Transcript:

Having just heard earlier this afternoon about faithfulness in the midst of opposition and thinking of passage of our topic. Now at this point, to connect the two, I would like to read a few verses from 1 Peter chapter three. 1 Peter chapter three, and there we will start at verse 12 and read through to verse 18. 1 Peter, I should actually start at verse 11.

1 Peter three, starting at verse 11, the word of God, "Let him eschew evil and do good. Let Him seek peace and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over their righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil and who is he that will harm you if he be followers of that which is good? But and if he suffer for righteousness's sake, happy are ye and be not afraid of their terror. Neither be troubled but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better if the will of God be so that he suffer for well-doing then for evil-doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit thus far." Let us pray.

Oh Lord God, we pray unto thee in this afternoon as we gather together once again to receive instruction from the truth of thy word. And Lord, we give thee thanks that in the midst of all that happens in our lives and all that goes through us, all that may seem so uncertain and unstable thou does give a firm foundation in thy word that reveals who thou art as the unchanging God, the God who is glorious, the God who is wise, the God who is mighty, and the God who is merciful.

And thou does reveal it in thy son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, oh Lord, we pray that whatever we go through it would only lead us to sink down upon thee, the glorious God of grace and know thy faithfulness to thy own word. Bless us in this afternoon also as we are later in an afternoon after having a day in which we have received so much. Would thou give alertness and also cause us to benefit also from this address. Be with us Lord in thy undeserved mercy for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

Dear friends, this theme of this conference has been sovereignty and suffering and that combination of sovereignty and suffering has brought us to the providence of God because after all, the providence of God is about him ruling over all things, controlling all things including suffering. And I'd like in this afternoon to take actually many of the things that we have heard earlier already in this conference and give them flesh and blood in the time of the Reformation and in the person of Guido de Brès, the author of the Belgic Confession and through the focus also on the confession bring that to us today.

And so I'd like to begin with you by reading what we find in the Belgic Confession article 13 about divine providence. In the Salter books in the pew. You can find it on page 10 in the back. The back pages are numbered. There we have in Article 13 a confession about the providence of God.

And there is this confession. "We believe that the same gods after he had created all things, did not forsake them nor give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without his appointment. Nevertheless, God neither is the author of nor could be charged with the sins which are committed. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he orders and executes his work in the most excellent and just manner. Even when devils and wicked men act unjustly and as to what he doth surpassing human understanding, we will not curiously inquire into it further than our capacity will admit of, but with the greatest humility and reverence, adore the righteous judgments of God which are hid from us, contenting ourselves that we are disciples of Christ to learn only those things which he has revealed to us in His word without transgressing these limits." And we'll stop there in that confession at this point.

Notice how it begins. We believe that the same God, and I'm not sure where this translation comes from because in the original it's we believe that this good God. Do you notice how it begins? When it comes to the providence of God, this same good God. The same good God of Article 12 of creation who created all things that confesses there according to his good pleasure and he looked at it all and it was very good. In Genesis three, we went from good to evil, but God is the same. The God who created all good is still the God who is good and this is the God of providence.

What a message that is for us that when we think of providence, we don't begin with the things that we go through in our lives and try to draw conclusions about God, but that we begin with what God reveals to us in his word about himself and that that light would shine upon his dealings of providence. And when again we ask who is this God, then he is the God who's confessed already in the first article of this Belgic Confession that he is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good.

That's the God of providence. And when you think of that, then it makes us very small, doesn't it? Before this great God who's governing overall things and his attributes, his praises, his perfections are revealed in the word of God and confessed here in this first article. And yet it's in the midst of the suffering and the sin that abounds in this world, that there can be this struggle. God is good and he's the fountain of all good and yet there's so much sin, there's so much brokenness, there's so much suffering in the midst of this world. How can we fit these two together who God is and the reality of sin and of suffering here below. Article 13 doesn't use the theological escape of saying God's hand is not sovereign over Satan and over sin or even over suffering. It doesn't go in the direction of other religions that just say evil was always there.

No, it confesses that he's over all governing according to his holy will and then notice how it stresses. God is not the author of sin but the one who justly uses sin evilly committed by man to carry out his holy purposes. Speaks of Pharaoh. He raised up Pharaoh, that evil man who hardened his heart and yet God was ruling and appointing him to fulfill his purposes to show his might in getting Israel out of Egypt. The ultimate display as Christ himself isn't it has been quoted already. It was wicked hands that slew him and the determinate counsel of God that appointed it. Do we understand that all? Sometimes the hardest providence is our providence is that involves sin. It's one thing if there's a storm we see God's hand, but when it's sin that's brought suffering into our lives or when it's our own sin and we suffer the consequences of it, how do those two things relate?

This article is the believing confession of the church that doesn't try to understand and comprehend everything, but it says we are disciples of Christ and desire to learn what he has revealed and not pry into what he has not revealed. It's a confession of the church that sings "Not haughty is my heart, not lofty is my pride. I do not seek to know the things God's wisdom has denied with childlike trust. Oh Lord, in thee I calmly rest contented as a little child upon its mother's breast." Psalm 133. And yet when we hear that psalm, we can think it's easy to confess that when things are going well in life, but what about in the midst of the storms of life? It's easy to say God is an overflowing fountain of all good and he's in control of all things when we're enjoying good but in the midst of the storms of life, then what? Article 13, we go back to that article and you see how it continues there in that second paragraph.

"This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation since we're taught thereby that nothing can be fallen us by chance but by the direction of our most gracious and heavenly father who watches over us with a paternal care, keeping all creatures so under his power that not a hair of our head for they are all numbered nor a sparrow can fall to the ground without the will of our father, in whom we do entirely trust. Being persuaded that he so retrains the devil and all our enemies that without his will and permission they cannot hurt us and therefore we reject the damnable error of the Epicureans who say that God regards nothing but leaves all things to chance." Says here, this doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation. And so if you are a confessing member of a reformed church, then this is your confession. You confess with the Belgic Confession, it's your confession. This affords us unspeakable consolation.

And if you're not a member of a Dutch reformed church who has this as their confession, then you're also called to join in this confession. This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation. And when we hear and we think of how that was written in that way, it makes us ask the author of this confession, "What makes you say that?" And it makes us ask those churches who first confessed it there in the 1560s, "What makes you say this gives you unspeakable consolation?" Are you also suffering and is God also comforting you personally with this doctrine? Then we see not only this as a confession of the providence of God, but we also see that this is a confession out of suffering.

Guido de Brès was born in a Roman Catholic home in the south of the Netherlands in around 1522. At the time present day Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands were all together known as the lowlands in English or the Nederland in Dutch or Belgica in Latin. They were all together an area ruled by Charles the V, who was not only the ruler of the Netherlands but was also the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles the V was not able to squash the Reformation in those German territories over which he was, but he had more power to do so in the Netherlands and in those days the Netherlands was the place where there was the most martyrs of all the countries in Europe.

De Brès was converted before his 25th year in 1547. When he was converted, he joined the Protestant church in Belgium and when he did so he realized it could cost him his life. Shortly after his conversion, there were two Protestant preachers and their wives traveling through and stopped in his town and they were arrested and the two pastors were burned at the stake publicly and the one wife was buried alive and the other wife, we don't know what happened to. As a young man of 24, 25, he saw that. Imagine what would go through your mind. How can God let his sheep be slaughtered by wolves?

Guido De Brès did not draw back. The Lord kept him. But he did go to London, England where he remained for four years during the reign of Edward VI. At that time there was a Dutch-speaking congregation and a French-speaking congregation of refugees from the lowlands. There was three or 4,000 people were in these two congregations, people who had been scarred by persecution, people who had family members who were still there in the low land, suffering.

And while he was there in England, there was a decree that was issued by Charles V that no one was to print or possess any writings of the reformers or participate in any gatherings led by a heretic and anyone caught doing so or supporting someone doing so could be put to death. Well, what do you do when you know that's the case? You stay where it's safe, right? And yet God led De Brès back to the southern Netherlands and he came to a town called Lil where a church had formed just after the Reformation began. Seven years before De Brès arrived, its Pastor Pierre Brulé, one of the first reformed ministers to come into the Netherlands from Switzerland was martyred.

Yet he came there and God bless his ministry, his friend Jean Crespin reported in the space of three years the gospel has been preached secretly in homes, in forests and in fields and caves of the earth at the peril of life to those who came. Fear of tyranny could not cool off the fiery love of the people who hungered for pasture and food for their souls. And yet persecution intensified and as a result, many of these also became refugees and went elsewhere and Guido De Brès also left that area and you can imagine the heartache that must have involved, the encouragement to see the church grow and see the Lord bless his word, and then the church being scattered by the wolves.

He left to elsewhere in Europe visiting Frankfurt, Lauzun, Geneva studying under Theodore Beza and others. And yet he returned again after some time to the same area where he administered, going to this time to Doornik, a strategic center. And you ask why did he return? He said, "I sought nothing else than the salvation of people, not my honor or my advantage." Around this time he married Catherine Ramon, who seems to be from that town. He loved her. He later wrote in a letter to her, "You knew that when you married me, you married a mortal husband who is unsure of his life for every moment, and yet it pleased the Lord to give us a time of seven years together and grant us five children."

He labored spreading the word of God under the pseudonym of Jerome. He was a wanted man. You just think of the suffering of being a husband, seeing your little children, saying goodbye to go out and minister in the evening and someplace not knowing if you had ever come home, not sure of your life, every moment. There he was. Some of the persecution was unbelievably cruel, even in the town he was serving. There's a report of a rug weaver who dishonored the Mass and was dragged to the marketplace with an iron ball in his mouth to prevent him from speaking. And his hand and his foot was burned off with red-hot tongs. And I'll just stop there. Think of the suffering of seeing that as a fellow member of your church suffering. Suffering so.

Some felt they had to do something to show their strength because the Reformation was growing there. And so they began these Psalm singing chantries. As they went in the night under the cover of darkness early evening, and they began singing Psalms through the streets and stopping at important people's houses and as they were doing so there was too much for the authorities elsewhere. And they came in to clamp down upon this and it was in that context that Guido De Brès took the Belgic Confession and several other materials including a letter and threw them in a package over the wall to the authorities.

And in that letter he said, "We offer our backs to the whips, our tongues, to the knives, our mouths, to the gags and our whole bodies to be burned at the stake, knowing that those who want to follow Christ must take up their cross and deny themselves." You see that God was rescuing them from the mouth of the lion. They were not caving into that temptation to deny him as sadly too many did. And so when the Belgic Confession article 13 speaks of suffering and the sovereignty of God and that the providence of God affords unspeakable consolation, this was not just some nice words.

Suffering was real and this confession, this good God governs over all things. Even the very hairs of our head was so tested by that suffering. Do you still confess that in the midst of suffering? Is that indeed your comfort in the midst of suffering? Then we let us seek to see how those two things came together, this confession and this context of suffering in Guido De Brès.

It's going a little further in his life. By 1566, the Reformation had grown a lot in the Netherlands and there was a time of relief from persecution. And De Brès was called to preach in an important town Valencia, and there were reports of thousands of people coming together in the open fields to hear the preaching and then the Protestants came in and said, "We're taking the cathedral." And so there was Protestant preaching in the cathedral in town. It was too much for the authorities and they came and besieged the city and eventually forced it to surrender and Guido De Brès escaped.

He escaped but he was caught in a nearby inn. He later reported to his congregation, "We were handed over, we were bound hand and foot with irons and thrown into a wagon like sheep for the slaughter" and he ended up in prison in chains. Later to his wife he wrote, "I am held in the strongest and most wretched prison that exists dark and gloomy. The only air I get is through a small reeking hole into which people dump filth. I have a heavy thick iron about my feet and my hands, which torment me wearing away the flesh to my bones."

There he was, Guido. Do you still hold to what you wrote? The doctrine of the providence of God affords as unspeakable consolation even now? No, it didn't. It didn't. He wrote to his wife talking about the sovereignty of God and he said, "Human reason rebels against this doctrine, this I have experienced. When I was arrested, I would say to myself, so many of us should not have traveled together. We were betrayed by this one or that one. We ought not to have been arrested. And with such thoughts, I became overwhelmed." Do you hear his honesty?

Haven't you had those things go through you? If only, if only, if only, and why did this have to happen and why did it have to be just then and why? Oh, if only I, and he said these thoughts overwhelmed him. As he sat there in those chains. He was honest and then he went on, "With such thoughts, I became overwhelmed until my spirits were raised by the thought of this providence of God." And then he said, "At that moment my heart began to feel a wonderful rest and I began to say, my God that was caused me to be born in the hour of thy appointing during all the time of my life that was kept me and preserved me from unusual dangers and that was delivered me from them. And if at present my hour has come in which I will pass from this life to thee, may thy will be done."

Do you see what he saw? The very same hand that had protected him from these dangers so long is the very same hand that was leading him into this suffering at this hand. The hand had not changed. It was still the hand of the good God. That's why he continued writing from prison. "I cannot escape from thy hands and even if I could, I would not want to, since all my happiness consists of conforming myself to thy will. All these considerations made and still make my heart cheerful and willing."

Do you hear it? I can't escape God's hand and if I could, I wouldn't want to. What will make us say that? Is it not knowing that hand and knowing that God whose hand of providence it is. He was writing to his wife, the mother of their five children, he said, "I feel your sorrow over this separation more keenly than mine." Then he gives this comfort. "If the Lord had wished us to live longer together, he would've provided the way, but it did not please him to do this. And may his good pleasure take place and let his good pleasure be reason enough." We heard it this morning. God is beyond our comprehension

And then he goes on to say, when he speaks about the providence of God, he quotes the words of Christ, "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore. You are of more value than many sparrows. What is there that we value less than one hair of our heads? These words of divine wisdom say that God knows the number of my hairs. How then can harm come to me outside of the command and providence of God if it could not happen unless one should say that God is no longer God."

Do you see it? Do you hear it? This confession of Article 13 is not just a confession of someone who sits in his study and writes nice things about God. This is a confession that is confirmed there in a prison cell as death is awaiting him. As he writes to his dear wife and his pain in his heart about the suffering that she's going through, he says, "God counts every hair of our head and if anything could be outside his providence, then God would no longer be God." And so this unspeakable consolation here of this article is no mere theory. This is a confession of reality and because it's a reality concerning God and because it's a reality that God is good, God also shows that goodness even in the midst of the darkest places.

The point is not to put Guido De Brès on a pedestal. The point is not to make someone who cannot attain to the degree of comfort filling his heart into discouragement, but the point is this. That when what we confess is the word of God, then that word of God will stand no matter what situation you may be in, and it's that word that will give comfort also in the darkest and the filthiest places like a prison cell. The key to knowing the sovereign God as the God of all comfort is in Jesus Christ.

Now, this is not just a comfort from the bare doctrine of God's providence and sovereignty, but now I'm going a step further. This is a personal comfort in God through the redeeming Christ. From prison he wrote to his dear mother, "I submit myself to all that it pleases him to do with me knowing that he will not do anything that is not just and right. He is my God and Father and he does not lack goodwill towards me nor the power to deliver me if it pleases him to do so. Therefore, I rest in him in everything." Do you see what the key is? He is my God and my father. That's key. The only way to know God as my God and my father is in Jesus Christ.

It's beautiful that some of the most moving articles in the Belgic Confession are about the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look just at Article 20, "We believe that God who is perfectly merciful and just sent his son to assume our nature" and then it goes on, "God therefore manifested his justice against his son when he laid our iniquities upon him and poured forth his mercy and goodness on us who were guilty and worthy of damnation out of mere and perfect love, giving his son unto death for us and raising him for our justification, that through him we might obtain immortality and life eternal."

Where's the comfort? At the cross, you see most clearly that God is the overflowing fountain of loving gracious good even as he pours out his inexpressible wrath upon his son. At the cross you find a God of unspeakable mercy. Article 21 goes on and says, "We believe that Jesus Christ is ordained with an oath to be an everlasting priest." And then later on it says, "Wherefore, we justly say with the Apostle Paul, we know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. We count all things but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, our Lord in whose wounds we find all manner of consolation."

Those are words to memorize. In his wounds, we find all manner of consolation. It's not just bare cold providence, but it's the providence then of the God who sent his son to suffer the wrath of God to deliver from that and give his blessing and his favor. Why do you find consolation in his wounds in whatever situation? It's because in his wounds you find the favor of this God overall. Only there my friend can you echo the confession here. In the midst of whatever you go through in his wounds, we find all manner of consolation.

Not only in his wounds. Article 26 goes on to speak of him as that great advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous. We heard this morning that that is such an under, it doesn't receive enough attention that an intercession of Jesus Christ. But one of the most beautiful articles in this whole Belgic Confession is on the intercession of Jesus Christ. Now it stresses that we have no access unto God, but only through the mediator and advocate Jesus Christ.

And then it says, "If then we should seek for another mediator who would be well affected toward us? Whom could we find who loved us more than he who laid down his life for us even when we were his enemies? And if we"... Well, I'll stop there, but the point is he is that advocate right now at the right hand of his father. What is a comfort not only in his wounds but also in his ongoing intercession that on the basis of what he has done in being wounded and offering up his soul as a sacrifice for sin, he is there as that great advocate and mediator or the comfort. When in the midst of suffering, your conscience accuses you that you don't deserve comfort. When in the midst of suffering you are troubled about your own sin and your own unworthiness and you think, "Why would God come to my help now?" You don't deserve it and you never will.

The hope and the comfort is in a mediator, Jesus Christ. And so the point here is that it's not just about the God of providence because if all we have is a God of providence ruling our lives as sinners who are rebelling against that very God who holds our life in his hand, then the very providence of God is a terrifying thing because that God of providence is a God against us. And if that God be against us, who and what can never be for us? The comfort is to know this God of providence in Jesus Christ, the redeemer. Not against us but for us.

But there's more. He's not only the Christ who has secured that salvation. What's striking about Guido De Brès and the letters that he wrote from prison is that his comfort was also in the living Christ today. Article 26 of the Belgic Confession cites Hebrews two and Hebrews four. Those well-known words about how Christ is that great high priest who's been tempted, who has suffered and is able to strengthen us in our suffering, in the present tense. Was that just theory for Guido De Brès? Did he just put it in the Belgic Confession because that's in the word of God? And so he wrote to his wife from prison, "I have found by experience that he will never leave those who have trusted in him. I would never have thought that God would've been so kind to such a poor creature as I. I feel the faithfulness of my Lord Jesus Christ."

Christ was so real to him. Exactly because Christ is real and because Christ is the living savior, not only then but also now. He says, "I have great reason to rejoice when I see my master, Jesus Christ has honored me in allowing me to sit with him at his table. Is it a small thing to follow such a Lord? It is he who made the heavens and earth from nothing by his mighty word. It is he before whom the angels and archangels cover their faces and tremble and here am I, a poor worm of the earth, full of weaknesses and it pleases him to call me his friend. Oh, what an honor. Christ is a living one who is real, who leads on that path of suffering and then goes with his suffering people that gave comfort."

He wrote, "He is in prison here with me. I mean Jesus Christ, my master. I see him enclosed and enshackled in my irons and chains, just as he promised me in his trustworthy word to be with me to the end. He says that when the least of his disciples is taken prisoner, that it is he himself saying, I was a prisoner and you visited me. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"

We often pray that God would be with us, Christ would be with us. Do you know what that is? That he is with you according to his faithful word. Sometimes he can show his gracious presence in such a rich and comforting way. Sometimes he can just be there even in the midst of the darkness as maybe we'll hear tomorrow morning sustaining and keeping from perishing. But notice what De Brès says. He's with me just as he promised me in his trustworthy word. And so let Guido De Brès not just let you look at him, but see in him that God is faithful to his word and he's as faithful to his word today as he was there in that prison, as he was in the days of Paul as he ever was.

De Brès continued, "He is here with me comforting strengthening me, causing the words of his mouth to fall as a sweet melody upon my ears. He is saying unto me, to him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." And he goes on quoting text after text after text and every time he says, "He is saying unto me, he is saying unto me", do you notice it? The comfort is that the living Christ speaks through his written words. The living Christ speaks, can I say present tense but not new revelation, but what he's written in his words.

He knows what you need to hear, he knows and he lives to speak. For that word, to strip away all other comforts, that word to humble you and that word also to comfort you with himself. And so the comfort of the sovereign God of providence is known in the Christ to a secured redemption and lives in the present to give comfort in suffering.

There's one final aspect here and that is the comfort in the Christ who will come again because riddles remain suffering presses real questions on our minds, on our hearts. Suffering involves real pain. Pain that can continue so long, it can involve such real injustices and there seems to be no righting of them. Where's the comfort of God's sovereignty?

He's carrying out his whole plan of redemption till he perfects his great work. Nothing will frustrate his plans so nothing will hinder his work whereby he carries it out. That's why the Belgic Confession can end in Article 36. "Finally, we believe that according to the word of God, when the time appointed by the Lord which is unknown to all creatures has come and the number of the elect complete that our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven as he ascended with great glory and majesty to declare himself judge of the quick and the dead."

It goes on to say, "The consideration of this judgment is justly terrible and dreadful to the wicked and ungodly." And it is, isn't it? Because that great day when he will judge the living and dead, if we're outside of Christ, then his coming will spell the end of every creaturely comfort we have ever enjoyed, every bit of prosperity that we've ever had. It'll be the end of it all. It'll be the beginning of eternal suffering of the wrath of God. It's the most fearful thing ever, but most desirable and comfortable to the righteous and the elect.

It goes on to say, "The Lord will cause them to possess such a glory as never entered into the heart of man to conceive." That's what Guido De Brès wrote. Guido, do you still confess that in the prison? When everything speaks of suffering and of death and of injustice? We have a letter of the consistory of Valencia to the congregation of what happened on May 31st, 1567. At three in the morning, the chief officer woke De Brès and several others to inform them to prepare themselves for death since they would be executed in three hours' time.

The letter then states, "Then these gospel ministers began to praise God and to thank the official for the good news. They then said to the other prisoners, my brothers, I am condemned to death today for the doctrine of the Son of God. May he be praised. I am very joyful about this. I never thought God would give me such an honor. It seems to me that my spirit has wings to fly to heaven because today I am called to the wedding of my Lord, the son of God."

And his fellow pastor who has executed the same day, he said to his fellow prisoners, "My brothers, I am condemned to death today for the doctrine of the son of God. I am going to life eternal, for my name is written in the book of life and cannot be erased from it since the calling and gifts of God are without repentance."

The sovereignty of God was such a foundation for comfort because it was about the sovereign grace of God in Jesus Christ. A few hours later there when the gallows, there were those bodies dangling and the enemies could look and they could think we've defeated them, their comfort's gone. But little did they know that the very fact that they were willing to die rather than deny their savior, the Lord Jesus Christ was a demonstration of the power of the grace of God in them. And that in this way they were than conquerors.

Then we can understand why the Belgic Confession ends in this way, "Therefore, we expect that great day with the most ardent desire to the end, that we may fully enjoy the promises of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Do you hear it? This confession, because it was grounded on the word of God, was a confession that sustained them through all the sufferings because it is the truth that God uses to give comfort in the midst of suffering. Our situation may be different, but this is what it's about. Having a foundation for comfort in the good God who's an overflowing fountain of good and whose providence rules over everything as the God who spared not his son, but delivered him up. And the God who lives today to preserve and to give comfort, until that day when all his promises shall be fulfilled. This is the great comfort that's been tested and found true because God is faithful. Let's pray.

Oh, great and glorious God, thou who are holy and wise and just and good and the overflowing fountain of all good. Lord, we easily confess so many things about thee. Fill our minds, our hearts with these truths and that in the midst of all their thoughts that go so many different directions, thy word would take them all captive and that we'd be filled with thy word and thy Christ.

Lord, we pray to fill us with this comfort of who thou art in Jesus Christ. If we still only have thee as a God of providence overall and do not know thee as that God of grace in Jesus Christ, turn us in repentance to the faith in Jesus Christ. And if we do, Lord cause us to live out of the faithfulness of thee to thy promise, never to leave, never to forsake, come what may.

Lord, we thank thee that thou art faithful. We thank that thou art God and that thou art supreme over all things. And we pray Lord, to remember especially those who suffer in particular ways, which may be so painful and that there would not just be a momentary lifting at a conference, but that that would enable them to continue on following thee and that it would lead close to thee. Lord, we pray to receive our thanks, to hear also our prayer and to bless us further in this conference. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.