This morning, let me invite you to take a copy of God's Word and open up to the book of 1 Samuel. We're continuing our verse-by-verse exposition of 1 Samuel this morning. Come into chapter four. You can find our text on page 228 of the Bible in the Pure Rack in front of you. 1 Samuel, chapter four. Hear now God's word. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at Ebenezer and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. And the Philistines drew up in line against Israel. And when the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about 4,000 men on the field of battle. And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, why has the Lord defeated us today if we're the Philistines? Let us go bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And as soon as the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all of Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. Where the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean? When they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid. For they said, A god has come into the camp. And they said, Woe to us! For nothing like this has ever happened before. Woe to us! Who can deliver us? from the power of these mighty gods. These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Take courage and be men, O Philistines, lest ye become slaves to the Hebrew, as they have been to you. Be men and fight." So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated. And they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for 30,000 foot soldiers of Israel fell, and the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died. A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. When he arrived, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out. When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said, what is this uproar? And the man hurried and came and told Eli. Eli was 98 years old and his eyes were set so that he could not see. And the man said to Eli, I am he who has come from the battle and I fled from battle today. And he said, how does it go, my son? He who brought the news answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great defeat among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured. As soon as he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell over backwards from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken, and he died, for the man was old and heavy. He had judged Israel 40 years. Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phineas, was pregnant, about to give birth, when she heard the news of the ark of God was captured, and that her father and her husband were dead. She bowed and gave birth, for pains came upon her. At the time of her death, the woman attending to her said, do not be afraid, for you have born a son. But she did not answer or pay attention. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory has departed from Israel, because the ark of God has been captured, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, the glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our God endures forever, to the praise of his glorious grace. Let us pray one more time. Father, this morning may you sanctify your people in your truth. For we know that your word is truth. Amen. I bet at some point in your life, or in the life of someone that you know, one of you has uttered the words, I never saw it coming. And usually those words are in reference to some sort of fall, or moral lapse, an affair, a revelation of a double life, abuse, or some other significantly scandalous sin. And one of the hardest things that you and I confront in life is that unlike the movies where we clearly know who the good guys are, and then the bad guy usually wears dark clothes and walks around with brooding music, it's actually quite difficult for us sometimes in life to discern who is on a path that is probably headed towards a destructive destination. I think that's why in particular the revelation of a double life could be so discouraging. Because one day, the most shocking of revelations can come from the most unexpected of people. And these revelations can upend not just a family, but even a community of faith. As one example, the name Ravi Zacharias comes to mind. But I do think that as Christians, we need to be careful with the phrase, I never saw it coming. Because if we are analyzing our lives according to scripture, we will see that there are always signs that a spiritual fall is potentially coming. Whether or not we want to recognize them and pay attention to them. And I think in one sense, that's actually what our text is trying to do for us this morning. For in our text, the author of 1 Samuel records a fall. And interestingly, there's actually several ways that we can view a fall in our text. First, there are the fall of many men in Israel. First, 4,000 men, and then second, 30,000 men in battle. But we also see in our text there is quite literally a fall of an old man, who in growing old and, as the text notes, growing rather large, once hearing that the ark of God has been captured, he quite literally falls backward in his chair and breaks his neck and dies. But third, we see in our texts the fulfillment of a pronouncement from God through both an unnamed prophet, as well as the young Samuel, that in a single day, the house of Eli would fall. That in one day, Eli, his two sons, and even a daughter-in-law greet death on the same day. And so this morning, the author of 1 Samuel, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, is helping us to discern some warning signs that led to this fall, these successive series of falls, and the fall of the house of Eli. I think in this way, this text is helpful. Because this text should sober us. It should warn us. And if necessary, it should bring us to repentance. so that you and I may avoid our own spiritual falls. This morning, we will examine our passage in two points. First, we will see an autopsy of a fall. And then second, and more briefly, the aftermath of a fall. If you know anything about criminal science, or if you've watched at least one of those detective Criminal science shows, you know that you order an autopsy for only one reason. Something bad has already happened. In an autopsy, someone has died. Something has happened that has resulted in the death of someone. And so now your job in this autopsy is to look back and try to put the pieces together to discover what happened, what factors, what evidence is left for us that can help us to best understand what happened in this situation. And this is kind of what's happening in our text this morning. It's important for us to remember that 1 Samuel falls into the category of genre called history. These are stories that are looking back at events that have already happened. These are not live streams, a running commentary of events unfolding in real time. And when 1 and 2 Samuel was written, by our estimation, the house of Eli has sat in ruin for many years. And so the author, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is recording what happened but also giving us God's perspective and giving us little pieces of evidence that can help us to understand why, how did we get here. Now you could be making the argument that in a sense, this has already been happening for several chapters, especially in chapter two, where the author 1 Samuel lays out for us the abuses of Eli's sons in the tabernacle. But in our text, I think we actually see three evidences that are revealed in this spiritual autopsy of the house of Eli. These are the three sub points that you could say that are gonna be under first one, point one. And the first evidence that we see in our text in this spiritual autopsy is mounting spiritual losses. First evidence, mounting spiritual losses. As we look down in our text, chapter 4 of 1 Samuel opens up with this battle between the armies of Israel and the Philistines. If you look down at verse 1, you see that we have the people of Israel encamped at Ebenezer and the Philistines are at Aphek. Now the location of these two places are very important because this battle that is happening is not a battle or a skirmish happening around the borders of Israel. Rather, both Ebenezer and Aphek are right in the middle of Israel. You could even say the heart of Israel, in between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Galilee. And the fact that Israel is fighting a battle at this place, at this time, reveals something of the political instability of God's people. Remember, God's people, in the book of Joshua, enter into the land to conquer it. And because of their own sin and disobedience, they don't conquer it fully, which means that God's people, instead of having a safe place in the middle, they find themselves divided among various groups and still surrounded by the Canaanites and various armies that are not very happy that they're there. And so God's people in many ways had to deal with constant fighting and threats from every side of where they lived. They were not very safe. And they had to deal with the warring neighbors and tribes on every side. From what we know about the Philistines, they were a seafaring people. They lived among the coast. And losing a skirmish at this place in the heart of Israel would be pretty awful for the national security. of God's people and lose this battle they did. For it says in 1st Samuel chapter 4 verse 2 that Israel was defeated before the Philistines who killed about 4,000 men on the field of battle. And then in verse 3 the people return to the camp after being defeated and we see the elders saying why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Why did we lose? Why did we not win? Now, if you hear that question, your biblical intuitions should be tingling at this point. Because if you know the Old Testament, particularly the first five books of the Bible, God's people being defeated in battle was very significant. And it was actually a sign of God's displeasure with his people because of their sin and disobedience. If you go back to Deuteronomy, There you see Moses once more giving the law to his people, to this second generation of Israelites who are about to go in and conquer the land. And in chapter 28, Moses clearly lays out for the people the consequences of both obeying God's law and disobeying God's law. The blessings that come with obeying the law and the curses that come. And in both of those sections, outlining the blessings and the curses, there's a comment about warfare. In Deuteronomy 28, 7, the Lord explains that if God's people faithfully obey the voice of the Lord their God, verse 7, the Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. But in verse 15, Moses continues, if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, or be careful to do all his commandments, verse 25, the Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And so friends, as we look at this passage this morning, this spiritual, well this loss, of God's people on the battlefield is not just a military loss. It's not just the fact they didn't have the right strategy or enough men. This actually is a spiritual loss, a sign of God being displeased with his people because of their sin. And so God's people going back to their camp should be asking questions that provokes self-examination. What have we done? How have we sinned in a way with the Lord not being on our side so that the armies of God would fall in battle? Now I think that as we think about application of this principle to our day today, we need to be very careful because there are some major differences between Israel as a nation under God's spiritual and national rule of theocracy and Christians within the world today. In the Old Testament, God's people overlapped neatly with the nation of Israel. In the New Testament, we actually see that God's people do not overlap neatly with any particular nation. Since Christ in his coming, as he himself proclaimed, is ushering in a kingdom of God. And yet this kingdom is not of this world. Because Jesus has a rule and an authority over his people that is spiritual in nature. And so as Christians, we recognize that we have this dual citizenship. We are citizens of the various nations in which we find ourselves in. And yet we also confess with the Apostle Paul that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. In Philippians 3 verse 20. And because our citizenship is ultimately in heaven, It's rather common for Christians to feel something like sojourners and exiles in this world. That's why Paul is clear in 2 Timothy that anyone who desires to live a godly life will be persecuted. And after suffering his own persecution, Paul says in Acts 14.22 that through many trials and tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. And so because of this reality that we as Christians have a dual citizenship, we're members of various nations and yet we are also part of a kingdom that's not of this world, there will be times when it looks like God's people are experiencing losses and taking L's. But these losses we know biblically in things such as persecution, in suffering, even in martyrdom, actually shows the way that you and I overcome the world. For as John records for us in Revelation 12, 11, we overcome the world by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, our witness to Christ. For as John writes in 1 John 5, 4, what is the victory that overcomes the world? Is it not our faith? And so the Bible, in a sense, actually expects Christians to take supposed losses within the world. There will be times when they look like, according to 2 Corinthians 4, 8 and 9, that Christians will look afflicted, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. And yet, there is one place where the Bible does not expect Christians to take losses, and to take sustained losses, and that is in our battle against sin. And again, once more, we must be very discriminating with this point because the normal Christian life is described as a conflict, a war between the flesh, our old man, our sinful nature, and the Holy Spirit, having been born again of God and brought to spiritual life at conversion and going through sanctification. And Paul writes in Galatians 5.17 that the desires of the flesh are against the spirit. And the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For they are opposed to each other. To keep you from doing the things that you want to do. And Paul even uses this language of warfare, sorry Peter, uses this language of warfare to describe how Christians should approach their sin. 1 Peter 2.11, beloved, I urge you as sojourners in exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. And as we look at scripture, we see that scripture does not pull any punches when it describes how Christians should treat their own sin. Christians are not to coddle it, They're not to give it a mercy rule. Rather, they are to put it to death. They are to mortify it. They are to strangle it until their sin has no more life. For if you pull your punches against sin, you will realize quickly that sin is not as merciful. For your sinful flesh wants to kill the Spirit and wants to kill you. and the spirit wants to starve the life out of your sinful flesh. That's why Paul writes in Romans 8.13, if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And so within the Christian, there should be this take no prisoners conflict between you and your sin. And yes, there will be times and rounds in which sin gets the upper hand in moments of temptation. But if a person is born again of God, and putting themselves in step with the Spirit, and putting themselves in the means of the pathway, or the means of grace, there should be visible progress. That indwelling sin is growing weaker and weaker, and the Christian, through sanctification, is growing stronger and stronger. And that's why, like in our text, when a big spiritual loss comes, it's possibly a red flag that something deeper is amiss. Maybe it begins with not reading your Bible as much as you ought. Maybe it begins with your prayer time becoming shorter and shorter and staying away from Christian fellowship. Maybe week after week, if you're honest, that vulgar language is growing in your vocabulary. Maybe compared to last year, your self-control over your tongue, your anger, or your tone has grown worse. Maybe compared to a decade ago, your control over your eyes is not what it is or what it once was. as you linger on members of the opposite sex, or in the grocery aisle, or on your internet browser. Maybe if you're honest, your past month has day after day in which you should write loss, loss, loss, loss, to bitterness, to drunkenness, to pornography. And if you look at your life and all you see is loss, loss, loss, the alarm bells, friend, should be going off that maybe a spiritual fall is coming. But second, in this autopsy of a spiritual loss or a spiritual fall, we not only see the spiritual losses piling up, we see a spiritual dullness to the things of God, a spiritual insensitivity. It is clear to the people of Israel that something is out of place, because when we last left the camp of Israel, the elders are asking the question, why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Now, the elders are asking the right question, and we have to give them that. But they are coming to the entirely wrong conclusion. In verse 3 they respond... Kind of like how many husbands, many wives could read the thought bubbles of their husbands, it's very easy to see the logic that is at play here. Well clearly, if God did not go with us out to battle and help us with the Philistines, let's go and get God so next time he can come out and help us. If God did not come with us, let's go get him. Let's go get the ark. And so, in verses four and five, the people of Israel go and get God. They go to Shiloh and get the Ark of the Covenant, along with the two brothers, Hophni and Phinehas, out from Shiloh. And they bring them into the camp of Israel so that God, the God of Israel, can go and fight with God's people next time. Now at some point you may be thinking to yourself and asking a question. If this story is about the fall of the house of Eli, why is Eli's house now just entering into the picture? Haven't 4,000 men just died in battle? If this whole passage is fulfilling God's word of judgment against the house of Eli, why is there now so much collateral damage? among the people of God? Why is there so much, many people caught in the crossfires? Friend, this morning, if you are entertaining that question, I think you are missing the fuller picture that always accompanies the consequences of sin. For isn't that a lie we so often tell ourselves? Our sin does not affect anyone else. My sin only affects me. Friends, when people sin, there is always collateral damage. And that collateral damage is usually felt, first and foremost, among the people of God. For in this decision, to think that they can just go and pick up God in the Ark of the Covenant and take Him into battle with them, shows how spiritually dull the people of Israel had become to the things of God. Israel's first impulse here, friends, in their defeat is not humility or prayer or repentance. Rather, where do they go? They rely upon the externals of religion. And they try to force God to do their will by controlling his presence. Remember, friends, this is the same arc of the covenant that later in 2 Samuel. When Uzzah tries to just catch it with his hand, when it stumbles, is struck down and killed. And yet the people of Israel think that they can just summon God in and his presence on their terms and as they see fit. And to ask the question that the text forces us to, who do you think they learned this terrible theology from? Who is responsible for the spiritual instruction, the explanation of the law for God's people? The house of Eli. And this response of the people puts all of the pieces on the chessboard in the right places. For the ark and Eli's two sons go out to war. Hophni and Phinehas and the ark. I think one of the greatest spiritual deterrents that you and I need to have in the Christian life is a tangible understanding of and a reverence for the holiness of God. Brothers and sisters, we are talking about God, the one who made all things, who himself alone dwells in inapproachable light. and who the angels cry, holy, holy, holy. And then as Isaiah is raptured up into the presence of God, into the throne room, and Isaiah is confronted by God's power and holiness, what is his response? Woe is me, for I am lost. I dwell with a unclean people. Or think about Joseph when he is propositioned by Potiphar's wife. How does he respond? How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? That's why an increasing spiritual dullness to the things of God is another tremor, another sign that a potential spiritual fall is coming. Because when we stop taking God's holiness seriously, we will necessarily begin to then stop taking sin seriously. And then we put ourselves in situations that have great spiritual danger for us. But even for us New Testament Christians who understand and adore the gospel of grace, how is it possible for you and I to be flippant towards our sin? For we know that the only reason that you and I are saved is that God sent his son to be publicly executed and to drink the cup of divine wrath that you and I deserve. If that's the case, how can you and I take our sin not as seriously as we ought and the same as God's holiness? Christian, In your private thoughts, in your interactions with the world, and how you conduct yourself throughout the week, and even as you came into church this morning, have you grown apathetic, lukewarm to the things of God? Has that vision of His holiness slowly dwindled as you approach God and think of Him? But the third sign in our spiritual autopsy of the house of Eli is the testimony of our enemies. Unexpectedly, it's the testimony of our enemies. For in verses 6 through 9, we see that the joy in the Philistine camp over their recent victory is short-lived. For as verse 6 reveals, the Philistines are caught off guard that unexpectedly there are shouts and proclamations of joy from the camp that should have been defeated. And after some quick investigation, the Philistines figure out that the God of Israel has come into the camp. And the mood here quickly changes and the Philistines become afraid. Verses seven through nine say, woe to us for nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us. Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Take courage and be men, oh Philistines. Yes, you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you. Be men and fight. And looking at our text, what is going on here? Well, the Philistines are clearly responding to the fact that if what they have heard is true, they are sunk. The Philistines have heard about the great deeds that God accomplished with the Egyptians in the Exodus, as Moses brought God's people into the land of Canaan. And if this God of Israel is with his people, they don't stand a chance. And so they're getting themselves ready for one final stand. Now, I think at this point, you and I need to ask another question. Are the Philistines correct? Is their assessment of the situation correct? Well, yes. If the Lord is with the people of Israel, they don't stand a chance. At face value, that statement is true. But what's the problem? The problem is that the Lord is not actually with his people in this battle. Yes, they have the external representation of religion. They have the ark. But they neither have the Lord's presence nor his favor. And God is more than willing, friends, to let his people fall flat on their face. than to keep up the appearance of a false and inauthentic relationship with his people. We know, and thinking about this in application, we know that all of mankind has been born in sin, and every aspect of our being is corrupted, including our minds, by sin. And yet, there are actually times where God will use the testimony of non-Christians to expose us to spiritual danger. Pastor Jared, what are you talking about? Well, in the Church of Corinth, for example, Paul addresses a severe case of incest in the church, sexual sin. 1 Corinthians 5. As a man has his father's wife, And do you know there what Paul actually says? It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you of a kind that's not even tolerated among the pagans. In other words, I have to address the situation that's so bad in the church that even our non-Christian neighbors look in and say, wow, that's not good. That's not how things should be. Friends, in the Christian life, the testimony of Scripture and the witness of God's people should be enough to warn us of spiritual danger. But if those means fail, God is not above using our opponents to reveal to us our spiritual folly. God's people should have victory over the Philistines. And what happens next though? The true state of God's people and their relationship with God is revealed. For in our second point this morning, briefly, we see here the aftermath of a fall. In verse 13, the camera shifts to an anxious and an unsettled Eli. For Eli has just watched the ark and his two sons depart with the soldiers of Israel. And according to verse 13, it says that his heart trembled for the ark of God. And tremble, Eli's heart should, for in this day, the day of judgment has finally come for Eli and for his family. This is a day of judgment, a day of reckoning pronounced. And on this day, three things happen. The armies of Israel are defeated. The house of Eli falls, and the ark of God is captured. As we see in verse 10, even though the ark is now with the armies of God, trying to force God's hand and bend his arm never works. And if the last battle was to defeat, this is a total rout. The defeat of God's people with the ark is far greater than without it. In the first battle, 4,000 men fell. In this second, 30,000. 30,000 sons of Israel. 30,000 husbands, fathers, men. And in those numbers are two brothers, as we see. In verse 11, the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. And most importantly, because its bearers are struck down, the ark of God, the physical representation of God's presence among his people is touched by defiled hands and taken back to the camps of God's enemies as a spoil of war. Judgment has fallen on Israel and on the house of Eli. And so the question for us at this point is this, what are we to make of this judgment? There's a reason why, according to the Bible, the idea of judgment is linked with the idea of apocalypse. Now when most people think of apocalypse, their mind usually goes to things like the end times or world ending events. But the word apocalypse is actually from the Greek word that means to reveal, to uncover, to disclose. In a sense, an apocalypse reveals things as they truly are. What's happening in this text and what is represented in the ark of God being captured should strike our hearts in the same way that in verse 18, Eli falls over backwards, stricken. And because of that being struck to the heart, he even dies. And yet from another perspective, even though we see this national tragedy, It takes God's people being defeated and the ark of God being captured to reveal things as they truly are. For God's relationship with his people after the time of the judges and with the house of Eli has been broken for some time. That's the revelation. That's the apocalypse. Friends, God was not taken from the people and his glory did not depart from Israel because the ark was captured. Rather, the ark being captured reveals that God has already abandoned his people because of their sin. And in this happening, this spiritual reality that everyone was ignoring can no longer be ignored. It's been revealed. In this way, the ark being captured reveals how far God's people have fallen in their relationship with him. If you talk with people who have experienced a spiritual fall, the revelation of a double life, adultery, or an abusive ministry, many years later after they are restored, They will tell you that that revelation, even though it was so painful and destructive, because of their sin and because of how they were ensnared, was the best thing that could have happened to them. Because it's spiritually better in the long term for a spiritual fault to reveal things as they truly are. And friends, if God exposes your sin, you need to understand that is a grace, even in those painful moments. Because the Bible says that for all of us, a day of judgment is coming. A day of revelation. For every person who has ever lived, and every person in this room, a day of reckoning is coming. When everything that is hidden will be brought into the light. And all pretenses and all appearances will be taken away. And so, in looking at that day, and looking at our lives, whether we're in the middle of a spiritual fall, or we realize we are steps away from one, what should be our response? Well, quickly in conclusion, we should not follow the response that's modeled for us in our text this morning. For in verses 19 through 21, we see a heartbreaking response of despair to this spiritual fall. For as the text continues, we see that Eli's son, Phineas, left behind a widow who is pregnant. And after hearing all of this awful news about the death of her husband, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law, And then also the news that the ark of God has been captured, the text suggests that her grief sparks premature labor. And even though in giving birth to a son, a promise of hope, she gives into despair, Ichabod, she names him. The glory has departed from Israel. A statement not only referencing the ark, but the death of her husband, her family, and the death of hope in Israel. And as verse 20 hints, right after this delivery, the young mother dies, leaving a house in ruins and one orphan, Ichabod. Time escapes us to do justice to the rest of this passage, but I'll just say this as we close. If you are confronting a spiritual fall, you have one or two options. Either you can despair or you can hope. Because after a spiritual fall, we may be tempted to admit that life is over, like this young woman. But the problem is, is that our book here, 1 Samuel, does not end at chapter four. And even our Bibles do not end at chapter four. Yes, this is a dark moment. in the pages of the history of Israel. And yet we actually see that this exile of the ark among the enemies of God is exactly what is needed to bring revival to the people of God. But further still, despair is exactly what our enemy wants you and me to do. When you and I have fallen, When we have hit rock bottom, our enemy is very skilled at getting into our ears and saying, give up. There's no coming back from this. No one will ever forgive you. There is no hope. But hear me clearly. Christians can mourn. Christians must grieve their sin. but it is unchristian to despair. Because we know as Christians that there is always hope. Because our God is in the business of turning the darkest of Saturdays into the brightest of Sunday mornings. Because of the gospel, we know that through what Christ has done, there is grace and mercy for the greatest sinner. And because that empty tomb remains empty, we know that our God can give spiritual life to the darkest of situations. Friends, this morning, if you are recovering from a spiritual fall, or if you feel like that spiritual fall is only several steps ahead of you, if you are sensing your spiritual losses mounting and your spiritual dullness growing, friends, Go to Jesus, cast yourself upon him in repentance of faith, and find refuge in the Rock of Ages for all of our souls. Let's pray. Father, we pray that your word would be applied effectually to our hearts There are many ways in which we can feel and experience the spiritual dangers of life in this world. Father, it would be foolish to not think that there may be at least one person to find themselves one step from a catastrophic spiritual fall in this room. May we learn wisdom from your word. May you help us to avoid these disastrous ends And for those who are despairing, may we have hope. May you now confirm this word upon our hearts in Christ's name. Amen.