If you are with me, let us pray together before we start. Father, we come before your presence and we bow before you. We acknowledge that you are in all places, even as your word says, there's no place in creation, visible or invisible, where we may hide from you, wherever we hide or run. You are, but to us, your children, what a consolation that your hand reaches out to comfort us, to protect us, and to guide us in any circumstance, place, or time we are found. And we commit this time to you, Father. We pray your blessings upon those who are with us and those who are not. We ask wisdom for our rulers and our authorities. that they may take the right decisions at the right time, that they may protect the nation, and that your church may prosper and live in all godliness and tranquility. We commit them to you. We pray your mercy upon our nation. We pray your grace upon us and upon your churches. We pray for your kingdom to come, for your will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven. And we pray especially for your name to be honored and magnified and remembered and hallowed in this difficult time that the whole world is going through. Help us, we pray, and be with us as we remember the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. In his name we ask, amen. On behalf of Pastor Freddie and our deacons Victor and Tash, we welcome you to this online meeting and we also welcome you on behalf of our entire church. And I am assuming that for most of those tuning to this broadcast, people from our church, friends and visitors from our church, you have read Pastor Freddy's email in the sense that we are not gathering as a church because an online meeting is not a church gathered. Listening to a sermon online does not and cannot replace what takes place when the church gathers physically and becomes a temple and dwelling of God in the Spirit, as the word teaches. But under these special circumstances the world is living, we're using technology to remember the Lord's day together and to stir one another to love and to good deeds, even as we see that day drawing near. This is a time that we have thought more about illness and death than we usually do. Well, here's a time to remember the Lord and to remember to stir one another to love and good deeds as we see our own day drawing near. Also remember to pray for our sister churches, those we know and those we don't. Christ Family, PRC, Old Connolly Presbyterian, our brethren from Glendale. We could not name them all, but remember we're not alone. Remember churches overseas, in other places, especially the churches in Europe, churches in Spain and Italy. And without any further ado, let us open our Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 to have a meditation on the Word of God together. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. If you can turn in your Bibles or in your devices, I will be reading the text now. 2 Corinthians 10, we will be reading verses 1 through 5. The Apostle Paul writes, Now I, Paul, myself, urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who am meek when face to face with you, but bold towards you when absent, I ask that when I'm present, I may not be bold with a confidence, which I propose to be courageous against some who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not in the flesh, are not off the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations. And every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And that is the reading of the word of God. We are living something unprecedented because of the coronavirus labeled COVID-19. Pretty sure that many of you have already learned that there are other coronaviruses. This one is a particular brand of it. Entire countries are in lockdown. Borders are closing. Traveling is restricted or banned entirely. And life as we know it has come to a complete halt. Of course, conspiracy theorists roam the internet. False prophets make their phony claims. And I would not doubt that some of you like me have thought on Will Smith and I am legend. And I guess that that thought has come to the imaginative mind of many of us. Something that impresses me of this crisis is the consistency of human behavior. We read tales from other countries and even from other continents. and we can tell globalization is a fact. Now, just as September 11th changed our lives forever, I am afraid, and I'm not prophesying anything or predicting anything, but I'm afraid that this event will change life as we have known it until two weeks ago. There seems to be a very significant event, a global event, that has been unprecedented to those of us who are alive. We're doing what we would not have imagined 20 years ago. Even us as Christians, we are having an online meeting and we have already said, no, it is not church. And we have to have our theology clear. This is not church. We are not gathered as Cornerstone Bible Church. The church is only gathered when the physical presence of the saints are gathered together in one place in the name of Christ, where he has promised to be with them by his spirit. As we mentioned at the outset, this is a meeting to at least remember together the Lord's day. Now, how do we respond to this new reality? Well, we must follow the authority's guidelines and instructions because Romans 13 1-5 commands us to do that. It is of God that we submit to every human authority because they have been placed by God to order things. In our case, our authorities are seeking to protect lives and that is God's will. They have been respectful to not even mention church gatherings. We appreciate that, but we have chosen to follow the guidelines and not gather as a church where 80, 90, a hundred people can be together and be a cause of spreading COVID. And as long as they do not ask us to disobey God, which they haven't so far, then we must obey them. We must follow medical professionals advice. because even though their knowledge of COVID-19 is limited, very limited, I submit to you that it is a lot better than the knowledge of your average internet conspiracy theorist writing from a living room or a basement. It's an opinion. Better to follow medical advice than to follow the conspirators of the web. Now, how do we respond? We must do everything in our power to protect ourselves, to protect our loved ones and our neighbors. And for those who are Christians, and that brings us to the text we read, I exhort you to embrace this new reality with a Christotelic mindset, which means whatever we think, whatever we do, whatever we consider, let us land and end in Christ. The apostle Paul describes that Christotelic mindset when in verse five he says, we're destroying speculations and every lofty thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God. And we aim at taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Of course, when 2 Corinthians 10, one through five was written, it had nothing to do with COVID-19 pandemic. We know that. And yet that text has everything to do with what we're going through today as a race, as the humans living in this time and age with COVID-19. And especially points us Christians as to how to respond to these events. Paul wrote 2 Corinthians as a church founder to people he had trained in the gospel, and they had grown tired of him, they were not liking him too much anymore, under the influence of more attractive and eloquent leaders. It is a personal letter. It is one in which he appeals to those who had shunned his influence and questioned the legitimacy of his apostleship. And in our text, Paul implies that even though He could have crafted a rebuttal to his opposers. He chose not to defend himself through carnally crafted arguments of human wit and wisdom. He rather chose to shine the light of Christ and aim his arguments at bringing every thought reading that letter captive in obedience to Christ. So, this text that I read to you is my pretext to exhort us to shine the light of the gospel and to shine the light of Christ in the present circumstances, even though in our isolation, if you're like me, you're connected to two or three chat rooms at the same time, you're talking on Facebook, you're talking on Instagram, on Messenger to people, on WhatsApp, and you're dealing with people. Well, we are to live as luminaries in the world, even in the cyber world in this tumultuous times. And from this text, I want to give three words of advice briefly. First, be a source of peace, not a source of panic. Secondly, remember what the true battle is, what the true battleground is. And thirdly, focus on the end. focus on the target, focus on the goal. So let us use the text as a pretext to go over those three pieces of advice, even using Paul's example from the Word of God. He says in verse one, Now Paul, I myself, Paul, urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who am meek when face to face, but bold towards you when absent. When I say be a source of peace and not of panic, I'm using Paul as an example because he actually does that here. In that verse, he's quoting his accusers. His accusers said, yeah, yeah, this Paul sounds all right, very boldly. When he's hiding behind his letters, he appears to be a bold and brave man. But when you see him in person, he's a weakling. It actually reminded me when I was a younger person, This happened to me, I still remember 21 years ago or so in Uruguay, in Montevideo, Uruguay, as part of my normal course of working for the company I worked for. I remember this person greeted me and told me, you know, you're a kind and empathic person. You're very funny. But when you write, you sound so harsh and hard. I felt so ashamed. I actually apologized to him. And it made me question, how am I writing my emails and back in the day, my faxes that people perceived me to be this harsh person? Well, Paul's accusers did the same to him. They said, when you write your letters, you're very bold and brave. Reminds me of some preachers that sound so bold and brave behind a pulpit in a conference. But I always say, I wonder if they speak that way to the guy sitting next to them on an airplane. But in presence, you're a wiggling pole. And Paul says, you know what? I'm not even going to defend myself of that. I appeal to you. I urge you, he wrote. I implore. He uses that verb that many of you have heard, parakaleo. I'm not demanding respect or submission. And remember, he's an apostle. He is the founder of this church. I'm not going to demand your respect, your submission to my apostleship. I'm not going to claim that Christ sent me to preach and you should follow what I say. None of that. He anchored his request in the meekness and in the gentleness of Christ, literally in the friendliness and the forbearance of Christ. And that word is even used to imply the forbearance or the gentleness of a ruler who shows condescension to his subjects. There is probably, you've seen this, there's something powerfully attractive when you see a person of high rank acting meekly and kindly towards a child or even towards a subordinate. There is a person in Komatsu, he's a very high ranking officer. He's one of the CEOs in our divisions. And for some reason that I do not know, he acts very kind toward me. So much so that sometimes I need a phone number from somebody in another continent and I don't even know whom to ask and I call him. such and such, could you give me the phone for somebody in Senegal?" And he answers right away, and when he doesn't answer right away, I even have the boldness to say, hey, I haven't seen your answer, can you please press it on? He says, no, no, no, I haven't forgotten you. And he answers me with an amazing meekness. Well, that's what Paul is saying. Paul is saying, I want to use as a model the friendliness of Jesus. If anyone could have implanted his rule by exerting unchallenged power. It was Jesus. At the snapping of a finger, he could have had 12 legions of angels rush to his rescue. But as a sheep before its shearers, he let them take him to the cross. And he went and appeared before Pilate and before Herod, and before the Sanhedrin, and even before those Roman soldiers, as a lamb to be slaughtered." The meek and gentle son of God. The lion of the tribe of Judah came meek and gentle. Learned from me, he said, for I am meek and of a gentle spirit. Sinners gathered to him. Lepers were unclean and were banned. from the people and had to live outside and ostracized. When they saw him, they ran to him and knelt before him. If you want, please cleanse me. Sinful women embraced his feet. Harlots would come at a dinner and throw themselves at his feet and wipe his feet and cry over them. Unclean women touched the hem of his garments. We're not afraid of him because he was, as Luke 15 says, he was the friend of sinners. Paul says, I want to use that meekness. I want to use the kindness and the forbearance and the meekness of Jesus to appeal to you, Corinthians. In imitation of Christ, beloved, I exhort you to do the same during these times of panic and unrest and angst and anxiety. Let us be a friendly source of soothing and peace, at home and even from our quarantine posts. Jesus wept over sinners. He healed them. He fed them. He encouraged them. He served them. Mark 10.45, the well-known text, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, to be a servant. and give us life to rescue many. Let that gentle friendliness and meek forbearance of Jesus make us peacemakers, not panic provokers. As long as it depends on you, Paul says, be at peace with all men. Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus said. They shall be called the children of God. Beloved, this is the time to be a peacemaker. This is a time to encourage, to exhort, to lift up, not with naivete. Use a personal example. Many of you know that I have a special daughter. And when she was little, we knew she was going to be special. You know, one of the things that bothered me the most when people would come and tell me, oh, but she is really progressing a lot. I believe she's going to get out of it. We knew she couldn't get out of it. So we don't need to be foolish or naive. We cannot downplay the circumstances and the situation. On the contrary, at times we have to be firm with irresponsible people, and we have to rebuke irresponsible people. But let us do it as a source of peace, and in meekness, and in friendliness. You can be a firm friend. Let us not be a source of panic. Second advice from our text, using my text as a pretext. Remember the battlefield? Remember the battleground? Paul in verse three says, though we walk in the flesh, he's talking about himself. He's using a pluralistic, a majestatic, they call it, we. He's talking about him. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. Paul was a realist. He trafficked on the same lanes of his audience. He took the turnpike and the Palmetto and 836 and all these bad Miami roads every day, or wherever you are listening, right? He lived in the same place they lived, and he, too, put his pants one leg at a time. In his days, there were no pants. But anyways, you get my point. He was a realist. We walk in the flesh. We live in the flesh. When you see walk in the Bible, it's equivalent to say, we live in the flesh. We're down here. And we Christians live in two kingdoms. While living on earth, we traffic in celestial things. We do walk In the flesh, we are flesh and bones. We have to do everything what everybody else does. We have to shower every day. We have to work to eat. We live in the flesh. We get anxious. We get afraid. We also have adrenaline running in our bodies. But we do not wage war according to the flesh's point. Do not let the trees fog up the forest. Do not let the trees of the circumstances of the current, present, scary, sobering, serious circumstances clog up your sight from the forest, the forest of God's kingdom, the forest of eternity. Even in the Lord's Prayer, And Jesus teaches us to pray first for God's glory and for his will and for his kingdom. But he says, and yes, and you also pray, give us this day our daily bread. We are not disembodied spirits. We may lose income like everybody else. We may lose our jobs. Some of you listening to me have already lost your jobs. Others are afraid of losing them. But remember one thing. Our daily bread comes from the same one we say, our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be your name. Give us our daily bread. At the end of the day, that's where our income comes from. I love that text in Deuteronomy where God tells the Israelites, remember, it is me who gives you strength to make rich. And I've always said for years that I am underworked and overpaid. that they pay me way too much more than what I deserve. And I know the reason. It is God who gives daily bread. It is God who provides. And that has an application for when we go to the supermarket and to Costco and to Publix and to Walmart. Remember the Israelites when God gave them manna the first time and he says, don't take, don't take too much. I'm going to give you your daily manna. The only day to take twice is on the Sabbath, but they still took too much. And what happened? It got rotten. And God told them, I told you, you don't need to take too much. I'm going to give you your manna for the family size you have. Beloved, when we go to Publix or Walmart or Costco or BJ's or wherever it is you go, leave some for your neighbor. You're not going to eat 50 pounds of meat in a week. If toilet paper returns, Let it return, take what you need, leave some for your neighbor. Remember where daily bread comes from. In John 17, Jesus prayed for us, for his disciples and for those who would believe in their word, through their word. And he said, they are in the world, but they are not off the world. Do not forget that. Yes, we are in the world. Yes, we have to be quarantined. Yes, we have to be careful. Yes, we have to use alcohol with our hands and Clorox wipes and be careful. We have to, we must. If not, we're being irresponsible. We are in the world, but we are ambassadors. We do not pretend to live beyond the miseries of this world and we should not be presumptuous, but we should remind ourselves and even remind others and show others where our true citizenship is. Yesterday, some of the guys were kidding in our texts. And we were talking about Tosh and his tribe, the tallest tribe on earth. Tosh is 6'4", and he's considered short in his tribe. And Tosh said, enough of me. Let's talk about Troy. He's German. But there's always a spiritual guy in the group. And somebody says, well, remember our citizenship is in heaven. But you know what? It is true. Our citizenship is in heaven. And from there, we are waiting the appearance of our Lord Jesus. And he will transform this body of our humiliation. You see me pulling back on the screen. I just, you know, I wish I could do that. And you would see the backyard and not me. But this body of humiliation one day will be transformed in a glorious body, like the body of Christ. And Paul lived in the flesh just as we, but he was not carnally minded. That's why he said, the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. They are divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. He was conscious of the battleground. He was not fighting for social conquests or for personal aspirations. Beloved, this is spiritual warfare. We cannot forget that. We're not just fighting a little virus, this conglomerate of proteins that invite that invade a cell and wreak havoc in our bodies. We are fighting, Paul says, not flesh and blood, but principalities and rulers of the heavenly places. God, I mean, Paul is describing philosophical fortresses of reasoning and arguments in his context back in the day from incipient Gnostics, perhaps, from Greek Sophists, perhaps, or from the Judaizers, perhaps, we do not know, but they oppose the gospel. And Paul says, I carry my ministry, preaching the truth of God, appealing both to mind and the conscience of people. And it is easy to lose sight of spiritual realities in our daily struggles. It is easy to lose sight of spiritual realities in our anxiety, over COVID-19. Elisha prayed for his servant when the house was surrounded by the King of Aram's armies, looking for them to chop their heads off. And two guys basically quarantined in a little house hunkered down, having a whole army waiting to slaughter them. And this poor servant is scared to death. And I put myself in the position, not of Elijah, but of the servant, scared to death. And Elijah says, Oh Lord, I pray. Open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses. and chariots of fire all around Elisha. That's what 2 Kings 6.17 says. A servant could see visually the hosts of God protecting them. And so we too must pray, open my eyes, Lord. That song we sing many times at the beginning of our worship, open my eyes, Lord, open my eyes. I want to see Jesus. We have to make that a common prayer. So remember the battlefield. God's redemptive plan involves a cosmic battle. The son of God has secured the victory, but it is nonetheless an intense and real and brutal warfare. And things are not what they appear to be. Jesus rebuked Peter along those lines. He said, Peter, you're not setting your mind on God's interests. You're setting your mind on the interests of men. So be a peacemaker. Remember the battlefield. Thirdly, focus on the target. That's what Paul says in verse 5. Focus on the target. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. When he says, casting down thought and speculations, he's talking about speculative thoughts, hostile reasoning from these guys who opposed him, opposing arguments, contradicting judgments. He says, we're tearing them down. We're tearing every lofty thing. But notice that Paul says, not against me. I'm not the issue. Paul was very clear on who he was and what was the battle at stage. He was focused on his target. He says, we are resisting and demolishing thoughts and ideas and speculations and attitudes or anything that rises against the knowledge of God. Why? Because the mind is the ultimate stronghold. Romans 1 speaks of those who knew God. But they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They stifle, they choke that which is evident within themselves. Brian Borkman, Dr. Brian Borkman, put a post recently on Facebook regarding what we started with. This is an online meeting. This is an online exhortation. This is not a church meeting. You cannot gather the church online." And he brought the theology behind that. But he later put up post-tabs. He says, I've had a lot of atheists writing on my wall, and the one that I liked the most from these atheists, and actually these atheists, whomever he is, thank you, he really strengthened my faith. This atheist or so-called atheist wrote, your God is a myth. your God is weak." And I started cracking up. I said, really? Really? God is a myth. My God is a myth. And my God is weak. Now, hello? So what? How exactly can a myth be weak? How this God who is non-existent be cruel, weak, evil? Why does he allow? And I actually thought, well, this guy is really strengthening my faith. This guy's reminding me of my Bible. He's just suppressing the truth that he cannot stand, especially in these times of duress. Suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Focus on the target. This week of all weeks, Komatsu used it to give us some training. I loved it. What a greater time to train when things are slowing down. And in this training made by a company named FPG, I learned something that I had not pondered about, but it is very true. This training, we were told that our job is not to befriend our customers and build a personal relationship with them. Our job is to remove their problem and to remove their pain and to move them away from their misery at that moment. with a Komatsu provided solution. I found that fascinating because at the end of the day, it's yes, whatever you do, remember your job. Your job is not to be a nice person. Your job is not to be light. Your job is to resolve or solve his problem. And yes, everything we do must have that end in view. Well, how appropriate for us during this time to focus on the target because life He's more than our daily conquests and achievements or our daily battles and our daily fears. What we and those who surround us need the most is Christ. Their most and our most dire need is Christ, who He is, what He did, and what he represents for them and for us. And that is eternal life, the gospel, the forgiveness of sins, the sheltering and protection, the soothing of conscience that we need and we have when we are forgiven. And there's only one source of forgiveness. God through his Son, Jesus Christ, whom he sent to die for sinners. Take every thought, yours and all of those you can which are not yours, captive to the obedience of Christ. leading the mind. I love the construction in the original. It's like, you probably have seen those videos, right, in YouTube and your social media of these people who are breaking curfews or breaking times or they're supposed to be at home and the police comes and takes them and brings them captive and brings them arrested because of their breaking of a curfew. That happens in other countries. Well, Paul says, take every thought arrested and captive as a prisoner to the obedience of Christ. Why? Because the mind is the ultimate target and we are transformed by the renewing of our understanding according to what Romans 12 says. Any counseling, any advice, any encouragement, any rebuke, any instruction, any admonition or consolation must drive the mind to Christ. Even Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? And this is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. Love your neighbor. Stay home. Love your neighbor. Wash your hands. Love your neighbor. Leave some for the one who's coming behind. So far, they're not going to close supermarkets. And even if they did, love your neighbor as yourself. Why? Because Jesus says, if you love me, love one another, even as I have loved you. Paul says not even Jesus served himself, but he served others. Jesus being rich became poor. That in his poverty, we might become rich. Be poor for others. Share of what you have. You're not losing your job. You have the blessing I have of a company. One of the first letters we got from our company, you know what it was? Guys, don't fret. You're not going to lose your jobs. Maybe I may lose it in six months because who knows what's going to happen in the world. But how wonderful when you have an employee who does that. But you know what that put on me? Okay, now I need to see who needs help because that's reality. That's life. Love your neighbor as you have been loved. In conclusion, remember the fundamentals. COVID-19 has shaken the world, but it has not shaken God. There's no calamity in the city unless God sends it. Remember that. People love the language. God permits. I'm afraid that that's not the language in the Bible. God ordains is the language in the Bible. Now, why he does it, honestly, it's beyond my pay grade. I know that some people love to explain why. You know what? I don't know why he ordained. He didn't check with me this morning to make the sunrise. He didn't check with me in December to let COVID go from a bad to a person in Wuhan. God doesn't check anything with me. Nothing. He doesn't have to. I'm just a speck of dust of 57 years and a couple of months on earth. So I don't know why, but he ordained it. In Isaiah 45, 7, he says, God says of himself, I am the one who forms light and who creates darkness. I am the one who causes the well-being and creates calamity. I am the Lord who does all these. Don't like it. Don't fight me. I'm just a messenger, just a mailman. But do not let the unrest of the nations sway you, sway us. Let us not forget the unbreakable and unshakable truth of who God is and what he has purposed. You want to know what he has purposed? Psalm 2. Why are the nations in an uproar, and the people devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed. Let us tear their fetters, they say, apart, and cast away their cords from us. And the psalmist says, He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord's coughs at them, laughter of derision. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and terrify them in his fury. But as for me, says God, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. And yes, that was said of David in his day, but this is said of Jesus. That is God's purpose. Honor the Son. Worship the Son. Please remember who's in charge of the situation. And it's my last advice, and it's a reading from Isaiah 40. You can turn there with me if you want. Who is in charge of this situation? It's not President Trump. It's not the CDC. It's not Congress. It is the one who is described this way in the book of Isaiah chapter 40. And I start my reading in verse 12, and I'll be skipping. texts through the end of the passage. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dots of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance, and the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has informed him, with whom did he consult, and who gave him understanding? And who taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and informed him in the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. Behold, he lifts up the islands like fine dust. Verse 17. All the nations are as nothing before him. they are regarded by him as less than nothing and meaningless. To whom will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with him? Verse 21. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted. Scarcely have they been sown. Scarcely have their stock taken root in the earth. But he merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. To whom will you liken me? that I should be his equal, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these stars, the one who leads them forth, their host by number. He calls them all by name, because of the greatness of his mind, and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing." Verse 28. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might, He increases power. Though youth grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary, says the word of God. And the we become old and we will die. We will die for sure. That promise is not for this life, but for the life to come. That promise is not for the kingdoms of earth, but for the kingdom of heaven, for the kingdom of God. Set your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. Be a source of peace, not of panic. Remember the battleground. Focus on the target. May God bless you and keep you. Amen. Father, bless your word. Bless your people wherever they are, wherever they meet. Show your grace and your mercy. Help us to focus on Jesus. Help us to shine the light of the gospel and to be a source of peace and not of panic. Help us to remember that your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and the battlefield is beyond this world. Continue giving wisdom to our authorities and the authorities in other countries, in other places. Protect your people. Protect your terrestrial globe, this planet you formed and packed with image bearers of you. Show us mercy and may our hearts turn to you. May we humble ourselves. and seek your face. And may you, as a result, heal our land and show compassion to us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. We will finish this transmission now. May God be with you.