In this sermon, the preacher begins by discussing the concept of the inward battle and the outward battle. He shares a personal anecdote about watching his son play soccer and how he faced both an outward battle of losing the game and an inward battle of frustration. The preacher then transitions to the story of Nahash and the people of Jebus Gilead, who send messengers to seek help. Saul, who is out in the field, hears the news and the spirit of God comes upon him, arousing his anger. The sermon emphasizes the importance of staying faithful and obedient to God, even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

Now, as we've been making our way through this book of 1 Samuel in our weekend services, we saw last week in chapter 10 how God had anointed Saul to be king over Israel. God had appointed Saul as king in front of the whole nation, yet Saul did not have the enthusiastic support of the entire people of Israel. There was a substantial segment of the nation of Israel which was not supporting Saul. We see that in 1 Samuel 10, beginning at verse 26. Look at that with me, please. We see, "...and Saul also went home to Gibeah, and valiant men went with him, whose hearts God had touched. But some rebels said, How can this man save us? So they despised him and brought him no presents, but he held his peace." Do you see the point of it here? Saul had been anointed king, he had been appointed king, yet God had not raised him up to the place of prominence to where the whole nation was behind him. There were many people in the nation sort of folding their arms and saying, Prove it, Saul. Prove to us that you're the kind of man who has the character, the leadership to be used as king over this nation. Because of that, God was going to give Saul just the opportunity he needed to be used of God and display that. Saul went back to the farm in Gibeah, but there was another situation arising in another city of Israel that we read about in 1 Samuel 11, beginning at verse 1. Look at it with me, please. "...Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh-Gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you." You get the situation? Here the city of Jabesh-Gilead. Now Jabesh-Gilead was a city on the eastern side of the Jordan River, there inhabited by the people of Israel, and the city wakes up one morning to find an Ammonite army surrounding them. The Ammonites were sort of a nomadic tribe of people, and this great group of nomads were assembling as an army, and they were basically there to just plunder and conquer the city and get whatever they could with them. It would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it? You wake up in the morning, you get up and you look outside your city, and there's a hostile army surrounding it. And what do the men of the city of Jabesh do in response to that? They go out to the leader, this man named Nahash the Ammonite, and they say to Nahash, look at the end of verse 1, "...Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you." On the one hand, we understand the men of Jabesh, don't we? We think, man, you know, it's like you're getting mugged, and what do you do? The mugger says, well look, I can either take everything you have, and you can go gently, or I'll kill you and take everything you have. You say, well, let me make a deal with you, okay? I'll give you everything I have, and we'll sort of cut a deal. And that's sort of where the men of Jabesh felt they were. They felt they had no other options. If they had to meekly submit, at least let's make a deal with them. On the one hand, we think that way, but in another way, aren't our minds sort of discouraged with the way the men of Jabesh-Gilead are right here? We think, rightfully so, where is their trust in the Lord? Why aren't they trusting God? Are they in a difficult place? What we might even call an impossible place? Yes, they are. But friends, don't we serve a God who specializes in the miraculous? Who specializes in those impossible kind of rescues? I think a lot of times we have the same kind of heart of the men of Jabesh-Gilead. We love to see God do miraculous things. We love to see God accomplish the impossible. It's just we never want to be in a position where we need something miraculous from God. Oftentimes, that's when God shows His miracle power. When nothing but a miracle will do. But we never want to be in that situation. We want to see God do His miraculous work from a safe distance, where everything is safe. And no, the men of Jabesh-Gilead didn't have that option. God put them in an impossible spot. But they weren't looking to the Lord. They were looking to Nahash. Let me cut a deal with you. Kind of reminds me of the way many people deal with Satan. Let me cut a deal with you. Let me negotiate with you. Just leave me alone. Sure, I'll give you a little bit if you'll just leave me alone. What kind of deal can we work out, Satan? It's so discouraging to see people meekly giving in to the attack of Satan and surrendering to his intimidation. Well, this man Nahash was a tough character, as you see here in verse 2. This is the terms of the deal that Nahash wanted to work out with them. And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, On this condition, I will make a covenant with you that I may put out all your right eyes and bring reproach on all Israel. Wow. Can you imagine that? They're saying, Nahash, OK, I'll make a deal with you. Here's my deal. You guys can live, but I'll take all you have and I'm going to gouge out your right eyes. That's a terrible place. And you're thinking, why would he make such a demand? What's he thinking? Well, he's really trying to accomplish two things. First of all, the smaller thing is he wants to remove the men of Jabesh as being effective fighters. You know, if you only have one eye, your depth perception is hindered. You can't fight as well in hand-to-hand combat. And he says, I'm going to eliminate these men as an effective fighting force. I'll gouge out their right eyes. But that was one aspect of it. The far more important aspect was he wanted to humiliate the men of Jabesh. Did you see that there in verse 2? And bring reproach on all Israel. Could you imagine what that would say about Nahash? What a tough character he was that he could say, I can get this whole city to submit to me and they will sit down and allow me to gouge out their right eyes just so they can save their skin. And the men of Jabesh are confronted with this thing. Well, what do we do? Do we lay down our necks before this guy and kill ourselves? Or do we just allow our right eyes? We think, what a horrible situation. And a lot of times I think that this is the same way that Satan wants to attack us. The Bible says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and forces of spiritual wickedness in high places. And even though Israel in 1 Samuel chapter 11 had a literal flesh and blood foe named Nahash the Ammonite, you and I have just a literal foe, except he's a spiritual one, not a physical one, not a material one. You know that Satan wants to do to you just what Nahash wanted to do to the Ammonites. And you're going to see how clear this is. First of all, just the way that Nahash encircled them and wanted to intimidate the city of Jabesh into giving up. Isn't that what Satan wants to do against you? He wants to intimidate you. Did you know that Satan cannot overcome your will? All he can do is get you to surrender it to him. That's what Nahash was trying to do. He was standing strong against the Israelites and saying, surrender to me. And the question is, would they in fact surrender? You see, also what Nahash wanted to do against the Israelites is he wanted to humiliate them. You know, Satan wants to humiliate you. He wants to bring you low. Not low in a humble way before God, but low in the kind of place where you have no standing for God, where you don't even want to come before God because you're so humiliated before him. The other thing that Satan wants to do to you that Nahash wanted to do as well, is he wants to make you an ineffective fighter before the Lord. Oh yes, gouging out the right eye would make them unable to battle back against Nahash at a future time. Satan wants to take away your ability to war against him. And then another thing that Nahash did that Satan wants to do to you, he wants to blind you. Now, if Satan can't blind you completely, he's happy to blind you partially, as long as you're blinded in some respect or another. And then the final similarity I see is their names. Well, you know what the name Nahash means, don't you? Snake or serpent. Isn't that interesting? And so this Nahash, this snake, this serpent, is here trying to attack the people of God. And what's going to happen? Well, notice they want to negotiate. Verse 3, And the elders of Jabesh said to him, Hold off for seven days, that we may send messengers to all the territory of Israel. And then if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you. Now, do you see the place where the men of Jabesh are in? First of all, they're in a good place because they know they can't save themselves, but they need somebody to come from the outside and save them. Friends, that's not a bad place to be in. God had put the men of Jabesh into the place where, first of all, they needed a savior. They were in desperate trouble and they needed a savior. Now, did you know that our churches are filled with people who really don't know that they need a savior? You say, well, wait a minute, how could that be? I mean, people go to church, people are Christians, they know they need a savior. No, no, no, no, no. Because I want you to understand that Jesus has been presented to people in a lot of different ways, but not necessarily a savior. In other words, Jesus has presented to you as your friend. You need a friend. Here's Jesus. Now, Jesus is our friend, isn't he? And we thank God for that. But that's not the same thing as saying savior. You can have a friend, but he's not a savior. Jesus has been the buddy, the friend, the helper. You're in a tough spot. Jesus can help you out. And so, well, people accept Jesus as friend. People accept Jesus as buddy. People accept Jesus as helper. But that's a different thing than accepting Jesus as savior. Because you know what you need to do before you can accept Jesus as savior? It sounds obvious, but a lot of people miss it. You need to know that you have to be saved from something. And what do you have to be saved from? You say, well, I need to be saved from Satan. I need to be saved from my sin. I need to be saved from this world. And you know, all of those things are true. But you know what you need to be saved from more than all of those things? Friends, please follow this point, because it's going to sound surprising to some of you. More than being needed to save from Satan or this world or your sin, you need to be saved from God. Saved from God? What does that mean? I thought God was on my side. Well, if you're a guilty sinner before the Lord, deserving judgment from Him, then your biggest worry, the greatest thing you need to be saved from, is the righteous judgment of God against you. Friends, listen, far worse than having Satan against you or this world against you or you against yourself. Far worse than that is having a righteous God against you because you are a sinner and deserve judgment. A lot of people don't know that. And they need to come to the place where they realize, I'm a sinner and I need to be saved from the guilt that my sin deserves. And you know, that's exactly what Jesus came on the cross to do. Jesus came on the cross to be the target of God's justice so that you wouldn't have to be that target. You and I deserve the wrath of God for our sin. Jesus came and said, let me be the target of that wrath, Father. I will take it for all those who come to me. We need a Savior. Jesus is our Savior. The men of Jabez Gilead, they knew they needed a Savior. They knew they couldn't save themselves. By the way, do you know that too? Some of you come to the place where you realize, I need a Savior. But you don't realize that you can't save yourself. Matter of fact, there may be some of you here this morning. You're here this morning because you're trying to save yourself. You think that by coming to church, God puts a brownie point up on your chart in heaven or puts a tiddlywink into your cup. And if you get enough brownie points or enough tiddlywinks, then you're saved. You think you can save yourself. Friends, you can't save yourself. There's no way you can save yourself. There's never enough good that you can do to outweigh the debt of sin that you have before God. You cannot save yourself. But Jesus Christ is a great Savior and He can save you. That's your only hope, my friends. That's my only hope. That's the only hope of anybody in this world. The men of Jabez Gilead, they knew they needed a Savior. They knew they couldn't save themselves. But my friends, they didn't know that there was anybody to save them. So they sent messengers all around Israel. Can anyone save us? Can anyone rescue us? Now, as I read this, you might be wondering the same thing I was wondering as well. Say, why would Nahash allow the men of Jabez Gilead to run out and search for someone to save them? Doesn't that strike you as funny? You know, why would he allow somebody to go out and see if there's somebody to rescue them? Well, I think there were two reasons. First of all, Nahash, just like the enemy of our souls, first of all, he was overconfident. He figured that they wouldn't be successful. They could go out all about Israel and Israel was so disunified, so troubled, had so much difficulty that they wouldn't be able to amass an army against him. But the second reason was, was just like the enemy of our souls, Nahash was filled with pride. What better advertising could there be than to send messengers all throughout Israel who are going to go out and say, Nahash is going to gouge out all the eyes of the men of Jabez. Isn't he terrible? Isn't he an awesome man? We need to give in to him. And Nahash could stand back and think, they're so afraid of me. This is the best advertising. The whole nation is terrified of me. Well, friends, this is the best advertising Nahash could have had. And so if you notice here, the elder said to him, hold off seven days that we may send messengers to all the territory of Israel. And then if there's no one to save us, we will come out to you. We'll give up. So they send out the messengers. Verse four. So the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and told the news and the hearing of the people. And all the people lifted up their voices and wept. Messengers fanned out over all of Israel. Hear the news. Is there anybody who can save the people of Jabez Gilead? And one of the messengers come to the city of Gibeah where Saul lives. Where's Saul? Well, he's out with the cows. Look at verse five. And there was Saul coming in behind the herd from the field. And Saul said, what troubles the people that they weep? And they told him the words of the men of Jabesh. Now, Saul, much to his credit, you see what he's doing? He's not out saying, well, who's going to recognize me as king? Who's going to promote me? Where's my palace? Where's my royal court? No, instead, what Saul is doing is doing what the Lord has put in his hand to do. Saul is out there serving God in the field. He hears the news. He says, well, what's going on here? And he hears all about the situation there going on in Jabesh Gilead. Now, look what happens in verse six. Excuse me. Then the spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news and his anger was greatly aroused. Two things happen in verse six. First of all, the spirit of God comes upon Saul. Now, let me ask you a question. Why did the spirit of God come upon Saul? To give him an experience, a thrill, spiritual eebie-jeebies, goosebumps? Wow, this is great. No, the spirit of God came upon Saul because something needed to happen and God needed to raise up a man equipped by the spirit of God to do something. Do you know that's the pattern all throughout the scriptures? That God doesn't send forth his spirit and fill us with his spirit just so we can enjoy a wonderful experience. Now, I'm not trying to deny that there are wonderful experiences associated with the moving of the Holy Spirit. It's just marvelous. But that's not the purpose. The purpose isn't to give us the spiritual goosebumps or eebie-jeebies. That's not it. The purpose is so that we can be equipped for service. And God says, here's my man. I'm going to use him. I'm going to fill him with the spirit. Now get busy. And that's always God's pattern. You know, in the book of Acts, chapter one, verse eight, Jesus said to his disciples, go wait for me in Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and all Samaria and all over the world. Why were they to be filled with the spirit? Because they had a job to do, to be witnesses. Now, this tells me something. Do you want to be filled with the spirit of God? Then say, Lord, how do you want to use me? And then seek the Lord for the filling and he'll overfill your life with the spirit of God. And that's exactly what was happening with Saul. So the first thing was, was he was filled with the spirit. But notice the second thing in verse six, his anger was greatly aroused. He was angry. Now, was this a godly anger? Yes, it was. We all know what godly anger is, don't we? That's the anger we have. And we all know what ungodly anger is, right? That's the anger everybody else has. Oh, my friends, we often miss this, don't we? You know, we know that there's a such thing as godly anger, but most of us only know it in theory, not in practice. And the fact of the matter is, most of our anger is ungodly, isn't it? Most of our anger, and this is oftentimes a dividing line between godly anger and ungodly anger, selfishness. Saul wasn't saying, I'm so hurt. You hurt me. I'm bitter. I've been wronged. That's not Saul's anger at all. Saul is angry for the cause of the Lord. His anger isn't selfish at all. His anger was a godly anger. He was angry because the people of God were being brought low and he wasn't going to have it. So notice here, verse 7, he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hands of messengers saying, whoever does not go out with Saul and Samuel to battle, so shall it be done to his oxen. Then the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they all came out with one consent. When he numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel were 300,000 and the men of Judah, 30,000. Wow, Saul means business. He hears the news. He's filled with the spirit of God. He gets angry and then he looks at those oxen that he just let in. The oxen look at Saul and go, I don't like the look that's in my master's eyes. What's going on here? What Saul does, he cuts up those oxen and he ships them out all over Israel. Federal Express throughout all the major cities in Israel. And they open up the package and here's a piece of rotting ox flesh. And what's the message? The message is, the messenger delivers the message. Here's the package. Here's the message. This is what's going to happen to your livestock unless you come out and help Saul fight this battle. Friends, I know that that sounds more like a message from the mob than it does a message from God. But friends, I'm telling you, I think Saul was in the right here. You know what Saul had to do? Saul had to wake up this nation out of their apathy, out of their indifference, because right now was a time in the history of Israel where it would have been wrong to do nothing. I know a lot of times we see situations, we see things going on and we think, well, you know, I don't want to get involved. Yeah, that's not my battle. I'll just stand on the sidelines. Yeah, and you know what? There's some times where it's sin to do nothing, where it's sin to stand on the sidelines, where it's sin to stand back and say, well, you know, I don't think I want to get involved. And right now at this time, this is exactly the situation in the life of the nation of Israel. And God leads Saul to give this dramatic gesture and say, you'd better get involved because this is what's going to happen if you don't. And you better believe the people responded. The people responded in a big way. That message went out to all the nation of Israel and the people of Zion brought 330,000 men to battle against Nahash. Now, how do you think the men of Jabesh felt? Well, they felt pretty good. Take a look at verse 9. And they said to the messengers who came, Thus you shall say to the men of Jabesh-Gilead, Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have help. Then the messengers came and reported it to the men of Jabesh and they were glad. Well, I bet they were glad. They're going, yes, now we know we have a Savior. Now we know that somebody is going to come save us. Yes, thank you, Lord. You're going to save us through the hand of King Saul. Now, I love verse 10. You see, there's some just little verses in the Bible and they aren't much, but they give the Bible such a real flavor. It lets you know that somebody wasn't making this story up, but that it really happened. Because look at verse 10. Therefore, the men of Jabesh said, and this is what they said to Nahash, Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you. Now, you know what they're implying by that? They're implying that they're going to surrender. So you can see the men of Jabesh going out to Nahash and saying, Well, you know, look at what they said in verse 3. In verse 3, they said, And then if there's no one to save us, we will come out to you. Well, you know, we'll come out to you tomorrow and whatever seems good to you, you can do. Now, friends, you know what they're doing. They're deceiving Nahash, making him think that they're going to surrender so that the next day his armies aren't on alert, that they're just sitting around. Yeah, it's going to be easy day to day. They're just going to surrender to us. That way, when Saul's armies attack, they're totally unprepared. But it's so sweet on the men of Jabesh because they could come back and say, Well, we didn't lie. We came out to them tomorrow. And you know, whatever Nahash wanted to do, he could do. It's just he'd have to make his decision now with 330,000 men of Israel there fighting against him. So whatever you want to do, Nahash, you can do. And so what happened the next day with the battle? Look at verse 11. So it was on the next day that Saul put the people in three companies and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and killed Ammonites until the heat of the day. And it happened that those who survived were scattered so that no two of them were left together. Man, it was a rout. They wiped out the Ammonites. God raised up Saul as king and he put him in a glorious place over the whole nation. It was his absolute brilliant military strategy. Split the people up into three groups, do the attack this way, and they overwhelmed the Ammonites and a great victory was won for Israel on that day. Friends, by all outward appearances, this was a glorious day for Israel, a glorious day for King Saul. But I want to make you aware of something. Many times in life, there's an outward battle and there's an inward battle, isn't there? Outwardly, we see how the battle went. The outward battle went fine. But I want you to know that there was an inward battle that Saul faced and the inward battle was more important than the outward battle. Now, the rest of the verses in the chapter describe the inward battle. But we need to become familiar with this concept between the outward and the inward battle. You know, yesterday I was watching my son play soccer. I love watching my kids play sports. You know, no matter what the sport is, it's just fun to watch them. And there's Jonathan out there playing soccer and kicking the ball. And he's a good soccer player and it's fun. And his team was undefeated before yesterday. And they lost yesterday and they lost tough, four to nothing. You know, it's just one of those things where the other team was good, but they had a lot of bad breaks too. You know, it was tough. The outward battle, they lost in that game, right? The score is four to nothing. But my son, just in his own little life, had an inward battle to fight in that game. I mean, do you give up? Do you get mad? Do you just stop playing? Four to nothing late in the game. Do you just quit? You know, I was so proud of my boy because he played hard through the whole game and just kept trying and didn't give up. And whenever he got frustrated, you know, he battled it down. He didn't let it... I was glad he got a little frustrated. He shouldn't take a whooping on the chin without getting a little mad. But you know, he kept it in check, you know, it was just great. He did super. I could see, yeah, they lost the game, but my son won the inward battle. The inward battle is even more important than the outward battle. And on this day, Saul won the outward battle. But what about the inward battle? Well, you know what? He won that too. Take a look here. Verse 12, Then the people said to Samuel, Who is he who said, Shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. But Saul said, Not a man shall be put to death this day. For today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel. Now, friends, I want you to see that there were three big issues that God was dealing with inwardly in Saul right here in these two verses. First of all, there was the issue of insecurity. We saw that at the end of the last chapter, there were some men who folded their arms and said, Who is this Saul? Has he reigned over us? Now, if Saul was a man given over to insecurity, he might have taken this opportunity to avenge himself on these enemies. He battled with insecurity. He was also tempted to revenge. These men didn't give him any presents. They withheld their support. Now Saul has the opportunity to take revenge on them. Saul, you're tempted with this. Will you take it? He's tempted to insecurity. He's tempted to revenge. And what's the final thing he's tempted to? Pride. Saul, you've won this great victory. Is it going to blow up your head? Is it going to make you all proud? And here's your opportunity. You can exalt yourself over your enemies. You can solidify your hold on the throne of Israel. The table's been set for you, Saul. Now just do it. And what does he say instead? Look at the end of verse 13. He says, Not a man shall be put to death this day. For today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel. You know what he would have said if he was given over to pride, if he would have given in to the temptation of pride? He would have said, For today Saul has accomplished salvation in Israel. But he knew it wasn't him. He knew the Lord was just using him. Francis, do you see that it was glorious that on this day God won the outward battle with King Saul, but he also won the inward battle in King Saul. I imagine that in a lot of your lives, outwardly things are going good. How's the inward battle? You know, just in those three areas that Saul was dealing with. Pride, insecurity, revenge. Maybe you're losing the battle against those three things right now. Friends, it's an important thing that Saul had to deal with and God was working this in him. Because I have to tell you, if you want to follow the life history of Saul between now and the end of 1 Samuel, when Saul dies, he doesn't keep winning this battle. Matter of fact, by the end of 1 Samuel, Saul is given over to pride, he's given over to insecurity, and he's given over to revenge. He was resisting the temptations on this day and praise God for it, but he didn't last. How about you? Those things that the Lord's dealing with in your life, you may be standing strong against them right now in the Lord and praise God for that. But at the same time, if you don't continue to resist them, you might end up like King Saul. No, my friends, God wants to build whatever place in victory you are today. He wants to build on that for tomorrow as well. Let's see how the chapter ends here. Verse 14, Then Samuel said to the people, Come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there. So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they made sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord. And there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. Oh, friends, isn't this glorious? They said, you know what? The last time we did this, the whole nation wasn't behind Saul. Let's do it again, because now the whole nation's behind him. Let's declare him king again in Gilgal. You might be scratching your head saying, wait a minute, I thought they already did this. He was anointed king in 1 Samuel chapter 10. He was appointed king in 1 Samuel chapter 10. Why are they doing this again? I'll tell you why. Because as often as you might say, there's one time in my life where I give my life to Jesus Christ, you can make him king and renew him as king over and over again. They knew that, didn't they? Maybe this is a morning for some of you to do exactly that. I would look at you and say, have you made Jesus king in your life? Oh, yes. You know, I know I did that. I did that in 1994, in 1984, in 1974. Oh, yeah, Jesus is king in my life. But do you need to renew him as king? Do you need to renew him as king in your life today? Yeah, I know he reigns. But maybe there's just some areas in your life of sin or compromise, a rebellion against the Lord. And right now today, your heart's just struck. I want to bring it all in reverence and submission before the king of kings. He's the Lord. He's the master. He should rule and reign in my life. You know, friends, when you have a king, you know, you have a defense against that Nahash who comes against you, don't you? When you have a king, you know, you have someone to lead you into battle. When you have a king, you know, you have somebody to deal with in your heart to keep you from those temptations that keep coming back and back and back and enable you to fight them over the long haul like Saul was not able to. Oh, my friends, we need a king. And I think today is a day for us to end up the same place they ended up in 1 Samuel 11. Take a look at the very last few verses. And there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. What a joy it is to know that you have a king and to know that you are renewed in your relationship with your king. That's a place God would bring many people here today so that we wouldn't end up like Saul's, but every day be winning that outward battle and the inward battle. Let's pray right now. Father, we come before you now in Jesus name. And we're grateful for who you are and what you've done in our life. We're thankful, Lord, for the fact that you've made Jesus king. Lord, first of all, I want to pray this morning for anybody here who has not made that recognition that Jesus is king. Lord, they need to bow their knee. They need to bow their hearts before Jesus is king. Lord, I pray that you'd move on hearts this morning to do exactly that. Father, I pray also that you'd move among us so that. So that, Lord God, everybody here this morning who needs to would renew, would renew Jesus as king in their life. We want it to be fresh. We want it to be new in our lives, God. Father, I pray right now that as we just take a quiet moment that you'd speak to hearts and that people would do their business with you in their hearts. Let's do that right now. Let's just take a quiet moment before the Lord and you talk to God in your heart about his relationship to you as king.