In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the character of Jonathan from the Bible and how his loyalty to God and his faith inspired others. The speaker emphasizes the importance of examining ourselves to see if we are truly living out our faith. The story of Jonathan and his armor-bearer taking a half acre of ground from the enemy army showcases the power of loyalty and faith in God. The speaker also highlights the importance of accepting our place in the body of Christ and being loyal to those whom God has placed over us.

2 Samuel chapter 1, if you will please. 2 Samuel chapter 1. In the Old Testament, this morning, I'd like to speak to you about loyalty. One word, loyalty. If I were to ask you if you're loyal, don't be too quick to say that you are yet. Loyalty. This is, I hesitate to ever do this, but this is a message, before even preaching it, I would encourage you to get this message and keep it and play it once in a while, because it's really been a challenge to my life, just even preparing this from the Word of God. And I thank God for the great truths that we're about to see this morning. Father, I thank you, Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, I bless you for the strength that you give, the direction the life that you're willing to impart to those who are willing to walk in truth. God Almighty, you have to put it in our hearts to be people of truth. Lord, we have to love the Word of God and desire to walk in this Word. I'm asking you for an anointing to simply speak what you've given to me, that you overshadow my frailty, and Lord, speak it clearly as you would speak it if you were here in person, in bodily form. Speak this Word to us today. Give us hearts to embrace it. Father, I thank you for this, in Jesus' mighty name. Second Samuel, chapter 1, beginning at verse 23. Saul and Jonathan, now this is David, the king. He's lamenting, in a sense, after he heard that Saul and Jonathan had been killed in a battle with the Philistines. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions. You daughters of Israel weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? O Jonathan, thou was slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant has thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished? Now folks, I used to believe that Jonathan made a mistake following his father into this final battle that led to his death. You know the story. Saul had left off the seeking of God. He was getting his spiritual direction from a witch. He was a carnal man, and Jonathan knew that about his father. His father was leading the army of Israel into this battle against the Philistines, and Jonathan in some measure had to know it was a suicide mission. And I've often, I've never preached it to my knowledge, but I felt it in my heart for years that it was a mistake, and I had wondered if I had been Jonathan, wouldn't it be the natural course of events to follow David, the man anointed to be king, then follow this man who has gone astray, is leading the people into weakness. Wouldn't it be a mistake to be following him? And I used to believe that, but today I believe that the Lord has shown me differently. Proverbs chapter 20 and verse 6 says these words, Most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find. Most of us, if we were asked questions about our character, we would be very quick to say, yes, I'm thus and thus, I'm a loyal person, I'm loving, I'm kind. Most everybody will proclaim his own goodness, but that's not necessarily the way that God sees us. And the best efforts to be good in the natural fall far short of that which God is willing to provide through Christ in the spiritual. The characteristics of your life and mine should not be natural, they should be supernatural. I should be given of God the ability to be loyal, to be kind, to be benevolent, to have courage, and it should be far beyond anything that my natural body can produce. That way I do know that it is born of God and birthed of God, it will be carried of God and sustained of God. You and I are living in a season where true biblical loyalty is becoming rare. Paul the Apostle told us that in our days perilous times would come. He said men will be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. That means family affection. Truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, that means able to receive but not able to retain what they've received. Fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof from such turn away. Now Paul warned about this day where self-seeking would take precedence over even many who claim to be God's representatives on the earth. And that's the generation we're living and we are we're surrounded by a society that is all of these things that Paul spoke about in this book of Timothy. We're sitting on the increase and it it should be producing a measure of fear in your heart. Fear in the sense of godly fear. Lord I can't if I don't have a living relationship with you I'm going to get swallowed by this generation. The attitudes if I'm if I'm walking in the midst of it and I'm mixed among it and I'm not choosing in my heart a separation to the things of God I'm going to begin to become like those things that are around me. It's inescapable. I will be a truce breaker. I will be a person who receives knowledge but can't retain it. And God forbid that in this house or any other house that's hearing the Word of the Lord that we should ever be a people who have a form of godliness. In other words, we have embraced to ourselves all the outward trappings of being the people of God but there's our lives are a denial of the true power of God. That ability to God of God that he gives to follow Christ to be given to all men to walk another path than this world that is perishing all around us. Now loyalty by definition means it means faithfulness to one sovereign, government, state. It means to be a loyal subject. It means to be faithful to one's oath, the commitments that we make or the obligations that we have. In other words, it means to be loyal to a vow. It means to be faithful to any leader, a party or a cause or to any person or thing that is conceived as deserving fidelity. It also means to be a loyal friend. And the question that we need to honestly ask ourselves today is am I loyal? Am I a loyal person? When I say something to another person, will I do what I say regardless of the personal consequences? In other words, can my word be trusted? Am I a man or woman of my word? If I tell you something and I say I'm going to do it, will I be loyal to that? Can you trust me? It's a question that we need to ask ourselves. Or do I pull away from what I've said I would do because circumstances change? One of the Psalms tells us that a righteous man swears to his own hurt but doesn't change. In other words, when he says I'm going to do something, even if the circumstance changes and it means personal hurt to him to do it because he said he would do it, he will still do it. It's as simple as that. Am I loyal to truth? Am I loyal to what I say? Can my word be trusted? When I make a promise to another person, do I keep it? How about when it becomes unpleasant or undesirable to do so? Does that change anything? I married a young couple yesterday thinking about this as they stood before me and they say these sweet words that everybody says when they come to an altar of some sort for a wedding. Give myself to you and only to you in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better or worse, till death do us part. So sweet, isn't it? But how many are faithful to that in our generation? How many in the house of God are faithful to those words? How many are loyal when it is a worse situation? It is a sickness situation. It is not a pleasant situation. How many people stand and make these wonderful promises, but we've come to a time in society that that people's words mean nothing anymore. Politicians are now allowed to, and not just politicians, preachers are allowed to do it. They're allowed to stand and lie to everybody and nobody's supposed to make an issue out of it anymore. So what if they don't fulfill their promises? Nobody's expected to fulfill their promises anymore. Have I been faithful to those over me? I want you to think about your last job interview, how loyal you claimed that you were going to be and that you are. And the question I ask today is have you been loyal in your place of employment? You obviously didn't stand before the interview person or board and say, look it, I'm the most disloyal person you're ever going to hire. If I can get up five minutes early, I'm out. If I can get a holiday, I'm out. If there's some collective bargaining thing I can use to argue against you, I'm going to do it. Given the chance, I'm going to expose every failing and every fault of your organization. You need me. No, we didn't do that because nobody would ever get hired. No, we said, no, I'm loyal. When you need somebody, I'll be here. If something needs to be fixed, I'll fix it. You can count on me. Well, my question today is, was that true? Is it true? Are you loyal? Especially as a person of God because you are that Bible that stands before every person that hires, especially the Christians in the workplace. Your testimony of your lips and your life is really the very thing that's going to turn many people towards God or away from God. They'll either determine that Christ is real or not real and quite often it's by what they see in us. Do we do what everybody else does or is there another value system, a supernatural value system? Are you a loyal friend? When you tell somebody they're your friend, are they really? Or have you run from your obligations when other opportunities presented themselves? Have you dumped people along the way when they're no longer of any advantage to you to be associated with them? Are you loyal? If you told somebody that they were a friend, are they really a friend? Can they really trust in your word? Listen to the words of David in Psalm 55 verses 12 and 13. He said, it was not an enemy that reproached, and that actually means peeled away. That's the actual word in the Hebrew. It has a connotation of peeling away. It was not an enemy that, can I say, pulled away from me. Then I could have borne it, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide and my acquaintance. We walked into the house of God in fellowship and company together. It hurts when you have trusted somebody in the body of Christ, and they have betrayed that trust. It hurts when you have genuinely embraced someone and said, I really do care. I am your friend, only to find out that you were only being used for advantage. And when the advantage ceased, the friendship was over. And there's no deeper place sometimes to be wounded than in the house of God, when you began to trust, and the trust was violated and broken. And my question to you and to me today is, are we loyal to one another? When we say all cultures, all races, all kindreds, all tribes, all tongues, every color of person, we are one in Christ. We are one body. We have an unpretended love, one for another. My question is, is it true? Is it honestly true? And you see, where you'll see the truth of it is in your house, when you look around your table, when guests are invited, and take a look at what color they are. Is it really true? When you go to the restaurant, is it really all people equal? And folks, we can't afford to play with this in this generation any longer, because culture is rising against culture, according to Jesus in Matthew chapter 24. And there's going to be divisions, and wars, and calamities such as we've never seen. And we either have to be one body in Christ, or we're going to be swallowed by the culture of this generation, folks. We've got to be loyal to this truth, and we've got to be loyal to one another, irrespective of culture, color, background, education, or social standing. We are one body in Jesus Christ. God forbid that anybody should be hugging people in this house, but you would refuse to have a person you hug at your table, because it somehow might put you in a position of social disadvantage. God forbid that that form of hypocrisy could ever be found among us. If we're going to be the church, then let's be the church of Jesus Christ. If we're going to walk in truth, then let's walk in truth. If we're going to love one another, then let's love one another. If we're going to be loyal, then let's be loyal to one another. Let's choose in our heart what we're going to do. I feel today like Joshua said when he stood before the people, if it seemed evil to you to serve God, then choose this day whom you're going to serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. As for me and my house, we will do it God's way. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Now scripture has standards in it, whereby every one of us have a chance to see whether or not godly character has become part of our everyday lives. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 13 5, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Examine yourselves and see if you're in the faith. Now go to 1st Samuel chapter 14, just a little bit back in your Bible, not too far back. I want to take a look, a close look at the life of Jonathan. I've been so challenged by this man's life. You know the Bible says in the New Testament it speaks about people, some people who are dead but yet they still speak. A man who in the natural people may have looked at and said, what is this guy thinking? What is he doing? And people around who are not spiritual people would look at this man and saying, he's going in the wrong direction. He's supposed to be king. What in the world is he thinking? Now if he had gone in the direction of his own heart, we would not really be using him as an example today. But thousands of years later, his life still stands as a sermon to you and I today because he chose, especially the one word that would really characterize Jonathan in my mind would be loyalty. He was a loyal man to the core of his being. 1st Samuel 14 shows us in verses 6 and 7, we'll start there, that number one, Jonathan inspired faith and loyalty in other people. Loyal people will inspire faith and loyalty in others. It goes without saying, listen to this in verse 6, it says, Jonathan said to the young man that bear his armor, come let us go over to this garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be the Lord will work for us for there's no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. And his armor bearer said unto him, do all that's in your heart. Turn, behold, I'm with you according to your heart. In verse 13, it says, Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet and his armor bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer and his armor bearer slew after him. And that first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about 20 men within, as it were, a half acre of land which a yoke of oxen might plow. Now here's the Philistine army. Demon controlled, there's no doubt about that. In verse 15, and there was a trembling in the host and in the field and among all the people in the garrison and the spoilers. They also trembled and the earth quaked and it was a very great trembling. A loyal man who inspired loyalty in a friend that God had given him got tired of sitting on the hill and listening to the taunts of the enemy. And he said, let's go in. And he said, let's fight this battle. For God doesn't need an army to win this victory. Jonathan knew that he only needed a man of faith. And his loyalty to God, his loyalty to this truth, his loyalty to the purposes of God so inspired this young man that followed him that he was willing to crawl up that hill and risk his life as well. And so coming into a garrison of the Philistine army is just two men that are loyal. Jonathan, at this point, loyal to the king and loyal to truth and the armor-bearer loyal to Jonathan. And suddenly they are given a supernatural strength that's not given to ordinary men. And they take a half hour, a half acre of ground away from the enemy and all of hell begins to shake. A trembling so deep that even an earthquake happened. And you read on, you'll see the Philistine army began to scatter terror. And you're talking about thousands and thousands of trained soldiers are starting to run because a loyal man and a loyal armor-bearer have gone up and taken a half acre of ground. Don't even try to tell me that there is not a link between loyalty and faith. Secondly, in 1st Samuel chapter 18, we come to another question. Are you able to accept your place in the body of Christ and be loyal to those whom God has placed over you? Now this is an incredible question looking at the life of Jonathan. Verse 3, it says, And Jonathan and David made a covenant, 1st Samuel 18, 3, because he loved them as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword and his bow, and down to his girdle. That means his loin cover. Jonathan gave himself in totality because he recognized that God had chosen David to occupy the place in the natural that he could have occupied. Now folks, this wasn't just somebody letting somebody else in the choir have the microphone and sing the solo. As admirable as that may be, Jonathan was to be the next king of Israel. And he had the courage, and he had the loyalty to truth so deep in him that God could speak to him and say, and listen, he's not a coward. He's already seen that. He's a spiritual man. He's a warrior. He's a natural leader, Jonathan. In the natural and in the supernatural, he's a natural man to take Saul, his father's place. But God speaks to this man and says, it's not to be yours, it's to be this man's. And loyalty to truth is so embedded in this man that he's able to hear from God that this position is not yours, it belongs to somebody else. Are we loyal? Are we loyal to truth? Are we loyal to God? Are we loyal to God's church? Do we have the content of character produced in us to be able to accept what God gives us to do, and even though we might be equally qualified and first in line, let somebody else take that promotion as we see it, or take that position that we feel we rightfully could occupy, because ultimately the Bible says the Holy Spirit places people in the body as he chooses, not as we choose, as he chooses. And this is a profound moment where Jonathan makes a covenant with David, and he says, David, and when he takes the robe, he's giving him the king's robe. You have to understand this. He's giving him his place. He is the son of the king, and he gives his place to another man, a commoner, coming into the kingdom of God. Yes, David had fought Goliath, but Jonathan could have fought Goliath, and he knew it. The one reason they loved each other the way they did is because they both had the same spirit, and he gave David his robe, and he gave him his his garments, his sword, and his bow, and the girdle means, I'm giving you my word that I will stand behind you. You need me, you call me, I'll be there. I will support you. I will be to you what a loyal subject should be. And folks, I don't know if you and I can understand how profound that is. He is the next king, and he is abdicating his throne to a commoner. It's a phenomenal illustration of loyalty to truth and to other people. And what it should speak to you and I today is, God, it's your choice. I have to face the reality someday that one day the Lord is going to speak to my heart and show me who is to be the next pastor of Times Square Church. And the question is, do I have the strength of character? Do I have the integrity to take my robe and sword and pledge my strength to see this man or this woman, whoever it is, established as the next leader of this church? And what if it happens next year while I'm still strong? I say, well, wait a minute. I'm only 58. I'm just starting at this. We laugh, but what if it does? Jonathan was in his prime. He was slated, but the Lord says, now your season of what you're to do is over, and your place is being given to another man. I want to ask you to have the courage to let it go. Now, I'm not saying this is going to happen to me next year, but one year it will happen. And it happens to all of us from time to time. And the reason there's such fighting and bickering that happens quite often in the church is because we do not have this content of God's character within us. The genuine humility of God is not within us. This deep inner loyalty to truth, and ultimately it will manifest itself to those that God appoints to lead us, especially if we feel equally qualified. Or in Jonathan's case, he was more qualified because he was the son of the king. Can you remain loyal even when in your heart there's strong disagreement? 1 Samuel chapter 20. Now, because Jonathan had made this covenant with David, Saul was infuriated. Jonathan's father. And he called him the son of a rebellious woman, he used to call him. And he says, don't you realize as long as David lives, you'll never be king? But Jonathan didn't have a problem with that. Only Saul did, because he was a carnal leader. Jonathan was a spiritual man. And in verse 32 of 1 Samuel 20, it says, Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said to him, I'm going to paraphrase for you. He said, Wherefore shall he be slain? Why do you want to kill him? What has he done? And Saul cast a javelin at him to smite him, whereby Jonathan knew that his father determined to slay David. I mean, he got a javelin thrown at him. He was fully well aware that, wow, this is for real. My father is going to kill him. Verse 34 says, So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger. Have you ever had that happen to you? I've had that happen to me. Fierce anger. A hot anger burning inside. This was wrong. This shouldn't happen. And he ate no meat the second day of the month, and he was grieved for David, because his father had done him shame. Remember the Scripture says, Everyone professes his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find. And now we have Jonathan loyal to the end, following his father into what must have looked like, in the natural, a losing battle. But he still followed him. That's the key. He was loyal. Loyal people don't run away when there's a disagreement. Loyal people do what they can to work it out. And if they can't work it out, they just do what is right. And unless they're being asked to do something illegal or immoral, they will keep following. Unless it's something so blatantly in error. And so Jonathan follows his father into this battle with the Philistine army. And this is the point where I used to think that, What would I have done if I was Jonathan? Isn't there a point when you just stop being loyal? Isn't there a point where you walk away from all of this? It says now in chapter 31 verses 1 and 2, it says, The Philistines fought against Israel. And the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down slain in mountain Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons. And the Philistines slew Jonathan and Abinadab and Melchishua, Saul's sons. He died a loyal man. And here's what the Lord showed me. He was loyal to the king right to the end. Because in spite of Saul's failings, he was still the king of Israel. And there was still an obligation. Remember loyalty, we talked about the definition, it's faithfulness to a sovereign. He was still the king. He was the appointed king of God over Israel at that season. And by virtue of the office that he held, Jonathan knew because he was a man that had a deeply embedded loyalty in him. It was the true characteristic of this man of God that he was called to be loyal to the king. And he was also loyal to God, because there was a commandment in the Scripture, a simple one, honor your father. Honor your father. I'm sure he had a lot of misgivings in his heart. Now he knew he had to have known that God could have won a marvelous victory because he'd seen it before. He could have known that he could be delivered, but he also could have known that this might be the end of my days. This might be the final journey that I have before the Lord. And I think like the apostle Paul, he must have had an inner witness that there's a purpose to this, even if I don't understand it. He chose the pathway of truth. He chose to do what is right. Because he chose to do what is right, we're speaking about him today as a great man of God, a hero of the faith, a person to be emulated, someone to aspire to be like. He chose to be loyal. He chose it because it was the right thing to do. Loyal to the king, loyal to God, and loyal to his father. And he went down into the battle, and I'm sure he fought as hard as he could fight. And he was killed in that battle. But I'm also sure the next words, after the Philistine sword pierced his heart, that he would hear was most likely, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. Behold, I'll make thee rule over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. We make so many excuses, folks, for not doing right, for not living right, for not being right. We walk away so easily from our commitments. We become people whose words quite often don't mean much more than the society around us. But I believe that God is challenging us to a higher plane, to something deeper and farther and more passionate for truth in him than we could ever muster in any natural zeal or ability that we have. Simply that we will be loyal to what God reveals to us in his word. It was the commandment, honor your father, that brought me to a place of leading my father to Christ in the last moments of his life. It was a difficult relationship between us after I came to Christ. And it just got increasingly difficult the more I went on into ministry. But I read in the Bible where it said, honor your father. And there were no ifs at the end of the commandment. If he deserves it. If he speaks kindly to you. It didn't say any of that. It just said, honor your father. And on the basis of the word of God, I honored my father. And because of it, won him to Christ in the last conscious hour of his life. Thanks be to God for the victory when we make the choice to do right. David said, oh, Jonathan, in our opening text, thou was slain and died high places. And here's what David was saying. Jonathan, you found a place of worship that was above that of other men. You died honorably, believe in God. You were worshiping in a higher place than other people. That's what he meant. You were slain in your high places. You found a place higher than the people around you. That's why David loved him the way he loved him, because this was a man of integrity and truth. And he knew it. A genuinely humble man, a warrior, a fighter, a man of truth, a man of the spirit. And David knew it. David knew that Jonathan had given his place to him, knew the content of this man's character. And he says, oh, Jonathan, you were swifter than an eagle. You were stronger than a lion. And you found a high place to worship, Jonathan. You were way above the men of your generation. You stood out above all of them in your service to God and the King and your fellow man. And you were slain there in that high place. Oh God, you died honorably, believe in God. And Jonathan, today you stand up to us as an example and a hero of the faith that can be ours through Jesus Christ. You were slain in a high place. And I pray God that when we die, all of us, it can be said of us, they worshiped in a higher place than the multitudes around them. They found something of God. They were marching to another drum. They had another song in their heart. There was something else in their step. They stayed when everyone else would have left. They spoke truth and live truth and walk truth, embrace truth and believe truth. When they said they would do something, you could count on it. When they said they would be there at five, they weren't there at 515. They were there at five. When they said, I'll be there if you need me, when the need came, they were there. And when they stood at an altar and they said for sickness and in health, for better, for worse, they meant it. We're living in a generation where the spiritual climate of the church is not much higher than much of the world around it. But God did his mercy. He's about to change that because he will always have a people. I'd rather die misunderstood and be a hero of the faith, wouldn't you? People maybe who are not spiritual could look a bit perplexed at the path you chose, but your children look at it and say, my dad was a man of God. My mother was a woman of God. Could have done this, but chose this instead. Could have retaliated this way, but chose to do this because that's what the word of God said. Was a friend to all people. So the question that comes to us today is, are you loyal? Are you loyal? Are you loyal to your friends? Are you loyal to your family? Are you loyal to your marriage? Are you loyal in the workplace? But most importantly of all, when you said, Lord Jesus, take my life and use it for your glory any way you choose, did you mean it? Are you loyal to what God would have you to do? And that is the question. If you can say yes to these questions and thank God that you can, let that always be your testimony. But if you can't say yes, there is a strength deeper than your own available to you today. There is a power that God is willing to give. The one who came to the earth and stayed loyal to his Father, and stayed loyal to the purpose of God in spite of the opposition, and stayed loyal to you and I by going to a cross, and stayed loyal to us in our failings, in our frailty, and our foolishness, and comes to us tenderly, time and again, calling us friend. When we do so much that discredits his name, yet he doesn't deny us, walks with us. There's a strength that he's willing to give. And I realize in even speaking this today that I don't have in myself the power to do these things, but then again I do because I have Christ within me. That's where the power is. It's not in me, it's in the life of another being lived out through me. That's where the power to be loyal comes from. When I finally say, not my will but thine be done. Not the way I think it should be done, but God how you choose to do it. Not how I think my life should be lived, but how you choose to live it through me. And where you call me, what you ask me to do. God give me the grace to be a friend. God give me the grace to be a father, a mother. God give me the grace, give me the grace Lord Jesus Christ to mean what I say, and to guard my words. And when I do say something to do it, to be faithful to it. That nobody, no child in this church, nobody ever would ever look at you or I and say, well he says that, but we're not quite sure if he's going to do it. And lastly and most importantly, when I said and you said, take my life and use it for your glory, whatever it means. Now those are pretty words, just like the marriage ceremony is. Pretty words, but are we really loyal to it? Can God take me and you? Can he use us any way he chooses? Will we be content to give away what we think our identity should be to another and embrace the path that God has for us? We must, in this generation, find a higher place of worship. We must rise above the temperature of this generation. That when we finally get to the end of our days, that at our funeral, somebody could say, you were slain in your high places. You found a higher place to worship than ordinary men and women do. And Father, I thank you Lord today that you've given me your word, and I have delivered it as best as I know how. We have sensed your presence in the sanctuary, and we know this is an issue that's very dear to your heart. I pray today for the grace to be loyal. I ask you, Father, for the strength to meditate on these things until they become part of our lives, our thinking, the very fabric of who we are as people. Oh, Jesus Christ, when you look at Times Square Church and everything associated with us, may you see us worshiping on a higher place. Father, we thank you for this, Lord. And give you praise and glory in Jesus' name. Now we're going to worship for 15 minutes or so. As we do, we're going to stand. And if you need the supernatural power of God to be loyal, and in some area where God has spoken to your life today, I'm going to ask as we get out of our seats in a moment that you come and join me at the front of this platform, the sanctuary rather and the same in the annex you can step between the screens and in Roxbury you can do the same too as well and we're going to pray together and you pray as you come to worship today God there might be a situation where you're just so you're so tempted to abandon truth in this situation and abandon loyalty but the Lord calls you to a higher place than that and you say by the grace of God I'm going to let Jesus Christ govern my life I'm going to be loyal let's stand together in the balcony you can make your way to here through any of the exits in the main sanctuary just make your way here please and we'll pray together shortly Lord I pray today for every marriage that needs help in this church I ask you father that you make every man every woman a person of truth and loyalty to the words that we have spoken I pray God that we not be governed by circumstance but by truth and father I thank you for this Lord let there be a marvelous healing in lives that need it today let it begin today father Jesus I bless you and I praise you for it help us Lord to have an unpretended love of the brethren break the barriers down Holy Spirit the preferences and all the rest of it and let there be a love that's supernatural not a natural love not a just a natural affection but a supernatural love is what we asked for you're the only one that can do it Lord but God would commit ourselves to it and we thank you make us people of truth that what we say is what we are what we profess is what we do what we sing here we sing out there Lord and nothing changes make us a people loyal to truth the father we thank you for this God thank you Lord Jesus Christ that you'll give us the strength to do these things and we pray father that as we walk with you Lord that our children would never stumble over us but there'd be something in us so desirable something so honorable Lord as the armor-bearer followed Jonathan up the mountainside so our children would follow us as we choose to worship in Calvary as we choose to go where ordinary men can't go and women can't go that our children would follow us and become fighters there for what is right as well Lord cause there to be a trembling in hell in New York City Lord a trembling among powers of darkness as simply people who are honest and loyal to truth and to one another step out into the marketplace as it was on the day of Pentecost father I'm asking you Lord to cause hell to tremble one more time and cause the powers of darkness to be dissipated and broken bring about a great victory for your house and for your people in our generation and oh Jesus we look forward to the day that all we can do is stand in the street and clap our hands and laugh and dance my God we thank you for these things Lord as the testimony of God as the Lord has done great things for them father we thank you for these things now hallelujah thank you Jesus thank you mighty God