Amen.
Number 86 is, or 217 rather, is a
request number this morning.
If you do have a request that you'd
like us to change, just be sure to
tell me about it, and I'll try to
work it in during your week.
Number 217, a little chorus here, save the
mind, save the mind in the hollow of
his hand.
Let's begin,
and let's take those two cards there.
Dick, how about you sit in here?
Do you want to be able to take
one?
Right here, save the mind, save the mind.
He said the second phase of the mind.
Well, that's right on the top.
All right, it's Monday morning, Dick, don't you
know?
All right, here we go.
All right.
Save the mind, save the mind.
Let's turn on the machine, and we're going
to sing this little song we had for
the last couple of years.
On the mountaintop above the world below, we
blessed old Sally Lohman long ago.
Let's take these two changes.
On the mountaintop above
the world below, we blessed old Sally Lohman
long ago.
But he's that great, he's very impetuous, he
never lets you know when you're supposed to
sing just before the meeting.
A new song that I heard recently, and
the words thrill my heart.
It is to experience that extra grace of
God through trying times.
Beverly's never played it before, and I've never
sung it before.
Would you listen to the words this morning?
Because I think you'll hear that the words
are important, regardless of how the music comes
out.
The words are the important thing.
Listen to the message of this song, and
fall through it all.
I've had many tears and sorrows.
I've had questions for tomorrow.
There've been times I didn't know right from
wrong.
But in every situation, God gave splendid consolation.
That my trials come to only make me
strong.
Through it all, through it all,
I've learned to trust in Jesus.
I've learned to trust in God.
Through it all, I've
learned to depend upon his word.
I've been to lots of places, and I've
seen a lot of faces.
There've been times I felt so all alone.
But in my lonely hours, yes those precious
lonely hours, Jesus let me know I was
his own.
Through it all, through it all, I've
learned to trust in Jesus.
I've learned to trust in God.
I've learned to depend upon his word.
I thank God for those mountains.
Yes, I thank him for those valleys.
Yes, I thank him for those storms he
sent my way.
For if I'd never had a problem, I
would know that he could solve them.
I'd never know what faith in God could
do.
Through it all, through it all, I've
learned to trust in Jesus.
I've learned to trust in God.
Through it all, through it all, yes I've
learned to depend upon his word.
Thank you very much Larry, marvelous.
We'll try, all right?
Oh, here we go.
Mistake.
Where's John?
That must be John saying anything.
All right, let's go ahead and take it
again now, ready?
It's the word of God.
Our speaker
for this morning, our beloved Dr. Carl Armitage
from Dallas, Texas.
Now, yesterday, we're going to devote these morning
studies to the 23rd Psalm.
Yesterday morning, we looked at the whole Psalm
itself.
That is, we read the, we recited the
whole Psalm, I should say.
But we just looked at verse 1, The
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
And we took time to identify the shepherd,
or at least let him identify himself, as
we found it in the 10th chapter of
John's Gospel.
And then we looked at that little expression,
I shall not want, as being an expression
of complete satisfaction in him.
This morning, I would like to talk on
verses 2 and 3 of Psalm 23.
For he maketh me to lie down in
green pastures.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness,
for his name's sake.
You'll notice that it doesn't say here that
he leads me into these pastures to graze.
While that is true, no doubt that's implied
in the expression, I shall not want.
But here it says, he maketh me to
lie down in green pastures.
In other words, what we have here is
not so much feeding as resting.
And we find that our Lord Jesus, on
at least two occasions in the New Testament,
invited people to come and rest in him.
A beautiful expression in the 11th chapter of
Matthew, with which we're all so very familiar.
And the Lord Jesus stood up there, in
the midst of a restless world, even his
day, and said, Come unto me, all ye
that labor in the heavy laden.
And I will give you rest.
Then on another occasion, remember in the 6th
chapter of Mark, he said, Come ye yourselves
apart and rest awhile.
And this, I take it, is one of
the great necessities of the day in which
we live.
We're living in a very restless age.
And sometimes we contribute to this more than
we think.
We make, shall I say, the restlessness.
We don't seem to be able to sit
down quiet and take it easy.
To meditate on the things of God.
There has to be something going on all
the time.
I was in a home not long ago,
where I found that they were running the
radio or the record player, about every moment
that they were awake, it was gone.
They even just subdued it during family worship.
Didn't turn it off.
Just subdued it.
Had to have what the head of the
house called background music, mind you, for the
family devotions.
To me, this was so out of keeping
with what we have in the Word of
God, that the Lord does want his people
to come aside and rest awhile.
And I'm sure as I speak to you
this morning on this line, I'm talking about
something with which you're at least familiar.
Because this is something which is stressed in
many conferences to which I go.
The time for the quiet time.
Get alone with the Lord.
Sometimes this means getting up a little early
in the morning.
But for those of us who've been practicing
this for a long time, we haven't found
it a hardship at all to get up
early in the morning to have a little
time with the Lord.
Sometimes only 15 minutes, or sometimes a half
an hour.
But how wonderful to spend time in his
presence before we go out into the business
of the day.
I was very fortunate, very greatly blessed, I'll
use that word rather than the word fortunate,
in the life companion that my Lord gave
to me for 47 and a half years.
To come home after a busy day, and
we had busy days.
Not so busy now, but they were busy
then.
And come back and have her meet you
at the door.
And look at you, say you look tired.
I've got a cup of tea already placed,
you know.
And then just to sit down and to
enjoy a serene time of fellowship together.
This is wonderful.
And it's something so refreshing about it.
You look forward to it.
And this is the way it should be
with our Lord.
Instead of thinking about it as an obligation,
that we come into his presence in the
morning and have what we call our daily
devotions.
Let it be something to which we really
look forward to.
This is going to be one of the
most pleasant experiences of the day.
It's just to have him make us lie
down in these green pastures.
You see the green pastures not only serve
the purpose of providing food, but they also
serve the purpose of providing atmosphere.
There's something about these green pastures that's very
soothing, very lovely.
I've come here to your part of the
world, because I live in a part of
the world where we have a lot of
drought.
The western part of my home state now,
Texas, is really suffering.
And it's disturbing to go out there and
see it.
To realize that the farmers who have sown
their seeds there will lose the whole thing,
because they don't have rain.
You come into a part of the world
such as you live in here, in Virginia
and Tennessee, North Carolina, these places.
We thank God for the verdant atmosphere that
you have, beautiful.
Well, this is what God would have us
enjoy if we come into his Holy Word.
So that the Scripture becomes something more than
a dry book.
It comes to us a green pasture to
which we go not so much to, shall
I say, feed, but rather to enjoy the
surroundings into which the Spirit of God brings
us.
He makes me lie down in these green
pastures.
Yes, he invites us to take a rest.
And I dare say that if we followed
this advice on the Word of God, there'd
be less of these nervous frustrations that we
hear about, and less need for these tranquilizers
that we hear about.
And the Lord knows I paid enough money
for tranquilizers down the years, because my loved
ones suffered and needed these things.
And I'm very grateful that the doctors were
able to prescribe something that gave us moments
of peace and relaxation.
But normally this should not be necessary at
all.
You and I should find our relaxation in
the presence of the Lord himself.
Whether we do this at the beginning of
the day, and I would suggest that this
is the better part of the day to
do it, but not limiting it to that,
but to have it perhaps in the middle
of the day.
Yes, well I realize we have only about
a half hour for lunch now in most
places, but even a part of that could
be used, you know, for a time of
relaxation.
Spend time with the Lord even then.
And then certainly at the close of the
day, who would think of closing a day
without having a wonderful little talk with the
one who loved us and gave himself for
us?
This is a little touch in this text
this morning, when it says he makes me
lie down.
In the Hebrew language it really means he
lays me down.
And every time I see a mother lying,
putting a child down, especially to take a
rest, I'm reminded of this text.
He lays me down in these green pastures.
And then he leads me beside this steel
wall.
Now notice, it doesn't simply say that these
are quiet waters or stagnant waters, but they're
the kind of waters whose music, whose ripple
is music to your soul.
This is what it should do to us.
This is the outflowing of the Holy Spirit,
who is so frequently presented to us in
the scriptures under the figure of water.
And here we have him in this wonderful
figure of speech.
The waters of quietness.
The music of it does something to you.
It's not only the atmosphere into which you
are brought, but the very music of the
Word of God does something.
This is altogether apart from the technical things
that we have when we go into detailed
study of the Word of God, as we
may a little later this morning.
But just to catch the music of it,
oh, sometimes I pity people who cannot appreciate
the music of the scriptures.
We had a dear sister down in New
Zealand where we lived for some three years,
who just simply didn't care for music at
all.
The only meeting that she attended in the
assembly was, Lord save, the breaking of bread.
And she always came in just before she
felt that we were going to have the
breaking of bread.
But she didn't even like the singing of
hymns.
She had a husband who was passionately fond
of music.
Can you imagine a combination like that?
You get two people like packed together in
the same house.
But the poor dear brother, he took it
all very nicely.
He had a record player, and he had
two favorite records of his.
Every once in a while when she was
off guard, he'd go into the bedroom, lock
the door, get the record player under the
quilt, and play them, just so that he
could enjoy the music of it.
Well, one day the Lord took Brother Morrow
home to himself.
And of course there was no further need
for the record player, because Mrs. Morrow just
didn't like music.
We came to say goodbye to her as
we were leaving there in 1938.
I said to my wife, we've just got
to go and see Mrs. Morrow to say
goodbye.
Mrs. Morrow at that time was well advanced
in years.
So I realized that this was probably the
last time we'd ever see her.
So I made that remark.
I said, well, Mrs. Morrow, this is probably
the last time we'll see each other here
on earth.
Yes, she said, this is probably it.
But she said, you know, old ladies don't
change much.
Much as they tell me I'm just as
beautiful as I was when I was 18.
You know, she likes to really believe that.
I said, oh, one of these days, Mrs.
Morrow, you're going to change.
Oh, she said, you think so?
Oh yes, I know it, Mrs. Morrow.
In what way do you think I will
change?
Well, I said, Mrs. Morrow, the next time
I see you, you'll be up in glory
strumming a harp and praising the Lord.
And she couldn't believe it.
She couldn't believe it.
This is what it'll be.
But if you don't have any music in
your soul now, well, all I can say
is I pity you because this is part
of it.
And this is what these waters of quietness
are for.
It's the music of them as they ripple
along.
They're producing you and me a responsive peace
and satisfaction.
And I take it that the next word
that we have in this psalm is really
the result.
You notice it says here, he restored my
soul.
I'm going to supply a word here which
is not in the original, but I'm going
to just supply it for the sake of
showing you what I believe to be the
continuity here.
He maketh me to lie down and dream
faster.
He leadeth me beside the waters of quietness.
Thus, he restores my soul.
He restores my soul.
You know, these are days when the emphasis
is on soul.
When I was a boy, I'd gone to
school first.
I was presented with a dictionary.
And I don't remember ever looking up any
such words as psychology and psychiatry and so
on.
But going back to one of those old
dictionaries, I found there were very few words
that began with that syllable, psych, in those
days.
But you take a dictionary now, and you
look under this letter P, and you'll see
ever so many columns of words beginning with
the psych, psychiatry, psychosomatic, and psychology and so
on.
You know, every one of these words has
to do with the study of the soul.
So, this is an integral part of each
one of us.
We are tripartite beings.
We're made up of spirit, soul, and body.
The spirit at the top, just as Paul
puts it in 1 Thessalonians 5, that's the
order.
We reverse the order very much and put
the body first, and then the soul, and
finally the spirit.
But the spirit of God puts the spirit
first, because it's by the spirit that we
have God consciousness.
This is the highest part of our being.
It is by the spirit that we know,
the seat of our intelligence, of knowledge.
But our souls are also important, because that's
the seat of emotion.
This is where we feel.
This is where we long.
This is where we hope.
This is where we sorrow.
This is where we rejoice.
It's in the soul.
And this is the part of us that
needs repair, and needs restoration so often.
And it so happens that we have a
passage in the New Testament which goes into
this subject in great detail.
So, I'm going to ask you please to
turn to James chapter 5.
The fifth chapter, the epistle of James, and
beginning at verse 13.
James 5 and 13, and I might say
at this point that these morning talks are
going to be something other than a sermon.
They're going to be something in the nature
of Bible studies.
So if you brought your little notebook along,
you might want to make some notes of
what we're going to say here just now.
But looking here at James 5.13, you
notice it says, Is any among you afflicted?
Now what did you think about when he
said afflicted?
Did you think of a case of tuberculosis
or cancer?
If so, would you please turn back to
verse 10 of the chapter?
Take my brethren the prophet who spoke unto
you in the name of the Lord, an
example of suffering affliction and of patience.
Do you think the prophet was suffering with
some disease of the body?
If you think so, let me turn you
back for a few pages in your Bible
to the 11th chapter of Hebrews.
Just a few pages ahead.
Beginning at verse 32.
Hebrews 11 verse 32.
And what shall I more say?
For the time would fail me to tell
of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jephthah,
of David, also of Samuel, and of the
prophets.
Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the
sword.
Out of weakness were made strong, valiant in
fight, turned to fight the army to the
aliens.
Women received their dead raised to life again,
and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that
they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and
scourging.
Yea, moreover, of bombs and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sown with thunder,
they were tempted, they were slain with a
sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
being destitute, afflicted, tormented.
This is death.
Is any among you afflicted?
Let me just put this personal question to
you, my beloved brother, sister in Christ.
Have you ever suffered anything like this?
For Christ's sake.
How many of us know anything about that
kind of affliction?
Oh, we know all about the pains it
makes to the body.
But how much do we know of this
kind of affliction?
For Christ's sake.
Well now, what is the remedy that James
suggests?
Let's come back to James 5.
What does he suggest?
What does he give us by the Holy
Spirit?
He says, is any among you afflicted?
Just let him pray.
Does it make any promises?
Is it simply suggesting that he's prescribing a
remedy?
There it is.
This is one way in which he restores
my soul through prayer.
Beloved, this is more than saying prayers.
To really pray, I recently put into my
hands a book published by the brother Harold
Shaw on how to talk with God.
It's one of the most down-to-the
-earth books on prayer that I have read.
And here he makes it very plain that
prayer is something more than just repeating a
lot of clichés.
But it's really having an intercourse with God
himself.
And how relieving that is, isn't it?
Even though you go away without the answer,
perhaps to some of the things that you
have asked for, it's a wonderful experience of
having talked with God.
We've had people like this come into the
council room, and I've been unable to help
them at all because they have problems that
go far beyond any of my power to
even to suggest.
And yet I've had a man shake my
hand and say, well, I know you haven't
given me the solution to my problem, but
it was great to talk with you.
You know, but if it's great to talk
with a fellow human being, a fellow Christian,
how much more wonderful to talk with God.
Doesn't it occur to you what a wonderful
privilege this is?
Let him pray.
No promises, no details given, just let him
pray.
This is an outlet as well as an
inlet.
Then there's a second case in that same
verse there in James 5.
It says, is any merry?
And you might think that's hardly a case
of need, but it is, isn't it?
You know, some people think there's only one
way to give expression to your merriment, and
that is to use some worldly song or
something.
But what does the apostle give us here?
He just let him sing psalms.
And the apostle Paul goes into greater detail
in this matter in the fifth chapter of
Ephesians when he says, speaking to yourselves in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody
in your heart to the Lord.
Have you ever thought of what a wonderful
thing it is that God has given to
us in these choice hymns that we have
in our hymn books?
How poor we would be without them.
Last night as we were listening to that
wonderful rendition again of that time-honored hymn,
When I surveyed the wondrous cross.
You know, Julian, in his history, in his
hymnology, tells us that that hymn is one
of four hymns that stand out at the
top of the list of all hymns sung
by the church.
Wonderful.
To give expression to this, is any among
you married?
Yes, God has an outlet for that.
And this is a way of restoring your
soul.
Is any among you married?
Let them sing.
Let them sing psalms.
You don't have to copy the world.
After all, the music of this world isn't
very much, is it?
You ever notice how much repetition there is?
A monotonous repetition, and then not only monotonous
repetition, but ending as an unresolved chord, until
you wonder how the thing's going to finish,
you know?
And it never does.
And they tell me that they do that
thing intentionally.
They don't want you to be satisfied.
They want you to, as it were, just
be on that edge of dissatisfaction, unsatisfaction all
the time.
Thank God we have that in the Word
of God which does satisfy.
Is any among you married?
Let them sing.
Let them sing psalms.
Then we come to a third case of
need here, soul need.
Verse 14.
Is any sick among you?
Now here, the word for sick could have
been used for weakness of any kind.
In the original language, this is a word
which has many meanings.
And the translator here chose the meaning sick,
but we could have chosen the word weakness
just as well.
Is any among you weak?
And I take it that this is something
more than physical weakness.
How do I come to that conclusion?
Because of the people who have called him
to meet the need.
You know, if this was some physical trouble,
you might have expected the apostles to get
that they call in a specialist, you know,
who knows how to handle this particular disease
of yours.
But instead of that, he says, let him
call for the elders of the church.
Now the elders of the church, as we
learn in the 20th chapter of the book
of Acts, they were there to minister to
the spiritual need.
They had the oversight of God's people.
And I take it that this sickness or
weakness of this dear brother, that is mentioned
in this 14th verse, is a spiritual need.
And it says, and let them pray over
him.
And of course the phrase, and anointing him
with oil in the name of the Lord,
has led some people to say, well there
must be something mysterious about this.
Well, suppose I suggest to you that this
anointing with oil was a symbol that had
some spiritual meaning.
Such as we have in the 6th chapter
of Galatians, for example.
If any of you be overtaken in a
purr, be that a spiritual restore touching one
in the spirit of meekness, lest you also
be tempted.
This is a great ministry.
And in restoring our souls according to the
language of our psalm this morning, God may
use the elders in an assembly for this
very purpose.
Oh, how often even though a person is
suffering with some physical trouble, he has troubles
which are much deeper than that.
They need the spiritual remedy.
That a man, an elder who is in
touch with God, or elders who are in
touch with God can meet that need.
And you notice it says, let them pray
over him.
Anointing with oil in the name of the
Lord.
Yes, I take it that I'm justified in
using this as a symbol as well as
a literal thing here this morning.
That these men are able to minister spiritual
things that revive the soul of this weak
brother.
And what sympathy we should have for him.
How very frequently when a man, because of
his weakness, falls into something which is disgraceful,
and which breeds the Holy Spirit of God,
instead of going to him to win him
back, you give him another kick down, further
down.
Oh beloved, may God raise up among us
men who are able, because of their spiritual
contact with God himself, to minister spiritual blessings
to those who are weak in the faith.
Then in the next verse we come to
another case of need.
And the prayer of faith.
This is not a continuation exactly of what
you have in verse 14.
This is another distinct case.
And I say that because the word for
sick, and you'll pardon an old school teacher
for calling your attention to these differences, the
word for sick here is a word which
means tired out.
Different from the word in verse 14.
Tired out.
Weak.
Worn out.
And who doesn't get this way?
I'm sure as I talk to you beloved,
even though you're here at a conference and
you had a wonderful day yesterday, we all
did, and we should be spiritually refreshed this
morning, but this is unusual isn't it?
Next Monday morning will be different.
For most of us.
Then what?
When you come down, when you come home
all sagged up, or the one who stays
at home with the children, and has all
the responsibility of their care and maintenance all
through the day, not only see that they're
physically cared for, but spiritually protected.
And how necessary in these days when a
flip of a button will expose a child
to something which might be as ruinous to
his life as anything could be.
To maintain a vigilance over all these things,
this is a real job.
I have a daughter living up in Minnesota,
and hope to see her in a few
days.
Five children.
Time was when she said she wanted seven.
And I thought she was well on the
way with five.
I find now she's pulled a moratorium on
that.
But I reminded her that her grandparents had
ten, and they managed, and they knew how
to minister to those who perhaps didn't exactly
know which way to turn themselves.
But all of this has a wearying effect.
I wonder sometimes how my dear mother got
along with it, you know, with ten children.
And we weren't always the best behaved kids
in the neighborhood.
I know when I went to call on
a poor friend of mine, I heard loud
noises inside, and I thought I'd better not
go in there right now, so I just
stayed at the door, listening.
His mother said, Why do you always have
to go with the worst boy in the
neighborhood?
And when I came home, mother says, And
where have you been?
Oh, I was with Joe Napper.
The worst boy in the neighborhood.
When you get the two worst together, you've
got the combination.
Can you imagine the wearying effect?
Now this is only a little illustration.
Oh, there are many other things.
When I think of some of the parents
today, young people come home and they've had
their first fix of dope.
What a distressing thing.
They're looking to their dilated pupils, and you
know they've had a fix.
Or you can smell the marijuana on them.
Oh, what a waste upon a mother's heart.
What an awful weight upon a father's heart.
To think that the child which they have
brought into the world is going this way.
These are things that wherewithal.
And that's the kind of people James is
talking about here when he says, The prayer
of faith shall save the tired out, and
the Lord shall raise him up or rally
him.
That's right, isn't it?
The Lord shall raise him up.
I like that.
You know, there's the only place some parents
can find any comfort these days.
And this awful part of restoring my soul.
And then you notice there's another complication comes
in at the end of that 15th verse.
It doesn't say when he has sinned.
But if he has committed any sin, that
would complicate the thing.
And sometimes this does complicate our soul trouble.
Is that we ourselves have done things which
are grieving to the Holy Spirit.
If he has committed any sin, that's another
case.
Thank God, they shall be forgiven him.
And of course we learn the process, see
we're not from John's epistle.
That if we confess our sins, he's faithful
and just.
To forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.
Then we come to another case in verse
16.
For there are faults between brethren.
And what's the rule here?
The rule here is to confess your faults.
One to another and pray for one another.
And this is the first time that the
word healed is used in the passage.
And you can see that it's in connection
with something that is quite spiritual.
So that the healing here is not necessarily
a bodily healing at all.
It's a healing of a spiritual nature.
A healing of fellowship between two whose fellowship
has been disrupted because of some fault.
Yes, they had the grace to go to
each other.
One went to another.
And how wonderful it is.
You know, one of the finest recommendations I
ever heard a wife give to her husband.
She says, you know, he has his differences
with his wife.
But, he always knows how to apologize.
You know, that's part of confessing your faults,
isn't it?
To apologize.
You say, you mean I have to apologize
to my wife?
You mean I have to apologize to my
husband?
You might even have to apologize to your
children.
I thank God I had parents that did
that.
My father was a strict disciplinarian.
There were times when he'd get us off
to one side and say, son, I was
all stirred up by what you did and
what you said.
And I probably went too far.
Put it down the wrong way and that
kicked me out of it.
Friends, this is a wonderful thing, isn't it?
How James deals with this various problem.
And then there's one problem left, right down
in the end of the chapter, verse 19.
If any of you do err from the
truth, now that's serious.
That's really serious.
If any of you do err from the
truth, and one convert him.
Not simply go out and tell other people
what dangerous doctrine he quoted, but one convert
him.
Let him know that he which converted the
sinner from the error of his ways, shall
save the soul from death and hide a
multitude of sins.
Now this is a rather detailed process of
the restoration of the soul.
And you'll notice coming back to our psalm
for just a moment or two now, I'm
concluding what it leads up to.
You are noticing that, in verse psalm 23.
He restores my soul, and what's the next
thing he does?
What does he do?
He leads me in the path of righteousness
through his namesake.
You see how practical this is?
And the order of the things in psalm
23 is so natural, isn't it?
First of all, we find know him as
our shepherd, the one who meets our every
need, enabling us to say I shall not
go on.
Putting me in a place of rest, making
me lie down in the green pastures.
Refreshing my soul with the waters of quietness,
restoring my soul.
And leading me in the path of righteousness
through his namesake.
The word translated path is really tracks or
footprints.
And it suggests to me, dear friends, that
when the Lord leads you and me, he
leads us in ways that he himself has
gone before.
Tracks of righteousness.
And this applies to every activity of our
daily life.
That's why the word put in the plural.
Path of righteousness.
Your social life, your business life, your home
life, your classroom life, whatever it is, should
be a path of righteousness.
A kind of thing of honor and glory
to God.
And all this is possible because of what
goes before in the 23rd Psalm.
In keeping with that, let's turn to hymn
number 100, or 206 rather.
Number 206 in your hymn.
When we walk with the Lord in the
light of his word, what a glory he
sheds on our way.
While we do his goodwill, he abides with
us still.
And with all who will trust and obey.
Number 206, and let us rise to sing.
Amen.
And now,
may the God of the dead, and the
blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect
in every good thing, in every good work,
to do his will.
Commending us to tribally fear our Father, that
he is worthy and exalted.
He is the God which hath all understanding,
and a character in our hearts and in
our faith.
Now Lord Jesus Christ, in his dear name
we pray.