In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of retaining the vision of the transfigured Lord in the face of demonic opposition and challenges. He encourages believers to persist in prayer and devotion, even when it may feel inadequate, as God imparts something to them in those moments. The speaker also highlights the need to break free from a utilitarian mentality that expects a measured return for one's investment, as the kingdom of God operates on a lavish and extravagant principle. By breaking the power of this worldly wisdom, believers can have authority over dark spirits and demons, as they are no longer influenced by their authority.

Thank you for that precious prayer, Pastor. Well, this almost feels like anticlimax because this morning's service and message was so lush, rich. And I'll be on the same theme. It'll probably be a complement to this morning's message. The two will relate together, essentially the subject of prayer, but much more than technique or methodology. And my text will be Mark chapter 9, single episode in the life of Jesus. But I don't know how you are, but something's happening to me in my old age as I ponder the so-called single episodes. Because I see them as having such portent for the last days. As if in the Father's wisdom, the Lord had to walk out something in actuality in that historical moment, but it is given for our instruction upon whom the ends of the age have come. And it's in that prophetic sense that I will be commending this chapter to you and its instruction, which has remarkable eschatological implications for the last days and the issue of Israel through the church. Why could we not cast him out is a pregnant question raised by the disciples after their embarrassing failure to deal with this chronic and persistent evil spirit that had been ravaging this young boy from his infancy. They had succeeded elsewhere when he sent them out by twos, but here they collapsed painfully. And we have to understand why. This kind that cometh not out but by fasting and by prayer. What is this kind? Who is this boy? He's not merely being harassed. The Father said since his childhood these spirits are out to destroy him. So will you excuse me if I use a prophetic liberty and interpret this boy to stand symbolically for the nation Israel, which since its inception has been pursued and hounded and plagued and harassed, not just to disturb it by the powers of darkness, but to destroy it. And they will have one last shot at the end of the age, and you had better be able to cast it out. So isn't it interesting that chapter 9 begins with the mount of transfiguration? You think that is coincidental? After six days, six being the number of men, in verse 2 of chapter 9 Jesus took Peter, James, John and led them up to a high mountain apart by themselves, and he was transfigured before them. That's not my text, but we must make some reference to that, because what a privilege to see the Lord transfigured, to catch a glimpse of what his glory was before he came down to this earth, and while he was yet with the Father, and will again be his when he ascends to the throne. They caught for a moment that glory which is always with him, but was concealed. And Peter was stupefied, they fell on their faces, and the voice of the Father in a cloud from heaven said, this is my son, hear ye him. And when they got up they saw no man but Jesus only. So it's a remarkable episode, but it proceeds coming down from the mount into a valley. And so there we have to say, this is a pattern, this is richly instructive, that mountaintop experience is not to be retained, you've got to come down from it. You can't stay there and languish and enjoy the remarkable rippling effect of that high spiritual experience. It's to prepare you for the valley, but not to be a thing in itself. But what did Peter say? Lord, let us build three booths, one for you, one for Elijah, one for Moses, because Jesus was seen communicating both with Elijah and Moses, and they spoke about his impending death. It's not only to see Jesus transcendent in radiant glory, but to see the great prophet Elijah and the founding father Moses, the two great pillars of Hebraic faith, conversing with their Lord about his soon-coming decease. No wonder they were stupefied and went down in their faces like dead men. But the heck of it is this, they could not retain the vision. No sooner had they come down and saw this evil spirit taking this boy, and like a mad dog with a rag doll in its teeth, just shaking the living daylights out of it and throwing him into the fire, and it terrified them. It choked their faith. They stooped, they stupefied. They could not bring and apply the vision of the transfigured Lord into the valley of demonic opposition, hatred, and power. Dum-da-dum-dum. And that is the colossal setting of the issue of the church for the last days. So it behooves us to study this text and to draw out from it its instruction. So in verse 14, when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them and the scribes questioning with them. And straightaway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed and running to him, saluted him. And he asked one of the scribes, What question thee with them? And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit. And wheresoever he takes him, he tears him, and he foams and gnashes with his teeth and pines away. And I spoke to your disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not. He answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me. This is a remarkable reprimand by Jesus. O faithless generation, I don't know what it is that evoked this disparaging, sweeping indictment of his own disciples and of the generation of Jews and their unbelief. How long must I suffer you, but bring him unto me? And they brought him unto him, and when he saw him, the evil spirit, straightaway the spirit tore him, and he fell on the ground, wallowed, foaming. Jesus turned to his father and said, Asked, How long is it since this has come unto him? And he said, Of a child, from his inception. And oft times it hath cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him, not to harass him, to destroy him, because the evil one is a murderer and a destroyer. And what is it about this young boy that he picks on him? Why has he all his life long been a source of torment and has harried him and thrown him into fire and into water in every way? What is it about this one boy that deserves that kind of attention from the powers of darkness that are relentless? Well, because the one boy is Israel, and Israel must be obliterated, must be destroyed, because should Israel succeed and come from childhood to maturity in God and take its place in his purposes, the powers of darkness are once and for all forever defeated and done. Another kingdom has come. They're finished. So to avoid that terrible loss of influence and power and the way in which they have jerked and manipulated nations, they know where the problem lies. And if you get rid of the Jew, you get rid of the threat of the kingdom of Israel, for the kingdom to come is Davidic, and it has to do with a restored nation whose restoration cannot be permitted. And the only way to avoid it is to obliterate. That's the way that you need to see the issue of Israel, not the present state that's only a preliminary in this whole great drama, but the powers of darkness know better than you what a restored nation means in terms of the kingdom that waits their restoration and the king who will not rule until they shall say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. But what if they're not there to say? What if they're obliterated? What if to be thrown into the fire and into the water is not just a momentary harassment to deform at your mouth, but to die in those fixations. What do they call them? These fits. That's what the enemy is after. And what an enemy, powerful in his intention not to be placated, because even after Jesus commands him to loose him, thou dumb and deaf spirit, verse 25, I charge thee come out of him and enter him no more. So we can say, if I'm not being too fancy here, Israel has suffered a deaf and dumb spirit. That is to say they've not been able to hear God and they've not been able to speak for God. They've been bound by spirits that have had opportunity to assail them when the door is opened through their sin, unbelief, insubordination and rejection of their Messiah. But that nation is called both to hear and to speak. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. But their ears are stopped. Their mouth is stopped. They can't speak. And what you see in me is a foretaste of things to come. I'm a picture of a restored nation, of an Israelite in whom is no guile and fulfilling the calling of God and that of my fathers to proclaim and to preach and to speak, to bless the nations in a priestly way. So can you imagine a nation of outcasts? My wife says one is quite enough. So I charge you in the authority that is mine, come out of him and enter him no more. This is your last harassment. I'm commanding you that this will not be permitted you again. This is once and for all. This is final deliverance. Those spirits do not come out easily, and they want every opportunity to return seven times more. And the spirit cried and rent him sore, shook him and tore him like that dog with that stuffed doll, and came out of him, and he was as one dead, insomuch that many said he is dead. If he's going to be commanded not to come back again, and this is his last opportunity to inflict his satanic, demonic, evil power upon this hapless child, he's going to really do a job. He's not just going to give him one last kick. He's going to leave him as dead. And the fact that people said he is dead. He came out, but he didn't come out willingly. He came out reluctantly. He came out taking every last thing he could from this child's life and leaving him as a dead cadaver. It shows how malicious and evil these powers and spirits of darkness are, that even when they're commanded to come out, yes, they'll come, but not without first extracting the uttermost last iota of suffering and infliction, devastation and death upon its victim. So Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. You know what I see in that? Not just that Jesus delivered him in the authority and power that was his as the Son of God, but he resurrected him. Ultimate deliverance is resurrection, and that's what the people of Israel must and will experience, not just deliverance from the harassment of the enemy that has plagued them since childhood, but resurrection unto a newness of life. That's going to require something much more even than the authority to deliver, is the authority to raise up a victim apparently dead unto life. And what Jesus is depicting in this episode is a picture of that to which we are called in the last days when the nation Israel in the front of our face will be victimized and attacked and beaten and thrown into fires and left for dead. And if we have not the authority of Jesus to command those spirits to cease and to lift that flailing nation unto death unto life, the whole story is over. Do you realize that the whole epical issue, the whole remarkable drama of redemption and restoration of Israel in the last analysis waits on one question only. A church corporately that can act as one in the same power and authority that Jesus himself exhibited. That means that we have to be agreed. We have to be as one. We have to be in a certain relationship with the Father as Jesus himself was because to confront those powers in their spiteful malicious intention to destroy is going to require of us an authority and spirituality and a genuineness in God beyond anything else that could be asked of us. And yet the disciples then privileged as they were and given authority and they went by twos and they came back with a report, even the spirits are submitted to us. But they couldn't handle this one because this kind, this ultimate kind cometh not out but by fasting and prayer. Why could we not cast him out, they said, because this kind, this ultimate kind requires an ultimate expression of the authority of God at the moment of collision and confrontation that asserts the supreme authority of the invisible God in the face of the visible powers of evil. That's why it's easier to pray for someone with a sniffle and a cold than someone who comes in a wheelchair paralyzed when you feel the virtue go out from you because the requirement of faith to believe for that is so much greater than to believe for someone who has only a cold. But can you believe for this? So, here's the way I see it. In the last analysis what the issue is, is a collision and a confrontation between two ultimate realities which is going to prevail. The apparent visible reality of evil who has all the marvels, has all the demonstrable strength, is able at will to pick this boy up and throw him into fire and to make him to foam at the mouth and bring him nigh unto death. That's terrifying to see the powers of evil so graphically displayed in a visible way where the victim foams at the mouth, is beside himself in paroxysms and fits and is thrown as a hapless rag into the fire as dead. You're going to face that head on? So what it means is this. It's not just abracadabra, in the name of Jesus I command you. You know what will happen with prayer like that? Nothing. Because it's only a little formula. Because it's only an easy and glib religious reflex action to which the powers can say, Jesus we know and Paul we know, but who the heck are you? What do you think that you're intimidating us because you can say, in the name of Jesus I command you to come out? You count nothing with us. You have no authority. You're shallow. You're a counterfeit. You're a fraud. You're a play actor. Jesus we know. Paul we know. Their authority is unquestionable. When they say come out, we come out that very hour. But when you say it, what else is new? And yet look at the faith of God. That he's trusting the salvation of his nation Israel to you. He's believing that you will be so one with Jesus, so much in his authority and love and compassion and mercy, having such an awareness of the sense of God, that no matter what physical and visible expression of evil confronts you, you are not impressed. You see right through it because your sense of the true God and his majesty and glory is greater than the visible demonstration of evil that is before you. It's one or the other. There's a collision of realities, and the issue is to what degree do you have the reality of God in his majesty, in his supreme authority, in his sovereignty, in his power, his love, his nature, his will. If you're only correct or shallow or I don't know what, ordinary, conventional, you'll not be able to meet that situation. And it's not a crisis that you'll meet in the moment. It's a crisis for which you need now to be in actual preparation. That the issue in the last analysis of Israel's deliverance through a church like Jesus is the issue of its fasting and prayer. This kind cometh not out but by fasting and prayer. But there's prayer and prayer. There's unctuous, religious, obligatory, ceremonial prayer that doesn't bring anything out. But the prayer that Jesus is speaking about is ultimate. It's prayer beyond petition. It's the kind of prayer that should begin when we end. Because we make our petitions to the Lord, Lord, I need this, Lord, do that, bless the meeting, bless the speaker, and then we stop. That's when we should be beginning. When Jesus prayed to the Father at Gethsemane or on mountaintops or in the dark before the dawn, it wasn't just plying the Father with petitions. It was communing with his God. It's not described to us, but it took hours. And it was so important to him, he could not begin his day until he had first had this communion with the Father. Not to receive instruction, but to receive the Father. Because when you're in communion, and you're prevailing in your soul and interceding and praying and extending something to him out of your deeps, do you know what he's doing? He's extending something to you out of his deeps. How do you think I got to the place that I'm enjoying? Or else I would not be a speaker. I would not be standing before you. If there was not a measure of authority, the reality of God, the ability to be led by him, the sense of him, because everything is communicated. No matter what the subject, the true preacher is always preaching Christ. Something of the resonance of God, to the degree that he has it, to the degree that he's had that communion, that relationship, that he's been with him in the fellowship of his sufferings. And he knows something about resurrection out of death, because he himself has been raised on occasions. He has a history with God. He has a sense of God. And as our pastor confessed at the end of the first service, he's not satisfied with his prayer life. I'm not satisfied with mine. I'm not satisfied that I have a sense of God that does him justice. I don't know him as I ought. As much as I'm used and God is circulating me to all these nations, and they're blessed, I'm not personally satisfied that I have the sense of him that my soul cherishes and has not yet obtained. And you know, dear saints, as I said in the first service, every power in the world, the flesh and the devil, will conspire to keep you from that kind of knowledge. You try to seek God with all your heart, not to apply him with petitions because you need this or want that, or good grades in school, or a girlfriend, boyfriend, but for his own sake. You just want to be in communion. You want the sense of him. You want a real love, if not an adoration, to be generated by some communion with him and see where it will get you. You know where it will get you? The heavens will be his breasts. Your mind will be drifting. You'll be looking at your watch. You'll be thinking of practical things. It's remarkably demanding to break through the layers and actualities of this all-too-practical earthly life to find a place of communion with a God of heaven. And most of us have not the incentive. Most of us have not the Jacob spirit, as I said this morning, who will not let him go except that he bless us. Most of us are slothful, lazy, casual, indifferent. We get by. Our prayers are okay. It satisfies the need of the moment. Our colleagues are pleased with us. Nobody is faulting us. And everyone seems to be in essentially that situation condition. So we think it's normative. But this kind cometh not out but by fasting and by prayer. Why fasting? Is that some technique? Because fasting is a statement of self-denial. Fasting is a statement that you mean it, that you're sincere in your quest for God and the knowledge of him and to be used of him for the deliverance of a nation whose, if its deliverance does not come from you, will perish. That's why I can tell you now I have not eaten since after my arrival. And I only ate that meal because of the fellowship and touch base and spirit with pastor and others involved. But we have been fasting ever since to this moment. And what is that? No great deal. But I'll tell you what. Something in the heavenlies is expressed. The powers of darkness take into account the intent and the sincerity of these servants who demonstrated by their willingness to deny themselves food. It's not so much that our bodies, as you can see, are in so great need. We can easily go on. But it's psychological hunger. It's wanting to pacify the annoyance within and passing all these delicious places and watching as the cars go by, people picking up their noodles and you're beginning to salivate. There's a psychological hunger and a soulishness, a sensuality over food that needs to be gratified. After all, when has it been denied last? It's been fed on schedule. And if it's not, you'll soon enough know it. They'll knock and complain that, hey, get with it. You're denying me. What is my due? Self-denial is the great heart of the principle of separation and faith in the key to power. That's why Jesus celebrated that woman who poured that vase of expensive ointment upon his head. The disciples were indignant. To what purpose is this waste? Why, this money could have been used for pamphlets and religious material and tracts. Take it easy, you guys. What this woman has done shall be spoken of her wheresoever this gospel is preached in all the earth, for she has done a good work upon me. She was lavish and unstinting. She didn't just screw off the cap and give me a few drops. She took a year's wages of an expensive ointment and broke the vessel and poured the entire content upon my head that the whole house was filled with its fragrance. She was preparing me for burial. It was an act of lavish love as only a woman could perform it because we men are too stingy and too counting the cost. And wasn't a spoonful enough? Couldn't we have an atomizer and a little spritz? Not only must you lose the content, must you break the vessel? Jesus celebrated that as a good work. It's the only such acknowledgement he made in his entire earthly tenure where he can call any work performed by man good. That was a good work. Why? Because it subsumed and expressed the very genius of God. Because he himself was soon to be a poured-out vessel at the cross of Calvary and not stinting but giving the whole of his life and being unto death. She preceded and gave a resonance of that which he was to fulfill by something much more costly than ointment. Listen, you dear saints. We are all of us stingy, utilitarian, so much given for so much desired. You want this and you're willing to give that much in exchange for paying that. But it falls short of the reality of the kingdom which has not to do with a measure tit-for-tat, so much given. That's utilitarian, that's the spirit of the world. His wisdom is great and other. It is lavish, it is outpouring, it is extravagant. And Watchman Lee rightly says that the principle of waste is the principle of power. Praise the Lord for a Chinese oracle. What hinders thee? The principle of waste is the principle of power, the principle of extravagance. This kind comes not out but by fasting, by self-denial and by prayer of a kind that is beyond petition, that is communion, that is relationship because in that and the frequency of that which is costly because you have to get up early and you need your sleep and you don't want to fall asleep in class or on the job so you can only give the Lord a limited time. Where's your faith? To believe that if you'll expend yourself for him, he'll expend himself for you. And more will be accomplished in the shortened hours of that day than if you had the whole day at your disposal and not given the Lord a portion and especially a first portion at the commencement of the day which he deserves. In a word, the issue of Israel's survival and restoration and resurrection is the issue of the church's devotional life. Isn't that remarkable? Not some great dramatic and explosive thing of her heroism in the last days but the issue of the consistency day by day and morning by morning of a devotional relationship with God that no one sees that is private and secret at sacrifice because it means early arising because it means breaking through the handicaps and the obstacles to prayer and to communion and especially when you're fasting and your stomach is rattling. Jesus was in that relationship. Bring him to me. And the powers recognize the evil one that he is one with whom we cannot counter. He is absolute in the reality of God which he brings to bear and the point of confrontation with us which is his and the expression of his intimate knowledge of God the Father. In that last collision, two realities are budding head on and which is the greater? I'm repeating myself. What is visible, frightening, terrifying? A man being shaken like a mad dog and thrown down into the fire and the victim is foaming at the mouth in a fit and that has been his experience since childhood? Or the invisible, quiet, unobtrusive sense of God that resonates when you speak the word of authority in the name of Jesus and say come out of him and don't enter him again. Authority is not a technique. It's not raising your voice. It's not turning up the amplifiers. You have it in proportion to the knowledge of the reality of God as God and that's got to be sought in sacrifice and extravagant love and giving him the choices in first time of the day before you will allow yourself to turn to anything and you'll not feel the benefit. In fact, the Lord will test you. He will not give you any empirical sense that he's even present. You'll feel like a fool because you're on the floor and there's a cold draft coming out under the door and you should be better off in bed resting and safely and warm under your covers after all it's a hard day ahead. Everything will militate against devotion. Even the Lord himself will not accommodate you by giving you a sense of his presence so as to encourage you but to see the earnestness of your heart that believes for his reality even when he's not felt because there's going to be a moment for you as the church when you are in the most excruciating bind of last day's opposition and persecution unto death when you desperately want the sense of God's presence as Jesus needed it at the cross and will have to say with him my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Listen, saints, you're not going to hear this from anyone else but kid cats. I'm the only one who knows this, sees this and speaks this. I'm the only one at that so-called prophetic conference where some hot shots came to tell us how to invoke God's presence through worship. You sing these choruses and he's compelled to come down and so we'll feel his presence as if we can manipulate him by our platform exercises. I got up in my full Hebraic indignation in priestly authority and said you guys would be better off if you could teach us how to be faithful to God not because we feel his presence but in the absence of any sense of that presence because that's going to be our last day's experience. So start getting with it now and believing that though you don't feel a presence the Lord very much appreciates that you've taken time early to seek him. And though you think it's vain and the enemies there say, you fool, you're wasting your time you should be in bed, you need your strength, you need your rest you persist and you're giving the Lord your heart and you're not happy with your own prayer. It sounds so inadequate, so lacking in the kind of dignity and eloquence that God deserves but it's the best that you're able. And while you're giving him that best he's giving you his best and every operation of devotion something is being imparted to you even when it's not felt. So that when you get up at the last service at Cornerstone Church in Singapore on April 10th, 2005 which may well be your last speaking at this church something has got to be communicated in the authority and power of God to the measure that you have obtained that kind of relationship with all of the unseen private and quiet devotions that have preceded it. What I am to you now publicly is the sum of all that you cannot know privately but if it were not for that the privacy of that devotion you would be getting much less now than what you're getting. Got the picture? The issue of Israel's salvation and resurrection is not your heroism, but your devotion. Even when there's no tangible, felt appreciation from the God whom you're seeking and no visible benefit that you can in any way assess or measure you still maintain a continuing devotion before him not because you're in it to get something though that's the way you've been till now but because he deserves that devotion without any payoff for yourself. If you come for a payoff it's no longer devotion it's commerce, which you're good at even too good becoming the great economic power of the world and reducing my country to a third rate power so you've been bred with that that means it's going to take an extraordinary operation of the cross to break the power of the utilitarian mentality in which you have grown up that you expect a return for an investment God's not an object of commerce He's the living God, you precious saints He's the holy one of Israel He's the creator of heavens and the earth and all that in it is He's a soon coming king He's an exalted, crucified, risen and ascended son He deserves our worship He deserves our acknowledgement and our seeking and our communion independent of anything that returns to us as benefit You've got to break the power of that utilitarian mentality that expects a return for so much invested because that's the spirit of the world and the wisdom of the world and the mentality of the world and so long as you're in the world like that and subscribing to that spirit, that mentality what are you going to say to the dark spirits of that same world whose wisdom that is what authority are you going to have with them when you're submitting to their wisdom when your life is contextually in that wisdom but when you've broken its power when you're not in it for what you can get you're fingering and touching the nexus of a world system ruled over by the prince of darkness and when it comes to confront his messengers and his demons you have the authority to do so because you're independent and free from their influence and their authority on a consistent life basis Am I getting too fancy? Is this too much? Can you follow this? There's a struggle, you dear saints a conflict coming to final consummation over the issue of a child How long has he suffered this? Since a child and your disciples could not cast him out Judaism could not cast him out Human philosophy, ethics and morality could not cast him out Bring him to me I've got the authority I know the father and my knowledge inwardly of the greatness of my God eclipses this little mock phony baloney show that this jerky dark spirit thinks that he's performing I'm not intimidated by it because my vision and inward understanding far eclipses anything that he can dramatically perform Got the picture? Thank you, Lord May we graduate from prayer as petition because there it is, it's utilitarian again We're praying to receive something and God is gracious to hear those petitions and to answer them but he's wanting something more prayer as communion for himself and for his own sake without any benefit that redounds to you for the sacrifice of seeking it and the issue is the ability not just to deliver but to stretch forth your arm and raise up one who would otherwise be accounted as dead So I want to pray for such a church This is not an appeal to individual virtuosos This is the church in its corporateness in its single man brought to the stature of Christ in agreement, having this kind of reality inward that has been nurtured, cultivated, strengthened by the frequency of its relationship with its God in the spirit and in truth at sacrifice and early morning risings and inconvenience So Lord, this is your final word for me? Okay We thought that what was going to be required of us to conclude the age is apostolic boldness and great courage and the great exploits that conclude the age It never once occurred to us that the issue of the consummation of the age and Israel's deliverance your coming kingdom and glory is what takes place privately quietly, unobtrusively secretly, on our knees, at our beds on a carpet and on our face as frequently and as often as we will So I'm asking my God the spirit of prayer, the spirit of supplication the spirit of devotion and that in it, progressively and increasingly we will come to an abiding sense of yourself because you know how often I have prayed when I'm speaking in different places that Lord, I'm asking to bring the sense of yourself The church needs the sense of God as God or else we will make him in our image and he'll become an errand boy and do our favors and run our errands we'll make him less than other than he is invariably, unless we have a sense of who he is in himself and Lord, I'm asking that a gift for this people that you would give increasingly the sense of God as God holy, majestic, sovereign all-wise God that we might have a sense of the transfigured Christ inwardly, and be able to carry it into the valleys to which we're called in so great a measure that whatever the intimidating demonstration of the powers of darkness we're not at all threatened we know whom we know and he's the author and the finisher of our faith, he's the great creator and king and redeemer and even these filthy demonic spirits and principalities and powers of the air were originally his own creation and even in a certain sense serve his purposes he's the supreme God and we've got to know him as that yes, even in Singapore so Lord, bless this people bless these young ones give them a heart for this I know that they want to succeed in school and grades are so important that they can go on to university and careers, etc, etc but give them a faith to believe that whatever sacrifice they make of their valuable time in the early morning's day you will not deny them a blessing to strengthen and lengthen the hours that do remain and accomplish more in that than if they had not sought you because you're a rewarder of them who diligently seek you but we're not seeking you for the reward thank you, Lord oh, make us worshippers in spirit and in truth, Lord we bless you and thank you for the privilege you're an all deserving God you're a great deity you deserve, my God, such devotion and invest in us some measure of yourself with each moment of prayer we thank you and give you praise that this church, this people will be Israel's deliverer not by its heroism but by its devotion in Jesus' name we ask it Amen