The Valley No.6 Blessings in the Valley

Alas, some of these Old Testament incidents are not very well known or often read by Christians, and that is unfortunate because they have enshrined within them great teaching and great encouragement. And so we're going to look at this passage this morning as we read it together, and later on we shall be considering it in some depth. It's the second book of Chronicles and the twentieth chapter, and we'll read up to the thirtieth verse.

It came to pass after this also that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with them others besides the Ammonites came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria. And behold, they be in Hazazon Tamar, which is En Gedi.

And Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.

And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel and gavest it to the seed of Abraham, thy friend for ever? And they dwelt therein and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, If when evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. And now behold the children of Ammon, and Moab, and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldst not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and destroyed them not. Behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit.

O our God, wilt thou not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children. Then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeal, the son of Mataniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation.

And he said, Harken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord unto you. Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow go ye down against them.

Behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz, and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you.

O Judah and Jerusalem, fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord.

The Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. They rose early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa. As they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established. Believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever.

And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord sent ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah, and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy another.

And when Judah came toward the watchtower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches, with the dead bodies and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away. And they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.

And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Barakar, for there they blessed the Lord. Therefore the name of the same place was called the valley of Barakar unto this day. Then they returned every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies.

And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of the Lord, and the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest round about. Amen.

Well, that must be one of the most classic pieces of Scripture that there is in the Old Testament, and really having read such a chapter and enjoyed it together, well, there's hardly much that can be said about it, is there? I would be grateful if you would have your Bibles open at the passage we read earlier. I remind you that was from the second book of Chronicles, and the twentieth chapter. If you have a good memory, and you are a regular attender here at the Tabernacle, you'll recall quite easily the starting point for our present series of addresses on a Sunday morning.

There is an incident recorded in the book of Kings, where the Syrian generals have a council of war. They are discussing their recent defeat at the hands of the Hebrews, in a place quite near to what we now call the Golan Heights. And they came to the right conclusion that their defeat had been caused by the God of the Jews.

But they were wrong in their deduction that the reason for their defeat also was because they had fought on the hill country, as opposed to fighting in the plains. And they made this observation, which was completely incorrect, that the God of the Jews is a God of the hills, and not a God of the valleys. And though I never anticipated preaching a series of sermons, starting from this point, it has become increasingly obvious to me in my short pastoral experience that there are many Christians who spiritually make the same error as did the Syrian generals.

In looking upon the Christian life, they see successful Christianity in terms of short hops from one pinnacle to another pinnacle. You've heard the typically evangelical expression of mountaintop experiences. And there is a sort of unhealthy concern for these high altitude spiritual experiences amongst some people today.

And quite frankly, I think that the tendency is unhealthy. And biblically, it is incorrect. For you see, the occasions when we really go onto the mountaintop and have a panorama of all God's plan and purposes for us are far and few between.

But rather, it's down in the valley that you are to live out your life. It's down in the valley, in the rough and the tumble of life that faith is tested and proved to be the quality that it really is. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in a very realistic fashion, told us that when we aligned ourselves with Him, when we confessed that we would be His disciples, that we would know difficulty, in the world, said the Saviour, you shall have tribulation.

And that puts pay to many choruses that there are today that are really ridiculous, that speak about the Christian life in terms of one continual ascent into absolute ecstasy. This is not the case. It is not biblical teaching.

And it is certainly not the gospel that was proclaimed by our Lord Jesus Christ. No, it's in the valley, says the Saviour, that you are to live out your life. And when you read through the epistles, through the records of men who were ambassadors for God in the first century, in the first Christian century, so you'll find that their experience, when they confess it, underlines that of the teaching of the Lord Jesus.

Here is the apostle Paul, for example. And he's in great difficulty. There are conditions in his life which are most untoward.

In the second book of Corinthians, in particular, he gives a glimpse into the type of situation that confronted him. And he lists the deprivations and the sufferings that came his way. So much so that a recent commentary on that book is well warranted in its title, for the author calls it Blessings Through Buffetings.

And this exactly sums up the experience of the apostle. He was buffeted to and fro, but nonetheless, as he testifies to the Corinthians, and indeed throughout the whole of the epistles that he writes to the various churches, God was with him, and God granted him grace. And the blessings that were his stood out in relief, because they were experienced in the valley of life, where there's so much that would, on the natural realm, bring one down to utter and complete despondency and depression.

Is it not significant that the apostle Peter, when he writes his first letter, commences by painting a realistic picture of the circumstances that confronted the early Christian communities? He speaks about the fiery trials in his second letter, for example, that have come about, and probably he's referring to the reign of Nero and the persecutions that that infamous man brought upon the Christian church. But it's the apostle Peter who speaks also about having joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now again, this is fantastic, that Peter can use such language, although he admits that he's going through great difficulties in his life.

So you see, again, the teaching of Scripture in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that it's in the valley that you are to go. It's in the valley that God plots the course of your pilgrimage, and yet it's in the valley that you're going to know blessings. It's in the valley that you're going to be able to redeem the promises of God.

You see, it could well be the case that having majored upon certain negatives in the Christian faith, some may say, well, what's the point of being a Christian anyway? If you say that life is going to continue to be bleak, if you say that there are going to be problems and hidden obstacles and dangers, and that all the forces of evil are arranged against me, what's the point of committing myself to Jesus Christ? Well, the point is this, that the compensations to be found in the valley are colossal. It was David who said, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. And then he goes on to say that in the valley, in the midst of his enemies, thou, God, hast prepared a table for me.

This is the remarkable thing. It's in the valley that you experience the spiritual provisions that God gives to you. It's in the valley that the goodness of God stands out in relief.

And I put it to you, that our God is not just the God of the mountaintops, He's the God of the valley. And at every end and turn along the Christian life, there you confront Him. He is by your side.

You may say, well, alright, I agree with what you've said so far as being a correct exegesis of Scripture, but nonetheless, I must confess that my own experience runs contrary to the propositions that you're underlining from the Word of God. I'm a Christian person, but I don't find it easy to enter into these blessings that you tell me that there are in the valley. Sometimes I find that faith is difficult to cling on to.

Sometimes I find myself so hemmed in. You're quite correct when you talk about going through the gorge because at times the slopes in my life are so close that I hardly have room to move and I have to fight for my faith. I have to wrestle with God to remain in a position where I still believe that I am a child of God.

Can you give me help? Can you give me some instruction from God's Word whereby I can realize these blessings that you're talking about in the valley experience of my life? Well, without being presumptuous, and indeed one cannot because all I'm endeavouring to do is to expound the Word of God, I think I can give you some principles that will be of help to you. And in doing this, in answering your question, I must bring you back to this historical incident that I read to you a few moments ago from the second book of Chronicles. I want you to imagine that you're in a low-lying tract of ground about a point between the site of the city of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

And there in this low-lying tract of ground, you see hundreds of people. It's a fantastic sight. Hundreds of mature, fully-grown men, soldiers.

And you will also see perhaps sitting on a dais or standing on a raised platform the king, Jehoshaphat. And all these men are engaged in praising the Lord, perhaps with arms outstretched. They are taken up in a spirit of joy and exuberance, and the atmosphere is charged with religious fervor and with excitement.

The Hebrew doxology is resounding around the hilltops, echoing down the valleys. They are singing praises to God. It's a remarkable scene that is depicted for us here in the 20th chapter of the second book of Chronicles, and particularly from the 26th verse onwards.

So remarkable that later on, these men who experience a consciousness of God's presence, and enabling to praise Him take their very experience and make that the name of the valley. For you read in verse 26 that on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah for there they blessed the Lord. Therefore the name of the same place was called the valley of Berachah unto this day.

The valley of blessings. Now you say alright, here is an Old Testament incident that illustrates what you've been saying from the New Testament that in the valley, a Christian, a believer can know blessings. And here I see an experience of a king and hundreds of his people as God in a remarkable fashion confronts them and meets with them and resolves their difficulties.

But I've still got the problem of how do I find, as I go through the valley of life, this Berachah, these blessings how can the valley of the shadows suddenly become the valley of Berachah to me? Well that's a question that I must try and answer and do it as quickly as I can. Because I think that if you center your attention upon Jehoshaphat and these men in the valley of Berachah for a moment or two, and if you analyze their experience and the things that have happened up to this point as they're praising God, so you will deduce principles that will be of help for you as you endeavor to realize God's blessings in the valley of your own life. Let's think about the cause and the condition and the consequences of the blessings that Jehoshaphat and his people realized on that day.

The cause, well, that's easily answered. It was none other than God. God stepped into Jehoshaphat's life.

God involved himself in the affairs of Judah at a very critical time in their history. You will see from the first and the second verses of this chapter that the Moabites and the Ammonites had a confederacy and from the Dead Sea they were marching upon Jerusalem and Jehoshaphat was afraid. Look at verse 3. The confession there is obvious for all.

Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord. Why was he afraid? Well you see, he was completely outnumbered. He did not have the military force to be able to combat these combined armies of the Moabites and the Ammonites.

He anticipated disaster and because he was afraid, his fear made him exert confidence in God. It pushed him to God and before the Lord he expresses his problem. And let me say this, and it's a point that I've brought to your attention before from the pulpit, that fear is not necessarily something that is an adversary in your spiritual makeup.

Sometimes we require to be afraid because in being afraid we are thrust further and further in dependence upon God. Sometimes we read the apostle Paul wrongly as we try to assess his life and his temperament and his expertise. We think of this great university man, this man of letters, this man of good breeding.

We think of his brilliant intellect and of his ability with words to convey his thoughts. But this is an incorrect assessment of Paul. When Paul comes to Corinth he's afraid.

His speech he says is not with the enticing words of man's wisdom. He recognizes fear. He recognizes the stuttering of the stammering tongue.

And as he stands before the multitude he's thrust in dependence upon God. And he's able to say in his letters to the Corinthians that though he was timid, though he was fearful, though he bemoaned his lack of qualification, nonetheless by the power of the Holy Spirit God made up what he required. And his ministry went forth in the power and the demonstration of the Holy Ghost.

It was fear you see, that causes the apostle to rely upon God. It is fear that causes Jehoshaphat to seek God's face. Here he is confronted by a tremendous difficulty and he has to prove that he, Jehoshaphat, is not going through the valley alone.

He is not the king of Israel, of Judas, sitting alone on the throne in Jerusalem. But rather there is God at his right hand side. God who can be his help.

God who can lift up his head and be his glory. And this I put to you is what you find him the king saying in verse 12. This is the cause of blessings in the valley.

Full marks to Jehoshaphat. You have there one of the most incredible and one of the most significant statements in the Old Testament as far as practical theology is concerned. Our eyes are upon thee.

We look at the valley. We see these enemies coming in from the surroundings of the Dead Sea. We see them approaching Jerusalem.

We're afraid Lord, but our eyes are upon thee. And thus the apostle Paul utilizes almost the same terminology when he's proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Greek cities and indeed in the our eyes are upon thee. And it is when someone uses the same attitude to his problems as Jehoshaphat employs here that he will know indeed blessings in the valley.

He will know the cause of how to appropriate such blessings in his own experience. But let's move on from the cause for a moment and think in terms of the conditions. How is it although Jehoshaphat recognizes the problems that are in front of him, how is it that his valley becomes the valley of Baraka? His problems are neutralized by the power of God and blessings take their place.

Are there any steps, if you like, to Jehoshaphat's method that we can elicit from this chapter and apply to our own lives? Because without being mechanical in our approach to God and to the blessings of God, there are certainly requirements that the Word of God puts up to those who would know blessing, who would know strength as they live out their Christian lives. Now let's come with that thought in mind to this chapter and see if we can discover what these principles are, these stages whereby Jehoshaphat enters into God's blessing. And the first thing I think you will discover in the sixth verse, the first step, and here is Jehoshaphat reminding himself of the greatness of God.

Now, one of the first steps in prayer that unfortunately is bypassed by many people today is the step of meditation, of reflecting upon the person of God. You know, so often we're in a hurry, aren't we, when we engage in prayer and out comes the whole lot. Out tumbles out our problems, our difficulties, our fears, our horrors, our anxieties, and we bypass this element of meditation, of reflecting upon the Lord.

But Jehoshaphat doesn't do that. Rather, as he's caught up in this turmoil of events, he comes before the Lord and he says, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? You see the point. He's spent quite a lot of words thus far and he hasn't even come to his own problem.

Rather, he's reflecting upon the greatness of God. He is, in effect, defining in his own mind all that he understands about God. He's trying to grope for an adequate definition of the God in whom he believes, in whom he places his trust and his confidence.

And this is tremendous, you see, because so often we invert the method that Jehoshaphat employs. We start with our problems, we enlarge them as we meditate upon them, and we lose sight of the fact that God is far greater than that. But no, Jehoshaphat starts with God.

He reflects upon the Lord and he defines God again in his own mind. And then, having done this, notice also that in the seventh verse that he engages in a period of reminding himself about what God has done. Art not thou our God who did strive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever? Now, again, the method surely is very important.

Jehoshaphat, having reminded himself about the greatness of his sovereign Lord, then goes back in history to the experiences where God has worked for the advantage of the Jewish people. And I put it to you that as you go through your valley, as the enemies, so to speak, come upon you, that one of the best means of reviving your faith, having recognized the greatness of the God in whom you trust, is to recollect those times gone by when God moved in your life in a remarkable fashion and answered your prayers. So then, here we see these two steps.

He reminds himself of the greatness of God, and then he recollects all that God has done. But there is more to it than this. Look at the ninth verse.

What is Jehoshaphat doing here? Well, he is recollecting the promises of God. When the temple had been erected and dedicated to the Lord by Solomon, so God had vowed that his hand would be upon his people. And Jehoshaphat is, in effect, remembering this promise.

Lord, you have said, if when evil comes upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. What is he doing? Well, he is cashing in, if you like, the promises of God. And does not the New Testament tell Christian people that the promises of God are yea and amen? In other words, they're valid today.

Do you believe this in your life? Do you go through the word of God and realize the greatness of your spiritual inheritance? Now look, all this has gone before in Jehoshaphat's praying and meditation before he ever comes to his problem. You see, he stays it off for a while, so that he can put it into perspective. And this is precisely what he has done.

Reminded himself of the greatness of God. Reminded himself of God's activity in Hebrew history. Reminded himself of all that God has promised.

And now, at this point, he raises the dilemma in which he finds himself. He refers to God, the problem posed by the Ammonite and the Moabite invasion. And he's saying that, Lord, this problem is too great for me, verse 12, it's too great for my people, but our eyes are upon thee.

Well, there's not time to enlarge upon what happens next. It's an inspiration, surely, to see how God moves upon one person in the congregation as Jehoshaphat is praying. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jehoshaphat is informed that God indeed will answer his prayers.

That God will move on behalf of the Israelites. That God will go out and, as it says in the 17th verse, the Lord will be with you because it is his battle and not your own. You say you don't experience blessings in your valley.

I wonder if the reason is because you have not approached God in the way that Jehoshaphat approaches God. Is it that you've never reminded yourself of the greatness of God for a long time? You've never looked into the Word of God and evaluated the riches that are yours in Christ Jesus. No wonder we're so often impoverished in our Christian lives.

No wonder when we go through the valley we stumble and we fall and we get so depressed, when we never follow the clear teachings of Scripture, when we don't relate everything to our Lord, but rather we try to cope on our own. Well, from the steps that we have traced that Jehoshaphat took in dealing with his particular obstacle, may we find help in coping with the problems that life brings to us today as Christian people. These, then, I put to you were the conditions of the blessings that God gave to his servant Jehoshaphat.

But let me move on and spend my remaining five or six minutes dealing with the consequences. What happened? What happened when Jehoshaphat believed God? Because this is another remarkable and significant fact that when Jehoshaphat had heard that God had recognized his prayer and was responding to it before the battle was won, Jehoshaphat and the people began to praise God. Look at verse 21.

When he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever. What is Jehoshaphat doing there? Well, he's thanking God for success before the victory had really been realized. He is anticipating that God will be true to his word.

Do you have that sort of faith in your life? All right, there's a problem. It's a grave one. It's in your family, it's in your personal life, it's in your business.

Having brought it before the Lord, have you sufficient confidence in God to praise him for the answer even before it has actually been realized? This is what Jehoshaphat was able to do. And it's a remarkable thing that you read next, and alas, time will not allow me to go through the contents of this chapter fully enough this morning. But you will discover that when the battle was won, the army of Judah itself wasn't really involved.

In fact, this old Matthew Henry who points out that there's no reference made to the swords, or to the javelins, to the spears of the Israelites. They, on the following day, go down into the valley themselves, and in front of them there are the singers, singing praise to God. Now this is remarkable, is it not? Jehoshaphat believes that the battle is the Lord's, and that there are spiritual weapons that are far more important for him to utilize than any physical weapons.

And so the singers go forth before the army, and we read that consternation falls out amongst the ranks of their enemies. The Moabs and the Ammonites, they fight against themselves. There is a God-inspired panic that breaks out, and the net result is that the problem disintegrates.

It almost fades into the air as far as the southern Jews are concerned. What a remarkable battle is this, when they never even throw any spears. They never even physically have contact with the enemy.

Why? Well, because God has moved. God has responded to the needs of the Israelite people. And I put it to you, that this is the reason why we read on the fourth day that they assemble themselves in the valley of Berachah, and there they bless the Lord.

The valley didn't have that title as they assembled together. It was the title that I told you earlier, they gave it because of the experience that was theirs. Here are a host of people, hundreds of them, praising God for what He has done.

He's transformed the valley of shadows, the valley of worry, the valley of perplexity into the valley of Berachah, into the valley of blessing. And what happens when people have been blessed by the Lord to such a degree as this? They praise God. They praise God with a spontaneity and with an exuberance that we today, in sophisticated conservative evangelical circles, would almost criticize as being irreverent.

But my friends, this was not irreverent. This was even an anticipation of the day of Pentecost, an anticipation of many of the experiences of the early church. God, by the power of the Spirit, moved in amongst the people, and in an unprecedented fashion gave them victory upon victory as they propagated the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout Jerusalem, throughout Palestine, and eventually throughout the then known world, so that within a short space of time, even their adversaries were saying, these are the men who have turned the world upside down.

This is what God can do, the God of the valleys. And when God moves in blessing in the valleys, the people praise the Lord. It's not a starchy, stiff form of worship that's regimented, that's so routine that even a hallelujah has great difficulty in being uttered.

No, when God moves upon His people in blessing, so they spontaneously and exuberantly engage in praise and rejoicing before the Lord for blessings that they have received. Ah, the valleys, yes, they're terrible places. This world is a terrible place.

Let's not paint this world in colours that are unrealistic. There are many sorrows, there are many difficulties that faces every believer, indeed every man as he makes the journey through life. But it's in the valleys that God meets us.

It's in the valleys that God blesses. It's in the valleys in incredible situations that God pours out His Spirit upon people and gives them a spiritual vitality and stamina that they never had on the natural level. Here are two men in jail.

They've been placed in jail because they're proponents of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul and Silas, look at their bodies. See how the Roman whips have flayed the skin from off their backs.

And on the human level, these men who have suffered what was known in Roman soldier's terminology as the half-death because half of the people who received it died from it. These men should be bemoaning their misfortune. They should be depressed and despondent as they languish in some smelly jail, but they're not despondent.

They're singing praises to God in the middle of the night, keeping the rest of the criminals, the rest of the prisoners awake. This is something that you can't explain logically. This is something that you can only understand in a spiritual category.

This, you see, is God turning a valley experience, the valley of the shadow of death. He's transforming it into the valley of Baraka. And I put it to you, that this is the experience that God wants us to know more and more.

Not an immunization from our difficulties. Christianity is not that. If you want Christianity as an insurance policy against life's ills, then you need to find another faith because this is not the one that Jesus Christ proclaimed.

But if you want to find strength and help and ability and stamina to overcome all the difficulties that life brings, if you want to pass through the valley of the shadows and find their Baraka, then this is the faith for you. The faith that though trials break upon your life, though they're as numerous as the stars in the heavens, nonetheless, God can give you within your heart that unspeakable joy and tremendous glory that belongs only to those who put their faith and their trust in Jesus Christ. Come then, my friends, down the valley of life.

Come down that valley of life with God and know the transformation of your own experience as step by step you employ the method of Jehoshaphat and realize in the gracious economy of God his blessings upon your life. The valley of the shadows turning into the valley of Baraka, the valley of much blessing. Amen.

On that note of praise, O God, we, we who have to return to our homes at this juncture take our leave of one another, but we bless thee that we do not take our leave of thee, for as we continue along the journey of life, along the pilgrimage of faith, so we believe that thou art at our right hand side, and we ask that thou wilt dwarf every problem, that thou wilt create blessings on every hand, and give us the ability to apply the teachings of Scripture to every situation that life shall bring, and now may the blessing, and now may we receive the blessing of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always. Amen.