The father is now giving his second lecture or sermon to his son. So let's hear the word of the Lord, beginning in verse one. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. for the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you. Delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of a brightness to walk in the ways of darkness. who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the departed None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it. But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. This is God's holy word, let's pray together. Oh Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens and your faithfulness endures to all generations. We thank you for your faithfulness even down to our day, your faithfulness to us. your faithfulness in preserving your word, and that we now have the privilege of hearing your word. We pray, Lord, that your word would have its effect in our hearts. May you edify your people. May you convict us. May you show us your grace and your goodness, that we might walk in a way that is pleasing to you, that we might know you more. We ask for this work by the power of the Holy Spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Well, I don't know if you know the term deconstruction. It's a hip term these days. It's a cool term that people like to use. Whenever I think of deconstruction, I think of desserts. So those of you who bake, you may know about deconstructed desserts. And they're just desserts that are scattered all over the plate with no structure. But deconstruction today is a cool term for what we would call apostasy. It's what people talk about and claim that they do when they say that they begin to question their faith and question their beliefs, and especially what they've been taught maybe growing up in the church or by their parents who were Christians. And so they say they want to start deconstructing, and that can mean all kinds of things. It could mean that you start questioning why your church sings the music that it does. or you question if Jesus really rose from the dead, or you might just question, you know, your parents' political views or something like that. So it can mean all kinds of things, but people like to make TikTok videos and Instagram stories and podcast episodes. describing their deconstruction. They like to brag about it. They like to become famous about it, and they call themselves, a lot of them now, ex-vangelicals. They grew up evangelical, and then they throw it all away. And this has been happening a lot. because of all the division that has been in our country and in churches, a lot of people are claiming that they just want to leave what is historic and orthodox Christianity. And so a lot of people think that it's cool to deconstruct, but it's not cool. Really, all it is is apostasy. and we put this euphemism on it. We make it sound cool to other people, but what it really means is I am forsaking Jesus Christ and the God of the Bible. And that's a big deal. It's a very serious thing to say that you are going to forsake Christ, that you no longer want to follow him and worship him. And so this chapter and the message of this chapter is important, especially for those of you who are now are growing up in this church. For you who are children and young men and young women, a lot of us when we get to the teenage years or young adulthood, we do naturally just start to want to think for ourselves and ask questions why Do my parents do what they do? Why do they believe what they believe? But this chapter is about how to not apostatize. How to not fall away from the faith. How to not deconstruct, if you want to call it that. And the Father is giving a very serious warning about why you shouldn't do that. Now, on the surface, that might not seem to be the topic of apostasy, but notice that one of the key words here is the word forsake. In verse 13, he talks about wicked men who forsake the paths of uprightness. That means that they were on the path, but they left it, they forsook it. And then he's warning his son about the woman. And the woman, in verse 17, forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. And we'll come back later and explain what that means. But part of what that means is that this is a woman who has apostatized. She has forsaken her covenant with God. And the father wants to warn his son at the end that he should keep, in verse 20, keep to the path of the righteous. The father is raising his son to be on the path, but he knows that his son is going to grow up on his own, and he wants his son to keep to the path that he's been raised on. And then he says in verse 21, those with integrity will remain in the path, but the wicked will be cut off. So this is the desire of the father for his son. that he not be cut off, that he not fall away, that he not forsake the way of following the Lord. He wants his son to not be an apostate. And so he wants to raise his son to know and fear the Lord and to stay on the path when he goes off on his own. So we're gonna look at this chapter and we do have to keep in mind a few things because this is the Old Testament. It's the old covenant that the father is under and talking to his son. But I think it'll be pretty simple for us to understand the difference. In the old covenant, all you had to do to be part of Israel is to be born to an Israelite parent. And so this son by birth is going to be an Israelite. And so he is under the old covenant of God, where God promised blessing for obedience and curses for disobedience. And a lot of those blessings and cursings had to do with the land. If you obey, you stay in the land. If you disobey, you're cut off from the land. It's pretty simple. All you have to do is be born to be an Israelite. And it's not quite the same for us today. We live under the new covenant, This is the New Covenant people of God here at the church. And so to be part of the church doesn't come through being born to Christian parents. It's not about having your parents be part of the New Covenant. We have a line in the church, and basically that line is membership, and membership is uh, signified by baptism and by taking the Lord's supper. But to become a member of the new covenant people, you need to be converted. You need to be a Christian. You need to be born again. And so that's the line in the new covenant. You have to be a true believer, but We can make an analogy to the situation here in Proverbs because we know that although those of you who are children and maybe you haven't been converted and you haven't been baptized yet, you still are being brought up in the church. You have blessings of being part of worship. three times a day on the Lord's Day on Sundays, you get to hear the word of God taught to you. You get to have fellowship with other believers. You get to serve. Some of you will be serving tomorrow at Vacation Bible School. And so in that sense, just by being in a church with Christian parents, you have many privileges and many blessings. And your parents here in this church They are and should be at home teaching you, raising you in the faith. And so even though technically we can say, well, you're not part of the new covenant yet, until you're born again, we can still apply this chapter to us and us as parents and to our children. We as Christian parents, we want our children, we want you young men and women to grow up and not forsake the path that you have been led on by your parents. And so that's what this chapter is about. How do you do that? How do you become a child, a young man or woman who doesn't forsake Christ when you get older? And the answer here in this passage is basically that you need to internalize what your parents teach you. It needs to come into your heart. It needs to be part of you. It needs to change you. You need to truly hold on to it and believe it for yourself. So that's what we see in this chapter. So this chapter, the structure tells us the meaning of the chapter. It's 22 verses. It's probably reflecting the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And this chapter in Hebrew is one sentence. One very long sentence. Some of you might know Ephesians 1 has a really long sentence at the beginning. It's just kind of similar. It's one very long sentence. And it starts out with if. If, and then we'll see some thens in verse 5 and verse 9. And then we'll see the purpose, verse 12 and 16 and verse 20. So the, if you do these things, son, then these things will happen to you, but it's for a purpose, verse 12. So verse 12 starts the second half, exactly a last 11 verses. The purpose is to deliver you. And so you see the deliverance is verse 12, from these men. The deliverance in verse 16 is from this woman. And then verse 20, the deliverance is from death. So that's the structure of the passage. This is what he's trying to teach his son. This is how you not fall away. If you do this, here's what'll happen. So let's focus on the first part, verses 1 through 11. And we can call this a development of his character. The son's character needs to develop. So here's how it's going to happen. Verse 1, let's read 1 to 4 again. My son, if you receive my words, and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures." We'll have to wait and see what's going to come then, but we'll not get there yet. What is he supposed to do? What is the if? that he is supposed to do? Well, basically, it's receive the instruction and the teaching of his parents and to treasure it and to seek after it and incline his ear to truly devote himself to this. It's not about just hearing it. It's not about sitting through family worship. It's not about sitting through church all day because your parents forced you to sit there in church. No. If you're going to keep following the Lord, you need to just not sit through it and not just learn it and maybe just memorize the Bible verses and the facts in the catechism. You need to receive it. It needs to come into your heart. You need to treasure up these things that are being taught to you. You need to incline your heart Make your heart care about these things and love these things. You need to call out and you need to search for it. You yourself, you see, the emphasis is on what you need to do. Not what your dad does for you, not what your dad says to you, but you need to seek this out like it's your treasure and your silver. Parents can set up funds for their children. You can make a custodial account or a trust fund. You can put some money in that fund so that when you turn 18, you get the money. When you become an adult, you get the money. But until you're 18, it technically belongs to you, but you have no access to it. You don't have any control over it. But when you become an adult, it becomes yours. And that's the idea of what the father is saying for his son spiritually. I'm setting up this fund for you. I'm giving you all of the words. I'm giving you all of the commandments. I'm giving you all of the wisdom, but you need to possess it as your own. When you become a man, this needs to be yours. Now, what is the content of what the Son needs to treasure up? First, you notice it's the Father's words and the Father's commandments. That's what it appears at the beginning. But if you go to verses 5 and 6, you realize that this is about the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God. It's about wisdom that comes from God. So this isn't just about listening to your father's words. He's not saying, son, when I tell you to take the trash out, you need to take out the trash. Treasure up my commandments to take out the trash. No, that's not really what this is about. No, the father is determined to teach his son the words of God, knowledge of God, as verse five says, the fear of the Lord. And so the commandments of verse one are not the commandments to take out the trash, but the commandments of the Lord in the Old Testament. My son, receive my words when I tell you that the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, all your strength and with all your might. You need to receive that. You need to treasure that up in your own hearts. You need to treasure the promise of Genesis 3 15 that God is sending an offspring who will crush the head of the serpent. You need to treasure up what Genesis says about Abraham, that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. My son, you need to believe God so that you could be righteous in the eyes of God. My son. when we kill that Passover lamb and we see that God delivered us from death, not because of anything we deserve, but because the blood of the lamb covers us. My son, you need to receive that for yourself and believe that God will save you by the blood of the lamb. This is what the son is taught. This is what sons and daughters need to be taught. This is the role of the father, especially in both parents, is that above all else, we would teach our children the commandments of God and the good news of God's salvation that we now know is through Jesus Christ. It's not enough to just bring your kids to church so that other people will teach them the Bible. Fathers, you are called to teach your children. We are called to disciple our children, not just to raise them to love the sports teams that you love. or to teach them how to work the tools that you know how to work. But are you just as diligent to teach them the words and the commandments of God that they might know God and fear the Lord? So children, treasure up the word of God that you are taught by your father especially. So then what will be the result? Well, the first result is in verses five to eight. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. So the result is that you will know God, you will fear the Lord. And here to know God is not to know about God, but to have a personal knowledge relationship with God. In other words, this is what it means to be one of God's people. And in today's terms, we would say this is what it means to be a Christian, to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Last week, at the end of chapter one, we talked about how the knowledge of God is revealed to all people, but that we suppress the truth. We know about God because of nature and creation, but you can't know how to have a relationship with God based on what you see in creation. All you know is that there is a creator God and he's going to judge you because you know that you've sinned against him. And so what you need to have a relationship with God and to find salvation is what we call special revelation. You need God to reveal himself, not in creation, but especially through his word. It's through the word of God. It's through the commandments of God, through the teachings of the Bible, that you learn what it means to fear the Lord and to truly know God. And so you receive these words through church, through your parents. They are teaching you how you might have a relationship with God. They're teaching you the gospel. You must treasure this up, receive it for yourself so that you can be saved. I'll notice here the that we have kind of the interplay between our responsibility and God's sovereignty. In verse 6, it says, it's the Lord who gives wisdom. Well, the Father just said that you're supposed to seek wisdom. Make your ear attentive to wisdom, verse 2 says, but it's the Lord who gives wisdom. Verse 7, he stores up sound wisdom for the upright. It's the same concept of the treasure. Verse one, you're supposed to treasure up the commands, but God treasures up wisdom for you. And so we see that you are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you. You are called to respond and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to respond to the gospel. And yet, it's the Lord who gives you the eyes to see. It's the Lord who gives you this wisdom. It's the Lord who saves you. He helps you. He gives you the ability to understand the truth. So this is God's grace. And yet your call is to respond. Your call is to treasure these things up for yourself. We also see in verse eight, that those who are saved, those who become God's people, God preserves them. God, in verse eight, watches over the way of his saints. That word saints there, really it just means those who love God, those who belong to him. They are the people of God. God watches over his people. God's grace preserves his people. This chapter has a lot of instructions about you and what you need to do. You need to work out your salvation. But remember, it is God who works in you. Ultimately, it's God who watches over the way of his saints. It's God who preserves his people. It's God who is going to keep you from falling away. Now, you need to obey whatever the scripture says about your responsibility. You need to respond to the word of God and not just say, well, I'll just go do what I want. If I'm elect, God's just gonna save me anyway. He's gonna preserve me. That's not how it works. But remember, that is God. who preserves his people. There's one of my favorite images in the Pilgrim's Progress is when Christian is at interpreters house and he sees a fire and someone is dumping buckets of water on the fire over and over and over again. And yet the fire never goes out. And so Christian says, how is it that this fire is never going out with all this water dumped on it? And he says, well, behind the fireplace, behind the stove, there is someone pouring oil on top of the fire. And this is the picture of how Satan is always prowling around, seeking to devour you. Satan is always trying to put out the fire of your faith. And the only thing that will keep your faith burning is that the Lord Jesus Christ is always interceding for you, that God himself is always preserving you. He is always pouring the fuel on the fire of your faith. So God watches over the way of his people. Here's the second result that we see. If you will treasure up these commandments, if you will store this up for yourself, it's in verses nine to 11. Then, so we see the then again, then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you. If you receive the word of God, if you come to know God for yourself, verse nine says, then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity in every good path. Basically, you will know how to follow the commandments of God. Adults like to often talk about other kids, and some kids they describe as good kids, When they're talking about someone, they might say he or she is a good kid. What do we mean when we say that someone is a good kid? Well, I think most of the time what people mean by that is that he's not a kid who is doing drugs or stealing from people and is nice and respectful and all these kinds of things. That's what we would call a good kid. But this verse here is telling us that a good kid is a kid who lives his life in accordance with the law of God, who understands what righteousness and justice and equity is according to what God says. And so if you know the law of God, and you know God himself, then this is what will enable you to follow the law of God. He says there in verse 10, wisdom will come into your hearts. The reason that we continue to not follow the ways of the Lord is because we're dead in sin if we're not believers. And so what we need is not just the external, not just the teaching of knowledge. What we need is for these things to come into our hearts. Children and young people, this is what you need. This is describing basically regeneration, what we call regeneration. It's being born again. God has to do the work of salvation in every person's heart. To take a heart that is dead in sin and make it alive. To take a heart that is at enmity, hostility to God, and reconcile that to God. This is what all of us are. So if you grow up in a Christian family and you grow up in the church, you're still, by nature, dead in your sins, and what you need, the work that you need God to do in you is a work in your heart, that this wisdom will come into your heart, and this is what gives you then the ability to live out the commandments of God. Has that happened to you? Are you seeking God's salvation? Are you seeking for God to change you? Do you call upon God to give you a new heart? Young people who grow up and they what they would call deconstruct when they leave the faith. We know biblically that those young men and women, they were never believers in the first place. And it's amazing how, as the Bible says, the heart is deceitful. And as Proverbs says later, the purposes of a man's heart are like deep waters. And young people and kids, you can be really good at faking. You can talk the talk. You can walk the walk. You can make everyone think that you're the good kid. but the Lord knows your heart. And you know your heart, I think. Ultimately, you know if you're faking it or if you're just complying with your parents. Only you know. if your heart has been truly changed. Seek for God to give you this change of hearts to know him and to love him. So this is the first thing that we need. This development of our character to receive wisdom, which results in knowing God personally, and then results in doing righteousness and justice. So then, here's what the result will be. Here's what the result will be in verses 12 to 22, the second half of the passage. You will be delivered. will be delivered from many things. The first thing you'll be delivered from is wicked men. Verses 12 to 15. It says, delivering you, or it might say for some of you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. So you'll be delivered from wicked men. We went over that in chapter one, verses eight to 19, about how there will be godly men, ungodly men and peers around you who will tempt you. So we're not gonna focus on this part too much, but remember that this is the reality. young people, you will be around people who will tempt you and who will seek to seduce you, entice you, who will seek to deceive you and get you to come along and to sin with them. So notice here that these are men, as I said before, who forsake the path. These are fellow apostates. These are people who were Israelites. And yet, even as Israelites, they've decided to walk against the law of God. They've forsaken the path of uprightness. These are what we would call the church kids. I grew up with church kids. And there might be some who you are friends with, and it turns out that they end up forsaking the path. And one day they might say to you, come on, man, you really believe all that stuff you were taught? I mean, don't you think it's a bit patriarchal, that church we grew up in? Don't you think they kind of hate women or hate homosexuals? Don't you think it's a little bit fuddy-duddy, conservative, fundamentalist? And I went to college and I heard all this stuff about how Jesus wasn't really born of a virgin. Haven't you heard all that stuff? And with all kinds of these, all these things, moral issues and biblical and theological issues, they will say, come on, man, you're not really gonna believe that stuff, are you? They've forsaken the path. And they will try to get you to come along. What's gonna keep you? What's gonna keep you on the path? Only if you have already internalized, believe for yourself as your parents have taught you the gospel. The second thing that you will be delivered from is the wicked woman. So notice we have wicked men, and then we have a wicked woman. So the young man is tempted by his friends, and he's also tempted by a woman in adulterous. Let me read verses 16 to 19 again. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman. from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God, for her house sinks down to death and her path to the departed, none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So notice this woman is also an apostate. She has forsaken her husband and forgotten the covenant. Proverbs chapters 5, 6, and 7 have a lot to do with adultery, so we're not going to focus so much on all that we could say about adultery, but we'll focus on some things that this passage points out specifically. So, one thing that we should notice from this passage is in verse 16, She's called the forbidden woman or the adulteress. And I think it's the NAS that gets it right and ESV gets it right in their footnotes. If you have an ESV, you can see the footnotes. This is really the strange woman. And the adulteress is really the foreign woman. And to be a strange woman is not to be a woman who walks around the neighborhood talking to yourself all the time. A strange woman is an outsider to the faith. Someone who worships strange gods. That's how the word is used in the Old Testament. Strange gods. And so the strange woman worships strange gods. The adulteress is the foreign woman. And in Israel, they were not allowed to intermarry because the issue was interreligious marriage, not interethnic marriage. God's not against interethnic marriage or interracial marriage, but he's against interreligious marriage, that God's people should not marry people outside the faith. And so that's who this adulteress is. She's the foreign woman. Uh, she's outside the faith, but she's an Israelite because she forgets the covenant of her God. She was in covenant with God, but she's gone to worship strange gods. She's left the faith and so it's now she's a foreign woman in the sense that she's worshiping other gods. She also forsakes the companion of her youth, and that word for companion could really be describing that her husband is her teacher. The husband, as the leader of the home, was teaching her the law and the word of God, and she forsakes, you could say, the instructor of her youth. So she's forsaking the teachings of the law in Israel. she's an apostate. So she has left her husband and now she's enticing the young man to come and be with her. Now it says that she forgets the covenant of her God and so as I mentioned it could be that this is a covenant that she makes with God in the sense that she's part of Israel, she's part of the people of God, so she's in covenant with God. I think there's a double meaning. So he's intentionally trying to say that she forgets her covenant with God as an Israelite woman, but it's also saying that she has forgotten her covenant of marriage that she made with her husband in the sight of God. And so, this is one of two passages that talks about marriage as a covenant with God or within the eyes of God. The other one is in Malachi chapter 2. Verse 14 and 15, Malachi says, the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union? And so Malachi, and I think this passage too, are telling us that marriage is a covenant that we make in the eyes of God. What God joins together, let not man separate, Jesus says. So God joins people in the covenant of marriage. And so when we say I do to the other person, we're making that vow in the sight of God. to be with that person, sickness and in health, and richer or poorer, for better or for worse. We know that many people now break the covenant of marriage. The redefinition of marriage didn't come legally in our country in 2015 when same-sex marriage was defined as legal. It came in 1969. Governor Ronald Reagan was the first governor and first state, the state of California, to legalize no-fault divorce. One person said, with a stroke of his pen, Governor Reagan wiped out the moral basis for marriage in America. Now, I think Reagan regretted doing that later on, but it's true. To say that marriage can be broken off because of whatever you want, no fault, just I don't like this person, I can't stand them anymore, so I'm just going to leave, that's to destroy the moral basis for marriage. because we've forgotten that marriage is a covenant in the eyes of God. Now, in the New Testament, Jesus permits divorce, not for no fault, but for the sin of adultery. And in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul permits divorce for abandonment, or what we might call abuse and neglect, But those are to be exceptions. Those are supposed to be extreme cases. And then we have two very specific reasons, not just any reason, not just no fault divorce, because our vows in the sight of God should be taken seriously. And so the point of verse 17, for all of us, is you don't be the covenant breaker. You don't be the adulterer. You don't be the abuser or the one who neglects your spouse or who abandons your spouse. And if you have made this vow, your responsibility is to keep your vow because you've made a covenant in the eyes of God. So this woman has forsaken her covenant, both with God and with her husband. And she is calling the young man to come to her. And the father says, don't go. Don't go. Cause her house is built over a sinkhole. Her house is going to sink down into death. And if you go into her house, if you go into her, it's gonna be your death. You don't come back alive. So young men and young women, as the Bible says, flee youthful lusts. Run from the adulterous woman. Don't click. Close the browser. And don't Get into a relationship with the real woman. And don't go into her house. Flee youthful lusts. We are called to be faithful if we are married to our spouse, to be devoted to our spouse. And if we're not married, we're called to be pure and to not involve ourselves in physical and intimate ways with anyone else. To wait until we're married. So this is what the father is saying. Treasure up my words, listen to my commandments, because when you grow up and you go out on the town and when you're in your own room and you have your own computer and nobody's going to be able to stop you, you need to remember in your heart that you have these commandments treasured up in your heart. You need to remember that you're going to sink down into death. if you give yourself to the forbidden woman. So then the last thing he says is that this will deliver you from death, verses 20 to 22. So you will walk in the way of the good, keep to the paths of the righteous, for the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. The land here is just the Old Testament's way of talking about being in the presence of God and knowing God and what we would call salvation, eternal life. Don't lose your opportunity to know the Lord and be in his presence forever by walking in wickedness. So how are you gonna do that? You must know the Lord by knowing his wisdom for yourself. So children and young men and young women, your parents, they've set you on this path. They have trained you in the way that you should go. They are teaching you the gospel and the commandments and the word of God. In America, we like people who go off on their own path. We celebrate people who do crazy things. Lewis and Clark go exploring all over the country and They're these great heroes. Well, lots of people set out to explore the country and they die. But nobody writes about them. Nobody uses them as a warning. But it's the reality. The reality is that those who walk away from the path, those who walk away spiritually from the path of the word of God that they've been taught by their parents, they die. It's not something to make a video about, about how foolish your parents are. Keep to the path upon which you've been set. Receive it and treasure it for yourself. You might be saved. Continue to walk in the ways of the Lord. Let's pray together. Our God, we thank you for your word which warns and your word which tells us of your grace. We pray that you would preserve your people. Watch over the way of your saints. Help us to treasure Christ in our hearts. Help us to put sin to death, we pray. Lord, we pray that. For each of those who are here who. Have not been given new hearts, we pray for this work of your spirit. We pray, Lord, that they. Would be washed by the waters of regeneration. That they might place their faith in Christ. and follow him and be delivered from death and walk in the way of righteousness. We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.