Psalm 122, I asked you to turn there. Okay. And this is in the midst of what's called the Ascension Psalms. There may be a little title there, it says A Song of Degrees. This one says A Song of Degrees of David. David is the author of these, the human author. And these are the Psalms that were said as they would progress on their way to the temple for specific feast days and so forth, okay? David says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. That's a great theme verse for Sunday school, isn't it? Verse two, our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together whither the tribes go up the tribes of the Lord Unto the testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the name of the Lord For there are set thrones of judgment the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good. Once again, verse seven, peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and grace and the privilege to be here this morning. And I ask that you'd help us please give us clarity of of thought and help me with my speech and may our hearts be in tune and to the Holy Spirit and to your truth would you guide and direct and help us this morning There are needs amongst our church family, and so we pray that you might be gracious in each of those items. Specifically, Father, we think of Bev's neighbor, Duane, who went to the hospital. this morning. Father, we don't know the details. I pray you'd be gracious in his life, touch his body, be with his family in this difficult time. Father, I don't know his spiritual condition, but I pray you might use even this difficulty for your glory in his life and the life of others. Guide and direct in those things, Father, please. We do pray for Keith's family in the passing of Yolanda. Would you just comfort and Help them even Tuesday as they travel down for the service, just guide and direct in those things. Thank you for being with Joe and Gloria as they traveled for the loss of his sister and just continue to use her salvation testimony in the lives of her family and others. Father, there are many needs amongst us and I pray you'd help us. There are most certainly things that that we need you to help us with, but sometimes we don't even think about it, but we do need you, and so would you work in those details, please? We thank you for each one who comes to Sunday School, and thank you for those who have responded to invitations, and would you bless them? Help us please to be what we ought to be. Father, as we're in the midst of a Sunday School promotion, Causes me to think of st. James and the church work there be with brother Hoover as he's leading the service just bless In that outreach that that church might be established on a firm foundation Would you provide for them the pastor that you want to be there guide and direct in those things? Help us now, please we pray in Jesus name Amen All right Last Sunday, we started a short series of lessons specifically designed as we're inviting folks to come, and if we invite them to come, we needed something maybe that, of course, all the Bible is relevant, amen? It's all relevant, because it's God's word. And God speaks to us in every aspect of life. It speaks about all our relationships, our struggles, our glories, et cetera. It is a deep well of living water that does not run dry. And so it's all relevant. But when we're trying to invite somebody, it would be a little difficult to say, come and hear these wonderful lessons on lamentations. So we kind of ramped up lamentations. I thought they were good lessons. I learned a lot and appreciate God's truth. But folks are facing a lot of struggles today, are they not? They are. They certainly are. Today's lesson is, as you see on the top of your sheet, peace and prosperity. peace and prosperity. Our text here in Psalm 122 speaks about peace being within the walls and prosperity within the palaces. And certainly those are two things that everybody today wants. They want peace. They want there to be calmness and ease and quietness, et cetera, that we might pursue our lives and our interests and our joys, et cetera, without hindrance and without obstacles, even the sorrows of life. Imagine, if you would please, For just a moment, you're living in Ukraine, and in the same weekend, perhaps your son or daughter gets married, but your father or grandfather passes away. That would be hard, wouldn't it? Two extremes of an emotional spectrum. One of great joy, the other of great sorrow. And yet you're supposed to celebrate and mourn in the midst of bombs going off. And your city under destruction. And your very future of your country and your community is at risk. That would even be worse, wouldn't it? That would be quite terrible. It would be hard to celebrate and it actually would be hard to mourn in such chaotic struggles. Peace is something that we want. Something that we feel a deep need for. And then prosperity, that's kind of something that everybody desires. They want to be prosperous. They want to not have to worry about paying the bills, buying the groceries, engaging in whatever recreation or entertainment that is maybe our preference, whatever. It's tough to do that when you don't have anything, when you have nothing. If you ever take a missions trip to a third world country, kids are kids everywhere. and they laugh and they cut up and they play but it breaks your heart when you see kids like I'm thinking like in Burma we'd be driving into the city of Yangon and over here there'd be this it's not really even a field it's like a big dirt patch actually in the midst of the city with garbage all over the place and the kids are playing soccer except they don't have a soccer ball They've created a soccer ball out of trash. And they seem to be having a great time. And we'd be like, oh, that's terrible. We should get them a real soccer ball. Well, I don't know. They were pretty ingenious to create a soccer ball out of trash. That's pretty amazing. But prosperity is something that we desire and we work toward. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, here in our text, it says, Really, in a sense, we're supposed to pray for that. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. So, peace and prosperity. Thinking about what's going on today in our world and in our country, et cetera. Present perspectives. That's the first fill-in. Present perspectives. Now, we know, according to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his disciples there to be two things to the world. Sandy, nice and loud. Salt. Okay, somebody else, give me the other one. Light. We're supposed to be salt and light, right? We're supposed to be the preserving influence, the holding evil at check, if you will, because of our presence, our righteousness, et cetera. And then we're to be a guiding principle, an illuminating principle as we shine on the Lord, certainly, But if we're living a life of righteousness, not only will we shine on the Lord, but we will shine on their need. And that may not be appreciated very much. People whose lives are a train wreck because of sin and bad choices and they're facing all kinds of difficulties, they don't necessarily like having that highlighted. I don't. Do you? No, nobody likes to have that highlighted. A great illustration is current events. I was quite shocked it took the media so long to give us a picture of the shooter in the school shooting. Considering in other incidents That kind of stuff is given almost instantaneously. It seems, and I could be wrong, but my perception is it seems sometimes the media whatever source that may be, they give you the information so long as it follows the narrative they want to build. Whatever that may, good or bad, they're giving you selective information to kind of build an opinion in the public. That was a great tragedy. It's terrible. We grieve for those families. It's hard to imagine this Sunday, There's families going to church without their family member. Because they're dead. They're gone. You know, as you think about the events taking place, things are finally coming out about the shooter, his home life, his lifestyle choices, and as always some with a very loud voice and their own sort of agenda platform that they can project from immediately jump on the gun control problem without any reference to a broken home life that Maybe the motivation's more important than the instrument of you. I'm not advocating for, please don't put me in a box. I'm just saying, if that kid was that distressed that he intended to do harm, he would find a way to do harm. Now, does it make any sense for the father to give his troubled son a weapon that he can kill people when he'd already been investigated? That his son was a potential person to commit such a crime? Something is badly broken in that family, isn't it? Something is not right. And that's a deeper issue. It's easy to get on a bandwagon of a quick Band-Aid. Oh, look it, now we're gonna do this. We fixed the problem. And actually, we didn't fix the problem, because the problem is deep. It's the brokenness of the family and our very culture, okay? So we could look at those kinds of things. We could look at globally, events globally. China and North Korea or the continuing ongoing struggle between Hamas and Israel. And it astounds me that people can, you know, think all these terrible things against Egypt. Well, it's like nobody's talking about the terrible attack Hamas did on Israel. They're only talking about the horrible consequences Palestinian people are suffering because of the war. Yeah, that's true. War is terrible. War brings destruction and death. And many times the civilian population bear the pain. I'm not, I get it. But Hamas started the fight. I mean, they started it. At least that particular one. So, Israel's like, you know, we're tired of that. You cannot negotiate with a bully. Bullies have to be put down. One way or another. I know, I'm probably being too simplistic. But my point is there's all kinds of things going on that cause us then to be in turmoil. Whether it's those kinds of events. that we see broadcast in the news within our own country, like the shootings, etc. or it's global unrest or it's personal turmoil and loss and struggle. It could be economic distress. That's big on the news today, isn't it? All the economic downturns and some say it's better and yet we're still paying three times as much for gasoline and eggs are You'd think somebody found the golden goose and that's what the kind of eggs were buying or something. So there's trouble about that. And just to make it extra interesting, let's add in the election year. That's distressful enough all by itself, isn't it? And then when you add all this other stuff in, no wonder people don't have any peace. They have doubt. They have concern, distress. Does the Lord talk about these things? Yes, He does. He does. Number two, the participation process. And sub-point A there, it's the cause of loss. The loss I'm talking about is not the loss of a loved one or the loss of finances or the loss of tranquility in our community Necessarily, but in a broader sense, it's the loss of peace The loss of peace What brings the loss of peace? Okay, let's look at some scripture Job 3 Job 3. And verse 26, Job says, I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet, yet trouble came. I didn't go looking for it. It just kind of showed up on my doorstep. There it is, whatever trouble that may be. In the book of Proverbs and chapter 1, Proverbs chapter 1 and verse 27 it says, well let me read 26 and 27. I also will laugh at your calamity. This is wisdom speaking, which is like personified. It's like the Lord speaking. I will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you. There's a great lesson for us to learn. These kinds of things are coming in life in general. There is no insurance policy you can buy that will prevent trouble. You may buy a policy that sort of mitigates the consequences of the trouble or helps sort of soften the blow of the cost, etc., etc. But I cannot buy any kind of insurance policy that will guarantee I'll not have trouble. It's because of the reality of trouble that's why we buy insurance. because we're trying to plan ahead for the trouble that may be coming. So what brings the loss of peace? The first point is confusion, desolation, distress. I'm confused about things. I don't know what to do. And if you don't know what to do, you're facing a great decision you have to make. Should I do this or should I do this? I don't know. Just that inner turmoil is not peaceful, is it? No. It's not peaceful. There's a loss of peace. So I can have confusion personally about whether it's a financial decision or an employment decision or a relationship decision or whatever aspect of life, but I'm That's not a peaceful time. That's difficult. Or it can be. Now, things can escalate beyond just being confused and struggling with do I go left or do I go right? It can progress to contention. Go to Genesis 26. Let's illustrate this in the life of Isaac. Genesis chapter 26, starting at verse 12. Isaac, of course, is the son of Abraham. Abraham's a very rich man. Abraham gets sent away by the Philistines because he's too rich for them. He's richer than the king. And so that causes some stress. So Isaac's now out on his own and he has to provide water for his flocks. He has to dig some wells. Verse 12, Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great. For he had possession of flocks and possession of herds and great store of servants. And the Philistines envied him, so now they envy The son, just like they envied the father, for all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them." Think about that. You dig a well by hand to feed your stock, and your neighbor comes along and fills it with rocks and dirt. You might be a little... What word would you like to use? Angry, irritated, miffed, ticked, whatever, okay? I mean, it's like steam's coming out of your ears. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, go from us, for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Ger and dwelt there. So now begins this process of digging a well. They come and they fill that one up. He digs another well. The point is there's contention. There is a contentious thing. In this case, it's water rights. And out here in the West, water rights are a big thing and can be a great source of contention. And that's what the struggle is. There's a great contention. We could think of several others. Jacob and Esau, was there some contention between those two boys? Sure there was. And that didn't end up very well. How about in 1st Samuel chapter 1, Hannah and Paninah, the two wives of Elimelech. There was contention there, was there not? Do you think Hannah was peaceful in her heart? No, because her adversary was poking her all the time. No, there was a loss of peace. Now, things can escalate beyond just kind of the ruffled feathers and so forth. Beyond contention, it can go to actual open conflict. People go to blows. Go to blows. Today we have a technical term for that. It's called domestic violence. But it's two brothers duking it out, or maybe husband and wife duking it out, or parents whooping up on their kids, or kids whooping up on their parents. But some kind of domestic dispute, okay, within families. Genesis 32, go a couple chapters over, Genesis 32 and verse 6. Jacob is finally coming home now. He's been to Uncle Laban's, and all that transpired, okay? Now he's coming back, and basically, as he's coming back, he went there single. He's coming back with four wives, 12 sons, and a daughter. Whew. But he's coming home, and he's gonna have to meet Esau. And that could be a struggle, because that's one of the whole reasons why he left in the first place. is to escape the contention. But now he's coming home and he's facing potential conflict, open conflict. Okay, 32 and verse six. So he sends his messengers, he's trying to soften Esau up a little bit. Verse six, and the messengers returned to Jacob saying, we came to thy brother Esau and also he cometh to meet thee and 400 men with him. Now when you left, your brother said, I'm gonna kill you. And now you're coming home, and he's coming to meet you with 400 men. What do you think he's coming to do? Kill him. And his whole family, probably, take all his livestock. Do you think maybe there's a loss of a little piece here in Jacob's heart? I think so. That's kind of why he goes through all this rigmarole and divides them all up and sends all these gifts. And then he goes off by himself and prays. Because he doesn't have any peace and he's asking God to help him. That's a good thing to do. We could move on from what we'd like to call domestic sort of conflict to military conflict. Judges chapter 11. Go to Judges chapter 11. And here we have the story of Jephthah. And there's a problem because Israel is not what she ought to be. And when Israel has her eyes off the Lord, she actually becomes weak in the eyes of other nations and other nations take advantage of that. Isn't that interesting? I think we could make a a direct application to our own country, could we not? If we appear weak to those who are not in support of America, will they take advantage of that? Yes, they will. So here we are in Judges 11, look at verse four. And it came to pass in process of time that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. And now they're like, what in the world? We don't know what to do. Why don't you know what to do? Because they kicked the one warrior they had, they kicked him out of the country. They got nobody to lead the army. And so now they have to go groveling back and ask Jephthah to please come back and lead our army because we're about to get trounced. Would you say there was a, I would say there's a loss of peace. And they said unto Jephthah, come and be our captain that we might fight with the children. Why are they asking him to come back when they already kicked him out? Because they have no peace and they want peace. meaning peace in their own hearts, peace in their own towns, peace in their nation, because we're about to not have peace. We're about to be conquered. We're about to be in pieces. and we need somebody to help us. There can be civil unrest in this conflict that leads to a loss of peace. First Kings 1611, I'm not gonna turn there, but that's when Israel, the northern 10 tribes after the split after Rehoboam, they like change kings like they change socks it seems. at least at one period. And this particular king, he's only king for a few days. When he becomes king, he kills everybody who's related to the former king and all their friends. We talked about this on a Wednesday night when we talked about the friendship of Jesus. The point is there can be civil unrest. That's not just disagreement, but it's actual conflict. Whether we're talking civil war or we're talking, you know, the Montana Freeman standoff or whatever, there can be a conflict. That is a loss of peace. That is a loss of peace. All right, B, as we're thinking about this process, what do we need to combat these, and perhaps we could be a little more exhaustive, but just for sake of time, we just mentioned three things that can cause a loss of peace, confusion, contention, conflict, and they seem to be in escalating processes. So, to counter that, to counter the potential of confusion, the potential of doubt, the potential of, as James talks about, you know, flopping around like a reed in the wind or the waves of the sea, rather than confusion, what I need is clarity. I need clarity. That's the source of gaining peace. I need clarity and by that I'm talking about proper thinking. I need to think about things properly. Not emotionally. If I let my emotions run wild, somebody says something that triggers me, boy are we not filled with a lot of that today. People are offended at Anything and everything, they get offended, and now they, oh my, I've been offended. There's microaggressions going on in my workplace. And I'm not saying there's not, I'm just saying, maybe you better grow a little thicker skin. I'm not allowing for inappropriate behavior, I'm just highlighting, let's think about things clearly, not respond emotionally. In John chapter seven, verse 24, Jesus says, judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. I have to judge rightly, not based on how I feel, or even by what I may see, because there may be other circumstances. There might be more information that is a little clearer, and I could think more properly about that. John, go over to the next chapter, chapter 8, verse 32, okay? It says, and ye shall know the truth. and the truth shall make you free. All right, so when I'm faced with confusion, I don't know why or what or whatever, I need to back up, I think I need some more information. You're at the hospital, your loved one is having surgery, very serious surgery, okay? And periodically throughout those surgeries, the doctor will call or the nurse will call or whatever, give an update on how things are going, et cetera. And so all you get is this little word from the OR, we're having a problem. So it's taking us a little longer. What do you think now? The worst. Oh, a problem. Oh, they're gonna die. Oh, oh. Now I'm not saying that's not true, because sometimes it is true. But it's easy for us to jump to conclusions with an emotional response. We don't even have the information yet. You know, I've been with families, been with my own family in those settings, and you know, I had to look at my dad and say, Dad, calm down. We don't really know anything. You're getting all upset, and I understand. You know, when my mom was going through heart surgery, that's serious business. Okay, I get it, but Don't jump to conclusions because we don't have any information yet. Okay, let's get all the information then we can make decisions and so forth. So I need to think properly. Whether we're talking about the election, I could get myself in big trouble here. But it exasperates me. Exasperates, whatever. When election ads are all emotional based, they're not based on truth. They're based on, if I can say something that will make somebody think badly about this person, that automatically raises my value in their eyes. My chances of getting the vote is better. Well, that's not even honest, is it? No. And, you know, when somebody says, oh, those rich out-of-staters are causing it harder for Montanans to live here because they're buying rich ranches. Isn't that private property? That is private property, is it not? Okay, so if you own a rich ranch, I'm not so sure there's an unrich ranch. Even the land itself is pretty spendy, okay? So you're selling your ranch for $25 million. It's your ranch. Do you really care if somebody from New York, Florida, or Montana buys your ranch? No, it's your ranch. You're selling it. Whatever. And if somebody shows up with 20, has $25 million to buy your ranch, do they not have a right to buy your ranch? Well, if it's a guy from Montana, does that mean rich instators are making it hard for people in Montana to live? See, it's not logical, is it? Now, that's not meant to be an endorsement for one or the other. It's an illustration of what happens when people's minds are attacked with improper thinking and not logic. Well, yeah, because now it's like, well, that's not fair. How could he do that? I want to have that. We could spend a lot of time there. But in order to combat confusion, I need clarity. In order to have clarity, I need truth, not emotion. I may come to truth and not like it. You ever find out something that's true and you're like, I don't really like that. That doesn't make it true or not true whether you like it or you don't like it. Okay. But if I'm gonna have clarity, I need proper thinking, I need truth to help me. All right? In the sense of contention, what's the answer for contention? Rather than be contentious, we need to be in concord. Sorry, I alliterated everything. And all that word just means is I need to be in agreement. Now that doesn't mean I have to, agree with the person that I have a disagreement about, it means I can agree to be respectful and to be kind and to be polite. I don't have to agree that they're right and I'm wrong if I feel that I am right. But I don't have to treat them inappropriately. The bigger, louder voice doesn't make me righter. Correct? You can't chew people out like you're the crotchety old goat and somehow if you cause them to cower, you didn't win an argument actually. The book of Proverbs says a soft answer turneth away wrath. A soft answer. You know what, we might have to swallow our pride and apologize. Now we're not apologizing for doing something that we didn't do, but we can apologize. I'm sorry that there is this disagreement. It grieves me that we are on opposite ends of this issue, whatever that issue may be. But I can treat that other person with respect and kindness and the love of Christ. rather than staying all contentious, which leads to bitterness, which spoils yourself and many others, and sometimes makes the issue so that there can be no reconciliation or restoration, because there's so much bitterness. In the sense of conflict, You say, well, what's the answer to that? Somebody might say, well, conquer them. We may not have the means to do that. We may not have the resources. Israel didn't have the resources when Babylon came in, did they? But do you think Jeremiah was Somehow in great distress and wringing his hands like I don't know what's gonna happen That one Jeremiah Jeremiah was calm and that's what we need we need calmness We need to be dependent on the Lord The illustration I gave of the family in Ukraine, I just made that up. No, I don't doubt that that actually has happened in the midst of this conflict. If they're a Christian family, they can have confidence in the Lord, and that gives a calmness, doesn't it? It's like, I can trust God. It amazes me when I read the reports of people like Georgie Vins and Peter Romanchik and other preachers in the old USSR who were constantly being put in prison and persecuted, their families ripped apart, et cetera, and yet they calmly just kept on serving God. There was a dependence on the Lord. And that's what we need. In Desert Storm, now, praise the Lord, I never was in a place where I was getting shot at. The potential was there, but as we were, supposedly, we were supposed to follow this infantry unit right in and provide water to field hospitals and so on. And, boy, a bunch of the guys, they were like, oh, man, they were like, I get it. I mean, you don't know what's gonna happen. You're in the middle of a war. It means you might get shot at. And they'd say, Sarge, how come you're so calm? I said, well, I know where I'm going. Okay. The Lord knows where I'm at. I can trust the Lord, no matter what my circumstances are. And that's what we need. Let's move on. If you want to write some more scripture down, Psalms 12.1, Proverbs 16.32, Proverbs 1.33, I'll read that one, or 3.25, I think that's what I have written down here. But Proverbs 1, and that's good because we had just looked at that, about the Lord laughing at their calamity, mocking them in their fear cometh, the desolation, all because they wouldn't listen to God. Back in verse 20, Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief place of concourse. Concourse means confusion, chaos. It's like Times Square in New York City. That's a crazy place. And so Wisdom's laughing because they wouldn't look to God. But look at verse 33. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil. They're calm. There's a calmness there. I'm not worried about it. It's not like I'm ignorant, but I have to trust God. I have to trust the Lord. Which takes me to number three, and that is proportional product. What do I mean by that? Because it's peace and prosperity. What I'm trying to imply here is that peace produces prosperity. You don't get real prosperity without peace. Say, well, no, those guys who sell all the weapons and they make a lot of money. Wealth is not the same as prosperity. Riches, Solomon tells us in Proverbs that riches, you know, are like on the wings of a little bird, they fly away. gone, vaporized, okay. If I don't have any but, you know, if you say, well, we got to get some Bitcoin or, you know, whatever, this digital currency stuff. Well, that scares the whatever out of me because I'm like, We can't even keep our phones safe from hackers, and you're going to keep my wealth safe in the digital cyber world somehow? Like, don't you think there's hackers out there trying to tap into that? So you're going to have lots of wealth and then come down with cancer and spend it all, can't you? Sure. There's a lot of formerly very rich people in Ukraine who are no longer rich because their town no longer exists. And their properties that they owned are piles of rubble. They have nothing. They are now desolate. So prosperity is not the same thing as wealth. There's a correlation there, I understand that. When we have plenty of resources, tangible resources for tangible needs, there is a sense of calmness. Our calmness may be misplaced in something that's temporary. And that's the world. That's why they're trying to get riches. But the word prosperity actually means quietness. to be quiet. I'm calm. Calm is a word I was using. It says in Isaiah 26 and verse 3, thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. Stayed on thee. Proverbs 17 one you could write that down The Bible talks about You know, it's it's it's better to have to be poor and have nothing than to have all the riches Because riches are so temporary First Timothy 2 to let me make a New Testament application to the sense of prosperity especially for Bible believing people Okay, first Timothy 2 verse 2 he's talking about prayer things that we pray for he says for Kings and for all that are in authority that we may lead a what's the next word quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty I need to be in prayer Because I want my life to be calm. I don't want to live in the midst of chaos and conflict. I want to have a peaceful life. I want to be able to live a life for the Lord. That's, I mean, it's pretty tough to do evangelism if you're dodging bullets and bombs. Because you're just trying to survive. There was a phenomenal revival going on across all of Europe before World War II. James Stewart, not the actor, but the evangelist, traveled all over Europe and he would get these senses like, it sounds unusual, almost mystically, but it'd be like the Lord impressing upon him, you need to go to, Berlin because I want you to go to Berlin and preach and he didn't know anybody I'm just it wasn't Berlin it was another country but you get the idea so he goes there he doesn't know anybody in this city he gets off the train and there's a bunch of preachers there and they say are you James Stewart yeah well the Lord told us to meet you here at the train station because you're supposed to come and preach for us it's like Oh, okay. And he'd be there for a week or two or however long, because he didn't really have a schedule. It was all very fluid in however the Lord was leading. But hundreds and hundreds of people got saved all across Europe. And then, boom, World War II hit. Pretty tough to go into countries that have been seized by Germany in the midst of war, because they were in war. It's hard to do those things in war. That doesn't mean people don't get saved in war, they do. I'm just saying, if your primary focus is, I don't want to get shot, I'm dodging bullets and bombs, and hoping I can find a sandwich somewhere, it's pretty tough to have calm, peaceable, godly discussions. So we need to pray. Lastly, the personal provider, and some of that's, Who is that? Because it's not a thing, it's a person, isn't it? That's the Lord Jesus. He's the Prince of Peace, Isaiah 9, 6. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world, 1 John 4, 4. And if we're going to give our distresses to the Lord, it says in Philippians 4, 7, that we will have the peace that passeth all understanding. That's why the fellows in my squad and in my company in Desert Storm could say, Sarge, how come you're so calm? Because they couldn't be calm because of what we potentially were facing. So you can have peace and prosperity in the midst of chaos, in the midst of circumstances that would take away everybody else's peace, but you can have peace Because you have the Lord. But we have to access that. Joe? Well, you got to ask Him for it. If you're not asking Him, that means something's not right with you. Well, that could be. You're right. You ought to ask. In fact, that whole passage in Philippians is about praying and asking God to help you. So when trouble comes, and trouble will come, and that's a temptation, if I can say it that way, for you to lose your peace, and to get your eyes on your troubles. We're not diminishing them, they're real. Troubles are real, I understand that. But my God is realer, if I can say it like that. He's bigger than my problems. And so if I get my eyes on the Lord, he can give me peace when everybody else would wonder, how in the world could you have peace? You must not care. No, I care a lot about this, whatever this issue is, but I just have a God who I can trust, whatever the outcome is. I can have peace in the midst of all of the chaos. I can have peace and prosperity. And people are thinking about the cessation of conflict. They're thinking about the increase of wealth for those things. And they're looking for the wrong thing. They need the Lord, because we're not going to get life without problems. Till we get to heaven, amen? Then it's a time of refreshing, but before that, It's a time of resting, resting on the Lord, okay? Father, we thank you for this day and for your love for us. Would you help us, please? I pray we can have peace and prosperity even in the midst of what looks like chaos and conflict, but that's because we know you and we're resting in you. Would you help us with that, Father, please? In Jesus' name, amen.