I still have a few of these brochures
left of the Discipleship Intern Training Program, and
I'm leaving them down here at the front
in case anyone still wants one.
I thought tonight I'd just like to speak
to you on the precious truth of the
New Testament assembly.
I don't think I'll say anything that's new
to you, but I will try to serve
it up with a sprig of parsley.
And a lot of what I say comes
as a basis of personal exercise before the
Lord.
Some of it will be autobiographical, how the
Lord has dealt in my life concerning this
subject.
My first point is this.
Know what you believe.
We have to know what we believe.
Paul Little wrote a book with that title
some years ago, and it's a good one,
isn't it?
But I feel that we should know what
we stand for.
In brief, we believe there's only one body,
the body of Christ.
That means no denomination.
We believe that Christ is the head of
the Church.
That means no pope.
We believe that all believers are members of
the body of Christ.
That means no sectarianism, doesn't it?
We believe in the plurality of elders.
That means no one-man minister.
We believe that the saints are the ministers.
That means no clergy-laity relationship.
We believe that all constitute one equal brotherhood.
That means no distinguishing titles.
We believe that Christ is the gathering center
of his people.
That means no fickle congregation.
I'll explain these in just a moment.
We believe in the autonomy of the local
church.
That means no headquarters on earth.
And finally, we believe in the priesthood of
all believers.
That means no mediator but Jesus.
Let's go over those one by one.
We believe there's only one church, only one
body of Christ.
I think of the gracious movement of the
Spirit of God 150 years ago when this
great truth was recovered out of the rubble
of tradition of many centuries.
And I think of how that roused the
devil.
I want to tell you the devil hates
that truth.
The truth of one body, and he will
do everything he can, inciting division of every
kind to mar the testimony of the one
body.
But it's there, just the same.
A few weeks ago I was on a
plane with a young friend flying to Hong
Kong.
And he had his Bible out and he
was writing.
A gentleman walked by and he said, Preparing
a sermon?
And Dave said, Yes, as a matter of
fact I am.
And he said, Yes, I saw you with
your Bible.
A wonderful book.
The man said, Who are you anyway?
And David started to dance the dance of
the seven veils.
He said, We're Christians.
The man said, Well, I gathered you were
Christians.
He said, But who are you?
And he said, Well, we're believers in the
Lord Jesus.
And the man said, Yes, I rather took
that for granted.
But he said, Who are you?
And David said, Well, we really are disciples
of the Lord Jesus.
You know, that man wasn't happy unless he
could pigeonhole us.
Isn't that interesting?
What's the matter?
Why couldn't he sleep that night unless he
had us categorized?
Rather interesting.
I think we should face this fact that
when we adopt the position of one body,
we will always be a speckled bird in
the evangelical community.
I faced that years ago, and it doesn't
bother me anymore.
I just don't fit with a lot of
them.
Is it because it's a convicting truth as
far as they're concerned?
I don't know.
Incidentally, this man was a dear man.
He was a pastor of a huge church
in Tempe, Arizona.
Probably 3,000 people in the church, and
a real lover of Jesus.
But it amused me to hear him peppering
David with the questions, and David practically dancing
a jig to stand true to the truth
of the one body.
One body.
No denomination.
Rather interesting to me to hear people defending
denominations when the Word of God doesn't have
anything good to say about them, does it?
Not if I read 1 Corinthians correctly.
Christ is the head of the church.
I said that means no pope, but it
means more than that.
It means no diatrophies either, doesn't it?
It means no man without ecclesiastical garments or
without ecclesiastical titles taking to himself the position
of the head of the church.
But it means more than that.
You know, the elders don't run the local
assembly.
Does that come as a shock to you?
The elders don't run the local assembly.
Christ is the head of the church.
The role of the elders is to be
such spiritual, godly men, so much in touch
with the Lord Jesus that they know what
He wants them to do.
That's rather revolutionary, isn't it?
But it's true just the same.
And if we believe that Christ is the
head of the church, it will keep us
on our knees before Him, keep the lines
of communication open, so that He might direct
us, that He might have that place of
headship in the assembly.
All believers are members of the body.
This is a precious truth to me.
No sectarianism.
You know, sectarianism is a weed that grows
in every human heart, including mine.
It really is.
I have to fight it all the time.
But I tell you, it's a wonderful thing
to have a heart wide with affection for
every true child of God.
I try to draw a narrow circle around
myself as far as the truth of God
is concerned, but I try to draw a
wide circle around myself as far as God's
people are concerned.
Let me give you an illustration.
I love my charismatic brethren.
I can't agree with their doctrine.
I can't do the things that they do.
But I love them just the same in
the Lord.
I really do.
And I can learn from them.
I think this is part of the truth.
All believers are members of the body.
I have never met a Christian yet that
I couldn't learn something from.
And as far as these dear brethren are
concerned, I can learn love from them.
I can learn zeal and enthusiasm and a
real fervent love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
As far as I myself am concerned, I
feel like Luther.
My conscience is captive to the word of
God.
I say I can't do what they do.
I don't believe some of the things that
they believe.
My conscience is captive to the word of
God, but I can love them just the
same.
Some of you have been.
Some of you are in the armed forces.
It's wonderful to travel throughout the world and
meet people who love the same Lord Jesus
you do.
I'll tell you, the lines don't make too
much difference at a time like that.
It's just great to embrace them as brothers
or sisters in Christ.
We believe in the plurality of elders.
Actually, this is something that's being recognized very
widely in the evangelical world today, and we're
going to say more about that.
We believe that the saints are the ministers.
That word minister is really unfortunate, isn't it,
in the English language and in the translation
of the King James Bible.
But if Ephesians 4 teaches anything at all,
it teaches that the work of the ministry
is to be done by the saints, and
I'll be speaking about that in just a
moment as well.
We believe that we're all one equal brotherhood,
and this means that no distinguishing titles.
And it's easy for us to drift away
from that, too.
Remember the Lord said, don't call anyone your
teacher.
Don't call anyone your master.
Don't call anyone your father.
We have God the Father.
We have God the Son.
We have God the Holy Spirit.
But, you know, the human heart loves distinguishing
titles.
And when these distinguishing titles are brought into
the assembly of God's people, what they really
say is, now, you people better listen extra
carefully, because this man has this title, and
he is especially entitled to your undivided attention,
which I reject.
I reject.
It isn't that title that makes him eligible
to convey the truth of God to me.
We're apt to flip in a lot of
these areas.
We believe that Christ is the gathering center
of his people.
And I said when I first mentioned that,
that means no fickle congregations.
We don't gather to a man.
We gather to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We go to those meetings because we believe
he is there.
Somebody says to me, why, he's everywhere.
He's omnipresent.
Yes, but his presence is promised in a
special way when his people gather together in
his name.
And I want to tell you, if you
have a group of Christians who see the
truth of Christ as the gathering center of
his people, you'll see a group of Christians
who will stick with divine principles through thick
and thin.
If you have people who are gathering to
a man, you're apt to have trauma.
You're apt to have a crisis.
If anything happens to the man, if he
leaves.
And we want to keep that truth before
us all the time.
Christ, the gathering center of his people.
We believe in the autonomy of the local
church.
That every local church is responsible directly to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the Lord standing in the midst
of the golden lampstand.
And there's nothing between each individual lampstand and
the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And this is a marvelous truth.
You know, the more I see these divine
principles in the word of God, the more
I realize how divine they are.
For instance, you have communism coming into a
country.
If there are headquarters, if the churches are
not autonomous, all they have to do is
seize the headquarters and they control the whole
thing.
And incidentally, that has been the history of
the spread of liberalism and modernism in the
United States.
Because the churches are not autonomous, all they
have to do is seize the seminary.
And in time, they have the whole denomination.
Because the ministers go out from the seminary
to feed the churches.
They seize the seminary or the denominational headquarters
and it's a timeless struggle like communism.
They're not worried about the passing of a
few years.
Just give them a few years and they'll
have the whole thing.
And then we believe in the priesthood of
all believers.
We believe that there's no mediator between God
and man but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
What a wonderful truth that is that each
one of us at any time of the
day or night has access into the very
throne room of the universe to converse with
God our Father, with the Lord Jesus Christ
by the Spirit of God.
We must know what we believe.
Incidentally, let me just mention that Brother Harold
McKay has a little book called Assembly Distinctives.
I just finished reading it and I like
it.
And I think we should use it.
It's a good little booklet put out by
Everyday Publications in Toronto.
How many of you have seen it?
Oh, quite a few.
Good.
That's great.
You're well indoctrinated.
The second thing is we need conviction in
our souls concerning these truths.
It's one thing to know them.
It's another thing to be convicted of their
truth.
And this is a work of the Holy
Spirit of God, isn't it?
I remember when I was out in the
Navy in Honolulu during the Second World War.
This is the way it came to me.
I had been born into an assembly and
brought up in the assembly.
And I'd just like to pause here and
say and pay respect to that assembly.
It's the only Bible school I ever had.
I never had a formal course in the
Bible in my life.
But I owe a lot to that assembly
and to those dear brothers and sisters among
whom I was brought up.
Brother Fesh mentioned as books that influence his
life Grant's Numerical Bible.
Our first Sunday School teacher was Florence Goodhue,
Grant's secretary who did all the typing for
Grant's Numerical Bible.
And she would line us up and drill
us on the scriptures.
I tell you that assembly was God's way
of grounding us in the truth of God.
But when I got out to Honolulu in
the Second World War this question came to
me.
Bill, are you in the assembly because your
father's in the assembly?
Do you have personal convictions about the assembly?
Would you be just as happy in a
denominational church?
Mind you, I have to admit that at
that age some of those denominational churches had
a real glow to them as far as
I was concerned.
They did.
They looked very, very attractive.
And sometimes our assembly looked very, very drab
if I may say so.
I mean to outward appearances.
And so I said, that does it.
I'm going to go to the Word of
God.
I'm going to get my convictions from myself.
And do you know where the Lord led
me?
He led me to Ephesians 4.
Let's turn to it for just a moment.
Ephesians chapter 4.
And this was very real in my life.
I really believe it was the Spirit of
God directing my attention there.
Ephesians chapter 4.
I'll begin at verse 7.
It says, But unto every one of us
is given grace according to the measure of
the gift of Christ.
Wherefore, he says, Wherefore, it says in the
book of Psalms, When he ascended up on
high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts
unto men.
Now that he ascended, what is it but
that he also descended first into the lower
parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that
ascended up far above all heavens that he
might fill all things.
Here it is.
And he gave some apostles and some prophets
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saint.
Forget the commas if you have the King
James.
The commas are not inspired.
They're not part of the original text.
And they create a wrong impression here.
What it really says is for the perfecting
of the saint unto the work of the
ministry unto the edifying of the body of
Christ.
And I'll tell you it was like the
coming of dawn to me.
I thought, that's it.
The risen, ascended and glorified Christ gave gifts
to men.
And he gave those gifts not so that
the men would become perpetually dependent upon them
but that those gifts might perfect the saint
unto the work of the ministry unto the
edifying of the body of Christ.
I've never been the same since then.
That settled my soul that the principles of
the New Testament were indeed divine.
And I've been rejoicing in them ever since.
Mind you, our carrying out of the principle
is somewhat less than divine.
Isn't it?
But the principles are there just the same.
And I really believe that we all need
to develop our convictions to go to the
word of God.
And I'm not afraid to send people to
the word of God.
If these things aren't true, let's face it.
But if they are true, let's be loyal
to them.
The next thing we need is commitment to
these truths.
Commitment.
It's one thing to be convicted of them
and another thing to be committed to them.
And I saw a living example of this
from my earliest days.
We lived in Lemonster, Massachusetts.
We had no car.
And my father used to carry my brother
and myself on his shoulders through snowdrifts to
get us to the assembly.
That's commitment.
Isn't it?
And whenever the doors were open, the McDonald's
were there.
I never remembered that it was a matter
of option.
It was just understood that we were committed
to that assembly.
And you know, it's a great thing to
be committed to the assembly.
You know why?
Because every so often the Lord Jesus manifests
himself in a special, unforgettable way.
Have you ever been in a meeting like
that when a heaven seemed to come down
and the glory of the Lord is revealed
so that the priest can't minister?
And I tell you, you don't want to
miss it when that happens.
You don't want to miss it when that
happens.
And so there we were, kids, you know.
You say, when do kids get out of
a service like that?
More than you think.
And we were taught to sit there still
and take it in.
And we did.
I was reading in a book recently of
an elder in an assembly in North America
who refused an invitation to a dinner at
the White House because his duties as an
elder were so great that they would not
permit him to go.
Different that commitment.
I think I could have thought of 60
theological reasons why I could have gone to
the White House.
But that's true.
That's true.
His work, his duties as an elder were
so great that he turned down an invitation
to the White House.
The story is told of Michael Faraday how
at one time he gave a brilliant presentation
on the properties of magnetism.
Actually the Prince of Wales was in the
audience at the time.
And it was so brilliant that there was
a tremendous applause at the end of his
presentation.
And then the Prince of Wales himself stood
and asked them to vote a vote of
congratulations to Faraday.
But when it was finished they looked for
Faraday and he wasn't there.
Do you know where he was?
That was the night when his church was
having its prayer meeting.
A church in which there were rarely more
than 20 people in attendance.
And Michael Faraday had slipped off to the
prayer meeting.
That commitment.
I can remember we were talking this morning
I think it was about statements that have
influenced your life.
I can remember two things that Alfred Mase
said to me.
And they've been a help to me and
I've tried to follow them.
He said, Bill, when you get divine principles
stick to them.
Isn't that good?
When you get divine principles stick to them.
The other thing he said to me was
no man's gift is too big for God's
principles.
What does that mean?
That means, look, assemblies are too small for
me.
With my gift I should be going from
Dan to Beersheba, you know.
Big time deal.
He said, no man's gift is too big
for God's principles.
That commitment to the truth of the word
of God concerning the New Testament assembly.
I have to laugh when I hear people
talking today and they they're arguing about whether
the breaking of bread should be moved and
all of this.
You know, if they had the breaking of
bread four o'clock Sunday morning I'd still
go, wouldn't you?
Sure.
It's a matter of principle to be there
because the Lord is there.
We need to know the truth of the
faith.
We need to be convicted of those truths
in our own souls.
We need to be committed to those truths.
Commitment seems to be sadly lacking in many
areas of life today.
They take the easy way out.
But I'll tell you the truth of the
assembly is something precious and we want to
be committed to it.
We need enthusiasm about it.
Sometimes I think we suffer from an inferiority
complex in this whole area.
We're afraid to say anything about it instead
of being enthusiastic about it.
It's interesting to me to read so many
current books and find men who are coming
across these truths from the word of God
and they think they're marvelous.
They think they're absolutely marvelous.
I'd like to share some of them with
you.
He says, the layman, this man says, the
layman must now cut the cords that bind
the Christian faith to an official priestly class
and universalize it once again.
They must give it back to the people,
the people of God, the laity.
The church at Antioch was founded by laymen,
carried on by laymen and spread through that
ancient world by laymen.
It was a lay church.
That's important for the reconstruction of the church
of today.
The next great spiritual awakening is going to
come through the laity.
It's good, isn't it?
You've been feeding in good pastures, this man.
He says, hitherto the center of gravity has
been on the minister.
Now the center of gravity has to be
shifted to the laity.
We ministers, missionaries and evangelists are never going
to win the world.
That's true.
That came to me.
I forgot to mention that out in Honolulu
that's what came to me.
The work of the ministry is for all
to think and the world will never be
evangelized the way God intended it to be
as long as we have a clerical system.
Now that's frank speaking but it's absolutely true.
The world will never be evangelized the way
God intended it to be as long as
we have a clerical system.
And this man saw that.
This man saw it.
20-20 vision.
We are too few to do it and
if we could do it it wouldn't be
good for it would take away from the
laity that spiritual growth and development which comes
through sharing one's faith.
But, he says, we will never get the
laity to take the responsibility for the Christian
movement and it's spread by saying come and
help the pastor.
Their inner response and sometimes outer response is
why should we?
That's his job.
We pay him for that.
They caught it.
He caught it.
If we're really to get the layman wholeheartedly
get him he must see and feel his
own standing and responsibility in the Christian movement.
I rejoice when I read these things.
There's another one.
The laity on the whole and this is
very much what David said this afternoon.
The laity on the whole have been in
the stands as spectators and the clergy have
been on the field playing the game.
If the clergyman kicks a goal or makes
a touchdown he's applauded.
Good pastor.
Hope he will stay.
That set up must be changed.
The laity must come out of the stands
as spectators and take the field as players
and the clergyman must come off the field
as players take the sidelines as coaches of
a team.
That fits in in a way with Ephesians
4.
Perfect to the saints for the work of
the ministry.
Downgrading them?
No.
Upgrading them.
It's greater to be a coach than to
be a player.
Better to get ten men to work than
to do ten men's work and so forth.
Good.
Here's another one.
A different author.
He says by clericalism and incidentally this is
a very recent book, Keep in Step with
the Spirit by J.I. Packer.
He says by clericalism I mean that combination
of conspiracy and tyranny in which the minister
claims and the congregation agrees that all spiritual
ministry is his responsibility and not theirs.
A notion both disreputable in principle and spirit
quenching in practice.
Those are strong words.
May I read them again to you?
By clericalism I mean that combination of conspiracy
and tyranny in which the minister claims and
the congregation agrees that all spiritual ministry is
his responsibility and not theirs.
A notion both disreputable in principle and spirit
quenching in practice.
And then he goes on to speak about
assemblies of people such as this one here
in the church in Winston-Salem and he
said they proclaimed the universality and the rightness
of every member ministry from the middle of
the last century on.
But because their thesis was bound up with
a reactionary polemic against trained and salaried clergy
in supposedly apostate churches little notice was taken
of it.
And that's true.
Those early men cried out against this wretched
system in apostate churches.
And the world just passed it off.
I say we need enthusiasm in talking about
these things.
Not only in living the truth but in
talking about it to others.
Some years ago when Seattle was on its
back economically a cult witnessed Lee and the
little church movement moved 60 families into Seattle
to found a local church.
It was at a time when Seattle was
so low that somebody erected a billboard at
the edge of the city and it said
with the last one out please put out
the lights.
And at that very time witnessed Lee and
their churches as they call them moved 60
families into a depressed area.
And they have an auditorium up there in
Seattle today that seats I believe 2,000
people.
I don't say that they're filled every Sunday
but they have an auditorium up there.
Why?
They're enthusiastic about what they're teaching.
It's not right but they're enthusiastic about it.
We ought to be enthusiastic about the truth
of the word of God.
It's a funny thing that we kind of
move in a cycle.
And as others are moving toward our position,
we seem to move away from it.
It used to be, and this is not
too important perhaps, but it used to be
in our assemblies that we would sit around
in a circle with the emblem in the
middle, a type of Christ being the center.
It was what you might call a circular
church.
Well, then we moved toward the fixed pews
because the churches were sitting in fixed pews.
And then all of a sudden I began
reading in the magazines where church architects were
moving toward a circular church.
And it seems to be kind of a
circle that we're all going around in.
We try to imitate and as we're moving
away, they're moving back.
I say we need enthusiasm in propagating these
wonderful truths of the New Testament.
We need to know them.
We need to know what we're talking about.
We need to be convicted of their truth.
People can tell that when we're convicted of
their truth.
We need to be committed to them.
And we need to share them enthusiastically.
And another thing that we need, we need
to act upon them too.
I don't believe that we are called to
a ministry of sheep stealing.
I don't believe that.
I don't see that anywhere in the New
Testament.
That we're called to go and steal sheep
from other fellowships.
But I believe that we can get before
the Lord and present ourselves to Him, make
ourselves available to Him, and then share the
truths of the Word of God as He
opens the door to us.
And I want to tell you, there are
hungry people today.
Really hungry people.
We can use literature, such as the little
booklet by Mr. McKay that I just mentioned.
Part of the problem is that we spread
ourselves too thin.
We spread ourselves in a multiplicity of parachurch
organizations.
And mind you, I don't want to wrap
them because many of these organizations are doing
a great work for God.
But they'll never take the place of the
local assembly.
Never take the place of the local assembly.
And I want to tell you something.
I was just telling a young brother, you
cannot be in a parachurch organization and declare
the full counsels of God.
You can't.
I thank God for the Wycliffe Bible translations.
I thank God for the work they're doing.
But you can't be with Wycliffe in many
countries and for instance engage in evangelism or
church planting.
Because they signed a convention with the government
that they won't do that.
And our young people should know that.
If they're going out to do translation work,
that's one thing.
But their hands will be tied in many
other ways.
I'll never forget something that G.H. Lang
said in one of his books.
He said, Everywhere the apostles went, they planted
assemblies.
Everywhere we go, we found missions.
Something to think about, isn't it?
Everywhere the apostles went, they planted assemblies.
Everywhere we go, we found missions.
And I'd like to make an appeal in
this connection for a great increase of exercise
of souls concerning assembly planting, new assemblies.
There is a tremendous resistance among us to
planting new work.
You know why?
We get so comfortable in our assemblies.
We don't want to lose people.
We don't want to lose their financial support.
And we enjoy their fellowship so much we
don't want to lose them.
And it's quite a problem seeing new assemblies
planted.
Listen, if we really believe what we believe,
we'll want to see more assemblies planted.
We really will.
Just by way of personal testimony, a few
years ago, God guided some of us.
We were burdened about this whole matter.
And three from one assembly and four from
another assembly were praying about it.
And we got together and found out we
were praying about the same city.
The same city.
And we got together and we started praying
week after week, praying week after week.
And God led, God led, so that an
assembly was planted.
And God has given us such tremendous joy
in that new work.
You know, there are people in that work
exercising gifts that were dumb priests where they
came from.
They were.
They were just sitting there doing nothing where
they came from.
And they're really moving forward for God today.
Just think of it.
How sad it would have been.
But there was a certain measure of resistance
and we did not move until we had
the fellowship of both assemblies that we came
out of.
We insisted that we would not move until
we had the right hand of fellowship.
And I was out in Honolulu again in
the courtyard of the Moana Hotel.
There's a tree there.
It's called a banyan tree.
The banyan tree grows up and then the
branches come down and they send little tentacles
down to the ground and wherever the tentacles
touch the ground they take root.
And I said, a parable of church growth.
That's just what it should be.
You know, when you have a family and
you raise, let's say, three daughters and they
get to their teens or twenties and they
want to go off and get married.
What do you say?
Oh no, look, we're having such good fellowship.
We don't want you to go off and
get married.
And we need your help in paying the
mortgage too.
We'd like you to just...
You don't say that, do you?
Listen, you're fools when they go off and
start new families.
Why shouldn't we be just as thrilled to
see new assemblies be planted?
To see some of our dear young people
who have leadership qualities.
To see them developing.
And incidentally, I don't advocate any new assembly
unless there is efficient, strong leadership to go.
It's true.
You don't want to send mere novices into
it.
But I just want to close this plea
on my lips.
I'm saying it everywhere I go.
Let's break out from this terrible inertia and
encourage...
Elders, encourage the planting of new works for
the glory of God.
So there it is.
Parsley and oats.
Know what you believe.
Go to the Word of God and get
your convictions.
Is this right?
Or would you be just as happy in
a denominational church?
Be committed to it.
When you get divine principles, stick to them.
Be enthusiastic about it.
You don't have to be backward about it.
Read all the new books that are coming
out.
You'll find the principles there.
One after the other.
And these men think it's the greatest thing
since sliced bread.
They think that they've discovered something.
Really?
And they're capitalizing on it and singing all
the way to the bank as their books
are being sold.
And then let's take action for the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you.
I would just like to remind all those
that are attending the conference that our session
tomorrow morning starts at 830.
And anyone has any needs regarding housing, Charlie
Baker or myself are available tonight to help
you with that.
I'm going to ask our brother McDonald to
dismiss us in a word of prayer.
And then after he has dismissed us, I
would like to have the folks that are
here in the aisle and the folks that
are in the back to get up and
go out.
And I'll ask some of our local men
to pick up the chairs.
The rest of you remain seated if you
would until we get these chairs out.
It'll make our going out a little bit
easier.
Father, we just thank you with full hearts
for today.
For all that it has held.
So much prayer went up for this conference
and we believe that you have answered prayer.
We thank you for the wonderful attendance for
your dear people whom we love in the
Lord.
We thank you for hearts that are aflame
for Jesus Christ.
Thank you for young people showing their interest
by their attendance as well.
Thank you for the ministry of the word
of God.
For all that you've with which you fed
us today Lord.
We just pray that from this conference, great
blessing will flow out.
Great blessing not only here in the south
but to the far corners of the earth.
We dare to ask this tonight.
Dismiss us with thy blessing.
Take us to our several places in safety.
And keep us oh Lord pressing toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus.
We pray it in his worthy name.
Amen.