We're to chapter 18 of Brown of Wemphrey's Pious and Elaborate Treatise Concerning Prayer and the Answer of Prayer. Chapter 18 is about the marks of praying a rite in Christ's name. Remember our text that he is using throughout the book and to which he continues to have reference, John 14, 13 and 14. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. That the Father may be glorified, the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. So. We want to look in this chapter. He wants to have us consider whether or not we're actually asking in the name of Christ. Whether or not we're doing Any of that that he's been talking about the last couple of chapters and so this is sort of In a sense an inventory From which he wants you to Make those determinations because really only you are can assess yourself and know whether or not you are making right use of the name of Christ in prayer or not. If you're just sort of throwing it in as a coda or an appendix, then the fact is that you've missed his entire point. You need to have a sense of who Christ is, and that entails having really a pretty good sense of who you are. And that idea in Brown is not something new or unusual or peculiar to Brown. If you've read any of Calvinist institutes in the first chapter or two, Calvin begins with the assertion that knowledge of God and knowledge of oneself are in some sense flip sides of the same coin. So the better you know God, the better you're going to know yourself, the better you know yourself, the better you're going to know God. When you know the true God, because the true God really meets and complements all of those defects that you're going to find in yourself. Everything that Christ has done, everything he's undertaken to do on behalf of sinners of mankind, he's done with a very sober and accurate assessment of the condition of mankind. So he's undertaken for people who are not only unable but unwilling to keep the law of God, unable and unwilling to render an acceptable service to God, give glory to God as they're required. We're just not willing. By nature, we don't... and this is a very odd thing about sin. Sin puts you in a place where you are in extreme need. Your dependence upon God has grown exponentially from simply a state of creation. Alright, but in a state of sin, you are now absolutely averse to the idea that you even have a problem. Right, so there's a delusional element to sin. And then people wonder, you know, why, I mean, and this is not just in the world, in the churches, there's no difference right now, in the church, In the world, how many people are on antidepressants? Right, why? Why is it? That people are you know, they gravitate toward drugs and toward alcohol and excess and in all these other things Why is it? All right. The reason is that They are self-medicating. But if you medicate without an eye to the real root cause, you're just covering symptoms. You're not actually doing anything that will alleviate those symptoms. So what Brown is doing here, and this is with respect to prayer, he's giving us a list. He's going to give us a list and have you check it off. so that you have a sense, you have a way of knowing whether or not you are making proper use of Christ. And if you're not, the inference and the admonition that is not only implied but sometimes is explicit in what Brown says, is that you would go to God with that, that you would confess. You know, the first thing about dealing with God is you need to be honest about yourself. You know, the weird thing, again, about people in their depravity is they are all too prone to make God after their own image. And so they think that they try to convince themselves that all of this is normal. This is the way it should be. Whereas I think any rational person who wasn't deluded would look around and conclude something has gone wrong. Something's gone radically wrong. When we see not only what happens in society, among the nations, but we see what happens just within ourselves. We reflect upon how we interact with other people and with ourselves, right? How we think when we're alone. There's something radically wrong with this picture. And, you know, you're not even approaching the true God If you can't make that assessment, you can't say, I realize there's something wrong. You know, I see that there is this, not only weakness, but this averseness. I like, I, there are times when I know what is right. This is something Augustine points out in his confession, right? When he says, I'm walking by very famous story, walking by a man's yard. me and a friend and we see he has a pear tree. We're not hungry, right? But we climb the fence and we steal some of his pears just to do it. And he said that, you know, looking back on that, he said, that should have been a clue, right? Why did I do that? I didn't do it because I was hungry. I didn't have any need that, you know, was physical. Instead of giving expression to some sort of spiritual malady, right? The fact that I would reach into this guy's property and take his stuff, and I don't even need it, you know, but I steal it so I can throw it away. There's something twisted about that, right? There's something not right. And Augustine says, if you would focus on that in yourself, Because we all do that in some way or other. We've all, we all do it, we've all done it. Ask yourself why. And so, these are things to keep in mind. Because Brown has already said, if you're going to make right use of Christ, you have to have a proper assessment of yourself as a sinner. You have to know that you have sinned before God. All right, so there are three points, beginning at question 352. The three points of using Christ's name that will be made use of in this chapter. And so he wants us to consider, A, or first, the use of Christ's name before prayer. B or second, the use of Christ's name in prayer. And if you couldn't guess, C or third is the use of Christ's name after prayer. He's already talked about some of this in detail. The fact is that if we If we rightly took our spiritual pulse, we would see that we are sinners who stand in need of something more than we could possibly bring to the table. We need grace. And that grace is available only in and through Christ. God has not attached a promise of grace and mercy anywhere else to anything else. So that again is an indication of the uniqueness of Christ, right? The promise of God to sinners of mankind meet us in Him. So how we do that inventory before prayer, how our minds conceive of prayer when we're in prayer, and how we are referring all of that to God after prayer. All of that is is dependent upon having a right apprehension of who Christ is and what he's done. And why he's done it. And again, once you get into that why, you have to take into account your own estate. So, The first thing here before prayer 353 What should be our use of the name of Christ He says we have to make a right use Considering His name offices and work Which he says is really this we have to We have to think about the fact that he is a mediator He is an intercessor and he's an advocate He's standing in the gap between God and us So that That name Jesus reminds us of the historical reality that the eternal Son of God has become incarnate and walked upon the earth, right? The title Christ reminds us that he took upon himself our nature in order to be a mediator. We can't take the divine nature into ourselves. But in Christ, God has taken the human nature and assumed a hypostatic union. It's a personal union. It's not that the divine nature and human nature are joined together, so there'd be any mixing or confusion. But the divine person, who is the eternal son of God, takes into union with himself, our nature. Theologically it's called a hypostatic union. It is a personal union, not a natural union. So that the union between God and man is not It's not natural. There's nothing that would in any way indicate that there's any truth to say panentheism or pantheism, the idea that everything is God. We're not God. All these things around us are not God. God is in, although there's an immanency whereby we can say that God is in everything because he's everywhere. Everything is not God by virtue of that because there's a natural union between the Creator and the creation. But in Christ there's a personal union of the divine nature with the human nature. There's a personal bridge and that bridge is the man Christ Jesus. So that mediatorial office needs to be in our consideration at all times. There's only one way. There's one bridge. There are not a lot of bridges here. And that bridge had to span not only the creation, right, that gap between Creator and creation, but it also then, entering into the creation, has to make that atonement so that there is a bridge between a righteous God and and an unrighteous creation, an unrighteous creature. Having done that, then he has, by virtue of his office of high priest, he is exercising himself as a high priest on behalf of his people, he makes intercession continually. Why is that necessary? Well, it's not only necessary because we're sinners, but the necessity of it is ever-present when we're praying. John in the Revelation says that when the prayers of the saints are offered up, they're offered up with the incense or that sweet savor that God perceives in the atonement of Christ. So Christ interceding and us praying in his name and the atonement of Christ all tell us that our prayers are made efficacious before God, not because of anything in us or from us or anything that we could do or think. but they're wholly dependent in their efficacy on Christ and what he's done. And he has done not only has he made that definitive atonement, but he is ever active, carrying all of the just, righteous petitions of the people of God, those things which are lawful, those things which are framed according to the Word of God, he's carrying them to God and seeking answer, not on his own behalf, but on our behalf. So that mediation continues throughout history. In addition, he points out that he is an advocate And being an advocate, he's doing exactly the opposite of what we're told Satan is doing with respect to the people of God. Satan is continually agitating. Satan is continually accusing. Satan is continually trying to dissuade people, introduce doubts and fears, and dissuade people from the faith. Christ, on the other hand, lives continually as an advocate, basically putting himself forward in our place, in our stead, and presenting to God the perfection of what he has done in our place. Right, so he is like He's the best cosmic lawyer that money can't buy. He can't be bought. It's just a matter of faith. Faith of Christ's mediation and intercession should embolden us to come forward in prayer, notwithstanding what? Four things, and if you've tried to pray, you've found prayer difficult, you've been discouraged and so on, I think you'll find here probably a category or two, at least, that sounds familiar. But he's saying despite these things we're going to list. If we have faith in Christ's mediation and intercession, we should be emboldened to pray, notwithstanding. So notwithstanding what? Well, notwithstanding, first of all, A, 354A, notwithstanding the old guilt that stands in the way, the convictions of former transgressions, And so here he brings up Psalm 25 7. Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake. The psalmist plea here that God would hear him is focused on the mediation of Christ. Christ is the goodness of God incarnate. He wants to be heard for his sake. He doesn't want his old sins dredged up. What we're being told here and what we should understand from this is that our sins, while they should be ever before us, that we confess them and so on, they shouldn't be paralyzing us from praying. And they won't unless you are actually relying upon something in and of yourself. God says he's going to cast your sins far away from his remembrances, east is from the west. But he doesn't give you, he doesn't give you the like privilege yet. The psalmist is continually remembering and thinking upon his sins, even going back to his youth, and nevertheless he's not going to allow those things to determine the boldness of his prayer to God. His dependence is on Christ. It's on someone outside of himself. And so proper apprehension of our sinfulness is to continually dissuade us from trusting in ourselves or thinking we have any merit. anything valuable to bring to God while at the same time driving us to see that God of his own free goodness has been merciful to us in Christ. So he says don't don't allow past sin to dampen your your fervor in prayer. But then the second point, 354b, is the faith of Christ's mediation and intercession should embolden us to come forward in prayer, notwithstanding the present guilt which may stare us in the face. And so he points to Jeremiah 14 7 O Lord though our iniquities testify against us do thou for thy name's sake Again, this is not something That is unknown to the sojourning of the people of God But even your present sin should not dampen your willingness and even your fervor in praying to God. It's only going to dampen your fervor if your focus is on that present sin and you intend it to remain, you know, unconfessed, You you you're going to remain impenitent, but if you're if you're not Then you're looking to cast your confidence outside of yourself And that's exactly what we find there in Jeremiah In fact he says If Satan cannot prevail to keep us from this duty by presenting former transgressions, he's going to remind us of present unrepentant sins and an evil frame. But Brown says, look, if you make a right use of the name of Christ, remember this is before prayer, then you're not going to get caught up in that game. There's nothing you've done in secret that Satan doesn't know. And so, you know, to have it sort of screaming in your ear when you're getting ready to pray should come as no surprise. But the very fact that that comes to your remembrance, that it would suggest itself often vividly, That fact alone should tell you that there's something else going on. It should convince you that you're in a spiritual warfare. And you're not going to win that on your own. So it should not dampen your fervor, it should embolden you. It should give you confidence to come to repent and then to pray. All right, third, 354C. The faith of Christ's mediation and intercession should embolden us to come forward in prayer, notwithstanding our present indisposition or lack of due preparation or a suitable frame of heart, which is requisite to draw near to God. All of that might be incentive for you to hold back. But if you're making right use of the name of Christ, you're not, again, you're not going to hold back. Why? Because you're being heard in prayer. the efficacy of your prayer, the acceptance of your prayer. All of this doesn't actually depend upon you. And remember that very often the case is if you sit back and wait until you feel like praying, you will never feel like praying. On the other hand, if you begin to pray, even though you don't feel like praying, a lot of times people will find they begin to feel like praying when they're praying. Because grace rises to meet your action, whereas your lack of faith, your reluctance, is met with really it's met with a withdrawal of the divine favor. So rather than getting stuck on that, I'm not really prepared, I don't have a proper frame, maybe worse than that, I have an ill frame for praying. I'm just not in the right mind, I'm not in the right mood, Brown is saying if you make right use of Christ, that will actually become an argument for praying, not for waiting, for approaching to God. And again, how are you going to do it? You're probably going to do it by beginning saying, Lord, I don't want to pray. I don't feel like praying. I don't like praying. I don't see the point. Whatever. There's no point, and he talked about this before, there's no point in trying to hide something, right? Complete transparency is the best policy. You're being honest with yourself, you're being honest with God. Don't try to pull your punches, don't try to act as though you're not in a particular frame when perhaps you are. You know, I'm not going to pray. Why? I'm angry at God. Okay, so then if you make great use of Christ, your prayer is going to begin with, Lord, I'm angry. I'm angry. You know I'm angry. And I shouldn't be angry. I know I shouldn't be angry, but I am. You know, I should want to pray, but I don't. I should have my heart framed in such a way that I'm going to go about this in an acceptable manner, but I'm not. That's all stuff that he's already talked about. You need to be transparent in your pray. Don't think that you're fooling God, don't think that you're going to somehow offend God. Again, making right use of Christ. There's really nothing that you could say in prayer that is going to offend God. But there are things you might say in prayer to God, and when you hear yourself saying it, you might realize, I shouldn't be thinking that way. I shouldn't And then you need to continue saying that. I shouldn't be thinking that. I shouldn't be wanting to do this. Anyway. A fourth thing. 354D. Faith of Christ's mediation and intercession should in boldness come forward in prayer notwithstanding what? Notwithstanding the dispensations of the Lord speaking out anger and displeasure against us. I want to look at a couple of verses here. that he's given us Psalm 79 5 Psalm 80 verse 4 and Psalm 85 verse 5 Psalm 79 5 Psalm 80 verse 4 and Psalm 85 5 Psalm 79 5 Some 80 verse 4 Some 85 5 So You may think to yourself, God is angry. You may perceive anger in God. And what you're really perceiving in all likelihood is, well, if you're a believer, if you're not a believer, God may still be angry. But you may stand in that relation. Nonetheless, what Brown is saying is, that too should be an encouragement to make right use of Christ. Because In Christ, the anger of God is abated and we find peace with God. Until we find peace with God in Christ, we stand in this relation to God where the whole cosmos is angry with us, right? Because God is standing in this adversarial position toward us. And that's only remedied in and through Christ. Again, when people don't perceive that, it's more a function of delusion. You know, when people confuse, say, outward prosperity for the favor of God, it's delusion. Right? Remember, I mean, remember David, what David says in in the psalm, you know, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked, my foot well nigh slipped. And he starts thinking to himself, maybe I'm serving you in vain. They seem to be getting all the goodies in life. Everything seems to go well for them, et cetera, et cetera. And then he said, I went into the sanctuary of my God and then I saw their end. And then I realized they've been set in a slippery place, right? You fatten pigs for slaughter. So, in the history of the church we see this. Times of great material prosperity in the church is almost exactly the same time as the spiritual prosperity of the church is ebbing. There's just a formalism that's come in. It's really a problem, you know, when people complain about the church in this country, a lot of it has come about because formalism has said it. The churches in this country, I think we can say, they haven't faced real persecution in a long time. In fact, I think too often they've confused outward material blessing which God does promise to give to a people who are obedient to nations and kingdoms. But when you're receiving that and you're not obedient, never a good correlation. It's never good in the Bible. The horses that the king rides upon, they get fed well too. But the pigs are being fed to be slaughtered. You've got to ask yourself, am I in the royal stable to be ridden, or am I going to be fattened for the slaughter? Anyway, in Christ, God's anger is pacified. That's his point. So, these all have to do with how we should make use of Christ before prayer. Alright, next, at 355, we want to look at two ways we might make right use of Christ's name in prayer. So, these two ways, first, 355a, is we should, we want to know if we are making right use of the name of Christ with reference to discharging the duty of prayer. And then B or second, with reference to our acceptance in the duty of prayer. So we're going to talk about them both right now. Get those two points, right? We want to look at the reference to discharging of the duty of prayer and then second, the reference to our acceptance in the duty of prayer. So in reference to the first, what use must there be? 356. With reference to the performance of the duty, He says we we may know that we make use of the name of Christ by this When there is an eyeing by faith of Christ and The promises of the Spirit for strength and assistance And Basically putting everything into his hands for an acceptable work. In other words, when we go about the performance, not with an eye to ourselves, but an eye of faith outside of ourselves on Christ, then in discharging that duty of prayer, we are doing the right thing. We're doing what we're supposed to do. All right, second, in reference to the second, our acceptance in the duty of prayer, he says that there will be a confiding, this is 357, be a confiding and relying on the sole ground that Christ is the intercessor and that he has to present all of our petitions to the Father and that he has to make all of our petitions acceptable. So again, not just with reference to discharging the duty but now in our our anticipation of an acceptance of prayer. We are going to, we're going to understand that all of our acceptance is based upon what Jesus has done, going to the right hand of the Father, making intercession, presenting our petitions, and in essence, you know, putting the point on our prayers, right? Our prayers are not going to God when we pray or write in Christ. Our prayers are not going to God as it were uninterpreted. All that would offend, all that would be unacceptable is interpreted out of our prayers. And by the way, this is exactly why, and he talked about this some time ago, there are times when we will pray for something. And we have in our minds something particular, something peculiar. And the next thing we know, we're getting something very different perhaps from that for which we were praying. And yet we recognize in that an answer to prayer. Right? And not only that, sometimes, you know, it's one of those things where you will, if you really reflect on it, you'll wipe your brow and say, boy, I dodged a big bullet, right? I was, I was praying for something. And if that had happened, that would have been horrible. You know, it would have been, the outcome would have been disastrous and maybe even ruined my life. On the other hand, you know, that didn't happen. Something else happened. And as a result, I can see not only God's hand in that, but I can see that this was much better. That's one of those cases, and we talked about it, where God actually is taking cognizance of your true desire But you know what you were praying has been corrected because it's been your prayer has gone up to God and it's going through that intermediary Intercessor Christ right the mediator and he he's corrected your He's corrected the object for what you're asking, but he's actually aligned it better with all of your lawful thoughts and desires and I think that's an important thing to keep in mind because, you know, when people only focus on what happens outwardly, they tend to think that, and this is really the product of the carnal heart, I think, they tend to think that God isn't really listening, God isn't answering, God doesn't actually have compassion upon them, God is ignoring them, whatever. There's always that idea that God is somehow maybe even trying to trip you up. He's not giving me what I want. But at some point, you know, when you have read and meditated upon Scripture long enough, hopefully you will come to see if you're a child of God that in fact He did give you your heart's desire, it just wasn't what you thought it was when you were asking in that way at that point. But when your heart's desire is set upon Him and His glory, that's when you're going to find there's going to be a lot more It'll be, first of all, it'll be a lot easier for you to see the answer to prayer because your praying will be more exacting. And that's really, I think, one of the things Brown is trying to encourage you to do is become more exacting in your praying. Because it is encouraging, right, when you pray for something and you pretty well see it, but it doesn't take as much reflection. Nonetheless, ought to reflect. All right, this ground of confiding and relying upon Christ in his intercession and so on, this ground will give quiet or comfort notwithstanding what? And he gives this three things. He says, first of all, notwithstanding that matters we're seeking are great and our unworthiness on the other hand seems to be great. Why is that? You know, we're seeking great things from God but look in the mirror I'm not really great. I'm not doing great things for God. I'm not all these things. How can it be? Why would I have confidence? Again, because your confidence should not be in yourself. So if your ground of acceptance is not in you, but in what Christ has done, in his intercession, in his presenting of your petition, then you're going to have ground for comfort. It's not your merit, it's his merit. Second, there'll be great comfort, great quiet, notwithstanding 358B, the many challenges which arise in us to mar our confidence and dash our hopes. And this is going back to one of the things you just talked about in a sense, right? Whether we're talking about past sin or present sin or present unsuitable frame, whatever, the fact is There is always something about you, in you, pertaining to you. You. That is simply, if you were to consider simply and absolutely you, you're unacceptable to God. But the point of relying for acceptance of prayer upon Christ, making use of Him, is saying I'm not really grounding my comfort that I will get acceptance on anything that pertains to me. I'm going outside of myself. And there there's confidence, there there is stability, there there's that steadfastness. It's everything that we're not. And so this brings us to the third thing. ground will give quiet or comfort notwithstanding that our faith begin to fail us and that we through discouragements begin to faint. Again very easy for that to happen isn't it? You know you start to pray and you are as they would say gung-ho You have full head of steam. You're all about praying. You're all about whatever is going on and then for some reason out of somewhere your faith just begins to wane and a paralysis may set in. you know, or worse. You might be commute. He's saying, but look, the ground of our acceptance in prayer is not, again, in ourselves. Nor is it in anything contingent in this world. It is Christ and what he's done that he will present and perfume our prayers. He will in fact provide all of the encouragement, all of the basis or ground of hope and comfort. Okay, so we come now to the third point, 359. What may we know concerning prayer right after prayer? He says we should know that Christ is a mediator and intercessor in whom and for whose sake alone. We expect all of our returns and answers. So we're going to go over five comforts. And that'll bring us to the end of the chapter. There are five comforts that we can gain as a result of this resting quietly upon Christ. The first comfort offered, 360A, The first is that notwithstanding Satan in our own consciences can tell us of many misdemeanors, many failings, abuses and so on. He says reliance upon Christ as the one in whom we expect our returns and answers is a comfort even in the face of that. The assaults of Satan, the assaults of our conscience, and yet in the face of that there is discomfort. Then he raises a question, and it's a why question, right? Why? Why does he offer this particular comfort? 360D, and that is because it's not on account of any good carriage in us formerly, or even on account of any good improvement of former mercies that we would expect any return. We expect to return to prayer not because of anything we've done, good or bad, but simply because of what Christ has done and the fact that he is our intercessor for God. How do you explain that? I've behaved uprightly. I've been righteous. Now he's I think what he's saying in those cases is he's saying look and there's Injust in injustice, okay When people persecute you When you're not doing something wrong That's what David is saying look I behave myself uprightly I I don't deserve that I from them. What God is doing is something altogether different, but their motives I know are not correct, because their motives are not just. How do I know? Because they're punishing me despite the fact that I've done what I was supposed to do outwardly. All right, the second comfort offered, 361A. This resting in Christ as a mediator is a comfort notwithstanding the challenges which come before us from our manifold miscarriages in prayer. And he says that could be lack of faith, lack of love, lack of fixedness, lack of liberty and so on. The reason this is of comfort, 361B, is because as he has been saying, and he points out again, It's not on the supposition of our having any of these qualifications more than our prayers would, that they would be answered. Again, we're not relying on that. The whole point here is our hope in gaining return of prayer is not rooted in us, but in Christ. So again, this is a tremendous ground for comfort. 362 a third comfort offer Here's a third comfort then again Comfort based upon the ground that Christ is a mediator and intercessor And we expect all answer in and through and be hit on his behalf alone Notwithstanding that there's little appearance of a good return for this will bear up the head and give us hope we put our prayers in Christ's hands. In other words, when we pray, he's pointing out the difference between praying and putting your hope in Christ and putting your hope in the prayer is, in part, stands in this, you know, you might be praying and thinking, well, that's possible. Right? That, that might, that might actually happen. Or is it saying, no, when you, when you put up your prayer, you're going to put it into Christ's hand. You're not even thinking that way. You're just putting it out there. Again, remember you should be praying according to his will. And we'll have more stuff that we'll be covering. The why here is, why we can have comfort in placing the Christ hand is that he's a merciful and faithful high priest. He actually has the price that was required with the Father. He's purchased everything that we would need. Everything that we could possibly desire in a godly sense. It's all certain. It's all been purchased. It's all bought and paid for. So the certainty is not outside of Christ, but inside of Christ. And that's what he's saying. If you're putting your certainty outside of that, you're not going to have that comfort. But if your certainty is in the mediator and you're looking for the return not on account of anything in you or in anything around you, but because of the meat-eater. That is right. Fourth, the fourth comfort offered in Y363. It says, by placing this confidence in Christ's return of prayer, it says that it's comforting despite matters seeming worse after prayer than before. And by the way, this is not an uncommon thing. If you've prayed much, you probably have already noticed this. I don't know if you've if you've given it serious thought or it's happened enough where it's caused other hesitations or problems for you, but very often, You know, when you pray, for example, that you wouldn't be led into temptation, all of a sudden, you find yourself facing stronger, more violent temptation. What's all that? You know, I didn't think I could withstand half of this and, you know, I'm going from you know, getting firebombed to having like nuclear sin bombs dropped on me. He says, and this is the why, 363b, if we lay the whole of the weight, put the whole matter over into the hands of Christ as advocate and intercessor, then this sort of thing is not going to disturb us. Instead of being this devastating blow like I just prayed and look what's happening. It will be I just prayed and that's interesting. I've given this over. Because honestly, if you haven't, that's when these temptations or trials, that's really when they're going to be more difficult for you to bear. In other words, when you pray, If you don't put it over into Christ's hand for answer, a lot of times, particularly when you're praying about, you know, sin and temptation and that sort of thing, it very often will seem worse because it probably is worse. Because you just prayed, which when you're praying there's a pretext. that you're turning this over to God. And if you have, then that assault, remember this is spiritual warfare, that assault immediately thereafter is something interesting and instructive in a very different way than if you've prayed and you become discouraged and disappointed Because, you know, it's not all going my way now. In fact, it looks worse. All right. 364, what's the fifth comfort offered and why? Here again, the issue is what? That we've placed everything in Christ's hand. We expect to return to prayer because of what he's done, nothing that we've done, and that gives good comfort despite many things that should concur to really to rob us of hope of receiving any good through Christ. The reason is, again, he's a faithful and tender-hearted High Priest. He's not going to forget your case. And if you're really convinced of this, none of this stuff is going to sway you. Your problem arises again and again from the fact that you, when you pray, you haven't really offered it up to God. You know, when you offer something but take it back, you haven't really offered it, have you? If we've really offered up our request to God, as our catechism says we're doing in prayer, then we're not retaining any of it. We've turned it over. And we await return In and through Christ, you know what he's done and you know on that basis alone. We're we're Going to stand back and wait Okay, that's really the extent of what Brown has to say here in this chapter In chapter 19 We will be looking next time at encouragements to and in prayer from Christ's name.