prayer life tonight? Have the grey hairs of prayerlessness been appearing here and there on your spiritual scalp? Are you spending less and less time in private prayer? What about the public gatherings of prayer? I'm speaking about before all this has befallen our nation where we can no longer gather for our public times of prayer. But let me ask you before this week or a couple of weeks ago, let me ask you about the public place of prayer. Has your seat become empty? Has your attendance become sporadic? Has your voice become silent in the place of prayer? Oh, there's been a declension. The grey hairs are appearing, and yet you're oblivious to it all. You're blinded to it all. You console yourself believing that all is well spiritually. I tell you, child of God, it's time to get back to God. It's time to get onto praying ground. Our nation needs praying men and women. If there has been a declension in this spiritual activity, then let this night, where you sit, in your home, in your car, lift your heart to God, return to God, and resolve that the decay with regard to prayer is going to end this very night. The second spiritual activity where decay can set in is with regard to attendance at the means of grace. I'm really thinking about two means of grace at this point. I think firstly about the preaching of God's Word. Preaching is a means of grace whereby the soul is fed and faith in God is strengthened. And thereby it is concerning to any minister whenever people begin to stay away from the means of grace. Regardless of the style, regardless of the oratory of the preacher, it ought to be the Christian's desire to hear the Word of God preached. It was Francis Ridley Havergill who said, an avoidable absence from church is an infallible evidence of spiritual decay. An avoidable absence from church is an infallible evidence of spiritual decay. Now these are exceptional days. People are wisely taking precautions, so don't misrepresent what I'm saying. I say it is people who, prior to these days, who have become absent in their times of public worship, that need to ask themselves the question, am I neglecting the well-being of my soul by avoiding the house of God, where the Word of God is preached, where the means of grace, the preaching of the Word, is available for my soul. I tell you, such inevitably leads to spiritual declension. And can I be very honest tonight? I believe that there are some people who are quite relieved that their churches are shut in these days. They're quite happy to sit at home and really treat the Lord's day like any other day. Quite relieved that they don't have to go to the place of public worship. Oh, there is a declining interest with regard to the preaching of the word. What about the second means of grace? What about the Lord's table? Is it not the case that the communion feast was once the most blessed place on earth for you? There you remembered the Saviour's selfless love. The bread was handled reverently, though only an emblem of the Saviour's broken body. The cup, it was once held with trembling hand, though only a sign of the Redeemer's blood. But now you leave the place of remembrance, you turn your back on your Saviour who invites you to come and dine and to remember Him. I tell you, whenever people start to forsake the means of grace at the Lord's table, it's concerning. Concerning enough that you can't remember the Saviour's bloody, sweating Gethsemane. Concerning that you can't remember the Saviour's riven hands and feet, concerning that you couldn't spend but 15, 20 minutes to remember what Christ did for your soul, to save you from your sin, and to save you from hell, and to save you from judgment. Let me ask you the question, is the reason why you feel yourself of this means of grace, is it because you are wiser than Christ? It was the Savior who instituted the Lord's Supper, and we are commanded by Him to attend to it. By our non-attendance, we in a roundabout way are saying that we're wiser than Him. Let me ask you, are you weary of Christ? Are you weary in thinking of the life He led for you? the death he died for you, the sufferings he endured for you, the salvation he secured for you, oh, surely you're not weary of Christ, child of God. Ah, you may be weary of this preacher, that's understandable, fully understandable, but surely you couldn't be weary of Jesus Christ. I asked you tonight Have the gray hairs of a declining interest in the means of Greece been appearing? Then return, return to God, lest you slip further and further away from your Savior. The second gray hair that appears on the spiritual scalp of a backslider is the gray hair of an increasing love for the world. An increasing love for the world in a person's life is a consequence of a deeper underlying problem. And that problem is a decreasing love for the Lord Jesus Christ. As love for Christ decreases, then love for the world increases. These people we're thinking about tonight, the children of Ephraim, they had loved God in the past, no doubt about that. But now their increased association with the world was evidence that their love for Christ was decreasing. They were making allegiances with the world. And as a result, their devotion to God had shifted from him and on to the world around him. Notice verse eight of the chapter there. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. The line of separation had been erased, and now the world had flooded into their hearts and into their lives. Need I remind you that the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are not to love the world or the things that are in the world? The Savior said in John 15 verse 19, If ye were off the world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not off the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. We were reminded there in Romans 12 verse two, be not conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The apostle John, by inspiration there in 1 John 2 verse 15 and 17, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of this world, Not of the Father, but not of this world, but of the world. The world passeth away, and the lusts are off. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. I say to you tonight, there is either conformity to Christ taking place in your life, or there's conformity to the world. Which is it? The world is no model for a Christian to imitate. Have you become worldly in your thinking? your behavior, your appearance, your concerns and your investment. Listen, the things of the world well and are passing away. Why love this world, a world that is transient, a world that is fleeting, a world that is passing away when you can love him who abides forever to see him? An increasing love for the world It's the gray hair that evidences that there is a spiritual decay that started to set in. Maybe your aim in life is to become financially prosperous. Well, the rich farmer in Luke chapter 12 aimed for that, but he found that his worldly prosperity was futile when he came to die. Your money will do you no good, sir, when you come to die. Your finances will do you no good when you come to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. Oh, only a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, only to have sins washed away and put under the blood of Christ, that is all, that is all that will. Satisfy the soul and be sufficient to bring you to glory. Beware, I say beware, of the gray hair of worldliness. It's a sign that spiritual decay has set into your life. A third gray hair that appears in the spiritual scalp of the backslider is the gray hair of diminishing power and influence. diminishing power and influence. I'm thinking of two men when I think about diminishing power and influence of people that have lapsed into a backslidden state. I'm thinking of Samson and I'm thinking of Lot. Samson was a Nazarite from his mother's womb. A man separated onto God. A man filled with the Holy Ghost. And as a result, a man who did many mighty works for God, but Samson began to drift. He began to drift further from the Lord. And he started to get closer and closer to the world. It wasn't long before he was found in the lap of Delilah, telling her the source of his strength. Soon he will be shorn off that strength as she takes those scissors that means to take off his hair. And as a result, this man is now divested of his power. He goes out to try and conquer the Philistines. But he wist not that God had departed from him. Surely, Hosea chapter 7 verse 9, is fulfilled in the life of Samson. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. And Samson's departure from God and the powerlessness that followed is a reminder to us all that the power that we know in prayer, the power that we know in witnessing, the power that we know in ministry can soon go when we compromise in our Christian lives. I think of Lot. For if Samson is the example of a backslider who knew the diminishing of his power, then Lot is the example of a backslider who knew the diminishing of his influence. Peter speaks of just Lot, that righteous man who vexed his righteous soul from day to day as he lived among the ungodly in Sodom. No doubt about it, this man, Lot, was a believer. He was righteous. He was justified. He was a man who knew God. He was an individual who had a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. But he lived in Sodom. Two angels came to visit him. They alerted him to the fact that God was about to judge Sodom for the sin of its citizens. So what does Lot go and do? He goes out to warn his sons-in-law. He goes out to warn them that judgment is coming. God is going to destroy the city. Genesis 19 verse 14 informs us how that meeting between father-in-law and sons-in-law went. Tells us there, and Lot went out and spake unto his own sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and say, Up, get you out of this, please, for the Lord will destroy the city. But he seemed as one not mocked unto his sons-in-law. Lot had lost his influence, his influence over his own family, because he had compromised his righteous soul over many years. Maybe that's you tonight. You've lost your influence for God in your family, in your circle of friends, years of backsliding. The American evangelist D.L. Moody was preaching one day when there came into the after meeting an old gray-headed man who for years had been wandering from God In early life, that old man had walked with God, but for a number of years he had fallen into a backslidden state. Mr. Moody said to him, God is very merciful, and he will forgive you. And he gave the man a number of passages of scripture, sitting up with him until midnight. It was then that the light broke into the man's soul and the Lord restored unto him the joy of his salvation. And the old man went home rejoicing. However, the next night he came back to the after meeting looking a picture of absolute despair. Moody said that he had never seen a sadder countenance as was upon the face of that man that night. And so he asked him what his trouble was. The old man replied that he had spent the most wretched day of his life. You see, his family had grown up in the city, and he had that day after returning to God, he had went from house to house to tell them of Christ, only for them to mock him. You see, the old man now realized what he had done. He had taken his children into the world, and he couldn't get them out of it. Backslider, do not let that illustration stop your return to God, because a continuation in the sin of backsliding will bring no benefit to you or to others, and it may be that your return to God will see that others get right with God too. And so in the words of Hosea chapter 14, in the verse one, two, and four, I would implore you to return on to the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words and turn to the Lord. Say unto him, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously. So we render the calves of our lips. And if you do so, the promise of God is this. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him." What is the cure for grey hair? Well, contrary to the claims of L'Oreal and Just for Men, according to the NHS website, a cure for grey hair is not yet in sight. Now it is true, people try to conceal gray hair, but they soon reappear. There's no remedy for gray hair, naturally speaking. However, for the gray hairs that appear on the spiritual scalp, thank God there is a cure. You see, because backsliding is a sin, bitter and evil, According to Jeremiah 2.19, then the remedy for sin must be the remedy for every sin. What is the remedy? Repentance. Repentance. One preacher said, look at the great heinousness of the sin of departure from God. See sin in its true deformity and blackness and repent of it. The remedy for every sin is repentance and faith in God. The remedy for sin is the cross. The remedy for the sin of backsliding is the blood. The remedy for the sin of departure from God is the finished work of Jesus Christ. I bring this message because I believe that the remedy for all that is happening in our nation will not be found in Stormont, will not be found in the houses of Parliament, will not be found in the corridors of hospitals, but I believe that the answer to all that has befallen us is that judgment must begin in the house of God. I believe that there are many of God's people and you're living in a backslidden state. And tonight is the night that God's people need to return. What is going to befall us? What is going to become of our nation and our people if God's people sit in some cold backslidden state? As I close, let me ask you a few pointed personal questions. Are the gray hairs of spiritual decline appearing on the spiritual scalp of your life tonight? Are you oblivious to them? Have you turned a blind eye to them? You see, that's what Ephraim was doing. Ah, there's nothing wrong. All is well. But God was telling them through his prophet all was not well. A decay has begun, a declension has started, and you're blind to it all. Let me ask you, are you conscious? Are you concerned that you're not walking with God? That you're not in fellowship with God? The things of God really no longer excite you. Really it's now the world that is more attractive. Are you concerned about that? Then return. Return to your God. Get back to the place of fellowship, the place of communion. I tell you these are days when God's people need to be at their best for God. I would therefore implore you to face up to that which is staring you right in the face, to return to God and start living for Him as He intended. And if you're not a Christian, I trust that all that is befalling us, I trust that it's causing you to fear. To fear not him that kills the body, but that you fear him that can destroy both body and soul in hell. There is a remedy for sin. The fountain of blood is still full and still able to cleanse. Christ will save you. Christ will redeem you. Christ will welcome you if you only but come. Oh, may you come. And if there is concern within your soul, then remain here tonight. We'll speak with you. Message us on Facebook. Contact us at The Manse in Portland, Owen. We're here to help you. May God be pleased to open our eyes that we would not miss the obvious. as Ephraim did. Oh, but may we seek God, and may we get right with God, for we know not what a day may bring forth. May God be pleased to use His Word to challenge and speak to every heart tonight. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our loving Father, we come before Thee in our Savior's name, praying that Thou would use Thy Word to challenge hearts. We believe, Lord, that there are individuals here and they're not walking with God as they once did. Lord, they're missing the obvious. It's obvious to others. And yet, Lord, we cry to thee that thou wilt make it obvious to them. May they turn to thee. We thank God that with God there is mercy and there is pardon. There is cleansing for every sin. Oh, may men and women avail themselves of that blood-filled fountain, and may they seek refuge in the crosswork of Jesus Christ. Answer prayer. Take us safely home. Apply the word by thy spirit. We offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious name. Amen.