In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the importance of fathers in the family and the role they play in shaping their children's lives. He emphasizes the need for fathers to be watchful and attentive to their children, acknowledging their flaws and using them as an opportunity for personal growth. The preacher also highlights the need for spiritual preparation and reliance on God's power to overcome the strongholds of the enemy. He shares a poem about a part-time father to illustrate the impact of a father's presence and promises to his child.

Well, good morning. We're glad to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. It's Father's Day, and of course the scriptures has a lot of information and a lot of commands for us as fathers. What a responsibility to be a father, and you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6 and verse 4, and also in Colossians 3 21. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Heavenly Father, we yield this time to you today. We pray for the anointing of your Spirit upon us, upon my tongue as I share, and our ears as we listen to what the Spirit has to say today to us about fathers. Father, I ask that you would bless, that you would encourage. I pray for every father that would be listening, every family represented, that the Lord Jesus Christ would be lifted up and exalted. I pray for those that would be listening today that have not yet trusted Christ as their Savior, that they would understand that this is an eternal issue, that they will live for eternity somewhere. And Father, that your choice is that they would live with you, but the choice is theirs if they would live with you or go to a fiery hell. Father, thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ. Thank you for dying on the cross for us, paying the price for our sin, offering eternal life as a gift. And now we pray that you would bless us as we listen to what you have to say to us today in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I have a lot of things to share with you. I don't really know how long we'll go. We'll just let the Lord guide us as we usually do, trust him to guide us direct, and we lean on him very, very heavy. Matter of fact, we should be leaning on him so hard that if he was to move, we would fall. But of course, if you're really leaning on the Lord, you won't fall. If there's a falling and a failure, it's probably because we were leaning to our own understanding and leaning on ourself. I'd like to start off with a little poem that was in a newspaper 11 years ago in a town I was in when I was pastoring a church, and it's titled, Part-Time Dad. Written by a little fellow, and here's how it goes. Each Sunday morning finds him knocking at the door of the house he used to live in, but doesn't anymore. He's there to keep his promises to the eager little lad. He knows he's looking forward to a visit from his dad. They'll spend the day together, both trying to pretend that the pleasant time they're sharing doesn't have to end. Dad knows that it isn't possible, and when the day is over, the visit will be over for this father and his son. Since the breakup of his marriage, this is how it has to be. No matter how he wishes, things had turned out differently. In spite of all that happened, at least he can be glad his little boy still loves him, though he's just a part-time dad. The sad truth is, many fathers have lost their families. They've lost their children. They've lost out on the very blessing that God has given to us as fathers, to raise up our families and to lead our children to godliness and righteousness. I've been meditating this week on a passage in Mark, and I think we'll just go through this passage in Mark tonight, and I'll just share with you some thoughts and things that God's been showing to me about a father. I have a lot of different things I'd like to share with you. We've been going through in the last few weeks on our 26 things that the Lord has showed us about the church and the two things that come up for today. I was just amazed how both of these things tied right directly into the father's responsibility, and if we get over to these two things today, I'll cover them with you. But I'd like to take you over to Mark chapter 9 and show you some things as God's been revealing it to us about a father's tears. Mark 9 and verse 14 on down to probably about verse 29 is where we'll go, and maybe we ought to read this passage, and then I'll just come back and make some comments. And I want you to listen very carefully. I have some things to share with you about a father, some things that are very pertinent. We are in a in a serious situation in our country in the fact that we're slipping. Our families are losing it, and our families are losing it because our fathers are losing it. And when I'm done, I've got a little poem here if I don't forget to read it. I just want to give this poem as a word of encouragement to fathers not to give up. The title of it is Don't Quit. But Mark 9, 14, and when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them. And straightway all the people when they beheld him were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him. And he asked the scribes, What question you with them? And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit. And whithersoever he taketh him, he teareth him. And he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away. And I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not. And 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. And they brought him unto him. And when he saw him, straightway the Spirit tear him. And he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And oftentimes it had cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. But if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. And when Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried and rent him sore and came out of him. And he was as one dead, insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose. And when he was coming to the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. Now, in starting off, I'd just like to make this statement. It is a father's responsibility to raise his child, his children. It's a father's responsibility to teach his children and to raise them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, as the scripture says. The guideline, the principle and foundation was established in the Old Testament for the Hebrew fathers as they raised their families. And this principle has never been taken back. But he told them, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. The word of God is to be in the father's heart. And then he is in turn to teach the word to his children. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Now, one of the things that we have done as fathers, and we've just sort of drifted into a generation of fathers that have not taken a hold and have not been guarding our families. We have delegated the teaching responsibility to Sunday school teachers and trusting that the pastor will get it done. And we're just not doing, many of us not doing what we need to be doing as fathers with our children. And another area now that we're looking at is the responsibility of the father to guard his children from demonic invasion into their lives. If you let your children watch the Sunday morning cartoons, I can guarantee you they're being programmed into the occult and witchcraft, because it's almost solid. And I wouldn't let my children watch anything of that nature. As a matter of fact, it's hard, but we need to guard our children all the time. Somebody asked me today, I was with a doctor, a friend of mine, and one of the men in our church, and we went out and had a dinner together. We were just talking about how hard it was even to go and off to visit different places, and even sometimes going to our relatives' places where they don't understand what's going on. And our children can be exposed to things that will hurt them. Now let's go through this passage. I want you to understand some principles here. And these are not any great principles. We may go through this a couple times. But in this passage of the disciples, you've got to understand Peter, James, and John had just been on the Mount of Transfiguration, and they've come back down, and Jesus finds the rest of the disciples in trouble. Here's this big multitude, this big crowd, and the scribes were drilling the disciples. And all the people, when they saw Jesus, it says that they were greatly amazed and running to Him. And there's been a lot of debate over what that means, about why was He greatly amazed. And I'm not going to tie into that one now. Your idea and mine might be just about as good as anybody's. But listen, here's the thing. Jesus comes down and finds the disciples in a situation where they could not minister. Isn't it amazing that just a few chapters back, God, the Lord Jesus Christ had given them authority over powers and demons, and here they come up to a situation where they can't do it. They can't cast them out. Why did they fail? Why couldn't they do it? And the Lord comes along. The first thing He does, He drills the Father on His faithlessness. He answered, and He said unto him in verse 19, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring Him unto me. And I almost, I just wonder if He wasn't also looking at the disciples. They're, you know, standing there, and they're just total failures, wipeouts. Here they were, and they couldn't do it. But the Lord says that really, He says the ultimate cause of failure is our lack of prayer, our lack of communion with God. Our faith and our prayer, they stand together. And if one goes out, you can look over in the other hand, you'll see the other. It's like two, if you're going to run a swather or a bulldozer or something, you need to use both handles. You just pull one. If just one works, you're just going to go in circles. And that's what a lot of us are doing. We may have some faith, but we don't have prayer backing it up, and so we're just going in circles, and we don't see things happening in our life. So if you neglect one area, you're going to get into trouble. You can't omit prayer and keep the faith. What's prayer anyway? It's a meeting where you meet with God, spirit with spirit. It's a man communing with God. It's the mortal laying down upon the eternal. It's man talking with God, you fellowshiping with your God, and it's God talking back with you. And so if you and I would neglect our prayer, God won't speak to us, we won't hear God speak, and as a result, it will carry over into our family, and in this situation, here's a man without faith where his own child was in trouble. Are you listening? Do you have your ears on? Is the devil getting into your family, Father? Is there a perilous or paralyzing coming into your family? Now, when we lose a sense of God's presence, and we lose touch with Him, a vital touch with Him, and if we lose a hold of God, we will become impotent and paralyzed spiritually, and we will get into situations like this man where his own child has come under the control of a demon. Now, let's slip on across and look at a few other things. In the multitude, which hath a dumb spirit, and he goes through all the symptoms and everything, and he said, I speak to thy disciples that they should cast them out, and they could not. You know, where was Jesus? He was away at that point. He was away from them. He was up on the mountain having a time with Peter, James, and John, but they could not do it. Why? Well, the Lord brings them back to help them into a deeper understanding that there are some things in their ministry that's going to cost them in order to see the power of God work. In other words, to set the captives free, sometimes because of the stronghold of Satan in their lives, you just don't come in and say a prayer, but you need to come in prayed up with fasting and prayer so that there be more of an anointing and power on your life to deal with the enemy. We do not take some things lightly when we get into this area of the captives being taken by the enemy. Now, there was a question in verse 21, and he asked his father, how long is it ago since this came unto him? This question was designed to reveal to this man his own moral state, his own state of his heart. You see, because he says, the disciples failed. They couldn't do it, and he's going to turn around in just a minute, and he's going to say, if you can do anything. You know, many times people look at us, look at the church, and they think, well, if that's the way God is, if they're flopping around in a failure, then God must be. If they can't do anything, then God must be like that. You see what's going on? The disciples were a bad testimony to the Lord at this point. But this question, the Lord says, let's don't look at my disciples. He said, I'm going to take care of them. What about you? What about you? Where are you at? And actually, this could just almost represent our age. You know, ages have titles. Sometimes there's been the age of faith. Someone even said, Dr. Van Dyke said, this is the age of doubt. I don't know. I think it's worse than that. Age of great deception that we're going into, as prophecy tells us about. We're going into this demonic, deceptive time when the whole world is going to come under this power of Satan as we move into the preparation for the tribulation period. And as we move into this period, there's going to be an outburst as we're going into it now, a deeper outburst of demonic onslaught and influence and possession in the lives of people. Now, he says, if thou canst. It's not a question of my power, the Lord says. It's a question of your faith. All things are possible to him that believe it. And actually, the Lord is showing a secret to us. He's showing us that the secret of success and failure is in ourself. If thou canst believe. Now unto him that believe it. According to your faith, be it unto you. All these promises. This is a secret that he gives us of success, of getting a hold of God. We have the excellency of power in us. Go to Ephesians and you look. Now unto him that's able to do exceedingly abundantly according to the power that works in us. So let's don't look at God and say, can you do it? No, that's not the thing. The thing is, have you got a hold of him? You see, the Lord, wherever he went, as many as touched him were made whole. If there's no working in your life of power, if there isn't the healing in it and the mending and the and the bringing to salvation of the lost and the working with power, there's a there's there's failure. But when we got a hold of God, then there's power. I'm almost just at this point of frustration to help us understand that we can overcome. We can be victors. Now, here's the problem that I see that we're going in today. Our children, fathers, dad, listen, we are losing our children. If we lose the children, we have a president that would like to get our children. And I respect his office, but I don't want any way him to get a hold of my children. I know that there is an agenda to control the child. There's the year of the child and all these other things. Whoever controls the child controls the world. And there is a movement to take our children away and the enemy is making a great onslaught onto our children's the minds and the hearts and the lives of our children. And we're not raising up Daniel generation children. Now, listen, just to narrow this thing down a little bit more, if I could. And before I share with you a couple of illustrations of of how we're losing it, how we're losing it in the church. This father was given a direction. There's one little word in verse 19 where Jesus said, bring him unto me. That word bring is a very strong word. And I have a statement I wrote at the bottom of my Bible. It says, if you can get the child to Jesus, he will be all right. If you can get the child to Jesus, he'll be all right. There's another time when the Lord rebuked the disciples because they didn't want the little children, the little babies to be brought to Jesus. And he said, don't hold him away. Bring him to me. And the Lord uses a stronger word. Bring him unto me. You see, we must get our children to Jesus. First of all, for salvation. I was just reading tonight a little bit about Job and how Job, boy, listen, Job was a godly man. The scripture says, and it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about that Job sent and sanctified them. He sent for his children and brought them and he sanctified them himself. And he rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. Listen, for Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually. The number one responsibility of a father is to get his child to Jesus. If you do not get your child to Jesus, father, listen, dad, you will have failed. You will be worse than the part time dad on this little poem that I read. But you have you would have failed if your child will die and go to hell because you did not get him to Jesus. You would have failed with your number one responsibility as a father to get your child to Jesus, that he would be saved. I heard just last week. Or I read it, I guess, about Dr. McGee, how when he was raising up his daughter, he would ask her over and over again. Are you sure that you're a Christian? Are you sure that you're saved? Every week you come back and ask her again. Are you sure that you're saved? Make very sure that your children are saved. We need to make sure I watch and I listen and I pray and I pray and I pray for my children. I know how it was with me. I was raised in in the in the realm of Christianity all my life. And I know that I miss Jesus, even though I was in the midst of all of that. Somehow I missed vital contact with him as my living Lord. So, father, make sure your children are in. Bring them to Jesus. You know, we should have a deep fear of sin in our children's lives as as Job did. He had a great fear that they would not be covered. And so he confessed their sin for them. We should fear sin and the consequences that it would bring into our lives, the habits. We should watch our children closely. They're just children. I know that they make mistakes, but also there's something that's very, very humbling. When we see the flaws in our children, we are looking in a mirror at our own heart. And if we would be honest with ourself and with our God, we will use that as a springboard to come back to God and confess areas in our own life, strongholds maybe that Satan has in our life, mindsets that we have not been given victory in. And we as we get the victory in our lives, then our children will, too. There's a very strong need for watchfulness, watching our children. You know, the Lord asked this man, how long has it been? He wanted to know how long has this child been under the captivity of this demon? How long ago? And he said, since a child. I don't know how old this this this child was. Maybe he was a teenager. Maybe you've been five years, 10 years, 15 years. We don't know for sure. But anyway, the Lord is drilling him and and probing to find out. You know, many times we have generational things in our lives, things that we just have adopted. And you may not believe this. It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. It's true. But we can pick up some baggages. We're going through life. And this is why we need to be very careful and watch and unload this baggage and deal with these things and get rid of these strongholds. In our life, because if there's one stronghold in one area, Satan will use that to work into other areas. And pretty soon it'll become like a web in your life. We need to understand that Jesus Christ came to set the captives free. And he's very, very interested in our children. Now, let me share these two practical areas with you before we close down today. We've been going through these things that God has been teaching us about the church and and this one church come under a very close scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. And when they were done, they they had 26 areas that the Lord showed them that they had been doing wrong. And they put this thing in a booklet. And I'm sharing some of these things out of this booklet. And I shared earlier, I was just amazed how many of these things that God had showed me also. And here's two more areas that the Lord had showed me. And one of them is how in our churches, one of the things that we've done is we have separated our families. I remember a number of years ago when God began to show me this principle, how we were separating our families. Why were we doing that? Well, it's the way we've been taught. And listen, when a family enters into a church, here's what usually happens. The parents will go to their class, then to the church service. The young people in the junior high, the high school and the college will go to their classes. They'll sit with their friends during the church service. The children will be assigned to their groups and then to children's church. And during the week, church activities will be organized for all the different age groups. Parents will always be busy transferring their children to these activities. Then you come around the summer, summer camps will go. And then the kids will go to junior camp, junior high camp, senior high camp, college camp, singles camp, all the way down. And what's happened? If you're not careful, your family will become a disunified unit. And everybody will be going their own way. Instead of going to church to worship, you've gone to participate in all these activities in your own little separate selves. You know what God is interested? God is interested in continually uniting our families. Uniting families is vital for the harmony and the effectiveness of the church. So what we're doing is we are weakening our church by dividing our families up so much. And we don't recognize that a strong family is so essential for harmony in the church and effectiveness of the church, especially for generation after generation to continue on strong. We wonder why do we have so many flat tires in our churches and problems, or we bottom out at times. It's because it's our own fault. You know, young men should appeal to the elders of the church as they would their fathers. They are to appeal to older women as they would their mothers. And they are to work with younger women. These older ladies are to work with them as they would their sisters. And this is a proper working. There are times when there is this need for this separation and they're working. But if we're not careful, this separation is all the time. And it may be good, but the family needs to be together to worship together. Families with their children worshiping together. If the children are disciplined enough to sit in the service. I believe if they're making noise and yelling and crying, they need to go out so that the word of God can be heard. You may not agree with that. That's all right. We've all got the right to be wrong. And so if I'm wrong, you pray for me. They've got to get me straightened out on it. I've got little children. Seems like I've always got some little children around. And I got one now, a little three-year-old, that's just, she's always wiggled. She was born wiggling. And we're trying to work with her. And I don't know if we're going to get it done, but we're trying to try to get some of them wiggles straightened out during church. And it's just a process of learning. And it's at home. We need to do it at home over and over again. You know, God has told us that we're separating our families. He says He wants to unite families. And He wants to honor the family. And we need to be committed, I believe, to building strong families that will work together as an effective team. Here comes the family in. It's a team. And then as you're strong in your family unity, you'll be strong in your church. And then you'll go into your community. You'll be strong and into other parts of the world. And so we need a church that's going to help us to be strong and not to make us weak. And so this is what God has showed me about this area. Even the son of school has been in the years past. God has used this. But now as we're moving into darker days, we need to be careful that God's methods are carefully followed because methods change. The principles say the same, but many times his methods change. And so now God is shifting the family back to operating as a unit. And so we need to be careful that our activities will encourage a family to be together and that our activities will train them to function effectively and to work together. Now here's another thing. We've assigned teachers. Our church schools, this church one said that they were almost entirely designed around the graded class model. Now I know a lot of you are familiar. I have a degree. And somewhere I got a piece of paper. But I've got a degree in education back there somewhere along the line. And I know I had to study a lot of this stuff and I was drilled in how to do it. And I don't follow a lot of that stuff. I was taught because now I recognize that a lot of that came from the world. And here's what I mean. Our church schools have almost entirely been designed around the graded class model. And this separates the children by age groups. And this is the way most of our church do it. And so what we do is we assume that the teachers will have it all put together and these teachers will actually have a strong influence on your children. And so here's what I'm getting at. They will go into their groups. By the way, do you know what the Encyclopedia Britannica says about this area of having the children in class levels for school? Here's a quote. You know what this system does? It leads to peer dependence. This is the way the whole educational system is, the public educational system. It's leading these children to be independent from mom and dad. So what do we do? We bring them to church and they go through this same process. Oh, they may be taught the word. They may be taught some good stuff. I'm not saying that they're not. But it's the principle that we are again dividing the family. Who has the responsibility to teach that child? The father does. And I believe that there are special times for children to be ministered to. But it's usually as groups, not dividing them up as ages, but as a group. Children learn together. Little ones with the older ones learn better. The older ones can help them learn. You know, God trains the fathers. The primary duty of pastors is to train the fathers to fulfill their God-given responsibility in being disciplined men. This is what I was reading in Deuteronomy. The father is to be trained. The whole functioning of the church is to strengthen the father so that he can lead and guard and protect his family. So that they'll be loving and strong and wise and faithful and effective. A man's ability to manage his family is a key determining factor. Even the scripture says how he leads his family shows you whether or not he's qualified to be an elder in a church. One that rules well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. Now this one, we are breaking the rules. God's word. We are disobeying it. And thus, as a result, we are reaping havoc in the church. Actually, we are inviting the devil to come in and attack the families in that church if we have someone in leadership and his family is not in order. What we do, we say, oh, that's okay. How he has his family, it doesn't affect the church. He's our pastor. He's a Sunday school teacher. Or he's a deacon. Or he's an elder. I know the household is really a mess, but that's there and here's church. No, it all ties together. And if you think you can get by with it, you go ahead. You can't. We are seeing people every week. We're talking to people and counseling people with different friends and different ones are calling and they are now saying, we see now what you're saying. We understand. You know what's happening. The devil is cashing in on his investment of years because he's got a program. He's got a war stage and he's getting his troops lined up. But the sad thing about it is many Christians are going to line up and fight with the devil against Jesus Christ because they've been humanized. Not only are we seeing a great onslaught of humanization of Christians, but as a result of this, we're going into the area of being demonized where Christians are being so strongly influenced by Satan. And I'm going to share some stuff later with you. I'm I'm doing some more research on this area. And it's just mind boggling, just mind boggling how deep Satan is getting into many of our our churches. Now, what God is interested in is working through the fathers. We need to establish effective training programs, I believe, for fathers so that they can discover their purpose in life. Many fathers don't even know what they're why they're going to work every day. And so that, you know, think about it. Here's a father. Why are you going to work? I love to go out and work. I've been doing a little something for a friend and my son and I, we have we're not lumberjacks. We have I've just chopped a little firewood in my life, but we've been working together, helping another man clear up some trees that the wind blew down. And here's my father. Here's the father and the son, me and my son working together and praying together. We I cut down my first tree the other day and it was a big one. My I got down on my knees and I prayed before I cut it. I think it was about 60 foot tall, big oak tree. And then I was shouting and praying and praising the Lord after it came down. It hit right where it was supposed to go. And I'm not taking the credit for getting it there. I believe the Lord put it there. But here I am working there with my son. Nothing better than for a father to work with his son, whatever you're doing. I love to get out and do that. I believe fathers need to do that. Get out there and work with their sons. Get a little project. You can go help a neighbor out or something. Work with your your children. Dads don't always leave them alone. Take I like to take a kid with me all the time whenever I can. Listen, I'm going to close up here with this little poem. I want to encourage you fathers. I don't want to be sounding negative and down on you a lot. But many times we need to be we need to be jolted a little bit so that we can get back on the track. I appreciate you folks. I appreciate you calling in and writing and the encouragement that you give to me. I don't look at myself as some kind of super saint, a super saint. I ain't. I am just a ordinary father. And I make mistakes like you. And I'm always being humbled by the Lord and having to confess something I've done wrong. But we need to be encouraged because it's hard. There's a real heavy responsibility on fathers. I want to encourage you with this little poem. Just a Father's Day poem. My little gift to you. It's not much. I wished I could give you whatever you needed to encourage you. But I want to give you this little poem. And when it's done, we're going to pray and then we're going to go. It's entitled Don't Quit. Dad, when things get tough, don't quit. When things go wrong, as they sometimes will. When the road you're trudging seems all uphill. When the funds are low and the debts are high and you want to smile, but you have to sigh. When care is pressing you down a bit, rest if you must. But don't you quit. Life is strange with its twists and turns, as every one of us sometimes learns. And many a failure turns about when he might have won had he stuck it out. Don't give up. Though the pace seems slow, you might succeed with another blow. Often the gold is nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering man. Often the struggler has given up when he might have captured the victor's cup. And he learned too late when the night slipped down how close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt. And you never can tell how close you are. It may be near when it seems far. So stick to the fight when your heart is hit. It's when things seem worse that you mustn't. You mustn't. Quit. Author unknown. Don't know who wrote it. Heavenly Father, I pray now for a special blessing on the fathers, the dads. There may be some that have actually really had major problems. And today you're speaking to them that they need to come back to you and fall on their face and confess their sin, confess their weakness, confess that they were trusting their self. They were leaning to their own understanding. Some may be discouraged. And I pray that you'd encourage them. Some may be in doubt. And I pray that you'd fill them with faith. Just pump them up really big with faith. Some may be indecisive, not knowing where to go. And I pray that they'd go to you and your word and get a ray from you, a personal word from you in the direction that you're to go. And then some may be under attack from the enemy. And I pray that you put a special hedge of protection around them. Some may be missed a giant task, a big job, a great mission for you or whatever. I just pray that you anoint them with a special anointing of your spirit to accomplish that, that they'd be successful. Some are bearing tremendous loads financially trying to make ends meet. I just pray, Father, that you'd put a hedge around these families and that you'd hold back the enemy from attacking the finances. And some may just be at the end of their rope. And I pray, Father, that they would look up and that they'd start praising. And they'd just praise and give thanks and rejoice in Jesus. And that they would just keep doing this until they come up out of that pit. And, Father, I thank you for the listeners today. Thank you that they put up with me and listened to some stuff that maybe might be boring at times. And I just thank you for them. You know how much I appreciate them and how much I need them. And, Father, I just pray that you'd encourage them and remind them to pray for me and pray for my family. And I just pray now for your special blessing on these listeners today. And especially for the fathers, that thou would bless them, that thou would bless them indeed in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, until next time, I trust that God will continue to bless you, my friends.