This sermon delves into the urgent need to address the issue of sin as a barrier to revival, emphasizing the importance of mastering sin through Christ. It explores the story of Cain and Abel, highlighting the significance of faith and righteousness in offerings. The sermon challenges listeners to examine their countenance before God, emphasizing the need to conquer sin as it desires mastery over individuals. It calls for repentance and a deep reflection on personal sin and the corporate sins of churches, stressing the critical need for revival in the face of widespread carelessness towards sin.

today about the most important subject in all the world, God. And when one is speaking about revival, if they're not speaking about God, they're speaking foolishly. Tonight, I sense the urgency of speaking about the favorite theme of Americans. Virtually everybody appears to be in favor of it, but I'll take a rather unpopular position tonight and speak against it. And do you know what theme I shall address? The issue of sin. There is a great cause for the need of revival which is so profoundly great in our society—sin. And there is a great barrier, it appears, almost insurmountable to revival, and that, again, is sin. Tonight, I want to deal with a problem. Lord willing, tomorrow night, I'd like to deal with a lovely solution. And for the few of you who take notes and like to prepare yourselves for meetings in advance, I'll suggest to you now the scriptures I intend to employ tomorrow evening, though everything one ever projects to do is subject to change. But Lord willing, tomorrow night, I'd like to deal with three passages, all interrelated—Genesis 17, verses 1 and 2. I'm mentioning these so that, as I said, those who wish to prepare can read them in advance. I repeat Genesis 17, verses 1 and 2. I Corinthians, chapter 1, and verse 30. And Ephesians, chapter 1, the entire chapter, but give particular focus in your preparation upon verse 4. And Lord willing, we shall take those up tomorrow night. But tonight, we're going to read together a passage of unusual consequence out of the book of Genesis, and I invite you to be turning there with me now. The early part of Genesis, indeed. Chapter 4, and beginning at verse 1. Listen now as we heed the word of the Lord. Genesis 4, verse 1. Now, the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a man-child with the help of the Lord. And again she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. And Abel, on his part, also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fallen. Then the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on earth. And Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear. Behold, thou has driven me from the face of the ground, and from thy face I shall be hidden, and I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. And it will come about that whoever finds me will kill me. So the Lord said, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. And Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And he built a city, and he called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. Have you ever pondered these words? Sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. It's very easy for any and all of us to become extremely careless in our attitude toward sin. In fact, it would be correct for me to say that we live at a time when there is a colossal carelessness in connection with sin and relatively few care. One doesn't hear much of the words that I'm about to utilize, but they're the kind of words that were frequently voiced from the pulpits of the land in earlier generations, but not much any longer. But let me give you a series of what might be called theological terms, and yet they are much more than theological terms. They represent vital biblical issues. Let me give you these terms. The universality of sin. Where are you going to find anybody that is not contaminated? Who is there, even among us, that knows nothing of sin? Total depravity. It isn't merely that we have a problem. We are absolutely and totally unable to do anything in and of ourselves that is acceptable to the Lord God, omnipotent, who reigneth. The imputation of sin. Children don't learn to sin. Sin was imputed to them through their father and his father and his father's fathers all the way back to Adam. Not one has ever been born free of this imputed sin. Original sin. I never spent a lot of time as a pastor, but I did have one season when I was pastor of a church that had a big sign out front that said—and, by the way, it said erroneously—it said, Central California's largest church. There were 5,000 families connected with the church, so it wasn't small. And we had a lot of deaths in a church that size. I never counted, but I suppose the funerals averaged between 20 and 25 a week, and many of them were infants and young children. And all the parents, no matter what their state in terms of God was concerned, wanted me to say something sweet and comforting about their innocent babe received into the arms of Jesus. And they objected strenuously to the whole idea of original sin. Nonsense. Infants are born sweet and lovely, clean and pure, holy in the eyes of God, and even more than acceptable in his sight. But that's not in keeping with Scripture. Every infant, no matter how sweet and lovely, is in the grip of original sin. Or this expression, sin as a reigning principle. It isn't merely that we are occasionally subjected to severe temptations and fall. Sin is a reigning principle, and until the reign of sin is broken, it indeed reigns over us. Sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is toward you. If you do not master it through the power of Jesus Christ, it will master you. The reigning principle of sin. Or this expression, rarely used in our day, the propensity to sin. You know that word, propensity? Well, some of us use the term tendency, but sin is not merely a tendency. We have a propensity to sin and irresistible urge. Not an individual here has the strength in and of themselves to resist this propensity to evil. You spend much time thinking about these words and expressions describing the problem of sin. You need also to remember this expression, sin, as an acquired habit. No, that's not to say that the only sins are the sins that are acquired as a habit. That's to say, with all the other evil that naturally accumulates in your life, you can and probably will even stoop so low as to cultivate a certain sin and let it become as a habit in your life. For instance, in our day, shocking to know how many ministers have cultivated the habit of looking at pornography and are now in the grip of pornography, and they don't know how to break it. An acquired habit, as is tobacco and alcohol and so on. Many, many sins that one would not naturally fall into, that they have indeed acquired, and these sins have gripped them as an acquired habit. And then I'll just mention one more term, one I should suppose that few of you ever heard. Aggravated sin. Do you know that term? Aggravated sin. Do you know what I mean? You say, what is an aggravated sin? Sin that is made the worse by some circumstance. Mr. Sapien reports to me that he has circulated many copies of a message delivered in another church in this area a year or so ago that was entitled, Breaking Faith with God. A message on the great sin of Moses' life at the end when he and his brother Aaron, having emerged from an astonishing session in which God revealed his glory to them, then proceeded to commit the sin of sins, as far as their lives were concerned, in breaking faith with God. That was an aggravated sin, a sin made much worse by the fact that they had just emerged from the glory of God's presence and plunged into the sin. In the book of James, we read about another of these aggravated sins. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin, indeed more than mere sin, an aggravated sin, a sin made the worse by the knowledge of the great evil, by the knowledge of the fact that God himself has forbidden it. But now let's turn over a leaf and go from the use of theological terms to the New Testament. A few of you may know the great book by R.C. Trench entitled Synonyms of the New Testament. That dear man listed eight different terms in the New Testament, all of which deal with the subject of sin. Let me quickly and yet carefully mention these eight. Sin is a missing of the mark, a faulty aim. For every one of us here, without any exception, God is placed a target in front of us, and our lives are to hit that target bull's-eye. And whenever we miss the target that God has set in front of us, it's sin. Whether you shoot wide at the target or the arrow of your life falls short of the target, the missing of the mark is sin. Another synonym of the New Testament, when interpreted into English, means an over-transgression or an over-passing of a line. Indeed, God has laid out a line, and he has said, Thus far and no farther. You dare not cross this line. You must not cross this line. You cannot cross this line with impunity. And if you overshoot the line, if you pass over the line, you have indeed committed sin. A third synonym comes right down to disobedience of a voice. God has spoken. He has told us what he requires of us. And any act of disobedience to the voice of God, and in particular to the voice of God as it echoes through the pages of Holy Scripture, is indeed a most grievous sin. Disobedience to a voice. Now, that can include failure to listen when God speaks, and that can include refusal to hear. But any time you are disobedient to the voice of God, you have indeed committed a sin of vast consequence. And may I insert here that no sin is of minor consequence, because all sin is against God. You may think concerning a particular sin, well, it's really not all that bad. Nobody is being hurt by it. This is part of the so-called new morality. You determine the severity of a sin by asking the question, is anybody hurt? Here are two consenting adults, and they agree to fornicate together, and they have a lovely time doing so. So it's not really sin, because both parties enjoyed it. On the other hand, rape, now that is another issue, because that involves force and somebody doing something against their own will. So that's not so nice, but consenting sex, that's all right. That's the new morality. But the old morality makes it crystal clear that any disobedience to the voice of God is sin. Or consider this fourth expression, failure to stand when one should. I've been in many a situation where a grievous wrong was being committed. And I've talked with those around me, and we've all agreed, oh yes, it's wrong. Well, then let's take a stand against it. And they say, go ahead, Mr. Roberts, you're used to doing things like this. You'll be the spokesman. And then I look back for my supporters, and lo, I stand alone. They've retired into the woodwork. Sin is a failure to stand upright, a falling when we should have stood firm. Now, I haven't time to develop this, but one of the most stirring accounts of a human life in Scripture is the account of that young boy, Joash, who became king and leaned upon the high priest for years. And when the high priest died, his leaning post was gone, and he fell flat. You'll find it in 2 Chronicles. If you'll contemplate it, it will be helpful to you. We have many leaners in the Church that never did learn to stand alone. Their strength is always found in somebody else upon whom they lean. But sin is always present when one who is ordered by God to stand falls. A fifth synonym, ignorance of what one should have known. Now, we all know the expression, and may even have been tempted to use it when a police officer's siren sounds behind us, and he pulls us over. Oh, officer, I'm so sorry, I didn't know this was a 35-mile-an-hour limit. Ignorance is no excuse of the law. That goes vastly beyond civil matters. Surely, above all else, that pertains to the law of God. A sixth synonym deals with the diminishing of that which should have been rendered in full measure. You know perfectly well what you should do, but you say to yourself, I'm not prepared to do it in total, but I will do it in a reduced measure. The Lord lays it upon your heart to give a certain sum in support of a very needy cause. And He's asking you for, say, a hundred dollars, and you think, well, that's an awful lot of money right now when there are so many demands upon my thin means. I'll give fifty. Well, that's a poor illustration that all of us are tempted to render in part what God orders in full. And any time we do that, we sin against the God who made us and who has every right to demand from us total obedience. A seventh word that is utilized, usually translated iniquity or lawlessness, means simply the non-observance of law. And we would have to admit, if we were to speak honestly to our own hearts, that there have been more than one occasion when we knew perfectly well what the law of God required of us, and we simply said, I will not obey. And the final term, discord in the harmonies of nature. Someone may say now he's about to go from preaching to meddling, because I say to you that part of the discord in the harmony of nature is the role of men, women, and children under God's order. A pastor said to me this week, I've discovered that every serious disruption that we have in our church has been caused by some woman who would not accept her God-ordained role. I hope he's wrong. But what more outstanding discord in the harmony of God's nature do we see today than women who will not accept their God-appointed role? Everybody who's using their head knows that God ordered things simply. He himself at the top, man underneath him, women underneath man, and children underneath the whole pile. Is it any wonder that children are acting so wildly and committing such grievous evils? How can you expect children to stay in line when mothers are out of line? And, of course, many a mother can honestly say, well, there was a problem that preceded my disorder. My husband has never put himself under God's authority. Hard going for me to put myself under the authority of a man who will not put himself under the authority of God. Disorders in the harmony of God's nature, that's sin. But now we have read a most significant passage, and let's come to it. I hope you realize that sin is never willing to be merely your companion. Sin is determined to be your lord and your master. Some folk act as if they could safely give way at least a little to sin, and it wouldn't be all that disruptive or dangerous. Sin is never content to take a subordinate position. Sin always demands top billing. Sin strives not for occasional conquest. Sin strives for perpetual control. Sin is a tyrant. You either master it or it masters you. And you understand, I hope, that when I say you either master it, I don't mean you and you alone. I mean the blessed Son of God who died and was buried and rose again for your sanctification. Now, dear friends, let me insert this obvious fact. We desperately need revival, and yet we see no signs of genuine revival at this time. Sin has provoked the immense need of revival, and sin still stands as the barrier to revival. One would like to think that a godly people, a careful and a prayerful, a thinking people would quickly recognize what sin has done by way of destruction in the work of God and understand their role in this destruction by their participation in sin and immediately humble themselves and pray and seek God's face and turn from their wicked ways. But I don't know anywhere in America where there's any real evidence of people doing this on any large scale at all. Do you know something of the passage that we have read? Let's look at it. We don't have a lot of time. You folk are used to listening a lot less than I'm used to preaching. Most of the places I go, I make it clear that they can give me no time restraints. But I've come here without that understanding. And I'm not going to presume upon the kindness of your invitation by complicating the affairs of the life of this church and of you dear people by taking extra long tonight. You'd like to hear a long sermon. Reuben's been pushing some of them on tables. But I want you to look at this passage with me. You understand, don't you, that Cain was the firstborn son of the first created man and woman. You know as well that Cain was the son of fallen sinners. But these fallen sinners nonetheless believed in God. Did you notice these words in verse 1 of Genesis 4? Eve speaking, I have gotten a man-child with the help of God. That's worth remembering. No matter how far Eve had fallen and how distant was her relationship now after the garden with the Lord God Almighty, she still retained in her knowledge the remembrance of the fact that the Son who was given to her was with the aid, with the help of the Holy One. Isn't it sad when you realize that millions in America today can bear children and not even recognize this primitive truth that that child came to them with the intervention of the Almighty. We, at least for the most part, are keenly aware that Cain was a farmer, a tiller of the ground, and we know that his brother Abel was a shepherd. We also know that both these brothers had sufficient interest in the things of God to offer in the course of time a sacrifice. We know that Cain's sacrifice, his offering, consisted of the fruit of the ground. We know that the sacrifice made by Abel consisted of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat portion. We know that the Lord had regard both for Abel and for Abel's offering. And we know as well that God had no regard for Cain or for his offering. And we know that Cain became angry, and he expressed that anger. And this is recorded in verse 6, and it's worth looking at again. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? Many people have said to me, or I have said to many people, What are you angry about? And they say, I'm not angry. Well, what are you angry about? Well, what makes you think I'm angry? Your fallen countenance. Here God observes the fallen countenance of Cain. What are you angry about? Now, dear friends, there are some complications in this passage, and it is not the easiest passage in Holy Scripture to interpret right. There are some important parallel passages that have to be brought into line with this. For instance, Hebrews chapter 11 at verse 4. By faith, Abel offered unto God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through faith he, though dead, yet speaks. Now, we know they were both brothers. We know they both had the same parents. We know they both came from the same home. We know they were both prompted to worship God at the same time, and apparently in the same place. We know that they both arranged an offering which was suitable to their occupations, yet one was acceptable to God, and the other was rejected. What is the real issue here? It is the issue that one was of the fruit of the ground, and the other was of the firstling of the flock. Well, some preachers have certainly made that the issue. It was the issue that one was bloody, and the other was bloodless. Now, in the passage out of Hebrews that I just cited, the statement was made that the sacrifice of Abel was better than the sacrifice of Cain. Now, what does that mean, better? Well, let me suggest what a variety of the translations say. The Old Reims translation, the sacrifice of Abel was fuller. The Weymouth translation, the sacrifice of Abel was more acceptable. The Goodspeed translation, the sacrifice of Abel was greater. The Berkeley translation, the sacrifice of Abel was superior. The Moffat translation, the sacrifice of Abel was richer. Get those words, fuller, more acceptable, greater, superior, richer. Is it important that in Genesis 4.3 it says one was fruit, using the word in the singular form? And the other, verse 4, firstlings is a plural word. Is that what is implied by fuller, greater, superior, richer? Can we say concerning Cain's offering that it was mean, that it was stingy, and concerning Abel's offering that it was large, sacrificial, costly, generous? Well, we can say something else with far greater certainty. Abel offered in faith, and that is not said about Cain. Abel's sacrifice, we have read, bore testimony that he was righteous, whereas Cain's offering testified of his lack of acceptance with God. Notice these words from 1 John 3, verses 10 to 12. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. From these words we can safely deduce that Cain was a child of the devil because he did not love his brother. Cain was not of God because he did not practice righteousness. Cain slew his own brother because his deeds were evil and his brother's deeds were righteous. Now think for a moment of these general principles that scriptures teach on the theme I am drawing your attention to. I Samuel 15, 22. Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken is better than the fat of ranch. Or these words in 1 Samuel 16, 7, But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, referring to Saul, because I have rejected him. For God sees not as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And these summary words in James 3, 16, For where is jealousy and selfishness? Where they exist, where ambition exists, there is disorder and every evil thing. Now, dear friends, the portion of this message that has gripped my heart and which I hope and pray will truly lay hold of your heart before you leave tonight is found in the words that I have twice cited already. Sin is crouching at the door, and if its desire is for you, but you must master it. Notice now in verse 7 that the words I've just cited are preceded by these words, If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? If you're innocent, if you're sinless, if you, like Abel, present a right sacrifice in a right spirit, if you will retrace your steps and amend your offering and your intent, your countenance will be lifted up. Would it be out of the way if I were to pause and ask the state of your countenance now? Answer out loud. Do you have a countenance that is lifted up, or do you have a countenance that has fallen? What really is meant when it speaks about your countenance being lifted up? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Why should I take time to explain what is so perfectly obvious? When a man's ways please the Lord, even his countenance is lifted up. I didn't find that in Scripture. I just put a couple of thoughts together. But it's true, isn't it? And what drags the countenance down with great rapidity? The inner secret knowledge that a believer has that he has sinned again. Everywhere I go, I am encountering believers whose countenance are cast down. I am listening to preachers whose messages are without authority. If my own heart does not condemn me, we read in 1 John, then I know, I have confidence that what I ask of God, he does. Men enter the pulpit and they say, Oh God, bless what I'm about to do. And their conscience rises up and says, You miserable hypocrite, why should God bless your preaching? They're defeated before they open their mouth. Another man enters the pulpit saying, Oh God, quicken this word and make it lively in the hearts of all auditors and let it be a transforming word. And their own conscience says, Well, of course God will quicken this word. You have been walking in the Spirit and in the beauty of holiness. Is your countenance lifted up in the service of the Lord and in the love of Christ? Or is your countenance downcast because there is some sin that has been lurking at the door of your heart? Sin is crouching at the door. Have you ever weighed seriously before the Almighty those enormous words? Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is toward you. Oh, if somehow we could come to understand that much worse than a giant lion, sin crouches at our door. And every time we give in to it, we've fed that lion of desire and we've encouraged that lion of desire to expect far better meals in days to come. There seem to be so many Christians that think that if they can resist the devil and please the Lord in certain sweeping areas of their life, all is well. But that isn't true. The devil awaits even the tiniest opportunity. He crouches perpetually at the door awaiting even the slightest breakdown in your walk with God. And as I have been saying throughout this week, the nature of sin is that it is like a gigantic magnet. I used at some point this week a rather almost silly illustration and yet profoundly important. I asked people if they had ever ridden on a subway in a major city, say like New York, and you get on the subway and you're on one of these long cars where there are seats along the outside and straps above that people are hanging on to, and you find a seat and you get yourself comfortable and you're aware of the fact there's about three quarters of an inch space next to you on your left and a quarter of an inch on the right, and then the car stops at the next station and through the door comes one of these great big fat aggressive New York women and she spots that three quarter inch space between you and the next one on the left and she takes her great bulk and she sits down in that tiny crack and with a motion or two she's got all the room she desires. And at the next stop coming from the other end of the car is another one of these bulks and she's spotted the quarter of an inch on your right and she makes her seat there. Sin, when once accommodated, is like those beefy New York women. You dare not give even a crevice for sin to settle into your life. It is like the lion crouching at the door and its desire is toward you. What I hope is clearly understood, this nation is in the most precarious condition because the churches of America have grown very careless in dealing with sin and we are faced not merely with the personal sins of millions of people who talk about being born again, we are faced with the terrible gross corporate sins of tens of thousands of churches that do not walk in the beauty of holiness and who have never ever dealt with their corporate sins. Some of you may have good memories and you may be able to roll back your memory with me to a number of years ago when evangelicals became very arrogant and they themselves declared a certain year as the year of the evangelical. Do any of you remember that? I was at one of the great interdenominational conventions at that time and one of the most prominent preachers in America stood and declared with victorious sounds in his voice, America is in the midst of the greatest revival she has ever known. I thought, strange, I never noticed. Been deeply, vitally interested in this matter of revival for decade after decade, I would have liked to think when revival gripped the nation I would have observed it. But no, I hear the announcement from a great platform But as I say, that was the year of the evangelical. That was the year when the miserable, lowly world acknowledged that we were a great force, that we mattered, that our opinions had to be weighed, that they couldn't just shun us, that they couldn't push us aside and regard us as nothing. We had arrived. Well, we had arrived. We had arrived at a peak of arrogancy that had never happened before in this nation. And we have never known a time since then where we have repented of this most grievous sin of pride. Sin was crouching at the door. Its desire was toward us. And the door was opened to the lion of sin, and he was invited to have a small place. But he's never content, as I've said, with a small place. He never has been. He never will be. Sin desires to have mastery over you, over us, over the nation of churches. And we either conquer it, it is placed under our feet just as we are under Christ's feet, or it has mastery. Do you have mastery over sin through Christ? I'm not talking about some great, gross, notorious sin. I'm talking about sin, the sort that I began with when I used those various theological terms, exactly what I described when I gave you the eight synonyms of sin in the New Testament. Have you got mastery over sin? Or does sin crouch perpetually at your door with its desire toward you? Oh, it would be lovely, wouldn't it, if we could end this account of Cain by saying Cain saw the significance of the word of God, and Cain gained ascendancy over the evil desire that crouched at his door. But instead, God rendered to him, because of his refusal to repent, a rather mild judgment. And Cain assailed God, insisting that his punishment was too great to bear. But let's end. Let's ask again. Have you got mastery over sin? Or in time, will it gain mastery over you? We began this evening, and I mentioned a defining moment where things penetrate our hearts and cause us to change our way of thinking. Brother Roberts mentioned that tomorrow evening he'll bring a continuation of the other side of this message to us. How many of you want to see our country change? I think we all do. I think there's a cord in us that says, Lord, we really want what you want. We want to thank you, Pastor Chuck, and Pastor Gary, and all you folks here at Calvary Chapel for allowing us to come as we are going to different places in the Pacific Northwest, and to be able to allow Brother Roberts to minister the Word of the Lord to our spirits. Could we stand as we close this evening? I want to just mention to you again that we will have this tape available in about 15 minutes, and then, of course, we'll have many of them available for you tomorrow. Please stop by the tables and let the fellows serve you with any of the materials that Brother Roberts has published and put out. But could you grab the hand of the person next to you as we just conclude in a word of prayer? The way that I'd like to leave this, if I could, is that the people that made the most impact in my life was my principal, because he's the one that gave me SWATs. My probation and parole officer, because he's the one that had the key that could let me out or keep me in. The judge, because he's the one that could send me up or set me free. And or the Word of God that could bring me freedom or cause me terror. And when I am challenged like this, I like to say to myself, Reuben, why don't you think about this? Why don't you take some time and just let your heart really mull this over and chew on this? Do you have that sense with me this evening? That God brings words to us that you can't, no possible way, just process everything in a moment's time, because we just had some of eternity dropped into our souls. So I'm going to ask you, as the Lord leads you between now and tomorrow night, may you find a quiet place in a quiet time and just say, God of heaven, may you help me to digest these eternal words that I have heard so that I can bring eternal glory in a temporal world to you. Again, thank you. Let's just close in prayer, and then you're dismissed. And thank you so much for your graciousness and allowing us to be here. Let's pray. Father, you are wonderful. I'm reminded why I need you as my father, because I need to be corrected. And I'm reminded again that I need you as my father because I need to be loved. And so, Father, we thank you this evening for this house of worship and these spiritual parents and these children of the Most High God and this place that desires to lift you up, that the whole earth might see you. Lord, may you take us under the shelter of your wings, and may you cause us to hear the concern and the desire towards us that you have. Bless this house. Bless these people. Bless the word of God to our spirits, our souls, and our bodies. And may we come back tomorrow evening excited, anticipating, again, that more of eternity will be dropped into our souls. We thank you, Lord. We ask these things in Jesus' name, and all of God's people said, could you give the Lord a hand clap as you're dismissed tonight? Thank you.