In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the joy and fire that comes from experiencing the word of God. He shares a story of a wedding where the father of the bride gives his daughter a key as a gift, symbolizing something significant. The speaker emphasizes the importance of not just observing and admiring the blessings of God, but actively receiving them. He then delves into Psalm 103, specifically focusing on verses 1-5, which speak of praising the Lord, receiving forgiveness, healing, redemption, and satisfaction. The psalmist's example of praising God despite living in Old Testament times serves as a reminder for believers today to fully embrace and appreciate the grace and mercy of God.

I would like to share with you this evening a few thoughts that arise from the perusal of the first five verses in the psalm which we have already heard, read, and sung in part, Psalm 103, verses 1 to 5. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle. This psalm has earned the reputation of being one of the most exquisitely beautiful compositions in the entire Psalter. Poets and linguists alike have so spoken of this very remarkable psalm, this theme of praise that fell from the inspired lips of the ancient psalmist. And well may it deserve such a place of preeminence in the estimation of men. It's a remarkable psalm. It is remarkable alike for its logic, its spiritual tones, and its heart-warming spirit and influence, and indeed for much else. And I'm sure you will have noticed that there is not a single request made throughout the body of the psalm. The psalmist is not here asking for anything. He's already received so much, he's forgetting now about his own needs. And he is before God in contemplation, in meditation and in song, simply remembering the goodness of the Lord. Do you know there are times and occasions when every Christian man and woman should do just that? Oh, there are times when we should make our requests known unto the Lord, and he has told us so to do. But there are times when we should forget even our own fundamental and sometimes pressing needs and problems, and simply remember the goodness of the Lord to us, and pay tribute, and bow the knee, and render prayers. I believe there is a wealth of psychology behind, as well as theology, behind that simple, lovely old hymn, Count Your Many Blessings. Name them one by one. Don't gloss over them. Name them. Look them in the face. Remember what they were in the context in which they were given. And then just let your soul go out in praise to God. And as I understand it, our harvest Thanksgiving occasion ought to be such a day and such an occasion as that. Well, now, we have specified as a title to our theme, to our message tonight, Feeding the Flame of Praise. And that's really what we have here. It's a man who, in his heart of hearts, is already determined to praise God. As he remembers things in general, his soul is engaged in praise and thanksgiving. But then he moves to particulars, and he feeds the flame of gratitude with this memory and that memory. It's almost like a man putting a new brick or a new log in the fire. And when the one has burnt so far, he puts another one on, in order that the flame should be fed and fanned. And it would be wonderful tonight if, by the grace of God, we could have some such picture in the heart of every man and woman among us. Well, now, let's turn then to two main things that are brought out in these five first verses of Psalm 103. I want to speak in turn of the praise that he ardently renders, and then the provisions that he personally recounts. We begin, first of all, with the praise that he is determined to render. The first and immediate impression made upon us by the reading of the opening verses of this psalm is that he was unquestionably a spontaneous man of praise and of prayer. Praise and prayer spontaneously spring and wholeheartedly emerge within his soul, within his heart. He was not a conscript. He wasn't made to sing. The man's soul is in it. The man's heart is in it. The man's whole being is involved. Now, I just want to spell this out, and I would like you to notice in turn, first of all, this is a praise that is intentionally personal. Praise the Lord, bless the Lord, he says, O my soul, and all that is within me. You notice the personal pronoun. Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, and so forth. You see, the man is talking about God's goodness to himself. It is intensely personal. Later on, from verse 6 to verse 14, he thinks wider afield. God has been good to the nation, God has been good to his people at large, but even then there is this personal undertone to it. He has benefited also as a member of the nation, and he's glad that the nation, like himself, has known something of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. It is a personal psalm, a personal gratitude. And then, of course, in another sense, it is most intensely personal. The psalmist is addressing his own God. Does it seem strange to tell you that there are 22 verses in this psalm, and of the 22 verses, 11 of them, 11 times he mentions the name of the God he would pray against. What I'm getting at is this. He knows who is the author of his every good and perfect gift. He knows who has blessed him. He knows who has done this, that, and the other for him, and so it is personal, intimately personal, in this sense. It comes from the heart of the man himself. It's not a song put on his lips. It isn't just a composition that he's learnt from somebody else. He's not singing somebody else's hymn. It's his own. And it's his own that he's singing to his own God. Now, I love hymns. I was brought up on hymns. You know, there is one danger about singing the hymns that express the thoughts and the gratitude of other people. And the danger, of course, is this, that we are simply mouthing phrases. And if the hymn is allied to a lovely tune, that we're just going through the emotional aspect which the music enables us so to do. We are on the wings of the music or on the wings of the words, but they're not necessarily our own. This is why it is necessary for us to read the words of the hymns that we sing and read them well. Otherwise, we are simply going through the formalities of worship and the heart may be lagging far behind. Not so here. These are not words that the lips are merely uttering. Here are sentiments that emerge from the man's own deep soul. It's personal. Moreover, the praise he desires to render is most wholeheartedly rendered. You notice this. This is a continuation of the thought we've just expressed. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. All that is within me, bless his holy name. And just to make sure, he says it a second time over. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And the soul, of course, refers to the whole of the inner being. In contradistinction simply to the lips, the mouth, he wants the praise, he wants the gratitude, he wants the worship of almighty God to come from the whole of his united and concerted soul. All the energies of the soul functioning in concert. Now, I hardly need to say this, because we all know it in some measure. One of the consequences of sin in all our lives is this. That we are so divided even within our own hearts. We are a disintegrated people. And sometimes when the mind goes one way, the heart goes another. When the will wants to go this way, the emotions want to go another way. Don't we know something about this? Sin has divided us against ourselves. Paul puts it in his great text. Listen to the Romans. When I would do good, he says, evil is present with me. O wretched man that I am, he says, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I want to go this way, but then something draws me that way. We're divided against ourselves. Even when we know what is right. And the psalmist knew something of that. And he knew it especially when he came to God in prayer. And when he wanted to praise God, and you notice what he says here. Now Lord, he says, in order to praise you arise. O give me the grace. I think this is how we are to understand these opening words. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Everything must be harnessed. All the energies of the soul must be harnessed. I'm not content simply to make a noise, joyful though it may be. I want the whole of my being. The mind, the imagination, the heart, the whole being. In the psalm. My dear friends, I believe it would be a great day in the history of the Christian church. When we got here. When we could honestly say to ourselves at the beginning of every service, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. The soul of true praise is the praise of the soul. And if it is not the praise of the soul, it is in vain the praise of the lips. For God seeth the heart, and it's the heart that he reads. This is a praise that is intensely personal. It is wholeheartedly offered. And another thing, he is desirous that the praise he renders should be adequately comprehensive. And forget not all his benefits. Now that's only another way of saying, don't forget anything. I think it's a Hebraism, and that that is really significant. Don't let's forget anything. Don't let's leave anything out. The danger of forgetfulness was always a peril in the psalmist's day, as in ours. The memory is like a basket. It doesn't hold water. None of you good people would try to collect water in a basket. There's something of that nature about our memories. We don't remember the things we need to remember. Of course, on the other hand, we remember the things we don't need to. And the things we shouldn't. But there are some things that slip through so easily, like water flooding through a basket. You've noticed, I'm sure, those of you who read the Old Testament carefully, how over and over again God had to remind his people to remember certain things. We are always in danger of forgetting the very things we ought to remember. Take heed, says the Lord to Israel, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. If you know that's repeated, I don't know how many times in the Old Testament. Take heed and remember, remember, remember. Blessings that are individually bestowed upon us should be individually remembered by us. Blessings that are consistently given to us should be consistently praised. We should consistently praise God on their account. Now, that's the first thing that I want to bring to you tonight. It's the portrait of a man who really wants to bless God. Can we not at this stage, in our heart of hearts, pray God to give us a heart like this? That we should know something of this tremendous sense of gratitude in our soul. That we shall want to say, with all that is within us, Bless the Lord, O my soul, every bit of me, every inch of me, every aspect of my life. Bless his holiness. But now, having so determined, the psalmist begins to put the logs on the fire. And he begins to feed and to tend the flame. And he brings certain things. He puts his hand, as it were, into the basket of memory. And he takes out a number of logs. There are six here, actually. But if you notice carefully, there are three pairs of two. And I want to bring them before you tonight, just to see how the flame of gratitude was fanned until it was a sizzling thing in the great of his heart. Now, the first divine provision that calls for praise is the removal of the curse of sin. Look at verse three. Look at it carefully. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Why? Well, he says, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases. Now, don't dismiss this. There is something in it right at the beginning, I'm quite sure, which will startle you. But don't be caught with a mystery, first of all. Just let's get this. Bless the Lord. Why? The first log he puts on the flame is this. Who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases. Why should I praise God, says the psalmist? Well, for this reason. He forgives all my sins. He heals all my diseases. Now, let's start with the first. They're two sides of the same thing, and I put them under this one title. They refer to the removal of the curse of sin. Who forgives all your sin. Now, forgiveness, in and of itself, is a most precious experience. If you've been forgiven, then you know something of the sweetness and the peace and the joy of it. I don't need to tell a forgiven soul anything of its benefits. You know it in your heart. If you're a forgiven man or a forgiven woman here tonight, there is obviously something of this sense of wonder and amazement and consequent peace and hope in your heart. A forgiven soul. But now notice this. The psalmist says that God forgives all sin. And it's that little word, all, which makes it even so very wonderful. Ever so wonderful. Who forgiveth all your iniquity. Now really, when we go on into the body of the psalmist, we can't do that tonight. In verses ten to twelve, the psalmist proceeds to enlarge upon this. And he brings in three different names for sin. Three different words describing three different aspects of sin. And what he tells us there is this. It's so wonderful, it's so remarkable, he says, that as far as the East is from the West, so far has God removed our transgressions from us. Have you got that picture? We'll never meet them again. They're so far away from us, says the psalmist, that they'll never catch up with us, nor shall we catch up with them. For East and West never meet. As far as the East is from the West, so far, so far, have he removed our transgressions from us. Oh, blessed soul. Now, my friend, if we had a couple of minutes extra tonight, you know what I would like us to do? Of course, it would be too daring to do, and I might never have a congregation again. I'd like to give us all a piece of paper, and I, the chiefest of sinners, to start off. And write down some of the things we know God has forgiven. Write them down. And remember the mercy, the potency of the blood, the grace. There are many that we can't remember. And yet God, says the psalmist, has forgiven all the sins of his people. All. A-double-L. All. Now, from time to time as a pastor, I have encountered men and women who believe that God can forgive almost every sin but one or two. But there are one or two that are so dark and so dismal and so terrifying and so haunting and so what have you, they just can't believe that the blood of Jesus Christ covers them. The psalmist knew God forgives all. And I want to ask someone here tonight who may be in that predicament, I want you to put your both arms of faith around this little word, all. For God means what he says. When you receive God's pardoning grace, you receive forgiveness for all your sins. A-double-L. Now look at the other side of the same coin. The curse of sin is totally removed. Who says the psalmist? He lives. All thy diseases. Now, this is the problem, isn't it? You wonder what on earth is this, because this is not true, is it? Can I read your faces all right? It's not true. God heals some diseases. God heals many diseases. But what man is there who can say that he healeth all thy diseases? Well now, let me say this, that there will be a day when it will be true that God will have healed all our diseases. We have to make reference to it in another context this morning. But when we shall receive our new body, it will be like to the glorious body of our Lord. And you know, sin cannot touch it, and disease cannot harm it, and death cannot draw near to it. And when, alas, the task of redemption is completed by him, as it surely will, then he will have healed us from all our diseases. But actually, this is a very special word that is used here. And it is such a special word that the theologians and the commentators really have a jolly good time here, arguing the one with the other, and there's been a little bit of bickering and bantering if you read them, and they really are not quite sure what to say about it. Well now, how can we be sure? Well, I can only tell you what I believe is the right answer, and I ask you kindly to consider it before you take it from me. But I want to tell you what I think it is. I have discovered in my reading of the Old Testament that the word used here for diseases is only used when disease is the consequence, the immediate consequence of sin. Now, in one sense, all disease is the consequence of the fall of man. Had we not fallen, had Adam not sinned, had we not fallen, there would be no disease. But sin, disease rather, in the individual life, is not necessarily indicative that that individual has sinned and therefore is sick. It is not only sick people who have disease. Now that, I think, is fairly clear. Sin was the cause of the disorder in the universe which has brought sickness upon us. But it is not true to say that we are physically sick only and always because we have individually done wrong in the sight of the Lord. That is not so. Job was said to be upright at the very beginning of the epic, the drama of his life depicted in his book. He was upright in the sight of God. He was blameless in the sight of God. Blameless at the beginning. But there are times when God, in his chastisements, comes in upon a man in sickness. Paul speaks of it in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 29 following. We were considering it a few weeks ago in our preparatory service for the communion. There are times when, as Paul says, some are sick among you and some have even slept. That is, some have died. And the reason they are asleep, the reason they have died, says Paul, is this solitary one. They would not judge themselves. And therefore God has judged them. And he has had to step into a church, into a congregation, and he has removed men by death. It is a challenging thought, you know. There are men who are such a menace to the church of God. But if they do not judge themselves, says Paul, God takes them away. He is sovereign. And there are limits beyond which a holy God will not accept the frustrations of sinful men in relation to his church. And he removes them. Now, oh, I am glad I can come to this. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Who healeth all thy diseases that have been brought upon you because of your sin and your disobedience. That is what the psalmist said. In other words, what he is doing is telling us that God takes away the whole consequence of the curse. One day he will finalize it when he gives us a new body which is likened to his own, which will know neither weariness nor pain or any such thing in the new Jerusalem toward which we go. The Lord must be praised then for the princely and primary dressing of pardon in which he sovereignly removes the entire curse of sin. When is your sin removed? Then, my good friends, you ought to be a praising soul tonight. He is an enigmatic figure who can be silent and unsinging in his heart, mute in his spirit, whose sins have been forgiven through Jesus Christ our Lord. No, no, the way the psalmist would tend the flame is just to remind himself that the Lord had removed every sin, even the sins that had been brought upon him because of his disobedience, even those sins and the diseases that accompanied them. Then, likewise, he would bring another piece of coal or whatever you have to put on the flame, and he would seek to praise God further because of the reversal of certain consequences of sin in his life. I think these words are simply wonderful. I would love to be sitting where you are sitting and listening to someone else preach about them. Who redeems your life from destruction? Who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies? Oh, for the words and the thoughts of the seraph to expound such amazing truths as these. God should be praised because of the reversal of certain consequences of sin by him in his sovereign grace. Now, the life of a sinner is a life that is being destroyed, destroyed. Sin is a great destroyer. Some of your translations will put it like this, who redeems your life from the pit. Well now, all right, even if it's in the pit, it's destroyed in the pit, and the concept of destruction is there, whatever the language here. And I think the word destruction better describes what the psalmist really said, who redeems your life from destruction. Sin destroys. Sometimes it destroys the body. At other times it destroys the mind. It destroys the individual. It destroys relationships. It destroys the home. It destroys society. It'll destroy the whole world. Sin is the destroyer of mankind. Now, the God who pardons our sins and heals all the diseases that come as a consequence of sin, that God reverses some of the consequences of sin. And this is the first thing he does. He redeems our life from the destruction that is going on. He rescues us from the process of being destroyed. You know, there is so much here, I just don't know where to start and where to stop. There is a word that is used here, for example. Students of the Old Testament will be very familiar with it. It's the Hebrew word goel, and it's a very special word, and it is sometimes in the Old Testament related to the concept of redemption. In Jewish usage, if a man died, if a Jewish person died, then the next of kin was responsible for the family. He was expected to, shall we say, as in the case of the husband of Naomi, Elimelech, who died, the next of kin would be expected to come alongside the widow and to care for the widow and for the children, if there were any, and to try and put the family standing on their feet again. The next of kin, the goel. Adam's race fell. The whole race. And there was not a man, there was not an next of kin to stand alongside of us. There was no one to come to our rescue. O loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came. And who is this second Adam? Not a son of man, but the Son of God. He became our next of kin to take our burden, to redeem our loss, to put us on our feet again, to reverse the consequences of sin in us. Doesn't this make you thank God? It makes me, I tell you. Isn't the flame getting warmer? He breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Now notice, as I said, some of the translations said that sin takes you down to the pit, down to the depths of destruction. He who forgives all your sins takes you up to the place of the crown. Can you see the opposites here? Sin takes you down to the grinding mill of destruction and to the place of ultimate destruction. But the one who forgives all your sin and heals all your diseases takes you up and he crowns you. In other words, the picture here is of a prince being crowned. He makes kings of poplars. He takes us to the throne. He lifts us up. He elevates us. He ennobles us. And he crowns us. And crowns us with what? What is gold and what is silver compared with this? He crowneth us, says the psalmist, who crowns you with his steadfast love and with his mercy. What a crown. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whom I'm sure many of you have been acquainted with for years, he has a word about this. Now he was a remarkable man in many respects. He had a poetic turn of mind and an imaginative turn of mind, too. So there's a little bit of imagination behind this, but may I quote it to you? What a crown, says he. Cleansing, healing, redeeming. They're not enough for him with love like his. He must needs make them kings and crown them. And the crown must be far more precious than if it were made of corruptible things such as silver and gold. It must be studded with gems of grace and lined with a velvet of lovingkindness. It is decked with a jewelry of mercy and made soft for the head to wear by the lining of tenderness. Now, if ever there was a scholarly interpretation of the Hebrew of this verse, there it is. For all the thoughts of that remarkable utterance of Charles Haddon Spurgeon are there right in what David said. A crown, says he. A crowned sinner. Give praise to God tonight. Who has brought his lovingkindness and his tender mercy and crowned you, son of perdition, to be a king and a priest with right of access to his presence and the hope of glory. Can you withhold your praise? The first log on the fire was the reminder of the removal of the curse. The second, the reminder of the reversal of the consequences of sin, or of some of them. And the last, the last log tonight, he speaks of the renewal of soul that follows. Who satisfies you with good, or with good things, as long as you live. Or rather, who satisfies you with good as long as you live, so that your youth is being renewed just like the ego's. Perhaps the emphasis in the first half of the verse should be upon the sheer satisfaction that is now assured. You see, the point is this. A man that has been saved from destruction is a man who has been changed completely. And his palate has been changed. His taste has been changed. This is one of the characteristics of forgiven men. God changes their tastes. Their desires. So that now they desire different things from what once they did. They no longer find satisfaction in the same places and in the same kind of habits. No, no. They've been changed. And the remarkable thing is this. Though they've only begun to feast upon spiritual things, they have a satisfaction. Do you sing that in here? I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but other waters failed. Even as I stooped to drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed. Now none but Christ can satisfy. None other name for me. There's love, there's life, there's lasting joy. Lord Jesus founded me. Oh, do you sing this? Yes, you do. I know. It's in the hymn book. Solid joys and lasting pleasures. None but Zion's children know who satisfy it by mouth. The things of grace are so wrought and so made and so prepared, they soothe the palate of the pardoned, rescued, redeemed child of God, and they bring with them a satisfaction. And in consequence, a man is rejuvenated. He's just like the eagle that has got new wings. And he's renewed in life. Now, I know full well that there is an old story about the eagle diving into the depths of the sea, going down in one mighty swoop and coming up as a new creature. Well, we don't need to think of that. I think that the image is far simpler than that. God gives us such a satisfaction, such a contentment, such a fortest of glory divine, that in consequence, we are like new creatures. We've begun to live again. The age of it will become young. Eternity has invaded the soul, and we've been lifted from the dust and the ashes and the grime of the pit. Coverdale's translation is this, making you young and lusty as an eagle, enabling you to climb the heights, look into the face of the sun as only an eagle can, and with your mighty pinions, swish down circumstances and mount over them. One of the saddest poems I think I ever, ever remember reading spoke of a bird with a broken pinion. I don't know whether you know it here. I can't put my finger on it anyway, and I don't want to, actually. I've lost all track of it, but I don't think I want to read it again because it had one refrain recurring, the bird with a broken pinion will never fly again. And I met it in a Christian setting, in a Christian context, in a Christian book, but I can't tell you where. And I was a little bit taken up with it at the beginning, and then I thought, decent poetry it may be, but it's very, very indecent theology. A bird with a broken pinion may never fly again, but that's not true of sinners. If that were true, where would Moses be? If that were true, where would David be? If that were true, where would Peter be? If that were true, where would you and I be? Haven't we broken our pinions? Haven't we fallen like a swallow on the roadside? But the wonder of redeeming grace is this. He renews your life, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. He mends the broken pinions of men and women that have lost the capacity to fly, and he enables them to climb again. That's grace, you see. When I recognize this and see this for myself, it makes me dance with joy. But when I begin to experience it, the fire burns. It was some little time before I came across the Atlantic here to live, I was reading a Canadian periodical, a Christian periodical, published here. And in it, there was a little incident retold. I have the cutting before me here of a wedding at which the writer had been. It took place in New York. The bride was the daughter of a millionaire, and they were now at the wedding breakfast. And when the father of the bride got up, he made a very appropriate speech. And he said, now I want to give my gift to my daughter, the bride of today. And he took out of his pocket a little key. And everybody was bewildered. And he thought he made a speech about the key, which came to nothing very much, but he said a lot. And he said, I'm now going to ask her to take the key. She seemed very pleased, but no one else couldn't understand it. The fact of the matter was this. He had had a home built for her with all the gadgets and machinery and furniture and what else can you put into a home to make it happy and all right. You can't make it happy by these things, but to make it comfortable. She knew about it. He knew about it. And it was at the wedding breakfast that he handed over the key and said, Darling, it's yours. My friend, I hold in my hand tonight a key to all these precious benefits of divine grace and much, much else. Will you take it from my hand? For that key is Jesus Christ alone, who forgiveth all thy iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles and you're raring to go. And all these things emerge when Jesus Christ is made yours and crowned as the Lord and Savior of your life. Will you take it? And if you do, I promise you next Harvest Thanksgiving will be far too distant for you to wait. You'll be back next week, if not here, somewhere else. And you'll have to join with the people of God in the praise and the worship of the Lamb that was slain and in bringing glory and honor and in singing the songs of Zion somewhere. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul. And the psalm ends with the same words. Why? Because the man means what he said. My friends, where do we stand? Do you see the windows well dressed? I haven't told you the how. But the goods are here to be discovered by the man or the woman that comes to God through Jesus Christ. Don't just spy the window like the shopper going around the streets at Christmas time looking at this and examining that and saying, that's wonderful, that's beautiful, that would be a grace, a great present for grandma or grandpa or somebody else. Come in and receive. Oh, come and receive tonight the benefits of divine mercy that make you sing. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we feel as if we are but children in the kindergarten of the school of our Lord in this matter of praise. And when we look at the example of this psalmist who though he was living in the distant days of Old Testament times yet was so sure of thy grace and of thy mercy that he could so sing and he would so sing. We who live this side of Calvary and of the resurrection and of the ascension and of the coming of the Spirit and of the giving of the Bible and of the emergence and continuance of the church. Oh, Lord, forgive us, we pray thee, that we are so blind. We ask that thou wouldst feed the flame in every heart where it is found in any measure and so fill thou our lives. Oh, Lord our God, in every part with praise that our whole being and our days may proclaim thy being and thy ways through Jesus Christ thy Son. Amen.