Good to see you this morning. Let's take our Bibles and turn to Micah, chapter six. And look at the Micah mandate, the centerpiece of this wonderful prophets message. You know, Micah, it's unfortunate that he is included among the minor prophets. Sometimes when we hear the word minor prophet, we think that they're less important than the major prophets. But that's not true. They're called minor simply because their messages are shorter than the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. But Micah is a significant place. And it's held in great esteem and honor among the prophets. He was a man who was greatly used by the Lord in a crucial time in Israel's sister. He is overshadowed oftentimes by his more famous colleague who preached at the same time, although not as long as he did. A man named Isaiah, but both of them had a profound effect upon a young king named Hezekiah. Hezekiah's father, Ahaz, had been a wicked man, who introduced idolatry and even infant sacrifice. He took his own sons after Hezekiah, and he offered them as a sacrifice in the temple of the Lord. And his son after him, Manasseh, did even worse. But in between Ahaz and Manasseh, in the last days of the Southern Kingdom, Judah, God raised up a young man with a sensitive heart. Young Micah and older Isaiah came alongside of him, began to encourage him in spiritual renewal. Because of the influence of Micah and Isaiah, Hezekiah restored the temple of Solomon, cleaned out the idols and the Canaanite images. He stopped all of the abominable sacrifices and infant sacrifices and reinstated Levitical worship. He had the law read to the royal house and to the people on a regular basis. He began again to celebrate the Passover and other Levitical Feasts, reformed, strengthened and reorganized the priesthood, ordered all the high places and shrines destroyed that the people helped him do. He restocked the temple treasuries with ties and offerings and special funds. And he returned Jerusalem to the spiritual heritage of their father, David. The Bible says, this Hezekiah did throughout all Judah and he did what was good and right and faithful in the sight of the Lord, his God. And every work that he undertook in the service of the house of the Lord and in accordance with the law and commandments, he sought God and did with all his heart what God required and God prospered him. Micah was one of the voices that helped him make these spiritual reforms for the sake of God's Old Testament people. William Van Gameren in his book called Interpreting the Prophets says, Micah's ministry supported the significant reform programs of King Hezekiah. By the spirit, this godly king accepted prophetic critique and was greatly used by the Lord. A century later, Micah's ministry was still remembered by some of the elders of Judah and because of this remembrance of Micah, Jeremiah escaped death. If we were to turn to the prophet Jeremiah, we would find that there was a time when the priests and the other prophets became upset with him and they wanted to stone him to death. And Jeremiah 26 says, but then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, this man does not deserve a sentence of death. For he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God. And certain of the elders of the land arose and spoke to all of the people and said, Micah of Moorah, prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah, and said to the people of Judah, thus says the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins and the mountains of the house will become a wooded height. Did Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and all Judah put him to death? No. Did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord and did not the Lord relent of the disaster that he had pronounced against them? Yes. We here are about to bring great disaster upon ourselves. And appealing to Micah of Moorah's S. ministry, the people repented of what they were going to do and they let Jeremiah live. What made Micah and Isaiah and all of the other prophets so important is that they were God's faithful covenant prosecutors. They talked to the people, the Old Testament, Church Israel, who had entered into a covenant with God that had begun to be unfaithful. One of the reasons we don't like the prophets as much as we should is we don't understand them. We prefer the apostles of the New Testament because their message seems to be softer, more positive, more grace-based, but that is not true. The apostles and the prophets speak to two completely different groups of people. In fact, Paul would say that the church has built upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles were Christ himself being the cornerstone that brings the two together. The apostles are speaking to a people who have never known the true God to Gentiles. They're calling you and me and our forefathers to faith in Jesus are calling us to enter into a covenant with God and therefore they offer us something new, something that is good news, gospel-oriented. The prophets on the other hand have a harder job. It was much more difficult to be a prophet than to be an apostle because they were speaking to a people who had already made a covenant with God but were unfaithful. They were speaking not to people who did not know God to whom the story of God and his grace and redemption would be a new thing, something positive and endearing, something that was good news. They were speaking to a people who were satisfied with their religion and any call to repent of their religion and return to the former days of heart religion met with great resistance. Any pastor will tell you that the easier crowd is a crowd full of unconverted, non-believers who haven't got a clue as opposed to a church of this in spiritual decline and infected with dead religion. And the prophets had that unenviable job of preaching to people and calling them out of their spiritual lethargy to repentance and faith and the renewal of true religion. What were they doing? These prophets? Why did they confront Israel about these things? Well, they were men whom God called to be his prosecuting attorneys. There were covenant prosecutors, Vengemren calls them. Called to bring God's case against his own people like a husband suing on unfaithful wife so that she might come back to him and be part of their marriage covenant again. The problem was in the days of Isaiah and Micah that most of the prophets were not preaching that message. They were telling people what they wanted to hear. They were preaching quite frankly a message of health, wealth, prosperity and peace. Look if you will and Micah again in chapter three. And look what he says beginning in verse five. Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray who cry peace when they have something to eat but declare war against him who puts nothing in their mouth, verse seven. The seers shall be disgraced and the diviners put to shame. They shall all cover their lips for there was no answer from God. Its head gives judgment for a bribe and priests teach for a price and it's prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on the Lord and say is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us. Isaiah talks about the same thing that the people would be destroyed he said because of lack of knowledge because the prophets would not preach the truth. Amos condemns them because they had forsaken the truth of God's word and given people a false message. Jeremiah picks up that message a hundred years later he says for from the least of them to the greatest of them everyone is greedy for unjust gain and from the prophets themselves everyone deal falsely. For they have healed the moons of my people lightly by saying peace, peace when there is no peace. Ezekiel talked about the same thing. Therefore thus says the Lord because you have uttered falsehoods and seeing lying visions. Behold therefore I am against you declares the Lord. My hand will be against these prophets who have false visions and give lying divinations who say to the people peace when there is no peace. Michael was a unique man called into the ministry as a prophet serving faithfully Lord amidst a bunch of professional prophets who were ear ticklers. And so he was much more animated, much more earnest and intense than the average preacher then and today calling people back to the covenant. What was true of Micah was that the spirit of Elijah was on him. Prophets have been with the people of God all through the story of the Bible. Moses was the first prophet, the law giver. Along with him were men like Samuel and Nathan and Gad in the stories of the kings of David and Solomon and Saul. But with Elijah there began a new era. Elijah was the first to what we call the school of the prophets or what we would call a professional prophet. And God said that the spirit of Elijah would be in all of his true prophets and preachers. Remember when Jesus Christ talked about John the Baptist coming he said there will come one in the spirit and power of Elijah who will turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the children back to the fathers less ice might the land with destruction. He was quoting out of Malachi at the very last verses to talk about the spirit of Elijah that would respond all the great prophets up to and including the last of them, John the Baptist. And Micah was one of those men who operated and preached and lived in the spirit and power of Elijah. I want to take a few moments this morning in this long introduction but a shorter message to tell you something about the prophets and why they speak and preach and say the things they do. There are five things that God told the prophets that they must give attention to. Here's the first one. They must never give in to the fear of man but must say what God reveals to them even when it is dangerous to do so. Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you and I appointed you to be a prophet to the nation. But then I said, oh Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak for I am only a youth but then the Lord said to me, do not say I am only a youth. For everywhere I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them. For I am always with you to deliver you declares the Lord. These prophets of the Old Testament had to be men of great boldness on afraid of men who feared God.
Also they had to preach the good news of the Lord calling people to return to the God who had revealed himself to them. That's how Isaiah's prophecy begins. A voice cries on the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for God into our hearts. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain will be made low. The uneven ground shall become a level ground and the rough place a smooth plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed. Go up on a high mountain, go up to Zion and herald the good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem. Herald of the good news. Lift it up and fear not and say to all my people, behold your God. Thirdly, these faithful prophets and preachers must serve as watchmen over the church and the nation, calling people away from spiritual danger and from spiritual destruction. God said to Ezekiel, You see, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give that warning to them. If I say to the wicked, oh wicked one, you shall surely die and you do not speak to warn the wicked, to turn from his wicked ways. That wicked person shall die in his iniquity and his blood, I will require it your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his ways and he does not turn and that person dies iniquities, I will not require his blood from your hands. You will have delivered your soul from death. Fourthly, God's prophets must not be influenced by their popularity. The most important thing God said is that people know that there is a prophet in their midst. As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and speak of you in the doors of their houses will say each one to his brother, come, let us hear what the word is that comes from the Lord and they will come to you as a people come, sit before you as my people and hear what you have to say, but they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouths, they will act. Their heart is set on their own gain. You are to them like a musician, a singer who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument. They will hear what you have to say, but they will not do it. When this comes and it will come to pass, then they will know that they have had a prophet in their midst. Finally, the prophets must never give in to the urge to tell people what they want to hear. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when the people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching years, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to soothe their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. But as for you, always be sober, endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. This is why the prophetic voice has always been so important to the people of God. My friends, the church of God, the church of Jesus Christ, is the conscience of a nation. And the voice of that conscience is always the pulpit. When that voice is cowardly or compromised or worldly,
then the people in a nation have no one to say thus say of the Lord. And as in Hosea's day, my people perish for lack of knowledge. For there was a famine of the word of God in the land. We may find these prophets hard to digest, but only because they had a difficult task. They were in case after case after case, bringing a lawsuit against God's people. We would call in our legal system a friendly suit because it comes from the God who loved them and who loves us, who is appealing to them as an unfaithful wife, which he often called them through the prophetic word, to come back to the marriage. Imagine folks that you were married to a lovely person, a sterling, wonderful man, a godly, precious woman, but for some reason almost inexplicable to yourself. For we always don't know why we do the things we do. Imagine that if you went off and began to take up with another woman or another man, what would you want your spouse to do? Say to you, well, peace and prosperity on you, everything's fine. Or would you want your wife, your husband, to an earnestness plead with you, even to get an attorney to threaten you, to come back to your covenant marriage, or have your family paid dire consequences you hadn't thought about. That's what the prophets are doing. And in this passage of Scripture, it's God's covenant prosecutor, God's defending attorney. Micah brings an indictment from the Lord and prosecutes God's case against us, not the case of an opponent, but a spurned lover, someone that we once said in covenant faith, you will be our God, and we will be your people. And Micah says, you have broken that, and I bring God's argument to you for why you should return to the Lord and be faithful. That is chapter 6. It is three little paragraphs. It comes to us in what one biblical scholar said, the legal language of a court proceeding. It is an indictment, a requirement, and the consequences of losing the case. First is the indictment from the Lord. Micah, chapter 6, verses 1 to 5. Here what the Lord says, arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Here you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel. Oh, my people, what have I done to you? How have I worried you? Answer me. For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, oh, my people, remember, what bail act King of Moam devised, and what bail in the Son of Bior answered him, and what happened from Shateen to Bilgaal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord. Here, through his attorney, his prophet, his covenant prosecutor, Micah, God sets forth his charge of wrongdoing. Simply put, Israel had grown tired of God, bored with living with him in his spiritual ways, and weary of his covenant with him. Oh, my people, what have I done? How have I worried you? Answer me. These are not the angry words of a spurned God. These are the affectionate pleadings of a husband, who has been wounded by us. Oh, my people, you can hear the pathos in God's voice. Oh, my people, what have I done to you? How have I worried you? Answer me. God sets before them evidence. Three things. He says, first, when you came out of Egypt and the mighty King of the Earth Pharaoh brought all of his chariots and armies after you, what did I do? I destroyed Pharaoh to deliver you. And when Moses and Miriam and Aaron were taking you through the wilderness, did not the mighty army of Moab come against you and say, you cannot pass by this way. You must die in the wilderness. And what did I do? I destroyed them. And when Joshua began to take people into the promised land from Shateen to Gilgal, city after city, I destroyed the people before you, so that you could take possession of the land of promise. And in these days, these days of Hezekiah, the days that Michael lived and wrote, when King Sinacra of Assyria came and camped outside your walls, I destroyed him and saved you for a better day. What have I done that I have become boring to you? How can life with me be so wearying? Why have I, as your husband, become so tiring that you have turned to another? You know, America is not Israel. I mentioned a couple weeks ago, it's dangerous, it's difficult to take principles from the prophets and apply them to us, but there are some. And one of them is our own story as the American people. I don't know of a people on the earth that have as miraculous, as divinely, miraculous story like the American people have from the beginning of our pilgrim fathers, and their journey across the ocean defined a little place called Plymouth begin their city on the hill, their errand into the wilderness, their American experiment. God was with them, providentially saving them through the Indians in that first Thanksgiving, giving them one divine deliverance after another, sending them one wave of spiritual renewal after another, helping this little rag-tag army under a guy named George Washington, a second-rate colonel in the British militia, defeat the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, England. Giving them victories overwhelming against overwhelming odds in the war of 1812, in the Spanish-American war, and in World War I, in World War II, helping them to stay together and survive their greatest and most stupid tragedy, the Civil War, and even after they had fallen on apostate times and been shamed in Korea and embarrassed in Vietnam, he let communism fall so that they remain the one true free power in the world, and yet America is turning away from God has never before, and the question is, why? What has God done to us that we are bored with him? And I think the church is beginning to question her own relationship with God, wanting to be friends with the world, which James says is adultery. God is sent an attorney, a prophet named Micah to us. To plead with us and say, my client would like to appeal to you to reconcile to him, come back to the marriage, and live together. That is God's indictment, hardly a harsh word, but an earnest plea from a loving God to his brine the church. He then sets out his requirements. What does he want from this lawsuit? Verse 6. With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with cabs a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams and 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He is told you, oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? All through the 700 years from Moses to Hezekiah, the people of Israel had been deeply religious. They had sacrificed in the temple millions of animals. They had poured out in wave offerings of oil and wine and grain, rivers of oil and wine, and tons of grain in wave offerings. They had even got to the point in Hezekiah's day where they were sacrificing their children, the fruit of their body for the sins of their soul. And they were asking, God, is this enough? Is this enough? You know, you could never say that America is an irreligious country. In 1776, at the time of Revolutionary War, 17% of Americans were members of a church. By the civil war that became 30%, by the time that I came to be your pastor here, it exceeded 70% of Americans who were members of a church, a cathedral, a synagogue. We are religious people. But perhaps our problem in America was the problem of Israel. They had entered into an age of affluence under King Hezekiah. It was the golden age of Israel. And as all wealthy people do, they began to think everything and everyone has a price. They were able to say to the king, what do we need to give you so that you give us what we want? They bought off the priests, majority of the prophets. How much will it take? Everything was contractual. What's the minimum I have to pay to you to get what I want? And finally, they came and they spoke to God the same way. With what shall I come before the Lord? What will it take, O God, for me to pay my religious duty and you give me what I want? Rivers of oil, thousands of rams. Even one of my children is that what it costs for me to get from you what I want from you? Do you see what was happening? They had changed the covenant into a contract. That's always the end of a marriage, my friends. Listen to me. A covenant is when two people pledge themselves to give 100% to the relationship. I will be your God 100%. And you will be my people 100%. And 100% and 100% makes a good life. But when a husband begins to say, what's the least I have to give to this wife to get what I want? And she begins to think the same way towards him. The covenant has become a contract. Here's the difference. A covenant is a mutual pledge of total commitment and total love. A contract is always the question, what's the least I have to pay for the maximum amount of benefit? And they have turned religion away from a covenant into a contract. Notice how God changes the whole story. He says to Micah, my loved ones, asking the wrong question. You're asking what must I give to get from you what I want? What you should be asking is, oh God, what do you require from me? He has told you, oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? He has told you to look at the address he has told you, oh man, this isn't just for Christians. My friends, if you're here and you're not a Christian this morning, this is what God requires of mankind. That they do justice and that they love mercy and that they walk humbly with their creator, God. That is the duty of mankind. Certainly incumbent upon mankind who say they know God. And that duty is threefold. They need to do Mishpat, as the Hebrew would say. The right and fair treatment of other people with whom you are in relationship. It's the antithesis of oppression or abuse or extortion. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's what it means to do justice. To look out for and to stand up for the benefit of God whom we love and our fellow man made in the image of God with us. And to love kindness, the little Hebrew word Kesheh which means covenant love and loyalty to be faithful to those with whom we are in covenant relationship with our children, our spouses, our employers, our churches, our country. Everyone to whom we have taken a vow made an oath or given a pledge of promise. Everyone into whom we have entered a contract with. God in the covenant, wife in the marriage, children in the home, members of the church, even our president puts his hand on the Bible and uses his other hand in an oath of office to fulfill his covenant obligations as the leader of a free people and we by electing him have said, we will love you and pray for you and support you in God's work. All of life is covenantal. Everything that means something to the community is sealed by covenant and therefore it's the covenant love and loyalty of the people of God that we must love. You, justice and love, loyalty, literally. And thirdly, walk humbly with your God. He's not talking about here being self-effacing. Bruce Waltke says what the prophet means is that we should bring all of our life into simple and humble conformity to the will of God. We should get up every day and say, Lord, not. What's the least I have to do to get you off my back today? But, Lord, what can I do for you today? I am your servant. I am here for you, God. You are not there for me. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Now, listen, Micah is not saying that we should do away with worship and ritual. But that the heart of our worship when we come here. And the substance behind our rituals of preaching and baptism and the Lord's supper and the creeds and confessions and the hymns we sing is a heart that wants to fulfill its obligations to God and other people, do justice. A heart that wants to be loyal and loving in all the relationships and life that truly matter to love, mercy. And a heart that is willing to say, humbly, I am here to serve God and other people. I will love the Lord God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I will love my neighbor as myself. I will walk humbly with God. And that is the consistent message of the prophets, and of Jesus Christ, and of His apostles, who say, this is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and King, to be a doer of the word, to care for where does the Norfolk is in their distress, and to keep ourselves unstained from the world, to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly in the will of the Lord. Finally, in His lawsuit, God tells us about what will happen if Israel loses the case. They will, because God is the judge. He talks about remedial judgments in verse 9. The voice of the Lord cries to the city, and it is a sound wisdom to fear your name. Here of the rod and of Him who appointed it, can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the houses of the wicked? And the scant and measure that is accursed, shall I acquit a man with wicked scales, and with a bag of deceitful weights? You rich men of full of violence, your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore I will strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat but not be satisfied. There should be hunger within you. You shall put away but not preserve. And what you preserve, I will give to the sword. You shall sow but not reap. You shall tread all of us, but not anoint yourself of the oil. You shall tread grapes but drink no wine. If you have kept the statutes of omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab, you have walked in their counsels that I may make you a desolation in your inhabitants, a hissing. So you shall bear the scorn of my people. That sounds harsh, but here's what God is saying. Look how it begins. It's the voice of God crying to the city and earnest plea. Not screaming anger but peeling, please, please. Hear me before the sword falls. And here's what God says. I will take all of your idols. And everything they promise you will come to nothing. The idol of your prosperity will turn to a wanton need. The idol of your peace will become disturbance and distress. Your popularity will turn into scorn with other people. And all of the false gods you turn to because they would tell you what you wanted to hear. And they could be bought off when you were in the hour of need. And you call upon them, they will not answer. But I will. I will always answer you. For I will be a God to you. To your sons and daughters and to a thousand generations. And you will be my people. Do you see how God changes the whole question? We tend to ask how much will it take for me to invest as little as I have to into the church to get the maximum benefit of Jesus Christ. And God says not a good question for a good wife. Please go back and try again and say, Lord, as my husband, what do you require of me that I might please you? Are we capable of doing that? No. Not without Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ fulfills this obligation for us. Jesus Christ did justice. He loved mercy. Look at all the people he healed and helped. And he walked so humbly with God that he walked to the cross in obedience, saying, I really don't want to do this, but if this is what you want, your will trumps mine. I am your servant. And Jesus Christ offers us the Holy Spirit to come and live inside of us and to change our heart so that we're no longer contractual in the way we think. But covenantal. So that we do the things we do in school and at work and in the home and in the church. Not because it's an obligation, a duty which can be fulfilled to a minimum point to get the maximum benefit, but because we love these people and we want to live this way. We want to bless them more than we want them to bless us. I'm not capable, my friends, of doing this without Christ. Neither are you. But Christ offers us an atonement for all of the times we did injustice, all of the times we're unmerciful, and every time our pride got in the way of God. All of that is wiped away and is atonement on the cross, but even more. He offers us Himself the living Spirit of God, of Christ in us, so that we can begin to walk in His power and love justice and do mercy and walk humbly with God and be a blessing to everyone we meet and in the process. Receive a blessing that we never imagined. You know, if you really listen to what the apostles are saying, they're calling you to the same thing the prophets are. They're calling you to a life of obedience, a life of love, and a life of faith. These three things abide, faith and hope and love, but the greatest of them all is to love God with all of you being and love your neighbors yourself on this is all the law and the prophets. This is the way Jesus said into the kingdom of God. God continues to send His prosecuting attorneys to us, the now called preachers. We don't like them anymore than we like the prophets, but they speak of one greater than the king has a kaya. They speak of Jesus Christ, who not only will call us to these things, but will come inside of us to help us do these things, to be a blessing to God and to other people and to a blessing to each other in the church. He has told us, oh man and women, what is good? And what does the Lord want from you and me? He wants us in Jesus Christ to do what is just, to love what is loyal and merciful and kind, and to humbly say, we are here to serve you and not ourselves. And with that, we will receive all the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ, our hope of glory. Let's pray. Father, these prophets have a way of bringing us to sobriety as no one else in the Bible seems to be able to do, because they speak with a spirit and a power from Elijah, an unction from above, and like able, by their faith, though they are dead yet they still speak, through the living and abiding spirit and the living and abiding word of God, Micah has something to say for us today. Whether it's Micah the prophet or Michael the preacher, you have called us to Jesus Christ, called us to repentance and faith, called us to trust and obey, called us to a union of Christ so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us and the life that we do live in our bodies. We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and in his covenant loyalty and love gave himself up for us all, that he might purchase the people for his own possession who would be zealous for good deeds. That is the people we want to be. And so we ask you, Lord, not in the spirit of Elijah or Micah but in the spirit of Jesus Christ to give us the gifts of repentance and faith, to give us humility that will lead us to spiritual renewal, to strengthen and undergird the fiber of our souls to trust and obey, that we might do what is just, love what is kind, will come with you and other people. And that as we bless and are a blessing to God and others, we know that you will reward us. You will give us not what we deserve but what you have in store for us, things which I has not seen and ear has not heard, things that have never entered the heart of men, all that God has prepared for those who love him. Give us the gifts of salvation that we might give you the gift of our life, be a good wife, to the great husband Jesus Christ and be blessed. We would ask you this, please, humbly in Jesus' name, amen.