It's gonna be Luke chapter five. We're gonna start with verses five and read through 24. I'm sorry, Luke chapter one, five to 24. So remember I've entitled The Silence Breaks, and here is what it says. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughter of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous in the sight of the Lord, or of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years. Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right of the altar of incense. Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you will give him the name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb. And it's he who will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It's he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so that he may make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zechariah said to the angel, How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. The angel answered and said to him, I'm Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I've been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time. The people were waiting for Zacharias and were wondering at his delay in the temple. But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he kept making signs to them, and remained mute. Now, when the days of his priestly service were ended, he went back home. Well, after these days, Elizabeth, his wife, became pregnant, and she kept herself in seclusion for five months, saying, this is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked with favor upon me to take away my disgrace among men." Now, James Mercy, He's a personal life coach who works with entrepreneurs and executives and professionals, helping them be more successful, not only in managing their businesses, but also in managing their own lives. A recent article on his blog entitled, For Husbands Only, If Your Wife Stops Talking, Start Worrying. As the title suggests, it deals with communication, more precisely, lack of communication in marriage that occurs between a husband and a wife. He writes this, listen. There are predictable patterns that point in the direction of disaster, but often, as men, we misinterpret the signals and assume our marriage is headed for fair weather after a rough patch instead of realizing we're heading for deadly waters. One of those patterns looks like this. A wife, not yours, of course, is dissatisfied with something. She's unhappy. Something is not working for her in her relationship. Maybe she's not feeling heard or supported or cherished or understood, and so she talks, and she talks. She communicates and expresses her frustration and unhappiness. Now, for partners like most men, he's not enjoying this process at all. She's emotional and sometimes volatile, and it's difficult to stay focused on the specific source of her unhappiness and not feel personally attacked. So her partner shuts down. He retreats into the proverbial cave. He may do so by tuning her out, physically leaving or listening, and quickly returning to a focus of a friendlier topic. Of course, he does nothing to resolve the issue at hand, but lets face it, running for the hills until she is in a happier place can look very appealing at times. If he continues to strive to avoid her emotionalism and consistently retreats into his cave until the coast is clear, his wife is feeling completely unheard and will grow more and more frustrated, and she will continue expressing her unhappiness with more and more passion until she stops. On her side, this signals that the relationship is over. Emotionally, she's given up. She's disengaged. She's done. Now, from his perspective, it just looks like it took a turn for the better. He misinterprets this silence to mean that everything is okay. The nagging and the complaining have stopped, and now there's peace. She seems to be doing the things that make herself happy. She ceases to focus on what's not working in the marriage. Life is good again. He could not be farther from the truth. She's planning her exit strategy. It may be quick, or it may take years, but nevertheless, she's lost all hope that the marriage is workable, and she's preparing to walk. She might be going back to school, or work, or if she wasn't working, outside the home previously, or she might be making career choices that will make the transition easier. She might find another love interest, or become open to the idea, or she might shift her focus to more fulfilling family relationships like her children, until the time is right. When the day comes that she serves her husband divorce papers, he's shocked. He thought things were great. Well, maybe not exactly great, but good. This is coming out of the blue. Often, this is the point where he becomes very motivated to address what was not working in their marriage, and he's baffled to hear that she has no interest in repairing the marriage. She's left emotionally a long time ago. She's worked through many of her feelings, and although she may have more grieving to do, she's no way will she be turning back. Now the irony here is that sometimes this will trigger for him to change and adopt different behaviors and different beliefs. And if he moves on to another marriage, he may become the man his first wife always hoped he would be. which can be a source of sadness and anger for his ex-wife, but that's another story. The bottom line is this. When it comes to marriage, silence is deadly, not golden. As uncomfortable as addressing these issues affecting our marriage may be, repeatedly running for the hills is often the surest way to get her to run for the door. You know, in the Old Testament, the relationship between God and Israel is often portrayed as that between a husband and a wife. But in that relationship, it's God, the husband, who's trying to communicate with the wife, Israel, who's refusing to listen. Through His prophets, again and again, God would call on Israel to turn from their sins and to turn back to Him that He might bless them. And you can almost hear the frustration of God in His repeated calls, telling them there's a serious problem in their relationship, and yet they continue to sin, convinced that everything is just fine. Well, finally, God stopped speaking to Israel. In fact, for over 400 years, there was no prophetic word. And as someone once said, how sad will be the days in store. when voice and vision come no more. Well, what made this long silence even more ominous was some of the last words spoken of by God to Israel in these stern words of warning found in Malachi chapter three. Listen to what it says. Behold, I'm going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he's coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he's like a refiner's fire and a fuller's soap. He will sit and smelt and purify the silver and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver so that he might present to the Lord an offering of righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old in the former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against you, and the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner and his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien. And do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts, for I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." Now, these are certainly threatening dark words, but they also contain a ray of hope for the promises that another messenger, another prophet, would be sent by God to Israel to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. And while judgment would come on the land, because I, the Lord, do not change, all of Israel will not be consumed. As I said, 400 years would pass before another prophet would arise in Israel, but around 4 BC, an angel called Gabriel was sent to a priest named Zechariah to tell him that the silence was about to break for what they had waited for for so many years was beginning to be fulfilled, and it would start in just nine months from that point. Well, all the gospel writers start with John the Baptist as a promised forerunner to the Messiah. Today, we want to look at the amazing events surrounding his birth, and in so doing, see something about the faithfulness of God in keeping his promises and the response of faith that he expects from those who hear the good news that's announced. So why don't we pray and then get into the text. Father God, I do pray for grace and mercy that you help us to see what's in the text so that we might be taught by it and learn from it and grow in it. Bless us now, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, the text can be broken up into five parts. The first part talks about a godly couple. That's verses 5-7. A godly couple. Secondly, you see a ministering priest. And that's 8-10. A ministering priest. Third, there's the angel's message. That's 13-17. The angel's message. Fourth is Zacharias' unbelief, that's 18 to 23. And finally, God's faithfulness, and that's 24 to 25. A godly couple. Now, in reading closely the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, it seems that one of Luke's purposes in writing these two volumes is to show that the Messiah promised and sent to Israel was rejected by that nation and yet accepted by many Gentiles. I mean, the people who were waiting for him didn't recognize him when he came. At the same time, some of those who weren't looking at all found the Messiah, or better yet, were found by the Messiah, so that today the church is overwhelmingly Gentile. And of course, Paul explains this in Romans, all of which was prophesied in the Old Testament. He says in Romans 8, 9 to 21, he says this, he says, But I say to you, Israel did not know, did they? First Moses said, I will make them jealous by a nation which is not a nation. By a nation without understanding, I will anger them." In other words, back in Moses' day, when he was prophesying about his future, their future, he told them that God would make them, Israel, jealous through the Gentiles. And Isaiah was very bold in saying, I was found by those who did not seek me. I became manifest by those who did not ask for me. But as for Israel, he said, And so when you go through the book of Acts, you'll find often that the Jews, when they first hear the gospel, reject it, while the raw pagans are the ones who repent. But Luke also wanted to make clear that there were Jewish people who did indeed believe. Even before the Messiah came, there were faithful Israelites, like Simeon and Anna, who were looking for the consolation of Israel. Now, in the New Testament, the priests of Israel often present as being cold and calculating, politicians more concerned with power than truth. But there were some good and godly priests in those days, and one of them was Zacharias, who had a wife who was also a descendant of Aaron. We're introduced to them in verse five to six. It says, in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Now, Herod, you'll remember, was not a Jew, but a descendant of Esau, a vassal of Rome. He was a wicked man, and he's the one who, according to the gospel of Matthew, killed the babies in Bethlehem. Now, Luke is simply putting him in here so we would know the time that this took place. And Zacharias, we're told, was from the division of Abijah, King David divided the priests into 24 divisions thousands of years earlier, and priests were only allowed to marry virgins. But if you married one who was from the same tribe of Levi, that was considered to be a double blessing. Well, what's most important about these two people was that it says that in verse 6, they were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and the requirements of the Lord. Unlike many people in that day, and honestly, many people in the church today, these two were sincerely trying to please God. They really were the best of what Israel had to offer. Godly, pious Jews, seeking to live according to all the commandments found in the Law of Moses. I have to tell you, there's something wonderful when you have a husband and wife both serving the Lord together. United. If a woman's married to an unbelieving man, or a man to an unbelieving wife, It's an extra burden you have to carry in the Christian life. Of course, God is sovereign, and in His will, sometimes holds off saving the unbelieving spouse. because while he intends to save them at some point, he wants to teach the believer along the way. A woman married to a non-Christian man has to trust the Lord even more than if she were married to a Christian husband. God has tailor-made the individual plans for each of his children's life, and so you can trust that whatever he's doing in your circumstances is what's best for you. But it's certainly a blessing when a couple can be united in faith and intent in serving the Lord like Zacharias and Elizabeth, and certainly God was blessing them. But I want you to catch something here. Being blessed doesn't mean that you're not gonna have heartaches in your life. Look at theirs. But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years. Now that's tough enough for a woman at any age, but it was particularly hard at that time. It was understood, and rightly so, that children were a blessing from the Lord, like arrows from the Lord, happy is the man whose quiver is full. But if many children were a blessing, didn't that mean that if God closed the womb, it was evidence of his disfavor? Many people thought so at the time. And so that long, dull ache continued for this couple. They were trees that didn't produce fruit. They were in the fall of their lives and the leaves were turning brown. And because of their age, they knew the time for having and hoping for children had passed. or had it. That brings us to our second point, ministering priests. Look what it says in verse eight. Well, what was happening was just another day in the temple. But this day was a special day for Zacharias. It was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You see, according to Josephus at that time, there were 20,000 priests. That's far more than you'd ever need for the temple service. And so a priest would only serve two weeks a year. And for those who served, the big thrill was being able to offer up incense in the offering in the temple. But that only happened once in your entire lifetime. Proverbs 16.33 in the New Living Translation says this, we may throw the dice, but it's the Lord who determines how they fall. Well, when the lot was cast, God determined that it would fall to Zechariah. So there was this big opportunity. The crowd's outside praying. He enters into the temple sanctuary. He takes a little bit of incense, places it on the burner. Sweet smell fills the room, closes his eyes, and when he opens them, there's a big terrifying angel just to the right of the altar. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right of the altar of incense. Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel and fear gripped him. You bet it did. You don't see angels every day. But he saw one that day, and then he spoke to Zechariah, which brings our third point, the angel's message. That's in verses 13 to 17. By the way, if you were to see an angel, what would you say to him? Would you say, by the way, it's a him, not a her, oh man. I was reading my daughter, it was a book from the library, it was Pilgrim's Progress, and it was for children. It was pretty good, and we were reading through it, but I noticed in one of the pictures the angels were all girls. Not right. Anyways, what would you say? Would you ask him how the weather was in heaven? So what's it like to be an angel? We find people encountering angels in the Bible, but it's not usually them, but the angel who speaks first, and the first thing he tells Zechariah is, do not be afraid, Zechariah. I'm not coming with a sword, I'm coming with a promise of good things that God's going to do. For your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you will give him the name John. He will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. Now, what petition and what prayer? Was it his official position that the salvation of Israel would come? If so, the centuries-old prayers of the godly Lord send the Messiah so salvation may come was about to be answered. Was it Zechariah's personal prayers that he had offered up so many times with size and Elizabeth through tears? But how could that be? I mean, they'd prayed so long and hard for a child, and God had already answered him. No. And as hard as it was, they'd accepted that answer. Now think about it. If you ask God for something, the answer is either yes or no, right? Wrong. It might be not quite yet. My child, the fruit of my mercy, needs to ripen a little longer, so it'll be a little sweeter when it's picked for you. Now, the name John or Yohanan means God is gracious, and what a gracious thing God was about to do for this aged couple. Zacharias means God remembered, and though he might have given up hope, God hasn't given up being God. I wanna make some application here. God forgets the sins of his people. God never forgets the prayers of his people. No one comes to God through Jesus with a bowl empty, who's sent away without being fulfilled. And if you don't get the very thing that you prayed for, it's only because God intends something better. Psalm 84, 11 says, the Lord is the sun and a shield. The Lord gives grace and glory. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. So keep on praying. Keep on hoping, God is good. I mean, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up over for us all, will he not also with him freely give us all things? I mean, trust God to know not only what gifts are best for us, but also the time which is best for us to receive him. And speaking of good gifts, look at the one God is going to give to Aaron and Elizabeth. No, even all of Israel, all of his people. He says this in verse four, you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. And that's what happens when out of the overflow of God's goodness, it floods into the lives of His people with blessing, joy and gladness. Goodness celebrating the grace of God towards His people. Look what it says in verse 15. He'll be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It's he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so that he might make ready for a people prepared for the Lord. You know, Matthew Henry pointed out that many parents, if they knew at the birth of their child how that child would grow up and what he'd become, Probably wish they'd never been born. But that's not gonna be the case for Elizabeth and Zechariah because we're told that their son is gonna be great in the sight of the Lord. By the way, isn't that the only evaluation that matters? It's not the one who praises himself or the one who's praised by others, but the one who's approved by God who is great. Do you remember when this same angel, Gabriel, went to Daniel? He addressed him by saying, oh, Daniel, man of high esteem. There's people who are of no account on the earth who are the talk of heaven. Some who are looked down upon with contempt by men are looked up upon with admiration by angels. So great in the sight of the Lord. Jesus said, by the way, of those born of women, there's none greater than John. And yet, he added that he who's least in the kingdom of God is greater than John. When Christ's kingdom finally comes and is established on earth, those who are resurrected into that kingdom, the least of them will be greater than John ever was in his life here. Now along this line, he is given a Nazirite vow, his parents are. So John's supposed to drink no wine or liquor, he'll be filled with the Holy Spirit, while yet in his mother's womb. So he's called by God, empowered by the Spirit, from the earliest age to bear witness to the Son. For he's the one who will turn the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. How many prophets in the Old Testament lived and died longing to see God's people turn back to him? His greatness is not so much that what he'll accomplish, but more so the proximity to the one whose sandals he said he was not unworthy to untie. For John will go as a forerunner to him in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous. By the way, notice something here. The first calling of the gospel is to repent. We're to preach repentance of sins and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. like John, were commissioned to call men, women, boys, and girls back to God so as to make a people ready to prepare the Lord. And Zechariah, this great man is gonna be none other than the little baby boy your wife is gonna bear. called by God, empowered by God the Spirit, to prepare to meet the Son of God. What do you think of that good news? That brings us to our next point, Zechariah's unbelief. Zechariah said to the angel, how will I know this for certain? For I'm an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. I like the way he puts that. He's an old man, but she's advanced in years. He's at least polite. Jesus was right when he said, though, of his countrymen, unless you people see signs and wonders, you're not going to believe, John 4, 48. So, Zechariah, what are you doing? You're looking for a sign. Like what? I mean, an angel standing before you from heaven, and you're like, well, do you have some kind of sign, some kind of credentials you can verify? You know, maybe if you were to throw down a rod on the ground and it turns into a serpent, you know, then I just might believe. I have to say, some might sympathize with Zechariah here. I mean, it's perfectly understandable to respond this way. I mean, he's a, naturally and physically, he and his wife are beyond the age of having kids. It's a bit of a stretch to think it's gonna happen at this age. But you know, that's not acceptable. I mean, we're not talking about what can happen naturally. We're talking what can happen supernaturally. And by the way, aren't there stories in the Bible of women who couldn't get pregnant, including one very old woman who still did? David Gooding was right when he points out the seriousness of Zechariah's unbelieving response. He said it would have been bad enough if he had done this as a private person for a private message, but he's a representative of the nation of Israel before God responding to a personal message tied to the whole drama of God's redemption. Listen to what he says. He says this, if God could not restore the natural processes of Elizabeth's body, what hope was there that creation itself should ever be delivered from the bondage to corruption? If God could not revivify Elizabeth's aging and dying body, how should we ever expect him to raise from the tomb the body of Jesus after three days? And if the resurrection were impossible, no resurrection could be possible. The grounds with which Zechariah gave for his disbelief were, without his knowing it, utterly subversive to the entire gospel. That's why the angel was offended by his response. Look at what he says. The angel answered and said to him, I stand in the presence of God, and I've been sent to bring you this good news. What he's saying is I'm not a angel third class who sits in the back. I stand in the immediate presence of God, and I was given this message from him to give to you. You want some good advice from your pastor? If God ever sends you an angel with good news, don't respond by saying, yeah, like that's ever gonna happen. But I want you to think carefully, folks. The problem with Zechariah was not discounting the angels' words. The problem was discounting God's word. What do you think that I'm in danger, or what do you think that you're in danger of doing every single week? Listen, God is a God of truth. The Lord is not a man that should lie or change his mind. His word is rock solid, absolutely trustworthy. It'll stand when everything else is given way. Nothing pleases God more than when you believe in and bank on his promises. And I have to tell you, in my own life, in the lives of many, this is what I see a lot of times. A lot of times what goes on is this. There's some situation we're praying for the Lord, and if we can't see how he could answer the prayer, we discount the possibility that he could answer the prayer. But think about it. Is God as weak as we are? When we run out of ideas, does that mean he's run out of ideas? If we're honest, a lot of times we'd say, well, I'll believe it when I see it. But God says, no, you'll see it when you believe it. Here's what it is. We think that God, I think this is the problem. We think that God has let us down so many times in the past that we expect he'd probably do it again. Well, I'm not gonna get my hopes up. I'm sure this person's gonna get offended and leave the Bible study just like others. Or I might as well come to grips with the fact that God is never gonna answer my prayer to save my dad, my husband, my kids. Our church is never gonna grow. I think God brought us into the wilderness because there wasn't enough graves to bury us in Egypt. Do you see how bad that is? We not only doubt God's power, but worse yet, we actually doubt his goodness. I think about how can any Christian ever doubt that? If you're a believer, he chose you from all eternity to be his. He sent his son Jesus to die on a cross for your sins. He raised him three days later to conquer death for you. He gave you his spirit as a pledge of your final redemption. He promised that he will never, no, never leave you or forsake you, and he promised to return for you because he really wants you to be with him forever. And then, the moment something doesn't go right, the moment we have to suffer in the least, the moment something happens that we don't understand, we say, God doesn't love me, he's abandoned me, now what am I gonna do? And we give up hope. And they stood still, looking at Sad. And one of them, named Cleopas, answered him and said, are you the only one visiting in Jerusalem who's unaware of the things which have happened in these days? And he said to them, what things? And they said to him, the things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word and the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping, we were hoping that it was he who was gonna redeem Israel. And he said to them, O foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things to enter into his glory? And then beginning with Moses and with all the scripture, he explained to them the things concerning himself in the scripture. You see, the cross was not his defeat that they thought. It was his victory. It wasn't his shame, but his glory. His life was not taken from him. He laid it down of his own accord and took it back up. Death was not his captor. It was his captive. Death could not keep its prey, Jesus my Savior. He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord. Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes. He arose the victor from the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose, he arose, hallelujah, Christ arose. But whether it's the events surrounding his birth or his death or his resurrection or his return, whether it's delays in prayers or difficult days, you need to trust him, trust him, trust him. Believe His promises and bank on them in your life. Don't say things like, how can I know for certain? And don't start giving God a bunch of reasons why it seems unlikely that He could accomplish what He said He would accomplish. You want a sign, Zechariah? Okay, I'll give you a sign. Behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in the proper time. The good news for Zechariah is that he did recover from his lapse of faith. The good news for Zechariah and Elizabeth and for us is that God's promises being fulfilled is not ultimately dependent on our faith, but on his faithfulness. And that brings us to our last point, God's faithfulness. This is verses 21 to 25. By the way, mark these words, after reading about the fulfillment of the word of judgment of Gabriel, it says in verses 21 to 22, the people were waiting for Zacharias and were wondering at his delay in the temple. But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. When the days of his priestly service were ended, he went back home. And then we read about the beginning of the fulfillment of these promises. It says, after these days, Elizabeth, his wife, became pregnant and she kept herself in seclusion for five months saying, this is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days that he looked upon me with favor to take away my disgrace among men. Zacharias was given time to think about the importance of believing the word of God when it comes to you. Elizabeth was taking time, five months, to think about God's incredible grace to her. This is the way the Lord has dealt with me when he looked upon me with favor to take away my disgrace." I hope like Zechariah, you think about the importance of responding to what you hear on Sunday morning or in your Bible study, or in Sunday school, or when you read the Bible, and you do so with faith. I hope you believe what you're being told. I hope you're banking your life on it, these promises which cannot fall. And I hope Elizabeth, that someday, like Elizabeth, someday you'll come to see that all of what you did, all of what God did, was just simply a matter of grace in the end. Hear and read the words of God, for each time you do, the silence breaks again. May God make us like Samuel, when the Lord called to him and said, speak, Lord, for your servants is listening. May God's servants hear the word, bank on them, and find their joy in them. Because he's a good God. Let's pray. Our Father in God, every time I read stories like this about unbelief, I think about my own unbelief at times. And I feel like that man in the Gospel of John who had a demon-possessed son. And he said to Jesus, help him if you can. And Jesus said, if? It's not if I can. But if you believe, the Lord, I'm so thankful that he didn't just leave it there. The man responded by saying, Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief. And Jesus gave him what he needed. Father, we got a lot of things we need. We all have family members who don't know you. We want to see them get saved. Father, we have people that we're concerned about. We have fears in our own life. And yet in all these things, you've promised you will never leave us or forsake us. Doesn't mean we won't have hard things. Our own lives bear witness to that. But in the midst of all of this, we know that when you're done refining us, we're going to come forward like gold. So thank you for the answered prayers that you have given us. Help us to keep trusting you in the midst of all these things. And bless us now, for we ask in Jesus' name.