The passage we're looking at this evening is in Hebrews chapter 4 and its verses 14 to 16. Our title is this. Heaven is on our side. Heaven is on our side. And what a relief that that is, to be able to have that as our heading, as something that we're going to have quite a few Scriptures this evening will, I hope, amply prove the point, as does the passage which is open to us this evening for our consideration, and our great High Priest. We remember the journey that we've been on through this wonderful letter. We're Hebrews, don't we? And we have seen that there is a need of diligence. that the writer is always mixing together strong encouragement, strong consolation, but also with dire warning, that he is applying both one and then the other, the bitter with the sweet. And well, this is indeed good policy. We were looking this morning at some of the more provocative and maybe difficult to understand things that our Lord said. And that these are all given, because this is the Word of God, it is living and powerful. That it has its effects, it brings to pass things in our hearts to challenge us and rebuke us, to stir us and exhort us. It's not a comfortable journey. While there are great promises, great helps, great encouragements, There are also strong warnings. And we saw last time that there's a need of diligence, there's a promise of rest. There was the example of disobedience in the old covenant time. The people failed to actually press into the promised land. They were disobedient and their corpses were scattered in the wilderness. What a sorry outcome that that was. And they're given to us as examples that we might not follow, their way of disobedience, that we would learn from that. And that's what the writer is doing. He's holding that before us. And we saw how this rest that is promised, patterned on the day of creation, is actually a promise of fellowship, which is then further patterned on our Sabbath day, our Lord's day. But it's actually a promise in itself of fellowship with God himself through the Lord Jesus Christ. A fellowship which we haven't enjoyed now, but a fellowship, of course, that blossoms fully and finally in the consummation of heaven itself. So what an offer, what a promise, and how we therefore must be diligent, as the writer says in verse 11, to make sure that none of us fail to enter because of disobedience. Unbelief has been one of the issues, hasn't it? Unbelief, a refusal, that denial in the heart that says no to God, that disbelieves Him, which will not have Him to assert His sovereignty over us, but rejects it and rebels against it and seeks out reasons not to do it. And we saw the dangers of that. The Word of God, well, the writer makes a general point. It is always going to find us out. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, whether it is unbelief and disobedience, or whether it is an amen in the heart that says yes to the promise of rest, that says yes to all that Christ can give to his people. if the Word does not judge us in that way, and if we resist it and reject it, though it pierces to the very fibre of our being, finds us out in the secret recesses, discovers the thoughts and intents of the heart, but if we still harden our consciences, then we will find ourselves in that sorry state before our judge, and we will have to give account to him. So we are given, just in that last few verses coming up to where we are this evening, something to think about, weighty thoughts, thoughts that should stimulate in us repentance and heart search, that should generate in us a godly fear that we should not be those who fall short. But now here is the writer. giving to us then, having given to us some bitter medicine, giving us some very, very delightful medicine, some sweet cordial, as he relays to us this fact that heaven is on our side. So my first heading, strength for the weak, strength for the weak. Well, can you not imagine looking at the examples of disobedience, seeing the mistakes that others have made, That we can feel ourselves to be weak as water. We can feel ourselves unstable as Reuben was described by his father Jacob in those parting blessings. We can find in ourselves a host of reasons why we think we will be the ones that fail. That we will be the ones who will not enter into the promised rest that God has given to us. And the writer says, no, don't. Don't feel that. Don't be so discouraged that you are weighed down in that way and feel it well beyond you. We can indeed feel much burdened. I think it's so touching when we were doing 2 Corinthians in our Thursday evening studies a while back, to find the Apostle Paul talking himself about the state that he found himself in. I'm reading 2 Corinthians 1, verses 8-10. Here he is, it's an apostle, man who's been taken up to the third heavens, seen things, heard things, and it's not lawful for him to repeat and speak about. And he says this, We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us. He goes on, in whom we trust, that he will still deliver us. just holding with the thought there of the burden that he was feeling. And he doesn't want people to be ignorant of it, as though they were to think of him, that he sort of coasts through life, it's effortless, he's an apostle. So with all of this abundance of revelations that he has, surely never a moment's grief for him. No, he says, I don't want you to be ignorant of this fact, that this is what we felt, that the pressures were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. And then in similar fashion, I think I quoted that in our prayers, but just to read 2 Corinthians and chapter 4 verses 8 and 9, we are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. Well, that's an experience, isn't it, just? There's some heavy duty, difficulties, persecution, opposition. And yet there is the report, we felt very weak, he says. We felt as though it was beyond us, felt the sentence of death in our hearts. And yet God delivered us. But staying with that thought of feeling very weak, well, we can see that this, that is spoken of here in Hebrews chapter four, verses 14 to 16, talks about people who are needing mercy, find grace to help in time of need. We're looking for somebody who will understand our weaknesses. We see in verse 15. Well, we can ask, do we have faith? Do we feel weak? Do we feel at times burdened beyond measure? Do we feel that weight crushing us at times? Well, then this is for us to know. There is heaven is on our side. The rest can seem so far away. And yet God promises strength, promises strength to the weak, promises to those who feel burdened beyond measure that there is hope for them. Let's return to the Old Testament now, to the book of the prophet Isaiah, and how there are various places there, or more than a few places, where such promises are very precious and tended to us. So Isaiah 35, verses three and four. Isaiah 35, verses three and four. It says this, strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, be strong, Do not fear. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, he will come and save you. Well, we're going to be looking at this passage, God willing, in a few weeks' time in our Bible study. But what precedes it is actually judgment on the nations, judgment on the nation of Eden particularly. The promise that God will help those who may feel weak in the face of their enemies, that he is going to come and save them. Or Isaiah chapter 40 and verses 28 and 29. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, he increases strength. Let's read on. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk. and not faint. Well, there is a word indeed in season there for those who feel weak. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, he increases strength. While it might be that we may faint and feel weary at times, but actually our strength will be renewed. What promises there are for the weak? We can look at Hebrews 4 verse 11, being diligent to enter that rest and think, can we? Can we sustain this? Do we have the strength for this? And the answer is not of ourselves, but in Him, yes. And there is strong comfort, therefore, inserted here, at the end of this particular chapter, to round off these challenging exhortations, these stark warnings, and to say to you, trust in your God. And what particularly are we to survey? Well, it's him as high priest, isn't it? Notice how the themes in Hebrew is all kind of interlocked with each other, and a theme is begun at one point, and it might get suspended for a while, but then it's reintroduced again. That's inspiration for you, isn't it? That's what inspiration can achieve. So if we looked at the beginning of chapter 3, before we come into the issue of the disobedience of the people of old, it said this, however. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus. Here he is, the apostle, the sent one, but there he is as our high priest, the high priest of our confession. Which high priest we see in Hebrews 4 verse 14, we're to hold fast our confession. That's what we believe him to be. And we're to hold it, not surrender it, not through disobedience and unbelief, let it go from our grasp, but to hold on to this reality and this power. And High Priest is with us in chapter 5 verse 1, beginning really what is going to be a contrast. There's Aaron, called of God, surely he was. but that his priesthood was not to be permanent. There was a permanent priesthood that God had in mind, and it was to come. But there are similarities, and Aaron is a type of Christ. Remember, we thought of that, our young people, the other week. An example to us, something about him is going to point us forward to a greater fulfillment that is going to be our Lord Jesus Christ. So with the high priesthood being our theme, chapter 5 verse 1 says, Well, Aaron is then the one that is described. Aaron in his own weakness, in his own frailty, The writer is preparing us then to consider the Great High Priest, who goes beyond Aaron, who fulfills the true priesthood, and who is the one that we hold on to in our confession. Aaron's work, offering sacrifices, having to offer for his own sins. He had to bring blood before he could go into the most holy place, and there on that sacred day, the day of atonement, going on behalf of the people and all of their sins committed in their ignorance, all of their unconfessed need, and that was atoned for annually. The high priest, only on that day, and also having to make atonement for his own sin before he could approach the throne. that he was able to make that particular sacrifice, make those offerings there, things pertaining to God. But beyond that, of course, and all of those things, just as the word had to be heard with faith, that it had to be mixed with faith, what could any of this achieve or accomplish? All these sacrifices, unless there was living faith that accompanied them. Therein was the big mistake. They thought the performance of the duty, that the meticulous observance of the sacrifice guaranteed fellowship with God. wrong. He needed faith. Faith in God that he would receive that sacrifice. Faith in him that he would because of the blood that was offered. Pardon sin. Faith that actually was looking beyond slain beasts to an infinitely greater sacrifice one day that would properly, totally, absolutely answer for the sin of the people. But what else would the high priest do? Well, he would pray for the people. was one of the ministries of the high priest. Aaron was to pray for the people. Yes, he would stand in the place of the sinner, pour out the blood upon the altar there, see the proper apportioning of the sacrifice, whichever kind of sacrifice it was, and how it should be treated, but then also to pray for the people. And we have, don't we, the prayer in Numbers chapter 6, just reading from verse 22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them. that that prayer, that blessing of God, putting his name, a name that is a name of ownership and protection, of a guardian to his people, as a father to them, that would mean that they would be blessed if they took seriously the prayer, believed seriously in the God who had given that prayer to be prayed. And that was for Aaron to do. But of course Aaron and his sons were mortal. They, all of them, in their turn, died. Though they had their place and their function, though God himself had told Moses to speak to Aaron and tell him to pray in these words, And trust that he did, and that his forebears, the better amongst them at least, also did, and prayed that prayer with fervency, and saw indeed the blessing of God upon the people. But he, of course, died. Aaron died. They were mortal. They were frail. They were men themselves who were ignorant and going astray, since he himself was also subject to weakness. But now the greater high priest, the fulfillment, What Aaron could not accomplish, but only in a smaller way, in a more imperfect sense, could have contributed. A Lord Jesus Christ, who has passed through the heavens. That's what it says, doesn't it, in Hebrews 4 verse 14. It's saying, seeing then. Well, we do see this, because he was raised from the dead. Aaron wasn't. Died there upon the mountain, didn't he? There was his last day. And all his sons died. Lord Jesus Christ didn't. He was raised and his priesthood continues and isn't that he comes there into the most holy place like Aaron on the day of atonement and then comes out again as though entering into the holy of holies into a picture the tabernacle itself and the most holy place is a type of heaven. It's pointing forward to something greater, heaven itself. Well Aaron would officiate and then he'd have to come out again. Our Lord Jesus Christ has taken His blood and He's entered heaven. He's passed through the heavens to enter into heaven itself for us. What a ministry that this is. What strength there is here for the weak. And he comes and sympathises with his people from that high vantage point of heaven itself. But a heaven in which he has not ceased to be human. He didn't leave behind his humanity. It wasn't left in the grave or some sort of fictional superhumanity that he had and was clothed in at resurrection. having forgotten everything else, forgotten what his people are like, forgotten what it is to feel tired and hungry, to be tempted, to have all of the pressures upon him, all of that. He retained and kept, as he thou is at the right hand of God. And as Aaron would pray for his people, well, now our Saviour, infinitely greater, one is praying for us, that the Lord would bless us and keep us, that his face would shine upon us and be gracious to us, that he would lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace. We can be sure that his prayers are being answered. His strength, you see, for the weak, meets with us, sympathizing for us. So Romans chapter 8 and verses 31 to 34. Words these are encouraging. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, for it is he who condemns. It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Well, here is something again for the weak here to ponder. Look at this, this is, and wrapped up in the language of Paul, really, it's the ministry of the high priest, you notice. It talks about him, well, he's risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us, he's praying for us, making intercession, he's interceding for his people, praying on their behalf, standing, as it were, in the gap, representing God to man, man to God, praying for his people, praying according to the will of God. Oh, what mercy there is. So my second heading, time to move on to that. Surely his prayers are mighty. His prayers are mighty prayers, making intercession for us. Well, as we've seen there, what Paul is saying, there's none that can stand against us. God is for us. Heaven is on our side. We have our great high priest who has passed through the heavens and he's praying for his people. Those prayers are mighty prayers. Those prayers are going to be answered. Oh, do we know the will of God at every point? No. Do we understand what we ought to pray for? No. But He does. Furthermore, so does the Spirit of God. He does. Oh, I keep Romans chapter 8 open because I just want to read verse 26 and then verse 27. Just a few comments. Likewise, writes Paul, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. See, that word keeps cropping up at the moment, doesn't it? In our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So we have the great high priest at the right hand of God, interceding, praying in other words, representing others before God, praying on their behalf, praying for people who do not really know what they should pray for as they ought. can't bring the right words, don't have full knowledge to be able to properly construct, and certainly don't pray with the fervency and the faith with which they should, often dull formality and routine and empty and devoid of feeling and thought. Well, the Spirit of God within us, He's interceding, and He's interceding according to the will of God. Well, He must be, because He is God. He knows what the mind of the Spirit is. He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is. It's one and the same mind, it's the mind of Christ. And that intercession within us and the intercession of Christ, well, that's happening. And when we feel ourselves at times to be quite out of our depth, and that groaning is about the best that we can manage, well actually, it is the Holy Spirit who is already uttering forth those mighty prayers, stirring something in us, even if it is an unhappiness in ourselves, a dissatisfaction with our own prayers, a yearning and a longing that somehow goes beyond what we can probably articulate. Well, I think that that is the spirit within, groanings which cannot be uttered. They can't be expressed in our full human language. Sometimes it's just a sigh that we can utter, sometimes just a, heaven help us, Lord be near to us, which may seem so feeble, so inadequate. bringing with it a depth of feeling. Well, surely this is something of the Holy Spirit praying within us, interceding within us, and something of what already the Great High Priest is praying for us. Spirit and our Lord are one, goes without saying. They're both members there of the Trinity. So the Holy Spirit, sometimes when we don't pray, we may feel greatly rebuked. How often when we're weak, when we're strengthless, and we're not praying, we're doing the very thing we should not do by failing to pray, and we feel rebuked. And it is those groanings within of the Spirit which cannot be uttered, which are now proving to be uncomfortable to us, discomforting us, rebuking us. Something's happening within the soul of man, and yet we're turning a deaf ear to it, and we feel uncomfortable. We feel rebuked. We feel convicted. And then, perhaps at last, we will pray. We'll pray. We'll pray with poor words, sad words, lacking words, but we'll pray. And that is a good thing for us to be doing. But our Lord Jesus Christ, if we lack the words, He doesn't. He searches the hearts, knows what the mind, the spirit is. And He searches our hearts, do you know that? He searches our hearts. And He knows us, yes, better than we know ourselves. And He knows what we need. And he knows what's required. And he knows what form of pressure and weakness, what measure of temptation that we are feeling. And it matches with his own experience because he was there. He was in the body, he was on the earth. And that same body has gone with him to heaven, divested now of the need to sleep and the need to eat and such things. remembering, still remembering all that he himself had to endure upon the earth. A real, real humanity. We know, don't we? I'm not going to read all the temptations of our Saviour, but here He was, tempted at all points like us, yet without sin. Luke 4, just reading the beginning of that. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. In those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. Well that's knowing temptation, 40 days, and having, well, not just a... kind of generalized temptation, some kind of emissary of the devil, but having the devil himself and his own particular attention focused upon the Lord. Hungry, feeling physically needy and weak, and yet there he is, master of himself in that. Tempted to disobedience? No. He would hear it, but he would counter it. Those things would have some relevance surely, and he could understand where that was going to take him if he followed that way. But he refused it, refused it with such resolution and such steadfastness, answering the devil, of course, there by the word of God. The temptation to him, to exert your own power, to take kingdoms, to be spectacular, to do a sort of supernatural, spectacular thing. Get a name for yourself. Why this humility? Why having to subject yourself to your father's will and being in obedience to him? break loose from it. You're God after all. And we were looking at that some months ago in our Wednesday morning fellowship because he refused it. to make fellowship with his disciples. Let's turn to Mark chapter 9 and verse 19, and the Lord comes down from the mount of transfiguration. Those disciples, out of their depth, unable to cast this demon out of this boy who is struck in death and dumb spirit. And our Lord says there, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him To me, how long indeed? And he thought there, I think particularly of his disciples. How long indeed would he bear with them and their foolishness and their dullness of mind and unteachability? Oh, the pride and the carnality. Who is going to be the greatest? Who's going to sit at your right hand and at your left when you come in your kingdom and in your power? Oh, what sad grief it must have been to our Lord to hear these things. Yet he doesn't leave them, yet he doesn't dismiss them, fire them on the spot, but bears with them, well, the temptation would have been there, the temptation in the garden of Gethsemane, oh, to pass up this cup of suffering, to be able to be spared what was coming upon him and what he'd have to feel in his body, and quailed at the thought of it, the burden of weight of sin unimaginable. And there it was that he wrestled in prayer, and the alternative route was available to him, that this cup, if possible, take it from me. Yes, not my will, but your will be done. Came through it. Knows what it's like, though, to be there. Knows what it's like to have to face great physical pain, great spiritual torment and agony, and to prevail. and to be tempted, well, by injustice and what that provoked or could have provoked in him. The trial that was coming, the high priest and all of his lies, all of his duplicity, all the way in which there he had a kangaroo court that our Lord in all of his wonderful innocence held up there as a guilty subject, guilty of blasphemy. guilty of blasphemy. He was only guilty there of telling the truth, that he is the son of God. And that's which the high priest tore his robes. What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard him say from his own lips, what do you think? And they declared he's worthy of death. Well, he could have called enough, called upon the 12 legions of angels who would have immediately appeared, struck all of these men dead on the spot, I'm sure. But he refused that and came through that temptation. How he's proven and how all of his relevant experience means that he can make that relevant experience available to us, his people, his struggling sheep, to those who are bruised and broken, to those who are fearful and trembling, to those who need to hear his word to them to be strong, to have those hands made strong and those feeble knees strengthened. Or he can come to us, meet with us, sends people to us, doesn't he? Sermons and books. The Bible can open at the right page on occasion, just for us, just when we needed it. He knows how to help those who are being tempted. He knows how to help those who are struggling, because he himself had to endure all manner of temptations, could understand perfectly what was being offered in a way that we can't, could use his perfect understanding to discern precisely what this was asking of him, and could then match that by that will, by that saying no to it, by a refusal against it that did not allow for that to grow upon him, do not permit it to begin to insinuate itself into him and begin to become, well, sin when it is full-grown leads to death as James tells us, but it didn't in our Saviour and he is able to help his people able to help because he's been there. He knows what it's like to be in trials, knows what it's like to feel pressures, knows what it's like to have something of the sentence of death upon him, and can therefore bring his experience, his wisdom, what he himself learnt there and then, steadfastness, knowledge and understanding, that wisdom and power, and make it available to his people. He's praying for us. praying for us better than we can know to pray for ourselves and the spirit within. He is praying for us, praying better than we could ever understand or know. And there's a beautiful match, a beautiful perfection, a beautiful joining together in this ministry of prayer from our high priest, from his throne to us. So finally, and just briefly, so we should pray. There it is, so we should pray. There's encouragement, every encouragement. Heaven's on our side. God is with us. Spirit within is with us. Son is with us as a great high priest as we're thinking of him here. And you can be sure too, the Father is with us. He's not there reluctantly hearing the prayers of his Son. This is somehow this opposition is set up as though the Son is having to appeal to a reluctant Father. The Father is saying, well, all right, I'll do it then. The Father is willing. The Father is full of mercy. He too, all, the Trinity, All, each member, each person is on our side. Heaven is on the side of those weak and suffering and struggling saints. The Savior who has passed through the heavens, there he is. So what should we do? We should pray. That's what the writer is telling us here. Pray then, and don't just pray in a perfunctory way, in a way that is lifeless and faithless and really barely qualifies as prayer. But he tells us this, seeing this, review this, he says, this is the high priest you have. Learn of it, draw the conclusions from it. Heaven is on your side, one who sympathises, one who's been there and knows what it's like. Therefore you pray, come to him, come to him, and stay away, come to him. Let us, therefore, this is his conclusion. This is the inference, if you like. there is the the case he is making there's a high priest let's hold on to our confession let's believe in him and if we do then let us therefore come ordinarily and in a lackadaisical way no it says boldly say that in your Bible it says in mine boldly that's how we're to come we must come if heaven's on our side if all of the resources of heaven trinitarianly speaking father son and spirit all with us in our weakness, then we should come boldly, with great hope, great expectation, with great faith. We have all of this ahead of us, how can we come any otherwise? So we think to ourselves this, well we are a child of God, We are those who are children of God. We have come to Him and He has ceased from His works, so we have to do that. We have to cease from our works. We can't think of those works as though they're qualifying for us to get a hearing at the throne of grace. We push them aside. we're justified. That is it. He's declared us forgiven because of his son's blood. That therefore qualifies us to come. We're forgiven and pardoned. We therefore have access to him and we therefore should come. The works are gone. I'm not pleading them when I come. I'm not rehearsing those in my mind and saying well I've done this and I've done that and therefore I've followed these rules here. We didn't follow any of the rules, any of them, to the extent that we need or should. we're children of God, we're justified, and that declaration is made over us, otherwise I can make no sense of the blood of Christ or the communion table, it's telling us something very good I think. And we also know this, that we are needy, we own it, we're strengthless, powerless, we are very needy, so we definitely should come, very much should come, And we should come, and we should come very, very boldly. It's a throne of grace, isn't it? It's a throne not of judgment and fire coming out at us, but of willingness to help the undeserving, to meet with people who have nothing, and to share with them, and give them mercy, and enable them to find grace in time of need. Oh, come to him. Besiege him. How are your prayers? How are mine? How fervently are we in prayer? Are we seeing this great high priest who has passed through the heavens? Or someone far less than that? Are we properly assessing what this means, drawing the conclusion that therefore we are compelled to come boldly, to pour out our hearts, pour out our laments, pour out our concerns to Him? Oh, prayer is perspiration. Are we putting it rather earthly? Do we break sweat in prayer? Do I break sweat in it? Do we agonize? Are we earnest? I wrote these words before we had our Thursday evening and listening there to Mary Monson, this great missionary from Norway, instrument of God, end of 19th century, wasn't it? Into the 20th century, serving in China, praying. and greatly exercised, and the words were used, be desperate. That's what she was. Written them here, written them in the Netherlands. There it is, when I was across there. Being desperate, being urgent, that we have need, and we have a great high priest. We're going to be bold. We're going to be bold. That's what desperate people do, isn't it? They're bold. They suddenly break through and say enough of this. I'm going to him, and I'm going to come strongly, and I'm going to get a hearing because I believe that he loves weak, feeble saints, and he will bear us up. So be urgent, be desperate. Cause for it. This is not an age that allows us to just coast. We need to pray. Is this church of a future and a hope? Well, there's the question. Will it be here in 10 years time? Good question. Are you praying for it? Am I praying that it will have a future and a hope? And our nation, Well, we do open air work and we'll continue doing it, but I haven't yet seen them falling over each other, asking what must I do to be saved, have you? Keep praying, be urgent, be desperate for the needs of our nation and these times. Who knows yet what God may do for those who come, who obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. What mercy yet is reserved for his people? What grace still? Think of it in his active sense, something that God will do for the undeserving. Yet might he break forth upon a people who will come boldly to the throne of grace. Why? Well, it's in the title, isn't it, dear friends? Heaven is on our side. Amen.