I'd encourage you to open up your copy of the Word of God to 2 Kings. Today we're going to be taking a look at 2 Kings, starting with verse 15, and at the last minute I decided I wanted to finish up the chapter, so we are actually going to read through to the end of the chapter. So 2 Kings 10, 15 through 20. We have seen a coup take place in the northern kingdom of Israel. A new king has come to power, Jehu, formerly a commander in the army of Joram. Joram was a descendant of Ahab. Ahab and Jezebel, the byword for wicked queen, wicked king. And Joram is dead. Ahaziah of Judah is also dead. And the heirs of Ahab are dead. The relatives of Ahaziah are dead. There's been a tremendous amount of bloodletting that has occurred here. And we are going to see some more bloodshed as Jehu purges the northern kingdom of the Baal worship of the Sidonians that Ahab and Jezebel had introduced, this false worship of false gods. Before we turn our attention to the word of the Lord, let's turn our attention to the Lord himself and let's ask for his blessing. Please join me. Sovereign Lord, I do pray that today as we come to your word, we would do so soberly that we would remember, oh Lord, that your judgment will someday come down upon all those who will not bow the knee, who will not surrender. who will not turn to you, and therefore, oh Lord, we ask that you would remind us of our calling to be stirring up faithful religion, Lord, true religion, the pursuit of Christ and his word, Lord, that we would be sharing that far and wide, and we would be doing so as perfectly as we could. I pray, Lord, that as I preach tonight, you would help me to have the words to speak, that I would have unction and zeal, and that, Lord, I would communicate the importance of doing your work according to your word. And I pray all of this in Jesus' holy name. Amen and amen. Second Kings chapter 10, and I'm gonna be reading starting with verse 15. Now when he departed from there, he met Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet him. And he greeted him and said to him, is your heart right as my heart is toward your heart? And Jehonadab answered, it is. Jehu said, if it is, give me your hand. So he gave him his hand and he took him up to him into the chariot. Then he said, Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. So they had him ride in his chariot. And when he came to Samaria, he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed them according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to Elijah. Then Jehu gathered all the people together and said to them, Ahab served Baal a little, Jehu will serve him much. Now therefore call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants and all his priests. Let no one be missing for I have a great sacrifice for Baal. Whoever is missing shall not live. Jehu acted deceptively with the intent of destroying the worshipers of Baal. And Jehu said, proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. So they proclaimed it. Then Jehu sent throughout all Israel, and all the worshipers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left who did not come. So they came into the temple of Baal, and the temple of Baal was full from one end to the other. And he said to the one in charge of the wardrobe, bring out vestments for all the worshipers of Baal. So he brought out vestments for them. Then Jehu and Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, went into the temple of Baal, and said to the worshipers of Baal, search and see that no servants of the Lord are with you, but only the worshipers of Baal. So they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had appointed for himself 80 men on the outside, and he said, if any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escapes, whoever lets him escape, it shall be his life for the life of the other. Now it happened as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, the Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, go in and kill them. Let no one come out. And they killed them with the edge of the sword. Then the guards and the officers threw them out and went into the inner room of the temple of Baal. And they brought the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them. Then they broke down the sacred pillar of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump to this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel. However, Baal did not turn away from the sons of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin, that is from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan. And the Lord said to Jehu, because you have done well in doing what is right in my sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin. In those days, the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel, and Hazael conquered them, and all the territory of Israel from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh from Reror, which is by the River Arnon, including Gilead and Bashan. Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, all that he did and all his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Jehu rested with his fathers and they buried him in Samaria. Then Jehoahaz, his son, reigned in his place. And the period that Jehu reigned over Israel and Samaria was 28 years. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Well, I wonder if anybody, you can see the illustration there, can anybody tell me what device he is using? A plumb line, that's right. And a plumb line is something that we use in order to determine whether or not something is straight and upright. I have great pity for one of my new neighbors right now. He had a garden, which, a back garden as we would say in the UK, which sloped down at quite an angle. He was hoping to build it up, in essence to put a wall in around it that would allow him to level it so he could use more of the garden, which is currently on a slope. Unfortunately, the people that he contracted have the most lackadaisical approach to construction that I've ever seen. They are working incredibly haphazardly, and to say that his wall is out of plum would be a minor understatement. He is at wit's end about all of this. He has to now make plans, unfortunately, to later on do something about this company that has taken his money and is doing such a poor job. When a wall is out of plum, it means it's leaning in one direction or the other. It's not straight. It doesn't go straight up. And unfortunately, what that means is that two different things can happen. You have compromised structural integrity. The wall, most walls are bearing walls, and if a wall is leaning in one direction or the other, The lean can grow greater and greater and it could even collapse and destroy the building. There is also the potential for greater settlement and movement and it just makes everything more difficult. It's more difficult to, for instance, put a door in a wall that's out of plum or a window or to put in any sort of adjustments to the house. Ultimately, something that's out of plum is not good. And a lot of times this will happen simply because people don't take care. They aren't checking. They don't check against the measurements and things like that. They don't use the plum line. Very few people use plum lines today. They generally tend to use levels with a little bubble that moves back and forth. But it really is important when you're doing construction to make sure that you're in plumb. Now, when it comes to the word of the Lord, that is our plumb line. That is what we are supposed to be testing everything else by, not eyeballing it or when it comes to the commandments of the Lord saying, well, close enough. for kingdom work. There is no such thing as close enough in the kingdom. We are either hitting the mark, doing what God intends for us to do, or we are failing. Now, last week we saw that Jehu was excessive in the bloodshed that he shed. Although he is praised by the Lord for killing the house of Ahab, later in Hosea, a later prophet remarks that the blood of Jezreel was excessive. There were too many people who were put to death. Too many people who weren't on the Lord's list, for instance, the relatives of Ahaziah, are not mentioned. But we're also going to see now, as we've already read, we've seen where Jehu falls short. He leans in one direction or the other. He either doesn't do all of the things that the Lord would have him do, or he does too much, too far in his bloodshed, and not far enough in his reformation by half. So what happens here? Well, Jehu heads to Samaria, and on his way, he has this meeting with a man by the name of Jehonadab, who was the founder of a group called the Rechabites. Now, the Rechabites were a nomadic tribe. They were part of the people of Israel, or they were attached to the people of Israel. They had originally been Kenites, that is, people who had gone into the promised land with the Israelites. They were very, to think of them rightly, you would need to think of modern day or 20th century Bedouin, the tribesmen who they have herds that they move with, they live in tents and so on. The Rechabites were interesting because they had been given a formula that they were to live by by their founder, John Adab. In fact, turn in your Bibles to Jeremiah. You're going to be moving ahead in your Bible into the major prophets. And so, Jeremiah, chapter 35. And starting with verse 1 there, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord and into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink. Then I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazaniah, his brothers and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites, and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the sons of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes above the chamber of Maasiah, the son of Shalom, the keeper of the door. Then I sat before the sons of the house of the Rechabites, bowls full of wine and cups. And I said to them, drink wine. But they said, we will drink no wine. For Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father commanded us saying, you shall drink no wine, you nor your sons forever. You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these. but all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners. Thus we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, nor to build ourselves houses to dwell in, nor do we have vineyard, field, or seed, but we have dwelt in tents and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab, our father, commanded us." And then if you will skip down to 16, we read this, "'Surely the sons of Jonadab,' this is the Lord speaking, "'Surely the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, have performed the commandment of their father, which he commanded them, but this people has not obeyed me. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will bring on Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all the doom that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them, but they have not heard. And I have called to them, but they have not answered. And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not lack a man to stand before me forever." Now, the Lord uses the Rechabites as an example to his own people. I have commanded the people to do these good things. Now, the Lord did not withhold any good thing from his people. It was a land flowing with milk and honey. He told them. Plant vineyards. Make wine for yourself. Only be faithful to my commandments, my moral and my religious commandments to you. Keep my laws. Believe what I am telling you. Believe the prophets. And be faithful in all things. And yet they would not, despite the fact that he allowed them to do things like have wine. They took what he gave them. They perverted it. They used it to get drunk and so on. They, for instance, would hold Hebrews longer than seven years as slaves. They did all sorts of things. They were wicked and oppressive to widows and orphans. And above all, they did not keep his Sabbaths. They did not keep a close watch over their hearts when it came to going after foreign gods. and they engaged in all sorts of false worship. And the Lord points to the Rechabites and he says, these people keep the tradition of their father that he set for them, that they would be nomads and dwellers in tents and never drink wine, far better than you keep the laws of the Lord God who made you. You don't cleave to my word as well as these people cleave here. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we have Jehu meeting Jehonadab of the Rechabites as he is going into Samaria. The question that should be, we should be asking ourselves is will Jehu keep the word of the Lord, as well as Jehonadab keeps the word of his father Rechab. So, Jehu is headed into Samaria. He meets him. Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, says that they were friends of old. I don't know if that's the case. It's an extra biblical. commentary, but they knew each other. And he says, is your heart right towards me? As the new king, obviously. And Johanna Dabb says, yes. I am, in essence, your ally. So when he says, give me your hand, it's not merely to help him up into the chariot, which it is, but it's a symbolic thing. He's saying, be loyal to me. Enter into alliance with me. Help me as I now carry out this program. I am going to be zealous for the Lord, he tells him. He is going to go and wipe out Baal worship. Now, you remember Baal worship had been instituted by Jezebel. Jezebel was a Sidonian princess. The Sidonians were a Phoenician people. They were to the north. They worshiped Baal and his consort, Asherah. The poles that are being spoken of. Incidentally, there were pillars for Baal and there were these, what they called the Asherah poles. They were essentially obscene images. They were phallic symbols. And their worship was full of sexual immorality and so on. not just an abominable worship of false deities, it was immoral. But it also, it made them too closely tied to the Sidonians. So Jehu has a political reason also for breaking off or eliminating Baal worship in the nation. He doesn't want any Sidonian, he doesn't want any Phoenician influence in the kingdom any longer. So he comes into Samaria, and he starts this pretense. He says, Ahab served Baal a little. Jehu will serve him much. And that's true. Ahab was not the great worshipper of Baal. It was his wife, Jezebel, who was. And he's saying, no, no. I'm a true convert, me and Jehonadab here, we are going to be very zealous. And apparently they were unaware that this was just a deception. They thought they had a new true believer and they were very enthusiastic. The king is going to inaugurate his new worship of Baal. We're going to advance. Joram had been restraining their worship. Now he is going to push it forward. and there's gonna be a great celebration, a sacrifice to Baal, and everybody, all the Baal worshipers are no doubt absolutely enthusiastic. We know how, I'm sorry to bring this up, but we know how enthusiastic Christians get about celebrity conversions when we hear that this sports star or this movie star or this singer has become a Christian, and we elevate them, and everybody's, hey, did you hear that Kanye has become a Christian, he's making Christian music now, and then uh-oh, he's yay-yay again just a little while later. But in any event, they have that kind of excitement and they want to be there with the king, the new king, as he inaugurates this new worship of Baal and puts them back in a position of predominance within the nation as never before, like never before. It's going to be even better. So he's going to start a ceremonial sacrifice to Baal. And he does that, but he's already positioned men outside. And he says, if anybody escapes from there alive, it'll be your blood for theirs. So you better be absolutely zealous to make sure that all of them are put to death. And so that's what happens. All of the worshipers of Baal, the priests, and all of the people who would have called themselves Baalists, they are put to death. The sacred pillars of Baal then are brought out, and the wooden ones are burned. The stone ones, they used to destroy them by first they would build a fire around them until they got very, very hot, and then they would pour cold water upon them. And what happens is the rock fractures, and they utterly destroy the Temple of Baal. In fact, in this wonderful insult, it becomes a refuse dump The word in Hebrew that's used there literally means latrine, cesspool, or privy. They changed the temple of Baal after they utterly destroy it into a giant toilet, basically. So this was the greatest insult that could be rendered to Baal and his worshipers, this false god Baal. And up to this time, Jehu is presented as doing pretty good. This seems to be a thoroughgoing reformation, but then verse 29, Unfortunately, the brakes get slammed on and we realize, oh no, he's going to go back to Jeroboam's system of worship. He's going to encourage the people to continue to worship these golden calves at Bethel and Dan, these golden calves that Jeroboam had set up. We need to remember that Jeroboam had not set these golden calves up as false gods. He had not said these are different gods from Yahweh. He had said these are images of Yahweh in the same way you remember where Aaron at Mount Sinai He makes at the desire of the people. You remember Moses had ascended up into the mountain, gone up into the cloud and disappeared 40 days, 40 nights. All they saw was the presence of God at the top of the mountain thundering and the mediator is gone. What's going to happen to us? We need to go back to the symbolic worship that we saw in Egypt. you need to make images for us." And Aaron tells them to break off their earrings and give them to him and he molds this image of a calf. And he says, this is your God, O Israel, that led you out of Egypt. He's saying this is Yahweh. And now we're going to worship Yahweh in the way that the Egyptians worshiped their gods. And and the language there as well is that there's this sexualized holy day that he declares. He says it's a holy day to the Lord and he uses the word Yahweh. So Aaron instituted this idolatrous worship using literally a graven image, something that the Lord in commandment number two, right after you shall have no other gods before me, what's the second commandment? You shall not make for yourself a graven image. This is not the way to worship God. Now, when you have, for your example, the fact that God says, don't make graven images for me, and the example that's given is when Israel made a golden calf to decide golden calves are the way to go later on. I mean, it seems like the basis kind of stupidity, doesn't it? Okay, we're gonna make an image of God. What does he really dislike? Well, he was really not cool with golden calves. Let's go that way. It seems absurd, but unfortunately, that's the way it happens. But please keep in mind, they are worshiping God. They're just not worshiping God according to the way he appointed. In fact, they're going directly against what he had commanded them to do. And one commentator points out, with God it is all or nothing. We are to respond to him with all our heart and all our mind and all our soul and all our strength. Half-hearted responses will not do. this worship that they are going to continue and the worship that was begun by Jeroboam that was not according to his word, that did not follow his calendar, that did not include the Levites, that did not encourage the temple at Jerusalem, although it was politically expedient, it was an abomination. And what are the results for the nation of Israel? Do things get better? No, they do not. They get worse and worse. A wall that is out of plum, a wall that is leaning in the wrong direction, over time it doesn't get better. It tends to get worse. And as Jehu is not heeding the word of the Lord, as he is not following his commandments, he sets the standard for the nation. And they become careless as well in the way that they go about following the Lord. There is this, as Matthew Henry puts it, a decay of piety and an increase of profaneness. And the Lord begins to punish this. He begins to take away the lands that had been given to them, the tribal lands, when they had come into the promised land. We actually read how Hazael of the Syrians begins to actually take back these lands. But that at the behest of God. And that's the way that, unfortunately, Jehu's rule ends. They live under the domination, not denomination, domination of Syria. The entire Transjordan territory is taken away by Hazel. And Jehu is forced to pay tribute to Assyria. probably to get them to help as they are fighting Syria. The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser that I mentioned before, it's got this picture of Jehu bowing and offering up his homage and his gifts to Shalmaneser III. And he writes on the statue, the tribute of Jehu, son of Amri. I received from him silver, gold, a golden saplu bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king, and wooden puruhutu. We don't know what they are. We also don't know what a saplu bowl was, but apparently it was amongst the offerings, amongst the tribute that Jehu was forced to give to him. Now most people, unfortunately, do not put together religious zeal with the nation's well-being. But it really is that way in the Word of God. When the nation is zealous for God's Word, when it is doing what He has commanded, they tend to do well. The Lord, when they had entered into the promised land, had said, you're going into this land. It's filled with people who have been worshiping false deities for centuries. You're going to destroy them and drive them out. But if you don't, and if you adopt the practices of their gods, it's going to go very, very poorly for you. If you listen to me, if you believe my promises, if you believe in the promise of the coming Redeemer, and you hold true to my commandments, if you worship me the way that I've instructed you, you will have blessings. But if you don't, it's going to go badly. You will inherit curses. And unfortunately, Jehu had this good enough for kingdom work approach to things. We're going to keep the worship of the golden calves. It's politically expedient. I don't want the people going back to Jerusalem because they might be won over and we might have the united kingdom again. I want to keep my kingdom. He reigns for 28 years, and he is told that his sons will sit on the throne for four generations, which is not bad, but it's not a promise that your sons will sit on the thrones forever, and eventually, because of their apostasy, their failure to get rid of their blighted worship, they are eventually destroyed by Assyria. Matthew Henry warns us in an application. He did what he did for political expediencies' sake, and he says, True conversion is not only from wasteful sins, but from gainful sins. Not only from those sins that are destructive to the secular interest, but from those that support and befriend it in forsaking, which is the great trial, whether we can deny ourselves and trust God. It's not enough to merely forsake those sins that destroy us. We all understand idols that are killing us. Well, many people who are being destroyed by idols don't understand them. Drug use can be an idol. Alcohol abuse can be an idol. All sorts of things. Sexual sin can become an idol to you, and it can gradually destroy you. We see what these things do, and we say, I should put them off. But there are other idolatries that we can enter into that the nation will actually approve of, for instance. Replacing the love of God with love of country, for instance, and worshiping the flag, and making it into a civil religion. That is approved of, or was approved of, for many, many years. And unfortunately, it does a nation no good when they turn away, or when they are incomplete in their devotion to God. God does not want half your heart. God does not want merely to rent space in your heart. What the Lord wants is your whole heart. He wants your wholehearted devotion, your faith, and as a result, your obedience. So in that sense, Jehu was rather like Queen Elizabeth I. Why do I say that? Well, because Queen Elizabeth, obviously, she followed, she was King Henry VIII's daughter. We talked about Henry VIII last week. Elizabeth was Protestant in her leanings. Certainly she was no Roman Catholic, no Romanist, and the Jesuits wanted her dead. The Catholics tried very, very hard, in fact, to assassinate her for many years. However, She did not want the Puritans to prevail either. They wanted a reformed church. They wanted a Presbyterian system of church government. They wanted the archbishops and the bishops and the idea that the king or queen of England is the head of the church. They wanted done with that. They wanted also reform in their worship. They wanted the robes and the vestments and the holy days, the liturgical calendar and all of the smells and the bells and the ceremonies that had no part in apostolic religion in the Bible. They wanted these things gone. And she said, oh, no, no, we're not going that far. So she created this religious settlement a halfway. It was Protestant in terms of its beliefs. The 39 articles of the Anglican Church are outwardly Protestant. But it maintained this idea that the church has the right to decree for itself rites and ceremonies. The Lord may not have said you should do these things, but we're going to do this. And as a result, they created a church that was out of plum with God's word. It wasn't following his instructions. But she did not want to simplify the church, bring it back to biblical simplicity. She, in fact, once said, the church is mine. I am not of the church. In other words, I am above the church. And I don't have to listen to what the members or the ministers of the church and its elders say. In that sense, she was very much like Jehu. Her religion was politically motivated. Now, I'm very glad that she didn't give in to Romanism. I am happy that the Spanish Armada failed. Yay go Elizabeth in that sense, you know. But at the same time, I am very sad that she never brought about a thoroughgoing reformation, and this led, of course, to civil war in the 17th century as the Puritans attempted to reform the church and were constantly stifled and stopped in doing so. And then we had the Restoration when Charles II was brought back, and he brought back essentially the idolatries that she would not get rid of. That's the problem, we just never want a wholehearted reformation. We really do seem to hold on far too often to this close enough for kingdom work. We don't get as far as Calvin did when he said, my heart to thee, O Lord, I offer promptly and sincerely. That is too often the case. Calvin went on to write this, he said, I know how difficult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by his word. The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated as it were in their very bones and marrow, is that whatever they do has in itself a sufficient sanction, provided that they exhibit some kind of zeal for the honor of God. Remember what Jehu said, come see my zeal for the Lord. But since God not only regards as fruitless, but also plainly abominates whatever we undertake from zeal to his worship, if at variance with his command, what do we gain by a contrary course? The words of God are clear and distinct. Obedience is better than sacrifice. In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Every addition to His Word, especially in this matter, is a lie. Mere will-worship, this is the decision. And once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate. And that, unfortunately, was something that Jehu just didn't believe. And a lot of people don't as well. We feel, you know, if it is something that we enjoy, we can add it. But over time, the wall gets more and more out of plum as the weight that it bears of new additions and traditions and so on, and we get further and further away from biblical simplicity. There are churches today that are absolutely loaded to the brim with vestments and smells and all sorts of ceremonies that the Lord never instituted, and the word of God is utterly crushed beneath them. His word is not preached, the gospel is not preached, and it's clear simplicity. And that's why we need to be a people who are always zealous for sticking to the word of God. And if he doesn't command us to do it, what should we do? Not do it. It's very simple, but unfortunately it has proven so difficult to actually do in church history. It's one of the reasons why we strive for as much biblical simplicity as we possibly can within this congregation. It's not that we don't like these things. I have often confessed this. My heart is strangely stirred in an earthly sense by the worship of Westminster Abbey. You walk into Westminster and oh my word, the vaulted ceilings, you've got the boys choir and so on and all of the all of the pomp and the circumstance and so on. It appeals to, I don't know, maybe it's ingrained in, you know, that's the last remnants of my Englishness that I seem not to be able to drive out. And so I see the appeal to it. But it's not biblical. It's not in keeping with his word. It's full of additions that the Lord did not intend for us to do. And it turns us away in its own way from simply following after the Lord Jesus Christ and persuades us that if we, we do these things, if we perform these rights, if we, uh, enter into these ceremonies, the Lord will be pleased. but the Lord tells us he's pleased with obedience to his word. That is the response of the faithful heart. So let's remember we can add to the word of the Lord, we can take away from it, but in both we fail to do what he's told us. Let's not be guilty of the sins of Jehu, but to try, even though we'll never do it perfectly, but to try to follow his commandments as best we can this side of glory. Let's go before him now. God our Father, I do thank you, Lord, for the instructions that you've given us in your word. We thank you for the gospel. We thank you that it is simple and really easy to understand that we need to put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and to follow him, to obey him, and to make him known to the world. You've given us a commission to make disciples of the nations. to go out and teach them His commandments, not to invent things, even though they might be pleasing and pleasant and visually stunning even, Lord, not to do those things, but rather to stay true to Him and His Word. May we make the biblical Christ known to the world, and we pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen.