If they fall away

Alright, Hebrews chapter 6 and verses 1 through 8. Hebrews chapter 6 verses 1 through 8. We've dealt with the foundational principles and we're now going to move on to probably one of the most difficult passages in all of the Bible. It's not difficult, but people make things difficult. So Hebrews 6, let's just read verses 1 through 8. Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift, and who become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain, that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burnt. Now, he is saying then that we must go on to perfection. Remember that verse 1, therefore leaving the discussion, let us go on to perfection. And then in parentheses, not laying again the foundation. So the emphasis is on going on to perfection. Then he says, and this we will do if God permits. And remember we said that God wants us to go on to perfection, but he will not allow us to move to move ahead unless we have made the grade at the level that we're at. And so God wants us to grow, but we can't grow faster than we are growing. And so he says then, the reason for this, the very important little word for, in verse 4, for it is impossible for those who are once enlightened. And so he now brings this very serious warning that if we must progress, because if we regress, and if we fall away, there is no means of return. Now, it's very simple. The passage is not difficult, but I'm going to go step-by-step through these three verses this evening, verses 4, 5, and 6. The problem is that there are people who have preconceived ideas when they come to the verse. The preconceived ideas say that you cannot fall away, you cannot lose your salvation. And we're going to spend some time this evening, and we may have to continue next week if we don't get through, to explain the process and to explain what the Scripture says. So if you look at the text, you'll see, and if you look at it in the Bible, because we want to look at those three verses together, he says it is impossible, verse 4, for those who were, and I'm just going to say saved. I'm going to explain that in a moment. And then verse 6, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance. So it's pretty simple, pretty clear. He says if you are saved, you fall away, you cannot be brought back. That's what it says. And you don't need a degree in theology to understand that. The problem is, if you believe that you cannot fall away, then you're going to have to deal with this passage. And it's amazing the ways, the manipulations that go on in order to deal with the passage. There are many different ways in which people try and get around the plain meaning of the text, but there are two most important ones, and I'm going to address those this evening. It's going to be the basis on which we're going to look at this passage. The one argument says that these people were never saved, therefore they fell away from something they didn't have. The other argument says, no, they were saved, but they didn't really fall away. Now, those are the two things I'm going to address this evening. The other arguments that they bring are really very weak. None of the arguments are strong. We have to form our doctrine based on the scriptures. We cannot form our doctrine based on the teachings that we've inherited from some kind of tradition. And so, for that reason, people will put me in a category of what they call an Arminian. Please, not an Arminian, an Arminian. In other words, that I follow the teachings of Arminius. I am not an Arminian because I don't follow his teachings. His teachings happen to agree with most of my teachings, but I did not form my doctrine based on his teaching. In fact, I only read Arminius, I think, two years ago, maybe three years ago, after having preached these same things for 45 years, call it, at that point. So I'm not an Arminian because I don't form my doctrine based on his teaching, I form it based on the scriptures. And yet others follow a man called Calvin. Calvin had, well, out of his teachings they distilled five points, and one of those points is called the perseverance of saints. The perseverance of the saints doesn't mean that you must persevere, it means that God will cause you to persevere. In other words, you will not fall away, you cannot lose your salvation. Now that idea is very, very popular in Western Christianity, in England, and here in America, and in other countries as well. So let's address the passage, and let's see what the text says. Now the first thing we're going to see is that he says it is impossible to renew them again. If you put the rest of those verses in parentheses, it is impossible to renew them again. The word impossible means impossible. In fact, the word impossible is used several times in the book of Hebrews concerning God. It says it is impossible for God to lie. Just one example. Does that mean that there are exceptions, that somehow God can maybe lie? No. When it says it is impossible, then it is impossible. Now one of the things that they do is they say, well, impossible doesn't really mean impossible. And in fact, one of the arguments is that with men it's impossible, and they quote the scripture that says, but with God all things are possible. Now that's playing with words. That's trying to put a meaning that is not in the text. Why does he warn? And he says it is impossible. And in fact, in verse 6 he says why it is impossible. He says because they cannot be renewed again. So there's a double emphasis, and then he gives a third reason, and he says because they have to crucify Christ again. So there are three clear statements that says it is impossible. So impossible means impossible. It means nothing else. So it is impossible for those, and now he's going to give us five points, five things. Three in verse 4, and two in verse 5. Each of those five things, and we're going to look at them one by one, but each of those five things on its own is a statement that these people were saved. So you don't need five, you just need one of the five, to say these guys are saved. But the writer gives us five reasons, so he's padding his argument when one argument was good enough. And that must have been, you know, the Holy Spirit knowing what was going to happen, knowing what people would do, hedging the bets, if you want to use that word. The Holy Spirit saying, look, if you want to argue with a scripture, I'm not going to say this once, I'm going to say it five times, in five different ways. So the first thing he says is those who were once enlightened, once enlightened. What does it mean to be enlightened? It means to have your eyes opened. It means to have the light of God to shine in your life. Remember that Paul says we were once in darkness, but now we've been translated into the kingdom of his dear Son. In Hebrews chapter 10, interesting that it is in Hebrews, he says, Hebrews 10 32, but recall the former days, in other words some time ago, in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. So what is the writer saying in this verse? Now don't think, don't worry about this, about chapter 6. What is he saying in this verse? He is saying you need to recall, you need to remember the former days in which what happened? You were enlightened. In other words, you were saved. That's simply using another word for saying you were saved. Remember we use the word saved all the time, but there are many other words that speak about our salvation. So when he says after you were illuminated, in other words after the light of the gospel shone in your hearts, and you understood the gospel. It doesn't mean that you heard the gospel. You can receive arguments about a particular idea, the earth is flat. You can listen to all those arguments as much as you like, but until the penny drops, you haven't been illuminated. Now I thank God I'm illuminated, I know the earth is flat. Not really, but the arguments, and having received the arguments, don't enlighten you. It's only when that light shines and the light goes on, and that's where we get that saying from. We have the little light bulb thing. The light goes on, the penny drops. I understand. And so when he says after you were illuminated, after the light of the gospel went on for you, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Now we go back to verse 4, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened. It doesn't mean they heard the gospel. Hearing the gospel does not enlighten. It's receiving the gospel, and the gospel finding entrance into our hearts and minds that enlightens us. We use the same term, I've said this before, we use the same term about those who've been to university, and we speak about them as being the alumni, those who have been enlightened. Now if you go to university for 10 years and you never graduate, you are not an alumnus, because you may have been there for 10 years, you may have audited the classes for 10 years, but you never graduated, so you were not enlightened. So hearing the gospel does not enlighten us. It's when we receive the gospel that we become the alumni, those who have been enlightened. Now he says, and have tasted the heavenly gift. Have tasted the heavenly gift. What heavenly gift is he speaking about? Well I think there's a whole bunch of things, but it's interesting that he says the heavenly gift. So if we go to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. What is the gift of God? Salvation. Salvation is the gift of God. We can speak about Jesus as being, the scripture speaks about him as being God's unspeakable gift. We can speak about the Holy Spirit as being the gift. We can speak about gifts of Ephesians chapter 4, when he ascended on high, he gave gifts to men. He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. But the primary gift that we receive is our salvation. So by grace you've been saved, it is the gift of God. And so you were enlightened, you have received or tasted experience. The word tasted there really means experienced. The word tasted, and again some people say, well you know when you taste something it means you simply put a little bit on your tongue, it doesn't mean that you actually ate it. That's not the way the word is used in the New Testament. Whenever the word is used in the New Testament, it speaks about tasting death. It uses that three or four times, tasting or not tasting death. What does it mean? It means to experience, and so a legitimate translation would be have experienced the heavenly gift. Now the third one, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. Now here again we can say, well does this mean salvation, or does it mean being filled or baptized in the Holy Spirit? Well it doesn't matter, because either will prove the point. You can't receive the Holy Spirit if you're not saved. Personally I believe that he's not speaking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit here, but I believe he's speaking about salvation. If we go to Romans chapter 8 verse 15 and 16, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage or slavery again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry Abba Father. So he's saying when we get saved, the Holy Spirit comes into us, and by that spirit we cry Abba Father. In other words, because God's spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are saved, we are able to call God our Father. There's no other basis on which we can. We know many people pray our Father, but it's only those who have received the spirit of adoption. You see he speaks about the spirit of adoption. In other words, we have been brought into the family of God. We're able to cry Abba Father. Verse 16, the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And so when he says that we've received the Holy Spirit, sorry let me go back, taste of the heavenly gift have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. You cannot partake of the Holy Spirit, either the spirit that cries Abba Father, or the baptism or filling with the Holy Spirit, if you believe in a second experience. Neither of those are possible without being born again. They are essential, or they're an essential part of being born again. So now we have three ways in which he has said the same thing. You've enlightened, you've tasted the heavenly gift of salvation, you have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. Now verse 5, and have tasted the good word of God. Have tasted the good word of God. Now remember I said tasted, experienced the good word of God. Many unbelievers read the Bible, but they don't experience it. It's something external. You read and it doesn't make a lot of sense. You can maybe try and make sense of it, but it doesn't have an experiential quality to it. It's simply something that's over there, like algebra. You know, you can read about algebra, but only some people can experience it, and they get excited by it, and it really floats their boat. Now the word is the same thing. You can sit and hear the word of God day after day. You can read through it over and over and over, but until it becomes a reality, and until you are born again, you will not experience the reality of the word of God. The natural man, Paul says, does not receive the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned. So only once we are born again can we experience, taste, the good word of God. Mark 10 verse 30. Who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers—I'm just jumping in the middle here—and sisters and mothers and children and lads with persecution, and in the age to come—sorry, I'm jumping ahead, let me go back, sorry—so taste to the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. The powers of the age to come. So what is the age to come? Well, you know, again, it's easy. It's the future life. You can argue whether that's a millennium or whether that's the New Jerusalem, but it's the future life. And so the passage that I was going to look at, Mark 10 30, if we go down to the bottom of that verse, you will receive a reward, basically, and in the age to come, eternal life. So what is it about the age to come? Let me go back to verse 5. The powers of the age to come. Remember the idea of the age to come, the word age there is also translated world in other parts of the Scripture. So what is the world to come, or the age to come? What is it about? Well, it's really about eternal life. It's about eternal life. Now, if we then go back to Mark 10 30, and in the age to come, eternal life. So that's what it's all about. God so loved the world, whoever believes in him will receive eternal life, or everlasting life. So if we go back here then, what is the powers of the age to come? Well, it's eternal life. Now, remember he says that we have experienced these things. Have we experienced eternal life? Well, the Scripture says that we have passed from infusions, we passed from death into life. So we have a deposit, or a down payment, of eternal life. We have a little bit of heaven. I don't remember if I put the Scripture down. No, I didn't. I thought I had it. Sorry. Let's just go back to Ephesians in your Bible, Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 6. Verse 4 says, but God has done these things for us. Verse 6, and raised us up together, and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, there's the word, ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. And then that verse that we saw earlier, for by grace you've been saved. Every born-again believer must have a little taste of heaven. A little taste of heaven. Now, I know life is tough, and we have many challenges. But deep down, God has placed within us heaven itself. And we know the peace of God that passes all understanding. That's heaven. And in the midst of strife and turmoil and trouble, we can have peace. That's a little bit of heaven. We can be at peace with God. That's a little bit of heaven. We can know the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. It's a little bit of heaven. Really, when we come together as a church, we should be experiencing a little bit of heaven as we enter into praises and worship and fellowship, and as we come into the presence of the Lord. And so, in many ways, we have experienced a little bit of heaven. Now, remember that he also says that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him. So, we don't have a clue how wonderful it's going to be. But we have already passed from death into life. We already have a little bit of heaven. So, he's given us five things now, that every one of them speak about salvation. And we could spend a whole study on each one of these, but I've just tried to sum it up, so we can try and get to the point. Now, if we go then to verse 5—verse 6, sorry. If they fall away, to renew them again to repentance. Now, remember verse 4 begins, it is impossible, if they've been saved, and they fall away, to renew them again to repentance. Now, I want you to see what he is saying here, before we get into the technicalities. Can you fall away from something that you don't have? And remember, the idea of falling away means that you were in one place, you're no longer in that place. And remember the context, he's speaking about the foundation. He says that there's this foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God, and so on. And we are built on that foundation, the foundation of Jesus Christ. If we fall away from that foundation, then we're no longer on the foundation anymore. We've fallen away. We're not where we used to be. Now, if we were to build these brick walls, and we ordered a bunch of bricks, and they came with a dump truck, and they dumped a few thousand bricks on the property, did those bricks fall away from the building? No, they were never part of the building. But if we have a massive earthquake, and the building collapses, and these walls fall over, will these bricks have fallen away from the building? Yes, they will. So you cannot fall away from something that you did not have, or where you were not before. So again, ignoring the previous five points that he gives, this is sufficient, because you cannot fall away if you were not saved. It's as simple as that. So now you have six reasons. Then he says to renew them again. Now, if these people that he's speaking about here were never saved, follow my argument. If they were never saved, did they ever repent? No, because we saw in the foundation principles, repentance from dead works. Repentance is essential for salvation. So how can you renew again to repentance someone who never repented in the first place? As you can see, my membership of the gym lapsed during COVID. I can now go back and renew my membership. But if I was never a member, and I go and I say, well, you know, here's my bucks. I want to renew my membership. They're gonna laugh at me. No, but you were never a member. How can you renew something you'd never had? So now we have seven reasons. You cannot fall away from something you didn't have. You cannot renew something that you didn't do or didn't have, and you cannot renew again. So not only does he use the word renew, but again there's a double emphasis. Renew again. He didn't have to use the word again. He could say it would be impossible to renew them again, to renew them to repentance. What would that mean? It's impossible to renew them to repentance. Why does he put the word again there? It's redundant, but he puts it there because he's making a point. And so he's saying twice in the same sentence, or three times, I've lost count now, eight times now, that they were saved. They fell away. Now if we say that they never fell away, well, I don't know what you do with this verse. Well, I know the arguments, and they really just don't make sense. If they fall away, to renew them again to repentance. So falling away to apostatize—the Greek word here is apostatize, whatever, mine's not working—apostasia, to fall away, to apostatize. If we apostatize, if we fall away, is there anything in these words that indicates that they didn't really fall away? Well, if they didn't really fall away, why would they need to be renewed? If they didn't really fall away, why would they have to be brought back to repentance? Which cannot be done, but that's the argument. So you can see that they were saved, and they fell away. It's as simple as that. There is no ifs, buts, or maybes. I'll come back next week to the reasons why this is impossible, because I want to deal with it, because I know this creates all sorts of questions in people's minds. And so I want to try and explain the mechanics, the practical details of how this works, because there's a concern in some people's hearts. Well, you know, am I going to be saved one day, and then suddenly I'm just going to lose it? And of course the answer is no. We are secure. He says nothing will pluck us out of his hand. So let's have a look at how this works. And I've used this chart before. Well, I've drawn a new one, but I had one on the board, I remember, in Burbank way back. So above the line is light. We're enlightened. We're saved. Below the line, we're unsaved. We're in darkness. Unsaved people can get pretty religious. So they far from God. So we can say God is up here, and the devil down here, whatever you want to put down here. You can be far from God, and you're unsaved. But you can also be pretty religious. In other words, you can get pretty close to the line, but you're still not saved. We know that. We know the Pharisees in the Scriptures, they were pretty close to that line. They knew the Word. They knew God in a way. They worshipped, they prayed, they did all this stuff, but they were not saved. It doesn't matter how long you live below that line, and it doesn't matter how close you get to it, unless you cross the line, you're not saved. What does it mean to cross the line? Obviously, it means to put your confidence, your trust, your faith in Jesus. Once you believe on him, you cross the line, and you are now saved. Is that clear? More or less. So what gets me across this line? Believing on the Lord Jesus. Receiving him. John 1.12, as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become. Now, this doesn't mean accepting Jesus into your heart. It means accepting him for who he is, both the Savior and his Lord. Once we get to that point, we are saved. You can go, obviously, you can go from here, straight up. You can be a dirty, rotten murderer like Paul, but you hear the gospel, and you believe, and you're instantly saved. This doesn't have to be a progression that I've drawn there. But I think that the other thing we need to understand is that the crossing of the line is a point in time. But, in other words, there's never a stage at which you're half saved and half unsaved. You're either saved or not. We know that. There are many scriptures that speak about that. But also, I understand that sometimes some people, so some people will come like Paul, right from down here, and they'll believe, and they're saved. But there are some people who, for whom it is a long road of trying to understand, of believing, of hearing the Word, and then one day, and it may not even be a conscious thing, but one day they know they're saved. And if you ask them, are you born again? They'll say, I'm born again. Why are you born again? Because I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's died for my sins, and I've received him as my Lord and my Savior. Now, they may not be able to fix, and I cannot fix in my own mind, I cannot fix a point at which that happened. But what I do know is that there was a change in my life over a period of time. So, please understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we can, sorry, I'm not saying that we can drift into salvation, and get there, and you don't even know that you're there. You can go to church every day of your life, you can read the Bible as much as you like, you can pay your, pay tithes, you can do whatever, you can try and live a good life, you'll never get there until you believe. The day you believe, and as I said, you may not always know when that moment is. It may have been a period of days, weeks, months, but you know that I'm not there anymore, I'm now here. All right. So now, now that I'm in the light, my walk still has ups and downs. There are times I'm closer to God, there are times that we are further away from God. Hopefully the graph looks something like this, that maybe there's some lows, but generally the graph is going up. In other words, we're getting closer to the Lord, we're becoming more obedient, we're becoming more sanctified, to use that, to use that term. But we also have times of backsliding, times when we drift away from God. But here's the thing, until you cross the line back down again, it doesn't matter how far you're down the line, if you've not crossed the line, you're still saved. Now remember, this is, this is not, this is not an encouragement for us to get as close to the line as we can, because that's the very point that he's making here, is he saying we need to go on to perfection, because if we cross that line, there's no coming back. And so, but the reality is that there are some people who, who will sometimes for years, just hover above that line, but they're still saved. Now when you look at their lives, they may not look any much, much more different to these guys who are religious here, they may even look worse in some respects. But they've not crossed the line. God alone knows when we cross that line. It's impossible for us to look on the outward and say, this person has crossed the line. That's why we pray for the folk who have gone back into the world from our fellowship. We continue to pray for them, it doesn't matter how far they go, because God alone knows have they crossed that line or not. Now sometimes it becomes evident that they have, but that's a story for another day. So in order to cross the line, in other words, to fall away, when I use the term crossing the line, to fall away. So I'm drawing a distinction between backsliding, this guy has gone from right up here, right down to here, he's backslidden, he's not where he used to be, but he's still saved. But at this point, he has fallen away, he is apostatized. In order to get up the line, it takes a decision. And as I said, that decision may not be a momentary decision, it may be a decision or a conclusion I come to over a period of time. But at some point, there's a decision of saying, yes, I believe. In the same way, to fall away requires a decision. It's not something you can drift into. The same way as you cannot drift into salvation, you cannot drift out of salvation. But there's a caveat, there's a warning, which I'll come back to in a moment. So you cannot fall away without making a conscious decision. Same way as you cannot get saved without making a conscious decision. Here's the caveat, here's the warning, here's the problem. The problem is that if we sail close to the line, we become hardened to sin. Remember the many scriptures that warn about being hardened through sin. Our conscience becomes seared, and we begin to hear the voice of God less and less. And when we do hear his voice, there's no willingness to obey and to find my way back. You remember the prodigal son? He had gone into that far country, but he heard the voice of his father, as it were. And he says, I will go back. And he goes back. It is possible that he could have stayed out there so long that there was no remembrance of the good times back home. And he says, this is where I am, I'm just going to stay here. So that is the process. Again, I must emphasize that what the text is saying is that we must go on to perfection, we must continue to grow. Because if we fall away, in other words, why is there the warning of falling away? Because if we don't grow, we go backwards. We've said this so many times. You can build a fancy house with all the fittings and everything. You don't have to do anything to it, just leave it for a few years, and eventually there'll be nothing left. It will decay and fall apart. The same is true of our Christian faith. You don't have to work at falling away. You just need to let things happen, and you'll end up in a place where you no longer care. You remember Samson? Now Samson, in the end, didn't fall away, because he was able to come back. But he got pretty close. And I think that in his story is a lesson for us as to how he goes further and further into sin, further and further in disobedience, until eventually he says what he shouldn't be saying. Thank God that he never denied the Lord in that process. So one of the things that is part of this deal of falling away is denying Christ. How do I get saved? By believing him and confessing him. The moment I deny him, now not like, again, Peter is a difficult example, because clearly Peter did not fall away. Because what did Peter do after he denied the Lord the third time? He went out and repented. He went out and repented, and Jesus restores him. But coming to a place where I curse the Son of God, you say, but I will never do that. Remember, here's the problem, that when we get cold, and we begin to compromise, and we begin to dabble with sin, we may easily find ourselves in a moment of drunkenness, or in a compromised situation. And someone challenges us and say, you're a Christian. No, I'm not. And you curse the name of Jesus. When you're up here, and I trust that we're up here, it's not gonna happen. But when you're down here, and you're sailing as close to that line as you possibly can, that's when it happens. And that's the point that he's making in this passage. And so he's saying, don't get near the line. Go on to perfection. Move as far away, and this is the whole point of what we call sanctification. Why do I have to be sanctified? Why do I have to bother to know the Word of God, to be obedient, to live a holy life, to live a life of submission and surrender to Him? Why do I have to bother? Because I'm not saved by those things. I'm saved because of Jesus' sacrifice. Am I not? Yes, I am. But I need to be going on, because I don't want to get into a compromised position. And that's the point that he's making. So he says, let's go on to perfection, because if we get to this place, if we get down here, it's impossible to renew us again to repentance. Now I'm going to deal, I'm going to go over this very, very quickly again next week, to tie it up with the rest of those verses, with verses, sorry, I'm in the wrong place, with verses 6, 7, and 8. Father, we thank you for your Word. Lord, sometimes these things are so simple, and yet we just make them difficult, Lord, because we don't want to accept your Word at face value. Help us, Lord, to believe your Word. Help us to trust your Word. Lord, help us to take heed to the warnings contained in your Word. Lord, over and over in the book of Hebrews, it warns us about the dangers of falling away, the dangers of going back into Judaism for them, or back into the world for us, of neglecting our salvation. And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us to be those who are going on to perfection, those who are seeking to walk a deeper walk with you, seeking to be more obedient to you, seeking to shun sin and temptation as far as we possibly can, Lord, that we might make our calling and our election sure. Lord, we pray that you'd help us to understand. We pray, Lord, that we may have a realistic understanding of where we are on this graph, Lord, because sometimes we deceive ourselves into believing that we're well away from the line when, in fact, we're right on the line. But Lord, also help us to not question our salvation when, indeed, we are saved. Lord, there is no checklist that I or anyone else can hand out that can check, as we've seen this evening, Lord, that it's your Spirit that confirms with our spirit that we are the children of God. And I pray, Lord, that we may have that confirmation of your Spirit in our hearts, that we are truly born again. And Lord, that we may then make our calling and election sure. We pray this in Jesus' name. I pray, Lord, that you'd help us understand, Lord, for those who are watching online. We pray that you'd help them understand, as they may not be able to ask the questions that we're going to ask in a moment. I pray, Lord, for those who are not here, that they may find grace to tune in and to watch the videos, because this is absolutely vital and important. Help us to understand, we pray. Go with us, keep us, and protect us. Bring us together again safely on Sunday, I pray in Jesus' name.