How Revival Comes

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This morning's scripture lesson comes from the Old Testament.

The book of Exodus, chapter 32, verse 7 to 14, 19, 30 to 35, and then chapter 33, verse 1 to 6.

Exodus 32:7–14

A reading from the book of Exodus.

Then the Lord said to Moses,

Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.

They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them, and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf.

They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said,

These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.

I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses, and they are a stiff-necked people.

Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.

Then I will make you into a great nation.

But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God.

Lord, he said, why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth?

Turn from your fierce anger, relent, and do not bring disaster on your people.

Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom you soar by your own self.

I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.

Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disasters he had threatened.

Verse 19, when Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned, and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.

30 to 35, the next day Moses said to the people, you have committed a great sin, but now I will go up to the Lord.

Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

So Moses went back to the Lord and said, oh, what a great sin these people have committed.

They have made themselves gods of gold.

But now please forgive their sin.

But if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.

The Lord replied to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.

Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you.

However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.

And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

Chapter 33.

Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt,

and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants.

I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people,

and I might destroy you on the way.

When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn, and no one put on any ornaments.

For the Lord had said to Moses, tell the Israelites, you are a stiff-necked people.

If I were to go with you, even for a moment, I might destroy you.

Now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do with you.

So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount Horeb.

The grass withers, and the flowers fall.

Thanks for that scripture reading, Amy.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Andrew, and I'm one of the pastors here.

Will you join me in prayer?

Our Father, I come before you asking that you would make much of my little,

that we would hear the words that you have for us this morning, O God,

and that you would stir up within us a passion for your presence,

the conviction that you are what we most need.

You are the only thing, the only one that we need, O God.

Would you convince us of that truth?

And would you convince us of that truth in such a way that it changes the way we live,

the way we love, and the way that we inhabit this broken world?

So preach your word through me, we pray.

Fill this place with your spirit.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

All right, well, that was a long passage, so thank you, Amy, for making it through.

And I'm sure it probably stirs up a lot of questions for a lot of us.

Maybe you have questions about, you know, how does prayer affect the sovereign plan of God?

How does this God who is unchanging change his mind and relent after this prayer?

Maybe you have questions about, like, why did so many people have to suffer this plague?

Was it really that big of a deal?

Maybe you have questions about this whole notion of getting blotted out of this book that God has.

A lot of crazy, weird, and hard to talk about stuff in here.

And so I want to direct you to Pastor Jonathan to answer those questions.

I'm not going to be focusing on any of those things today.

But again, our elders and our pastors, we'd be happy to talk to you about all those things.

But as many of you know, we have been focusing on revival in this fall season of Christ Church.

That is the word that's been on our lead pastor's heart coming back from sabbatical revival.

And the prayer that's been on all of our hearts is revive us.

And we've been talking about that for the past five weeks.

And we've been preaching through it.

And we're going to continue preaching it in this fall season.

Now, another thing you want to know about Christ Church is that every fall,

we try to preach specifically, intentionally through something from the Old Testament.

Because we want to make sure that our church family has a balanced and steady diet from God's word.

So where we are now, starting today, in the next five weeks,

is we're going to be in the book of Exodus.

Particularly chapter 32 to 34.

I actually want to encourage you to open up those pew Bibles in front of you.

It's page 70.

It's this famous episode, right, that we might all be familiar with.

It's the famous episode of the golden calf.

And then the events that follow after that.

And we want to focus on this because we want to camp out here on this episode of Israel's history

for these next five weeks.

Because this isn't just an embarrassing episode of Israel's first great national rebellion.

But it continues into an encouraging episode of Israel's first great national revival.

So for these next five weeks, we are going to be studying this great corporate revival in redemptive history.

And the big idea today is this.

Every revival begins with the proper pining for and pursuit of the presence of God.

Every revival begins with the proper pining for and pursuit of the presence of God.

So I want to ask us this morning, not merely do we want revival,

but do we pine for the presence of God?

Do we passionately pursue the presence of God?

Now, I understand that for many of us, our honest answer could very well be no.

Neither.

I do not pine for the presence of God.

I do not pursue the presence of God.

Maybe you're here and you wish you pined for the presence of God, but you're not there.

You're not even sure that you can believe in God.

Maybe you can identify with that British agnostic writer, Julian Barnes.

He once famously wrote,

I don't believe in God, but I miss him.

Or maybe you're here and you think you believe in God.

You can call yourself a Christian, a believer, but you've long lost your appetite for the presence of God.

Maybe you're not even sure you ever had a taste for it.

Maybe you're not exactly even bothered that you've lost your appetite for it either.

Maybe God to you is like that, you know, that jar in the back of your fridge that hasn't been opened in ages,

that you just hardly notice now.

You never crave and you just kind of keep back there because you're more occupied with other things.

You don't want to take the time to clear your fridge, reach for it, and figure out if you want to keep it or toss it.

But, you know, I'd like to suggest that we're actually all pining for the presence of God in a sense.

The scriptures teach that all of us are inherently religious beings and that even if we're not actively pursuing the presence of God,

and even if we don't sense a pining for the presence of God in our hearts in one sense,

we are all probably pining for it more than we think.

Or maybe I should say it this way, even if you're not pining for the presence of God,

I guarantee you that you are pining for something that only the presence of God was meant to fulfill and satisfy.

And in fact, I'd argue that your very pining actually points to the reality of God's presence,

which you probably miss more than you know.

So even if you don't particularly care to have God be present with you,

you feel like life is going just fine without him,

for however long or for however short that may last,

may I just ask you to consider this.

What if there is a God who wants more for you than just the enjoyment of his creation?

What if?

What if there's a creator who wants to give you all of himself?

And in every possible blessing that flows out of union and communion with the living God,

might it be that if we don't pine for something transcendent and eternal and ultimate,

if all we ever pine for is the creature and never the creator,

then might it be that our desires will only ever prove far too small?

And even if we should one day get all that we ever thought that we wanted,

will it not actually prove inadequate and even destructive?

The late American writer Cynthia Heimel, who as far as I can tell was not a Christian,

she shared an example of this as she lived in New York and lived among the celebrities.

She knew Barbra Streisand, she knew Bruce Willis, and she knew Sylvester Stallone.

And she wrote this,

when God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you,

and of course we know he doesn't do that, but she's saying if he did,

he'd grant you your deepest wish and then giggle merrily

when you suddenly realized you wanted to kill yourself.

Barbara, Bruce, and Sylvester,

were fervently more than any of us wanted fame.

If I can be famous, people will adore me.

Life will be a breeze.

All my dreams will come true.

The night each of them became famous,

they wanted to shriek with relief.

Finally, now they were adored, invincible, magic.

The morning after the night, each of them became famous.

They wanted to take an overdose.

All their fantasies had been realized,

yet the reality was still the same.

If they were miserable before, they were twice as miserable now,

because that giant thing they were striving for,

that fame thing that was going to make everything okay,

that was going to make their lives bearable,

that was going to provide them with personal fulfillment,

and happiness happened, and nothing changed.

They were still them.

The disillusionment turned them howling and insufferable.

See, nothing else is going to do.

Nothing else is going to cut it,

not even making it to the top of the ladder.

In fact, it could make things worse.

Those who pine for anything other than the presence of God

only pine for problems

that nothing but the presence of God can address.

No matter who you are,

you pine and you pursue

because you have a deeper pining

for the presence of God.

Now that we all pine and pursue the presence of God

doesn't mean it's all good

and it's only a matter of time before we enter into glory.

There is a wrong way to pine for

and to pursue the presence of God

and then there is a right way to pursue it.

And our text today shows us both.

It shows us both here in Exodus chapter 32.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

So let's start with the wrong way

and the wrong way is called idolatry.

Idolatry.

You know, I think for a lot of us,

when we hear this story,

even if we're not Christians,

we think of this episode in Exodus chapter 32

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

about the golden calf worship.

We just think it's so ridiculous, right?

If you're a Christian, you're like,

dude, that's an obvious no-no.

Of course you don't worship idols, duh.

And certainly not a golden calf crafted by human hands.

And even if you are not a Christian,

you probably know that much about the Christian faith, right?

Idol worship, not recommended, right?

And then as a modern Western person,

you're probably also thinking,

how superstitious, right?

How ridiculous these primitive people are,

how ridiculous they were

to bow down to this inanimate object.

But if we take the time to really understand

these Hebrews in their own context,

we begin to find that they aren't too different

from any of us after all.

You know, it wasn't as if they just woke up one morning

and said, hey, I got a great idea.

Let's rebel against the maker of heaven and earth,

the one who delivered us from Egypt.

Let's do the one thing that will most anger him,

most grieve him.

Let's make a golden calf and bow down to it,

this pile of our jewelry,

and let's worship that instead of Yahweh.

Sounds like a good idea, right?

No, no one woke up saying that.

First of all, they weren't idiots, all right?

These ancient people didn't actually think

that this golden calf figure was a divine being.

If you want to open up the Bibles in front of you,

page 70, chapter 32, verse four,

Aaron says,

these are your gods who brought you up out of Egypt.

See, what they understood this golden calf to be

was not a new God to worship instead of Yahweh,

but a new mediator to Yahweh.

See, if you look at verse one of chapter 32

in your pew Bibles,

what prompts this golden calf incident?

It says,

when the people saw that Moses was so long

in coming down from the mountain.

So you have to understand,

you see, it's been 40 days now

since they last saw their leader Moses.

They're very mediator to God.

Like this guy who stood up to Pharaoh,

the most powerful man in the world,

stood up to Pharaoh for them,

the one who parted the Red Sea

and led them out of slavery in Egypt,

the one who spoke to God

and quail and manna came down from heaven,

the one who struck a rock

and quenched their thirst.

So imagine you are freed from slavery,

but you are also in the middle of the wilderness

and far from the only home

that you've ever known in Egypt.

You are vulnerable and insecure

and you don't know where you're going

or how long it's going to take to get there

or even if you will make it.

And the miracle man who's been bringing you along

this whole time,

this miracle man who mediated to you

the very presence and the very power of God,

he's been gone for a month and 10 days.

And you're stuck at the foot of some mountain,

it's 40 days in counting with no mediator in sight

and thus 40 days in the seeming absence

of the presence of God.

You can begin to sympathize now, right,

with their concerns.

This golden calf incident

is not some random outright rebellion.

The golden calf is a fearful people's attempt

to secure their greatest need.

But lest we give Israel too much credit,

it is a foolish and futile attempt, right?

You see, by making this calf,

they were trying to do two things.

In the ancient Near East,

such calf figures were often seen as pedestals

for the gods to sit upon or stand upon,

like the mercy seat of Israel's Ark of the Covenant.

Also, calves were a symbol of strength

and fertility and prosperity.

So they were trying to establish, what,

a meeting place with God.

And they were indicating what they truly pined for.

Yes, they wanted, in one sense, Yahweh.

They wanted his presence.

But they were more ultimately seeking his benefits.

Benefits over the benefactor.

The goods over God.

And this was all so ironic because, see,

Pastor Dave Lomas in San Francisco,

he helpfully talks about this Mount Sinai event

as a kind of marriage ceremony.

Like, that's what God brought them out of Egypt to do.

He wanted to ratify his covenant union with these people.

So basically what's happening was that while God was with Moses

on the mountain, laying out his covenant plan

like an excited groom,

just laying out his vision for a thriving life

with his beloved bride,

detailing exactly how he desired to be present with her,

giving Moses intricate details about the tabernacle

and about the Ark of the Covenant

and the mercy seat upon the Ark of the Covenant

where he would meet with his people,

details about the most sacred place

where he planned to cleave to them

in the deepest covenantal intimacy.

At the same time, the people were forming a mob

and taking it upon themselves

to make their own haphazard alternative to the Ark,

to try to force the presence of God

into their own presence,

to harness his power and submission to their own power.

And when we put it like this,

can you see that Exodus 32

isn't just some story of wayward Hebrews,

but it's a mirror.

It's a mirror of all of us,

scrambling in fear and foolishness

to identify or even craft a mediator,

someone or something to secure and ensure

God's presence with us in the promised land of our dreams.

You see, like Israel,

we are all grasping for the presence of God,

doing whatever it takes,

willing to try even the most haphazard methods

of apprehending him,

because deep down,

we all know that we can't live

without the presence of God.

Maybe we don't take our jewelry

and forge a golden calf to bow down to,

but we're all looking for things

to add to our lives

to harness God's power and his presence.

Maybe it's certain religious institutions

or pastors or leaders

or certain spiritual experiences or exercises.

If I just join that right church,

follow that right religious leader,

if I just go to that retreat,

if I just obey hard enough,

follow these rituals more faithfully,

maybe then, maybe then, right,

God will be present with me,

even owe me his presence.

And even for those of us who aren't religious,

we have our own ways of pining and pursuing.

We might not have the same language,

we might have a different language of longing,

but at the end of the day,

we're not so unlike idolatrous Israel.

In pursuit of sex,

in pursuit of money, power, fame,

and our attempts to add more and more to our lives

to achieve our greatest ambitions,

to satisfy our deepest appetites,

and to win the approval of others.

Are we not actually just like the Israelites

adding the golden calf to their lives?

So the way of the golden calf,

the way of idolatry,

is the wrong way to pine for and pursue God.

Because while it is a pursuit of God in one sense,

it's at the same time not a pining

nor a pursuit of God at all.

It's the prodigal son saying to the father,

I want my inheritance from you,

but I don't want you, father.

And then ending up where?

In the pigsty.

The way of the golden calf,

of constructing our own mediators

to secure for us the blessings of God

will only ever lead to further harm to ourselves

and further offense against God.

So now the question is,

what is the proper way to pine for

and to pursue the presence of God?

What does that look like?

Well, it's actually really simple.

Do we desire God?

Do we desire God?

And not as a means to an end,

but as the end in itself.

Do we believe that the chief end of humankind

is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever?

I probably share this quote at least once a year,

but I really think we all need to reckon

with this question from Pastor John Piper,

who loves to ask,

if you could have heaven with no sickness,

with all the friends you ever had on earth,

and all the food you ever liked,

and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed,

and all the natural beauties you ever saw,

all the physical pleasures you ever tasted,

and no human conflict or any natural disasters,

could you be satisfied with heaven

if Christ were not there?

Piper says,

people who would be happy in heaven

if Christ were not there,

will not be there.

The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven,

it is a way to get people to God.

See, if God is not our chief end,

if God with us is not our gospel,

the best possible news that we can conceive of,

then I'm sorry,

but we are not properly pining for

nor pursuing the presence of God,

and revival will never be on its way.

But if we do desire God,

and God alone,

well then that's the stuff

that revivals are made of.

And that's what we see happening here also

in Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Look at verse one.

Revival began when Israel finally began

to desire God for God.

All right, after sending a plague upon Israel

for her idolatry,

God says to Moses,

go up and lead your people to the land

I promised them.

He's saying,

I'm still going to keep that promise to you

and to your forefathers,

and you can count on military success

over your enemies,

and you can count on economic prosperity

in this land flowing with milk and honey,

but, verse three,

I will not go with you

because you are a stiff-necked people,

and I might destroy you on the way.

And honestly,

this could have sounded like a pretty good deal, right?

Like, yo, we can have the promised land,

we can have milk and honey

without this angry plague sending God.

Not bad, right?

I mean, isn't this the dream,

the promised land with no strings attached?

It's the Western secular dream.

It's the kingdom without the king, right?

All the blessings of the kingdom

without the domineering authority of the king,

the best possible scenario, right?

But Israel didn't see it that way.

Israel didn't see it that way.

When God said in verse three,

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey,

but I will not go with you

because you are a stiff-necked people,

and I might destroy you on the way.

Verse four.

When the people heard these distressing words,

they began to mourn,

and no one put on any ornaments.

For the Lord had said to Moses,

Tell the Israelites,

You are a stiff-necked people.

If I were to go with you even for a moment,

I might destroy you.

Now take off your ornaments,

and I will decide what to do with you.

So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments

at Mount Horeb.

Wow, right?

What just happened here?

What just happened here?

Why would they turn down this awesome deal,

the kingdom, without the king?

Why would they even want this kind of a God

to go with them,

this angry, plague-sending God,

this God who seems so incompatible with them,

that if he were to be with them,

even for a moment,

he might destroy them?

What was so distressing to them

about not having this God,

about not having the presence of God?

What led them to mourn

and to strip off their ornaments

and to linger in the distant hope of God

somehow changing his mind

and gracing them with his presence after all?

You know, honestly,

I couldn't figure that out

for a long time this week.

I puzzled over that this week.

What led them to this kind of repentance?

Like, why did Israel

have such a penitent change of heart

all of a sudden?

I mean, at first,

even when Moses comes down

from the mountain, right,

and he breaks the tablets

right in front of them

and gives them a visual image

of what has just happened,

they've broken God's law,

they've broken God's heart.

And even when Moses

grinds up that calf

and makes them drink it

and then sanctions

the faithful Levites

to put about 3,000

Hebrew idolaters

to the sword,

a whole day goes by

and the people

still have not repented.

And then Moses,

the next day,

tells them how great

of a sin they've committed.

And at the end

of chapter 32,

Moses goes

and he tries to atone

for this unrepentant people's sins,

but God refuses

and sends a plague.

And then all of a sudden,

here though,

they are now filled

with godly sorrow.

What happened

from chapter 32

to chapter 33?

How is it now

that they're stripping

in repentance

as an entire nation?

What happened?

Well, I like to think

that at least two things happened

that brought about

this great national repentance.

Two wake-up calls

that transitioned them

from this first great

national rebellion

into the first great

national revival.

And those two things,

I believe,

were the plague

and Moses'

rejected atonement.

I think that getting struck

with a plague

in the same way

that Egypt did

woke Israel up

to the reality

that the only thing

that distinguishes us

from anyone else

is not our culture,

it's not our bloodline,

it's not who we come from,

but whether or not

we are with

or without God.

The plague was

their wake-up call,

that the only thing

that distinguished them

as a holy people

was the presence

of the one true

holy God.

Perhaps it reminded them

that even though

they had survived

the tenth plague

in Egypt,

the angel of death,

the angel of death

still did pass over them

as well,

and the only difference

between them

and the Egyptians

was the blood

of a lamb.

And this brings us

to the rejected

atonement of Moses.

Again, for Israel,

Moses was the man.

Like this guy,

this guy,

it was a guy

that God listened to,

whose requests

led God

to even change

his mind.

In chapter 32,

when God wants

to destroy all of Israel

and just make a nation

out of Moses instead,

Moses says,

no God,

finish what you started

amongst them,

do not let the Egyptians

gloat over them,

remember your promises,

and God,

listen to him,

God relented.

Look at verse 30.

The next day,

Moses said to the people,

you have committed

a great sin,

but now I will go up

to the Lord,

perhaps I can make

atonement for your sin.

So Moses went back

to the Lord and said,

oh, what a great sin

these people have committed.

They have made themselves

gods of gold,

but now please forgive

their sin,

but if not,

then blot me out.

Look, Moses is even

willing to sacrifice

himself in order

that these people's sins

might be atoned for,

but God would not

and could not accept

such an atonement

even from Moses.

And so between this

rejection of Moses'

atonement

and the plague,

I think Israel was

finally cut to the quick,

realizing that

neither their status

as Abraham's descendants,

nor even the mediation

of mighty Moses

could save them

from their heinous

sin of idolatry.

They had no other

recourse than to

throw themselves

at the mercy of God

and to strip off

their ornaments.

Now, this wasn't just

some Hail Mary

on their part.

They were waiting

to see what God

would do.

And as ominous

and distressing

as his word sounded,

from another perspective,

God was actually

also declining

to be present with them

because there was

a real sense

in which he didn't

want to destroy them.

Did you catch that?

Did you catch that

in his words?

Even though it seems

like it's all anger

and fury,

God here is not just

saying,

I don't want to be

with you because

I'm angry at you.

He's saying,

I don't want to be

with you for your own sake.

I don't want you

to be destroyed

and so I will not

go with you.

This isn't some

temperamental,

egotistical God,

but a God who is

faced with the challenge

of wanting to be

with his beloved people

and yet wanting

for the sinful people

to not be destroyed.

And I think that the people

began to understand this.

What happened

after Moses'

rejected atonement

and the plague

was that they realized

the paradox

of the Christian faith,

that they had absolutely

nothing before God

and yet that he alone

was their greatest need.

They became poor

in spirit.

It all came together.

What a foolish thing

to build a golden calf.

We don't need to add

to ourselves

to reach God.

We need to strip

ourselves bare

so that there's nothing

in between us

and God.

See,

they are finally

beginning to grasp

that God

plus nothing

equals everything

and that blessed

are the poor

in spirit.

That indeed,

everything should be

counted as lost

in comparison

to knowing God

and that if we can't have God,

it's not worth going

into the promised land.

In fact,

the promised land

can't even truly be

the promised land

if God is not there,

if his presence

is not there.

And this is God's word

to us today

that revival

always begins

with a pure

and proper pining

for the presence

of God

and God alone.

A longing,

a hunger,

the acknowledgement

of something missing

and gone terribly wrong.

Yes, revival culminates

in gladness and joy,

but it starts

with mourning

and sorrow.

It culminates

in fullness

and abundance,

but it starts

with a deficit.

It starts

with a lack.

Revival

presupposes

that there is something

that needs to be revived

and restored.

Revival

presupposes

that something

unconscious

needs to be awoken

and resuscitated,

that something dead

needs to be resurrected

and made alive

and that only God

can do anything

about that.

Revival doesn't come

when we seek

to ascend to God

through our own

golden calves

or other creaturely

mediators.

No, revival comes

when we are brought low

and empty-handed,

realizing,

how great our sin,

how grave the consequences,

and how impossible

it seems

to be restored

to the presence

of God.

And yet,

the good news

of the gospel

is that revival

isn't impossible.

The presence

of God

with us

isn't impossible.

The good news

of the gospel

is that God

with us

is more than possible.

It's already here.

Emmanuel,

God with us

in Jesus Christ.

better than the golden

calf,

better even than the

ark of the covenant

itself.

Jesus is the presence

of God

who pined for

and pursued us,

who came near sinful us.

The temple of God

he is.

He's the temple of God

who came down from heaven

to dwell amongst us

in the flesh.

He's the one true

mediator between God

and mankind.

And better than Aaron

who furthered the people's sin.

And better than the Levites

who let the people

die for their own sins.

And even better than Moses

who was willing

to sacrifice

himself for them

but could never atone

for the sins of Israel

or the world.

Jesus,

the Son of God,

is the great high priest

who painfully bleeds

and powerfully

pleads

for us.

Father,

forgive them

not for their sake

but for mine.

That's what he does

as our high priest.

You see,

in Christ,

in Christ,

the holy God

who absolutely

hates

the sinful idolatry

in which we are all

so complicit.

He can be present

with us

without destroying us

because he is both

our perfect priest

and our precious lamb.

And isn't that good news?

And doesn't that

make you want to

pine

for the presence of God?

What other God

is like this God?

What other God

will give himself

for us?

This high priest

who prays for us,

Lord,

have mercy

because I've paid

for them.

They are mine.

I want them.

This is the gospel.

Will you pray with me?

Amen.

Let's pray.

Amen.

Let's pray.

.