Our Scripture reading now will be from John 12, beginning in verse 37. I'll read all the way down through verse 50. I would ask that you would read along silently with me as I read out loud. But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which He spoke Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Therefore, they could not believe because Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Then Jesus cried out and said, He who believes in Me believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me. and he who sees Me sees him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My Word has that which judges Him. The Word that I have spoken will judge Him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority, but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me so, I speak. Let's pray. Our Lord in Heaven, we thank You for the Word of God that teaches us how to live. We thank You, O Lord, for all that Your Son Jesus Christ has done for us and that You have granted us by Your Holy Spirit the supernatural ability to now live lives that please Him, that honor Him, Pray, O Lord, that You would help us to seek out Your Word. May it be precious to us. May Your Word impact our hearts. May it give us much to think about through the week. May we fill our minds with thoughts of You so that thoughts of worldly things and worldly endeavors might quickly fade away. May the truths that we discover in Your Word today be life-changing. All of this for Your glory, O Lord. For it's in Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen. If you notice that in your bulletin, there's a very interesting title for the message today. I have to be honest about how I found that title. dead hearts and blind eyes. When I talked to Edith on the phone and gave her the information for the bulletin, she actually asked, what is this, Halloween theme? And the truth be known, it was actually just something I had sitting on my desk right then when I was talking to her on the phone and I picked it up. It was a book that had dealt with this passage. And I said, well, that sounds good to me. So I did that. It's not a Halloween theme by any stretch. What it is, is the fact that we are dealing here in this passage with spiritually blind eyes and spiritually dead hearts. This is absolutely nothing new to these Israelites. If you remember back in the Old Testament, how many times do we read the Lord telling His people how they've been blind and how they've so grieved Him. And in fact, Jesus Himself at one point says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you like a hen gathers its chicks. And you wouldn't do it. These hearts are blind. They cannot see what is plainly before them. Moses finds this frustration over and over again. Remember, he leads the people of Israel out of Egypt. And as He's leading them out of Egypt, it seems we have recorded in the books of the Law, we have recorded event after event after event where Moses comes up to this wonderful opportunity and this wonderful time of victory in Jehovah and in the Lord where the Lord will show Himself mighty. And Israel fails and rejects the Lord over and over and over. and over again. And it's not just regulated to this brief period of Israel's history. That is their M.O. throughout their entire existence. We skip ahead to the time of Samuel. And we've been studying Samuel on Wednesday night Bible studies. If you have a chance to get out for that, it's a wonderful time of sharing and reading and praying. But even there, When it comes down to it, Samuel realizes that the people have done something very serious. The people come to Samuel and said, you know what? Your children aren't walking with God. You're getting up there in years and it's too much for us. We need a king. We need someone who will lead us like the other nations are led. And Samuel gets into this completely depressed funk and he rolls back and is depressed and is sorrowing. And the Lord comes to him and says, Samuel, Don't worry about this. Don't take this personally. These people have not rejected you. They've rejected Me. Wait a minute. Israel rejecting God? Don't they realize that this is the same God who has led them out of captivity? This is the same God who has helped them in the previous years to completely destroy all of their enemies? Every enemy that they come against when they stand with the Lord, they've destroyed? Throughout the book of Judges, we see this cycle where Israel disobeys God and they repent. And every time they repent, the Lord has been absolutely and completely faithful to deliver them every time. And they're going to come to the book of 1 Samuel and what are they going to do? They're going to reject Him again. Not only that, but when you get to the books of the prophets, the New Testament reveals something very awesome and something very sobering that this nation of Israel, God's chosen people, the people that the book of Romans tells us through whom the oracles of God came to man. In other words, the words of God came to man through the Jews. And yet He says that these people did what to the prophets? Treated them bad? No, you know what it says they did to the prophets? They murdered the prophets. We get here and there is something that is absolutely and eerily similar to all that has gone on in the Old Testament. It's frightening. Some of you have probably experienced that very same situation if you have raised children or are raising children and all of a sudden you come up against a situation and you're looking at your child and you realize, I remember thinking that. I remember being like that. And it's very eerie thinking that, oh my goodness, because I know what that's going to lead to. I know where this is going with them. I know the outcome of their disobedience or their rebellion. And there's just a very eerie and sinking feeling. And that's the feeling I get when I read the beginning of the passage that we're dealing with today in John 12, verse 37. Although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe." It's happening again. I'm going to look at this, and actually this passage that we're dealing with today can be broken down into two parts. If you look at verses 37 all the way down to about 43, it's talking about this response It summarizes the response of the religious leaders to the miracles of Christ. Then if you look at verses 44 down through the end, it's kind of giving a last kind of summing up of what God's message to them is. So we have their response. John is saying, now let me recap for you. This is basically how the religious leaders respond to Christ. And then we have verses 44-50, and it's saying, and this is basically what Christ is telling them. We're going to look at all of this today, and really when we look at their response, it kind of really just introduces the other part. So we'll look at that as introduction, and then we'll get into the bulk of the text in a little while. Verse 37 though. Verse 37 is the last time second to the last time, excuse me, in this entire book that that word sign is used. The whole book of John is about signs. It's about miracles. The word sign and miracles throughout the New Testament is exactly the same word. It's semeon. And signs and miracles come up over and over again throughout the book of John. But here in John 12, and remember, we've got a lot of book left, this is where it's absolutely cut off. No more signs for you. No more miracles for you. I'm not going to make it that clear anymore. Essentially is what's happening. The only other time in the book that we have the word miracle used is in John 20, verse 30. You remember that verse? That's the summary verse that says many other signs and miracles Jesus did, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So we have here this cutting off of miracles. This is the end. And we can kind of in our own little way, we look back and we say, man, if I was there, I would have believed. Right? Isn't that the way we normally think? You know, if I had just seen a miracle, that would make it so much more easy for me to believe. What's the problem with that? The problem with that is that miracles are not the issue. Your heart is the issue. because many of us in our lifetime have seen miracles, things that really cannot seriously be considered something that is natural. I remember when I was in high school, and this may seem minor to you, but it's not to me. I remember Auntie Marilyn. Auntie Marilyn was one of those ladies that when you're in high school, somehow when the whole group of guys goes out and you go surfing or diving whatever guys do on their days off, we would somehow, miraculously, I use that word I guess, end up at Auntie Marilyn's house right around lunchtime. I don't know how it happened. It was just a coincidence. And she would always make wonderful things for us. And we'd always spend the rest of the afternoon there at Auntie Marilyn's house. And we would just sit around and talk and goof off. It's wonderful. I remember Auntie Marilyn coming being distraught one night, the Wednesday night prayer meeting that we had. And she said, I went in to the doctor today and they took an x-ray and they found a spot on my liver. And my history being that, you know, it's probably cancer and they're going to go and do a biopsy. I think it was going to be the next week. And we prayed and we prayed and we prayed. The next Wednesday we came back to Bible study. And we had all prayed that entire week. And Sunday we prayed for her in church. It was an amazing time of prayer. We came back on Wednesday night and she said, well, I went in for the biopsy and the doctor said, well, why don't we take another x-ray just to make sure. Let's take another x-ray. And the doctor said, I don't know, maybe it was something on the film or something like that, but there's absolutely no spot. There's nothing there. And of course, you say, well, see, the doctor said it was probably something on the film. And that's exactly the way that an unbelieving heart would always describe a miracle. raised Lazarus from the tomb, and it was so undeniable. Yet some of these men that had seen that are talked about in this verse, and that despite the fact that Jesus had actually raised someone from the dead, they said, you know what? Maybe, you know, Lazarus was sleeping for four days. Maybe Lazarus, you know, was just out of commission. In a coma for four days or something. And when Jesus happened to yell You know, they yelled loud enough and it shook the area and everything was wonderful and fine and he came walking out. Some of these men later on when Jesus Himself would rise from the dead, they had set their very own guards outside of His tomb and their guards came to them and said, something terrible has happened. See, in the middle of the night, we kind of fell asleep and the ground began to shake and it shook so mightily that a stone that was covering the tomb rolled away, and this angel descended, and Jesus came walking out of the tomb, and He just absolutely walked away. And these men fell on their knees and said, O Lord, what have we done? We've crucified the Lord of glory. No, they didn't do that. You know what they did? They reached down into their pocket, they pulled out their wallet, and they said to the guard, don't tell anybody this, okay? I remember, I don't know if any of you are familiar with the BC comic. You see that every Sunday. My understanding is actually that the guy who writes that is a believer. He had one, one Easter that was just hilarious and it was this Jewish rabbi standing there by this Roman guard kind of looking around and handing out some money like this and saying, don't worry, in a couple of years nobody will even know about this. I thought that was pretty funny, that cartoon being written 2,000 years after the event. My point being this, the issue is always the heart of man. Always the heart of man. You will reject every miracle. You will reject every bit of reason. You will reject everything if your heart is not regenerate. If you have not been touched by the power of God. And here we have this statement in verse 37. And by the way, it says, although He had done so many signs before them, that's a very, very strong statement that He makes there, because the word before them is the word emprosten. And emprosten, I looked it up, and among all of the other definitions, they had the idea of face-to-face. Face-to-face He did these miracles. You could literally say that Jesus these miracles and literally shoved them in their face. You cannot avoid this. Look at this. And they still didn't see it. Verse 38, one of the most significantly prophetic passages in the Old Testament is quoted here in verse 38. It says that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? If you turn over real quick to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53. This is where this passage is found. But I want to look at some other things that surround Isaiah 53. When we think about Isaiah 53, we don't usually think about people rejecting Christ. We usually think about what it says here in verse 4. Surely, surely, He has borne our griefs. He has carried our sorrows. We esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we were healed. We look at that passage and it is so profoundly messianic. It so profoundly speaks of who Jesus would be hundreds of years from the time that this was written. And it is just so beautiful to us, but we fail to recognize that in the very first verse, look at what Isaiah says. He says, Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? In other words, it's as if Isaiah is standing there saying as he's about to write one of the most beautiful passages ever penned in any tongue, whether that's English or anything, any language ever written, he's about to pen it and yet at the beginning of this passage, what does he say? He says basically, is anybody listening? Is there anybody here to hear what I'm about to say? Because it is the most profound thing that we could ever conceive of. that someone else would bear our grief. Someone else would bear our sorrow. And that the beating that someone else takes would be applied to our account. And yet, he says, is anyone listening? And this is precisely what John quotes here in verse 38 of John 12. Lord, who has believed our report and to whom the arm of the Lord revealed? Verse 39 says, "...therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again..." Verse 40, "...He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts, and turn so that I should heal them." Now I want you to listen very carefully to what it says here. It says, "...therefore they could not believe." I don't know of a more distressing statement in the entire Bible than that statement, they could not believe. Why? Because it goes on to say that God hardened their hearts. God blinded their eyes. And folks, if it hasn't already reminded you of this, let me remind you of a man named Pharaoh. You remember that Pharaoh was this king of Egypt. And Pharaoh had a really good thing going there in Egypt because they had this entire labor force. A labor force of slaves. It was a labor force that was doing all of their work for them. This labor force did all of the work for the Egyptians, did all of the work for the Egyptian Pharaohs. And at the same time, they raised their own food, and raised their own crops, and went and got their own water. In other words, you had all of this free labor and you provided absolutely nothing for them. Pharaoh at one point is greeted by the man Moses, and Moses stands before him and says, Pharaoh, let my people go. Let my people go. And what does Pharaoh say? Pharaoh says, I'm not going to let them go. Now, I want you to notice, and we're not going to go back and look at that all, look at all of the passages, But it says over and over again, and it says, And Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let them go. And then we find the same plea come up again. And you remember there were ten plagues. And after each plague, Pharaoh says, Okay, okay, I'll let you go. And then after the first plague, he says, I'll let you go. And then Pharaoh hardened his heart. and wouldn't let them go. So another plague comes and Pharaoh goes, whoa, this is too much for me. You guys can go. And then it says, and then Pharaoh hardened his heart. It goes through all of these things and when you get to the ninth plague, it says, then the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. If Pharaoh had any inclination of actually saying, okay, okay, this has gone on long enough. I'll let you guys go. It was all over at that point. Because now Pharaoh had no real choice in the matter, did he? God hardened his heart. And folks, this happens to people. This happens to people over and over again when they turn their back on God, when they defy the Holy One of Israel, that eventually God comes and hardens their heart. Let me put a little caveat on that. Because I have actually had people come to me and say, I'm like Pharaoh. God's hardened my heart. I can't believe. Pharaoh didn't know his heart was hardened. If you think that your heart is hardened against the Lord and that God has somehow hardened your heart, then you're not a candidate here. These Pharisees didn't know that their heart had been hardened. These religious leaders didn't know that their hearts had been hardened. If you think that God has hardened your heart, then probably He has not. Turn back to Isaiah chapter 6, verse 9 and 10. Note here that he's not giving a direct quote in Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6, verse 9 and 10. He doesn't quote it directly. Listen to what he says. Make the heart of this people dull. Make their ears heavy. and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and return and be healed." And what we have here is an adaptation of that quote in John chapter 12. Because in Isaiah 6 we have a command to do that. And we have the fulfillment of the command revealed here in John chapter 12. And all that John is doing is he has tweaked the wording a little bit just to demonstrate this is where this has been fulfilled. Where is it? When Isaiah says in Isaiah 6, when is that going to happen, John? John says it's right here. These things. Verse 41 says, Isaiah said, when he saw His glory and spoke of Him. When he saw the glory of the Lord and spoke of Him, these are the words that he said. And the reason he does that, it's probably just so that you can locate where it is, because this is not a very popular passage in verse 10. However, if you look at verse 1 of chapter 6 in Isaiah, that is a very popular passage. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood Seraphim, Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. And with two he flew. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." This is kind of like John giving the reference here. He says, this is where it's found. And this is a side note. This has nothing to do with the central teaching of this passage. However, it does prove something. Because I want you to look. If you can keep your finger in John 12 and one finger in Isaiah chapter 6, John 12, verse 41 says this, these things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him. Who is His and who is Him? He's speaking of Jesus, right? This is Jesus being talked of. Now, turn back if you will. There are some people that come with leather satchels to your doorstep. And they like to tell people that Jesus is not God. In fact, if you tell them that Jesus is God and I've had them do this to me, they try to make fun of you. And they try to say, that is so illogical and you cannot be intelligent and think that because Jesus at one point speaks to God the Father. And then you say, well, that's because they're part of the Trinity and they'll tell you, well, the Trinity is never found in the Bible. And that's true, the word Trinity isn't. However, is Jesus God is the issue. Here John says that he spoke of Him, speaking of Jesus, Look back here. Who was it that was lifted up? Who is it that Isaiah is speaking of? It says, And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah Sabaoth, Lord of hosts. So when Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door and they tell you that, you can take them to this verse and say, Who is this speaking of? And they would say, Oh, of course, it's Jesus. Turn them back here and say, Well, it says here that it is Jehovah. It is God. That's all for free. You don't pay for that. Verse 42 and 43, it says that nevertheless among these rulers, In general, the idea was this. In general, the idea was that there was a group of rulers, and as a body of rulers, as a Sanhedrin, Sanhedrin as representatives of the nation of Israel completely rejected Jesus. They rejected Him. However, there was a handful among them, and many considering the size of the group, but many, it says, believed on Him. But because of the Pharisees, look at what it says, they did not confess Him. lest they should be put out of synagogue, for they love the praise of men more than the praise of God." Literally, when it says the praise, it's the word dogza. And you remember that dogza is the word that means glory. They love the glory that men would give rather than the glory that God would give. Can you imagine that? Sacrificing eternity? the glories of heaven because you want someone to say, hey, good job. If that's the case, man, make a recording of yourself telling yourself that and play it over and over again because you don't sacrifice the glory that God gives for someone telling you good job. Can I say that this is something we need to teach our kids? There are a bunch of little methods that people use to teach kids not to succumb to peer pressure. Nancy Reagan had just say no. People come around and they just say no. You've heard some people say when kids say, but Albertsons down the road, they do such and such. And the dad would say, do I look like Mr. Albertson, right? That's valid. My dad did it, but it wasn't the Albertsons. It was another family. I won't name because some might know them. This is what we need to teach. You're going to sacrifice this glory. You're going to make the sacrifice of all that heaven is so that your friend can say, oh, I think you're cool. You know how empty those words would sound? In the pit of hell? Yeah, this real hurts, but listen, your friend thinks you're cool. I have to admit that through my life, I don't think I've ever been cool. I've never been affirmed in that way by either my friends or my parents that you are cool. I don't know, some of my friends, I guess, would affirm me in that way, but I didn't really care. My parents never affirmed in any way that, The best thing, oh, you know, of course, moms and dads, they say that their kids are handsome. You know, a face only a mother could love. That kind of stuff. But beyond that, my parents always put before me a much higher standard. And that was, son, does this bring God glory? Dad, can I go to my friend's house to spend the night? Why? And you think about that. I'm eight, nine years old, and my dad says, why? So I can play. You know what my dad would say? Son, is that what life is about? Playing? Well, of course, for kids, life is about playing. You get serious about stuff later. No, you don't get serious about stuff later. Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it. You have to think about these things. Of course, I learned to tailor my answers after that a little better. Why are you going to your friend's house? So that we can fellowship? Go, go, go. Point being, these men were willing to sacrifice. And listen, it doesn't say that they were unbelievers. It said they understood. All of a sudden they came to this realization, this is the Christ. But do they receive Him? Do they embrace Him? They believe that He's the Christ, but do they do anything about it? No, they don't. Why? Sacrifice the glory of God for the glory of men. These men are men who had not really counted the cost. They were committed to their old ways. Later on, we do read in John 19 that there's a couple of them that become more bold. Later on in Acts, I think several of them make a public declaration. We read specifically about Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who make public professions after Christ's death. But don't sacrifice. Don't sacrifice what is eternal for what is temporal. Sir, all of you know that on Friday, most of the world celebrated Halloween. October 31st, right? What most people don't know is that October 31st is also a date to celebrate something that is much, much more significant than Halloween. It had nothing to do with costumes or candy. Because was it 490 something years ago on October 31st, a fiery little German. We don't know any fiery little Germans, do we? A fiery German man walked up to a chapel in Wittenberg in 1517 on August 31st, and he took these 95 things that he said were wrong He didn't really intend to make a statement and say, these are all wrong. What he intended when he went up there is he said, you know what? These are things that I perceive to be wrong. There was an All Saints Day festival coming up. He went up to the door of the chapel, which was like a bulletin board for them back then, and he took a tack and he tacked them up there. The leaders of that chapel came and found what he had written and considered these 95 theses scandalous. And they took Martin Luther to court. Martin Luther had only intended having his authority, having his education, having everything on the line. He had only intended to have a civil debate. But without having any debate, they said, no, you must recant all of these things. And if you don't recant these things, then we will pronounce judgment on you. Several years later, on April 17, 1521, He went to a town called Worms. And they gathered together what was called a Diet. It looks like diet, which is of course disgusting to English readers because it looks like a diet of worms. But it's a Diet of Worms is what it's called. And it was a gathering where they were supposed to determine the orthodoxy of Martin Luther. Never had they given him opportunity to even discuss these things. On the 17th of April, Martin Luther stood there and was tried. He was asked questions. He was asked to explain. After all of his explanations came down, the church declared him a heretic. And they said on April 17, 1521, you must recant. Martin Luther said these words. He said, let me go to my study. Let me go to the chamber you have provided for me here and I will tonight read, I will pray, I will seek God's face, and tomorrow I will come back with an answer. Now there's something that I failed to mention to you because in the crowd there, was a man named Johan van Eyck, I think is what his name was. Johan van Eyck had done a masterful job between 1517 and 1521 with writing papers to the Pope and telling the Pope that this man, and in fact all of the leaders of the church, he was sending these pamphlets out to all of them, and had thoroughly convinced the church that Martin Luther's doctrine was very much in line with a man named John Huss. Do you recall that name, John Huss? To Protestants and Anabaptists, John Huss is a wonderful figure in history. He wanted to translate the Scriptures and was not allowed. John Huss taught what he thought was biblical teaching and for that, Some hundred years before this, in the 1400s, he was burned at the stake. He was put on a pole and burned to death. Now, Van Eck was sitting there in the Diet of Worms. He was sitting there and sitting across the room from Martin Luther. And it came up, of course, that Luther is obviously a Hussite. What do you think Luther went home and prayed about that night? He understood something. If they can connect me with John Huss, then what is my fate? My fate is exactly what his is. Martin Luther came down on April 18th and stood before the council there. And they had all of his books that they claimed were heretical. He had searched his heart all night. He had searched the Scriptures all night. He had prayed to the Lord all night. Solemnly and in a dignified manner, he turned to them and he apologized for his tone. He said, I apologize that at times I have been very harsh with some of you. Thinking that his fate would be death, he said these words, nevertheless, here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen." And with that, the Diet of Worms was closed. And Martin Luther walked away very much expecting that that night he would be executed, or sometime shortly. Here I stand. Here in these passages, In this passage, in this verse, verse 43, it says that these rulers love the praise of men more than the praise of God. How is it in our lives? How is it in our hearts? What are we? What are we made of? I can tell you sometimes I've been like Peter. You know, Peter got out there and when the rubber met the road, so to speak, he was standing there and they said, are you a follower of this Jesus who's about to be crucified? And hearing the word crucified, I'm sure Peter shuddered and said, I don't know Him. I don't know what this is all about. I don't know Him. He did that three times. The final time he used expletives to do it just to demonstrate, you see, he would never say things like this. How could I be a follower of this very refined rabbi when I use this kind of language? Sometimes I've been like Peter. But folks, as a course of your life, Jesus doesn't want and God doesn't want us just to come up and say, here I stand. You know what? Me standing in a pulpit telling you that? It's almost shameful. Because nothing is at stake for me here. But folks, I have talked to people, even in the last four years, where I knew it was going to cost me something. And frankly, I knew it was going to cost this church something. And I've had to say, here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen. Well, not for the praise of men. But listen, this is something that is not exclusive to leaders. This is something that is in each one of our lives. And you will have a wonderful opportunity even today, I almost guarantee it, to stand before people and to declare with your lips or with your life who you are. Are you a follower of Christ? Do you believe? And you will have two choices. You can either say, I really desire the glory that is given by man. Or you can say, I desire the glory that is given by God. May God help us to have the boldness and the understanding to always confess Him and to always stand strong. Let's pray. Lord in Heaven, we are so thankful that You have provided for us as 1 Peter tells us all that pertains to life and godliness. The hard decisions that we have to make in our lives, You have given us all that we need to make those. The hard decisions that we have to make as it relates to our relationship to You, You've given us everything that we need for that. Help us to be bold. Help us to be wise. Help us always to stand. Father, and I pray this with all sincerity, that You would help us not to stand our ground, but to stand Your ground and be Your servants in all of this. Lord, I pray that You would keep hearts soft And should there be anyone here who does not know You, may they not pass over to the point where You harden their hearts. But Lord, may You keep their hearts soft and pliable. And we plead in their cause and in their stead, understanding that their salvation could only bring You glory. We pray these things for Your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.