we saw the ministry of King Hezekiah, that God did a great thing, a reformation, cleansing the temple, just getting rid of the idols and the high places, consecrating the temple, restoring it, having one of the greatest Passover's that Israel would ever partake in. But he did eventually capitulate. He gave in to the Assyrians. So in 2 Kings chapter 20, 2 Kings 20, he would pay tribute to the Assyrians. He'd end up taking the gold handles and those things off the temple and giving them to the Assyrians. Pride set in and he got very sick. And it humbled him. You know what, God has a way of humbling us. There's a thing in our lives, I don't know about you, but I know whenever I start getting off from the Lord, God has a way of just bringing me to my face and my knees and just realizing I need to cry out to him. And so Hezekiah cries out for mercy, but he stumbled again by welcoming the Babylonians' envoy, showing them what they had no right to see. He took them all around. temple and the land and showed him all that they were to see. And eventually what they would see everything that they would see was like bringing your enemy in to see all the loot that they can get. And that's exactly what it would end up being. But so there was still some pride there in his life. So, it was not a praiseworthy hour in Hezekiah's life. As we pick up from here, he comes to probably one of my more favorite stories in the Bible. 2 Kings 20, verse 12, At that time, Baradak Baladin, the son of Baladin, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and showed them all the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? And from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country, even from Babylon. And he said, what have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, all the things that are in mine house have they seen. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them. Hezekiah and Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord. Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house, and thou which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. Of thy sons I shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken. He said, Is it not good if peace and truth be in my days? So We have to understand here that Hezekiah does not have a proper perspective of the enemy. This is his pride taking place, and then there's a story of Rabshakeh and Sennacherib and the Assyrians, and I love that story. But this one here is that Satan comes in a very subtle way. He will bring friends that may have, sometimes, may have some inclination towards spiritual things. They may talk about God a little bit. But through subtlety, in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, I want you to see with me some of the ways our adversary works. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse one. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse one. And in this passage, the devil is a serpent and a lion. And I wanna just show you a few things in the way that Satan works. He's very subtle and very subtle. It's the very small things that are not necessarily bad, but they're not great. They're good, they're mediocre, they're okay. There's nothing inherently, I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, But he uses those things to draw us in. Away from the simplicity of Christ in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 verse 1 would to God you could bear with me a little in my folly and Indeed bear with me for I am jealous over you with godly jealousy For I have a spouse you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ He's talking about the church here like a bride But I fear lest by any means as a serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ and and we've been going over on Wednesday nights in Galatians, the gospel, and that so little, the Jewish people, the legalists, were coming into the Church of Galatia, and they were saying, well, you're Jewish, so because you're Jewish, or now you're Galatian, so you're Gentiles, you're coming out of a Jewish tradition, so you must put your faith in Christ, but you must also partake of the Jewish feast. and changing the simplicity of the Gospels by faith alone in Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of all your sins. And for if he that cometh preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him. So the fact here is he's coming, there's just small nuances, small changes, little by little, to corrupt the gospel. He says another gospel. So it's another quote-unquote good news. It would be an individual saying you must believe in Jesus and be baptized to become a Christian. Well, no, that's not what the scriptures say. You must be baptized and speak in tongues to become a Christian. That's not what the Word of God says. So, again, He comes very subtly. Or, you must believe in Jesus and make Him Lord of your life and change everything in your life. Well, again, that's a work. See, Jesus does the work in our lives to change us. Once the Spirit of God comes in, and I accept Him by faith, He changes me. He changes my thinking. I'm a new creature. And the old ways are no longer pleasurable. I mean, the Spirit of God is grieved inside when I do what I used to do, and I don't want to do it because, man, I feel like garbage on inside. because God changes me. So Satan's desire is to come in subtly and to look at all that you're doing and find a hole in your life, just as he was doing through Hezekiah. How can I find a hole? How can I find a place of weakness in their life that I can capitalize on them to defeat them? Let's look at 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5. What Hezekiah did is he let the enemy in to look at everything. And it was a very dangerous thing. Very dangerous. Because all he's doing is the minds of these men who are already very lustful, they're covetous, they're greedy, they're power hungry, they're coming in looking at all this wealth that they could have. He invites them right on in. only to have them eventually down the road as Israel would go away from the Lord. In 1 Peter 5, verses 8 and 9, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion. Walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. Be sober, be vigilant. That sober, this is why God, I mean, this is one of the reasons why if someone's partaking in alcohol, they can't be sober. If you said, well, just a little bit socially, you're still not sober. The Spirit of God wants control of your mind, not an intoxicating substance. This is why marijuana and others. Be sober, be vigilant. You have to be completely on guard. You're on guard for your life. If you're a parent, you're on guard for your family. Why? Because the adversary is waiting on the outside to pounce on you or your family to destroy them. He's hiding in the lurches ready to pounce and destroy. Whom resists steadfast, In the faith, that is where our strength lies. It's the faith. It's the belief. And so Satan usually comes first as a serpent to deceive us. He comes as a very humble, seemingly a serpent on the ground, a very humble person, humble item. But behind that cloak of humility is a ravening wolf. This is Hezekiah's experience. They came to learn how wealthy and strong Judah really was, and then they can go back and strengthen their army to defeat all of it. Why does a country, I remember when I was in the military and I had to have top secret clearance and there were certain things that I had to do and I was at this information directorate research lab and I would have to have, in order to go into certain rooms in the portions of this building, I had to have various levels of security clearance. There were many parts I couldn't go into because I didn't have clearance to get in there. Why would they have security clearances? Well, because there's certain things with technology that they don't want the enemy to have that helps keep them in the advantage. And the same way in our lives, it's Jesus Christ that is the strength of all I do. I don't want to open everything up to the enemy only to destroy us. The ambassadors deceived Hezekiah because he didn't seek God to let them into his life. He didn't seek God's wisdom from Isaiah the prophet. The king did seek the Lord when the Assyrians would invade him and the Lord would give him victory. But here, he lets them on in. They flatter him. Oh, we've heard of your fame. Flattery is one of those things in your life you better beware of. It feels good to be flattered. My oh my, behind that flattery sometimes is a dagger waiting to be dashed into your side. Flattery, wow you're so good at this. And we get lifted up with pride only to have Satan smash us down. Hezekiah's pride here as we look at, let's look at 2 Chronicles chapter 32, 27 through 30, a parallel passage here. And Isaiah also will be, we're gonna go to Isaiah as well, several passages here that also indicate the same incident going on. But in 2 Chronicles chapter 32, 27. Hezekiah had a problem with pride. I think all of us, it's a challenge at times in our lives to keep from pride. And in verse 24, 2 Chronicles 32, 24, we're going to read through verse 30. In those days Hezekiah was sick to the death and prayed to the Lord and he spake unto him and he gave him a sign. But Hezekiah rendered not according to the benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted up, therefore there was wrath upon him. And upon Judah and Jerusalem, notwithstanding, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah. And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honor, and he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, and for all manner of pleasant jewels, storehouses also, for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil, and stalls, for all manner of beasts, and coats for flocks. Moreover, He provided him cities and possessions of flocks and herds and abundance for God had given him substance very much. The same Hezekiah also stopped the upper water course of Gion and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David and Hezekiah prospered in all his works. So his near fatal sickness humbles him. I remember there was a time in my life, I was in the military and I was working out one time and I broke my foot. And I had just moved for a six month TDY, temporary duty to Ohio, and I broke my foot in kind of a silly way, fractured it. And here I was in a place, my vehicle was a standard transmission, so it had a stick shift, right? And I broke, it was my right foot that I broke. And so I had a cast on it, so I couldn't drive. I'm here, I am in a new place. I'm having to ask people to drive me around. I hated it. Man, I was so used to being independent, doing my own thing. I'll fix it, I've got it. And God had a way of just humbling me. And he got a hold of me pretty strong in this. And, you know, It's a hard thing when God humbles us. In our pride, God will bring something in our life, a very big challenge that we feel powerless to overcome. We don't know how to defeat it. We don't know how to get victory over it. And God will just say, hey, you've been depending upon yourself. And Hezekiah here, when these envoys come, he invites them in. And these envoys aren't coming for friendly diplomatic purposes. They're coming to scout out the land, to figure out the strengths, figure out the weaknesses. And he didn't grasp their purpose because he didn't come to God. Assyria was the strongest empire and Babylon was an empire on the rise. Now Hezekiah should have worried about Babylon. One day, Assyria moves off the scene, Babylon rises, and from 606 to 586, excuse me, 586 BC, Judah would be destroyed by Babylon. And in year 721, Israel was destroyed. So some many, many years later, 130, 140 years later, Judah is destroyed. And it was destroyed when the Babylonians came in, they destroyed Solomon's temple. They took the nation into captivity. Daniel and the three Hebrew boys, three Hebrew young men, I guess I should say, were a part of that. And we find a lot about this. The envoys would bring expensive gifts. There's something that appeals to us and it's money can appeal to us. If someone comes and wants to give you money, I remember during COVID, the government called and they said, do you need money? I said, no, thanks. I said, I don't want the government money because there's strings attached. And people have, oh, you should do this. And I said, I don't want government money because there's strings attached. There's always strings attached. And as these Babylonians would give very expensive gifts, there's strings attached. They're doing that to get in and get an advantage of a place that they can conquer. And so he would compliment them. I mean, they had exceeding much riches and honor. He made himself treasuries for silver. I mean, his pride just looks at all that I have. He gave him a grand tour. Now in your life, what do you open yourself up to to the enemy? You're unguarded. Is it riches? If riches come in, you say, well, this must be of God. Just because riches are coming at you doesn't mean it's of God. Just because there might be a need or something in your life and riches come does not mean it is necessarily of God. You've got to ask the Lord, is this of you? Now in our heart, I remember there's times in my heart, I said, whoa, this is happening in my life, it must have been of God. Because it's an advantageous event. But just because it's advantageous at the moment, could in fact be a snare later on. If someone's trapping an animal, they're gonna put some bait, correct me if I'm wrong on this, from what I understand, you put out meat or something as a snare to appeal to that animal to get it. Or maybe, for a while, I've heard of where you put out apples for the deer to get them to come to a place so you can put up a tree stand and shoot them, to bait them to that location, so when the time is right and hunting season is ready, you can shoot the deer. Those are things that we think about, and exactly what the Babylonians are doing. Pride is one of Satan's chief weapons to destroy us. And the problem with pride is we don't see it. until many times it's too late. Look with me at Isaiah 14. Pride thinks I'm okay. Pride thinks I've got it all under control. Pride thinks I don't need any help. Pride thinks I'm good. In fact, There's many things that can come our way that appeal to the pride. In Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12, about the very beginnings of pride in all of time. Isaiah 14, 12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. Pride will rob God of the glory that belongs to him. It gives us a feeling, a sense of security in a false sense. It leads us to sin and defeat. Charles Spurgeon said to his London congregation, be not proud of race, face, place, or grace. William Barclay wrote, pride is the ground in which all the other sins grow and the parent from which all the other sins come. Pride's the very thing. upon which bitterness grows, upon which unforgiveness, anger. How dare they do this to me? How dare this happen? How? And you begin to get to a place that no one can get to you. No one can speak to you. No one can talk with you about whatever an issue is that might be going on in your life. And you're closed and guarded and said, I'm putting that wall up. You won't talk to me. It's pride. I want you to turn with me here in Isaiah. I think it's Isaiah 39. Isaiah 39 here. Isaiah 39, verse three. Then came Isaiah 39.3, I'll give you a second to get there. Pride will happen to the best. Every person is susceptible to pride, every believer, every person. In fact, it's pride that many times keep people from accepting the cross of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 39, verse three, then came Isaiah the prophet unto King Hezekiah and said unto him, what said these men? And from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, they are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord, and of thy sons that shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget. Excuse me. Hezekiah says, you know what, as long as it's okay in my day, I don't care what happens to my kids. But also Isaiah is saying, what have you done? You've been foolish. You gave in to the flattery. Flattery is, it talks about in Proverbs 7, a strange woman that takes a simple man away by flattery. Wow, you're such an amazing man, amazing woman, amazing person, amazing testimony. All these things can come to our mind and it elevates us to the place that I'm no longer reachable by the words of God until God decides to humble us. He admitted that the men had come from Babylon. Something also amazing, Isaiah already knows something, you know, there's some prophecy that God's given to Isaiah, prophecy. And he knew something about the coming Babylon. They'll take your sons and your daughters and they'll take your children and they'll make your sons eunuchs, unable to have children. A hundred years after Hezekiah's death, Babylon would come, destroy the temple, and they'd go into captivity. There was a relief that his present generation would have peace. Whew, at least it's past my time. You know, one of the things as we were going through the whole COVID and pandemic and that whole era several years ago, God's grace, it won't happen again, but we know the future and we know that it's gonna get worse. One of the things that was frightful to me is the idea of losing the freedoms and liberties we have in this land, not just for myself, but for my daughter and the coming generations. It bothers me. Why is it we fight against this alcohol? I mean, we're against it, because I don't want souls to be plunged into hell even quicker. People need Christ. It's not that just we are comfortable now, because an enemy takes your comfort only to attack you when you're comfortable. Hezekiah would humble himself for the pride that he had. The wrath of the Lord was withheld from him. Another thing that happens, so he's come from a trial, he gave in, his pride lifted him up, he gave the gold from the temple over to the Assyrians, Babylon then comes. I mean, you're gonna get wave after wave after wave of temptations. Guaranteed in the Christian life, there's going to be waves of temptations. The Christian life will not be without a temptation. If there's not temptations in your life, you might want to ask, am I going the wrong direction? But Hezekiah has a temptation of Assyria. They said, give me gold, so he does. Babylon comes, oh, you're the great king, much wealth and riches, whoa, okay, oh, let's show you everything. Then we come to another temptation, another battle. Right after Nebuchadnezzar comes, there's another attack awaiting around the corner. What may be a victory today could very well be a battle tomorrow. That's why the word of God, as we started this off, be sober, be vigilant, diligent, right? Be sober, be vigilant. There is a continual being on guard because Satan is desiring to find the hole in your armor. Where are you weak with Christ? Where are you weak in your faith? That's when I'm gonna attack. You guarantee that if he's attacked at one time, and maybe you've had victory, he's coming back. He's coming back. He's coming back. He wants to destroy, to steal, kill, and destroy, as the scriptures tell us. So coming back in 2 Chronicles 32, But I'll read, if you're in Isaiah, or let's go, yeah, 2 Chronicles 32. 2 Chronicles 32. 2 Chronicles 32, verse 1, I want to read. It's a little lengthier passage. Just about Hezekiah the commander. After these things, in 2 Chronicles 32, verse 1 of 2 Chronicles 32, After these things, and the establishment thereof, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered into Judah, and he camped against the fenced cities, and thought to win them for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city, and they did help him. So he stops the water from going out of the city to preserve it for his people because he doesn't want to help the army that's coming against him. That's a wise decision. There was gathered much people together who stopped all the fountains and the brooks that ran through the midst of the land, saying, why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? So they're thinking ahead of the enemy coming against them. Also, he strengthened himself and built up all the wall that was broken. That's good. And raised it up to the towers and another wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David and made darts and shields in abundance. And he set captains of war over the people. and gathered them together to him on the street of the gate of the city and spake comfortably to them saying, be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed. the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him, for there be more with us than with him. With him is..." Look, isn't this an amazing verse? Verse 8 here, "...with him the Assyrian is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah." They trusted and they placed their confidence upon the words of Hezekiah. People are looking for a ruler, for a believer that is confident in their God. Not foolishly or naively confident, but has a settled confidence and foundation in and upon Christ. After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, but he himself laid siege against Lachish and all his power with him unto Hezekiah king of Judah. And unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem? Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst, saying, The Lord our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Syria? Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar, and burn the incense upon it? Know ye not What I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands. Were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand? Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand? Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you on this manner. Neither yet believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand? And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah. He wrote also letters to Rael and the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand. Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them and to trouble them that they might take the city. And they spake against the God of Jerusalem as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the works of the hands of men. It's an amazing passage of scripture. One would think that God would reward his servant by giving him peace. Hereafter, he humbled himself in the threat there by the Babylonians. But instead, the Lord allowed the Assyrians to come against, to besiege, to attack Jerusalem. Hezekiah was faithful, thankfully, in this sense. The pride, he had been humbled, he realized, we're up against an unbeatable enemy. And, you know, that which was done in right and truth before the Lord is God. 2 Chronicles 31 20. So why didn't the Lord protect Judah from another invasion? Why did God allow another attack? Do you ever feel like in your life sometime, you're like, man, you got one attack and you're like, we're through that. And then boom, another wave comes. You're like, what in the world? Really, Alexander McLaren said, it's the standing puzzle of the Old Testament how good men come to be troubled and how bad men come to be prosperous. That is sometimes true. Why is it that sometimes the evil of our world, the wicked men, Bill Gates and others of this world that are so evil, so wicked, and they seem to prosper without troubles. Now we don't see everything behind the scenes either. And yet, here is Judah being attacked again. They came, they gave them money, but you know what? If you give in to a temptation, I guarantee that temptation's gonna come back. Just because you gave in, just because he gave money to the Assyrians one time, they're thinking, let's keep going back, and keep going back, and keep going back. Because you gave us the first time, let's see what we can get a second time, and third time, and infinity, you know, and an eternity time. I mean, just keep on. And God wanted to do something in Hezekiah's life. You know what God would, Use an angel to destroy 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. He did there. Much more difficult to work with Hezekiah and transform into a man of faith. As Hezekiah, his pride has gotten in the way. You know, the trials of your life are not to ruin you. God's not against us. The things you're going through is God not being against you. It is to bring God glory. I want you to look with me at Joshua chapter five. In Joshua chapter five, I'm gonna have to finish here. I'm not getting very far. That's okay. This is good stuff. In Joshua chapter five, verse 13. And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went unto him and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay, but his captain of the host of the Lord am I now come, and Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship, and said unto him, What sayeth my Lord unto his servant? And the captain, the Lord's host, said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoes from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy, and Joshua did so. Here, the captain, the host of the Lord, here is none other than God himself, and loose thy shoes from off thy place. It's a holy place. God's trying to get us to the place where we're humble to properly worship and glorify him. The challenges and battles of your life are all to continue to bring God glory. Job had trials, not because of any wrongdoing on Job's behalf, but what it did through this is it once again showed the might and the power of God. Hezekiah, he's had pride. You know, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the Apostle Paul would say, as he had that continual infirmity, he said, I prayed three times ever to go away. But he says, I'm okay with it. You know, really, that the power of Christ would rest upon me. My grace is sufficient for thee. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. You know what, I want God's power upon me. I don't want pride. I'd rather have God's presence, His peace, His joy through the trials than I would ever have to try to live in pride and try to do it myself. And there's a preparation that comes. Be vigilant, be sober, be vigilant. My friend, we cannot let your guard down. The Word of God is your daily manna, is your daily food, your spiritual food, must be there. because it is in God's Word. I don't remember how many days, I mean, it's over and over and over and over again in my devotions as I'm there with the Lord and I'm talking with Him. Man, God's given me something exactly what I need for that day to help me to be on guard. It's amazing. What a great God we have as you come to the Word of God. God gives me a nugget of truth for that day that just feeds me and I have an encounter or a temptation or something that comes, and man, God's already prepared me for it. It's not just reading the Bible, but it's the preparation of God's word, and there is a great preparation that Hezekiah does. I'll have to speak about that next time. For the sake of time, I'll have to conclude it. But I want you to, you know what, we have a marvelous God. Just because you might be going through a season, and this is, you know, I'm thankful for the season. We're seeing some growth, we're seeing some new things, we're seeing God do great things, and I'm thankful for it. I know the battles have come. I know the battles will come. We're going to have battles. We're going to have victories until Jesus comes. Until there is no more battles. And we're forever with our Savior. But Christian, be sober. Be vigilant. Because your enemy is seeking to destroy you. Don't let go. Don't lose heart. Stay in the book. Stay on your knees. And we'll continue to press on for the Lord. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy. Father, I pray that you'd keep the pride from our own hearts. Any successes that we have is not of ourselves. It is all of you. Lord, we learn to give the praises where praise is all due. Father, this is your church. These are your people. Father, I pray that you'd encourage and strengthen their hearts even more this day. Thank you for the opportunity to gather. Thank you for the building you've given to us. And Lord, I pray we'd cease from pride, stay sober, stay vigilant, and honor you. I love you. In the precious and holy name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. God bless you.